What can I say about 2005? It's been one of the happiest years of my entire life, a year filled with laughing and singing and pie and hitting people with chairs. All the things that warm the cockles of my heart, right down to the sub-cockle region, clear through the liver, and the spleen, and even the colon. Yeah.

As always, there are scores of hidden messages in both the titles and lyrics of the songs on what looks like the fourth annual Kwanzaa Mix CD, and as always I expect no one to really read this stuff. Anyhoo, here's the "liner notes" for this year's mix CD. If you want one and I haven't caught you to put one in your hand, holler and I'll try to hook you up. Here we go!

OH, HERE HE GO AGAIN ... (yeah, I did it, what?)

01) "Mahna, Mahna" by the Muppets
There was a Diet Dr. Pepper commercial this year that featured this song, and the first time I saw it I almost wet myself laughing. I later stumbled across this song on my iPod, and don't even remember the original bit from The Muppet Show in my childhood. It's just damned entertaining, and one of the many songs on my newly-minted "For Kids" playlist on my iPod (I spent a lot of 2005 with kids in my car, so I wanted music they could listen to that would be all right).

02) "She Wants To Move (Remix)" by N.E.R.D. featuring Common, De La Soul and Q-Tip
I love this record so much, and for so many reasons. The original was a dance classic, but when you add four of hip hop's finest lyricists ... Common gets the visuals, Pos and Dove do some hilarious metaphors and similes, and Q-Tip's last bit is one of my favorite hip hop lines of all time. Just a really amazingly well put together record, no matter how you slice it.

BACK IN MY DAY, WE CALLED IT A REMIX ... (an onslaught of mash-ups)

03) "1, 2 Jam On It" by Ciara (feat. Missy Elliot)
"Jam On It" was a dance classic of my youth, and when I first heard "1, 2 Step," it reminded me of the Hammer-pants dancing days of my high school heights. When mash-up mixers The Inhumanz did the damned thing, well, it just did it for me. A great find, and one that I love hearing in the car.

04) "Karmastition (Stevie Wonder Mash-Up)" by Alicia Keys
Another great find -- I was enjoying the Alicia Keys song "Karma," but the track was getting grating with mutiple plays. I've always loved the simple construction and driving drum and bass lines of "Superstition," but I've heard it so many times that it's not fresh any more. The solution? A mash-up! Now, again, when I was a kid and somebody would take one song's lyrics and lay it over another song's beat, that was just a remix. But "mash-ups" are often done for and by non-Black audiences, so perhaps a de-ethnicized term was needed for marketing purposes. I dunno. Anyway, another great driving song.

05) "Jacko Under Pressure (Queen/David Bowie Mash-Up)" by Michael Jackson
This year, despite me really not wanting to be involved, the Michael Jackson child molestation trial kept intruding into my life. I swear to you I don't care -- if he did it, if he didn't, none of that will pay for minutes on my phone or pour raspberry lemonade down my gullet. But everybody wanted to talk about it, everybody had an opinion, blah blah blah. Me, I like to sing -- my homeboy Craig and I often sing "Under Pressure" at karaoke bars (we even won money with it, heh) and hearing it so well mixed in with MJ's classic "Rock With You," well, that makes this whole sordid story a little easier to listen to.

06) "Caught Up Candy (Cameo Mash Up)" by Usher
This is, in my opinion, tied for the best mash-up I've ever heard (the other, "Boulevard of Broken Songs," would have probably been on here had I been more depressed this year. I might try and jam it on in 2006 just because it's so well done). The songs match up so well, and the meshing of Usher's and Cameo's vocals ... delightful! Driving, at work, dancing around my apartment -- there's no time this one doesn't work. I didn't even like the original song "Caught Up" that much, but mixing it with my favorite soul song of the 80s/90s? Hell yeah! This is just a great groove, no matter how you slice it.

Plus, I broke up with a girl I really liked this year, and she was a huge Usher fan, so this sometimes reminded me of the good times with her (you know, before she went nuts)

HIP HOP HIGHLIGHTS (because sometimes I rhyme slow, and sometimes I rhyme quick ...)

07) "Kiss Me And I'll Kiss You Back" by Digital Underground
I was driving around and listening to the new KDAY (is it just me, or do all urban music radio station websites pretty much look the same?) when this record came on, one I almost forgot existed, and I was like, "oh sh**!" No matter when I hear it, that opening drum roll gets me going. A fun song, with good arrangements and an amazing P-Funk sample, it's good mood music that's not made for suckas.

