Yeah, It's Like That!

I think I'll talk a bit about music tonight. Unless anyone objects...uh, yeah!

Return of the Voice is the catchphrase being thrown around regarding Mariah Carey's Emancipation of Mimi, her second album off the label Island. I've had an opportunity to listen to her two singles, It's Like That, and We Belong Together, and I have to admit, both songs are pretty catchy. I went to Amazon.com to hear snippets from the rest of her album and I must say Mariah's back in a big way! I agree with the consensus that this is her best album since 1997's Butterfly. All I can say is that Mimi needs to stick around.

So what else has been churning on my CD player? I've been listening to Lalah Hathaway's self-titled album in the car for about a week. I purchased the CD recently after finding my old tape that I used to play growing up. I've been replaying in particular singles Sentimental and I'm Coming Back, the latter which was penned by another favorite artist of mine Gary Taylor.
Hathaway, of course, is the daughter of legendary Donnie Hathaway. She went a long, long time without releasing anything else. She lended her vocals for a joint album with Joe Sample in the late 90s. And just recently she released her second solo album titled Outrun the Sky. I listened to a snippet of tracks on Amazon.com and I like it. I'll definitely have to look into getting that one soon.

I mentioned Gary Taylor earlier. He's not really that well known but he's been in the business for over 20 years, releasing nine albums, seven of them on his own label Morning Crew. Most of his fans come through word of mouth. Usually what'll happen is someone will play his CD, the untrained ear will inquire about the CD, find out who that is, and voila another Gary Taylor fan. I made my older sis "Octavia" a fan this way. Gary has a website: http://www.morningcrew.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro&BypassCookie=true where you can listen to snippets from his numerous albums. If I had to pick favorite albums from Gary, two would pop up in mind, Square One, which introduced his talent to me, and Love Dance.

While I am mentioning websites, it would behoove me to mention the website of up and coming actor Mailon Rivera. Check out: http://www.mailonrivera.com It's actually because of Mailon I even have a blog. Okay, don't send rotten eggs to Mailon...*LOL*.

I first remember seeing Mailon on my favorite guilty pleasure TV show at the time called V.I.P. Don't even get me started on how much I miss that show, silly campiness and all. Anyway it wasn't until he had a role on the short-lived Second Time Around that I found more information about Mailon. Anyway his character on the show was the stereotypical gay guy. His character was quite discussed on another message board that I frequent and post at: http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com. TWoP, as it's usually called, dissects various TV shows left and right. It was what led me to Mailon's website. Mailon was cool enough to respond to my queries. I found out Mailon's led an interesting life and there was more to him then just some guest acting gigs. I read his blog messages with interest and eventually befriended Majick, Lady RM, and Strawberry, who along with me, plague Mailon's blog with numerous comments and was recently dubbed by him as teletubbies...:-)

Anyway that's all the plugging I'm doing for tonight. I need to go to bed. Until next time I blog....PEACE!