tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69091723324714523872024-02-20T18:21:07.335-05:00Fuck I Look Like?I take care of MY kids.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-34395317487555695252010-03-31T23:29:00.001-04:002011-11-16T10:16:39.366-05:00Station Break<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATUAZ-MTBdufZ_sNhPJumHQ0NfBT8nMT7349kFBCX74cD1M45ycn7ZSRATgZB5ctWKTdk0HsRrId0QZSyaxkWj9LMhYaE5vM16RCMQfTs5yLWwxB58-jShyphenhyphen6ELqFzWiqClI_UUHvhp48/s1600/davy-graham-hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiATUAZ-MTBdufZ_sNhPJumHQ0NfBT8nMT7349kFBCX74cD1M45ycn7ZSRATgZB5ctWKTdk0HsRrId0QZSyaxkWj9LMhYaE5vM16RCMQfTs5yLWwxB58-jShyphenhyphen6ELqFzWiqClI_UUHvhp48/s320/davy-graham-hat.jpg" /></a></div> In all likelihood FuckILookLike? is going to be taking a break for a month or so for me to finish my thesis and sort of get some life shit organized. Maybe even longer, honestly. In the meantime check my blogroll for some friends or writer's I'm a fan of who are clearly much better at this consistent long-form thingChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-78401368238796546082010-02-13T23:01:00.004-05:002010-04-23T10:48:55.918-04:00"Worlds Colliding! Worlds Colliding!"- George Costanza<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kcCo2nsSWSk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kcCo2nsSWSk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wc3f4xU_FfQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wc3f4xU_FfQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
<br />
Die Antwoord is too convoluted (i.e. the layers to be found in white South African rappers employing a redneck/lower-class aesthetic and re-interpreting a Japanese dance-pop hook) and amazing to bother interpreting and over-analyzing as much as they have been and will be, but I didn't ever think the most haunting song hook of my high school years would rear it's head again in the form of South African post-modernXconceptualXwiggerXcore.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-61419304154612133762010-02-12T17:18:00.002-05:002010-02-13T22:57:07.239-05:00420 Ways to Fail (Choose One)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgtu2tnMh4wXWIyH6-my-Qeg9sgecvGgw4PxWeuASfjtVwfetunb5LhrP6yd7wMwWlfrEShIkx4h5bdohCBbWZd8EsZFZgMbai7JGlRCUsLrQq4XsIbOz9rtzt8dNJGm8MITQP4TfaMc/s1600-h/6971a65c_pageCache.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsgtu2tnMh4wXWIyH6-my-Qeg9sgecvGgw4PxWeuASfjtVwfetunb5LhrP6yd7wMwWlfrEShIkx4h5bdohCBbWZd8EsZFZgMbai7JGlRCUsLrQq4XsIbOz9rtzt8dNJGm8MITQP4TfaMc/s400/6971a65c_pageCache.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><i> The Cephalic Carnage Vaporizer: A Monument to Failure</i><br />
<br />
There's a weird juxtaposition in regards to popular drugs, or at least the one's that everyone knows about, as opposed to less ubiquitous stuff like "cheese" and whatever synthetic farmland amphetamine rock is being invented through NyQuil alchemy as I type this. When it comes to opiates, we detest the substance but find the actual drug itself, its use, culture and ramifications fucking fascinating. When it comes to weed, we (especially myself) have absolutely no qualms with the actual substance (which is practically Vitamin Water to cocaine's Sunny Delight) but a quick overview of the wastelands of pot culture since the 70's or so leaves a very palpable feeling of embarrassment approaching disappointment and sometimes disgust.<br />
<br />
Any kind of drug that you overuse is going to make you appear gross. Over the last few years I've run into one or two Colombians who clearly knew <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laOZ7HPu9yU">Mr. Sniffles</a> personally and showed the almost corpse-like signs of wear in the heavy bags under their eyes, loose, sweaty, pallid skin and general jumpiness. Heads end up looking like they're wearing Edgar suits, MIB-style.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXeanucdnXayAqwXSuzFwZvFmz42KH90XZiQ5FPvzeRv23xp1Vu5XzX-0kw53co4lOaTtZv72_MgjfNbcI4mF2vGsQms4ln1SPZ9wv07dsAKPhVjjnab9h0EsDfsibj1OpBqAO8BxgI5Y/s1600-h/edgar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ct="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXeanucdnXayAqwXSuzFwZvFmz42KH90XZiQ5FPvzeRv23xp1Vu5XzX-0kw53co4lOaTtZv72_MgjfNbcI4mF2vGsQms4ln1SPZ9wv07dsAKPhVjjnab9h0EsDfsibj1OpBqAO8BxgI5Y/s320/edgar.jpg" /></a></div>But that has more to do with the perceived lameness of extremity than the particulars of the drug itself. "Health nut" and "Jesus freak" are pejoratives for a reason; despite the positive connotations of the interest, that consuming impulse can can be alienating to most people.<br />
<br />
It boils mainly down this this: cocaine, marijuana and alcohol are recreational; with a few exceptions most people will use them when they feel like it. Meth and heroin, and to a lesser degree ecstasy, are fucking lifestyle-changing commitments. You can't really pick up meth for a weekend and then go retreat. Fergie's grill and scores of Chelsea rentboys suffering from crystal dick will attest to that. So in theory, the latter three will get thrown out the window in people's conception of what is okay, and they have. Coke, weed and alcohol are really the recreational mainstays and though there's a lot of people, myself included, who are off-put by cocaine due to its obnoxiousness, its race/class implications and the <a href="http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/kanye-west-entourage-fashion-week-paris.jpg">kind</a> <a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/banker300px.jpg">of</a> <a href="http://ichlugebullets.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/fucking-hipsters-468x351.jpg">people</a> <a href="http://www.purchase.edu/">who</a> <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxsifsenQP1qzzhzdo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1266205336&Signature=Gbj2K8hzx084WeHsEa0j5RooGQs%3D">normally</a> <a href="http://themixtapemonster.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/sheen.jpg">use</a> <a href="http://themusicsover.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/rick-james.jpg">it</a>, its still clearly popular enough to be considered scourges like, say, crack or heroin.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP8tic6fkqmBvEUe3QKOLcgffZzktTYlkXPN-CPNSJG5TngUPvbjCrbc8gdhZkWv_Ibqierr1LYHf9jskFcTyGxe4bvUl9SjVIhT9gak9YdoxRN8puFJ_WTtSh3Z0mnZ4AwdunvIfMt4/s1600-h/ralf-2dsonkran-2dface-2dhotel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP8tic6fkqmBvEUe3QKOLcgffZzktTYlkXPN-CPNSJG5TngUPvbjCrbc8gdhZkWv_Ibqierr1LYHf9jskFcTyGxe4bvUl9SjVIhT9gak9YdoxRN8puFJ_WTtSh3Z0mnZ4AwdunvIfMt4/s320/ralf-2dsonkran-2dface-2dhotel.jpg" /></a></div> Of those three, cocaine and alcohol are typified as being drugs that make you seem ridiculous and embarrassing to anyone not on it, so any extreme behavior is taken for granted. But when its pot, there's something particularly eye-roll-inducing about the depressed infant state a lot of people go into. You know its harmless and the person's retardation/complete inability to be of any use aside from the $1.33 people are chemically worth when you melt them down into goo is temporary. But really after a long enough time it isn't.<br />
<br />
When I think of the detrimental effects of prolonged investment in being a complete pothead on someone's music and likability, the artists that immediately come to mind are Brutal Truth, Cephalic Carnage, Cannabis Corpse and, of course, Snoop. <br />
<br />
Brutal Truth falling the fuck off both live and on record is something that I suggested when I first saw them at MDF in 2007 but still felt not educated about grind enough to really argue. It wasn't until seeing them numerous times afterward and hearing the more than a little boring and sometimes annoying <i>Evolution Through Revolution</i> that it became apparent that it wasn't just having their original guitarist replaced by the dude from Sulaco that's transformed them into a pretty craptacular and frequently embarrassing band; clearly this has been a long time coming.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz1aaj-ofrAyKxUIGo1zqccbIlzfpu_EqEwxdp3yQu6yiVml7yd1NxWeP2GDkGbZ8ttT2WKMi4uG5whPFc6kYZkjpWkiyAHfTsqEa35INdUf58JkEjHI1wcM4T42uiEpkbYqolrRXNobM/s1600-h/weed+kills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz1aaj-ofrAyKxUIGo1zqccbIlzfpu_EqEwxdp3yQu6yiVml7yd1NxWeP2GDkGbZ8ttT2WKMi4uG5whPFc6kYZkjpWkiyAHfTsqEa35INdUf58JkEjHI1wcM4T42uiEpkbYqolrRXNobM/s320/weed+kills.jpg" /></a></div>Everyone smokes pot. Unless they don't. But it's assumed, so to make your love of weed that much of a focal point of your band's identity signals on one hand an inability to tell a good idea from a bad one and a sign that your band is going to make frequent and questionable forays into the lamer depths of pot culture. Getting high and playing technical grind is kind of impressive given the effect of really strong pot on awareness, reaction time and gait, but when you really think about it, it isn't. You'd be just as right to assume that the whole "sleep.smoke.grind" this is just a means of scavenging free pot or making it known that if you were holding that they'd like some. But the band was far more interesting and competent on all fronts prior to this. <i>Need to Control</i> is a fucking great album. But somewhere after that they thought the bass-less, compressed and muddy production for <i>Sounds of the Animal Kingdom</i> was a good idea. The kind of "good idea" that, considering they were professional musicians and had made two albums prior to that, only a pothead could conceive of. The kind of "good idea" that could only come from the sort of potheads that think <i>Evolution Through Revolution</i> is a profound album title and not a cringe-inducing attempt at sociopolitical insight. The quirk of listening to an album that sounds like it was recorded through the wall as they practiced was cool at first but a year and a half later it just makes me wish there was a cokehead on deck in their crew to nix that kind of shit.<br />
<br />
I mean, have you ever actually read <a href="http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=1735&PHPSESSID=5dbfc606bd3a582d2540bae5b308f75f">Brutal Truth lyrics</a>?<br />
<blockquote>"humanity rising life depriving <br />
mankind decline <br />
black humor falls in place <br />
evolve in catalogue <br />
prey of progress <br />
self-evolution contribution <br />
retributin at hand <br />
pitch your fall for the big show <br />
grand illusion of fruition <br />
through suspicions of our end <br />
<br />
next in line <br />
step to me and bass the buck <br />
it's only human actions <br />
force me to lash out and crush <br />
<br />
every day i see <br />
the cattle march by <br />
clueless victims of society's <br />
numbing effects <br />
told to listen, forced to turn off, <br />
obey... non-thinking <br />
<br />
conform to norm <br />
or be tagged as wrong <br />
wake-up sleeping nation <br />
or be gone, gone"</blockquote><br />
A lot of metal and grind bands, faced with the difficulty of getting vocal phrasing to fit over increasingly weird and disjointed music kept the trick of employing a nonsensical and truncated approach that BxTx only made that much worse by informing it with a pothead's version of political grind lyrics.<br />
<br />
Lyrics aside, seeing them live is an undertaking dull enough to almost be on par with watching Nile play live. In fact, it's pretty much only saved by Hoek's drumming style/faces. Even Kevin Sharp's ability to make four guys standing on stage like statues playing increasingly annoying and boring grind seem tolerable has waned, summed up by Christian and I rolling our eyes and remarking "This sad old hat again" when they opened for Municipal Waste. To say that At The Gates and Emperor had the right idea to quit, come back for a brief cash-in tour, and then bounce again is an understatement when you see bands like Brutal Truth and, to a smaller extent, the Pixies that come back and just sort of float about not doing much of anything good for a while.<br />
<br />
Cephalic Carnage themselves haven't done anything good in nearly 5 years, but they've always been really quirky and weird and legitimately great. Up until the last few years when the combination of <i>Xenosapien</i>, a few reports on their road antics from Tom Warrior and the leap into self-parody with the production of their own vaporizer made the reaction to their name for me go from "FUCK YEAH CEPHALIC!" to "...ew".<br />
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Cool is a commodity that can be measured in how many other people go "...ew" when you bring up something's name. And Cephalic are currently thigh-deep in Killswitch/Pantera/nu-metal/Fred Durst territory. I'd say the first sign of decrepitude was how disappointing <i>Xenosapien</i> was, but as <a href="http://www.themetalinquisition.com/2009/09/when-weed-and-metal-goes-wrong-pt-ii.html">Metal Inquisition pointed out</a>, it was probably the song "Kill For Weed".<br />
<br />
<blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b>Cephalic Carnage</b> - 'Kill For Weed' (From the <i>Anomalies</i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> album)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I have to qualify this by saying: I love Cephalic Carnage. I think they're great, they're cool dudes and they all shred at their instruments. It pains me to write them up like this (much like Brujeria in the first post) but I have to mention this song cause it seriously made me laugh out loud. Truth be told, I think this song is awesome. I love the brazen, ridiculous concept of "killing for weed" cause that shit is just so plain extreme you have to - whether you like it or not - begrudgingly respect it cause they go there. The music is sweet, and the lyrics ain't too bad either UNTIL you get to the last few lines vocalist Lenzig bursts out and the song’s coolness is almost undone. In short, the song talks about how cops are fucked up, they'll tear your house apart looking for weed, the system is fucked up, weed should be legalized and how he kills to stop the cop mistreatment... sounds all good right? That is, until the last few lines where he says:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></i></span></div><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"This is a song about a schizophrenic,</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I met on the street,</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Told me how he killed for weed"</span></i></span></div></blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"></span></i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I thought my head spun around like in the exorcist in a true WTF moment? Did he just answer an interview question within the context of a song? Let me explain, those lyrics are actually IN the song ABOUT the song they are in and not just a liner note explanation. Talk about utter hilarity in some weird twist of circular logic. He might as well have said, "By the way, this song is based on a true story of my encounter with a mentally handicapped derelict, the names have been changed to protect..." except SUNG in the song as part of the song (in death metal vocals no less). Wait, maybe I should give them a pass for originality and good use of narrative dialog?</span></div></blockquote>The second thing which made me start to re-assess the band is a really unflattering, and realistically probably a bit biased, blog post from Averse Sefira that I ran into through Tom Warrior's blog. What caught my eye was that not only did they tour with Cephalic, but there was an interesting exchange between the two bands and their other tourmates Watain (aka Wu-Tang):<br />
<blockquote><br />
After a savory meal in Chinatown, we discovered that the band had the room adjacent to ours so before long we were in their suite and catching up. Soon after there was a knock at the door and guitarist Set answered to find the lead singer of Cephalic Carnage and a roadie. They invited themselves in and began making overtures to us about partying and smoking pot with them. Mere minutes before they arrived we had all been discussing the incongruous choice of this act as the other headliner, and we also wondered why they were set to go on last. We also resolved that since we and Watain played back to back, we would deliver a unified front on stage and leave Cephalic with no way to compete. With that in mind, Watain politely declined the offer of drugs and invited the duo to leave but they did not seem to take a hint and seemed puzzled at the idea that people might actually be tired and want to go to bed. Guitarist P. of Watain, ever the diplomat, stood up and stated that he'd smoke with them even though he did not like their band. Instantly the mood changed and our festive new friends were suddenly not interested in a good time. "Well fuck you then," snapped the singer, "I don't like your band either!" They left the room and P. followed them in an attempt to explain that there was not a problem but that he was just being honest, etc. The Cephalic people weren't having it as most Americans are deeply threatened by directness, particularly the European variety. Set became agitated and also walked into the hall and for a moment I expected beatings to commence. More fuck-you-mans mingled with Set's sharp and snakelike tone but no violence occured. Set and P. returned to the room with many choice comments about "life metal" bands.</blockquote> The slightly superior tone of the guy from Averse Sefira notwithstanding, which itself makes me hope that Cephalic played "Black Metal Sabbath" in full regalia every night of that tour, I only got a slightly rumpled image of the band after reading that post. Cephalic were one of the few bands with interesting lyrics, the ability to craft both interesting riffs and songs and a good sense of visual aesthetic, which itself often came across like mid-Westerners who watched too much X-Files in terms of it's kookiness and obsession with aliens. It would take more than two blog posts and a disappointing album, right?<br />
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MetalSucks posted this around early October and at that point the band went from Fonzie to Potsie. There's a danger of becoming the Cheech 'n Chong grind band, which if you've seen Tommy Chong lately, is clearly a bad look.<br />
<br />
Even moreso, there's the danger of becoming something like Cannabis Corpse. Having one or two weed-themed songs on your record is whatever, but forming an entire shitty novelty band off Cannibal Corpse x weed puns is kind of the best example of the conceptual fail of pot culture in music. Per their Myspace page:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Cannabis corpse was formed in the summer of 2006 as a way to express our love of smoking weed and listening to Cannibal corpse. We thought that combining the speed and intensity of death metal with outlandish stories involving marijuana monsters, weed cults ect. would be a fresh take on the genre.</blockquote><br />
Three years later and I'm still shocked that they had the gall to use the phrase "fresh take on the genre". Someone from Municipal Waste has the balls to actually say anything he does is a "fresh take". A band that lists the most obvious mainstream death metal bands in their influence section, perhaps both betraying how little they know about or actually genuinely like death metal. A band that seems completely unaware of the existence of Cephalic or even Six Feet Under who've been doing the "shitty pot-friendly death metal" thing for a while and actually sport a former member of Canonical Conch to their credit. Unsurprising of anything Waste related, the only people who enjoy Cannabis Corpse are the more unfunny ironic hipster crossover kids, decades-too-late neo-thrash kids and faux-crusties and the sort of forum dwellers that actually make arguments in favor of Metalocalypse.<br />
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Cannibis Corpse are the logical low-point in regards to pot-themed metal, but irrespective of genre, the black hole of likability is Snoop. Snoop's wikipedia page is an unintentionally hilarious inventory of the many detrimental decisions someone with too much disposable income and pot can make regarding their image. It's hard to pick a point to start at; Snoop's gang of straight-to-DVD horror movies, his kind of low-rent involvement in both hardcore and softcore porn, that song with The-Dream, or his KISS-like tendency to wantonly merchandise his image and name to anything even vaguely related to or rhyming with his name or dogs in general. In fact, dude is pretty much the pothead version of KISS, not only in prostrating himself to the capitalist gangbang (Where I assume he'll be playing the role of Marie Luv) but in his inability to do anything worth a shit musically to redeem himself. Outside of "Sexual Eruption", Snoop hasn't released anything that would convince anyone that he hasn't become a creepy, gaunt uncle figure preying on culturally confused suburban white kids while releasing just enough ghost-written trend-hopping weedplates to remind people that he was once kind of the next Slick Rick.<br />
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<i>Is it cooning if you let an entitled blond heiress previously caught on tape calling "the help" "nigger" put on her best Harlem flapper stereotype impression without backslapping her? Yes. Yes it is.</i> <br />
<br />
However Slick Rick is rapping incredibly on Mos Def and Raekwon albums 25+ years into his career while Snoop has given up on even concealing his inability to personally author anything that isn't a play on the letters of his name. <br />
<br />
Like everything, though, there are exceptions. One is Willie Nelson, who succeeds in being alternately likable, intense, and old enough that anything that might come across as weird and embarrassing can be blamed on his advanced age and not "the pot".<br />
<br />
The other is the simple fact that weed (and alcohol seems to satisfy us all. Damn.) informed so much of 90's rap. But then again, there's a large difference between references and use in and out the studio and reducing yourself to a caricature that lives and dies with your pothead fan base like Cypress Hill did.<br />
<br />
And that's a bad look.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBVWG3r7-T180LpFjHR4k4zWvpTOvUUsiV0hxuxEo2J3-Bq3lS4Tt8WKwFHo37eZAx8zkmZySorPhrhqDwbeaQubrTl5ZLaCp2NhtAW6zrymuaTcDO8-HwY6XL306STks6Wpw-08bdUs/s1600-h/snoop_dogg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBVWG3r7-T180LpFjHR4k4zWvpTOvUUsiV0hxuxEo2J3-Bq3lS4Tt8WKwFHo37eZAx8zkmZySorPhrhqDwbeaQubrTl5ZLaCp2NhtAW6zrymuaTcDO8-HwY6XL306STks6Wpw-08bdUs/s320/snoop_dogg.jpg" /></a></div>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-13797599110004305442010-01-15T21:08:00.001-05:002010-01-31T22:23:50.653-05:00Best Of 2009: Loose Ends<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZOwVqH-BIoIeOn9RH7bVWmKCrQDvb_FTyNMoKeGihuT2WVwK7IZ61mcyMHBwnjnuX6M5vh6OQq89vOatjkITPpigQEExVpUuUSdXogPm7vDYVBrLgXiTh_cCaljwkjB6o4-ZZei9RnM/s1600-h/1583428.36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimZOwVqH-BIoIeOn9RH7bVWmKCrQDvb_FTyNMoKeGihuT2WVwK7IZ61mcyMHBwnjnuX6M5vh6OQq89vOatjkITPpigQEExVpUuUSdXogPm7vDYVBrLgXiTh_cCaljwkjB6o4-ZZei9RnM/s320/1583428.36.jpg" /></a></div>So there's just a few more two-weeks late notes regarding 2009, which itself was a pretty shit year for me. But there were some highlights in between all the MTA tickets, near-alcohol poisioning, XXL contest fuck-ups, housing stress, failed job hunts, Metro-North platform injuries, bike accidents and other various fuck-ups and oversights that I aim to continue repressing into 2010.<br />
<br />
For one, I'm actually taking this blog seriously (or as seriously as you can take a blog) as opposed to before where it was a place for me to sporadically and jerkily opine about stuff from what I presumed was a rarefied standpoint and work on non-academic writings. I'm still working on the paragraphing/run-on sentence issues I've developed somewhere between high school and college, but the actual quality of my writing has thankfully shifted from reactionary indignation to actually parsing out ideas and putting out posts that I'd actually be proud enough to have people read. Hence, I'm finally importing my feed into Facebook. Some of that motivation comes from the few comments I've gotten since people stopped checking me out via <a href="http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/">No Trivia</a> and my traffic, or whatever kind of digital attention I can measure through comments, dropped. (My posts for most of the year were sporadic, and I hadn't contributed to <a href="http://biographicaldictionaryofrap.blogspot.com/">The Biographical Dictionary of Rap</a> or anything shout-out worthy in a minute, so that makes sense.)<br />
<br />
Most of the other motivation comes from blog love. I got added to <a href="http://www.themetalinquisition.com/">Metal Inquisition's</a> blogroll, which was awesome because I absolutely love them (as well as <a href="http://www.stuffyouwillhate.com/">Stuff You Will Hate</a>), and I received some great supportive comments from <a href="http://daily-math.com/weblog/">Combat Jack</a> (CHEA!), <a href="http://www.brooklynboyblues.blogspot.com/">Frank Leon Roberts </a>and <a href="http://www.ronmexicocity.com/">Ron Mexico</a>, who are all on my blog roll for their respective greatness and contributions to my prolonging my (super-) senior project. Especially Ron, who kept it 100 and gave me some good advice back in December.<br />
<br />
I've actually got a lot of posts in the backlog to get done, so hopefully the summertime doldrums/metaphysical ennui that takes hold of me every year on this thing doesn't happen again.<br />
<br />
<b>tl;dr version</b>: I write wells n shit; holla.<br />
<br />
So regarding loose ends, I left comedy albums and mixtapes out of my best albums list so as to not clutter up the main list and to heap the proper amount of praise and attention onto some of the better examples of each. Although I could've bumped Brutal Truth for any one of the 78 Gucci tapes put out this year, because fuck that band.<br />
<br />
I'm eschewing my patented "write a ridiculous amount of mini-essays for every listed work" thing for ranked blurbs because I'm exhausted and lazy.<br />
<br />
<b>Best Comedy Albums of 2009</b><br />
1. <b>Maria Bamford</b>- <i>Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome</i><br />
Maria wins out for finally making an album that approximates how flawless and laser-like her Comedians of Comedy set was when I went to see them with Christian two and a half years ago. Most people hear the voices and shallowly stop there, but that's like faulting a scorpion for it's tail. Maria Bamford is a comedy scorpion, and underneath there's a soft underbelly that has transformed late 90's single working woman humor into honest and dark comedy that tackles mental illness and the soul-crushing and ridiculous minutiae of life in a hyper-aware way that doesn't suggest bland observational comedy about cereal isles of hot pockets, but, you know, something actually funny.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
2.<i> </i><b>Patton Oswalt</b>-<i> My Weakness is Strong</i><br />
<i>Feeling Kinda Patton</i> is still my favorite but that's because of the fact that it's 15 years of jokes condensed into one album. After Oswalt unloaded that he had to start new with material that takes a few more listens to parse out some of the bleakest and most linguistically interesting comedy being made by the over-30 set. But it's worth it. I listened to <i>Werewolves and Lollipops</i> recently and, like 90's rap, I've caught a bunch of hilarious bits that were deeper and more affecting than I had noticed initially. Despite occasionally making me worry that he may be becoming broad and edgeless<i> </i>in his success and maturity, I'll prolly catch new this with this jawn as well.<br />
<br />
Also: "Uncle Touchy's Naked Puzzle Basement" <br />
<br />
3. <b>John Mulaney</b>- <i>The Top Part</i><br />
My feelings about John Mulaney are summarized in this <a href="http://fuckilooklike.blogspot.com/2007/10/leave-him-alone-hes-retarded.html">poorly written show review</a>, but I should add that you can clearly tell from this album that he's either going to become completely unfunny or become the funniest comedian in NY by the time he hits 30. 30 is the magic number for comedians, as everyone except Oswalt, Murphy and Chapelle hits their peaks late, well after they started doing stand-up.<br />
<br />
On a similar note, Aziz Ansari is not funny.<br />
<br />
4. <b>Eugene Mirman- </b><i>God is a Twelve-Year-Old-Boy With Asperger's </i><br />
I always found Eugene cute but not at all funny. His act really only seemed to work if you weren't already into alt-comedy and ridiculous, sort of absurd stuff. And, like the Pitchfork review got right on the mark, he's a lot funnier outside his albums anyway<i>. </i>This record is the strongest thing he's record though, and his set at Purchase for Fall Fest was fortunately a lot funnier and less constantly winking than I was expecting.<br />
<br />
5. <b>Paul F Thompkins</b>- <i>Freak Wharf</i><br />
Haven't listened to it, can't find a download link that isn't a shit bitrate, but it's Paul F. Tompkins, goddamit! It's bound to be good.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Best Mixtapes of 2009</b><br />
1. <b>Joell Ortiz</b>- <i>Covers the Classics</i><br />
