Mister Trend's Random 10

Yes, I know it's only Tuesday. However, I travel to Brasília on Thursday to spend a week with my wife's family for Christmas, and will be internet free. Plus, tomorrow is a re-evaluation of my "Best of 2006", and Thursday is my "Best of 2007", so here is my random 10 for this week

This week's 7th song is by a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, and reveals one of the little-known secrets about me. By and large, I'm not a huge hip-hop fan, yet I love a lot of the stuff by the Wu-Tang and its members. The Clan's albums are phenomenal, but the solo albums are hit or miss, based largely on whether Clan-member and producer RZA is producing it (the one exception to this being Inspectah Deck's Uncontrolled Substance). The first round of Wu-Tang members' solo albums (Raekwon, Ghostface Killa, Method Man, and GZA) are top notch, with RZA behind the production of them all, but GZA's Liquid Swords is far and away the best of the batch. His rhyme and rap-skills are unrivaled, and the RZA's tight production (often putting a 2-bar drum-beat on loop and adding creepy atmospherics and kung-fu movie samples) is at its peak on this album. Also, to me at least, a lot of hip-hop delivery depends on the tone of the performer's voice, and there's nobody's delivery and voice I enjoy more than Genius/GZA's.

1. "Mr. Syms" - John Coltrane
2. "Me & My Head" - Quasi
3. "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" - Galaxie 500
4. "Vette" - Django Reinhardt
5. "I'm Nuts About That Gal" - Lonnie Johnson
6. "The Time of Times" - Badly Drawn Boy
7. "Liquid Swords" - Genius/GZA
8. "Low Down Loving Gal" - Blind Blake
9. "Cochinando" - Abel Ferreira
10. "Skoodle Do Do" - Big Bill Broonzy