When everyone recognizes the wonderful talent out there and shares their own favorites, that makes everyone a winner. I know that may sound cliche, but it’s the truth. There were many comment threads that discussed albums some people knew little about and only because of these discussions did they try those CD’s. We want to thank our writers and of course our guest writers for taking the time to share their own personal favorites with us.

We did have an unfortunate attempt at vote rigging and the numbers were adjusted based on these fraudulent votes. We spent many days going over each IP and each vote and we consulted with an expert who advised us as well.  Below are all the winners, you can see the final numbers by clicking here.

Once again, thank you for voting and we can’t wait to be a part of this again next year, most probably hosted on another website, but don’t worry, our writers will of course give their favorites there as well!

• JM Blogger Awards: Kol Isha
• JM Blogger Awards: JM Derech
• JM Blogger Awards: YK’s Picks
• JM Blogger Awards: The Real Shliach
• JM Blogger Awards: ShmuliPhoto
• JM Blogger Awards: Life of Rubin
• JM Blogger Awards: Jewish Insights
• JM Blogger Awards: Mendel the Sheichet
• JM Blogger Awards: Mindy the Jewish Music  Maven & Bukin86
• JM Blogger Awards: JMMaven
• JM Blogger Awards: Jewish Blogmeister, Jacob Da Jew, Jewish Music 26, TcK

This is my first year participating in the Jewish Music Blogger Awards, and I am honored to have been asked to voice my opinions.

Since I didn’t volunteer them though, I take no blame for anything. :)

Best Album: This one’s a hard one. I enjoyed Yaakov Shwekey’s Ad Bli Dai album a lot, and while it didn’t take my life over initially, like it did to a lot others, Benny Friedman’s album Taamu has been growing on me. I also just got my hands on Shloime Kaufman’s Avodas Tzedaka, and I enjoyed the few tracks that I heard from Miami’s Yovo. However, I’m going to have to give the award to Mordechai Ben David’s Kulam Ahuvim album. After some people were saying that the King was past his prime, he came out with an amazing, fresh sounding album that had some amazing arrangements and compositions. It’s not necessarily easy to release an album that “goes with the times” after having released numerous other albums years before some of the current generation of singers was born, but MBD (and Yeedle) sure did it well with this album.

As some other writers have done, I’m going to give the honorable mention to Yaakov Shwekey’s Ad Bli Dai. I don’t think it got as much attention as it deserved, and I enjoyed a lot of the compositions and arrangements on the album.

I also enjoyed Baruch Levine’s Touched by a Niggun album immensely – while it’s a different style, and maybe doesn’t fit into the same category as the other albums released, it was an amazing album in its own right which I don’t think got the attention it deserved.

Best Song: I think a best song is not defined as what people are singing now, but what people will still be singing in a year from now. There aren’t that many songs like that – I think Yossi Green’s Anovim and Baruch Levine’s Vezakeini were a few that fall into that category from the recent years. So according to my definition of best song, I’m going to have to go with Yaakov Shwekey/Yonatan Razel’s Vehi Sheamda. It took the world by storm since it appeared on Caesaria, and now, almost a year later, it is still being sung all over.

Best Debut Album: There were a lot of solid debut albums released this year. I listened to most of them, but the one that I really enjoyed was Yosef Chaim’s Lo Lefached. The songs and arrangements were very solid, and the album was done very well.
Honorable mention goes to Benny Friedman’s album Taamu, with Berri Weber’s Bezras Hashem close behind, both of which I enjoyed a lot.

Best Arrangement: This category definitely is a matter of opinion, and I didn’t pay attention to all the songs like I should have. But the song that won me over from the start was definitely MBD’s Kulam Ahuvim, arranged by Mona Rosenblum. It had a fresh new sound, and the way the song was arranged and came together just blew me over.
For the honorable mention, I’m going with a song not on the list – Baruch Levine’s Touched by a Niggun, arranged by Yanky Briskman. The way the song and words fit together, spanning different keys and tempos, I think it was an amazing piece of work.

