When Jason Drake — aka Cassettes Won’t Listen — dropped his debut Small-Time Machine last year, it was easy to see where his roots lied. Not just in his musical influences, which he displayed on a free covers EP called One Alternative, but also in his day-job doing marketing for Def Jux. That’s because what preceded and followed the release of Machine was a series of well-choreographed marketing tactics. In fact, for most of 2008, we were greeted with different ways to view Drake’s music. That is to say, everything but new material.
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Nothing can induce a potent combination of nostalgia and rage like the time-honored top 100 list. All the major music magazines have come out with at least one or two, and Rolling Stone has about a one-per-month quota. But this latest one comes from a slightly unlikely source — Amazon. Apparently they don’t just sell you music. They might actually know a little something about it, too. Maybe.
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