08) "Headaches and Woes" by Aceyalone featuring Onaje Murray
It was a rough choice between this song and another one with Acey, Freestyle Fellowship's "Everything" (which is a better song, and one of my all-time favorite hip hop songs). But they both well represented Los Angeles hip hop (not that gangsta stuff you think is LA hip hop) and has some perfect lines from Acey that I quote all the time, like "half are down when I get down/ the other half wanna see me fall." Add to the mix the vibraphone stylings of Mister Onaje "Magic" Murray, a Leimert Park legend in his own right (and not just for his zesty incense business), well, this would have to be the way for me to go. This year. I went through the struggle, even through my everpresent joy, so this represents (or is it "signifies?") that energy.

09) "The Corner" by Common featuring the Last Poets
Now that I have first-hand experience of the stories that happen between Stony and Cottage Grove, this song really resonates to me. But even when I first heard that hypnotic beat on the radio, played in one of the afternoon mix shows on Power, I was so into this. Like some of my poetry (I have a piece called "Dedication" in particular in mind, ask me about it sometimes), the stories of the every man in hip hop form are part of why Common is so important, helping to build hip hop as the culture people are always talking about, one rhyming couplet at a time. Yes, Kanye had a strong influence on this record, but I think Common and Kanye are like Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter -- two great talents that only made each other better. Also full of quotes here, as "we write songs about wrong 'cause it's hard to see right!" Yeah!

THE CHANGE UP (is it really a "whiplash mix" if I give you a warning?)

10) "Meanwhile ..." by Terence Trent D'Arby
I know that some fans of the artist currently known as Sananda Matreya will be like, "hey, where's 'Who's Loving' You?'" I know, it's a tease of sorts. I just needed a pivot musically to explore some other stuff. So this snippet. Whee. Plus, it's kind of got that comic book sensibility you know I love so much ...

WHAT IS WITH YOU AND THE WHITE MUSIC, MAN? (my name is Hannibal Tabu, and I like modern rock and pop)

11) "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers
The secondary refrain of "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier" is well known to even non-rock fans, but the Killers burst all over the scene with a slew of hit singles and a really interesting album. I think it was columnist Bill Simmons who first compared their sound to the non-sensical lyrics of MTV-era '80s music, and I concur. There's parts of even this song that make no sense, and it doesn't matter -- it's good, fun music. A lot of songs this year are stuff I love to hear when driving, and this one is no exception -- howling out the lyrics while flying north on La Brea is the joint, yo.

12) "Look What You've Done" by Jet
The first arguable downbeat of the mix, and a song I've started singing at karaoke bars. I first saw the very strange video on VH1 at the apartment of the aforementioned breakup, and now it reminds me of "oh, yeah, she went nuts." It's amazing that this is the same group that did "Are You Gonna Be My Girl," but it's true. Anyway, I had a break up, that should be represented here despite the fact that I am so moved on from it. Right, then.

13) "Lost Girl" by Dana Walker
In my annual "oh, and by the way, one of my good friends is a musical genius" spot, this is the song that I feel will be the first "hit" for Dana when she overcomes her overwhelming shyness and goes on to be a big rock star. Dana has become a really great friend to me, proving that a guy and a girl can be "just friends" as long as they are in no way attracted to one another (although we've both remarked that if I looked like Colin Farrell or she looked like Gabrielle Union, things might have turned out differently). Anyway, I have a major jones for piano lines and this song has a brilliant one. The key change is sweeping and majestic. The sentiment is tender and wonderful ... just an all around great song, and one that has been languishing in her possession too long, so now you can hear how good she is like I get to almost every week.

14) "Clarity" by John Mayer
After dropping out of my consciousness for months, this soul shuffle jam came back with a vengeance around the time I saw Rent (which is so good). This moment can't last forever, it's not supposed to. Yeah. Add the funky drum line, some fun wah-wah horns, and a vocal range that's very near mine for most of the song, and you've got something I'm gonna wanna jam to.

15) "Woman" by Maroon 5
Since Stevie Wonder doesn't actually sing, I'm calling this the first return artist from last year. This little gem is from the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack, and has all the neo-soul-meets-alt-rock funk of the group that's made them popular with a surprisingly large number of Black listeners. It's also indicative of a story starting on the south side of some city, but that's subtext and not right for this discussion ...