Best Boys Choir: (wow – there are a lot of choirs around :) ), I’m not going to pick one, since I haven’t really listened to all the albums. I heard a few songs each from Sheves Chaveirim , Miami Yovo, and YBC’s Shmoy, but not enough to judge and compare the overall albums.

Best English Song: I heard most of the songs, so I feel competent enough to state my choices. I’m going to give the best English song award to Baruch Levine’s Piano Boy. I enjoyed the song and the music a lot, but the message and meaning in the song was very powerful, and pushed it over the top.
Honorable mention for this category goes to Miami’s Me’im Hashem – I didn’t listen to the whole album, but that one song I listened to a few times. The music and words just drew me in. I also enjoyed Shua Kessin’s Generations a lot – the words and arrangement came together very nicely.

Best Yiddish Song: I haven’t heard all of them, and on a lot of CD’s I won’t have the patience to listen to the Yiddish songs, but the one that grabbed me was MBD’s Moidim. It also helped a lot that I read the CD booklet, and understand the message of the song, and the story behind it.

Best Concert DVD: I honestly only watched one of them in full, and I really enjoyed that one a lot – Ohel 5770. The whole way the show was integrated, with the video and music coming together, really had me enthralled. I also saw a few pieces of the Event 5769 DVD, and the Hasc 22 DVD, and enjoyed the parts I saw.

And as an added bonus, I hereby award the Best Marketed Album award to Benny Friedman’s Taamu – the way Benny and Sruly Meyer used viral marketing to get the album out there was just amazing, and I believe unmatched by any other album.

I also just wanted to mention the Kumzing CD/DVD –I didn’t see the full DVD – all I saw was the one song that was up online, but I have the CD, and I just loved the way they set up the whole show, and got the whole audience (the Bachurim) involved. And a Kumzitz album doesn’t always go over so well, never mind a Kumzitz DVD, but again, judging from the music, they did this one right.

Thanks again to JMR for hosting the awards for this year, and Kol Isha for coordinating the whole thing, editing the reviews and for reminding (threatening? :) ) me to get my write up in.

Looking forward to another year of amazing Jewish Music!!

JMMaven

Jewish Blogmeister’s Picks

Best Album: Taamu -  Benny Friedman.

Best Song: V’hi Sheamda – Yaakov Shwekey. Solid song with excellent arrangements and a fantastic bridge.

Best Debut Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman

Best Yiddish Song: Emes – Benny Friedman. Emes is one of the best songs in a while. It features r&b hip hop flavor with great lyrics and a fantastic arrangement.  It’s not over the top and it gets the point across.

Jewish Blogmeister

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Jacob Da Jew’s Picks

Jewish Music 26

TcK’s Picks

Before I even start, let me  say this.  Picking winners  was unbelievably difficult because from a musical perspective, 2009 was a VERY good year.  While it is easy to vote anonymously in a website poll, it is much harder to publicly state my preferences, when I know so many of the people involved.  Suffice it to say that while there can only be one “best” in each category, I loved just about every song and album that was nominated for these awards.

Best Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman. No contest here.  While Kulam Ahuvim proved that Mordechai Ben David is still the reigning king of Jewish music and is more than capable of keeping up with the “youngsters”,  Taamu was a rock-solid album, top to bottom.  Kulam Ahuvim was very, very good.  Taamu was even better.  Every song was a winner and Benny Friedman is THE man to look out for in the years to come.  A tremendous yasher koach to not just Benny, but the entire team that made this album the runaway success that it is.  I won’t embarrass any of you by singling you out by name.  You know how you are.

Best Song: How am I supposed to pick just one?    B’Inyan Hasimcha is a crazy lyrical delight and proves that either MBD still has his finger on the pulse of Jewish music or is smart enough to surround himself with people who do.  V’hi Sheamda?  While the Shwekey V version is not as good as the one on Live in Caesaria,   there is no question that this song became an instant classic.  Both of Benny Friedman’s contributions in this category are fresh, innovative and so well done.   I love Letova so much, both lyrically and musically, that every time it comes on in my car, I put it on repeat.  Over and over again.  Modim by Shloime Taussig?  Love it.  And you expect me to pick just one?

