Andrew Walsh Blog & Podcast

Pretty much the only thing I like about the movie Scarface are Michelle Pfeiffer’s awesome sunglasses.

This is a strange collection of songs that have nothing to do with Christmas. I hope you enjoy them. If you don’t, let me know, and I’ll see if I can find some other way to make all your holiday wishes come true. (Except the gross ones.)

[ CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MIX ]

1/ Pass Me By / J Cole (Ft. B.O.B.)

2/ Fallin’ / Teenage Fanclub & De La Soul

3/ Fireball / Willow Smith

4/ Violent Nudity / Says She’s Ms. Blat

5/ If You Wanna / The Vaccines

6/ Young Mother / Juviley

7/ Like Smoke / Amy Winehouse (Ft. Nas)

8/ Mr. Brown / YC the Cynic (Ft. Sene)

9/ Slight Work / Wale (Ft. Big Sean)

10/ A.V.E.R.A.G.E. / Kazi

11/ Rose Garden / Shad

12/ FYC-x-Gruzen / Earl Sweatshirt (Sly Tendencies)

13/ Smart / Girl in a Coma

14/ Darling Divine / Royal Baths

Oh, and hey, for reals: If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

I got an email from my girlfriend, Vieves, recently. The subject line was “Actual plot points in the Law & Order SVU I’m watching.” It’s worth sharing.

Oh wait, the baby was found wrapped in a t-shirt from some frat party from the local college.

But wait! The father lies on the stand and claims it WAS rape, so they have to acquit her on grounds of insanity.

BUT the detective who investigated the crime tells the girl that she, the detective, was the product of a rape.

Aha! Double jeopardy protects her on the second baby, but she can still be charged with murder for the first one.

Oh no! Meanwhile, Councilman Incest is about to take his son/grandson home to raise.

The detectives:”You’re never getting this baby!”

FIN

Sorry, boys. She’s taken.

[ CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MIX ]

1/Theme From A Summer / Skeeter Davis

2/ Come and Get It / Badfinger

3/ All Summer / Kid Cudi, Best Coast & Rostam

4/ Shiraz / Action Bronson

5/ Good Friday / Kanye West (Ft. Common, Pusha T, Kid Cudi, Big Sean & Charlie Wilson)

6/ Titanic / Nikkiya

7/ FYC-x-Gruzen / Earl Sweatshirt (Sly Tendencies)

8/ Farewell / Soda Shop

9/ You Can’t Hurry Love / The Concretes

10/ Pumped Up Kicks / Foster the People

11/ Gotta Have It / Jay-Z & Kanye

If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

Luke mentioned my blog on his podcast today. That pretty much means I better post something here. I’ll take advantage of this opportunity by sharing with you the best animated gif you’ll ever see. I can’t embed it with sound here, so just click on the image below. And enjoy!

My friend Nikki sent me a threatening text message the other day, demanding that I send her some good songs that she can jog to. She said she wanted the songs quickly. I believe the exact word she used was “STAT!!” (She’s a medical professional)

Of course, I’m more than happy to oblige.

Here’s a bunch of weirdy shit for you, Nikki. Please don’t play this around Liam and Campbell.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

1/Sleazy (Remix) / Ke$ha (Feat. Andre 3000)

2/ Jane Fonda / Mickey Avalon

3/ Hello / Martin Solveig (Feat. Dragonette)

4/ How I Roll /Britney Spears

5/ Forest Green /Mike G

6/ Never Enough /Tanya Morgan

7/ Dat Ass / Earl Sweatshirt

8/ Price Tag / Jessie J (ft. B.O.B.)

9/ Slippin’ / Quadron

10/ We Got Y’all / Pistol Mcfly (Feat. Chip Gnarly)

11/ Say Superman / Cobra Krames

If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

I’m confused. In this new Lil Wayne video, is our hero wearing both a Red Sox hat and a big NY Yankees chain? If so, what does that mean? Is one of them ironic? Or when you live in New Orleans, do you have enough distance to sincerely appreciate the value of both teams?

I’m not a big fan of this song. It’s too big and obnoxious for my tastes. But every time Rick Ross tells me he has a chopper in the car, I think it’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard.

Click Here To Download

1/ Sunshine /Rye Rye (Feat M.I.A.)

2/ Bundle Up / The Cool Kids

3/ Rolling in the Deep (REMIX ft. Childish Gambino) / Adele

4/ New York Is Killing Me (Smu Mix) / Gil Scott-Heron (feat. Mos Def & Nas)

5/ The Day / The Roots (feat. Blu, Phonte & Patty Crash)

6/ Armada Latina / Cypress Hill (feat. Pitbull & Marc Anthony)

7/ Tightrope / Janelle Monáe (feat. Big Boi)

8/ Pass Me By / J Cole (ft. B.O.B.)

9/ Hip Hop Changed / Crookers (ft. Rye Rye)

10/ Go Outside / Cults

11/ Say Superman / YC The Cynic

12/ The Joy / Kanye West (ft. Pete Rock, Jay-Z, Charlie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield & KiD CuDi)

13/ A.V.E.R.A.G.E. / Kazi

If you have any trouble downloading, let me know.

Last month, the New York Times published a fantastic story about the way JC Penney figured out how to get great placement in Google search results. Around the holidays, if you typed a generic product into Google — like “dresses” or “bedding” or “area rugs” — the first result would inevitably be JC Penney. Which — theoretically — increased chances that you would buy these products from JC Penney instead of one of its competitors.

This was also true for some specific brand names, too. If you typed “Samsonite Luggage” into Google, your first result would have also been JC Penney, which sells that product.

The store accomplished this by basically gaming the system. It didn’t do anything illegal, just something that Google and other self-appointed web police look down on. It either created or hired a bunch of meaningless, empty web sites and posted links on them that pointed back to JC Penney’s site. This made JC Penney seem very popular on the web, and thus it achieved higher page rankings.

I looked into this topic for a radio show I was working on, and while I interviewed potential guests, I couldn’t help getting frustrated that no one would give credence to my devil’s advocacy. “But what did JC Penney do wrong?” I kept asking search experts. “How is it different than naming your pluming company ‘AAA Plumbing’ just to get listed first in the phone book?” None of the experts answered that adequately, but they all insisted Google was right to punish JC Penney for its “black hat” actions.

This all happened last month. Today, I was listening to an old episode of public radio’s On The Media, and the hosts were reading listeners’ letters. One listener wrote in to comment on the JC Penney story. I wanted to kiss my iPod when host Bob Garfield read it. I’m posting the audio and a transcript below.

On the Media: Listener Letter: JC Penney

On our interview last week about how JCPenney gamed Google to achieve better search results, Ted Bunn of Richmond, Virginia writes, quote: “I’m baffled by your use of the words ‘sinister’ and especially ‘illicit,’ to characterize JCPenney’s search optimization strategy. Nothing in your report suggests that anything the company did was illegal. You can bet that all of JCPenney’s competitors do their best at search engine optimization. They’d be negligent in their obligation to their shareholders if they didn’t.

As far as I can tell from your report, JCPenney’s only crime was to be better at it. If Google wants to remain preeminent in the search business, its obligation is to plug holes in its algorithm. No one else is obligated to refrain from walking through any holes they find.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Trust me, I tried.