As you get closer to the site, makeshift stores selling bootleg t-shirts begin to appear. The merchandise includes caps, tank tops, and sparkly gloves big enough to accommodate the hand of Sasquatch. The t-shirts themselves range from ripped-off imagery from the Phantom of the Opera (I suppose this makes it easier in terms of design) to montages of MJ at various states of plastic surgery to ones that make him look downright Presidential. And not to leave out any prospective buyers-- there were baseball and ringer t's and discounted wife-beaters. At one point I saw a black SUV slow down and make a quick purchase from the car.

The shrine itself consists of handwritten notes replete with the author's first and last name and where they're from, photocopied pictures of fans taken with MJ, poster boards displaying messages of peace and love, candles, flowers, and whatever other detritus deemed worthy of sacrifice. For instance, a plastic spoon.

One of the more intense contributions was a floral arrangement that chose to acknowledge the deaths of David Carradine and Farrah Fawcett as well. What, no Ed McMahon?

With Jackson's Walk of Fame star and the surrounding area turned into such a spectacle, it was hard to tell whether people were gathering for the experience of "being there" or because they truly missed Michael and needed a tangible means of showing it. I mean, maybe these women dress like Michael Jackson every day? Most of us, however, stood around snapping photos, trying to gauge whether we were feeling sadness towards Jackson or just for the people who might never get over him.

And you're probably wondering WWJD? Buy a commemorative shirt, of course!

As I stepped back from the scene I looked down at Lefty Frizzell's and Army Archerd's unadorned and undecorated stars, located next to Jackson's; I'm sure someone, somewhere, misses them too.

Who are your favorite Canadian musicians and bands? Feel free to share your thoughts on the vast plethora of Canadian music.

And lastly, Happy Canada Day!

The Three Degrees formed in the 1960s when Pinkney was still in high school. The band was an essential part of The Philly Sound: tight, soulful, sweet, and pretty much the smoothest stuff you've ever heard. Seriously, the songs kind of just glide.

Listen to "You're The One:"

A great starting place for The Three Degrees is a compilation called The Roulette Years. You can pretty much get any dance party started with the Three Degrees, charm the pants off anyone, or set the mood. Their songs dim the lights but somehow brighten the room. Yes, they were that good.

Listen to "You're The Fool:"

RIP Fayette Pinkney; thanks for your music.

Lastly, here are two other artists associated with the Philly Sound:

Occasionally, I will be focused on the songs; I'll turn up the volume until my ears ache and the car interior seems to swell with the pressure and intensity of the sounds. (I've done this lately with Lightning Dust's upcoming album Infinite Light, one that I'll surely revisit later on these very pages.) But for the most part, I keep the stereo volume low in the car, barely perceptible even. I've had some people complain that it's more annoying to have music at a low volume than to have none at all. Apparently, I've learned how to tune it out.

At home--where I have more CDs, Mp3s and LPs than I know what to do with--I often choose to have talk radio droning on and on, from which I glean bits of news and information. Except I do turn the radio off when Portland's strapped-for-cash local NPR affiliate, OPB, airs "The World" at 10 AM and then again at 1 PM. In my opinion, this brand of repetition should be reserved for favorite songs and movies, and for the phrase "Who's a good dog?"

So, if I'm not listening to music incessantly, why should I claim that music is paramount in my life? It is, I promise you. And anyone who knows me would verify this fact as certifiable. I think about music constantly, sometimes more than I'd like; I write about it, I engage in friendly musical debates, and I take silly quizzes in order to prove my level of expertise (to myself, mostly, no one else cares).

Every once in a while I'll pull records off the shelves in order to have a personal listening party consisting of favorite and forgotten songs; I'll tug the LPs out with such fervor you'd think there was a golden ticket hidden in between the sleeves. Yet I don't roam the streets with headphones on, delivering to me a constant stream of sound, and my neighbors have never had to come over and tell me to "turn it down."

Maybe it's that I'm just not into blatant public displays of affection or PDA with music. I mean, come on, we don't have to be grabbing each others' asses or making out for everyone to know we're in love.