I’m sorry.  I can’t do it.    I am going to have to proclaim this one a tie.  I have to vote for V’hi Sheamda, because in twenty years you will still be hearing people singing this song at weddings and trying to make it fit into Kedusha on Shabbos morning.  But Letova is the song that won my heart.  It is so good that not only do we all walk around the house singing it, but it is the ringer on my cell phone.

Best Debut Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman. It is so rare that a debut album is so consistently solid, where every single song is good.  Think about some of the top names in Jewish music today.  Their debut albums had only a handful of good songs, but it was enough to propel them to stardom.  The only other debut album I can think of off the top of my head where every song was a winner was Shloime Gertner’s Nissim.

Taamu has it all.  Great songs, great arrangements and most of all, Benny’s golden voice.   But that’s only part of the package.   If you ever have the privilege of meeting Benny, you will find out that he is sweet, eidel and temimusdik.  This guy has it all.  Watch him climb to the top of the Jewish music ladder very, very quickly.

Best Arrangement: Every single song in this category is worthy of bearing the title “Best Arrangment”.    Going alphabetically, Mo Kiss’ Az Yashir transports you to another time and place and positively rocks.  Shua Kessin’s Bye Bye Bye, is a great song and fun to sing along with, especially when you get to “l’shmay may may may may kadisha yakira”.  Kulam Ahuvim?  A worthy title track to a very strong album.  No Lyrics?  Bizarre name to a wilder than wild song that still manages not to cross the line.  And there just aren’t enough words for to describe just how much I love the cheerful Yovo, which is arranged to perfection.

If I have to pick just one song, it is going to have to be the one that I find myself putting on repeat in the car, turning the volume all the way up and setting the bass so far up that the windows actually vibrate.  The song?  Benny Friedman’s No Lyrics, the song that defies logic and explanation.  It is a niggun that is unlike any other out there.  The arrangement on this killer song takes you to a place that is almost dark, almost dangerous, yet  somehow never evolves into something I wouldn’t want my kids to listen to.   No question, in a category full of unbelievably good songs, No Lyrics stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Boys Choir  Album: Given that I have close personal ties to one of these choirs, there is no way I can vote objectively in this category and I am going to have to sit this one out.  A good thing, too as there are a few very serious contenders here.  Each choir has it’s own unique sound and this would have been a very difficult decision for me.

Best English Song: This one easily goes to innovative newcomer Shua Kessin and his song Generations.   If you think coming up with a hit song is hard, it is even harder when you don’t have the timeless words of Dovid Hamelech’s Tehillim to fall back on.  An English song done right, is a very rare gem and they are few and far between.   This song showcased Kessin’s voice and there was  something about it that really appealed to me.  Honorable mention to Miami Boys Choir’s Me’im Hashem.  What makes this song great is that the music doesn’t go quite where you expect it to and the words don’t either, taking this  song to a whole new level.

Best Yiddish Song: Emes – Benny Friedman. It’s not that I love Benny’s album so much that I am voting straight Benny.  It’s that even though I didn’t understand 85% of the lyrics to this song, it still worked for me.  So while the language barrier generally kills Yiddish songs for me, this time it didn’t.  And that tells me this song is a winner.  Honorable mention to Shua Kessin’s Baiten, five minutes and seven seconds of musical fun!

Best Concert DVD: I wish I had had the opportunity to see all these DVDs so that I could make an educated choice in this category.   Based on what I have seen so far from my fellow bloggers I can only say this:  while concert DVDs are a good way for the general public to catch concerts they missed, I don’t know that people are buying tons of them. Do concert DVDs make money?  I don’t know.  I am guessing they do or we wouldn’t be seeing so many of them.  Personally?  I love them.  $25 for an entire family to see a concert?  Sounds reasonable.  Throw in the idea that everyone can watch in their pjs, sing along, and get up and dance? Sounds like a great deal to me!