I got familiar with this when I decided to walk from my house to West 4th over the summer, which allowed me the time and need for distraction to digest '09's rap releases. I've been checking for Joell for about three years, and his solo albums and group record with Slaughterhouse never really struck me as that interesting or good but that doesn't mean he can't rap his ass off. This had an unbeatable combination of Joell's raps, short song lengths, and a sampling of the most classic instrumentals in the history of rap.<i></i><b></b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
2. <b>Drake</b>- <i>So Far Gone</i><br />
Begrudgingly. Like Drake'll tell you himself ad nauseum, it managed to accomplish more than most actual albums this year, including popularizing Canadian rap in a way k-os wasn't really able to. Plus, if you take it as an R&B record as opposed to a pure rap mixtape, it's pretty consistent.<br />
<br />
3. <b>Nicki Minaj</b>-<i> Beam Me Up Scotty</i><br />
I don't need to <a href="http://fuckilooklike.blogspot.com/2009/09/because-rosie-perez-was-never-all-that.html">proselytize</a> <a href="http://fuckilooklike.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-nicki-minaj-should-be-enjoyed.html">any further</a> about Nicki, 'cept to say that heads who don't like this need to loosen their kufis.<br />
<br />
4. <b>Lil' Wayne- </b><i>No Ceilings</i><br />
Sort of got yawns because of his over-exposure and newer rappers getting shine, but it's a lot more of a return to form, or at the very least<i> </i>a higher terrible:good simile ratio that he's been coasting on since 2008.<br />
<br />
5. <b>Gucci Mane</b>- The Cold War Series, <i>The Movie 3: The Burrprint</i><br />
These sound better to me every day following <i>The State vs. Radric Davis</i>, but I still contend that a lot of the beats on the Gucci mixtapes are more washed out and boring than anything reaching stuff like "Dope Boys" or some of the better songs on each mixtape. This makes sense since Gucci approaches all of these like albums of original songs instead of beat-jacking the hot 100 and surprising throwback cuts like Wayne and the Clipse have done.<br />
<br />
6.<b> J. Cole</b><i>- The Warm Up</i><br />
On a cursory listen, J.Cole can clearly rap really well, but that's not worth a shit at this point. Almost everyone can rap well. The thing about J.Cole is that he's essentially a N.Y. rapper from the South and shares Blu's tendencies to be consistent to a fault, almost being too normal of a rapper to where it becomes bland. Listening to this mixtape, as someone with a boner for 90's rap, is comforting, but not at all that interesting or challenging. Or maybe I'm just tired of "triple entendre" punchlines.<br />
<br />
Finally, thanks to everyone on my blog roll for existing, thanks to anyone who ever thought something I posted was interesting or enraging enough to comment on.<br />
<br />
-ChrisChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-45696743516509534062010-01-13T17:23:00.002-05:002010-01-13T17:29:07.659-05:00Best Albums of 2009 Pt. 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmkwrrhfuvZSvm098KO-mqxfOQnm2Z_CVt9cdJiFjvn9x6fSKt5TJU6PU9Q0m9O9garaPUW1De7YJIXCqtepe-b7jvAnbcrw4zW7JjmScmocZzHkjFLLMs4YIy6rgpPyZ2VubZtbCpgBE/s1600-h/Grohl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmkwrrhfuvZSvm098KO-mqxfOQnm2Z_CVt9cdJiFjvn9x6fSKt5TJU6PU9Q0m9O9garaPUW1De7YJIXCqtepe-b7jvAnbcrw4zW7JjmScmocZzHkjFLLMs4YIy6rgpPyZ2VubZtbCpgBE/s320/Grohl.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><i>The caveat for these sort of things is always that you overlook things until other people's lists come out or a few albums get completely left off completely. In regards to the former, iTunes (whose album browse feature controls my life) published their electronica "Best of 2009" retrospective and I spent an hour getting belatedly put on to King Midas Sound, Mungolian Jetset, Martyrn and 2562. I still haven't listened to them, although King Midas Sounds seems the best of the four so far, so they're not ranked. The latter being the Fever Ray, Antony and the Johnsons, Cobalt, and Animal Collective records. I just never got motivated to listen to the Fever Ray and Antony and the Johnsons records the whole way through, since Fever Ray didn't interest me as much as The Knife did and I like the idea of complex and impeccably arranged adult pop/singer-songwriter stuff by in practice I prefer Antony Hegarty in the context of Hercules and Love Affair. <br />
<br />
There's a reason the only Rufus Wainwright song on my iTunes is his cover of "Hallelujah".<br />
<br />
The Cobalt record I didn't even know about because I've almost completely abandoned /regressed from metal for hardcore. Shit, I'm willingly listening to Integrity (2003 Integrity, not that boring 90's shit) and mulling over seeing Disembodied play with the Acacia Strain for Christ's sake. So aside from the real obvious releases (deathcore bands still trying to prolong their garish graffiti-merch and energy drink fueled place in the sexting underage zombie that is "scene", beardXcore and beardXsludge, sad old hats like Megadeth and Mastodon) I was caught unawares at the surprising array of non-Lamb of God/God Forbid/Gojira/whatever shitty Dethklok-approved retard rock is being pushed by MetalSucks that ended up on a bunch of the more reputable (i.e. shitty, but forgivably and understandably shitty) best of lists. Looking at SMN or MetalSucks or Decibel or Brooklyn Vegan, my instinct is to both check out the stuff I hadn't heard and also shit all over it. This is evident in Cobalt being the only metal album that blew up this year that I actually bothered to download.<br />
<br />
The Animal Collective this is just me being a dickhead, which is I guess is my default position. I really used to like this band. And this isn't one of those "NOT TR00! YALLZ SOLDS OUTZ!" missives, or irrational revulsion towards Vampire Weekend (i.e. my own personal race/class issues) it's just the same way we all feel about Beyonce; "Sure she's still good but she's everywhere and I can't give a shit anymore." This happened with me and Radiohead somewhere around the Thom Yorke solo record. In Rainbows is good, but I waited a year to listen to it because I was fed up with both the cult of personality around the band and the equally as annoying reactionary contrarian stance who promoted a revisionist "they were always crap" talking point. "Who Could Win a Rabbit" won me over 6 years ago, and Strawberry Jam is one of my favorite albums, but if it wasn't for the Grizzly Bear record coming out as a buffer for all the critical deepthroating going on I would have Kennedy'd Panda Bear myself to save my sanity. So I still haven't gotten past the first track of the album and how they aren't wont to "care about material things" and whatever. I'm still more content to experience the record via HIPSTER RUNOFF than I am to sit down and be objective, so that shit will not be on this list, either.<br />
<br />
(I should add, though, that as of writing this I noticed I repeated DJ Paul on my list, so his slot in the top 30 will prolly be taken by one of the albums I just mentioned.)<br />
<br />
And now, more pissing into an ocean of piss. <br />
<br />
The following albums are fucking great...to varying levels. The only real way to rank something this subjective is to do it my the number of songs I didn't delete from the record. The previous two years' lists were done this way, but I deviated this year when it came to Jay since The Blueprint 3, like the CuDi album, was a record of theoretically good tracks hampered by shitty execution. So that had to be taken into consideration when you get albums with comparatively well-executed songs themselves bogged down by filler. So the judgments were the most arbitrary and subjective that I've ever made in my 17 or 18 years of making inane lists, explaining why I could only like half of an Amerie album but put it a shitload of notches above Jay or even Meshell.<br />
<br />
So as opposed to my two previous lists, where the top 10's order was absolutely meaningless save for my number once choice, most of the top 30's order is completely malleable depending on mood and the passage of time.<br />
<br />
And with that preface, I present the Aristocrats:</i><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehnOEtccyw4h3T75NDdIMXWwLAieLSs6dVs4A8su02ucUsevNa04_O-1d0N_C6gP39pA6sry1VMF-DspMnlEsHp8_Do1ebgFQKrPJQWSu6i-lFm2STx0aUU2ce3Aha7YXbnTnpx0_MLw/s1600-h/amerie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehnOEtccyw4h3T75NDdIMXWwLAieLSs6dVs4A8su02ucUsevNa04_O-1d0N_C6gP39pA6sry1VMF-DspMnlEsHp8_Do1ebgFQKrPJQWSu6i-lFm2STx0aUU2ce3Aha7YXbnTnpx0_MLw/s320/amerie.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>30.<b> Amerie</b>- <i>In Love & War</i><br />
The complete opposite of the image/content red flag that I got from the Clipse record. I'm not sure exactly what X-Man Amerie is supposed to be on the cover but it seems fair to guess that she's either Shadowcat, Dazzler or Jubilee.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Amerie's actual music has always been really well-produced, but she's had Kelis-esque issues in getting records actually released in the U.S., even with two past hit singles as clout. It seems weird that someone who succeeds in being both "model pretty" and "acceptably black" while satisfying the whole OMGAZNSRHOT category for the sexually immature would have ongoing issues in maintaining a pop career, but like the Q-Tip record, there might be some actual logic behind this; Amerie's voice. Amerie's voice is thing and occasionally shrill and straining, and frequently, like on the first four songs she sounds like she's trying to hard. This is a shame because the same sort of 60's soul breaks that informed "1 Thing" are on the first 1/3 of a record where Amerie doesn't consistently come off like someone in her twenties who has been doing this for a while, but like someone still trying to figure out an approach like say, <a href="http://www.myspace.com/cassiesteele">"grunge"</a> chanteuse Cassie Steele. Sometimes, like on the Sly and the Family Stone-ish "Higher", she sounds like <i>Dangerous</i>-era Michael Jackson, trying to force anger rather than actually portraying or conveying it through all the gritted teeth and mic spittle.<br />
<br />
Despite this, the awkward verse-to-chorus transition in "Why R U" and a pretty underwhelming first track in "Tell Me Love Me", the rest of the record is <i>really fucking good</i>. Rather than keep going with the funk-rock thing that she spends the first four tracks focusing on, she returns to her natural talent, fluttering like a bird over car-ready hip-hop/R&B tracks that follow the Mary J. Blige formula that there is no rap or R&B song that cannot be sampled and improved upon/fucked with. "Why R U" itself caught my ear when it came on one of the only two video channels worth a shit in my twenties, BETSoul/Centric (the other being VH1 Classic), and came on strong with light flourishes over the kind of early 90's boom-bap that KRS would not only loved but prolly has already rapped on. "Pretty Brown" is a gorgeous Trey Songz duet that really improves upon it's sample source of a jheri curl/House Party-era Mint Condition track that itself starts off cool but ends up lagging. Shit, the hooks are there, as is the requisite Fabolous (who means well but as a rapper can eat three dicks) feature ("More Than Love"), the slow-grind/broken condom jam ("Red Eye"), and the forlorn break-up anthem ("The Flowers"). If at this point, with what to me sounds like four solid singles, Amerie can't catch a break on radio then the problem just might not be the music itself, but her.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzZs_bx_Wo45RdwiutbanPPwQXIOpAJYSjQriRbXldk1XbVIcfD8LSH67Bh64co3PSWiogTDiqpArzpIg6AS_qUjC77hVQai9TwnGg_8VW7fC5NTkBmbH9JX1-LSoTRai6xqMbaMQAtg/s1600-h/absu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzZs_bx_Wo45RdwiutbanPPwQXIOpAJYSjQriRbXldk1XbVIcfD8LSH67Bh64co3PSWiogTDiqpArzpIg6AS_qUjC77hVQai9TwnGg_8VW7fC5NTkBmbH9JX1-LSoTRai6xqMbaMQAtg/s320/absu.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>29. <b>Absu</b>- <i>Absu</i><br />
I was simultaneously expecting this record to be great and crap. I got into Absu after the entire band fell apart and Prosciptor had a leg injury, so to hear that the band was being resurrected without the band's main songwriters, Shaftiel and Equitant, wasn't contributing to any sort of high expectations. In fact the 8 year delay between <i>Tara</i> and <i>Absu</i> had built up their reputation in everyone's mind to the point that the eventual resurrection of the band and their Myspace and the deluge of press that came with their tour and album plans kind of ruined the excitement about the band. In fact, this album was the most acclaimed metal record of the year at first only to be then promptly forgotten by the time all the beardo correspondents were putting together their end of year lists.<br />
<br />
A lot of people outside the press met this album with mixed feelings. All the speed of <i>Tara</i> had been dialed down and replaced with textures, even though the drumming was just as ridiculous as before. Where Absu was a really fast thrash/speed metal band before with black metal imagery and vocals, they actually sounded more overtly like a capital "B" black metal band now, although more like the sort of rock-based kind you get with anything associated with Aura Noir or Darkthrone in 2009 (i.e. fun).<br />
<br />
Actually, a good way to think of the album is Sigh minus the cheese and typical Japanese weirdness. Or maybe I'm just saying that because of the introduction of synths and string parts onto the record.<br />
<br />
At first I was just as decidedly mixed about the record. It sounds amazing production-wise and there's a ton of cool ideas and flourishes throughout the album, sounding very much like a band that, if they weren't at least having fun writing and recording everything, they were certainly inspired. In fact, 3:36 into "13 Globes", there's a really busy bridge with measured a wah being used as a dynamic filter, what sounds like a large church bell, a choir synth patch, and what may or may not be (I haven't learned the album yet) jazz chords. Or at least sus chords. Not to mention the renaissance fair-sounding segue in "...Of The Dead Who Never Rest In Their Tombs Are The Attendance Of Familiar Spirits Including: A.) Diversified Signs Inscribed B.) Our Earth Of Black C.) Voor". This is now a band that will run samples that sound like a touch-tone phone ringing in the middle of a verse and time what sounds like digitally processed "haha"s to coincide with snare fills. It seems kooky and prog out-of-context, but in black metal, especially the least Norwegian sounding kinds, it sounds perfectly in place, especially during the 8-year metamorphosis from a cult band with anemic album production to a band that has the label backing to almost sound as glassy as the Bat for Lashes record. The band that most typified a whirling dervish now had full piano solos, not to mention songs mid-paced enough to actually <i>play</i> piano solos.<br />
<br />
The new Absu disappointed me at MDF, where they were out of their element outdoors in the May sun looking very much like Texans who very much took themselves extremely seriously. Absu were always ridiculous in the best, most appropriate and entertaining of ways, but the shades and the shrieking of extended liner notes to their own songs put me off to catching their first NY appearance in years the following summer at B.B. King's Diabetes Write-Off/Gospel Brunch and Metalarium. (Although had it been less than $20 and I hadn't been unable to find work, I would've definitely gone). I probably should've gone, because B.B. King's would've been a better setting, if not seeing them with better sound and atmosphere (and the loyal attention of smelly Mexicans and faux-heshers alike.)<br />
<br />
The album itself runs a little long at 54 minutes, and "Magic(k) Square Cipher" never goes anywhere, but <i>Absu</i> is not only good enough to allay fears about the band falling off, but to be pretty much the best metal album of the year.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvWiF2kWSAbvDESvBkYYEQgVAKbs7lriJeSDk9Qw0Yf7AvixdOi_tXnZuVoZcIa1dievYw0E0r6Ju6wS6GPZsAOWh_KbupLQkkZ1yxQ9pMTV0A6twT9LNJCbVi_nYUYh_yn5qMStysz8/s1600-h/Pissed+Jeans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvWiF2kWSAbvDESvBkYYEQgVAKbs7lriJeSDk9Qw0Yf7AvixdOi_tXnZuVoZcIa1dievYw0E0r6Ju6wS6GPZsAOWh_KbupLQkkZ1yxQ9pMTV0A6twT9LNJCbVi_nYUYh_yn5qMStysz8/s320/Pissed+Jeans.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>28. <b>Pissed Jeans</b>- <i>King of Jeans</i><br />
(The following is going to have a discernible dip-off in writing quality)<br />
<br />
Good rock records are fucking <i>rare</i>. And not this amorphous butt-rock AOR Hinder bullshit or Canadian butt-rock AOR Nickleback bullshit or pathetic post-grunge fatXcore Seether/Evans Blue bullshit or flaccid and droopy prolapsed/coke-numbed colon botched implant post-glam Ed Hardy white trash VH1 labret/monroe piercing stripper rock bullshit either. And definitely not The Killers. I mean actual rock music. And not when the uninformed shrug off any discussion of metal subgenres by saying "It's all just rock music maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan." either.<br />
<br />
I mean the sort of stuff that actually has some recognizable connection to bre-Bush rock music, after it got so white and noisy that it lost it's "n' roll". To me, this sort of stuff existed in pockets after tough-guy hardcore became the normative sound of punk rather than the standard. It has always thrived in Sweden, through Swedish hardcore and the Hellacopters and Hives. They got it pretty right, as foreign takes on dead American genres do. In the U.S., you got the catchier "alternative rock" bands, the noisier "alternative rock" bands, some industrial, the less metal sludge bands, and whatever was left of the pre-86 hardcore bands. Not that everything after that falls outside my definition of rock music, it's just the stuff that wasn't impotent, drab, riffless, colorless unfun JNCO mope-chug out and out sucked. Rock, like the "punk" in "pop-punk" is clearly just to denote the instrumentation and approach, but has no bearing on describing the sound (i.e. like calling Grizzly Bear a rock band). DFA1979, Eagles of Death Metal and QOTSA were some of a few bands I could call "rock" acts without a caveat or a long treatise like the one I just wrote.<br />
<br />
I feel weird even writing this because rock a a perpetual Porygon of fail is such a given that it feels silly to be in 2009/2010 even discussing what "rock music means to me", casting aside a bunch of bands and then cosigning the shit out of Pissed Jeans.<br />
<br />
I've never listened to Flipper. Never got around to it. Even after multiple viewings of "American Hardcore" years after I read the book in high school. And I hate post-Dez Cadena Black Flag. Black Flag was cursed with great singers who were shitty frontmen and, in Rollins, a great frontman who was a shitty (live) singer, so as much as I like <i>Damaged</i>, everything they pretentious shat out post-Unicorn records save for "Slip It In" just seemed dumb and boring. There was an unsettling air of douche to everything that they produced from '84-'86, mainly emanating from Rollins himself who until middle age seemed like a total jerkoff (Strange how he didn't harass the well-deserving Gene Simmons on his IFC show but skewered the fuck out of a clueless and smart-mouthed midwestern kid on a cable access show in the 80's for having the nerve to ask him questions). Pissed Jeans often get compared to Flipper and post-<i>Damaged</i> Flag, and I guess that's about as apt as the Jesus Lizard comparisons.<br />
<br />
The record itself is better than I was expecting it to be, and only "Human Upskirt" fails to do anything worthwhile since writing fast song's is not what this band does well. They do two things: lurch and retch. They lurch on tracks like "Goodbye (Hair)" and "Request for Masseuse", the former which sounds a lot like <i>Bleach</i>-era Nirvana, a comparison that gets lost in all the other appraisals of the band. The retching is all of the herky-jerky, shorter, almost Melvins-y songs that dominate the record and get broken up by overly specific rumination on banal things that would be obnoxious if they weren't so good. Although they're still obnoxious, but only if you don't enjoy this sort of thing.<br />
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</div>27. <b>Death</b> (Detroit)- <i>For the Whole World to See</i><br />
Does this count? I mean, everyone who heard it this year heard it for the first time ever, so it's technically a new release despite being 34 or so years old. Anyway, this record should've never been unreleased for how long it was. It's not that the actual music is some previously unheard or ingenious thing, it's that it's an awesome NY-style 70's punk record put out pre-Bad Brains that finally gives both the Black Rock Coalition/Afropunk heads and their vocal detractors (like Daryl from the Bad Brains himself) something new to wax ethnocentric about besides Living Colour and etc. Plus, most importantly, it's just a really really good album, a well-written mid-point between 70's rock and 70's punk the same way <i>Blank Generation</i> is. <i> <br />
</i><br />
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</div>26. <b>Brand New</b><i>- Daisy</i><br />
This band has never put out a good album until this record. No matter what kinds from Long Island and upstate and Alternative press try and tell you. <i>The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me</i> had its moments but that was more of a lead-in for this, which actually does what that album was threatening to do but existed in too much of a referential space to other bands in the genre and some of the indie rock that came out in 2006. <i>Deja Entendu </i>is about as much of a classic as <i>Worship and Tribute</i> is, i.e. a record made up of two or three good songs that are probably chosen as singles and a shitload of uninteresting/bad filler that inevitably gets feverishly canonized by teenagers because teenagers, as the scene-as-fuck pink women's large Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie I gave to my ex-girlfriend 5 years ago attest, have shit taste.<br />
<br />
"Ape Dos Mil" is my shit, though.<br />
<br />
And the first Brand New album was the kind of really busy pop-punk (with the occasional campfire jam) bands write when they come in way after a genre has had it's last gasp.<br />
<br />
This, on the other hand, was a complete surprise. Taking the influence from other bands in the AP scene/Modest Mouse that appeared before, everything on this record seems a lot more interesting and well-written. It's a grower, none of the songs particular jump out on first listen as the most individual thing you've ever heard, but over time the dedication to building 6 and 7 minute long songs with frayed-to-hell fuzz guitars and watery, palm muted verses pays off. Even though the opening track "Vices" is predictable as an intro if you've at all listened to any alternative-for-teens, emo or metalcore record in the aughts and don't find the whole creepy sample-to-loud freakout thing interesting and "Be Gone" obnoxiously misinterprets stuttering a vocal over a drop-tuned blues vamp as being in tune with the album's experimental bent and not dumb and distracting, the rest of the album delivers. The fact that "Bed"'s chorus isn't the sort of loud-quiet-loud thing you'd expect shows that at a point when their commercial appeal is at it's lowest and least relevant, bands from high school, like Brand New, Zao, Thursday and Poison the Well, end up delivering their best stuff. The best rock bands have <i>patience</i>, even if they're fast. That patience comes from a confidence that what you're doing is good enough that you don't need to rush ideas and abandon parts or do what more popular acts do. And this is a record that is no less intense for its tendency to simmer into a rage rather than lamely shout it at you.<br />
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</a><br />
</div>25. <b>Camera Obscura</b> - <i>My Maudlin Career</i><br />
I spent most of late November making and trudging to appointments in Bay Ridge to find out whether or not I have a stomach disease/disorder. Not that Camera Obscura make necessarily uplifting music, in fact you could easily slit your wrists to this shit, but I got into <i>My Maudlin Career</i> towards the tail end of a year of stress and disappointment, many my own fault. It has the same effect on me as the Percocet I took for a headache two months ago; it creates a bittersweet fluff cloud of numb, depressing joy that only Scots could produce. Walking a stress-fully obtained stool sample to an insurance approved lab in south Brooklyn on a colder-than-usual Friday afternoon is somehow less shitty when Tracyanne Campbell is cooing to you about suicide and achingly unrequited love over irrepressibly 70's pop arrangements. I can't sit through it the whole way through because around the 3/4 mark the songs get a bit samey and less rewarding, but the peaks themselves are narcotically high.<br />
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</div>24. <b>Baroness</b>- <i>Blue Record</i><br />
When I said <i>Absu </i>was the best metal album, I meant that. Baroness couldn't be more of a rock band if they tried. They also couldn't be more indebted to other acts. <i>Leviathan-</i>era Mastodon was always an obvious note; when I gave <i>Rec Record</i> a cursory iTunes browse two years ago, I was put off from it and the band because it really sounded, down to the guitar parts, like Mastodon-lite. But there's also lots of Alice in Chains in "Steel that Sleeps the Eye", a lot of Queens of the Stone Age in "Jake Leg" (around the :44 mark), and a ton of Torche in all of the vocal parts, which share the same harmony/dual tracking-style that pops up all over <i>In Return</i> and <i>Meanderthal</i>. The key thing about all four of these reference points is that these are all bands with metal influence but none of them is at all a capital "M" metal band. And the playing on this record is very much the playing of a really well-worn, talented rock band, not say, Crowbar or something non-beardo. There are no forays into "extreme metal", no ridiculous double-bass workouts, but a lot of dual-lead guitars, which is more of a hard rock staple than anything else, and one the band is really fucking good at employing. Like Thin Lizzy good.<br />
<br />
You can tell when someone's been playing their instrument for a while, because they know how to tastefully employ every trick, every trill, every tremolo pick, every chicken-pick, into their music. When I saw Baroness open for Converge and the Red Chord in 2008 I commented that their music was boring and generic sludge rock but their were a hell of a live band and really blew me away with how well they played. I said all that they were missing were the songs to be a great heavy rock band (for beardos), and now they've actually got the songs. Although there are odd parts. One, the song titles are all terrible and whatever "art" Baizley (the sludge equivalent of Jake Bannon in terms of freelance visual art work) and the rest of the band think they're employing, their pretension misses the mark when they name shit things like "War, Wisdom and Rhyme".<br />
<br />
Clearly you have beards. But tell me something <i>else</i> about yourself besides your slavish dedication to rote 00's sludge tropes like referencing booze, animals and war.<br />
<br />
Two, "O'er Hell and Hide", which is the most 90's song I've heard this year, just for sticking in extraneous vocal samples, sound effects, and disco sections in an instrumental track. Not necessarily bad, but distracting in that it makes me pine for that awesome <a href="http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=1044">Malevolent Creation techno remix</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Black_%28Malevolent_Creation_album%29">album</a> <a href="http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:-0EWnNH8vYUJ:www.thegrimoire.com/Magazine/Interviews/tabid/119/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/184/Malevolent-Creation.aspx+malevolent+creation+joe+black+interview&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">that was put out against their will 10 years ago</a>. Also, "Blackpowder Orchard" doesn't have the effect they think it has. In general, if Baroness put an instrumental or interlude on their record, it's bound to be jarring and ill-fitting.<br />
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Still. Beards.<br />
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</div>23. <b>DOOM</b>- <i>Born Like This</i><br />
I'm not even sure if I'd really put it this high. I hate DOOM over Jake One tracks, they don't really mesh as well as when he goes in over TV soundtracks, Dilla tracks or cheese, reverb-drenched (no Phil Collins) 80's R&B. Still, this is the only album that could make me actually sit through a Slug verse in 2009.<br />
<br />
I struggled to like more than three tracks on <i>Vaudeville Villain</i> in 2008. I didn't like <i>Madvillainy</i> when it came out 4 years ago (though that's changed). And I remembered one of my favorite high school teachers, the one who put me onto the Violent Femmes and the Dead Milkmen, having <i>MM...Food</i> but not being that interested in it. But around the same time I downloaded <i>Born Like This</i>, I copped <i>Operation Doomsday</i> from the Chinese internet and got converted. And in that, I realized that, like Redman to Ludacris, DOOM's southern analog is Gucci Mane. They're both idiosyncratic rappers with unique and divisive styles, almost impenetrable enunciation and are most likely to be unappreciated for their lyrics because of it. And like<i> The State vs Radric Davis</i>, <i>Born Like This</i>, at a scant and kind of diverse 40 minutes, is a good entry point for anyone put off by past works.<br />
