added a lot to the links section, check em out!

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Pachelbel's canon in d is one of those perfect pieces of music. this version (<<<<<<) in particular is superb. It a living, breathing piece of music of music, slowing coming into bloom over the course of several minutes.

jay-z's december 4th is a seasick, swerving song. it's from the black album, jay-z's last album before his retirement, which is his most frantic and urgent album ever. 'my 1st song', which is the last song on the album, is unbelievably intense and fast, almost childlike in its insistent pleas. jay-z often starts albums with quiet introductions, and with december 4th was a beautiful one. a gentle, morose cartwheel through and out of his life to match biggie's classic album opener 'things done changed', it is superb. and look what someone's done:



it just works. amateur jay-z remixes are often of a high quality cos jay-z does so much to actively encourage remixers, and this is how it should work it. the little story in the video is quite sweet too. the whole song's a monument to effort.


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a similar fruit of effort to tie in with the above is this:



i'm not being facetious or ironic at all, honestly. look at this boy! he's made something so intensely brilliant, sitting in his room. even though i dont like the music (though i sort of start to when i think of how much he cares), i always love watching this. he just takes it SO seriously when it's pretty ridiculous thing to do, and i really like it when that happens. taking the serious lightly is easy to do, but taking the ridiculous seriously? commendable.