Where would you rank the importance music in your life? Do concerts ever take financial precedence over something else you'd like to buy? Do you love music more than your family or your job? Would music make your top 5?

An example of someone's Top 5 Loves:

1. George Foreman Grill
2. NHL
3. Mom
4. Husband
5. Music

In other words, how do you show music that you really care?

Michael Jackson's video for "Billie Jean" has been linked up to a keyword search on Twitter. Thus, when you play the video, tweets featuring the lyrics appear on screen in time with the song.

Check out the wizardry at billietweets.com.

This way I can accept friend requests from whomever, whenever, and for any reason. Or not. And I can send you updates whenever I post, updates you'll likely get in advance of any other notification about my blog.

Plus, I've already put up a wacky photo of me in too-large sunglasses.

Become a friend of Monitor Mix by clicking here.

Thanks.

This news makes the Pixies the latest band--following in the footsteps of everyone from Public Enemy to Sonic Youth to Slint--to play one of their classic albums in its entirety.

To resurrect an album and to adhere to a--gasp--sequence in the age of singles and iPod shuffle seems a strange and slightly anachronistic endeavor. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea; it's like a return to AOR (Album Oriented Rock, for those of you too to know this term), except within a live context and with other fans as fellow witnesses.

I wonder, however, if the album format--either recorded or live-is too contradictory to our contemporary listening habits. Might not we prefer a carefully crafted set list; one that would prevent too many slow songs from occurring in a row or ensure a variety of tempos? And what if all of our favorite songs are spread out over a few different records? I mean, who wants to hear those contemplative songs that don't sound as good without the dulcimer and horn section that were added during the recording?

I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. After all, I'm more than disappointed if an artist turns out to only have one good song on an album. Or, if an album is mostly filler in order to prop up the one hit track. To me, that's not a statement, it's a hiccup.

But getting back to Doolittle, it certainly is my favorite Pixies album, and the one that broke them out of the college-band bubble. Naturally, I'd have to give myself a refresher course on the less obvious tracks, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't love them anew. In fact, one reason I'd like to see the Pixies perform the whole of the album would be to get a glimpse into the process, or into the cohesion of the songs, one that I might have missed the first time around.

Perhaps these resurrected albums, met with new perspective and adoration by both fans and the bands alike, will mark a return to album-making and album appreciation. Either that or we'll feel a momentary nostalgia for the old LPs, cassette tapes, and CDs but then go and make a mix on our iPods that's just a collection of singles and our favorite songs.

For about how long do you listen to an album in it's entirety and in the intended sequence before you get in there and mess with it? Thoughts on the 'Doolittle' tour or bands playing their classic albums? Please chime in.

While listening to Sherman, I was reminded of a tune my high school chemistry teacher used to help us memorize the periodic tables: Tom Lehrer's "Elements Song." And then I started to wonder, what exactly happened to the novelty song?

Novelty songs, of course, are close cousins if not interchangeable with comedy songs. Though the novelty song tends to be more closely aligned with a fad, dance, or event.
Anyone remember the "Superbowl Shuffle?" Lest you forgot:

So, perhaps music-inspired comedians like Dimitri Martin and Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords are carrying on the tradition of novelty songs, or at least are crafting a new version of the genre. Yet, I would argue that the chief difference between those artists and, say, "Weirld" Al Yankovic is a lack parody and the addition of, dare I say, earnestness.

If anything, it's a medium like YouTube that has replaced the novelty song. What is YouTube if not novelties delivered to us 24-7 by none other than, um, us; a group of amateurs parodying, commenting, and imitating bigger budgeted and supposedly more legitimate forms? YouTube has turned our whole lives into a novelty, so why should we need actual novelty songs?

So, if we are bidding farewell to the novelty songs of yore, let's at least take a gander at a handful of memorable ones.

Do you have any favorite novelty songs? Or do you feel like there are any current and noteworthy practitioners of the genre? Please share.

And today we got another announcement from the Academy. Whereas they are hedging their bets that there will be at least 10 award-worthy movies next year, apparently they have very little confidence in the music being made for films. That's right: if no films' original songs are good enough, there won't even be a Best Song category. You can read all about the new rating system here.