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</div>22. <b>Converge</b>- <i>Axe to Fall</i><br />
I love this band. But I'm sick of them.<br />
<br />
I don't love bands.<i> </i>I love albums. I have a belief system I molded around the time I graduated high school/entered college that bands will only disappoint you. Bands will get old, get shitty, replace their best/your favorite members, appear on Tyra, release terrible records, give too many interviews and reveal themselves to be stupid or have embarrassing political opinions, you name it.<i> </i>But albums don't get your hopes. If a band only puts out one good record (like The Streets), there's no loss. You appreciate that album, don't get caught up in ridiculous cults of personality or hype-driven superfandom, and move on to the next one, which you should as a rational fan of good music and not privileged dickheads with Telecaster's and gauged earlobes.<br />
<br />
There are only five people who I am slavishly a fan of and have broken this rule time and time again for, based on the appendix of the previous rule, which is that once someone's made three or more good albums, I'll allow myself to be a fan of them and not just their records. They are TV on the Radio, Jonathan Richman, Ghostface Killah, KRS-ONE, and Converge. That's it. Everyone else can eat dicks.<br />
<br />
Especially the Black Dahlia Murder, who destroyed my childhood when they released <i>Nocturnal</i>.<br />
<br />
Now this is not a bad record. Actually it's great. Problem is, like a significant other or your own life, consistency is boring. This is the 5th great Converge album in a row, and at this point I'm bored with how good it is. This makes no sense at all, except for the fact that this is the only band that I've ever actually liked this many records from. 3 is a nice round number, it encompasses 6-7 years of musical/lineup changes, lyrical maturation, new approaches and etc. Every good artist can be summed up in 3 really good albums and then the rest of their oeuvre can be told to fuck off without anything of value being discarded. Chances are, you can download or ween the good songs on the 40 or so uninteresting Bob Dylan records from various collections. Jonathan Richman was like this. KRS-ONE and Ghostface, were not, even though KRS's 5 albums can be whittled down to the first two BDP records and <i>Return of the Boom Bap</i>, while Ghost, who is on 167 song on my iTunes, including 140 solo album songs, is at his best on <i>Ironman, Supreme Clientele</i>, and these days I'd say more <i>Pretty Toney</i> than <i>Fishscale</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>When Forever Comes Crashing</i> has its missteps (mainly "Ten Cents", which doesn't seem like it was a good idea), but these last four records, save the filler on <i>No Heroes</i> are great. But as opposed to that record, which had to grow on me, I immediately liked <i>Axe to Fall</i>, it's just not that exciting to me. Some of the tracks feel too samey and too familiar despite the change in sound to reflect more of the denimXcore bands on Deathwish rather than anything that'd remind you of Rorschach. It's still good, and it's still a pretty visious hardcore record, but, like Ghostface lately, it feels like Converge-by-numbers, despite the two closing tracks which are pretty and mature in a way you wouldn't expect from the band.<br />
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</div>21. <b>Grand Puba</b>- <i>RetroActive</i><br />
I wasn't kidding during that mid-year list. Until the last Sean Price solo album comes out, this is the oldhead album of the year. I had to put <i>2000</i> on the backburner until I got 2009's albums over with it, but not surprisingly Puba's just as effortlessly good as he was on the brief snippets of that record I heard. Sonically, it hits that bass-y (literally, there are actual basslines, not a dull 808-by-way-of-SunnO))) buzz) 90's rap spot that is like catnip to me and is stylistically and content-wise really similar to De La's <i>Stakes is High</i>, minues the Dilla beats and Mos Def feature. At 11 tracks, Puba seemed to realize it's best to avoid overstuffing a record by a 40-something rapper and just try to avoid filler. It pays off on a record that manages to tackle familiar topics with a sense of humor and talent for wordplay that's rare in NY rap now.<br />
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</div><i> </i>20.<i> </i><b>Dizzee Rascal</b>- <i>Tongue 'N Cheek</i><br />
It's weird to even bring up grime now, but it was one of the first outside-the-mainstream things I got into around 2002/2003. I never got too invested in it past Wiley and Dizzee and an unhealthy fascination with the interstitial music on "Da Ali G Show", but had I a good internet connection and time to tear myself away from the Official AFI Message Boards and Livejournal, I prolly would've. But the fact that that's in the past isn't just apparent to me and the record-buying public, but Dizzee as well, who started moving away from grime around 2007's <i>Maths + English</i>. And now, still somehow successful and still incredibly young (famous for 7 or 8 years but only 24 years old), he's decided to stay relevant by essentially putting out a dance record.<br />
<br />
And somehow it's the best thing he's done since <i>Boy In Da Corner</i>.<br />
<br />
I though "Bonkers" was stupid the first time I heard it (it is, but it grows on you) and it's unnerving to have Dizzee rap over Tiesto, Calvin Harris and Armand Van Helden, facilitators of fun times for drunk girls and eurotrash everywhere, beats. But considering that grime was the least organic, most hyper-modern and digital take on rap until ATL producers started making trance-rap it's not really that much of a stretch to hear Dizzee over less fractured and off-time drum patterns. Plus, there's not only a little bit of everything on here (electrohouse, Baltimore club breaks, British rap and bullshit, two-step/garage, 90's house, and even one grime throwback), but it's done better than it has any right to be. Without all the frenzy and advanced level beats, Dizzee raps are revealed to be as occasionally lacking and cliche as they've always been, but the samples, beats, and hooks all hit their mark, lacking any of the bland spots of <i>Showtime</i> or Lily Allen-related filler of <i>Maths + English</i>. <br />
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</div>19. <b>Maxwell</b>- <i>BLACKsummer's Night</i><br />
My family agrees on few things musically. We all love "Return of the Mack<i>" </i>by Mark Morrison. We all though Patra was a bit much (a lil' too slack), and all love <i>Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite</i>. It's weird, because it was all we would listen to with each other in my aunt's car from 1996-1999 and is one of the few album's from my childhood besides Thriller than I still enjoy. But everything after that album sort of got the gasface from me. I like <i>embrya</i>'s first single, but other than that he fell out of anyone's mind for most of the decade, save for the video for "A Woman's Worth" that got nominated at the VMA's in 2000 or 2001 I think. Soon R&B was going to get even more rap-influenced and neo-soul would stop pushing units, so no one thought the dude would not only come back 8 years later after there was a public "who cares?" when word that his label was refusing to release his new music, but to come back so good and so successfully. His video somehow ended up on the 106 & Park countdown, "Pretty Wings" got radio play, and he caused every XX chromosomed human watching the BET awards to <i>gush </i>during his performance, a performance that, now in his 30's, had a pronounced 70's soulman quality that's nearly-absent from all the Chris Brown-ing that's the archetype still.<br />
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Plus, the album, the first in an endearingly pretentious and difficult to Google trilogy, is really fucking good. Like most high-falutin' conceptual soul/R&B singers, he sometimes misses the mark, like some of the forced vocal grit in "Cold", but the harmonics throughout "Pretty Wings", the weird 2002-era rock guitar parts tastefully thrown into "Help Somebody" like it was a Res or Meshell Ndegeocello song, and the affecting simplicity of the guitar-and-voice arrangement in "Playing Possum" make the 8-song (including one album-ending instrumental that recalls the Baroness one except good) record stand above the two albums that preceded it. Not only is it a record that somehow sounds exactly how you'd imagine Maxwell sounding live, excessive cymbal splashes and drum fills and horn outros and all, but Maxwell has mastered the high art of soul singing: putting a cry in your voice in a way that doesn't make you sound like a bitch, something that most post-high school rap and bullshit kids can't even fathom.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBM2kqrw4Nw1oZClIYgQ6uA8i4cf0tPCW717HcNYnusbX8qlDrBghqbcNoEMXV3CCGj1cVo2h1Tby7hKp2tq4cmKR2rxyTGacpNpfslxrHPJhsIqHlGXMR3zNxJqhfVbpD9mdlEIfWTI/s1600-h/health_get_color_album_art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguBM2kqrw4Nw1oZClIYgQ6uA8i4cf0tPCW717HcNYnusbX8qlDrBghqbcNoEMXV3CCGj1cVo2h1Tby7hKp2tq4cmKR2rxyTGacpNpfslxrHPJhsIqHlGXMR3zNxJqhfVbpD9mdlEIfWTI/s320/health_get_color_album_art.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>18. <b>HEALTH</b>- <i>Get Color</i><br />
When I was in high school and got a new computer to replace the one I destroyed with free internet porn and GameBoy ROMS around 11th grade our new computer had iTunes, which seemed a lot cooler than Winamp to me, and less tainted by all the scene/Irving Plaze/Hot Topic bullshit I still associate with Winamp<i>. </i>Around this time I only put a few songs on the iTunes, as I didn't have an iPod yet and didn't have a reason or the patience to put all 200 something albums on there. So I just put Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Peaches on it and listened to that when I wasn't listening to metalcore, Mastodon and Cannibal Corpse my senior year of high school. Trent Reznor's lyrics were always awful, but there were two songs from <i>Pretty Hate Machine</i> that I obsessed over: "Sin" and "That's What I Get". From the Ministry best of I had bought from Sounds in St. Marks, I kept playing "Thieves", "Stigmata", "Just One Fix" and the live version of "So What". The live version of "So What" was my favorite because I was an extremely raw nerved, moody kid. Never really depressed, just moody and really pretentious.<br />
<br />
At the time, those 6 songs and the Berlyn cover from the Peaches album evoked this really poisonous, brooding notion of sex to me. I was coming out of a goth aesthetic into a scene one at the time but I still retained this image I got from SNL and movies I watched as a pre-teen of fake vampires biting each other and doing blood-play and blah blah blah. I always pictured desperate, intense people (who probably looked like Bauhaus) just miserably humping like dessicated rats, all platelets and AIDS scares and bad poetry. Things were always bleeding white back then for some reason, and Davey Havok seemed cool for a minute there. When I listened to this HEALTH record for the first time riding the shuttle bus from Jay street at 2 or 3 in the morning, I got that same vibe again. Even though it's Pitchfork-approved and from California, two things that normally turn me off of everything from bands to healthy living, I haven't heard something this goth in a while. Or at least the idea of goth I imagined, cultivated, and abandoned six years ago. But I mean that in the best way possible. When I think of goth I think of Bauhaus in "The Hunger". When I think of "The Hunger" I think of gaunt, sophisticated, cocaine-addled people. When I think of that I think of blood impurities and disease and needles. And when I think of that I think of HEALTH. Not everything is necessarily a song. Save for "Die Slow" and "Severin", the tracks kind of just force feelings of of the ambiguity.<br />
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Basically music for goths to hump like rats to.<br />
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</div>17. <b>Magrudergrind</b>- S/T<br />
When I said <i>Absu</i> was the best metal record of 2009, I meant that shit. Because this is only metal if you still can't differentiate your death from your black. There's not much I can say about an awesome band that wantonly samples Mobb Deep on interludes, was produced and engineered by Kurt Ballou and Scott Hull respectively, writes songs so good that people are pretending to care about powerviolence, and whose album cover collage includes Biz Markie and stigmatas. <br />
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</div>16. <b>Animal Collective</b>- <i>Merriweather Post Pavillion</i><br />
Again, you get tired of consistency. Despite what I said in the intro for this post, I gave it a shot and I'm not going to pretend that it's <i>not</i> good or outright refuse to acknowledge it like the Panda Bear album, but despite the .3 points Pitchfork adds to ever successive Animal Collective jawn, this doesn't seem better than <i>Strawberry Jam</i>, just longer. <br />
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</div>15. <b>Rick Ross</b>- <i>Deeper Than Rap</i><br />
BAW$E.<br />
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The musical equivalent of a leisure suit. The raps? Nimbler than they should be, even though he can't seem to focus enough to make sense half the time. The beats? Gorgeous. Like a bejeweled coffin at a New Orleans funeral. If you told me these were Barry White demos I'd believe you. I downloaded this on a lark and in an effort to objective, but I got completely sucked into it. It's not until track 9 that it hits anything close to a lull, and though the latter half of the album doesn't reach the dizzying Pacino-esque levels of the first, it's still good enough that even Ghostface had to jack for beats.<br />
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What does that say about the state of rap that someone who is clearly a clown and who self-ethers himself on every occasion and whose every move and word rings false and the epitome of Chris Rock in CB4 could not only be successful but effortlessly put out such a decent record?<br />
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Probably nothing, which is even less that what Rawse says of worth on this album besides "crab meats".<br />
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Hand Nas these instrumentals and see what happens.<br />
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</div>14. <b>Ryan Leslie</b>- <i>Transition</i><br />
Only different from the Maxwell album in it's era. This is very much a 2009-era R&B album while Maxwell's is a bit of a throwback. Both records are weird and quirky in their own ways, including the arrangements, instrument flourishes, and production choices. Leslie's album sounds too much like radio R&B and sometimes beats sounds a little cheap. His lyrics, like everything about him from his website to interviews, leave no detail to the imagination. The dedication to odd little nuances and matter-of-fact details is a lot like the Pissed Jeans album, except over 7th chords and what sounds a lot like a MIDI bass. Those details get you lyrics like "So I get the finest clothes I can find on retail/And I try to pay attention to every single detail/I just want to find a girl who looks good with no makeup/And when I find her I'll promise I'm never gonna break up", which is weird in it's transparency. Leslie doesn't bullshit if he's being a lout or being shallow, which is as refreshing as the fact that after a couple of listens tracks start popping out, besides the immediately awesome single "You're Not My Girl". "Is It Real Love" is pretty from a distance, and "Sunday Morning" is a disarmingly specific paean <i>to hanging out with your girlfriend on a Sunday night</i>. If Leslie wrote a song titled "Ketchup Panties", best believe the song would be about ketchup panties.<br />
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</div><i> </i>13. <b>The Flaming Lips</b>- <i>Embryonic</i><br />
I didn't think I'd ever care about this band again but somehow they slyly release a dark, damaged and trippy headphone record that's more focused than anything they've released this decade and somehow restores some measure of cool they lost in between the Chemical Brothers collabs and fur-suited yiffing. <br />
<i> <br />
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Plus along with the Pink Zeppelin/Led Floyd heaviness we got to see Wayne Coyne's asshole this year, which is something.<br />
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The only reason the album isn't higher is because it's definitely an album-oriented thing and I haven't experienced it the whole way through enough to gauge it versus listening to the other records on here the whole way through. This should probably be higher, but that's the beauty of the top 30's ranking being immaterial.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgOHzNtXo7zzJYKZLsy0q7veNSAtLG4TyrxLJRTvKFE5wT7OrER1Sj4FQEPasQ9ylTvHWm1AGDDor71Mf3r_Ez7Y4CocXyzK_IxutAVDKvujLvRn4OLCFdBmFT06LxrV88O4wObcaHlU/s1600-h/vivian-girls-everything-goes-wrong-album-art-28878.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgOHzNtXo7zzJYKZLsy0q7veNSAtLG4TyrxLJRTvKFE5wT7OrER1Sj4FQEPasQ9ylTvHWm1AGDDor71Mf3r_Ez7Y4CocXyzK_IxutAVDKvujLvRn4OLCFdBmFT06LxrV88O4wObcaHlU/s320/vivian-girls-everything-goes-wrong-album-art-28878.jpeg" /></a><br />
</div><i> </i>12. <b>Vivian Girls</b>- <i>Everything Goes Wrong</i><br />
Even as I'm typing this I could bump this record down to like 20-something and not really mind. As I'm listening to it right now, I really like it and I'm not bullshitting when I say it reminds me a a girl-pop version of Husker Du, at least in terms of the feel of the songs. Plus it represents my belief that even though the sound was done before, the albums that were produced by those bands were never as consistent of good as the ones being made now. I'd rather listen to Vivian Girls than any of the early 90's indie bands they sound almost exactly like, and that's kind of what matters.<br />
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Plus you can't help but appreciate that they're up there with DOOM and Gucci in terms of divisiveness.<br />
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</div><i> </i>11. <b>Ghostface Killah</b>- <i>Ghost Dini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City</i><br />
<a href="http://fuckilooklike.blogspot.com/2009/10/tom-breihan-is-fucking-retarded-or.html">I've voiced my opinion on this record and its bad rap before</a>, but suffice to say this is a consistent Ghost album, if not better than <i>The Big Doe Rehab</i>. People just seem to be staunchly anti-R&B unless it's ironic, weird, or has gaudy trance-synth arpeggios.<i> </i>The only flaw is the auto-tune on "Baby" and the inclusion of a terrible Ron Browz bonus track.<br />
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</div>10. <b>Raekwon</b>- <i>Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II</i><br />
Something I didn't quite keep in mind when I first started listening to this album is that when I got into the original <i>Cuban Linx</i> around my sophomore year in college, I listened to it for maybe two months before I realized I loved it. I was still only a year or two in me re-immersion into rap so I assumed that my rap pedigree would cut down that time when it came to its sequel.<br />
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Really, it took longer. NY rap albums the last couple of years can be a tricky enterprise. Even if the beats are on point and not on some Dipset low-budget shit, you still have to contend with bored, past-their-prime, or trying-way-too-hard rappers whose rapping leaves a lot to be desired. <i>8 Diagrams</i> and<i> The Big Doe Rehab</i> made me wary of anything Wu-related, and as did the fact that besides Ghostface, the only Wu members putting out quality albums were GZA and Masta Killa, and even those albums weren't amazing or anything, just remarkable in their consistency. Considering Rae had already dropped two pretty terrible records, so he was the last person I expected to succeed on his much-delayed promises of releasing not only a good album, but one that would be the 2009 equivalent of the first.<br />
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But in a year where <i>even U-God</i> dropped a good album, clearly there's more reason to be optimistic than not to be. The kung-fu samples seem to forced and referential, "Catalina" and "About Me" are awful and ruin the feel of the album (not surprising because Dr. Dre has been coasting on reputation and not quality for a while), and Rae's voice never rises above "Xanex-flow" in his middle-age, eschewing any chances of anything as wild as "Criminology" to appear again. Still, Rae managed to put together an album with songs that jump out only after repeated listens and songs that immediately stand out as successors to<i> Cuban Linx</i> in both construction and fell ("Have Mercy"). There's no real discernible plot, but there wasn't one in the first album, either. Just denser-than-dense adjective-rap and a slavish dedication to thematic repetition. Considering the underwhelming Clipse album, this is the premier coke rap with a hardbody middle section that didn't really reveal itself until I was roaming the stacks towards the end of the semester with studio production headphones on, catching every click and bounce on "Surgical Gloves" and "Broken Safety". Really, it's exactly what I thought it would be at the most, a combination of the good Masta Killa (in terms of approach and consistency) and GZA (in terms of how digital it sounds) albums from the decade on steroids. Even GZA himself wakes up from his vocal coma on the most 90's rap sounding thing I've heard in a while, "We Will Rob You". Without the Dre cuts, this could've easily been the rap record of the year.<br />
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</div>9. <b>Mos Def</b>- <i>The Ecstatic</i><br />
I expected even less from Mos than I did from Rae. Around December '06 my roommate Jordan and I were trying to figure out what was going on with <i>Tru3 Magic</i>, a stillborn album that was either released with little to no notice and fanfare to escape his deal with Geffen or was just inherently as poorly thought out as some of the<i> </i>more aimless moments on <i>The New Danger</i>. Either way, it had been three years, and up until this year, there was no activity on his label site, which was especially frustrating during the run-up between '04 and '06, and his Myspace was never updated. In that time, he'd said some ridiculous divisive shit on Bill Maher's show, acted in a ho-hum Bruce Willis flick and an uninteresting Michel Gondry movie, but nothing much musically save for some stray freestyles over Jay-Z beats.<br />
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When this album did come out, at first it was underwhelming. On first listen it seemed like Mos was off his game and was being overwhelmed by Madlib's beats which, though some of them were old from being used as music for Adult Swim bumps, were pretty spectacular. And after a while I realized that with it's short track list, short runtime and short track length, Mos had essentially followed in the footsteps of his favorite rapper and made a DOOM record. This album reeks of Stones Throw and undie rap cool, and after a couple of listens, the DOOM influence not only becomes clear, but it starts merging well with Mos' extant half-mumbly, Kemet-jocking, pro-black art-rap style. His raps take more patience to appreciate than they did 11 years ago, but it's miles above all the vague pseudo-gangsterisms he was employing all over <i>The New Danger</i> or the pretentious navel-gazing that ruined the already fractured <i>Tru3 Magic</i>. The reviews are accurate, he's finally got a handle on the singing-and-rapping thing, throwing in slick sing-song the way Nicki Minaj would on songs like "The Embassy" and "Pistola". There's a swagger, an international feel, and a sense of humor all of this album that had been missing from Mos' records for most of the decade, suggesting that either the climate or Mos himself had changed so much that he could make a record that actually sounds like he had fun making it. <br />
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</div>8. <b>Gucci Mane</b>- <i>The State vs. Radric Davis</i><br />
So last year there were two kinds of rap albums released, the consistent and enjoyable formalist rap record that struggled to be reverential and modern-sounding at the same time (Q-Tip's <i>The Renaissance</i>) and the wild and divisive new-school rap album that couldn't care less about said formalism (<i>The Carter III</i>)<i>. </i>Last year I picked the former over the latter as the best rap record just because I thought <i>The Carter III</i> was exciting but just tried to please too many people<i>, </i>had too many dud lyrics, and just didn't hold up as well as the Q-Tip album. This year, it's the opposite. This list is littered with really good rap records, but save for the Mos Def album, nothing is really as immediately enjoyable as <i>The State vs Radric Davis</i>.<br />
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Over the<i> </i>year, I've vacillated from outright ignoring Gucci to downloading <i>Back to the Trap House</i> and getting converted by the first 5 tracks on the album, especially "I Know Why". Listening to Gucci at first there was a overwhelming feeling that he wasn't saying anything<i> </i>and that what he was saying I could barely understand from how thick his accent is. I've been listening to Southern rap for a long time, so it's not as if I can't Rosetta Stone foreign dialects, but Gucci in particular just had sounded like he had such a heavy mouth that it was hard to judge him on lyrics. From last spring up until the release of <i>The State vs Radric Davis</i>, though, I continued to ignore Gucci. Really, I spend a lot of the year in a bubble isolated from anything popular, so I didn't catch most of Gucci's features or the bubbling hype. When the <i>Cold War Series</i> mixtapes came out, I downloaded them to get familiar, but I didn't enjoy listening to any of the five mixtapes I got from him. Something was missing.<br />
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Like DOOM, I didn't think much of him past his unique flow and cadence and didn't get indoctrinated until that one record came out that made everything else stand out more than it did before. For DOOM it was <i>Operation Doomsday</i>, for Gucci, it's this album, which, save for a momentum-killing commercial R&B middle section, succeeds where most Southern rap albums fail.<br />
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It's hard to convince Gucci's detractors that he's good. The lyrics are an uphill battle because his topics are extremely limited, but then again, so is every rappers. Unless someone's pursuing Dadaism, most song lyrics can be neatly divided into a couple of categories, and Gucci's dedication to introspection, selling coke, girls, jewelry, getting fucked up, money and cars isn't really alien from anything else in rap. But who else kills songs thematically like "Lemonade", "Heavy", and "Volume"? Like I said about Nicki Minaj, I'd take a younger, invigorated rapper than sounds like they're having fun over old reliable ones any day. And Gucci never sounds like later-period Raekwon or GZA; he's always attacking the track, existing <i>within the beat</i> like a young Bun B but with a regal air to him. There's a noticeable haughtiness to Gucci when he works with words to find more and more new ways to approach really tired subjects. The beats themselves are all great, triumphant post-Jeezy tracks that come across a lot warmer than Jeezy does, maybe because Gucci actually raps and tends to ease all these really menacing sounding trance-trap beats with hook upon hook upon hook.<br />
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Something the record has in general, both due to the production and due to Gucci, is a tendency to have enough parts to each song to feel less like the average staid beat and some with actual song structure. Gucci throws in multiple hooks and refrains, but still has the patience to let breaks ride out, to not say dumb shit where he should be quiet and let things flourish or develop. Even R&B cash-grab section has it's moments, with "Bad Bad Bad" and "Sex in Crazy Places" being the only of the four tracks to not become endearing with repeat listens and the latter being kind of just unforgivably terrible.<br />
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Gucci does what you're supposed to do: Be entertaining and make good music. Everything else is pretension. There are moments, like "Volume" where he starts off saying something great like "I pull up in a four-door Porsche set-trippin'/Three young dreadhead niggas ridin wit me/I don't think they like me and I don't like 'em neither/But if they move wrong I wet up they wife beater" but never finishes the thought. He can turn an extended diamonds-as-fruit metaphor into one of the best songs of the year, but he doesn't follow up on a stanza that could've lead to a great storytelling track or verse. Maybe the next two installments of <i>The State vs Radric Davis</i> will have more of that but I don't see the quality matching that of an album good enough to make me enjoy Soulja Boy and Wacka Flocka Flame rapping.<br />
