The Majak Mixtape: The Majak Mixtape

Stomachs, start your engines! The McRib is back!

That is right everybody, for the entire month of November, the illusive McRib Sandwich will be back on the McDonald's menu, nationwide. So you can step away from those McRib Locators that are populated across the internet and instead just get yourself over to a neighborhood Golden Arch to indulge in one of the more strangely wonderful things ever concocted at a fast food restaurant.

Objectively speaking, it's awful. It's pretty much willfully deformed meat doused in barbecue sauce. But its sort of awfulness is why we love it. It's barely a step above cafeteria food, if at all, but nothing quite soaks up alcohol, soda pop, and French fries quite like the McRib so for that we rejoice its return.

And on that note, we got thinking about the singers who should make some sort of hearlded comeback. I mean, if the McRib can do it, why can't they?
First up, singer/songwriter/beehive hairdo aficionado Amy Winehouse covers "It's My Party" for Quincy Jones' new album new album "Q: Soul Bossa Nostra".

The British singer teamed up with Quincy, British producer Mark Ronson and, from the slurry sounds of it, several vodka cokes to make this track for Quincy's new tribute album. Which number one, we love Quincy Jones around these parts. Most of our family road trips involved listening to his production of Chaka Khan and Ray Charles' cover of the Brothers Johnson's "I'll Be Good To You." Here it is below, in all of its late 1980s, synthy, melody strangling glory:

The thing is, at this point, it seems that most of Quincy Jones' career is basically tribute albums. I mean, we love you and all. And we sort of love your sheer ego to put your name on songs as the lead when you're the musician and/or producer at best, nary a vocal coming from out your throat. It's admirable that you can get greats to play second fiddle to you, name billing-wise. And you produced Rashida Jones, an actress we hated until season 2 of Parks and Recreation made us realize she wasn't just another Elizabeth Banks. You know, pretty actress in a ton of comedy films for reasons not completely known aside from obvious girl-next-door beauty.

But our main cause of concern is how a mess Winehouse sounds. I mean, we should be used to it at this point, right? But even now, she occasionally can pull out a decent performance:

But when a Leslie Gore song seems to kick your ass vocally, we don't quite know what to do. We still want you to make a comeback and be as amazing as you were when you first hit the scene with songs like this:

Fantasia, for one, is saddened by your life choices.

Next up, the band that made us run and dust off our Converse and who rarely find a Sofia Coppola soundtrack that aren't on, The Strokes.

We love The Strokes because they represent that time period in the early 2000s when garage rock sounding bands were making huge waves in the pop culture with Sweden's The Hives and The White Stripes also part of that wave.

The Strokes sort of collapsed under the weight of the media's expectations for them, and they soon saw The Kings of Leon pretty much have the mainstream career everybody expected of them.

Regardless, the fabulously named front singer Julian Casablancas embarked on a solo career that included doing a song with NERD and Santogold:

With plans for a new album to come out in January, all we can say is:

Next up, the girl who helped us learn everything is in fact everything, some guys AND some girls are only after one thing and that one must keep one's eye on the bird from the sparrow family. Here is Lauryn Hill and her new-ish song "Repercussions."

You'd almost be fooled that she hadn't gone batshit crazy and pretty much disappeared off the planet if you just listened to the track. We still rock Lauryn's one true studio album and even have love for her Unplugged album, particularly "The Mystery of Iniquity" aka the sample for Kanye West's "All Falls Down."

So we hope you come back, in the words of Kaiser Chiefs, stronger than a powered-up Pac Man. Hell, you survived Showtime at the Apollo. You can survive anything.

Speaking of Black girl singers, whatever happened to Mya? Oh yes, somebody mistakingly told her that being on Dancing With The Stars was a great way to revive one's career (They are wrong, gurl) that used to be hot. Below Mya in a video that's a "Where Are They Now?" in the making with Blackstreet and Mase.

Next up Fergie, which at first seems like a weird choice since the omnipresence of Black Eyed Peas should beg otherwise. But their ubiquity is exactly why we want a return of the hot mess that is solo Fergie:

When she's in the midst of the BEP, she has to like piss herself to get attention. Solo, she can be a mess all by her lonesome. Well except for the obligatory Will.I.Am. must be around her at all moments thing.

Which Will.I.Am's whole existence makes us long for Wyclef Jean, before he was trying to run for the Haiti presidency:

Though we're still mad at Wyclef Jean for his involvement in the mess that was the We Are The World remake. So bad, we refuse to link to it but we'll wait for you to YouTube to refresh your memories.

Wish you hadn't done that, don't you? OF COURSE. Moving on . . .

Next, somebody who's actually having a hit career in another avenue, but we think needs to make a return to their original profession:

Sure, you may be winning lots of rave reviews for The Social Network BUT let's be honest Timberlake. The Social Network, so far, has been a total fluke out of your whole film career. Need we remind you of Black Snake Moan, Alpha Dog, The Love Guru? I mean, we would, if we actually saw them. And you played an a-hole in The Social Network, which given your perma-smirk you like to have afixed to your face, doesn't seem to be the hugest stretch in acting. So stick to the occasional appearances on SNL:

And making tunes about the return of sexiness. Or something.

Below, Timberlake sings a medley of Cry Me a River/Ain't No Sunshine/and Drake's Over