For all those who love Valentines Day: ENJOY!!!!

 These songs should be on your playlist as you spend time with your sweetie: Peter Gabriel “In Your Eyes”, Edwin McCain “Could Not Ask For More”, Teddy Geiger “For You I Will (With Confidence)”, Jessica Simpson “Be”, Christina Aguilera “Understand”-”Without You”-”The Right Man”,Musiq SoulChild “Don’t Change”, John Mayer “Your body is a Wonderland”

For those of you who hate Valentine’s Day with a passion, here is a video that should be right up your ally.

P.S.- these songs should be your soundtrack for the day: Erykah Badu, “Call Tyrone”,Carrie Underwood “Before he Cheats“, The Pussycat Dolls “I Don’t Need A Man”, Ashanti “Foolish“, Beyonce “Me, Myself and I“, Alicia Keys “Karma“, Mandy Moore “Nothing You Are“, Avril Lavigne “Happy Ending“, Lily Allen “Smile”

Sara Bareilles( pronounced Bar- el-les) is a new singer/songwriter that I am growing to love. Her debut single “Love Song” has been on constant rotation on 95.5 PLJ in NYC and as is the video on VH1. Her sound is like a mixture of Norah Jones meets Fiona Apple (without the angst that Fiona has and more of the sweetness that Norah has). Her single ” Love Song” sounds, to me, like its not alot about love. Its about her having to write a love song for her significant other, in order for them to stay and her saying, “I’m not gonna write you a love song just because you want one, I need a actual reason”. Check out her Myspace Page, www.myspace.com/sarabareilles where you’ll find three other songs including a fave of mine called “Gravity“….Sean Kingston’s, www.seankingston.com, new song, “Take You There”, is slowly becoming a song I really like. At first it has this really fast/up tempo beat, that’s a little overwhelming, but it slows down and is very similar to freestyle music of the 80′s. “Take You There” is about Sean and a girl he likes, and telling her he can take her anywhere, to the west-indies to the hood LOL. Its a really good song for when you want to feel happy and bouncy….Linkin Park’s, www.myspace.com/linkinpark, new single “Shadow of the Day” is also a new song I really like. It definitely has more of a mainstream sound that their other songs, and it is in rotation on 92.3 KROQ, 95.5 PLJ and Z100 in NYC, all three being very different stations with different tastes in music. “Shadow of the Day”, about a new beginning in a person’s life,this shows in the lyrics: ”In cards and flowers on your window, Your friends all plead for you to stay, sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple, sometimes good bye’s the only way”….You should definitely check out all three songs, I highly recommend them!!!!

 About a couple of weeks ago I heard piano-songstress Vanessa Carlton’s, www.myspace.com/vanessacarlton first “Nolita Fairytale” on the new fresh 102.7 (yes, I listen to every radio station in the tri-state area, and its good music to sleep to) and I was very excited to hear that she had a single out because of all the drama with her sophomore album not doing so well in sales and loosing her record deal, I was thinking she was yet another good artist whose sales failed their career. Fortunately, Irv Gotti (yes, the Irv Gotti, producer/owner of Murder Inc., which has R&B, Hip-Hop and Rap artists like Ja Rule and Ashanti) lured her over and signed a deal with her, making her the first pop artist to The Inc.(formely known as Murder Inc.).”Nolita Fairytale” is definitely a great piano driven pop song, about the two years she went through to find herself and its a plus that she gives it a NYC feel.

I have been a fan of the LOGO, www.logoonline.com (a channel owned by MTV Networks,for the LGBT community since me and my mom mistakenly found it during a Noah’s Arc Marathon. If you don’t know, Noah’s Arc, www.myspace.com/noahs_arc  is a drama/comedy about four black gay men living in West Hollywood. I looooove that show, its like Sex and the City meets Girlfriends meets Queer as Folk. Well, since its owned by MTV Networks, music is a big part of LOGO as well, featuring artists of all music genre’s and sexual orientations (think J.LO to George Michael, to whoever). One video that has caught my eye is hip-hop artist Melange Lavonne, www.myspace.com/melangelavonne, her song/video “Gay Bash” is about a fictional friend, Kevin, who is a victim of gay bashing and Melange calling out to the Christians who claim to preach no judgements except for the judgements of the LGBT community, specifically gays and lesbians. I know this is not a political blog, but songs like these need to be heard. People like Gwen Araujo, http://www.gwenaraujo.blogspot.com/ , Brandon Teena, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena, as well as Sakia Gunn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakia_Gunn , and Matthew Sheppard, http://www.matthewshepard.org/site/PageServer  , were killed out of hate, unknown fear and hate, and it shouldn’t be tolerated.

Timbaland’s Remix of rock/pop band One Republic’s debut single, “Apologize”, has been getting massive airplay on almost every station, its like whatever artist he works with turns to gold.One Republic is a band based out of California, and if you take a listen to their songs on their myspace page , www.myspace.com/onerepublic , you’ll find the original version was actually is just as good. Their sound is like an uptempo new sounding  mix of The Click Five meets the Goo Goo Dolls. All these songs, I highly recommend to check out.

I really like Cassie’s new song “Long Way to Go” i love the beats and the video with the “my space” is good too. … I have Christina Aguilera’s new CD “Back To Basics”, I highly recommend whose ever reading this to go buy that album, I love ” Candy Man “, ” Without you”, ” On our Way”, ” Slow Down Baby”, ” I Got Trouble” the enter the circus interludes, basically the whole album!I also have Beyonce’s new CD “B-day”, Its good too, my favorite songs are “Get Me Bodied” , “Freakum Dress” and “Green Light”. I also have Nelly Furtado’s new album ” Loose” and i love it! My fave songs are ” Showtime”, “No Hay Igual”, “Do it”, “Nothing at all” and “All things (come to an end)”.