In 2006, Ghostface Killah released Fishscale, an intricate, exciting album that was voted — and rightfully so — as one of the best records of the year. It was the kind of thing that showed why Ghost is so beloved by critics and fans: his rhymes were wildly detailed and inventive, his stories were vivid, and his beats (most courtesy of MF DOOM, but also with contributions from Pete Rock and Dilla, among others) were fresh-sounding and interesting, only working to improve the MC’s verses by way of their own strength. And while these attributes occasionally surface on The Big Doe Rehab, overall the record lacks the excitement, the originality, and the passion that can and has made Ghostface so compelling. A lot of this, for better or for worse, can be blamed on the production. The Diddy-associated Hitmen (here Sean C. and LV), who also worked on Jay-Z’s latest effort and are the composers of five of the tracks on Big Doe, make passable but not extraordinary beats, with short, overly simple samples that do nothing to bring attention to Ghost’s rhymes, going even so far to turn what could be pretty decent (“Paisley Darts,” for example, which also features good verses from Cappadonna and Trife da God) into something mediocre, the antithesis of what a beat should do.

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On his new single, “Sexual Eruption” (aka “Sensual Seduction”), on which he sings rather than raps, Snoop Dogg takes a cue from T-Pain and auto-tunes his vocals to semi-robotic effect. Apparently, excessive pitch correction works commercial wonders: four of the top ten songs on the Billboard Hot 100 (Chris Brown’s “Kiss Kiss,” Flo Rida’s “Low,” Kanye West’s “Good Life,” Baby Bash’s “Cyclone”) are graced by T-Pain, while Britney’s new album, on which she sounds like a cyborg (e.g., “Piece of Me”), has surprisingly sold briskly despite herself. Produced by Shawty Red, “Sexual Eruption” is an uncharacteristic song for Snoop, whose new album, Ego Trippin, is scheduled for release in March 2008. He sings practically the whole song — the verses, the hook, everything except a quick rap he tacks on toward the end of the song — and because of the heavily auto-tuned vocals, when he does finally break into his rap, it’s slightly jarring, as if he were featured as a guest rapper on an old Zapp song.

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If there’s a better quintet of videos that sprang from just one album than those for Genesis‘ Invisible Touch — Thriller maybe; Like a Virgin not quite — they still can’t match the range and enthusiasm exhibited by Messrs. Collins, Banks and Rutherford in these circa-1986 clips.

Available on the new CD-DVD edition of the album (plus YouTube obvs), these five not only run the gamut of emotions — one of them features Benny Hill!

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If you go to 7L & Esoteric’s MySpace page and order yourself a copy of Esoteric’s new solo album Egoclapper, you’ll get one heck of bonus. Sent to you free of charge is the full-length Pterodactyl Tubeway, a collection of Esoteric rhymes over Gary Numan beats. As cool as the cover’s blinged-out portrayal of a Tubeway Army-era Numan is, what’s inside is even cooler. Esoteric’s raps are up to their usual high level but his newfound love of production really shines, creating a hyperactive and laugh-out-loud funny album that’s a wonderful kind of overwhelming. Pterodactyl digs so deep into its synth-pop hero’s catalog that it will take a true Numan aficionado to ID all the source material, and Esoteric’s inclination to put this Numan chorus over that Numan bassline makes it harder than any Soul Train Scramble. Pile on samples from Land of the Lost, Superman II, Seinfeld, Super Friends, and plenty of toy commercials and you’re talking nerd nirvana. Check out this video honoring Superman’s most studly archenemy, then hit up the MySpace, wait by the mailbox, and kneel before Zod!

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The Sundazed label has built a stellar reputation for licensing classic — and sometimes obscure — titles and releasing them with great sound on heavyweight, high-quality vinyl LPs, and beautiful sounding CDs as well. Need we remind anyone of their stellar wax-only reissues of items in the Bob Dylan or Byrds catalogs or of the first Stooges album? But it’s not only classic rock; Sundazed has also re-released all-but-forgotten and legendary entries of tail-whipping surf, blistering blues, scorching soul, psychedelic-garage romps, and finger-poppin’ jazz-funk titles as well.

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For every composer considered one of the “great masters” there are at least ten who reach a similar artistic plateau but never make it into the mainstream. Charles-Henri Valentin Alkan Morhange, understandably known by the single name “Alkan,” is one of the best examples of a composer who belongs at the top of his class — in his case, that of Romantic composer-pianists — but who hovers somewhere between the second and third tier in terms of recognition.

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Rock fans around the world are counting down the days until December 10, when Led Zeppelin hits the stage in London as part of a tribute to Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. News of the band’s reunion has sparked rumors of new songs and a 2008 tour, and while nothing has been confirmed, the speculation is generating a considerable amount of excitement. Even if you’re not one of the lucky few who managed to score tickets for the big show, there are still plenty of ways to get your rock on.

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When we last checked in on the cut-out front, there were massive deals on the Joe Henderson box set The Milestone Years. The reason for the deletion — apparently, anyway — was that the Concord Music Group purchased Fantasy, who owned Milestone, Riverside, Prestige, Stax, and other assorted labels. Concord has begun reissuing titles with its own imprint, meaning that eventually everything needs to be switched over. In the short run, this is great news for consumers. In addition to the Henderson box set, other Prestige, Riverside, Milestone, Stax, Volt, and New Jazz titles have been seen around the marketplace with drastically reduced prices. These monstrously great buys can be had on eBay — where many titles are being offered in one-cent bid entries and have been selling for less than four dollars — its sister company Half.com, Amazon, and other online retailers and big box discount outlets. Some of the titles we’ve seen cheap are stone classics like the four-disc Phil Spector box set seen above (on ABKCO, completely unrelated to the Prestige/Milestone labels), which retails for as little as $20.98 in some places! If you need a reminder as to what’s on it, go have a look-see here for the table of contents and samples.

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