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On the intelligence thing, there's a fallacy about speech equating intelligence. <a href="http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=67476">Byron Crawford brought this up recently</a> that some of the dumbest people he's ever had to deal with spoke perfect English, but because the stigma is that heavy regional accents and colloquialisms aren't the norm in the language that they more than just seem "ignorant" or "stupid" but actually demonstrate ignorance and stupidity. Not to imply that Gucci's a genius either (that year-long bid he's doing for parole violation is testament to that), just to remind to stupid is as stupid does.<br />
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</div>7. <b>Space Ghost Cowboys</b>- <i>The Sad Album</i><br />
I might be blinded by my own attendance at every Purchase gig they've done, with a small room full of friends and fans who know every word and song, sweatily swaying to what sounds like Julian Casablancas fronting a drunken, manlier Pavement<i>. </i>But I have full faith that my celebration of this band and this album go farther than college ties when I say that if there was any justice this band would be much bigger, being reviewed on Pitchfork and getting praised outside of our incestuous circle of fellow musicians and hangers-on. Go to their Myspace, go on iTunes, and buy their album from ShackAttackRecords. Unless you don't like earnest and quirky mope-rock, then, you know, I understand. <i> <br />
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</div><i> </i>6. <b>Neon Indian</b><i>- Psychic Chasms</i><br />
Like the HEALTH record in that it's more about the mood than actual songs (though there are a few), <i>Psychic Chasms</i> often sounds like <i>Discovery</i>-era Daft Punk covering Wings' "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" in a 1990's retail outlet store.<br />
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</div><i> </i>5.<i> </i><b>Memory Tapes</b><i>- Seek Magic</i><br />
Alan Polomo made a comment on Pitchfork about not wanting the fact that his stuff sounds like listening through music through a tape recording of a TV playing a VHS take primacy over the actual music. If you listen to it enough, it doesn't, the songs are clearly there and the production technique is just that. Memory Tapes, whose record was a little more rewarding when it comes to this sort of thing, took that further since, for all the pretension and half-kidding rend pieces, Memory Tapes is essentially the Hercules and Love Affair album stripped of that album's fidelity and dedication to Bjork-y queerness."Bicycle", "Stop Talking" and "Graphics" are essentially the same kind of disco-friendly genre-jumping dance music that Hercules and Love Affair and Cut/Copy made last year, just sonically distant. Memory Tapes is odd, though, because this aspect seemed really unnecessary. After enough listens, it becomes clear that the album would've played out better had the volume and equalization been the same as those two acts' albums to bring out the fact that this is a really great dance record hidden behind an indie-friendly digital masking. "Plain Material" benefits from the "chill" treatment, but really everything else seems a little hampered by it.<i><br />
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</div>4. <b>Wavves</b>- <i>Wavvves</i><br />
I don't think anyone who got into Wavves this year expected to like Wavves. There's just too many things about Nathan himself that are off-putting and grating. But the songs are there, and for all the hipster gossip and drug-cocktail tantrums it's probably the best rock record to have been released in a while, sounding tossed-off, effortless, and ingenious like good rock should.<i> <br />
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</div>3. <b>Bat For Lashes</b>- <i>Two Suns</i><br />
Natasha Khan makes the record that I wish Bjork still did. She's certainly taken up that mantle visually, although sonically she reminds me of a mix between the better moments on PJ Harvey and TV on the Radio records, or at least PJ Harvey with a better range singing over early TV on the Radio songs. In fact, tracks sound a lot like each of those artists, with "Two Planets" sounding like Bjork, "Travelling Woman" and "Moon and Moon" sounding like PJ and "Good Love" sounding like TVOTR. Immediately noticeable influences aside, it's a gorgeous album, husky, morose and sometimes danceable<i> like </i>an episode of Fat Albert.<br />
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</div>2. <b>Grizzly Bear</b>- <i>Veckatimest</i><br />
What can you say about this record that hasn't been said about the Taj Mahal, the Sistine Chapel or Kim Kardashian? There's no reason to talk about this album any more than it already has been, except to say that it's takes multiple listens to get into, is painfully pretty at times and is studiously arranged.<br />
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Also, everyone in the band looks funny.<i> <br />
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</div>1. <b>Sa-Ra Creative Partners</b>-<i> Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love</i><br />
Probably the most slept-on record <i>ever. </i>EVER. If you Google it, you'll notice it was barely reviewed, with the most notable one being a glowing Spin write-up. There's really very little missing from this record, which is edgy in the 70's, Richard Pryor "I'm going to say whatever I want, no euphemisms" way<i>, </i>and opens with a samba song. There's Parliament and Dilla-isms all over the record, and whereas Flying Lotus just has Dilla's clunky drums, Sa-Ra filters later Dilla weirdness through a George Clinton lens. There's warmth, soul, and coke-informed strangeness all over the record, from each background blip to the melodies and vocal deliveries, and it's hard not to love an album that ends with a 7-minute concept song about a future where a guy let's his daughter go to a cosmic ball that essentially boils down to a 4 minute jazz solo piece. Everything is awesomely trippy, even moreso than the Flaming Lips album, and the quality of the record belies the throwaway Sa-Ra production leftovers vibe that their bland and egalitarian moniker and status as crew behind recent music by Farnsworth Bentley and Erykah Badu signed to and subsequently shelved by Kanye's G.O.O.D. Music imprint. It's everything a good movie should be, sexy, violent, beautiful, drug-fueled, vulgar, gentle, and there's some jazz, electro and samba thrown into just for fun. Simply, it's the densest and most varied and rewarding 71 minutes of music released in a minute.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-33878371386829764672010-01-07T01:23:00.008-05:002010-01-11T00:41:01.247-05:00Best Albums of 2009 Pt.1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHuk2A7P1BZBoJafHe-V30WZlHbW0UAvNiwEhl-AiTeQGQd3VxVK9wGz9GekyGwz6bw2jGtw4gKvQQ5UAMbMQqGtdiCdgJdX3jiN0eloAtaYxIWVg9hH21MrsCDGABFOKXETv7CPgOCO0/s1600-h/Advice_the_best.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHuk2A7P1BZBoJafHe-V30WZlHbW0UAvNiwEhl-AiTeQGQd3VxVK9wGz9GekyGwz6bw2jGtw4gKvQQ5UAMbMQqGtdiCdgJdX3jiN0eloAtaYxIWVg9hH21MrsCDGABFOKXETv7CPgOCO0/s320/Advice_the_best.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><i>For the first time in the three years I've been doing this, the list is pretty fucking long. In fact, it's twice the length of 2008's (although I left off a good 8 or 9 albums from that list that I caught up to this year). I could blame this on a number of things, an increased number of good records, an increased leniency in what I consider "good" (clearly not, judging by that Necro record that made it in for 2007), or me just being an overachiever. Really, this list's length can be attributed to the fact that as of 2009 my interest have come into alignment with Pitchfork, who themselves have actually started writing better reviews and being less laughably biased about the scores they give albums. I've listened to Pitchfork "Best New Music" albums more than I'd like to admit this year, although this really just means they're transitioning to being a decidedly less-exclusive and pretentious "indie" circle jerk and I've transitioned to being a lot less <a href="http://fuckilooklike.blogspot.com/2007/10/free-at-last.html">self-righteously indignant and reactionary</a> as I was when I started this blog. Oh and I'm learning to not write run-on sentences! Yaaaaaaaaay!<br />
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</div>60. <b>Brutal Truth</b>- <i>Evolution Through Revolution</i><br />
This record/band is officially terrible, but in my compulsion to split hairs by including albums with only two to three good songs and to have this list be divisible by ten, here they are. Perfect examples of why both NY and potheads routinely fail and embarrass themselves/annoy everyone else.<br />
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</div>59. <b>Revocation</b>- <i>Existence is Futile</i><br />
Not consistent or mindblowing, but cool enough to have another batch of good tech-y metal songs this year. Although, like Necrophagist, Obscura, Baroness, Mastodon, Dillinger, and a host of other bands in recent years, they'll be hyped into me hating them by meme-starved metal forum nerds. (SMNEWS.COM! WHERE METAL LIVES!)<br />
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</div>58. <b>Karen O and the Kids</b>- <i>Where the Wild Things are Soundtrack</i><br />
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will not be on this list. Probably ever again. <i>Fever to Tell</i> was really good, and at the very least gives me something to bond with women in my age group over, and <i>Show Your Bones</i> had its moments, but <i>It's Blitz</i>, save for "Heads Will Roll" is definitely a "too little, too late" sort of deal. Had they released that record in '07 or early '08 when it would've been timely in terms of trends, then maybe it wouldn't seem as bland. This record, however, isn't good either, but is nominally better than the YYY's album, if for nothing but "Capsize", "All is Love", and the single justification for Karen O's continued existence, "Hideaway". I downloaded this record after seeing the movie more because of my own false nostalgia of crayons and Halloween and oatmeal and suburban households and all of these vague memories that I don't actually have but wanted when I was younger and saw how all the wealthier (i.e. whiter) kids in Park Slope lived. Then again, they had to wear uniforms. For the intro, those three songs and the revelation of how much more enjoyable Karen O is when she's singing children's ballads, the album is worth downloading, with "Hideaway" the aural equivalent of Charlotte Gainsbourg feeding you s'mores and cocoa while looking lovingly into you with her aged French eyes and freshly severed witch clit.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwUPDQHU4MdAHFLzX1NPGgyTQP_RSuy_JflZ9KBFj4UTCJmM9_-fj6k947REVaKpoxPoQOj9IPB6IneSvNKF9VnYjNRD1oODtEBm1xvgwjl-UK07hkKFml38tu51ITprW_3wqjbZ1_N8/s1600-h/kamaal+the+abstract.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgwUPDQHU4MdAHFLzX1NPGgyTQP_RSuy_JflZ9KBFj4UTCJmM9_-fj6k947REVaKpoxPoQOj9IPB6IneSvNKF9VnYjNRD1oODtEBm1xvgwjl-UK07hkKFml38tu51ITprW_3wqjbZ1_N8/s320/kamaal+the+abstract.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>57. <b>Q-Tip</b>- <i>Kamaal the Abstract</i><br />
The record is 7 years old, and the original thinking was that A)Who wants to hear a Q-Tip album when his own solo jawn, despite two big singles, didn't approach anywhere near Busta Rhymes numbers (at a time when even Static-X went platinum off one song)<i> </i>and B)That it was too "out there" or "unique" for mass appeal. Also consider that this was 2002, the beginning of "weird shit getting attention in the aughts" like Cody ChesnuTT or trance-rap (aka Gucci Mane), so being too weird for a built-in neo-soul audience sounded like pretentious doublespeak for "this record is kind of crap". And it is kind of crap. Its release seems to be fueled by the relative success of <i>The Renaissance</i>, which was my favorite rap album of last year/the best rap album of last year (that I listened to), rather than merit. Half of the record is generic neo-soul, but there are a few half-baked portions with gems like "Barely in Love"'s organ riff or all of "A Million Times" that make this album at least a neat curiosity to check out for 10 minutes or so, if not for solid proof that sometimes record labels <i>are right</i>.<br />
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</div>56. <b>Peaches</b>- <i>I Feel Cream</i><br />
Sure, why not. Since <i>Impeach My Bush</i>, I've had a feeling that I'm one of maybe 7 people still checking for her records, no because I'm convinced they'll be good, but because I know there will be one or three good songs worth downloading it (and deleting the rest) for. Now that's she's kind of ditched the LGBT riotgrrl gimmick and is just embracing the side of her that does conventional electro with bawdy Miami bass-style rhymes, there were more rewarding tracks on this record than on the previous one, namely the title track, a Chemical Brothers rip with an old-school breakbeat bridge.<i><br />
</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosQaYUrVLuJPQRfe19JcVISFY_DcO82iYU98YSqH5qr6tKa5F85kIPenS1MBb7DUgCiffoFfZTdS_QiH0TmMlxxaM8V9NeuR0RagM1t8RPihIIUXcJaKsViXJv4MwDl-6zGhF86UHkno/s1600-h/clipse-til-the-casket-drops-hq-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosQaYUrVLuJPQRfe19JcVISFY_DcO82iYU98YSqH5qr6tKa5F85kIPenS1MBb7DUgCiffoFfZTdS_QiH0TmMlxxaM8V9NeuR0RagM1t8RPihIIUXcJaKsViXJv4MwDl-6zGhF86UHkno/s320/clipse-til-the-casket-drops-hq-1.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>55. <b>Clipse</b>- <i>Til The Casket Drops</i><br />
<i> </i>Most of the time, you can tell how good a piece of art is going to be by its visuals or aesthetics. "Killa Season" is an exception to the rule, but most movies and albums that look like pieces of shit usually are, from Ke$ha to "Twilight". It's a logical conclusion. If we all care more about looks than content, and they couldn't even get the fucking look right, then what makes us think the content will be any good? Thus the fears I had about this record stemming from the disarmingly underwhelming <i>Road Til The Casket Drops</i> mixtape were confirmed when I saw both of the covers they chose for the album, each garish and dumb in its own way. The actually music was as garish and dumb as the post-Pharell hackjob of a .jpeg they sent to the blogs back in the fall. Three years is a long time, but I refuse to believe that it was enough time for the Thornton's to fall off lyrically. The beats are disappointing, yes, but it's the watered down, punch-less lines that made this record go from potentially album of the year to number 55 on a blog countdown of almost 60 records.<br />
<br />
Every moment of this record feels like a compromise. Every line, hook, feature, and verse feels unsure and unsteady, especially now that they've started using a grating voice somewhere between the androgynous girl voices of "The Funeral" and the awesomely heartless and disdainful tones from <i>Hell Hath No Fury</i>. The thing about the Clipse is that their personality always came from that tone. They were the guys who made would glibly make reference to the Hutu's and Hotel Rwanda to brag rap while never taking off their sneer. It's not really an issue with them changing that I have an issue with, it's that all the changes that they've made, talking on tracks more, employing outside producers like DJ Khalil (no matter what anyone says, those Khalil tracks are boring and anemic), raising their voices to reveal how annoying they sound when they take it above 6 inches, putting upwards of three or four girl tracks on there? And not featuring girls per se, but appealing to the type of uncritical female who makes up 78% of 2Pac's 21st century fanbase and thinks "Hot and Cold" and "Ur So Gay" are brilliant songs. (Fuck a Katy Perry)<br />
<br />
Clipse are infamous for pushing "Clipse numbers" in 2006, way before everyone else started bricking, 50 Cent-style. They set the standard for not selling any records in an era where only Lil' Wayne, Taylor Swift and Susan Boyle can push units. If you put out a great coke rap album that no one buys in a year where Jay-Z shits onto a DAT and goes platinum, then maybe overhauling your sound and approach isn't the issue. I'm pretty sure <i>Til The Casket Drops</i> is has already sold more than <i>Hell Hath No Fury</i> did in its first week, but a 2009 rap release wasn't so much about appeal as it was getting talked about and remembered before the decade closed. Even though <i>HHNF</i> bricked, everyone knew about the record and talked about it, with a polarized opinion even canonizing it as classic material. I can't say most people will regard this record as highly. When Pusha says "Third time's a charm, baby!/After two classics another stripe up on my arm, baby", it's sounds like someone trying to convince himself of that fact, rather than actually believing what he's handed in to his label and his fans is anywhere as good as their previous two albums. And on a track where they get outshined by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLsHP94bvXs">"Nigga, Pew Pew Pew!"</a>-era Kanye West, no less.<br />
<br />
At least they're part of a select few that know that "'til" is short for "Until", therefore the apostrophe goes before and not after. Shit, some people even put "Till" like it's wheat or a cash register, but that's a grammer nazi aside.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3yU3jD6JsqlinzDUeAqrBJvVO_RX3FiEG6VXhS7kHvhsLcSvnzQm2RVe8wYIw8u-ouX2tciLv0iRMhUtIeIwdmr-P8KtGdmNuTUC3e2Ysq9PYgnCCN34DaDVK6DuXoB5-SdxRScd65Q/s1600-h/wale-attention-deficit-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg3yU3jD6JsqlinzDUeAqrBJvVO_RX3FiEG6VXhS7kHvhsLcSvnzQm2RVe8wYIw8u-ouX2tciLv0iRMhUtIeIwdmr-P8KtGdmNuTUC3e2Ysq9PYgnCCN34DaDVK6DuXoB5-SdxRScd65Q/s320/wale-attention-deficit-300x300.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>54. <b>Wale</b>- <i>Attention: Deficit</i><br />
It's hard to write this review without making it a corrective to all the opinions I've seen on Wale, but fuck it, here I go. Wale has no charisma. <i>The Mixtape About Nothing</i> is boring and overrated. D.C. is not the south, no matter how country people tend to talk when you get around that Maryland/Virginia area.. "TV in the Radio" is both a lame beat and a lame song. <i>Attention:Deficit</i> suffers not only for the commercial compromise/sell-out/"wait until you hear what I can really do" reasons Wale himself claimed, but because lyrically the guy is still just slightly above mixtape rapper. There's insight in "Shades", but he spends more time, like seemingly every rapper on Nahright, self-mythologizing and self-aggrandizing while incessantly commenting on "the rap game", what's wrong with it and how he's supposedly going to change it. In reality, the problem with the rap game is thousands of guys rapping about the rap game instead of bothering to focus on their albums. The reason a lot of these albums feel like mixtapes is because guys like Wale break the 4th wall too often, dating themselves and their material instead of trying to even attempt to offer something cohesive. I could give a shit, and this goes to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T2yTDxJOdQ&feature=fvst">Swiss and Jada, too</a>, about who "the realest of them all is" when "fake niggas" are making all the good music. Word to Rick Ross.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0kBqr6QyEYoXgy_KU6P0_pl1hViqvZZYnR2J4FHFnt3OzGPphScYpW0yTluMCdpqdpyt6ONZUhqvJEpAjxZ51QHKfiX77fXL_MC6neS8ZfiDUdL6DEPGaAcVc7tgPpVlqlcLfJpfeHo/s1600-h/jhelli_beam-busdriver_480-317x317.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn0kBqr6QyEYoXgy_KU6P0_pl1hViqvZZYnR2J4FHFnt3OzGPphScYpW0yTluMCdpqdpyt6ONZUhqvJEpAjxZ51QHKfiX77fXL_MC6neS8ZfiDUdL6DEPGaAcVc7tgPpVlqlcLfJpfeHo/s320/jhelli_beam-busdriver_480-317x317.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>53. <b>Busdriver</b>- <i>Jhelli Beam</i><br />
This album marks the exact moment in which Busdriver fell off. A glance at his lyrics over the years corroborates that he gets a lot of complaints about his music being unlistenable, but my personal assertion that this is the case with this record is bolstered by the fact that I actually love <i>The Weather</i>, which is one of the most difficult rap albums I've ever heard. If you can sit through Busdriver and Radioinactive rapping for themselves rather than for an audience for an hour, you can sit through anything. But this last Busdriver record was sort of painfully convoluted and despite a few bright spots completely misses what made certain tracks on <i>Roadkill Overcoat</i> enjoyable or what made ever album before that so great: not allowing technical ability and a dedication to complaining get in the way of the actual beats and hooks. Kind of broke my heart because I street teamed for him this summer, but too often this record sounds like Busdriver tackling muddy Three 6 Mafia b-sides, which works if you're Juicy J, but not when you're bemoaning mainstream rap for the 1,000th time to an audience that's definitely heard it from you before. Somewhere between this and the last record he's seemed to have forgotten that his fanbase is not going to get any wider and that harping on rote topic won't introduce himself to new listeners, FAQ-style, but turn off those that already into him. Next time more FlyLo and less Deerhoof.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeHOtwWLh362xg8XN0y-ht4iRcujESaza9HnRGwXKJVBmwLqaAh7l1jRenFeDtqiogXO2FjkdvNuscQhP1zHVMiynfKC-XbK5F93w3KbsiAKDmdpu6vcE8trT3ODLTTSY7VOey3Kr_xs/s1600-h/napalm-death-time-waits-for-no-slave1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPeHOtwWLh362xg8XN0y-ht4iRcujESaza9HnRGwXKJVBmwLqaAh7l1jRenFeDtqiogXO2FjkdvNuscQhP1zHVMiynfKC-XbK5F93w3KbsiAKDmdpu6vcE8trT3ODLTTSY7VOey3Kr_xs/s320/napalm-death-time-waits-for-no-slave1.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>52. <b>Napalm Death</b>- <i>Time Waits for No Slave</i><br />
At this point in their late-period resurgance, when you pick up/mediafire a Napalm record, you're going to get a few things: Weird pseudo-alt metal holdovers from their Earache era, tracks that are essentially really fast hardcore rather than grind or deathgrind, and grind tracks that seem to crib every band from Nasum (which Shane Embury went on the record as having done in a blurb for the final Nasum studio album) to whatever is being acclaimed at the moment. Not to suggest that they're opportunists, but rather that, like Dan Lilker, their investment in metal as both musicians and fans is really transparent. This comes across the best on "Life and Limb" which is essentially a Gojira song in its implementation of the overrated French band's post-Morbid Angel vacillating chug. But the other five tracks that I didn't delete have enough legitimately mosh-intensive moments to make trudging through a nearly hour-long grind album have some reward.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRLyq_h5VnPQB1lgdioGqkHub95yjFHA3q4edQlzslqCMmS4kpRTGofscpMWCx9bLW6WnS1cuih8YQj_vHZlYDS5HLpKYHlHvt1jLjbddHB0nT8NjDc8bJXMd_f7WO01187hrldlUZA8Y/s1600-h/kylesa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRLyq_h5VnPQB1lgdioGqkHub95yjFHA3q4edQlzslqCMmS4kpRTGofscpMWCx9bLW6WnS1cuih8YQj_vHZlYDS5HLpKYHlHvt1jLjbddHB0nT8NjDc8bJXMd_f7WO01187hrldlUZA8Y/s320/kylesa.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>51. <b>Kylesa</b>- <i>Static Tensions</i><br />
<i>Time Will Fuse Its Worth </i>took me longer than I would have thought to enjoy fully because Kylesa fall prey to rarely ever actually presenting anything inventive in terms of riffs. Their acclaim rightfully comes from their experimentalism and songcraft, which help makes a lot of their rather stock-sounding riffs seem cooler than they really are. Both albums open with killer songs that are frequently described as "hardcore two-steps" in their respective reviews, but this album rubbed me the wrong way a lot more than the previous one. It's by no means a bad record, but there's just something missing in this band, and most of the current crop of "sludge" acts, that prevents me from really embracing what they do.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikT98SR9yoTtFDB_iI5cEl_Sh_BaRirdTcq-ESwEz2Gg2Fn1niRY1AS17r3jAF3OT8PDAw6WQ5jd5XO5KlgnYHlx1PcAuf3K4r3qM0gjf8DDiiBa3siQR1EfQhLL7WB2lon9hkMSMZ2_M/s1600-h/SOM-00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikT98SR9yoTtFDB_iI5cEl_Sh_BaRirdTcq-ESwEz2Gg2Fn1niRY1AS17r3jAF3OT8PDAw6WQ5jd5XO5KlgnYHlx1PcAuf3K4r3qM0gjf8DDiiBa3siQR1EfQhLL7WB2lon9hkMSMZ2_M/s320/SOM-00.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>50. <b>Souls of Mischief</b>- <i>Montezuma's Revenge</i><br />
Who even knew these guys put out a record? Apparently just them, their label, Prince Paul and Del the Funkee Hompsapien. Like almost every rap record this year or last year, it's not great, but it's a consistent enough slab of West Coast backpack rap that's frequently relaxed vibes are only marred by a tendency to get into some macho-bullshit lyrically and say "faggot" more than you'd expect from Del associates.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL930eYGnSpybTDO1mvTE4x2Hlrs2_rzWILK-YVHVa1o1_47rdDw4ldnbFCjS5bqhz_nEdR6skUJBp_IeQmTHXyG5jYWKkWv41DUdeDVWydjiNTUhMnTCTqp77DxgZT_UQV5GL95cDaQk/s1600-h/general+surgery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL930eYGnSpybTDO1mvTE4x2Hlrs2_rzWILK-YVHVa1o1_47rdDw4ldnbFCjS5bqhz_nEdR6skUJBp_IeQmTHXyG5jYWKkWv41DUdeDVWydjiNTUhMnTCTqp77DxgZT_UQV5GL95cDaQk/s320/general+surgery.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>49.<b>General Surgery</b>- <i>Corpus in Extremis: Analysing Necrocriticism</i><br />
Not to gush in the most geeky fashion, but this is the most well-produced (gore)grind album I've ever heard. Not produced so well as to take away from the rabid pig-eating-dripping-entrails sound<i> </i>of most goregrind albums, but enough that everything is discernible, from the single-coil pickups and gorgeous guitar crunch to drums that aren't over-metalized or too loud. Always a top-tier Carcass clone (they sneak some Carcass riffs into various tracks, albeit modified and transposed like The County Medical Examiners), they could always coast off the status they accrued from the awesome <i>Necrology</i> record, but instead bothered to move forward amidst lineup changes and the post-metalcore boomtown bust that's made it exceedingly hard to want to pursue extreme metal as any sort of rewarding career choice to drop a solid, preposterously named, album.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7q6cAmNLVfDl098luTsKvGuROAIiuDpW5fyZtJGYqf2XWVgWHvOVh1fQFEJo78C0nYeUda3dmVHRY5CtaTKThHDxDa8fe8IzS5qqO4qzzazBT8oNSc6Tl4dk-aN3_5VBACQaPoAxFuHU/s1600-h/new+boyz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7q6cAmNLVfDl098luTsKvGuROAIiuDpW5fyZtJGYqf2XWVgWHvOVh1fQFEJo78C0nYeUda3dmVHRY5CtaTKThHDxDa8fe8IzS5qqO4qzzazBT8oNSc6Tl4dk-aN3_5VBACQaPoAxFuHU/s320/new+boyz.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>48. <b>New Boyz</b>- <i>Skinny Jeanz and a Mic</i><br />
The stuff I ended up listening to the most this year were things that actually had life to them. As much as I enjoyed a lot of the rap records released this year, a lot of them were missing any of the freshness or fun that ,say, Nicki Minaj brings. Thus the New Boyz record, which was better than it had any right to be but unfortunately might end up in the same domain as the much less rewarding The Pack album; forgotten to the point that just bringing them up in polite conversation gets an immediate gasface from even the most open-minded heads. You can't help but enjoy two kids who are cocky in the endearingly incorrigible way teenagers are and not in the "who the fuck does this guy think he is?" way that Lupe or CuDi or Kanye or any rapper who has ever made an opportunistic WorldStarHipHop video. You don't get guys who say shit like, "Met this girl named Laniece, a freak but ugly/Stripped for me once and her butt cheeks was musty/Every time it got loud she would sneak a small fart/Chick passed so much gas she could make a car start" on the East Coast. Or at least not dudes that get <i>signed</i>.<br />
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And I dare anyone to demonstrate how the New Boyz aren't more traditional old school MC's than anyone on Nahright. <br />
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</div>47. <b>Cam'Ron</b>- <i>Crime Pays</i><br />
Very little of this record stands out, which seems to be the opposite problem that plagued <i>Purple Haze</i> and <i>Come Home With Me</i>, his best albums. Those records had a bunch of standout tracks but weren't at all consistent. The only real flaw with this record is that it, like a lot of the rap albums this year, falls short in terms of freshness and lyrics, which is odd considering that as recent as 2007's awesome <i>Public Enemy #1</i> mixtape Cam was <i>on point</i> lyrics-wise. Now he fumbles and drops dull lines and cliches like a young Jay-Z. Cam's still got charm and ridiculousness on his side, though, no matter how early Soulja Boy his production gets.<br />
<br />
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</div>46. <b>Meshell Ndegeocello</b>- <i>Devil's Halo</i><br />
