This may be the most need­less­ly over­pro­duced pro­gram on the inter­net, but that does­n’t stop me from being com­plete­ly enam­ored of it.

This is prob­a­bly per­fect for those frozen morn­ing hang­overs we all have from time to time, or at least it sounds like one of those frozen morn­ing hang­overs. Black­mail Is My Life eager­ly antic­i­pates new Psy­chic Para­mount material.

Wel­come to 2007, right? Sor­ry for my extend­ed absence, but lets say that a New Year’s Day rain­storm com­bined with a post­poned Mum­mer’s Day Parade for an impromp­tu move to the new place that’s just about ended.

A few admin­is­tra­tive things:

• Over the course of the extend­ed absence, I’d hoped to post my Idol­a­tor Jackin’ Pop bal­lot. Due to a tech glitch, mine and sev­er­al oth­ers were lost. How much would Scott Walk­er have ben­e­fit­ed from the hang­ing chads we may nev­er know.
• The much talked about, lit­tle seen doc­u­men­tary The Shame of a City is more than a lit­tle ten­den­tious. Sure, May­or Street isn’t warm, cud­dly or eth­i­cal, but Sam Katz looks like such a doo­fus that you can see why he lost twice con­sec­u­tive­ly [see “strut­ting” down Two Street as evi­dence.] The tedious slow-motion mon­tages don’t help much either.
• Last­ly, this is com­plete­ly amazing.

Lis­ten: Ken­ny Rogers — Ken­tucky Home­made Christmas

I’m def­i­nite­ly start­ing to feel the hol­i­day spir­it, just not for Imaad Wasif. I pre­fer my hol­i­day favorites schmaltzy and loud. If you’re going to be sen­ti­men­tal, make them drunk­en, mawk­ish affairs. But then again, I grew up lis­ten­ing to this, John­ny Math­is and Anne Mur­ray on a crack­ly cas­settes, more or less non­stop dur­ing Decem­ber. Keep in mind that I still regret not being invit­ed to the Rogers & Mur­ray Christ­mas con­cert that proved the Val­ley Forge Music Fair’s swan song.

[Inci­den­tal­ly, Ken­ny’s spo­ken word on “When a Child is Born” is a com­plete­ly amaz­ing arti­fact of Rea­gan era race relations.]

Lis­ten: Spank Rock - Lind­say Lohan’s Revenge [via Goril­la vs. Bear]

It was dur­ing the trag­ic third act of this doc­u­men­tary about Vil­lanova’s nation­al bas­ket­ball title that it I was remind­ed of anoth­er of 2006 short-lived neol­o­gisms: gallery rap. Ear­ly this year, Spank Rock’s YoY­oY­oY­oYo revived the mid-eight­ies hiphop poly­glot. A com­bi­na­tion of old school fash­ion and sen­si­bil­i­ties, they embody the fren­zied social and polit­i­cal con­fu­sion of the Rea­gan years, a time of coke-fueled toast­ing, soundsys­tem blar­ing in the street.

Even the majors tried to get a piece. Some­time Kanye col­lab­o­ra­tor and Phar­rell protégé Lupe Fias­co entered the pic­ture with his skater rap anthem “Kick, Push.” But like Phar­rel­l’s solo debut, In My Mind, noth­ing real­ly stuck, and “Kick, Push” fell short of becom­ing the sum­mer’s rap anthem.

Some­how Spank Rock “suc­ceed­ed” where oth­ers failed, yet anoth­er exam­ple of cachet out­do­ing cash. YoY­oY­oY­oYo was well-received, but not crit­i­cal­ly overblown — mak­ing it one of 2006’s cult hits and a par­ty album that rivals Paul’s Bou­tique for quirky, kinky fun — and yet anoth­er rea­son to keep an eye on Bal­ti­more’s bur­geon­ing music scene.