Mendel’s Picks
JewishInsights Picks
LifeOfRubin’s Picks
ShmuliPhoto’s Picks
TheRealShliach’s Picks
YK JMusic Forum’s Picks
JM Derech’s Picks

Best Album: Avodas Tzedaka -  Shloime Kaufman. For me, Shloime had the best mix of singers on his album. I get tired of hearing the same voice after a while, which is why I’m partial to groups over solo artists. He had Baruch Levine, Abie, A.K.A. Pella & Pruz. I can’t get enough of Kol Hamekayeim still.

Best Song: B’inyan Hasimcha -  Mordechai Ben David. MBD & Aaron Razel took singing up a notch with this song. Their combined vocals, with beautiful harmonies made for song of the year easily.

Best Debut Album: Benny Friedman – Taamu. No question here. Benny rocked everyone’s world with his debut album. His sweet vocals combined with masterfully arranged songs gives him best debut album ever.

Best Arrangement: Yovo (Miami Boys Choir) -Yerachmiel Begun. Begun tweaked Yovo to perfection. Clearly he spent more energy on this song then he did on the rest of the album.

Boys Choir  Album: Yeshiva Boys Choir –   Shmoy. Shmoy was not beyond amazing, however it has some great songs which outdid songs on the other albums by far.

Best English Song: The Piano Boy – Baruch Levine. This was a tough choice. I really liked Finally Here and Generations as well, but Baruch Levine had the best meaning to his song and his voice made this pick an easier choice.

Best Yiddish Song: I didn’t like any of them.

Best Concert DVD: Never saw them, but Fried’s looked the best.

JM Derech

Mendel’s Picks
JewishInsights Picks
LifeOfRubin’s Picks
ShmuliPhoto
TheRealShliach
YK JMusic Forum

Best Album: Benny Friedman’s Taamu.

Best Song: Yaakov Shwekey’s V’hi She’amda.

Best Debut Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman.

Best Arrangement: Benny Friedman’s No Lyrics

Best Yiddish Song: Benny Friedman’s Emes.
Firstly, I would like to thank JMR for hosting this year’s awards, with a special mention to Kol Isha for organizing everything. Also, I would like to thank the fellow bloggers who joined this project, and I hope we can to continue to work together in the future.

Now my picks. 2008 was the year of Yossi Green’s 8th Note and last year’s awards reflected that quite well. I believe 2009 is the year of Benny Friedman, and my personal picks reflect that as well. Taamu is my choice for Best Debut and Best Album; No Lyrics is my pick for Best Arrangement (credit to Ian Freitor, one of the best arrangers out there today) and Emes for Best Yiddish Song. This is perhaps the best debut singer I’ve seen in many years, surpassing the recent debuts of Shloimy Gertner, Gabay, Yosef Chaim and others. I don’t mean to belittle these debuts, they actually brought us great singers and good music, but Benny Friedman is what I call a “star package”. He has a distinctive, cheery voice, he has charisma, he is not afraid to innovate and he has a great production and marketing team supporting him. This combination is rare in JM today and for this reason Taamu will get most of my nominations.

However, it will not get the Best Song of 2009 Award from me. I really like all the songs from Taamu but Shwekey’s V’hi Sheamda has something more to it and it is my Best Song of 2009 nomination. This song has a lot in common with 2008′s Best Song – Anovim, which was also released in a concert. Even though Anovim was not really a new song, it was awarded the nomination of Best Song, and although I prefer the live version of V’hi Sheamda rather than Shwekey’s version, I think we should be consistent and give this song the credit it deserves. And most of the credit should go to Razel, who composed and arranged this song, and who was clever enough to let Shwekey make this song popular in Cesarea.

I will copy LifeofRubin and I will make an “honorable mention” to another song – Batuach Ani from Taamu. This is actually Benny Friedman’s favorite song of his album, and I couldn’t agree more. This is a very complex song and it’s really hard to sing it (don’t expect to hear it in weddings and kumzitzs) and if we would have the Most Innovative Song of 2009 award, this song would surely win.

I will not choose any song for Best English Song, since I didn’t hear anything worthy of it, and I will not choose the Best Boys Choir album, since my ears retired from listening this kind of albums a long time ago. I only saw one concert DVD this year so I can’t say if it’s better or worse than the rest.

