Welcome back to The Three Strike Rule.  You’d think I could come up with a better title for this week’s column than that, huh?  Today is my daughter Sophie’s 10th birthday.  When you hear that cliche, “I don’t know where the years went,” believe it.  I have watched a baby grow into an inquisitive toddler, then transform into a bright little preschooler and finally she has become an empathetic (I throw that word around a lot when I discuss my little girl), smart and talented 10-year-old. As I am prone to giving her advice (which she has already begun to ignore), I have opted to dedicate this week’s column to highlighting 10 standout television shows from the past 10 years that I hope Sophie will seek out to be entertained and enlightened.

In the past 10 years, due to DVD box sets, TiVo, and the Internet, we have seen a change in attitudes about television.  No longer is it just considered “disposable” entertainment.  Viewers are seeking out quality programming and making it successful.  Moreover, stars generally associated with motion pictures (once considered the high brow art form) no longer look at television as slumming it.  Instead, actors, writers and directors have taken to TV as a way to create and produce ongoing works of fiction that they wouldn’t be able to do in the expensive film industry.

Since any list is subjective, I’m sure some people will gripe about my selections and what was left off.  I hope so!  he purpose of this great website is ti incite conversation and debates.  In case you’re wondering, my criteria was that the shows selected had to premiere in 1999 or thereafter.  I must confess that I have not seen Dexter and I never went back to The Shield after the first few episodes (i.e. pre-TiVo in the Malchus household).  What I tried to do was pick shows that were consistent in their quality from season to season.  So, even though I loved the first couple seasons of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and 24, the quality in the writing really started to suffer in subsequent years.  Sacrilege, I know, because The Sopranos is considered by many critics to be the greatest TV show ever.  Oh well, it’s my space, and since this is a special list I want my kid to read someday, these are the shows I feel are the best of the last 10 years.

So, without further ado… (more…)

DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE

Hiya, kids!  Welcome back to another week of mixing fun.  Sometime around 2000/2001, I was talking to a friend of mine who worked with me in radio, and we were daydreaming about radio formats we’d like to hear. I blurted out “Classic rap and new soul,” to which he said, “I like the classic rap part, but new soul? Why?” I told him the crossover was good because it would grab a larger audience who would like the melodic sounds of soul but still love the classic rap songs — some of which had very short shelf lives. Well, we were inexperienced, broke, and lacked contacts, so we never got face time with anyone who could make that format happen. But there are a number of stations now who do what we were thinking about all those years ago. Ah well, another million-dollar idea that made someone else millions of dollars. So, in honor of that, I’ll do half a mix of our dream format. Enjoy!

“Mama Said Knock You Out (Live),” L.L. Cool J (Download)

Damn!  When I saw this performance on MTV Unplugged in 1991, I was just blown away.  I mean, I’m not the biggest rap fan out there (indeed, my knowledge of the genre is pretty, pretty, pretty, slim), but no one can deny the sheer power of this version with a full band.  I gotta say, it was tough to find this. I searched for an mp3 version but couldn’t find one. But after searching for the right software to do so, I was able to capture the audio from the video MTV streams on their site, and then clean it up with some audio software I use.  It’s not the best quality, but it’s not bad.  I just wish MTV would release this as a CD or download, ’cause I would pay to have a professionally mastered version of this performance. (more…)