The Apple iPod turns the big 8 today. On the morning of November 10th, 2001, Apple first began selling its original version of the iPod MP3 music player. Pictured left, that original iPod sold for $399 + tax, and was marketed as an "Ultra-Portable MP3 Music Player" that "puts 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket."

Up to that point there had been many types/brands of MP3 players around (I knew a lot of folks who favored using their MiniDiscs as MP3 players) but no company had streamlined and made an MP3 player as user friendly as Apple did with the iPod. In 2001 it came with a 5GB hard drive, coupled with the first scrolling wheel and interface on an MP3 player.

Of course, in retrospect, compared to the variety of models of iPods and other MP3 players available to us today, this prototype iPod seems both bulky and pricey in contrast. Such is the way in this fast paced, ever-changing digital age. But what is most significant about the iPod is that in eight short years, it has not only changed the fortunes of the company that manufactures it (just as Apple's next big hit, the iPhone -- almost at 45 million in unit sales -- has similarly done), but it also has altered how the world listens to and consumes music.

Immediately before its commercial release back in late 2001, the iPod was being billed as the coming "Next Generation Player" and boy, that could not have been closer to the truth, since it literally signaled the generation of music consumers to come. The iPod was largely instrumental in changing everything to do with music; from listening to it, to buying or acquiring it, to selling, sharing, & storing music, etc, from that point on. In fact, in the music business that date, November 10th, 2001, could well be considered the watershed moment that divides two eras: BiP/AiP (Before iPod and After iPod).

Back in '88, during hip-hop's so-called 'golden age,' for some magnificant reason damn near every rap release that came out was an instant classic: records like Marley Marl's "The Symphony," Eric B & Rakim's "Follow The Leader," EPMD's "Strictly Business," Too Short's "Life Is...Too Short," and of course Sir-Mix-a-Lot's "Posse on Broadway." 

A single off the famed Seattle rapper's debut album Swass on Nastymix Records, Sir Mix-a-Lot's song struck a nerve with rap fans everywhere at the time firstly because of the great lyrics and the track's 808 kick-drum fueled sick beat, and secondly because listeners made the song lyrics relate to their own town's Broadway -- whether they were in New York or San Francisco or wherever.

Of course, the Broadway in "Posse On Broadway" was the one in Mix-a-Lot's (born Anthony Ray) own hometown of Seattle in the Capitol Hill district, the one were they "stopped at Taco Bell for some Mexican eatin' But Taco Bell was closed, The girls was on my tip. They said go back the other way we'll stop and eat at Dick's. Dick's is the place where the cool hang out. The Swass like to play and the rich flaunt clout. Posse to he burger stand so big we walk in twos." (Scroll down to see full song lyrics.)

1) GIft of Gab Escape 2 Mars (Cornerstone Ras)

2) Masta Ace + Edo G Arts & Entertainment (Traffic Entertanment)

3) Mr. Chop For Pete's Sake (Now Again Records)

4) Sene & Blu A Day Late & A Dollar Short (Shaman Work)

5) R.A. the Rugged Man Legendary Classic Vol 1 (Green Street)

6) CunninLynguists Strange Journey Vol Two (Piece So Strange Music)


7) Jern Eye Vision (MYX)

8) Themselves CrownsDown (Anticon)

9) Killa Keise Yellow Tape Zone (Step It Up Entertainment)

10) Kam Moye (aka Supastition) Splitting Image (MYX)

Special thanks to Luis (pictured below) at the San Francisco Amoeba Music for this week's Amoeba Music Hip-Hop Top Ten Chart. The chart has a really nice, diverse mix of new releases, including several homegrown Bay Area albums such as the Haight Street store's top selling rap album this week, GIft of Gab's Escape 2 Mars. This is the second official solo album release, a follow up to 2004's 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up, from the talented Quannum emcee. Gab is also is one half of Blackalicious (with Chief Xcel) and a founding member of Bay Area rap-supergroup The Mighty Underdogs (with Lateef the Truth Speaker of Latyrx and producer Headnodic of the Crown City Rockers). To help celebrate this new release, which hit Amoeba shelves on Tuesday, the much loved Bay Area MC did an Amoeba SF instore on the release day. "It was really cool and he [Gift of Gab] was awesome on the mic," reported Luis of Tuesday evening's free concert. The artist was joined onstage by Dnae Beats who produced Escape 2 Mars, which was released by Cornerstone Ras.

Since the release last week of Jason Bitner's engaging new book Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves, the St Martin's Griffin published, 212-page anthology of 60 short stories, has been striking a nerve with  readership of a certain age who can directly relate to and recall its pre-iPod subject matter: the bygone era of the homemade mixtape -- specifically mixtapes made to woo new crushes or love objects.

An image that pops into many minds would be the Rob Gordon character played by John Cusack in the  Stephen Frears directed film adapatation of Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity and his obsession with making the perfect mixtape, regardless of how long it took. Or as Shirley Manson of the group Garbage wrote for Cassette From My Ex's jacket cover, "Anyone who understands the obsessive attention to detail, the time it took to collate, select, and edit the content of a perfectly executed mix tape, or just someone who appreciated the rhythms and nuances of such extraordinary artifacts will treasure this collection of stories, comfortable and secure in the knowledge that such exquisite efforts were not made in vain and indeed there was a time when a humble cassette tape was perhaps the greatest gift of all."

For Cassette From My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves, Bitner, who is best known as a co-founder of the wonderful Found magazine series, compiled first-person essays about mixtapes fueled by crushes or love (some tragic, some hilarious, many in-between) written by sixty different writers, many of them journalists & musicians. Contributors include author Rick Moody, This American Life's Starlee Kine, The New Yorker's Ben Greenman, The Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, Improv Everywhere's Charlie Todd, Mortified's David Nadelberg, and former Rolling Stone writer and MTV2 veejay Jancee Dunn.