On the day I was born, Michael Jackson’s industry-shattering “Billie Jean” was riding its 7-week dominance of the number one spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Singles Chart (it would be deposed on April 16 by Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen”, which in turn would give way to Jackson’s “Beat It” the following week). Our family, never one to boast a large music collection, owned Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous on tape, and he was one of the few contemporary artists to enter my radar at the time (if you’re interested, the others were MC Hammer, New Kids on the Block, Vanilla Ice and Guns ‘N’ Roses).

As I got older, I grew to appreciate the man’s pre-Dangerous music more and more, especially his early work the Jackson 5 at Motown and the Off the Wall and Thriller albums. He was arguably the biggest pop star in the world, crossing more international barriers than Elvis Presley and the Beatles, despite only having operated at his artistic peak for about two or three albums. He was basically a disco artist, conquering the charts in the post-disco era of the early 1980s—anyone who knows their stuff knows disco hadn’t really died then, especially in the R&B charts. The hits stopped coming as the decade he defined ended, and they stopped coming for a number of reasons—his increasingly stranger personal life, the end of his working relationship with producer Quincy Jones, the ascendancy of hair metal, hip-hop and then grunge. And that’s when it seemed to all go off the deep end for the guy. I won’t add to the pointless din about dude’s personal life; most of my thoughts are summed up pretty neatly in this Salon.com piece.

What remains is MJ’s musical legacy, which I constantly find myself revisting. My favorite album of his is definitely 1979’s Off the Wall, and I’m always blown away by the funk-pop fusion of those early Jackson 5 records. I had to get creative to fill this one out; 8tracks.com will let you put up to two songs per artist on a mix. So each side has stuff from Jackson solo, the Jackson 5 and the group’s later incarnation the Jacksons as well as hip-hop songs that sample various Jackson songs. Enjoy.

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Bizzy days and bizzy times around the old Cous Casa. There’s a new member of our family named Olyve Oil — she weighs about 6 pounds and is a chihuahua.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of WFMU’s non-talk format programming, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s great! So a lot of tracks on this mix I heard there first. Runteldat!

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As I write this, I’m 30,000 feet about California watching Tom Goes to the Mayor and seriously creeping out the woman next to me. Oh boy. So it’s been a fortnight since I last posted. And that last post was just a bunch of shameless self-promotion. So yeah, I’ve been busy. But the big news is I’m moving to Oakland in August. Mid-August. So you can expect me to wear more Oakland Raiders hats. That’ll pretty much be the only difference.

So today’s mix is a short, heavily themed mixer: Songs about or tangentially related to androgyny. Some of these are basically just some lyrical slips (MSO, Marmalade’s Beatles cover); others are purer odes to the joy of mixing gender lines (Pink Floyd, the Raincoats’ Kinks cover). Enjoy it, fellers.

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Hey folks. Just wanting to draw your attention to a little magazine called Venus—I wrote a story called “Pop or Pose: Indie Rock’s Embrace of Top 40″ in the current issue (it’s got a very early-’90s image of Latin crossover sensation Ximena Sariñana on the cover). The article is part of Venus‘ “State of the Music Industry” feature, which I will surely dig into on my plane ride this weekend. Stay tuned tomorrow for a new mixtape!

“All you know about me is what I’ve sold you,
Dumb f***.
I sold out long before you ever even heard my name.
I sold my soul to make a record,
Dips***,
and then you bought one.

I’ve got some advice for you, little buddy.
Before you point your finger you should know that I’m the man.
If I’m the f****n’ man then you’re the f*****n’ man as well,
So you can point that f*****n’ finger up your a**”

–Tool, “Hooker with a Penis”

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A friend recently told me she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures, and I’d have to agree with that. No need for any more guilt to rest on one’s shoulders—just like what you like and don’t apologize for it.

Except when it’s this cheesy. OK, so this mix should probably just be called “Songs I like but are extremely corny”. But the idea of a guilty pleasure is just a more salient concept in people’s mind, so it’s a shortcut to what I’m trying to do here. Indulge me!

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Note: Because of my Memorial Day Weekend trip to Chicago, I will not be posting a mixtape next Monday. Sorry, chumps!

Cold and emotionless robot rockin’. After seeing the new Star Trek flick, I was on a sci-fi kick! I decided to revisit the music that reminds us that when it gets here, the future will sound like … music that was largely created in the ’80s. We can’t wait!

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I’m a might bit busy these days, but no fear—that won’t stop me from posting my “bomb-ass” mixes here. Today I bring you my 7th Odd Pop mix. Basically this is the kind of stuff that fuels me; it’s like pure unfiltered Joelsauce. I’m just riffin’ here folks! It’s kind of like the power of the pure insanity of a Violent J freestyle fueled by the power of a Faygo Rock & Rye that’s been rolling around the back of a Psychopathic Records tour bus for a couple days. Of course, minus the terrible, terrible rapping. Get it!

Read on for track list and links …

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