Meshell's last record to get any sort of mainstream attention was <i>Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape</i>, which sported not only a Missy Elliot and Redman feature, but it's own ad near my house on the side of a bodega. Since then she's churned out four low-key albums or slightly proggy, sometimes sexy R&B. Although R&B is a lazy characterization of what she does. <i>Devil's Halo</i> has it's own nervous new wave song in "Lola" as <i>The World Has Made Me The Man Of My Dreams </i>had its own Prince and Bloc Party homages in "Relief (A Stripper Classic)" and "The Sloganeer (Paradise)" respectively. As a grown-ass woman and a survivor of the 90's, she has a well-hemmed aesthetic in place and a virtuoso's touch. When she wants to make floaty lover's rock, she does with aplomb (in fact, "Love Song #1" is probably the sexiest song of the decade that no one has heard) . When she mixes rock with her reggae it sounds very much like the kind of chick who once auditioned for Living Colour and dueted with John Melloncamp; a virtuoso's touch with a affinity for tasteful prog in terms of ideas. She's more likely to ruin her bass tone through a filter for dynamics or let backward-looped guitars take control of a song than indulge in jazz fusion bass solo wankery. Meshell tends to make concept albums with great individual songs but, in line with her experimental nature, songs that sometimes fall flat. Of all of her R&B releases this decade, this might be the most consistent one, and the slight increase in her profile is well-deserved for a woman who, like Badu or Jill Scott, has her own decidedly unique standpoint and approach.<br />
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</div>45. <b>UGK</b>- <i>UGK 4 Life</i><br />
Everyone was skeptical about this record, and the intro is kind of creepy in light of Pimp's death, but leave it to Bun B to deliver a final tribute to his partner without Afeni Shakur-ing the whole endeavor. "Harry Asshole" is awesomely filthy and most of the album is the same quality of warm, car-ready country rap tunes.<br />
<br />
R.I.P. Pimp C<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHICq7y6LYxajdRToyL15Xs6OghmRNAmIiWIpcwnfrtMszW0LXcHBboHaoXxelrtasfMJvhb12pSqi4nNwnetei5KWdMb_QvAdLD3-gGMPNhDx5mRitnRIQtMXdI8qZN5YJL2dOBuTWo/s1600-h/major_lazer-guns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHICq7y6LYxajdRToyL15Xs6OghmRNAmIiWIpcwnfrtMszW0LXcHBboHaoXxelrtasfMJvhb12pSqi4nNwnetei5KWdMb_QvAdLD3-gGMPNhDx5mRitnRIQtMXdI8qZN5YJL2dOBuTWo/s320/major_lazer-guns.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>44. <b>Major Lazer</b>- <i>Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do</i><br />
One side of the discussion about this record claimed it was a hipster-tainted cultural pillaging of Vampire Weekend proportions, while the other side claimed that Diplo and Switch are geniuses who have improved a genre that's in a lo-fi/violent rut. Neither are right, although there is a weird stench to the album that makes it hard to like. In itself, it just plays like a dance compilation, as half of the tracks are actually Baltimore club or house, rather than entirely dancehall or reggae. The only tacks on the record that even aim for orthodox dancehall, or at least in a 2009 conception, are "Keep It Goin Louder" and "Anything Goes". The rest is a valiant attempt at manufacturing new riddims from the musical standpoint of someone who used to fuck M.I.A.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4O-GK8r9qOWjizCXARNtQ02aQ3mfKPkd7FqkQMxCp1MyHOa-yP74TtjOT_0UUuXxT0r1Df2nv3p6jDqrQe1_30Pj9n_W2xvzCOEYcdjVCaz8l8-cX54c3uoABhvewmj8QulnUMC8V0L4/s1600-h/jay-z-the-blueprint-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4O-GK8r9qOWjizCXARNtQ02aQ3mfKPkd7FqkQMxCp1MyHOa-yP74TtjOT_0UUuXxT0r1Df2nv3p6jDqrQe1_30Pj9n_W2xvzCOEYcdjVCaz8l8-cX54c3uoABhvewmj8QulnUMC8V0L4/s320/jay-z-the-blueprint-3.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>43. <b>Jay-Z</b>- <i>The Blueprint 3</i><br />
My mistake since getting to college is listening to all the other Jay records that I hadn't gotten the opportunity to before was building his catalog in my mind to match his stature and legacy. It's cliche to mention that he's the most successful rapper of all time, but something that isn't discussed often by stans and the public is that he never once put out a classic album. Ever. <i>The Blueprint</i> has too much filler and <i>Reasonable Doubt</i> was always kind of too vague, stuffy and overlong. Jay's catalog can be evenly split into "great" and "shit/weedplate status", except <i>The Blueprint 3</i>. If you also include <i>American Gangster i</i>t's the second Jay album in a row that I can say is just okay and not great or terrible. Everyone has their own opinions on Jay's oeuvre (I've always held, and apparently Jay says this himself, that <i>In My Lifetime Vol. 1</i> was just a few tracks away from being a near classic or classic album), but I've been surprised at the willingness for people to make this record out to be better than it is.<br />
<br />
There's a sad fact that Jay cannot rap that well anymore. For all that talk 6 years ago about being "bored" with rap, he, unlike Andre 3000, hasn't done anything late to demonstrate that he had reached an upper echelon high enough to find it such a droll endeavor. Case in point, "D.O.A.", which is a a song I've only seen championed by the desperately out-of-touch and/or desperately old, and "Empire State of Mind", on which Jay can't even find a meter of cadence to run with. Whenever he flubs the placement of the lyric "Right next to DeNiro/But I'll be hood for-eva", I wonder why neither he nor any of his weed carriers caught that rookie mistake. When he rapped like Juicy J on <i>American Gangster</i>, I took it to be simply good taste and not a senior moment. Thematically, his condescension and self-appointed status as "guardian of hip-hop" belies his role as one of the originators of bullshit low-budget street movies.<br />
<br />
Even as a Jay fan, I find it harder and harder to not give him the gasface. He's quick to tout Ne-Yo, Young Jeezy and Rihanna as achievements refuting accusations that he's never done anything for anyone, or at least not successfully, but I wonder what exactly these things have done for rap. Actually, I call shenanigans on this "I know what's best" complex dude has in light of his signing of Young Jeezy. Young Jeezy not only just learned how to rap last year (on "Who Dat"), but he for a long time prided himself on just Tony Robbins-ing over beats instead of bothering to flow or write a decent lyric that wasn't caked with cliche. If Jay really thinks Jeezy is good for hip-hop, then he's just as easily impressed and out of touch as other oldheads like Rakim who've gone on record as co-signing C-level rappers like Juelz Santana or KRS-ONE, who thought that <i>Curtis </i> was better than<i> Graduation. </i>And if he's employing guys like Jeezy for the sake of commerce rather than rap ability,, which would seem par for the course for his career and decision-making, then how is that different that what Ron Brownz does/did, churning out auto-tuned crap to scrape together some ends?<br />
<br />
Aside from his hypocrisy and unwarranted sense of dictating what's tr00, the actual album only suffers production-wise when anyone but Kanye and No ID helm the beats. The raps are mostly meh, and if they're not stiff or poorly constructed than they're just plain bad, like the majority of "Death of Autotune". If this was anyone else but Jay would we be humoring this record so much? That's not to imply that Jay doesn't shine in parts. Clearly he has to, or else we wouldn't even be able to enable this grandpa rap shit. But "Thank You" is the exception, not the rule, now that the dude's reaching GZA levels of trying-too-hard.<br />
<br />
"Augh!" <br />
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</div>42. <b>50 Cent</b>- <i>Before I Self Destruct</i><br />
Had this come out instead of <i>Curtis, </i>they<i>'</i>re probably be a lot less schadenfreude towards 50 than there is now. He did what he said he would, limiting the number of saccharine Ja Rule songs to three, and even those three are actually well made. Alright, maybe not so much the Ne-Yo feature, but "Do You Think About Me" is a legitimately touching song on a joylessly competent NY "gangster rap" album. That lack of joy is a big factor, because sonically this is the best-laced 50 album since <i>GRODT</i> , but there's nothing abut it that, like Jay's album, elevates it from just being another good over-30 rap album to something you'd rapidly fawn over to anyone who would listen. None of what makes "I Get Money" is here, and the phoned-in thuggery comes about 4 or 5 years to late to safe his image post-"Candy Shop", but it's still not a bad way to bookmark a career. Maybe all that effort should've been put towards not pushing Rick Ross numbers?<br />
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</div>41.<b>Claws</b>- S/T<br />
No matter how revered Razorback bands tend to be in terms of nostalgia for old school death metal, they usually end up being pretty lame. The aesthetic and lyrics are always there, but the music tends to lag far behind, being boring retreads or badly written thrash and etc. Claws and Hooded Menace were the exceptions and not coincidentally, like most Razorback bands, made by the same person: Lasse Pyykkö. The Claws record came out this year, and was a disarmingly well-made early 90's death metal record, all rot and filth like Autopsy and all the acts before death metal lost its sense of atmosphere. As opposed to something like, say, Origin, this record captures what the point of the genre was, a feeling of decay and dread. Even the fast parts lurch, and that lurch is the essentially part of a good underground death metal album. Not everything standouts out, but it's a solid metal record in a year of sludge also-rans, boring hardcore, and overrated Decibel fappings. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfP7dncCeiC184w9fdYrp0RF4mIotNuXTGBLRMou4b5LJ6W5NMSK3MZbXWiZupQIZgGOOx2OluFc3_ibCbXoo6b0cjlY9SqB4Io5Sa8gz5rfLw2d8PBWaA46-sFlD9pzlniEUECP1IgU/s1600-h/Curren$y+-+This+Aint+No+Mixtape1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhfP7dncCeiC184w9fdYrp0RF4mIotNuXTGBLRMou4b5LJ6W5NMSK3MZbXWiZupQIZgGOOx2OluFc3_ibCbXoo6b0cjlY9SqB4Io5Sa8gz5rfLw2d8PBWaA46-sFlD9pzlniEUECP1IgU/s320/Curren$y+-+This+Aint+No+Mixtape1.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>40. <b>Curren$y</b>- <i>This Ain't No Mixtape</i><br />
<i>"</i>Backpack rap" as a term today sort of just means you rap about the same rote topics as everyone else, except you portray a cool, non-violent version over jazz beats. Considering that supposed conscious rappers like Tribe were <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk8SCqg9Rq0">homophobes</a> who rapped about "keeping hoes in check"<i> , </i>clearly trying to delineate rap genres by lyrical content is futile. If Curren$y could be considered a conscious rapper it'd be more in the vein of pre-<i>Graduation</i> Kanye, where conspicuous consumerism, materialism and a dated viewpoint on women are mutually exclusive to the "vague hippie" brand of conscious rapper Common embodies. Curren$y's career arc is weird, going from the 504 Boyz to being Young Money's first marquee artist and rapping on stuff like "Where Da Cash At" to getting his elevator rap on with (SUNY Purchase's own) Amanda Diva. Although considering Wayne's transformation into an L.A. hipster over the last few years, the change isn't that surprising. A lot less ambitious than what Lupe does, but a cool record in a year where Blue neglected to release an album.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqjXqQVqyvYRl8rAZ1vtF5bnDeGs9RgHiMPyqjsqeFb7HAHtFDY4hY-E93tJHMb7V8uOZSuTDXN9SMxE9Z0HjI92pCcVPx6kVCqiybLamTwIKCrXR65FclJZ5Gx6RgUoTESfcpN_4lpnU/s1600-h/gaga_fame_monster_cd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqjXqQVqyvYRl8rAZ1vtF5bnDeGs9RgHiMPyqjsqeFb7HAHtFDY4hY-E93tJHMb7V8uOZSuTDXN9SMxE9Z0HjI92pCcVPx6kVCqiybLamTwIKCrXR65FclJZ5Gx6RgUoTESfcpN_4lpnU/s320/gaga_fame_monster_cd.jpg" /> </a> <br />
</div>39. <b>Lady Gaga</b>- <i>The Fame Monster</i><br />
If for anything, for being a ridiculous, pretentious fagette and the song "Telephone".<br />
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</div>38. <b>KiD CuDi</b>- <i>Man on the Moon: Shitty Pretentious Title</i><br />
Now for the Festivus grievances: Cudi is only good for hooks.<br />
<br />
The Cudi story is something like "Boring and average hipster runs away from home, gets a job at hipster clothing company, parlays ability to pen great hooks into a career sing-rapping somehow, ruins own immaculately produced, near-classic debut album by simply being on it himself all while convincing himself and trying to convince others that he's a misunderstood and 'unfairly' derided genius of Lupe/Jay-Z levels"<br />
<br />
The problem with the album and Cudi is like this. He's boring. It pains me to still have to use the adjective "hipster", but essentially that's all the kid is. It's insulting, not only in his fascination with his own boring personal problems, but in how poorly he writes, raps, and sings about him. Being able to write hooks should not be an automatic pass for what is sub-Rihanna crooning and sub-Gangsta Boo rapping. Nate Dogg, who is pretty much the template for Cudi, could <i>actually sing</i> yet he himself never got as far as Cudi has (actually he got a massive stroke for all his troubles). The post-<i>808s </i>soundscape on the record is great minus "Up, Up and Away", which is unforgivably dumb and seems like a pop-rock cop-out on a solidly MGMT-ed to death debut LP.<br />
<br />
Not that there isn't a consensus that the dude can't sing or rap for shit. Only the most Express for Men magazines thought the album was any good, and the one time this year I've agreed with Tom Briehan's qualitative opinion on anything was <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13504-man-on-the-moon-the-end-of-day/">his shitting on CuDi unwarranted ego and sense of self-importance</a>. Minus "Day and Nite" and "Alive", most of the tracks would benefit, as well as this record's ranking, had CuDi been scrubbed from the mix entirely. I enjoyed everything else about the record enough that I tried to overlook these things, but when some ever-so self-impressed Beta-male dickhead really gets Common to put down the Boca burger long enough to actually narrate that, "In this world being a leader is trouble for the <span style="color: black; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;">system</span></span> we are all accustomed to. Being a leader in this day and age is being a threat. Not many people stood up against the system we all call life. But toward the end of our first ten years into the millennium we heard a voice. A voice who was speaking to us from the underground for some time. A voice who spoke of<span style="color: black; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"> vulnerabilities</span></span><span style="color: black;"> and other human</span><span style="color: black;"> emotions and issues never before</span><span style="color: black;"> heard so vividly and honest.</span><span style="color: black;"> This is the story of a </span><span style="color: black; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;">young </span><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;">man</span></span><span style="color: black;"> who</span><br />
<span style="color: black;">not only believed in himself, b</span>ut his dreams too. This is the story of The Man On The Moon."<br />
<br />
It's hard not to shit on this KiD. At least Lupe and Jay have backed up their ridiculous opinions of themselves with discernible talent. But fuck this kid and his Livejournal bullshit. "A voice who spoke of<span style="color: black; font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"><span style="font-family: serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400; position: static;"> vulnerabilities</span></span><span style="color: black;"> and other human</span><span style="color: black;"> emotions and issues never before</span> heard so vividly and honest". Ever. By anyone. And why human emotions? Why not animal emotions? Are jellyfish not as cosmically in-tuned as your average Armani Exchange employee? Would it be wrong to to demand people quantify their narcissism before they start threatening to retire? Why does Young Jeezy have a career? Why did Bush blow up them towers?<br />
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
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</div>37. <b>Portal</b>- <i>Swarth</i><br />
Everything that needs to be known beforehand about Portal is in this video<i>:</i><br />
<object height="340" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/emrBZZtGFgI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/emrBZZtGFgI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="340"></embed></object><br />
They're Australian. They're creepy. They wear impeccably-made costumes. And up until <i>Swarth</i> they fucking sucked. Not for trying or nothing. Conceptually, it's awesome. Between clockhead (who himself reminds me of Silent Hill 2), the dusty monk's ropes, and the fact that they're Australian and evoke a really arcane horror aesthetic that is more Caligari than Freddy, they can't lose. Except that their previous two records, which I checked out in preparation to seeing them at Maryland Deathfest, presented them as a black metal Immolation, which is terrible. Essentially sounding like that last Deathspell Omega record, except embracing sonic muck rather than tech-y skronk. But somehow they've gotten their shit together and evolved enough to actually put out the record Immolation haven't been good or interesting enough to. Where later-period Morbid Angel and bands like Angelcorpse conjure up the image of a maelstrom, <i>Swarth</i> actually fucking sounds like it. It's what hell sounds like for adults who realized Slayer were fat alligator-wrestling Catholics and Glenn Benton beats his wife.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVtLzpKvFB335O8oi5qu8VQs_3D_gBgL9uhyeDDksJKf4a4X3v5k5nnFeU1xizg-F46FFALtzmd8WBVP4GczGfydLdpHFYTFyfbPuh1A46xsaWTPUStW1APnM5fqmG7KeArKV5SmbMOk/s1600-h/the+widest+smiling+faces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCVtLzpKvFB335O8oi5qu8VQs_3D_gBgL9uhyeDDksJKf4a4X3v5k5nnFeU1xizg-F46FFALtzmd8WBVP4GczGfydLdpHFYTFyfbPuh1A46xsaWTPUStW1APnM5fqmG7KeArKV5SmbMOk/s320/the+widest+smiling+faces.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>36. <b>The Widest Smiling Faces</b>- S/T<br />
Aviv is another really talented Purchase kid to have put out a record recently. I usually describe him as a mewling, trippy Elliot Smith in terms of the quiet and vulnerability of his work. Everything is gently fingerpicked and sang, even when he comes across angry or indignant, like on "Edge of a Knife". It's a short record, but almost the same length as the Neon Indian album and with a similar vibe; there are interstitial mood pieces and sound compositions strewn about the album. It's a headphone album, meant to be enjoyed in a quiet space in the dark and one that has rightfully earned Aviv a reputation in blog reviews of being "better than John Frusciante." He should probably just call his next record that.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlqMA2vqpFC4APiLhLFu_ayrg88PKTykK5sDCQFaDGqQphBqNqKfLN1gt0zdfcgRbT-jZ0dTDTJTW8f4hlsee0dQ18fncwyC-r3fVut7DtuIaspN265TKoDhMoP_cuCY5_akGSViUQLk/s1600-h/DJ+Paul+%28Of+Three+6+Mafia%29+-+Scale-A-Ton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDlqMA2vqpFC4APiLhLFu_ayrg88PKTykK5sDCQFaDGqQphBqNqKfLN1gt0zdfcgRbT-jZ0dTDTJTW8f4hlsee0dQ18fncwyC-r3fVut7DtuIaspN265TKoDhMoP_cuCY5_akGSViUQLk/s320/DJ+Paul+%28Of+Three+6+Mafia%29+-+Scale-A-Ton.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CbAB2e0oUAh3buxLhBL87WbMb7iuX9L6ZeFWHPd_A19s-Q-4Wwg2cf-dfn8hW6p2sWKOY0XgsxUIT72h71wWuUTeE9o4ClLlvoapqk4-n99Y-N002-CHfiH-auanlXJ6kk6_SH_1kGo/s1600-h/juicy-j-hustle-till-i-die.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CbAB2e0oUAh3buxLhBL87WbMb7iuX9L6ZeFWHPd_A19s-Q-4Wwg2cf-dfn8hW6p2sWKOY0XgsxUIT72h71wWuUTeE9o4ClLlvoapqk4-n99Y-N002-CHfiH-auanlXJ6kk6_SH_1kGo/s320/juicy-j-hustle-till-i-die.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPf5WhJc4EmbfqYuB48BQ9DQQyVPLupcR7S7tmlSZP1R3mBB9oGqssS-7ptgVog7nJkU5z-B9jciQW9MksfGjyT5b1FfC1fMlSG51_2Vu6jsqTHs5Ol9_RC5bNvCWhI9GVJ8Ur8LSI70/s1600-h/project-pat-real-recognize-real-album-cover-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiPf5WhJc4EmbfqYuB48BQ9DQQyVPLupcR7S7tmlSZP1R3mBB9oGqssS-7ptgVog7nJkU5z-B9jciQW9MksfGjyT5b1FfC1fMlSG51_2Vu6jsqTHs5Ol9_RC5bNvCWhI9GVJ8Ur8LSI70/s320/project-pat-real-recognize-real-album-cover-300x300.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>35. <b>Project Pat</b>- <i>Real Recognize Real</i>, <b>Juicy J</b>- <i>Hustle Till I Die</i>, <b>DJ Paul</b>- <i>Scale-A-Ton</i><br />
These solo albums were like slaps in the face. Not so much the Project Pat LP, but the Juicy J/DJ Paul albums. The quality of each were so good, J for his raps and Paul for his production, that they records confirm what "Lolli Lolli" and the new Tiesto song suggested: that Three 6 Mafia are trying really hard to remain a crossover rap act, relegating their best stuff to solo releases. This isn't a new thing, clearly they've been doing this for a minute now. But Tiesto? The level that they seem determined to sink to to not be forgotten by programmers and drunks is embarrassing for how desperate it comes across. Tiesto?! At least "Lolli Lolli" had some menace lurking in the background of its knockoff T-Pain vibe. Juicy J's album had a couple of great tracks which would've done well to augment the 11 or so similarly great tracks on Paul's, plus Paul's rapping would've improved the staleness and shout-rap redundancy of <i>Scale-A-Ton</i>. Together, it would've made the first outstanding Three 6 record since <i>Da Unbreakables</i> , instead of what the last and next record will probably be, a combination of classic Three 6 and sad pandering. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6kQ77ftL3NOEG7VV4zdsGyOgJgHFCPV5rea3mUk8Jjg3QZKgb1vB81T6VAg_VL5UbcktYWmGu9yyBqTlgetGBcRrBw2UbHrWi7RNmrKK2yW7dk1pAznCUvppyG0PEoRryiDV71Ah4MI/s1600-h/U-God+Dopium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV6kQ77ftL3NOEG7VV4zdsGyOgJgHFCPV5rea3mUk8Jjg3QZKgb1vB81T6VAg_VL5UbcktYWmGu9yyBqTlgetGBcRrBw2UbHrWi7RNmrKK2yW7dk1pAznCUvppyG0PEoRryiDV71Ah4MI/s320/U-God+Dopium.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>34. <b>U-God</b>- <i>Dopium</i><br />
So as of this album, the only member's of Wu-Tang not to have put out a good album are RZA and Inspectah Deck. Which is a "Triumph" in itself, considering Golden Arms' claim to fame is 1. being high yellow, 2. being widely considered the most expendable member of the Wu, and 3. only good for about 8 bars at a time, if a verse. And unsurprisingly, a whole album of U-God rapping is a lot to digest. Under close scrutiny, he does is lyrically better than most would think, if at the least enjoyably disjointed. It's his flow, like most Wu members and affiliates, that gets in the way of what he's actually saying. Thankfully, the album is chock full of features and some of the better non-Ghostface beats on a Wu project in a while. "Lipton" and "Hips" are really cool left turns, while Scotty Wotty goes from a rumor best known as a name drop on "Nutmeg" to the shining star of the record, making his drug-related absence from the Wu that much more unfortunate as he rips "Train Trussle" with a cadence that comes across like an awesome mix of Grand Puba, CL Smooth and <i>Liquid Swords</i>-era GZA. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wo_Pd_TiqzlXTNDP5vV4VDffjwVLPvAG5slpTlwV5dQVN4ksitET-vff49uStEhbv9jH2OZVN9k2GhNwb9wWjFmyYa-caRK6nF8Dn8xAq8yXze7ks8XYanY0xJgx1UONJQC6bRGWcgk/s1600-h/blaqkout-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Wo_Pd_TiqzlXTNDP5vV4VDffjwVLPvAG5slpTlwV5dQVN4ksitET-vff49uStEhbv9jH2OZVN9k2GhNwb9wWjFmyYa-caRK6nF8Dn8xAq8yXze7ks8XYanY0xJgx1UONJQC6bRGWcgk/s320/blaqkout-300x300.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>33. <b>DJ Quik and Kurupt</b>- <i>BlaQKout</i><br />
I owe Noz for finding out about this record. I troll Cocaine Blunts once or twice a week in the hopes of reading an asinine circular flame war between beardos and beardo enablers or to catch a stray Busdriver post. "Ohhh!" got posted months ago in a quick write-up about the album and that alone made me go and do something I never had the intentions of doing before: Listen to a Kurupt or DJ Quik album. Nothing against either of them, but it's a lot like Spice 1, where there wasn't any interest besides trying to be comprehensive in my opinions about shit, including West Coast rap where my tastes run more backpack/E-40 than anything else. I was surprised to find out that Kurupt is more than the obnoxious dude on "The Next Episode", but an ill rapper on his own, delivering an old-head West Coast-by-Philly style that lights up "Blaqkout" and "9x Outta 10". It's another good, sometimes great over-30 rap album that, in light of that the xx album, bolsters my long-standing belief that people under-30 tend to make shit.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjp6xQED4x1JIGNO1Wx_2CAZGu8ZkkZqHpaLQjMOVWr-oh5l0TczUOX-_mJiPq3T19qzEDaElml2WumsCsTAGajgtaw7bL_22MQrHJR_e1P6uRQpgEtTYd59FPF-wEzsYx1zLzHL6so0M/s1600-h/burntbythesun-heartofdarkness-300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjp6xQED4x1JIGNO1Wx_2CAZGu8ZkkZqHpaLQjMOVWr-oh5l0TczUOX-_mJiPq3T19qzEDaElml2WumsCsTAGajgtaw7bL_22MQrHJR_e1P6uRQpgEtTYd59FPF-wEzsYx1zLzHL6so0M/s320/burntbythesun-heartofdarkness-300x300.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>32. <b>Burnt by the Sun</b>- <i>Heart of Darkness</i><br />
I never knew how to codify Burnt by the Sun in my head. They were never math-y or angular enough to be mathcore, although they had the feel of a mathcore band. They were never prone to derivative minor scale licks of copy-and-paste breakdown sections, belying any categorization as a metalcore band. Despite Dave Witte's best efforts they never approached a tempo that would make grind anything but an influence. Even metal-archives imaginatively labeled them "grindcore-influenced metalcore". Ever since speed-, thrash-, fast-, crust-, and grind- become confusing prefixes for post-'82 hardcore bands, it's been a lot simpler to just call every band either hardcore, metalcore, or grind for the sake of simplicity and not having the headache of bands that run pretty incongruous to the tenets of the genre. After seeing BBTS's "last" US show at the Cake Shop last fall, I think I can definitively say they're just a mature metalcore band, the sort that were quickly forgotten when the Bullet for my Valentines and Attack Attack!s of the world became the standard. Martyr AD, Premonitions of War and Zao are a few other awesome "old man metalcore" bands, and ones that all had a command over THE CHUG RIFF that still makes them memorable even under the ashes of the boom-bust MTV2-era of 2002-2006. As a last record, it's a great return and demonstrates to bands like Emmure how to properly make a mid-paced chugXcore album while still being catchy.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MEMdCwq6spIjh-tmKQAcSseglpf2JxkHp5jSvx9DF48efN9ZIvsOzXyVsFt9V0WvarKspMLWA7iI8DjjMVWeJz2sux_-FiCqrSMfKTyFq6GMq03pRVNgZJHwIqId-KY79nUVeAC3T80/s1600-h/Manchester+Orchestra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MEMdCwq6spIjh-tmKQAcSseglpf2JxkHp5jSvx9DF48efN9ZIvsOzXyVsFt9V0WvarKspMLWA7iI8DjjMVWeJz2sux_-FiCqrSMfKTyFq6GMq03pRVNgZJHwIqId-KY79nUVeAC3T80/s320/Manchester+Orchestra.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>31. <b>Manchester Orchestra</b>- <i>Mean Everything To Nothing</i><br />
One of a handful of asbolutepunk/Alternative Press bands I got put on by my bandmate Mike since we started this courtship four years ago. Since I only dug Taking Back Sunday for about a year (the heady pre-Myspace days of 2002), any hype or developments within the NINJAPIRATEZOMBIEUNICORNGRAFFITIOMGGED post-emo/alt set just goes completely unnoticed. The album was criticized for sounding too much like a compilation of other bands, which is apt, but decrying musicians for unoriginality is cliche at this point. Without going into a critical essay on the nature of genre and the Western diatonic scale, there's going to be a lot of derivation in bands over time. It's accepted that what's important is that the songs hold up. If a band emerged today that sounded exactly like <i>Sing The Sorrow</i>-era AFI but with better songs, my concern wouldn't be to deride their xeroxed guyliner, but if they put together a good album. Manchester Orchestra did that, and though the instrumentation, vocals, and lyrics read no different than any other band in the genre from the decade or before, the improvements on the blueprint, and all that seething, can't really be overlooked.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-23253158173779704312009-12-31T05:52:00.005-05:002010-01-02T17:41:07.609-05:00Best Videos of 2009<i>The Cro-Mags show fucked up my hearing to the point that for the first time ever it hasn't fully returned with a good night's rest, preventing me from listening to the four or five albums I still have in queue to make my albums list at least sort of comprehensive. Or at least comprehensive enough to avoid overlooking 6 or 7 great records like I did last year. So until my ear recovers fully, in no order, here are the musical videos that I obsessed over the most this year.</i><br />
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Anal Judicator- "Cum-Coated Colon"<br />
<embed src="http://www.ebaumsworld.com/player.swf" allowScriptAccess="always" flashvars="pageurl=http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80830169/&file=http://media.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/video/930777/80830169.flv&mediaid=80830169&title=Anal Judicator - Cum Coated Colon&tags=Anal,judicator,cum,coated,colon,best,metal,midi&description=Best Music Video Ever! - Banned from YouTube!! Probably the best piece of video EVER, by the BEST brutal MIDI porn grind band around! &displayheight=325&backcolor=0x0d0d0d&lightoclor=0x336699&frontcolor=0xcccccc&image=http://media.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/video/930777/80830169.jpg&username=AnalJudicator" wmode="transparent" loop="false" menu="false" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="425" height="345" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /> <br />