16) "High Speed" by Coldplay
Yes, Coldplay is rapidly becoming my favorite band, what of it? I like a lot of their stuff, but this was kind of a floaty departure from a lot of the rest of their stuff, and the runs he does right before the chorus reminded me of riffs I've added to other Coldplay songs I do. Plus, this ties in to the last story, but again, subtext. Great music to just chill out with, at any time, and I had no hesitation in bringing them back (although I did kind of have some ideas about some songs from the current album, but this one just wouldn't let me go).

HANG ON, IT'S GONNA BE A BUMPY RIDE ... (you can actually listen to my voice, so look grateful)

17) "Cab Ride" by Tweet
If you spent any time in the latter part of the year listening to the Stevie Wonder-owned KJLH then you probably heard this amazing song, sampling Bob James' "Angela's Song," which became the theme song for the sitcom Taxi (which, some may be old enough to remember, gave us Danny Devito, Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd Andy Kaufmann and made lots of guys horny for the then-bombshell Marilu Henner). I swear, this comes on in the car and I feel like I could drive forever. I've been saying for some time that her pop-inflected associations with Missy Elliot don't represent who she is, and Tweet is an amazingly soulful singer with so much expression, in a more skillful Mary J. Blige kind of way. Plus, I like the idea of a woman so determined to get to her guy. That pleases me.

18) "Street Spirit" by Radiohead
Without Radiohead, there would be no Coldplay, and even Coldplay's Chris Martin talked about some of the influences Radiohead has had on his group. Anyway, my homeboy Mikey De Lara from Sleeper City (formerly Mailbot, formerly Cockeysville) turned me on to them, and despite the fact that I sometimes wish the vocals were more crisp, and that I have no idea what they're talking about sometimes, I love this song and consider it one of my two favorites to sing as themes for myself (with last year's "The Scientist" by Coldplay as the first). Simply haunting.

19) "Refuge (It's Cold Outside)" by John Legend
Sometimes I get an idea on how a video should be, like I did for this one -- three rows of John Legends, digitally duplicated, nodding admiringly to one another in rhythm while a "lead" John Legend paces and sings in front of them -- that it dominates the way I hear it. Anyway, this song is another freeway classic, and I sing it quite loudly in the car. It is cold outside, but it doesn't matter, because I have so much in my wonderful life and person that I almost freaking radiate. True, what I have inside that keeps me warm is sometimes bile and hatred, but sometimes it's not! I've heard complaints that all the songs on his album sound the same, pitched in the same key and without much variance. Maybe. This one I love, though, whereas I'll admit I don't remember many of them. It's a good album to just let play, though.

20) "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sinatra
Last minute addition -- I used to work for Hollywood Karaoke, and one of the owners, Pete, would often get booked to do private gigs where he'd sing Sinatra songs. He loved doing it -- he'd skip out on his real job to do these gigs sometimes -- and I ended up learning a bunch of Sinatra material through osmosis. Sinatra's voice is very close to mine, and he doesn't work very hard, so I can clean up on a lot of his songs. This one in particular I have a lot of fun with, as my ending is way more grandiose than his, and I've gotten tons of compliments on it. Shoot, I should have recorded that and had it for this CD. Maybe next year. Anyway, fun song, and it kind of ties in to the earlier story.

21) "Helena" by My Chemical Romance
I normally avoid videos for two reasons: first, I always thought that they messed up my ability to listen to music, unfairly altering my perceptions of things. The second, of course, is because I don't have cable. But I was in San Diego this year on my annual trip (which I will miss in 2006 for the first time in what feels like ever) and in the hotel, watching MTV. This song comes on, and it's so ill and so loud and so messed up that I instantly fell in love with it. The goth imagery only helped. So I sing it loud in the car (with its driving beat it's fantastic for long stretches of road, but too high for me to do at karaoke -- learned that the hard way) and thought it would be a perfect last song for this year, "so long and good night, so long, and good night ..."

THE NEXT VOICE YOU HEAR ... (you can actually listen to my voice, so look grateful)

22) "CEOutro" by Russell Simmons
Making its triumphant return (now that my external drive is back in working order).

23) "Professor Frink's Tom Foolery" from The Simpsons
"That monkey's gonna pay ..." What more needs to be said?

A little on the vague side, but it is what it is. I'm still not really sure about the order in the "bumpy ride" section, but the holiday loomed, and it had to get done. All the songs are right, at least, even though I had to leave off some really great stuff, like "I'm Ready" by Tracy Chapman (too dour) and this great thing from Xzibit's last album. Always next year, though!

Missing something? Can't figure something out? Ask, and thou shalt receive.