Another one about music.

First, I know it's been nearly three months since I wrote last. Yikes. I'll see what I can do about it.

In a week, Jamie Cullum's fourth album, The Pursuit, is released in the US. I'm crazy excited, because Jamie Cullum is awesome to begin with, but yesterday I finally listened to one of the songs off this upcoming album. I hadn't heard any cuts yet, and holy cow did this one blow me away. You will almost certainly recognize this song by Rihanna:

OK, so that's a great pop tune, killer MJ sample in the middle, great beat, fun to dance to, the whole bit. It's a fun song. Now, here is one facet of Cullum's genius that blows me away. He can take a song from basically any genre and make it incredible in his own specific way. He takes Rihanna's great song and turns it into this:

Why can't Youtube write embedding codes that work well? I'm not savvy enough to get this video to fit inside the parameters of my blog. Anyway.

Gosh. Hear how he builds into the chorus? It feels so huge. And his chords, oh man does he nail this song. He turns this great pop tune into the most beautiful, jazzy anthem. Unbelievable.

The last album I bought was JM's Battle Studies; before that, Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3. I hardly ever by CDs anymore, and this is one that I am definitely making the trip out to Best Buy next Tuesday to get. You should too.

-Jon