Sure, we can all acknowledge that there hasn't been a "Singin' in the Rain" since, well, 1952's Singin' in the Rain (which didn't even win the Oscar, by the way). Not even anything from The Sound of Music won an award, and most of us have that entire soundtrack memorized. I guess back in the day there was too much great film music from which to choose.

And you might wonder, who has won a Best Song Oscar in the past? Here are some examples:

1961 - "Moon River" (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
1962 - "Days of Wine and Roses" (Days of Wine and Roses)
1964 - "Chim Chim Cher-ee" (Mary Poppins)
1969 - "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
1971 - "Theme from Shaft" (Shaft)
1972 - "The Morning After" (The Poseidon Adventure)
1973 - "The Way We Were" (The Way We Were)
1975 - "I'm Easy" (Nashville)
1977 - "You Light Up My Life" (You Light Up My Life)
1980 - "Fame" (Fame)
1981 - "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Arthur)
1983 - "Flashdance...What A Feeling" (Flashdance)
1984 - "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (The Woman In Red)

Hmm ... maybe the Academy does have a point. Many of us could probably sing along to or are at least familiar with all of the above tunes. Below is a sampling of more recent winners. How many of these do you know?

2000 - "Things Have Changed" (Wonder Boys)
2001 - "If I Don't Have You" (Monsters, Inc.)
2002 - "Lose Yourself" (8 Mile)
2003 - "Into the West" (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)
2004 - "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" (The Motorcycle Diaries)
2005 - "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" (Hustle and Flow)
2006 - "I Need to Wake Up" (An Inconvenient Truth)
2007 - "Falling Slowly" (Once)
2008 - "Jai Ho" (Slumdog Millionaire)

I'll admit: except for the two hip hop songs and the tunes from Slumdog and Once, I couldn't hum a single note.

So have movie theme songs gotten bad, or are they just no longer memorable? And whose fault is that? And why is one industry punishing another when there is a mutual increase of mediocrity on both sides? Lastly, do you have any favorite movie theme songs? As always, feel free to share.

I know: I'll just listen to "Flashdance (What A Feeling)" while I mull this over. I know all the lyrics.

From Lisa Marie's MySpace page:

"I am going to say now what I have never said before because I want the truth out there for once.

I wanted to "save him" I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened."

Read what Lisa Marie wrote in its entirety here.

I don't know what it was like for you all, but just about every Facebook post I looked at yesterday was about Michael Jackson. And I'm not on Twitter, but I can imagine that the reaction has been even more fervent in that world. [It has. --ed.] Michael Jackson's albums are currently taking up the top 14 spots on Amazon's bestseller list. And right now, I'm listening to BBC's World Have Your Say on my local NPR affiliate, where people are calling in from as far away as Antarctica to share their thoughts about the pop legend.

The majority of the posts and feedback I've been reading and listening to are tinged with sweetness, sadness and nostalgia. Yet some people are wondering how we can forget or overlook the ugliness that marred Jackson's personal life, from child-molestation charges to questionable parenting.

For many of us -- and I think this is why there's a lot of unabashed adoration and disbelief in the wake of his death -- we've never known a world without Michael Jackson. From the time we were young enough to even know what music was, we've been fascinated and awed by Jackson. And in a pre-Internet, pre-computer age, knowing that there were fans all around the world listening to the very same songs as we were, it was the first time we got a sense of how close we could feel to people we would never meet, living in countries we might never visit.

We take globalism for granted today, but back when a lot of us had yet to travel outside our own cities, states or countries, Michael Jackson was the first person to blanket our world, to connect us through fandom and song. He was a huge force in making our small and young lives feel massive, at least vicariously. As a kid, there's not much more you desire than to feel part of something larger than you.

Favorite memories of Michael Jackson? Why did he mean something to you? Feel free to share.

Those are frightening words to write. They are more scary than any paparazzi photo of Jackson's nose crumbling to pieces; stranger than images of his faceless children wearing shrouds while shopping at the mall; creepier than his rumored skin disease, the burnt hair, the molestation allegations and trial, his chimpanzee confidante and Neverland combined. Michael Jackson is dead, and now we have to come to terms with who he was and what it means to have him gone.