YK’s Music Blog

Mendel’s Picks
JewishInsights Picks
LifeOfRubin’s Picks
ShmuliPhoto
TheRealShliach

Best Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman. Not even close. This album is great for a couple reasons, notably because Benny’s voice is extraordinary (have any one else singing most of these songs and they’re “nice”, but not brilliant) and the song selection is so good (have Benny sing any other songs and his star does not shine so brightly…). It’s this truly superb combination of Benny’s voice and the album’s composition that really blew me away, and that made this my album of the year. Heck, has there ever been another album that referenced Likkutei Sichos in the liner notes? Awesome!

Best Song: Yaavducha – Benny Friedman. Sure, this song is on Benny’s album, and it’s mainly sung by him, but its true genius lies in the collaborative effort that produced it. The Marcus Brothers have really nice voices, and hearing them together with Benny is a treat. Add to that this song, which is like a combo Carlebach on acid without the stress, and you’ve got a sure-fire winner. Seriously, I could listen to this song all day (I’ve done it a couple time) and not get sick- it’s sweeter and cuter than the sweetest and cutest (insert one of several Shlomo lines here), with another tang to keep it fresh for a long time.

Best Debut Album: Bezras Hashem – Beri Weber. Does this even make sense? How can it be that the best album of the year, the first album that the artist ever made, is not the debut album of the year? My only possibly excuse is that I’ve been listening to Benny sing for so long (we did both grow up in Minnesota) and so feel that he’s really not so new at all. Besides, I listened to Beri’s album obsessively until Taamu came out, and it’s really excellent. Maybe not so incredibly polished, but the song selection is really nice, especially the slow ones.

Best arrangement: No Lyrics (Benny Friedman) – Ian Freitor. Can there be any question? The instant kumzitz classic for the next decade.

Best Yiddish Song: Yiddish Medley – Avraham Fried. Yes, I loved Benny’s Emes, and the combo of Rabbi Manis Friedman and Lipa Schmeltzer is like a dream come true, but there’s something about a Chabad Niggun that really affects a person, really makes them think about what’s going on, where they’re coming from and where they’re headed to. The opener was of course redone several years ago by 8th Day, and that was nice, but the original Lubavitch melody really takes you places.

Best Concert DVD: Avraham Fried – Live in Israel. If Avraham Fried were to never make another album (not that I’m Ch”V suggesting something like that), I think this concert would be a fine retrospective of his long and distinguished career. Working through all the classics, with much higher sound quality than the originals, this album also showcases several new (for Avremel) songs, notably Rak Tefila, Unesane Tokef, and the truly beautiful and moving Mishehu Holech Tamid Iti. There’s also the classic Ribbono Shel Olam in a duet with Dudu Fisher, which shows much the same thing as Avremel’s duets with Yitzchok Meir Helfgot showed at Hasc a couple years back- he may not be a chazzan, but he’s still got one of the best voices in Jewish music.

The Real Shliach

Mendel’s Picks
JewishInsights Picks
LifeOfRubin’s Picks
ShmuliPhoto

ShmuliPhoto’s faves of the year.

Best Album: Taamu - Benny Friedman.   The best album goes to Benny, who for sure lived up to the hype that came along with the pre-release of his debut album. I have seen Benny sing years ago when I was in Yeshiva inTzafed, where he used to copy his uncle Avraham Fried, but in his new alum he takes the familiarity we have with Avraham Fried mixes it with his own personality, and voila, an amazing album!

Best Song: Letova – Benny Friedman. Although I love the other songs in this selection, and I do think that the Vehi She’amda is an amazing song (and maybe I would have picked that song over this one if not for…) but with the Letova track I feel more of a connection.   this connection could also be because I have gotten to know Benny with his amazing personality.

Best Debut Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman. Well, this one should be obvious from my two previous picks… but my second pick would be Berry Weber’s Be’ezras Hashem, which is also a solid album. And #3 would be going to Shloime Taussig’s debut album.