Easily the greatest digipornogrind video ever made.<br />
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Cro-Mags- 2001 CBGB's Show<br />
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I tried three times throughout my life to get into the Cro-Mags only to be again put off by what I always perceived as my own city's infamous hardcore variant as blockheaded, colorless and boring. But considering the quickly homogenizing deluge of denimXcore out there, my quarter-life crisis has spurred a weird renewed love of blockheaded hardcore that has either made me appreciate the catchiness of <i>The Age of Quarrel</i>, Terror, 100 Demons and Merauder, or has just made me more willing to overlook the faults I had found with them before. Shit, I'm even listening to Agnostic Front now, embracing a level of ignorance I thought I had left behind when I stopped listening to Hatebreed and Bleeding Through after high school.<br />
<br />
Vinnie Stigma For President<br />
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<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_P0_fTcDW5s&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_P0_fTcDW5s&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
I spent my teenage years being so against punk made after 1982 that I overlooked a lot of things. I still maintain that punk leans heavily towards singles and comps and not full albums, save for the established canon (Brains, Flag, Pistols, Ramones, blah, blah). Although Minor Threat seem to be more revered and influential than they were ever good. But that myopia made me bypass the first Agnostic Front album, Discharge, crust, crossover, and early Cro-Mags. The Agnostic Front thing is relevant because my familiarity with them never went past knowing my ex-girlfriend liked them, which at the time was enough to queer me away from investigating their music, plus the metalcore song they did with Jamey Jasta used to bug the shit out of me. I legitimately like "Peace is Not an Option" actually and have a lingering adoration of Jamey Jasta's voice, but it was Miret's weird choking dog vox that turned me off. Plus, throughout high school, I was privy to enough second and third hand NY hardcore to have an already low opinion of the seemingly empty-headed macho bullshit associated with it.<br />
<br />
And now I scour <a href="http://www.stuffyouwillhate.com/2009/10/lord-ezec-aka-danny-diablo-on-haters.html">Stuff You Will Hate</a> as often as possible for posts on all of this. Funny.<br />
<br />
Merauder- "Master Killer"<br />
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Speaking of scouring Stuff You Will Hate, I found this on there. I noticed during my nu-metal phase 10 years ago that the worse a genre, the better it's exceptions. I rarely go "HOLY SHIT" anymore at anything, most recent being "Lemonade" or the "Videophone" video, but getting put onto this Merauder song was a life-changing moment. I haven't gotten around to checking out the record, which is hopefully just as amazing and 90's, but I doubt it could be as out and out terrible as most 90's capital H hardcore. Shit, it's Wu-Tang through a metalcore filter, for Christ's sake! How could it fail?<br />
<br />
"Stanky Leg"<br />
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The only new dance I've learned to do this year as performed by a group so faceless and unimportant that I couldn't even have been bothered to copy and paste their name from the youtube video.<br />
<br />
Beyonce- "Videophone (Feat. Lady Gaga)"<br />
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMFokw9vo3o&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZMFokw9vo3o&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
Can we replace "swagger" with "sass"? Or amend FCC regulations and community standards to more ingrain "cunty" into our lexicon?<br />
<br />
Das Racist- "Rainbow in the Dark"<br />
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The dialogue about them is "their songs are dumb as shit but they're amazingly intelligent and clever in interviews and blog pieces". Which is bullshit because they're equally as smart and clever in their songs <i>not</i> about dual franchise spaces. Since Plastic Little have fallen off the face of the planet, the part of me that needs "funny and smart rap not performed by Weird Al" from time to time has been filled (no Lupe) by an Indian dude that looks Colombian and a Colombian dude that looks Indian. That have vague connections to MGMT. And honestly have more quotable and enjoyable lyrics than most rap records released this year, Jay Electronica included (not taking away from the 10th member of Wu-Tang. He's nice, but really, who <i>isn't</i> nice at this point? Every third crumbum in Philly can rap circles around everyone who gets lazily maligned for being "radio rap".)<br />
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Boy Crisis- "The Fountain of Youth"<br />
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/no7fy9mDbpQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/no7fy9mDbpQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="340"></embed></object><br />
Speaking of Das Racist, Victor Vasquez is in a late aughts-era synth-rock outfit called Boy Crisis that is apparently a lot more popular than Das Racist (if Myspace and Last.fm are to be believed). It's basically the same densely-packed humor of Das Racist but with surprisingly good 80's synth-rock trappings. Bonus points for shooting the video to make McCarren Pool seem more interesting of a space than it actually is.<br />
<br />
Big Daddy Kane Looks at Jay-Z in an Odd Way<br />
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Via Das Racist. I think Kane's face embodies how I feel about almost every current rapper when they give interviews. Especially CuDi, Raekwon or Nas.<br />
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Mr. Vegas- "Hot Wuk"<br />
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Not new, but only as of last semester joined a short list of anthems-to-chap-your dick-grinding-at-a-party-to.<br />
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Tay Zonday- "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch"<br />
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"OLD MEME REDEEMS SELF; WOWS SKEPTICAL BROOKLYN MULATTO."<br />
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Biggie Live Birthday Party Performances<br />
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Saw this when on one of those late-night "watching Wu-Tang videos when I should be sleeping" benders. Especially endearing is how shabby of a performer Biggie was in the beginning, especially next to the preternaturally fucked-up ODB.<br />
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ONYX- "The Worst (Feat. Raekwon and Method Man)"<br />
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I don't miss all the late 90's green-lighting that ruined almost every rap and R&B video around that time but I do miss an era where even as people chicken littled the shit out of rap, a bunch of then has-beens like Onyx could have a forgotten gem of a song like this.<br />
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If Mos Def Were President<br />
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Between this and <i>The Ecstatic</i>, it's hard not to love him again.<br />
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Blackout Crew- "Rumper Jumper"<br />
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I was afraid that they would never come up with anything as good as "Put a Donk on it". And then they show up as Oompa-Loompas. If an ideal world, this is all Jersey Shore guidos would listen to. And I would honor them for it.<br />
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Larry Tee- "I Love You"<br />
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I can no longer tell if I'm laughing with or at anything. Maybe I'm laughing <i>in</i>. Anyway, this is both scary and lovely at the same time, which is to me what downtown NYC pre-Bloomberg has been portrayed to me as.<br />
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Jah bless this little girl.<br />
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CBS KIPIX Goes Inside Horrorcore<br />
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It's not worth pointing out how foolish trend pieces and expose stories on "youth movements" or "subcultures" always come across, but it is amazing how hilarious post-ICP posicore fail looks when people end up dead and all the wannabe-Esham's are asked to form <i>opinions</i>. The culture isn't between red and blue state's, it's between people with labret piercings and high school graduates.<br />
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Metallica- "Battery (Feat. Dave Lombardo)"<br />
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Notable for the ridiculous double bass from 2:13 or so on. Bonus points for James' electrodyke hairdo, which in terms of chronology puts his look somewhere in between Rosie O'Donnell and Adam Joseph/Robyn.<br />
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Flairs- "Trucker's Delight"<br />
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An awesome French house single with an awesome Gameboy Advance-inspired video by a shit French alternative rock band popularized by shit /b/tards. <br />
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LMFAO- "Shots (Feat. Lil'Jon)"<br />
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1. I was legally drunk from August 2008-May 2009.<br />
2. This is testament to LMFAO's ability to perfectly craft lovably obnoxious songs about things I should hypothetically be against (L.A., Myspace, animal prints, etc.).<br />
3. I was buying tickets for HORSE the Band and Norma Jean last month at Irving Plaza and the LMFAO party bus was parked outside in the afternoon, most likely they were either playing a show or "hosting" something or other. While standing there at the box office, a random entourage/LMFAO affiliate, recognizable for his PartyRock belt buckle, L.A.-damaged 2007-era Williamsburg hipster clothes (they're really behind on the West Coast apparently), and completely unawareness of anything. Dude tried to get inside, so she told him he'd have to come back with a tour laminate or some credentials, and he honestly looked either high out his mind or that he had no idea what the fuck tour laminates or credentials actually were. It was the single cutest thing I've seen all year.<br />
4. Clearly the second best thing Berry Gordy's ever created, with the first being the idea that Diana Ross wasn't a ghoul.<br />
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Jennifer Holliday and Jennifer Hudson- "And I'm Telling You"<br />
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Despite BET's best efforts, some intrepid fan of plump black women over-singing reposted this video from I think either 2007 or 2008's BET awards. Still the most epic thing that's ever been on youtube. The sheer amount of jawbone calisthenics from Holliday makes this required viewing for anyone wondering whether looking crazy equals being a good live performer. The answer is clearly "Yes it fucking does".<br />
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50 Cent and Jay-Z 2003 Reebok Commercial<br />
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There's an amazing amount of shit going on in this commercial. One, when the fuck did this happen? I had no idea this occurred until it got dug up during the Jay-Beans-50 thing that never turned into anything from this past fall. Two, how cute are they? Trading lines and references to each other? Jay even quotes "Your Life's on the Line". Third: I wonder how many people caught that when 50 was holding up Jay's S. Carter's, they were like a baby's size 4? How did that get past Jay? And finally: synchronized dancing?! Why can't we have this in rap again? Oh yeah, because it's populated by fevered egos who can't push units.<br />
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Rakim on Nas<br />
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"Conservative person" is saying the least. Ra has continually come across as the least fun dude in rap for a minute now. He had a point about the family details, but the attitude and the lack of relevance make for an awkward clip.<br />
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The Greatest Amateur Rap Ever<br />
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This is the video I'll forever show people to explain that despite their over-intellectualizing hip-hop as a genre is simply someone rapping over a beat. Anything else is icing.<br />
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Millie Jackson- "Fuck You Symphony"<br />
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R&B singers have been boring since Luther lost weight, man.<br />
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Dying Fetus High School Cover<br />
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Dying Fetus are fucking awful, but the kid has a good voice and the touching thing about it is that the <i>kids actually cheer for him</i>. Either this is the nicest school ever or he's the raddest dude in the world.<br />
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The Adventures of Stevie V- "Dirty Cash"/Nightcrawlers- "Push The Feeling On"<br />
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I'm more than ready for 90's retro-fetishism. Say the word and I'll whip up a Nirvana cover band and have Daria parties in my dorm. I might even bring back kinderwhore for Halloween, who knows. In a good sign of the coming couple of years, two really great house songs were sampled this year, by Dizzee Rascal and Pitbull respectively. Hopefully this'll remind everyone that shitty hip-house raps and blue afros>monroe piercings and dead bird haircuts.<br />
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Necro- "The Human Traffic King"<br />
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I can't help but get behind and support this. <br />
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Nick Cannon and Affion Crockett- "Eat Dat Watermelon"<br />
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Weird to think that the only intentionally funny thing Nick Cannon's ever done is a heavy-handed but memeriffic criticism of Southern rap via the Spike Lee school of blunt satire. Even weirder that I've found myself whispering "Massa...is coming!" Ying Yang Twins-style all year.<br />
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Mystikal- "Here I Go"<br />
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My favorite Mystikal song, via the divine intervention of a 2001-era Cedric the Entertainer.<br />
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Davey Havok and Ceremony @ 924 Gilman<br />
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It's hard not to cackle at seeing Mr. "Love Like Winter" try and get aggy like its 1986.<br />
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Hurricane Chris-"Halle Berry (Live from the Louisiana Congress)"<br />
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"Halle Berryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Halle Berry. Halle Berryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Halle Berry."<br />
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Pickin' and a Singin'<br />
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Dudes have been dead for 40-50 years that eat your average wanky Spastik Ink-aping prog-tard alive.<br />
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LeLe- "Show Monaco"<br />
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If there was any justice this album wouldn't have been as overlooked as it was. Although the concept of jokey French house made by Belgians might be a bit much for people still stuck on Boyz Noise.<br />
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Mal Blum- "Ukelele"<br />
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SUNY Purchase's own! And awesome to the core.<br />
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Ken Susi- "I Want Candy"<br />
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I was hoping this would become a meme and not just the kind of thing I'd alienate my friends by showing whenever I was around them with a computer. But apparently being in Unearth doesn't merit that many page views anymore.<br />
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Swedish Death for Dummies<br />
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I bought an HM-2 off of Ebay as soon as I saw this and haven't looked back.<br />
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Public Image LTD.-"Rise"<br />
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So apparently they did have good tracks after <i>Metal Box</i>. "The Rules of Attraction" and creeping nostalgia for the early 00's made me seek out this soundtrack cut/last gasp of John Lydon's relevance.<br />
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The Cramps- "I Was A Teenage Werewolf"<br />
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It boggles the mind how he kept those pants up until you realize he wore them everyday and was probably fused to the material.<br />
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Neophyte- "Alles Kapot"<br />
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My best friend in junior high got into jungle and hardcore while I was getting into better rock music than the Puddle of Mudd, Doors, and KoRn I was listening to in 2001. He moved on halfway through high school, but gabber and happy hardcore would always find a way into my life, especially through the goth/raver kids I used to know when we'd all loiter around Chinatown. Like NYxHC, it's drifted from an annoyance to an proud indulgence.<br />
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Jonathan Richman- "I Was Dancing at the Lesbian Bar"<br />
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This video, plus his first three albums, have converted me to the point that, like with Converge and TV on the Radio, I promise to see his NY appearances every year until one of us dies of diabetes-related complications.<br />
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The Dogs- "Yo Mama's On Crack Rock"<br />
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All praises due to Unkut for putting me on to the most conceptually amazing Miami bass song every made. <br />
"My mama don't do that no more!"<br />
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Drake's Hot 97 Coronation<br />
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And the best for last! The Affion Crockett parody was hilarious but extraneous because Aubrey is, unfortunately, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn_gc65w1-Y">unintentionally funny enough on his own</a>. Choice moments: <br />
-Anytime Drake does a church lady hand gesture<br />
-"Can I do dat?"<br />
-"All the way from! Degrassi! All the way from!" <br />
-2:34: Flex- "You said you were in the ASTON MARTIN doing DONUTS" <br />
Drake- "Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I SAID THAT!!!"<br />
-4:39: Drake checks for lumps<br />
Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-74074712541531496172009-12-28T16:28:00.003-05:002009-12-28T16:33:27.457-05:00Best Songs of 2009 Pt. 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemJ9gbHKUyhmhrqMr7XRRetOh9We4HzfkG8U7ULAJ3mnDqdrQ5kANvu1Q85tZcuczmkJP2OgqGtmdi2jgW1VpkUb07MI10sDE18dU5iXxpwSecZm4WoJP7yLzUWVw6nyglMj88oK3sdY/s1600-h/dawson-crying2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemJ9gbHKUyhmhrqMr7XRRetOh9We4HzfkG8U7ULAJ3mnDqdrQ5kANvu1Q85tZcuczmkJP2OgqGtmdi2jgW1VpkUb07MI10sDE18dU5iXxpwSecZm4WoJP7yLzUWVw6nyglMj88oK3sdY/s320/dawson-crying2.JPG" /></a> <br />
</div>Juicy J- "Fiyayaya Weed (Feat. Project Pat)"<br />
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M.I.A. is best employed in small doses, regardless of how much I grew to like <i>Kala</i> two years ago. Not for nothing, but she's gone out of her way since "Paper Planes" blew up last summer to make herself indefensible in her nutty self-aggrandizement and Kanye-esque ALL CAPS lapses into retardation that would seem to belie the fact that she's a grown-ass 33-year-old British woman with a kid and husband, and not, say, Ke$ha. Ke$ha, in comparison, seems to actually have her shit together. Juicy J, on the other hand, should be on everything. In fact, if life was fair, Juicy J, Devin the Dude, Wayne and Gucci would form a supergroup and capitalize on their statuses as by far the most consistently entertaining rappers around. I'll have to file that with my fantasty Ludacris/Redman duet album under "things as likely as a free Palestinian state".<br />
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Katy Perry- "Waking Up In Vegas (Calvin Harris Remix)"<br />
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Katy Perry is terrible. Its been said that her only redeeming quality are her <a href="http://www.egotastic.com/entertainment/celebrities/katy-perry/">breasts</a>, and that's pretty accurate when you consider she managed to incorporate played-out mid-aughts emo vocal tropes (hysterics, pitchiness, vacillation between keys, sounding loud and whiny, being unable to perform a cogent run) into music that seemed instantly dated and lyrically sub-Wacka Flacka Flame. One of the things I'll miss the most of pre-housecleaning Idolator will be the daily floggings the editors rightfully gave her. "Vapid tart" might seem to be too harsh of a description to affix to someone you don't personally know, but not when you actually sit down and read the lyrics to "Ur So Gay" of "Hot and Cold". Anyway, this is a KTU-style Calvin Harris electro remix of the song, which somehow makes it pretty good. Calvin Harris is also the guy who produced half of this year's Dizzee Rascal album and has apparently been popular for two years with the sort of people who actually enjoy David Guetta and Paul Oakenfold.<br />
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KiD CuDi- "Hyyer Feat. Chip Da Ripper"<br />
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I'm saving my Festivus grievances with CuDi for the album list, but this song, besides having the most gorgeous beat I've heard all year, represents the inherent problem with the dude; that he's on his own albums. Even Joanna Newsom could've sang-rap better on this. Even L Burna-era Layzie Bone could've wrecked this. But instead you get the American Apparel equivalent of Gangsta Boo continuing to ruin his own record by simply being on it. GZA, Rae, and Ghost would let their man get a solo track, and letting Chip Da Ripper do this whole thing himself would've been preferred.<br />
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Lady Gaga- "Telephone (Feat. Beyonce)"<br />
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"Bad Romance" doesn't work without the video to coax you into overlooking how obnoxious and disjointed it is as a eurodance song, so I picked this, which not only has a neat dedication to theme in its connection to "Videophone", but also the subtle adapting to each others styles. Beyonce does a few Gaga-isms on the bridge of "Telephone", while Gaga toned down the gag-for-the-sake-of-a-gag steez on "Videophone" in favor of the disarmingly poppy sort of take she was using on songs like "Star Struck" only a year ago.<br />
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Lil' Wayne- "Watch My Shoes"<br />
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If you pretend that Young Money isn't aimless, goofy and messy, that <i>Dedication 3</i> never came out, and that <i>Rebirth</i> had stayed a blunted hypothetical rather than a bloated tribute to Wayne's inability to make good decisions, then No Ceilings would just be a victory lap for Wayne. But even though tracks like this make a good chunk of the mixtape great, it still kind of felt underwhelming, like there was an air of "who cares?" to it. That may have more to do with Wayne over-saturating everything and the very perceivable dip in his lyrical ability somewhere around "Barry Bonds", or being supplanted in the mixtape hype cycle by Gucci. Or maybe everyone's adjusted too quickly and regardless of whether he has "ceilings", lil' homie doesn't really have any <i>surprises</i> anymore. Still, "What the fuck yo bitch got on on her mind/My fuckin dick (I call her dickhead)" is a lot more enjoyable that the redundant scat-rap he's been regurgitating, and unfortunately making a staple of other rapper's lines.<br />
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Magrudergrind- "Lyrical Ammunition for Scene Warfare"<br />
Again, nothing on youtube and imeem is now a Fox wasteland, so you'd have to go to their myspace to hear it, but suffice to say you won't hear a catchier metal or hard/fast/grind/thrash/skacore song all year.<br />
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Major Lazer- "What You Like"<br />
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"Don't ya like it when me shift your drawers one side/And roll on a condom, one slide"<br />
The best opening line in any song released this year. There's iffyness on this album because half of it isn't anything resembling dancehall, but the main redeeming feature of the album was this song, which is the sort of slackness that makes dancehall parties better than the eurotrashy trance/KTU stuff you'd find in Manhattan.<br />
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Manchester Orchestra- "In My Teeth"<br />
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The most successfully Nirvana-sounding thing of all the alleged Nirvana-sounding things that came out this decade (The Vines, Seether, etc).<br />
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Mario- "Break Up (Feat. Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett)"<br />
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I'm still confused as to what Sean Garrett's purpose is other than to coolly assist rap and bullshit singers on their own tracks, which would seem a bit extra. If Mario or Chris Brown is already doing the singing, why is this dude getting 4 bars? Anyway, this is I think the 4th Gucci song or feature on the list, and its certainly earned, and though Mario is pretty much a non-entity (I mean I only knew this song existed because of the Wayne version on <i>No Ceilings</i>), its fun to hear such wacky beats coming from Bangladesh considering how underwhelming his post-"A Milli" output initially was and how great his older stuff fro Luda 8-9 years ago was.<br />
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Maxwell- "Bad Habits"<br />
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I put this on in my friend's car the other week on the way to a gig and without missing a beat he went "...are we gonna fuck right now?" That sums up how formed and evocative the song, and the album is.<br />
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Memory Tapes- "Bicycle"<br />
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Mos Def- "Roses (Feat. Georgia Anne Muldrew)"<br />
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Simultaneously gorgeous, soulful, and ugly and weird. Its odd because, the track is almost ruined by the changes in the chorus but is also made more interesting because of it. Mos's catalog is polarizing, and I still think <i>The New Danger</i> is unfairly maligned due to a lack of context by people expecting <i>Black on Both Sides II</i>, but this song does encapsulate my tendency to love songs that the average person would probably (rightfully) hate.<br />
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MSTRKRFT- "Bounce (Feat. NORE)"<br />
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Two things I know: NORE is terrible, and MSTRKRFT continue to affirm which half of DFA1979 made the good decisions. Two things I learned from this song: Canadians can be trend-riding blog-house hipster doofuses as much as any American, and NORE will clearly do anything for some ends to cop Newports (i.e. "Oye Mi Canto")<br />
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Neon Indian- "6669 (I Don't Know If You Know)"<br />
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New Boyz- "Cricketz (Feat. Tyga)"<br />
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Sums up the ridiculousness of people getting in a heterosexist (and myopic considering 70's and 80's fashion) tizzy about fashion in the first verse while somehow redeeming Tyga as a rapper, who it turns out might be the second best rapper in Young Money. Also, West Coast lyrics right now><br />
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Nickelus F & Portishead- "Cowboys"<br />
Again, Imeem is deader than a doornail, so you'll have to check his myspace for the track. But finding this on Nahright when I was fumbling through the archives to find any good mixtapes that I missed this year was a revelation, not much for the dude's rapping because it's just as generic as what you'd expect from a Drake associate. What interested me about the tape, besides the fact that he RAPS OVER ELECTRIC WIZARD ON THE LAST SONG, is that it revealed how sick the Portishead songs from their self-titled album are as rap beats. In this context "Cowboys" is the nastiest beat I've heard all year, but something I would've taken a few more years to realize.<br />
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Nicki Minaj- "Handstand (Feat. Shanell)"<br />