Read more, after the jump.

Michael Jackson was our first superstar. He was masterful and mysterious and glittery. He invented pop as we know it today, the blown-up-and-about-to-burst version of pop. We obsessed over him before there were even the proper technological tools to aid in our obsession. But he was easy to find, because he was everywhere and everything: He was our soda, our videos, our radios and our bedroom floors. It was a thriller, no doubt; the man was pop and the man was king.

These were big times, the 1980s: big business, big hair, big stars. There was Michael Jackson and Madonna, Duran Duran and Prince, and all of our love could be stored in and directed upon these giant and alluring vessels who wanted to be adored, or so we thought. But eventually -- as it often does -- our love for these artists waned, and we directed our affections elsewhere. Most of these pop stars disappeared for a while or began practicing the arts of resuscitation and reinvention.

But Michael Jackson was different; his star never wholly faded, nor was it born anew. His light remained aglow, fueled both by his astronomical accomplishments and by our own eager imaginations. And we kept looking in his direction, out of pure love for his music, but also because the glimpses into his life were getting more shocking and bizarre. The glare kept coming back to find him, sometimes out of reverence, but also revealing to us a distortion of the man we thought we knew; an ugliness, a freakishness, a changeling.

Certainly there was a disconnect in our minds between the brilliant artist whose songs made us dance -- whom we exalted, and whom we gave credit for changing the landscape of music -- and Jackson's clearly troubled and pained personal life. For many of us, there were two different Michael Jacksons: the one whose life we watched like a circus, and the artist who had turned our ordinary lives into an extravaganza.

And now Michael Jackson is gone -- not just the part of him we loved and worshiped, but also those parts we never quite understood. We're left with a confounding and massive emptiness. Personally, I'd like to thank him for an immeasurable contribution to music, for his moves, and for transforming the word "pop" into both the confetti and the knockout punch. May he rest in peace.

For more of NPR Music's Michael Jackson coverage, click here.

We all know that setting anything to music is an excellent -- and sometimes inadvertent -- mnemonic device. It accounts for how we learned the ABCs, why we remember the entirety of the Free to Be You and Me album and why the surviving members of Blind Melon still receive royalties. (The bee girl? "No Rain"? Anyone?) Music is memory's ally, whether we want it to be or not.

Read and see more, after the jump.

Nevertheless, as a music fan, I'd hardly call it a liability to have so many songs memorized. In actuality, it's more of a point of pride. Still, if someone were to ask me to sing a string of songs in a row, I don't know which ones I'd actually know in their entirety. I feel like I could recall large chunks of lyrical material by The Jam or The Clash, by David Bowie or Led Zeppelin. And even though I do have at least a few of those artists' entire songs memorized, I would probably instead sing Madonna and Wham!, Duran Duran and Fleetwood Mac, artists whose work I've known since my elementary and middle-school days.

But why? I suppose the fact that I would be able to draw more from the beginning of my musical knowledge is a testament to long-term versus short-term memory. After all, I spent my younger days in a slightly more obsessive frame of mind. As a kid, having a song fully memorized was akin to constructing a suit of armor; it's what you wore to shield you from the mess and confusion of adolescence. The intricacies of the songs were your friends. They were your secrets.

A song from my youth for which I know all the lyrics:

These days, except for a handful of massive pop hits -- a genre for which there's a formula for getting songs stuck in the listener's head -- I don't know too many current songs by heart. I probably have more Beyonce and Britney memorized than I do Wilco or The Black Keys. Then again, I could likely sing you a good portion of The Magnetic Fields or The Shins.

But you'd be surprised at what songs you actually know, as opposed to what songs you think you know. Challenge yourself to sing an entire tune by heart. It's likely that you can recall a tune from your youth with more clarity than a song from one of your current favorite bands. Which doesn't mean you like that new band any less; it might just mean that these days you're much busier, and that you have better things to do.

What songs or jingles do you think you could recite or sing almost in their entirety? Suffice it to say, they might not even be songs you like.

Sure, most of us will be charitable and say we're catholic in our tastes; that we like all sorts of singing styles. But, come on, let's be honest: There's always one to which we're drawn, one that if we went through our music collection, we'd realize we've been choosing over others.