Best Arrangement: skipping this one if you don’t mind ;)

Boys Choir Album:  Kol Noar Boys Choir. This was an amazingly refreshing new album, that has brought many new styles to Jewish music. Mo Kiss Did an amazing job to give us a fresh choir.  I look forward to a new album from this choir.

Best Yiddish Song: Emes – Benny Friedman. A song that has great happy rhythm that you don’t hear that often in Yiddish songs. When I heard that there was going to be a Yiddish song on Benny’s album, I was thinking that we’re getting an other slow song, but I was pleasantly surprised when I heard this song, that has a great message for life.

Best Concert DVD: I’m not a big fan of watching a concert on DVD, since it is very hard to capture the feel of a live concert on video, however it can bring back a memory from being at a concert, therefore I will not select a favorite. I was present at The Big E’vent, but dont think the DVD brings back the same feel of being there, becuase it was the crowd that brought that atmosphere.

Mendel’s Picks
JewishInsights Picks
LifeOfRubin’s Picks

Best Album: Taamu -  Benny Friedman. Undisputed, the best and most original album easily in the last 5 years or so. Add to that his amazing vocals and the production, its no question that Benny will be a BIG contender in JM in the years to come.

Best Song: V’hi Sheamda -  Yaakov Shwekey. This song has made waves in the short time that it was released. Yonatan’s composition is so honest and soul stirring that one can’t help but LOVE this song, no matter who is singing  it . :)

Best Debut Album: Benny Friedman – Taamu. Not much more I can say. This is the kind of thing where everyone will be saying the same thing, because we all know this album ROCKED!

Best Arrangement: Kulam Ahuvim (Mordechai Ben David) – Mona Rosenblum. Mona is just the undisputed master arranger. He took a pretty basic melody and added all these elements that just blended and gave the song so much more flavor.

Boys Choir  Album: Miami  Boys Choir – Yovo. I happen to be a fan of the other groups in this category. In all honesty I have to give it up to Yerachmiel for a really great comeback. The material is all great, the songs are all singable and the production is what we’ve come to expect from him over the years.

Best English Song: Sunshine in the Rain – Shloime Kaufman. Hands down. Writing and singing a GOOD english song is extremely hard. The lyrics on this song aren’t cheesy or weak. Add to that the amazing message of the song and the vocals, its English song Gan Eden. (This response is for both the a capella and all star cast versions.)

Best Yiddish Song: Mein Kind, Tref Mich – Michoel Schnitzler. Michoel is the king of the Yiddish language (after Lipa). The arrangements and setup of this song was so interesting. Having Rivi Schwebel starting the song with a chasidisshe accent and going into the track it just gets you going. Yet again you have a great message in a song that people can relate to. The music and Michoel’s vocals just tie it up into one neat beautiful package.

Best Concert DVD: Avraham Fried Live in Israel. I was honestly going to say Kumzing. I think what they did was a great idea and people loved it. In my eyes Avremel will always be number one. His DVD was flawless. Oldies and newbies together, Dudu Fisher doing a duet and Avremel going at it on the bongos, this has it all. The choir and orchestra blew me away and the editing was really nice. Some of the other products that came out this year, the editing just wasn’t up to par and barely had any bonus content. If customers will be paying $25 plus for a DVD we want more! :)

Jewish Insights

“Who shined in ’09?”

Mendel the Sheichet’s faves of the year.

Best Album: Kulam Ahuvim – Mordechai Ben David. For this category I have to go with MBD’s Kulam Ahuvim. Yeedle’s spunky, fresh style and great ear for catchy tunes along with MBD’s still amazing voice and ta’am really do it for me. Coupled with superb attention to detail on everything from recording quality to the mix and master, for me this is the clear winner by a good few laps.

Best Song: B’inyan Hasimcha – Mordechai Ben David. For the best song I have to go with B’inyan Hasimcha. Beyond how well the duet works, this song is just an instant “pick-me-up”. From the lyrics, melody and arrangement to A. Razel’s fun vocs – this song just has all the elements that can turn your day around faster than a Florida real estate market crash.

