Rap music is forever turning out to be a fun influence on things we'd least expect. When your grandmother starts using terms like "turn up," you realize that there is no getting away from it.

Even the creative and artsy folk over at Etsy.com combine their passion for crafts with their admiration of hip-hop. Here are a few of the best, and funniest, Etsy items showing love to rap music.

10. Hand-Embroidered '90s Rap Towels
Another gift idea for the perfect hip-hop homemaker is the set of for beautifully hand-embroidered towels featuring rap legends made by Laurel in LA. The set includes towels with the faces of Tupac, Biggie, Coolio and Snoop Dogg.

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Photo by Jeff Balke

I could sit here and write paragraphs about my appreciation of Geddy Lee. He was the first true influence I had as a bass player when I was in high school. For years after, I admired not just his talent as a musician, but his ability to improve and grow. He is also underrated for how great a "rock" musician he is, since he is often lumped in with more artsy prog-rock acts of the '70s.

Now that Rush is finally being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today, it seems only fitting to count down the best rock bass players in the Hall now that he is entering. It most definitely shifts the order around, but is he the king of the Hall?

(Please note that, with all due respect to the brilliance of players like James Jamerson, "Duck" Dunn and Larry Graham, I'm sticking with rock music for my list)

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Photo by Creative Commons Wikipedia

Damn it!! They are always sold out of Hall and Oates!!

A solid album, to me, is what I have dubbed a "Front-to-Back." I have two definitions for Front-to-Backs: 1) albums that are structured to listen to as an entire piece of artwork (like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, or Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea); and 2) albums that are full of amazing work, allowing you to not have to, or want to, skip songs (some that come to mind are Weezer's "Blue Album" and Pinkerton and the Stones' Let it Bleed).

Under those definitions, I do not believe that many bands make solid albums anymore. However, of those that do, even these albums are often not heard beyond their most popular tracks.

Right now, the vast majority of music that reaches the general public in full-length format is structured around two or three (or worse, just one) songs that are manufactured to be radio singles. When these singles are extracted, what remains is often forgettable filler and garbage.

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Wikipedia Commons

Do you have the moves that Jagger used on Bowie?

I don't like these songs. I feel it's ridiculous that hundreds of thousands of people actually paid out money and drove them to the top of the Billboard charts. While they might not necessarily be the absolute worst examples of the lowest common denominator's purchasing power, they quickly came to mind as times when a large group of people decided to reward inauthenticity and inanity or indulged in the lowest of lows.

I'd say "it's fine if you don't agree with me, you can't force me to listen to them," but I am being forced to listen these songs. They're in commercials, they're playing as I'm stuck in line at CVS, they're pitch-shifted to come out of the Chipmunks' mouths.

My only recourse is to grow angry at their general acceptance, resent the smugness with which they are revered, and complain about them here.

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Dylan Oliphant via Flickr

Nothing earns an musician instant street cred quite like a night or two in the pokey. It's basically a rite of passage -- a guarantee that if you sign up for the public eye, you will, indeed, screw it up at least once in order to delight us with your antics.

From the likes of good ol' boys like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash to rock legends like Paul McCartney, it's easy to name the artists who've done short stints in the grey-bar hotel. Every once in a while, though, an artist will jump the proverbial gun and make an ill-advised leap from lowly misdemeanor to hardcore felony, all with one swift kick of someone else's ass.

Instead of seeing an increase in record sales, these artists get to see the inside of a prison cell for the next, oh, three or so years. Because mugshots are awesome, here's a list of the top ten artists I was surprised to see as members of the hard-time club. (Rick James is not on this list for obvious reasons, y'all. We all saw that coming a mile away.)

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Photo by Groovehouse

There's nothing quite as soul-crushing as a disappointing concert. We've all been there; shit rolls downhill the minute the dude behind you dumps his beer on your girl's shoes, or the security bro doesn't find your umpteenth "Freebird" request to be quite as funny as you did. It'll ruin the night with one swift flick of the handcuffs.

I'm not talking about those times, though; it's your own fault if your Chihuahua bark bites off more than you can chew. I'm talking about the kind of soul-crushing that happens when you're all jacked for the concert, making your descent down I-45 hell, and you're met with an utterly mundane concert.

It's the same set list as last year, the same theatrics and the same crappy covers. Foghat sure can be disappointing, can't they?

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Today the Internet is awash with song suggestions to help you get your honeys into a sexin' mood, but I've collected some stories from completely real people that I in no way made up to serve as a warning that your Valentine's playlist has got to be foolproof.

I've chosen four to prove that with one wrong note, and your VD date could go from sweet to sour. So, just try to avoid these while you're making your mix.

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Solly Darling via Wikipedia

Liam Gallagher is a literary genius.

Yes, I said it. And I won't take it back.

But wait. Don't start typing out your "Beady Eye sucks and their album tanked" rant just yet. I can explain.

I say this based not on Liam's musical prowess but on his inane ability to drop pearls of bitchy wisdom aimed at the likes of everyone from UK football star Wayne Rooney to the Scissor Sisters, while managing to keep the press interested in his work with a band that has thus far, well, sucked.

His liquid-gold rants are any reporter's wet dream, and have managed to create a cult following for the former Oasis front man that has extended well past his musical glory days.

If Liam Gallagher could write lyrics like he slings out bitchy potshots, Beady Eye would be a huge commercial success. But he doesn't, and it's not.

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Last week back in 1957, the most famous rock club in England opened in Liverpool. There was absolutely no rock and roll on the bill that night.

The Cavern Club was originally opened to mimic the cellar jazz bars that owner Alan Synter visited in Paris. There was a strict jazz-only policy in place while he owned the joint. The room itself was underground, having served previously as a wine cellar and a wartime air-raid shelter.

The club's first taste of rock and roll came in August 1957, when a gang of local punks known as the Quarrymen were booked to play skiffle tunes -- an inexplicably popular musical fad of the day. Quarrymen guitarist John Lennon decided to spice things up with a cover of Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel," prompting a note from Synter: "Cut out the bloody rock and roll."

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Forty-six years ago this week, British blues-rockers Cream unveiled their debut album, Fresh Cream, one of the most deeply influential rock and roll records of all time.

The original supergroup, the band was intended to unite the "cream" of the late-'60s British blues scene, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar, Ginger Baker on drums and Jack Bruce on bass. Each was already a rock star in his own right across the pond, and the release of Fresh Cream helped mightily to shove the genre in a thunderous new direction.

Though thoroughly steeped in the blues, Fresh Cream (and the material that would follow) was heavier and more psychedelic than Robert Johnson's most hellish nightmares. Powered by Baker's explosive pounding and the most deafening amplifiers of the day, Cream pioneered a stomping, virtuosic and unabashedly loud version of rock that would go on to inform the histrionic wailing of early metal bands including Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

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