Perhaps it's easier to know what we don't like. For myself, and with few exceptions, I can't stand vocals that are wispy and fey. They make me want to yell, "Speak up, I can't hear you!" or "Grow a pair!" Maybe what I don't like about this style is that it makes me feel like the vocalist fell down a well and needs saving. Or that they're so precious, a feather could knock them over. But mostly, it's because this sorry-to-be-a-bother-but-I-have-something-to-say vocal style is easy; it takes more guts to sound strong, scary or weird, to leap for a high or low note with your whole being, or to sound like the song has possessed you. Another annoying trait: baby voices, and that includes whiners. Unless you ARE a baby, let's use our adult voice, okay?

Who do I make exceptions for? Elliott Smith, Cat Power, Judee Sill and Shirley Collins, to name just a few. And I make exceptions because there's darkness in their songs that isn't merely being hinted at in the lyrics. Any fragility in their voices is keeping a demon at bay; it's not there for effect so much as for solace, and their voice is part of the story as opposed to being the only element that makes the story interesting.

Singers I like:

Read (and watch) more, after the jump...

More singers I like:

I wonder if the smallness has something to do with the intimacy of home recordings -- with the fact that some singers have never heard their voice fill a room, or had to try. Then again, Stuart Murdoch has a voice that makes me cringe (he fits into that precious category) and Belle & Sebastian started well before most people were making records in their bedrooms. But there's something to be said about how the influx of self-recorded and self-released albums -- all created and then distributed inside the vacuum of the web -- have increased the tolerance for what I'll call micro-singing and micro-music. If we're hearing and seeing music for the first time in miniature (on our computers), why should the sound and the singing be big? It really makes no difference if it is or not, and how could we even get a sense of its size in the first place?

Even more singers I like:

So I guess what I prefer in a vocal style is someone who isn't necessarily loud or soft, angry or elated, odd or well-adjusted, but someone who isn't afraid to try.

Feel free to share your favorite, or least favorite, singing styles.

These bands -- like The Gories and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion -- were also influenced by the early sounds, but wore their influence on their sleeves long before most everyone else caught up. Then there was the sadly overlooked Prima Donnas from Austin, Texas, who piled copious amounts of keyboards onto the stage and delivered a brand of character-driven new-wave songs in the mid-'90s, while everyone else in indie rock played guitars. And what about Flin Flon and Air Miami? Two groups led by Mark Robinson (also of Unrest), one a bass-heavy post-punk-inspired band, the other more dance-driven, both bands possessing a sound that wouldn't be popularized again until almost a decade later. And, of course, The Magnetic Fields, who were borrowing from the synthed-out pop sounds of the early '80s long before everyone else was.

There have always been bands that came along too soon; at least that's what it feels like in hindsight. Take, for example, the Olympia bands Karp and Tight Bros From Way Back When, or The Murder City Devils from Seattle. Influenced by Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, MC5, et al, not a whole lot of people got on board with their heavy sound back in their day. Then, years later, when every disenfranchised high-school kid was embracing Korn and hipsters were going gaga over The Darkness and then Mastodon, Karp, Tight Bros and MCD were long gone. Despite metal and hard rock making a comeback, and being much more married to indie-rock coolness, the groups that were too far ahead of the curve were all but forgotten, or at least didn't get to reap the benefits. (A-ha! Maybe this is what reunion tours are for!)

When a band or artist isn't tied to a larger movement, when they aren't part of the first wave, nor part of the second wave, then where does their influence or importance lie? It's difficult for a band not to be bolstered by a larger context, and to exist as a musical outsider in its own scene, appreciated as more of a novelty because of how differentiated it is from everyone else. It's not that these bands that were ahead of their time weren't loved; they were, at least by some, but they didn't have the momentum. They weren't part of a zeitgeist. Instead, these early revivalists exist in a sort of musical no-man's land. They brought us back to an earlier musical era and reminded us of a sound, but I guess most of us weren't quite ready to hear it.

Feel free to list bands or artists who were resurrecting or borrowing from various musical genres long before it was trendy to do so.