Best Debut Album: Taamu – Benny Friedman. While many great artists debuted this year, I think Benny Friedman takes the cake, as he and the production team skillfully display that the bar is being raised if you want to make it in the tough Jewish music market of today. Despite the ever growing epidemic of music pirating in the Jewish market R”L, this CD quickly went into a 2nd printing and for good reason. In the next decade, this will likely be the artists to beat. Of special note as well was ABD, who ignored all the “rules” of Jewish music production and marketing and put out what was for me a huge breath of fresh air. I’m keeping my eye out for what these guys will (hopefully) put out next.

Best Arrangement:    No Lyrics – Benny Friedman. Ian Freitor’s arrangement for “No Lyrics” on Benny’s Taamu really hit the spot for me. Fresh, crisp and uplifting – who needs lyrics when you have an arrangement like this? Not me, for one.

Boys Choir Album:  Yovo – Miami Boys Choir. Lots of really great ones in this category, but all in all, one edges out for me, even if by barely a neck. With “Yovo”, Yerachmiel displays why MBC has been around for decades and still going strong. That’s not to say they didn’t have stiff competition though, with some other great albums like Kol Noar’s super fresh debut album certainly giving MBC a run for it’s money in my CD player at least.

Best English Song: Sunshine in the Rain – Shloime Kaufman. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Abie, but Sunshine in the Rain on Shloime Kaufman’s Avodas Tzedaka, featuring the legendary Abie Rotenberg, hit all the right spots in my heart – and ears of course. I always find Abie’s songs so much more poetic, original, relevant and purposeful than most of the other English songs on the Jewish music scene and this is one of his very best. The arrangement is nice but sufficiently laid back to just allow the lyrics and melody to shine for themselves and the emotional rendering by both artists is right on target.

Best Yiddish Song: Moidim – Mordechai Ben David. I’ve long loved MBD’s rendition of Yiddish songs on many of his albums, and “Moidim” is one of the best of that bunch. The story is wonderfully meaningful and the lyrics (written by Lipa I think) do that story true justice in conveying it in the highly poetic yet descriptively vivid way it does. To those lost by that last sentence (and I may be one of them) what I’m saying is that you can see the story playing out in sharp HD in your mind’s eye. Additionally, the melody shadows the emotional movement exceedingly well throughout and MBD does an amazing job of losing himself in that emotion. Long story short, great song – me like.

Best Concert DVD: Sadly I’m not very familiar with the DVDs out there. You see, most of my serious listening happens in my car. While it is equipped with a DVD player as well, my wife is adamant about watching DVDs while I’m driving being somehow unsafe. Women – go figure.

This week’s JMR Song of the Week goes to MBD’s smash hit Omar Rabbi Akiva from Kulam Ahuvim. Second place goes to Baruch Levine’s “The Next Gadol Hador, from his English collection “Touched By a Niggun”, read JM Derech’s interview of this album, here.

In place of the next couple weeks S.O.T.W. will be our Jewish Music Blogger Awards. Details to follow Monday. Until then take a moment to vote in the weekend poll. What do you enjoy most on music sites?

Last year, YK of jmusicforum.blogspot.com organized a Jewish Music Bloggers Awards where he gave both his readers and several Jewish music bloggers an opportunity to vote for their favorites in a number of categories.  It was an exciting process to be able to vote for your favorites, read the opinions of some of Jewish music’s best known bloggers and finally see the winners when they were announced.  YK was hoping that the Jewish Music Bloggers Awards would become an annual event and has asked us to host this year’s awards.  We are so honored to be a part of this exciting event!

We have come up with a list of categories and are giving you, the readers, until Sunday night to  nominated your favorites in each category.

Once we have firmed up the list, we will post it on our website and you will  have ten days to vote for your favorites.  During this period, we will be posting picks from a number of Jewish music bloggers who have graciously volunteered to share their opinions.    After that, we will narrow the poll down to three finalists in each category, before we finally tally up the votes and proclaim the winners.

Below are the categories for this year’s awards.  Who would you like to see nominated in each category?  Let us know at awards@jewishmusicreport.com.  We look forward to hearing from you!