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(Chosen over "Itty Bitty Piggy" solely because it demonstrates more of what she does overall)Nicki Minaj is the most New York thing in the world to me. Part of how much I enjoy her has to do with her tendency to add singing to her verses in a more novel and natural way than, say, Drake. When male singers started rolling with the rap and bullshit blueprint about 8 years ago, they mainly just sang with flows, as opposed to blending them together in an interesting way. Nicki does that, and usually sounds like she's having a lot of fun when she's doing it. Listening to her is the opposite of listening to any of the over-30 crowd's rap records this year. They sound tired, past-their-prime and like they were reaching, while Nicki and Gucci and even the New Boyz sound like they have more ideas than they know what to do with a still fresh vigor for rapping. That should matter a lot more than transgressive regionally-biased notions of what constitutes being a "good rapper". I'd take Nicki singing like a 11th grade hoodrat from the Bronx over GZA any day of the week.<br />
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Peaches- "I Feel Cream"<br />
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Though a slight retooling/rip-off of a Chemical Brothers beat, it's one of the few good things about 2009 Peaches, who quickly decided to morph into a disco queen to stay relevant. This song actually manages to come off sexy, something absent from the last two Peaches records.<br />
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Pissed Jeans- "R-Rated Movie"<br />
Once again, both Imeem and Youtube failed. Album's worth stealing to hear it, though.<br />
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Pitbull- "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)"<br />
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Pitbull as dance-rap niche artist? Unfuckwitable. Pitbull as actual southern rapper? Ehh. 84,000,000 youtube views don't lie. Those are Avril Lavigne/Taylor Swift numbers, B.<br />
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Q-Tip- "Barely in Love"<br />
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Unlike the Mos track, this actually does get ruined by the chorus, which tramples awkwardly into an early 70's rock thing, even though I get the feeling the whole thing is supposed to evoke Stevie Wonder and Sly & the Family Stone. Still, the verses kill, and if I maligned a song for only having one good part, half the thrash, black metal and death metal songs on my iTunes would've already been deleted.<br />
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Raekwon- "Have Mercy (Feat. Beanie Sigel)"<br />
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The track that caught my ear enough to make me revisit the album enough to actually enjoy it, sort of like "Incarcerated Scarfaces" was on the original. Beanie is kind of Philly's Scarface and everything he evokes on the track, which is blessed with the welcome return of Blue Raspberry, hits home. It doesn't rush, it doesn't drop instantly dated and kind of dumb references, it does what a well-written verse of any genre should do, which is deliver its ideas patiently:<br />
"My days getting shorter, my nights getting longer<br />
My cell getting smaller, my son getting taller<br />
I exercise my mind, my body getting stronger<br />
But my blood getting colder, heart getting harder<br />
My chances for appeal, getting slimmer<br />
My skin getting brighter, my hair getting thinner<br />
See, when you stressed out, you could age fast in here (have mercy)<br />
I done seen weak niggas not last a year, so before lights out<br />
I write my kids every night, kiss the stamp on the kite<br />
And say a prayer, I hope it lands safe in this flights<br />
I pray they sleep safe through the night<br />
Try to teach my son right, give him some jewels<br />
But it's hard to raise my boy from this visiting room<br />
Many cells turned to prisoner's tombs<br />
I just pray I don't die in here, and last night I almost cried a tear<br />
(have mercy)"<br />
<br />
Delivered by someone who has actually done a few bids, its probably one of the better takes on jail since "Up North Trip" (or at least the OZ Soundtrack from '99)<br />
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Rick Ross- "Usual Suspects (Feat. Nas)"<br />
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I really still can't believe how amazing, like legitimately amazing, some of <i>Deeper Than Rap</i>. How did he get these beats in a recession? Who is really clamoring to give Rick Ross such impossibly lush and frequently affecting songs to rap about crab meats over? And what if JUSTICE League produced an entire Nas album? Surely it'd be infinitely better than what Jay Electronica and Polow Da Don gave him for <i>NIGGER</i>.<br />
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CRAB MEATS.<br />
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Ryan Leslie- "You're Not My Girl"<br />
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Sa-Ra Creative Partners-"White Cloud"<br />
Imeem/Youtube again. This album should be copped anyway on general principle, though. The flipside of that rule I mentioned in regards to posting the dance track on <i>Til The Casket Drops</i>, <i>Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love</i> has too many great tracks, so I picked the most incongruous one, their acid-damaged dance track. <br />
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Souls of Mischief- "Tour Stories"<br />
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Who knew they put out a record? Especially a consistently good one? With Prince Paul helming most of the production?<br />
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Notable for the "Chillin in Australia with them white Jamaicans" line alone.<br />
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Space Ghost Cowboys- "Time Goes By, Whatever"<br />
Can't really find this anywhere yet because they aren't that popular outside of Purchase, or at least on the level of Moving Mountains or Dan Deacon, so I'll just have to gush for a sentence or two without audio evidence about how amazing the band is and how they're probably the only legitimately good band or act to have ever emerged from Purchase. Our school produces mostly indulgent or derivative bullshit in terms of the music scene, but this is the first thing since Communication Corporation I could confidently play to outsiders to demonstrate that Purchase bands aren't just a clique-y circle jerk of pretentious studio comp majors.<br />
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U-God- "Magnum Force (Feat. Jim Jones & Sheek Louch)"<br />
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U-God is now making better records than GZA and Meth. I'm scared.<br />
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UGK- "Harry Asshole (Feat. Webbie & Lil' Boosie)"<br />
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T.I.'s on house arrest, Pimp C is dead, Bun B fell off, and Boosie, Gucci and Wayne are all doing bids or going to have to do bids. Its a rough time if you're one of the top shelf Southern rappers right now.<br />
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Anyway, the beat recycling and concept recycling on the final UGK album is a little bothersome, but an entire song about pubic hair on scrippas over the "Pocket Full of Stones Beat" just needed to be made.<br />
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Vivian Girls- "The End"<br />
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Chosen for being the most forlorn track on <i>Everything Goes Wrong</i><br />
<br />
Wale- "Pretty Girls (Feat. Gucci Mane)"<br />
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Wavves- "Summer Goth"<br />
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None of this record should be as good as it is.<br />
<br />
The Widest Smiling Faces-"Jellyfish"<br />
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"Jellyfish" is my favorite Aviv song, but here's "The Only Lonely Ocean Instead", since I think watching him perform that says a lot more.<br />
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The Yeah Yeah Yeahs- "Heads Will Roll"<br />
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"And that's a one hot song every 5 year average/And that's so (laaaaaaaaaaaaaaame)"<br />
To be fair, investing in a post-DFA synth-rock sound two years after it would've made sense or been profitable to do so probably works out well when your audience is composed of faux-riot grrls with subscriptions to Seventeen and Teen People.<br />
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50 Cent- "Tia Told Me"<br />
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The beat and hook are great, but the issue is that you have to actually give a shit that Ross was a C.O. to really embrace the lyrics. The craft is there, a bit of that "I Get Money" spark left over before it really flickered out, but its moot. Especially the line "We don't wanna hear your Mafia tough talk/That fake fuck voice don't fly in New Yawk". Really? I've been in Brooklyn 20 years and I'm pretty sure that's all that flies in NY, B.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-19100811205679653662009-12-28T05:24:00.003-05:002009-12-28T13:48:25.668-05:00Best Songs of 2009 Pt. 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dSLQ7Wug9u0JSo29yWybGf-mvuUDwqra9oUpOWFj02fC86gp4wzR4LMl-dSq1ZR80ZkfEy-N7DDvq8teE7rPsu9WXzJ5tw9N6hDOwrzb5erHAZjZkNrOqv1eDWPrz8xLJ_mlOJWbWTk/s1600-h/dawson-crying.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_dSLQ7Wug9u0JSo29yWybGf-mvuUDwqra9oUpOWFj02fC86gp4wzR4LMl-dSq1ZR80ZkfEy-N7DDvq8teE7rPsu9WXzJ5tw9N6hDOwrzb5erHAZjZkNrOqv1eDWPrz8xLJ_mlOJWbWTk/s320/dawson-crying.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><i>This year's commentary on songs that I thought were better than other songs is especially long, mainly due to the pretty good year its been for albums and singles. As always, I began the year complaining and ended it overwhelmed by great music, some of which I'm rushing to digest as I'm typing this (about 14 albums) so I can get the album list up by Thursday afternoon at the very latest. Will I succeed? If there's food and drugs around in the next few days, then that's a no.</i><br />
<br />
Beyonce- "Video Phone (Feat. Lady Gaga)"<br />
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The last two Beyonce albums took me a year to enjoy, the former due to some sort of egregious oversight on my part, the latter because the ballad portion of <i>I Am...Sasha Fierce</i> was just terrible. I don't enjoy hearing Beyonce sing ballads because, though most likely on key, her voice tends to sound like a horse neighing to me in the context of her having to emote in such a way (Which itself makes her duet with Shakira kind of a menagerie). But the "fierce" portion turned out to be fucking great. At this point Beyonce's kind of robotic in her perfection of what's possible as a black pop singer, aided by the fact that from when I was a kid to now hip-hop, rather than say, Third Eye Blind, became the standard influence on pop radio production, even when the songwriting itself still harps on worn out pop-punk and post-grunge tropes. A perfect example of that meld actually is "Irreplaceable". But since the album's not going to make my list, I have to gush now about the indefatigable level of attitude and awesomeness here. The video's great, which is nothing new considering this last Beyonce album, and Lady Gaga manages to counter Beyonce's poise and measured choreography with what amounts to her interpretation of a "new way" NYC vogue freakout (shades of Leyomi Mizrahi?).<br />
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Absu- "Between The Absu of Eridu & Erich"<br />
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Amerie- "Pretty Brown (Feat. Trey Songz)"<br />
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Baroness- "The Sweetest Curse"<br />
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Never took them seriously as anything other than an imaginative 2004-era Mastodon clone until the dual leads come in halfway through, which besides supplanting the band that they clearly got most of their inspiration from, reminds me of how terrible Mastodon have become.<br />
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Bat For Lashes- "Daniel"<br />
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Beanie Sigel- "Think Big"<br />
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Beans is the kind of dude that I love in small doses, but could never sustain an album. He's the kind of rapper that can show up on a track like "Ignorant Shit" and lyrically annihilate it but after its all over you know you'll probably delete half any record you download from him afterward. Therefore 2:15 of Sigel going in in the middle of this weird "Waiting to Exhale" drama he's putting out in the public is optimal; no bullshit, just the Broad Street Bully getting it in on something that automatically caresses the automatically stans out for 90's rap throwbacks.<br />
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Brand New- "You Stole"<br />
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The minute the old guard emo/scene bands quit having any sort of ideas about commercial success is usually when they put out their best stuff. Poison the Well, Zao and Thursday come to mind, all acts who put out their best records <i>after</i> they were poised to maybe push more limited edition merch just to break even on tour. Out of all these bands, Brand New is the only one to have matched that abandoning of pop prospects or even radio programming with a great album all the way through, epitomized by the best song on the record, 6 minutes of watery guitar, brush drums, brooding, and a scant middle section guitar freakout.<br />
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Brutal Truth- "Evolution Through Revolution"<br />
Myspace took over imeem and youtube is oddly bereft of any audio from this albums save for two songs, but its streaming on their myspace so there you can hear what basically sums up the Brutal Truth catalog: equal parts amazing and annoyingly dumb. There seems to, in Brutal Truth, Snoop, and Cephalic Carnage, be a common theme of aging potheads not only becoming sad and embarrassing, but terrible. This track represents Brutal Truth, whose dedication to almost /b/-tard levels of stupidity and shittiness on <i>Evolution Through Revolution</i> just continues the weird descent into self-parody that makes up a good quarter of <i>Sounds of the Animal Kingdom</i>, which even they now admit was recorded terribly because they're non-functional stoners. But this song is worth all the crap for the one cool riff they introduce every now and then.<br />
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Burnt By The Sun- "Inner Station"<br />
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The greatest grind-y chugXcore band of all time. By far. And one of the few Dave Witte projects that isn't terrible (looking at you Municipal Waste).<br />
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Busdriver- "Do The Wop"<br />
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Somehow Busdriver managed to release an even more niche album than the trippy prog-rap record he put out with Radioinactive and Daedalus 5 years ago, mainly because somehow the leap to Epitaph and success he got from the change in sound convinced him that filling his record full of Deerhoof and West Coast post-Dilla beatmakers would be a good idea, i.e. it should've been more Flying Lotus, less Nosaj Thing (even though the latter puts on an amazing DJ show). This is one of the least convoluted/unlistenable tracks on the record, which, as a stan, is a definite letdown.<br />
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Cam'Ron- "Get It In Ohio"<br />
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I could've done this on Frooty Loops unmastered and everything, which is a big reason Cam is endearing. Even on <i>Come Home With Me</i> there were songs that it seemed like no one cared to even attempt to make sound as good as the other songs on the record. But Cam sounds best over mixtape-fidelity beats, this being the most triumphant sounding shit on the whole record which, though he's lyrically in a rut at this point, is the closest thing to good he's released since <i>Purple Haze</i>.<br />
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Camera Obscura- "French Navy"<br />
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The sound of velvet sweaters filled with syrupy goo being picked at by incorrigible chinchillas.<br />
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Clipse- "Eyes On Me"<br />
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I usually like the most danceable track on a record for two reasons: either the record's pretty awful but its saving grace is said song, or the album's great and the dance track is incongruous and is easier to highlight than anything else. It's the former for this song, which is one of a few highlights on a pretty blah Clipse record, that felt half-assed and half-restrained instead of focused like, say, <i>Hell Hath No Fury</i>.<br />
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Converge- "Cruel Bloom"<br />
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Only strange due to the fact that it tends to lean more Tom Waits/Neurosis than their ballad-y, contemplative songs tended to in the past, but one of a handful of things I heard during the year I could actually call "beautiful" without feeling as though I'd have to justify myself.<br />
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Dizzee Rascal- "Dance Wiv Me"<br />
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DJ Class- "I'm The Shit Remix (Feat. Kanye West)"<br />
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The last two years at college have made me appreciate the power of a good club track a lot more than when stuff like J-Kwon and Juelz Santana was the norm and if you were lucky they'd pepper in some dancehall and soca so you could actually get into the vertical outercourse that was the entire purpose of you pre-gaming three shots of grain and loading your wallet with two packs of Trojans and your emergency contact number. At this point I'm more likely to go to a club or party to check out what's popular with people who don't spend all their time listening to 90's house and blackened thrash, which more often than not is pretty amazing stuff, even when it's terrible. I could write a dissertation on the power of song placement and genre and how "Sexual Eruption" and "Turn My Swag On" were the most important and powerful songs of last year, regardless of genre. "I'm the Shit" was usually packed in between house throwbacks and one or two Baltimore club songs, and though Baltimore club didn't really get ingrained in setlists up here like it might've elsewhere, this song's probably going into the canon.<br />
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DJ Paul- "Stay Wit Me"<br />
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DJ Quik and Kurupt- "Ohhh!"<br />
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The real reason people loved West Coast rap was because it sounded great at parties and was easily digestible. No multi-layering of jazz samples, no "rah rah!" yelling, just groove and an efficiency at storytelling that has been lacking from East Coast rap for a good minute now. If life was fair this would be a block party staple next to the "Cha-Cha Slide" and "Gin and Juice"<br />
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Don Omar- "Virtual Diva"<br />
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I am an asshole. And the Bronx is rife with STIs.<br />
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DOOM- "Batty Boyz"<br />
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The fact that people didn't get up in arms about this song is either testament to DOOM's lack of real-world popularity of the fact that this is actually one of the funnier and least-hostile anti-gay rap songs ever made, so much so that "anti-gay" is probably a little to describe the track. Basically the opposite end of the spectrum of "Boom Bye Bye"<br />
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Drake- "Houstalantavegas"<br />
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I love Drake as an R&B sanga, but as a sanga ternt rappa, he's pretty much just a faux-sophisticated mixtape rapper, which is why I put this over "Best I Ever Had". Being saved from his lyrics, which fall into the aughts-trend of not making much fucking sense or meaning as much as he thinks they do, is the main reason, but the fact that this is <i>So Far Gone's</i> ultimate "I put on music when I fuck" song puts it over the top.<br />
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The-Dream- "Rockin That Shit"<br />
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The most 80's Janet Jackson-sounding shit EVER. And fuck Fabolous. Honestly.<br />
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Eminem- "The Warning"<br />
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Sure, when the only good song you've put out in 5 years is a Mariah Carey diss track, you're clearly as dated and over-the-hill as Mariah herself, but its worth it to hear pre-Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Eminem.<br />
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The Flaming Lips- "Convinced of the Hex"<br />
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Erasing 5-6 years of "Meh" within 30 seconds<br />
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Game- "I'm So Wavy"<br />
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Still lyrically garbage, still with an ear for great beats, but now with the ability to <i>actually rap</i>. Could still get run over by Reginald Denny and not affect anything at all; dude's the definition of extraneous.<br />
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General Surgery- "Restrained Remains"<br />
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Ghostface Killah- "Stapleton Sex"<br />
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I have a personal list of things I subject friends to to see if they are, quite honestly, interesting enough to bother investing into a personal relationship with. FTM tranny on MTF tranny porn, Wonder Showzen, etc, etc. This song quickly got added to that list, and anyone flinching or getting overly conservative during this shit gets the gasface and demotion to "acquiantance". Disarmingly reckless yet even-handed and sex-positive as only Ghost could do.<br />
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Grand Puba- "Hunny"<br />
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Hits the same 90's old-head rap spot that <i>Stakes Is High</i> does. Sure, its sweater and Hennesey rap but there's nothing wrong with that.<br />
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Grizzly Bear- "Ready, Able"<br />
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Like every Grizzly Bear song, it's the chorus that does most of the work, though the build-up is just as important. 1:56 in though, the song reaches a well-earned crest of almost soulful ache in the melody. Something pretty enough to stage an low-budget rape scene around.<br />
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Gucci Mane- "Lemonade"<br />
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When I started seriously listening to Three 6 Mafia and UGK two years ago, I longed for a car, not for transportation but for the sole purpose of getting ridiculous speakers and enjoying my favorite tracks the way they were meant to be. This track, the best song on <i>The State vs Radric Davis</i>, is the kind of song that makes me alienate long-suffering friends and relative, the kind of blustering of "You don't understand how fucking amazing this is! Listen to the 70's-rock build-up the bass does in the chorus and then the knock it settles back into after each one!" or "Yes the song's about jewels, why does that matter?" that elicits eye rolls and snide dismissals from the kind of people trying to still push Elzhi or <i>The Blueprint 3</i> on me.<br />
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HEALTH- "Die Slow"<br />
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If I had to rank this shit, this would probably be my second favorite song of the year, tapping into the two things I listened to most attentively my junior year of high school: pre-1994 industrial and post-punk with ghostly androgynous vocals. Although I can easily see why they're not that popular.<br />
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Jamie Foxx- "Speak French (Feat. Gucci Mane)"<br />
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If I had to rank this shit? Fourth favorite song. About a minute too long, and like "Lemonade" and "Die Slow", something I feel that I'd have to defend and explain rather than let speak for itself. Which seems insane to me, but "grim yet cunty" isn't quite the niche market they're trying to reach with this. Also reaffirms my belief that we're in a renaissance of music-to-miss-periods-to not seen since the early 90's.<br />
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Jay-Z-"Thank You"<br />
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The only thing on this typically half-shit/half-interesting album. Now that I'm not 12 anymore I tend to hold Jay on a higher pedestal than I did then, forgetting that the guy never did actually put out a classic. Sure I'd prefer an album of "Thank You"s, but units need to be pushed to continue to pay off Papa Knowles, so I have to be realistic. Shit, even <i>Reasonable Doubt</i> benefitted from and was elevated by critical hindsight, nostalgia, and the fact that 90's rap was arguably better because albums were still being constructed, as opposed to the current era of disjointed, filler-laden major label mixtapes. Still, first Jay track I've screw-faced over in <i>years</i>.<br />
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Jeremih- "Birthday Sex"<br />
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Guaranteed to make a room smell like pussy and cocoa butter. And maybe TCB hair products.<br />
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Joell Ortiz- "U.N.I.T.Y"<br />
