How sweet Jeffrey Morgan's Media Blackout #223 is!

Ray Charles — A Message From The People (Concord) :: I don't care if the sun don't shine — but if I hear this flamboyant, cloying, overwrought, terminally maudlin, tear-jerkin' melodramatic version of "America The Beautiful" one more time, I'm gonna kill something.

Chris Velan — Solidago (New Song Recordings) :: Looking to score? Then match a few candles and play these sensitive songs, which'll woo any weepy woman on the rebound. Works for me!

Dee Dee Ramone — History On My Arms (MVD Visual) :: You'll wanna buy this Dee-V-Dee for the three filmed documentaries but you're gonna keep it for the bonus home-recorded album Dee Dee Blues on which the man who gave us the speaker-shredding "Wart Hog" redefines abrasive with a monocaustic mind-numbing set that makes Unca Lou's overdrive antics on "I Heard Her Call My Name" sound like Jeanine Deckers plucking "Dominique" on downers. Then Dee Dee takes a well-deserved break to berate his cat while he skillets some eggs for breakfast.

SIZZLING MODERN PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Ray Charles — Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music: Volumes 1 & 2 (Concord) :: Half of these two dozen tracks sound like a Jackie Gleason string seduction session while the other half swings in kinetic "And away we go!" akimbo mode. Mercifully devoid of his usual annoying vocal mannerisms, this is Raymond's finest auditory hour.

SIZZLING POST-MODERN PLATTER OF THE WEEK: Big D And The Kids Table — Fluent In Stroll (Side One Dummy) :: Chirpy chicks chirpin' Linda McCartneyesque backing vocals against a horny horn backing while the suave Romeo upfront sells you the goods with a punky swagger worthy of a singin' Stooge in sidewinder Soldier mode. The first song is called "Doped up Dollies on a One Way Ticket to Blood," which tells you all you need to know about how mentally stable these cool cats are. Add an overflowing side platter of ska slathered with a hot throbbing organ and you've got an album that's so fulla fun it's seriously shortlsted on my 2009 Top 10 list.

Be seeing you!