• Best Album
• Best Song
• Best Debut Album
• Boys Choir  Album
• Best Arrangement
• Best English Song
• Best Yiddish Song
• Best Concert DVD

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the blogs that are joining together for this award contest.

TheJewishInsights
Life Of Rubin
Gruntig
The Cool Jew
JM Derech
Jewish Blogmeister
YK’s Jewish Music Blog
JM Maven
Jacob Da Jew
The Real Shliach
Jewish Music 26

If you have a Jewish Music website and want to be included in this please email us at awards@jewishmusicreport.com

Song of the Week returns! Last weeks winner was Avraham Fried: Rak Tefilah from the Avraham Fried Live in Israel CD/DVD. This week we encourage people to vote once again, and of course forward the link to vote to all your friends.

Here are the instructions, every Monday morning we will put up 5 brand new choices for JMR’s Song of the Week to be determined Friday morning. We also invite you to email in your own picks for next weeks Song of the Week. You can email u your choice by sending an email to songoftheweek@jewishmusicreport.com.

This weeks 5 songs to choose from are:

MBD – Omar R’ Akiva (Kulam Ahuvim)
Ohad – Yababai (My Music)
Menucha – Uvo Remix (YBC LIVE 3)
Baruch Levine – The Next Gadol Hador (Touched By a Niggun)
Yoeli Schwartz – Tanya (Hu Borei Umanhig)

[poll id="7"]

You can vote directly in the latest poll by clicking here.

Another week has gone by and we have another winner. We keep it in the Friedman family. Avraham Fried wins with his rendition of Rak Tefilah, featured on the Avraham Fried – Live in Israel DVD. Second place went to YBC 3′s Ko Ribon.

Once again, if this is your first time here, every Monday morning we will put up 5 brand new choices for JMR’s Song of the Week to be determined Friday morning. We also invite you to email in your own picks for next weeks Song of the Week. You can email u your choice by sending an email to songoftheweek@jewishmusicreport.com.

The last 2 weeks have really delivered a wonderful response and it looks like we’ve added a great new tradition here. Last week we were neck and neck the whole way down the stretch, and it ended in a tie! This week we encourage people to vote, and forward the link to vote to all your friends.

Once again, if this is your first time here, every Monday morning we will put up 5 brand new choices for JMR’s Song of the Week to be determined Friday morning. We also invite you to email in your own picks for next weeks Song of the Week. You can email u your choice by sending an email to songoftheweek@jewishmusicreport.com, this week, since it’s Chanukah we are in the gift giving mood. Every email suggestion for next weeks song of the week will enter your email into a raffle to win a brand new OHEL 5770 DVD.

This weeks 5 songs to choose from are:

Avraham Fried: Live in Israel – Rak Tefilah
Shira Chadasha Boys Choir: Chanukah Album – Haneiros Halalu
Yeshiva Boys Choir 4: Ko Ribon
OHEL 5770: Lulai Torascha – Abie Rotenberg and Dovid Dachs
Shloime Taussig: Chanukah Tish – Lichli Mashminim

You can vote directly in the latest poll by clicking here.

The first week was great, thank you everyone for participating!

You can view last week’s winner here. This week we took choices from the staff and the readers. Please take a moment to vote for this week’s JMR song of the week.

Please also forward to friends and family and ask them to take a moment to vote.

Every Monday we will put a new poll on the left side of this website. It will feature 5 songs that our writers (and you) thought was the song of the week.

Send us your own picks for next week to songoftheweek@jewishmusicreport.com.

The winner will be announced every Friday.

This weeks 5 songs to choose from are:

Sheves Chaverim: Borei
Shua Kessin: Lo Lahityaeish
Baruch Levine: The Piano Boy
Benny Friedman: No Lyrics
MBD: B’inyan Hasimcha

You can vote directly in the latest poll by clicking here.

Click here and scroll to see the full results. Be sure to vote in our weekend poll and then Monday we will start week 2 of Song Of the Week!

If you’d like to submit your choices for S.O.T.W. email us at songoftheweek@jewishmusicreport.com