All Apologies & Opinions on Run the Jewels

All Apologies

It's good to start a new year with a clean slate – and that can mean apologizing to those you've wronged. In that contrite spirit, Jim and Greg share their favorite songs that say "sorry."

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Jim and Greg break down some of the music sales figures for 2016. Overall, album sales fell last year, while streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora continue to grow. There was significant growth in people willing to pay money to subscribe to the services, not just settling for the free versions. And while this points to a future of music being cloud-based and on-demand, the continuing popularity of vinyl fogs the crystal ball. Sales of physical LPs grew 25 percent over 2015.

Apology Songs

There are a lot of ways to say "I'm sorry," but what better method than through song. Jim, Greg and a few listeners share their favorite apology tracks.

Greg

  • The Rolling Stones, "Prodigal Son"
  • Outkast, "Ms. Jackson"
  • Bonnie Raitt, "The Ones We Couldn’t Be"
  • Hüsker Dü, "I Apologize"

Jim

  • Nirvana, "All Apologies"
  • Brenda Lee, "I’m Sorry"
  • R.E.M., "So. Central Rain"
  • The Temptations, "Sorry is a Sorry Word"

Listeners

  • George from Florida: Randy Newman, "Marie"
  • Mitchell from New York: The Who, "A Quick One While He’s Away"
  • John from Austin, TX: Blake Mills, "Don’t Tell Our Friends About Me"
  • Paul from St. Paul, MN: Wussy, "Beautiful"

Run the Jewels 3 Run the Jewels

Run the Jewels 3

Run the Jewels formed after Killer Mike enlisted El-P to produce his 2012 album R.A.P. Music and the two men immediately hit it off. Since then, the duo has released three albums, one cat remix record, and appeared on Sound Opinions. Greg says that RTJ has upped the intensity with each record, and the latest, Run the Jewels 3, is their finest yet. Greg finds both of them to be incredibly skilled emcees, providing dizzying momentum to their political calls to arms. Jim also admires their lyrics, but also notes the album's production. Musically, Run the Jewels creates an inventively dense sound collage, confirming for Jim that they are one of the most important duos in hip-hop today. Run the Jewels 3 gets a double-Buy It.

Dear Listeners,

For more than 15 years, Sound Opinions was a production of WBEZ, Chicago's public radio station. Now that the show is independent, we're inviting you to join the band and lend a hand! We need your support more than ever because now we have to do all the behind-the-scenes work that WBEZ handled before (like buying insurance and paying for podcast hosting, ugh). Plus, we have some exciting ideas we'd like to try now that there's no one to tell us no!

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