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Only member of Slaughterhouse I fucks with for a reason. Who else could've flipped this song into a paean to platonic relationships?Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-28043254797740888012009-12-22T19:17:00.005-05:002009-12-23T02:13:44.548-05:00We Just Let Him Be Successful<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AhVX2Uu5wrk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AhVX2Uu5wrk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="324"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I've got maybe one more post before I launch into the "Best of '09" list, so in the spirit of giving here's a story about me, Degrassi, and ketchup chips</span><br /><br />"I'm goin in."- Pierre Trudeau<br /><br />I've been meaning to do a post on Degrassi for two years now, but wasn't quite able to find the angle until the magic of synergy and the idiocy of handing college students the keys to the higher learning bureaucracy came together back in the ides of April of this year. My college has the dubious distinction of being where Wheelchair Jimmy had his coming out party as the creator of the 3rd best R&B album of the year (behind Ryan Leslie and Maxwell, natch). That distinction is dubious because his headlining of the first night of Culture Shock, our college's yearly clusterfuck of <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/purchase/5250444.html">Livejournal-community</a> <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/purchase/5405277.html">trolling/infighting</a>, <a href="http://www.thepurchasebrick.com/content/psga-blog-number-14-culture-shock-line-up-new-finance-bylaws-and-the-end-of-the-stood-probat">character assassination, uninformed bitching, subcultural pandering,</a> <a href="http://www.thepurchasebrick.com/articles/mec-jeff-levin-impeached-judicial-board-to-determine-fate-of-culture-shock">budget overspending, student government dilapidation</a>, and occasionally moderately buzzed-about bands and carny rides, was met with the same polarized reaction's Aubrey still gets, "OMGILUVDRIZZY" and "The fuck is a Drake?"<br /><br />That's a question I myself had around the time of the dust-up over 2008's Culture Shock lineup. Though I was still in a reactionary haze of "kill whitey" hipster derision and Pitchfork-baiting and went the hardest at Alaina Stamatis for her choices, that year was the work of someone who actually did a great job and just happened to have unfortunately picked a shedload of bands that invoked negative feelings regarding "hipster culture" and the very real gentrification/displacement happening in Bed-Stuy, Red Hook, and Bushwick. Bands that, considering the overlap between my school's music and arts scene and that of the middle-to-upper class pillaging of a borough I'd nostalgically like to keep Pabst-free, were just as beloved or buzzed about on my campus. This, of course, despite there being a very clear delineation between the zebra-print trust fund Jarmusches and let's say people who just wanted ska or some other dumb college kid cliche.<br /><br />When all of this was going down, I was in the middle of a studio production class for non-music majors that I foolishly signed up for hoping to learn at least how to EQ some shit, but ended up leaving the course disappointed that the only thing I learned was about mic parts and types and headroom. In that class were a bunch of other disappointed people who, like me, had some association with music but weren't in the conservatory (except this one 6'4 guy who was an opera major and looked like a pro wrestler from the late 90's "Attitude"-era of the WWF) and wanted to know at least enough to get by themselves. Guitar players, this kid Omar who rapped, and this girl Christina, who was a 23-year-old Floridian and the only other Degrassi fan in the class. This last fact became apparent when, during the long stretches of free time and waiting around that happened in that class, she was on her Mac scrolling through album covers, and suddenly Drake comes up.<br /><br />Earlier that year there was <a href="http://www.teennick.com/theclick/?categoryId=5068&titleId=10617">an episode</a> of the show where, to both reinstate Jimmy's status as the ultimate token black kid and continue Degrassi's attempts to humor its actor's music careers (see Steele, Cassie), his latent murderball talents were augmented by rapping skills that were pretty much absent in earlier seasons (the skills, not the rapping, as <a href="http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh6VJlBh30PNVd6aEW">WSHH eagerly exploited</a>).<br /><br />(Side note: Isn't it funny that Ashley's worries about being eclipsed and abandoned by someone more talented is exactly what happened to the entire cast of Degrassi as of <span style="font-style:italic;">So Far Gone</span> coming out? ...Actually lets pretend that I'm not reading too far into Degrassi for thematic applications to real-life events.)<br /><br />I was surprised at how decent Aubrey could rap, even though his bars weren't anything to write home about; really, Wheelchair Jimmy's skill level was only that of a half-dead Stack Bundles (guess which half). But he was decidedly better than Cassie Steele's "grunge/pop" or whatever the fuck she's touting herself as on her music myspace, or Jake Epstein's prescient mix of Jason Mraz's bland/embarassing collegiate soft rock and all the aesthetic and lyrical trappings of a white Long Island teenager in 2004. "Decidedly better than other musically-deluded Degrassi cast members" doesn't quite measure "promising career trajectory" so seeing the digital mixtape cover for <span style="font-style:italic;">Comeback Season</span> and hearing Drake curse and talk about drugs only elicited the gas face. Sometime in 2007 I got heavy into blogs, and then all the assorted go-to rap sites like NahRight?, so I was more than familiar with the deluge of shitty-to-average mixtapes and internet albums and freestyle-a-day gimmicks that sub-prime mortgages have blessed us with the last two years or so. There certainly seemed to be thought in the presentation, which is always a good sign, but I was already writing Lil' Wayne off as having fallen off and reaching the zenith of potential that a mixtape rapper ever could by April, so why bother with anything nowhere near as good or interesting as Wayne circa 2004-2007?<br /><br />By that same time this year, his buzz had reached a point I couldn't ignore, which really just meant NahRight? was spam-posting his tracks and that his affiliation with Lil'Wayne became a full-fledged co-signing and conscription into the Island of Lost Toys that is Young Money. Yet somehow I had gone all this time without having heard or seen any proof that people gave a shit. I downloaded <span style="font-style:italic;">Comeback Season</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">So Far Gone</span> before the actual concert but I couldn't tear myself away from HORSE the Band and Fiona Apple long enough to force myself to listen to it. So I went in completely clueless as to what to expect of the 10pm-ish performance, 10pm-ish because while he was supposed to be already on campus, Drake was at Hot97 very nervously and awkwardly gesticulating and rapping off his Blackberry.<br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uKSeyYFGRo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-uKSeyYFGRo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="324"></embed></object><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MPm5tgyTmWU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MPm5tgyTmWU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Somethin something alcohol/yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah<br />Young Money, cars, alcohol/yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThtQTIK3UFw">Timmy! Timmy!</a>/Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah<br />Can I do dat?/Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah"</span><br /><br />That nervousness and awkwardness of watching a Canadian catch the holy spirit like a handicapped Tyler Perry character while consistently playing himself would continue throughout the evening and, really, throughout this year. Drake had assorted weed carriers onstage poorly stalling for time while I overheard kids talking about how he was with Flex at that very moment, which seemed like a bad move on his part but sort of par for the course with the behavior of the few non-hipster rap acts who have graced our campus (i.e. Cassidy being an overpaid bum who did a half an hour set after showing up late then bounced with the money). Official Culture ShockTM water bottles were thrown onstage repeatedly, each one confusing and irritating the assorted faux-thug Blanadians on stage. Then finally after probably half an hour the kid shows up. A headlining act that half the attendees had never heard of. A headlining act with no hits, Degrassi baggage to overcome, and no Lil' Wayne to save him if something goes wrong, refuting rumors of Wayne somehow showing up to our school for free.<br /><br />And thus, the lights dim and I'm introduced to what is basically such watery post-<span style="font-style:italic;">808's</span> rap'n'b that I almost felt like I was listening to the kind of early ambient that they'd play in spas or how I've always thought of the high-rise apartments you see in movies from the 80's. Shit Patrick Bateman would listen to. I'm not impressed. Later in the year I would be, but only because I stopped thinking of Drake as a rap act and started thinking of him as the kind of 00's R&B you could put on while you try to convince your girl that all that talk about pre-come causing pregnancy is an urban legend. He goes through "Uptown" and etc, but I couldn't help but tear apart his performance. Green as he clearly was/is, he came across incredibly disingenuous, like what someone's <span style="font-style:italic;">idea</span> of "swagger" or being a mixtape rapper is, as opposed to actually being that on stage. Everything came across forced, like it was a put on or just another role. The crowd, or at least the female portion, went ape-shit for "Best I Ever Had", which came across as just another rap and bullshit song about simping and tricking, but with the romantic comedy addition of the notion that somehow you, the girl in the audience or at home, are the best sex he's ever had.<br /><br />(Side note: Drake should start opening his set in a wheelchair and then collapsing only to triumphantly get up and rock the show like Nirvana did at Reading in '92. He could probably sing "The Rose", too, though that might be a bit heady for the Power 105 set.)<br /><br />I left near the end of the song. I perceived his performance to have hit its peak and I needed to get food before the on-campus spot closed, so my priorities were set. <br /><br />The next night, I would skip suffering through the Cool Kids, who are fucking awful, to attend a fashion show/Ricky Blaze performance scam put on my friend, whose healthy attendance was a monument to how much people disliked this year's Culture Shock lineup. Christina was happy about it, but her reasons were obvious.<br /><br />The entire concept behind getting Drake to play Culture Shock was the same as getting Wale to play "Fall Fest", essentially a smaller, more neglected version of or spring concert, that previous semester was the thought of the winfall our college would get if we got in on the ground floor of a potential star. That didn't really work out in terms of Wale, he of decent lyrics and hideously/predictably overrated mixtapes, but weirdly enough, despite all the naysaying, Drake did. Probably the most press our school has gotten lately, <a href="http://newmedia.purchase.edu/~startick/portfolio/issues/Issue81.pdf">outside of a student naming her play "Niggerback"</a> or <a href="http://www.purchase.edu/sharedmedia/purchaseindy/issues/Issue_108.pdf">Billy Prinsell doing his public access show in blackface three years ago</a>, is Drake. It still comes up in searches, and as long as people care about him, despite his <a href="http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2009/08/drake-first-you-get-hype-then-you-make.html">tragicomic tendency to fuck himself</a> over (as well as his suspect over-affected drawl), the college will be associated with more than just alumni like Regina Spektor, Dan Deacon, and Moby.<br /><br />Considering we've never had a problem getting rappers to come to Purchase, the idea that Culture Shock would appeal to talent trying to get a platform seems to be more idealistic than anything. Culture Shock 2010 is currently being hammered out, and Drake's effect will probably reveal itself around then, but without some demonstrable change moves like that will have only affected Purchase's notoriety and maybe our profits, not the quality of our acts. Or else we might have to give cassie Steele a call after all.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-68590173232588818352009-11-26T15:33:00.005-05:002009-11-26T15:50:54.802-05:00Shame There Was Never a Group Photo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD54G_PvQyCWUjMUYGM3TypUw17c_2Yvq9DZWgx_ln62BmcuowkpQIZL2xgzdCZE4M8HkGyAcySU_Jk6iG417DuT6oPqb2xeWjk-qUNiRaMOXVR-t_JQ3cf-1-3GbNsLN90JeTXZfmb2Y/s1600/odb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 330px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD54G_PvQyCWUjMUYGM3TypUw17c_2Yvq9DZWgx_ln62BmcuowkpQIZL2xgzdCZE4M8HkGyAcySU_Jk6iG417DuT6oPqb2xeWjk-qUNiRaMOXVR-t_JQ3cf-1-3GbNsLN90JeTXZfmb2Y/s400/odb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408516867675294722" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWE4q5zTgqSqUskU_lABBxGZnkkivdxZakOJlXlSAohkPF0fbaoJh8botVAORp_E0KTxXdZQncWdOZUGz8PCPpkAkcDQ9UBlxkM1YO7aSbRpvL3rDFSS8sEGU7UNpt4YlCm-oHQW99aco/s1600/vh1_bigdaddy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 289px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWE4q5zTgqSqUskU_lABBxGZnkkivdxZakOJlXlSAohkPF0fbaoJh8botVAORp_E0KTxXdZQncWdOZUGz8PCPpkAkcDQ9UBlxkM1YO7aSbRpvL3rDFSS8sEGU7UNpt4YlCm-oHQW99aco/s400/vh1_bigdaddy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408516634720433570" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpn2pyKj44vNKQF6W4ucXjW_MxkZXSgeUPR4AKISkp5f42cCs5ZIGsTg2sdDcNPr_gBANd8PgdoERZ8xKOHbs_oH6XcDuDuBulgpW4mvBCPaF02cgoilPbrDUw2xS9mFclFAd_ikCH0c/s1600/mugshot__dangelo.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibpn2pyKj44vNKQF6W4ucXjW_MxkZXSgeUPR4AKISkp5f42cCs5ZIGsTg2sdDcNPr_gBANd8PgdoERZ8xKOHbs_oH6XcDuDuBulgpW4mvBCPaF02cgoilPbrDUw2xS9mFclFAd_ikCH0c/s400/mugshot__dangelo.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408513692245951170" /></a>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-31856867998963533572009-11-24T23:48:00.001-05:002009-11-24T23:54:01.955-05:00Just Sayin'<object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Km1l1xR6RE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Km1l1xR6RE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5xi4O1yi6b0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5xi4O1yi6b0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Is it still avant-garde if its just an American co-opting years old Eurodance tropes?Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-16245548398760227702009-11-12T23:56:00.007-05:002009-12-23T02:16:09.507-05:00Contextual Nirvana<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/v79ISC-GKbc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/v79ISC-GKbc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="430" height="324"></embed></object><br />I grew up with a specific system of buying records. If it was a current artist, I would wait until the second or third single, and if I liked it enough I would cop the album on principle. This method led me to buying P.O.D.'s <em>Satellite</em>, which was a shit album that even a screwy, Jah-lionizing guest appearance by H.R. ("Without Jah, Nothin'") couldn't save. So in late 2001, I amended the process to include going to Rolling Stone's website to read reviews. If it didn't get 3 1/2 stars or more, I wouldn't fuck with it. This system lasted me up until late 2004 when, either due to a Pitchforkian shift if writing staff or position on what constitutes a 4-star album to Rolling Stone, a few dud purchases (<em>In On The Kill Taker</em> being a major one around that time) to abandon the method and go off pure instinct. MTV2, VH1, MTV in the 90's, Rolling Stone from 2001-2004 and NY radio shaped what I would buy, like, and see up until I got to college and got access to, hence the nonsensical pre-iPod generation mix of genres on my Winamp playlist, where there was just as likely to be a song by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeHTP6X3qw">Clinic</a> as there was a song by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz4PlD3lLOg">Cold</a> or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAfrhmIvZ_s">the Pharcyde</a>.<br /><br />There was only one instance, save for my Christmas 2004 purchase of <em>You Fail Me</em> based on its album cover, of me bypassing both criterias: Nirvana.<br /><br />Shortly before 9/11, when I began my awkward tranistion to a high school freshman, I bought <em>Nevermind</em> and <em>In Utero</em> at a Circuit City off of pure memory, nostalgia for my even then fading 90's memories, curiosity, and rock mythology. Before actually hearing those records in their entirety for the first time (which, in a then-rare display of self-control I listened to chronologically) I had probably been bombarded by the video blocks and concert footage that became a yearly ritual on MTV2 to commemorate Cobain's birthday. But before sitting down to be enveloped by what would define everything about me for a year-and-a-half (when I got into AFI), all I had to go on was the fact that I had heard the singles and that he was dead. None of this meant anything until I listened to the albums themselves, which gave me the same overwhelming mix of sadness and joy that I still get from certain records (<em>The Hour of Bewilderbeast</em>,<em>Kid A</em>, etc.) Its something odd beyond the kind of enjoyment I get from good (and bad) music now. Its something that I guess could be reductively described as being <em>moved</em>, if it wasn't for the wishy-washy connotations of that word.<br /><br />By the end of freshman year, I owned all six Nirvana records, from <em>Bleach</em> to <em>From The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah</em>. I could play every song all the way through and knew almost all the lyrics. I used to lovingly sit with an acoustic guitar and play in real-time to the Unplugged record, singing along in my small Brooklyn room about how I wasn't a sunbeam to Jesus (which certainly fit my politics) and inadvertently learning what I quickly found out was a Bowie song. I bought <em>Heavier Than Heaven</em>, the Charles Cross biography, for my friend's older sister, who I had a crush on for a few years and summarily stole from her (leaving a passive aggressive note) after our first falling out when I was 15 and she was 17. Despite all the lug-headed shredder derisions of his guitar-playing, I cut my teeth playing guitar on those songs at a time when I couldn't ever fathom being able to play Hendrix, let alone play the solo from "Anarchy in the UK" properly. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of songs that I wrote during this period sounded like either Linkin Park, Tool, Puddle of Mudd, or Nirvana.<br /><br />Unlike most 2Pac fans, who also get indoctrinated into a genre or their first cult of personality through a dead pop star, <em>I actually realized that more and better artists of the same genre exist and that my love of a celebrity shoudln't stifle my development as a music fan</em>. So I got into the Strokes and the White Stripes and punk, and AFI and metalcore and death metal, and black metal, and doom/sludge, etc. While I was delving into other genres and thickening (no Israel) my extant roots in dancehall, rap, and the kind of obnoxious dance music only ravers in NYC listen to, I still had a connection to Cobain and a vested interest in all of the myths, the gear, the stories, footage, and accusations that Courtney Love had him murdered. But it was peripheral. Over time my taste got much much better and <em>Nevermind</em> went to the bottom of the pile in terms of my favorite Nirvana records.<br /><br />As the third Nirvana live album, and the accompanying "Live at Reading" DVD was released recently, I noticed that Nirvana sort of came back in vogue, or at least for people in my age group, because of the renewed context in which to enjoy them. When your first exposure to the band is the glossy and neutered <em>Nevermind</em>, all those comparisons to Black Flag, the Melvins, and Sabbath get lost (although this post itself was sparked by a song on this year's Pissed Jeans record that sounded <em>just like</em> Nirvana). This is how most people view the band and to think of them in the proper context of what they were, a raw and noisy Seattle power trio that sounded at once exactly like the Melvins and nothing like the Melvins. This is inherently cooler than the conception most fans and I grew up with, especially as sludge and crust/hardcore are so in vogue with everyone and all forms of rock consumed by the post-indie set are either fragile and drowned in cheap reverb or caked and flaking with dissonance and crusty textures.<br /><br />I hated <em>Bleach</em> until I got into "extreme" metal. In the nascent days when I actually found Slayer alluring and scary (7th grade-10th grade),I couldn't get down with such a raw record. In fact, it wasn't until maybe 11th grade or so that I began declaring, with ineffable confidence, that <em>In Utero</em> was the best Nirvana record. My girlfriend of the time responded with a "Duh!", but she was the kind of girl who would videotape VH1 Classic's alternative rock video block's, so she was on some other shit at the time. I could handle <em>Incesticide</em> and <em>From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah</em> well enough in terms of rawness, the latter I actually preferred towards the close of 9th grade, but it took 5 years of shit-fi black metal, a purist love for old school death metal, and a slight attraction to pre-<em>Houdini</em> Melvins for <em>Bleach</em> to go past having a few good songs to being out and out great and weird.<br /><br />I'm probably not the only one to notice this about the band. The greatest hits Courtney Love put out around 2004 or so to pay for Frances Bean Cobain's bourgeois sense of entitlement and aristocracy had a curious tracklisting that was celebrated by fans and Rolling Stone for belying obvious choices, or at the very least, providing a few non <em>Neverming</em> cuts.<br /><br />As a 22-year old adult, I've grown to hate "Rape Me" and have, in my middle age, discoveredthat its a terrible song that tries too hard without delivering. I've discovered that all of the accusations of Nirvana creating the blueprint for late 90's radio rock and nu-metal was a complete fallacy. It was Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Bush, chiefly. But most of all, that, from the 70+ songs left to sort through, all essential in their own way, is a band of three eqally interesting musicians informed as much by hardcore and altrock as they were by the saccharine vibes of string-laden 70's AOR. Despite that period of outgrowth, Nirvana can be cool, but in context.<br /><br />Or maybe its just the gradual shift from 80's retro-fetishism to 90's retro-fetishism (flannel, Vivian Girls, vice) skewing it all.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-24431203810227092202009-11-11T23:19:00.004-05:002009-11-12T21:29:20.318-05:00How Nicki Minaj Should Be Enjoyed<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Agro8r4nyGQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Agro8r4nyGQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />With cheese. Lots and lots of cheese.<br /><br />And a sense of fun. Which was lost on the Cocaine Blunts comments section a couple of weeks ago (super-senior year is clearly still affecting my timeliness) when Noz brought the <a href="http://www.cocaineblunts.com/blunts/?p=4751">Au bon Pain</a> (no NPR) on Nicki's amazingly awkward BET freestyle. Noz's description of the whole thing and his reaction was hilarious and spot-on and the only real point of contention with the post was his assertion that she's "an awful rapper", which is bullshit. Being "an awful rapper" is really just not being able to rap on beat. At all. That's it.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HmJbJs-9ST0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HmJbJs-9ST0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YX4zYzh7Gqk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YX4zYzh7Gqk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />There's clearly a qualitative difference between "Let Me Take You To The Movies" and Nicki. Nicki <span style="font-style:italic;">can rap</span>. Really fucking well, actually. The issue is the perception of someone's rapping ability is usually couched, like anything else, in the sound of their voice and their mannerisms, two things that she's managed to completely split opinion on due to a post-Wayne dedication to quirk that usually runs anywhere from endearing to awkward. For better or for worse, she's always entertaining. Although she has definitely gone overboard with the performing arts high school graduate thing since I first caught on to "Itty Bitty Piggy". That video and song is a lot more subdued and controlled use of what now just comes off sort of manic, but given how she's changed since that first Lil' Wayne feature two years ago to now there will probably be another version of Nicki by the time the Drake album comes out next year.<br /><br />(Is it worth anything to state the fact that lyrically Nicki Minaj shits on Drake? What does that even mean?)<br /><br />The usual centrist comment regarding Nicki Minaj is that her lyrics are good enough, somewhere a couple of notches above "mixtape rapper", but you have to look past her spazziness and, as Noz put it best, her tendency to rap with "...every accent and yet no accent at all", there's a lot more to immediately love than anything featured on Nahright. <span style="font-style:italic;">Beam Me Up Scotty</span> is the most compulsively listenable thing I've listened to lately, and as opposed to all the Gucci mixtapes that felt like work to listen to (always a bad sign), I usually found myself in the stacks during October <span style="font-style:italic;">only listening to that tape</span>. <br /><br />My cosigning of Nicki Minaj feels defensive, even as she's gotten so much more popular over the summer and fall, mainly because how seriously IRL people take my enthusiasm is equal to how seriously they take her. Its still fruitless trying to explain to people that their clueless assertion about how "pre-2002 Cam'Ron was great", even in 2009. You'd think by now people would have open minds and realize their rote arguments about Cam's rhyme schemes "sounding like Sesame Street" miss the point completely. They're ignoring legitimate, usually (at least pre-2008) quality Cam lyrics because they mistake cleverness and a sense of humor for somehow being too silly to enjoy or take seriously. The same mentality that informs the Nicki Minaj and Cam'Ron debate is <a href="http://www.spin.com/articles/irony-maidens">what informed people's opinions about The Darkness</a>. The fact that the Darkness weren't that great is besides the point. But, like Cam'Ron and Nicki Minaj, more people are fixated on and prejudiced by their perceptions of each artist's respective silliness that actually stepping back and qualitatively looking at their product never came up in the discussion.<br /><br />In response to Noz's question about whether "fake quirk was defensible", I said "Isn’t everything fake quirk, though? People become interesting performers by manufacturing tics and mannerisms and etc out of not being able to spew from the sort of dust cloud that made Prince 'Prince'."<br /><br />And that's really what it comes down to. There are only two real criticisms in regards to Nicki Minaj, and that would be her mania and her lyrics. Her lyrics range from a C+ to a B-, and her mania is enjoyable like a sassy car crash. Her mania/quirk/gimmick isn't any less valid than someone who actually comes off as weird <span style="font-style:italic;">away</span> from the stage, though some might try and derive a qualitative difference between the two. But, it's called "performing" for a reason. And regardless, she's not making any strides to declare premature greatness like Cudi or Wayne or even Jay. She's not declaring much of anything except that, as of right now, she's better than any notable female rapper, which is true. There's no rap purism to her, she's a complete pop-tart, which is why the BAAAAAAAWING of the Cocaine Blunts comments section was both funny and kind of pathetic. There was a woeful lack of perspective that maybe the best way to look at Nicki Minaj is someone rapping and singing for your entertainment. <span style="font-style:italic;">Which is all she's doing</span>.<br /><br />That and being persnickety about her deli.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-49795533375669318532009-11-03T22:58:00.006-05:002009-11-04T00:19:23.673-05:00Bannon Ballads<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkT4LrRMmitBgueOXpBW3kgDeNc2YeMx0S4ycInToETTSlplwyWFm03se4yhGTq9PbPiN03fe0-wwU3gO3kDvf38WfpsPEwskojxTN47ocxKzZ0h0Iitd4w9x-6jMYRocCPjHc5oBejs/s1600-h/converge_individ2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkT4LrRMmitBgueOXpBW3kgDeNc2YeMx0S4ycInToETTSlplwyWFm03se4yhGTq9PbPiN03fe0-wwU3gO3kDvf38WfpsPEwskojxTN47ocxKzZ0h0Iitd4w9x-6jMYRocCPjHc5oBejs/s400/converge_individ2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400108045672345618" /></a>So apropos of nothing but listening to <span style="font-style:italic;">Axe To Fall</span> at my library job the other night for the 5th time or so and finally liking the whole thing, save for I think "Losing Battle", which was kind of too redundant, I've put together an EP of the now standard "6-9 minute long/brooding song with actual singing to break up the dissonance and remind you that we're eclectic and listen to Tom Waits and Neurosis in addition to Rorschach and Slayer" pieces from the last three Converge records, arranged chronologically.<br /><br />The arrangement works that way both in terms of the actual listening experience and the actual placement of these songs on their respective records. "In Her Shadow" is right in the middle of <span style="font-style:italic;">You Fail Me</span>, as is "Grim Heart/Black Rose" (I still hate that title) from <span style="font-style:italic;">No Heroes</span>. "Cruel Bloom" and "Wretched World" cap off <span style="font-style:italic;">Axe To Fall</span> and really do sound like a Tom Waits/Neurosis joint composition filtered through Converge's sound. Their respective placement at the end of the new record, and the finality and sort of free-falling catharsis that comes at the end of the songs is fitting to close off the 4-track EP.<br /><br />Its also essentially a "Best Of", as I purposefully left out the older Converge ballad-y/pensive tracks they released pre-<span style="font-style:italic;">jane Doe</span>. In particular, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7Xt9dnK64">"Ten Cents"</a>, a god-fucking-awful song that I guess was their attempt at a 90's emo jawn. Problem was, it was stuck in second half of an absolutely discordant and defining record, <span style="font-style:italic;">When Forever Comes Crashing</span>. That album is the spazziest and heaviest Converge album, and its still jarring to have this great record, which essentially sounds like Cave-In's <span style="font-style:italic;">Until Your Heart Stops</span> with better songwriting and less metal, halted for the 4-minute abortion that is "Ten Cents". "Ten Cents" shows that this side of the band has been in development for a long time, going back to the songs on <span style="font-style:italic;">Caring and Killing</span>, but there weren't really <span style="font-style:italic;">good</span><br />at it until <span style="font-style:italic;">You Fail Me</span>. Thankfully, <span style="font-style:italic;">Jane Doe</span> doesn't have any ballads so there isn't a "Ten More Cents" to mar that record as well.<br /><br />Hopefully Blogspot doesn't <span style="font-weight:bold;">DELETE FUCKING EVERYTHING</span> because of this.<br /><br />Enjoy!/Disfruta!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?im35vona1ag">Mediafire</a><br /><a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=471BZYJ9">Megaupload</a>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-56394549294870839812009-10-30T02:30:00.006-04:002009-10-30T02:47:54.094-04:00YOU CAN CALL MY PHONE. YOU CAN SWING OVER MY WAY.<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BVZPjAqJpqg&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BVZPjAqJpqg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br />The Ring/Ringu movies were just hour and a half long metaphors about AIDS, so in the spirit of foisting infection upon those nearest, I have to post this video. I slept on Ryan Leslie because a cursory iTunes browse didn't really make me see any of the things that made <a href="http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2009/04/he-shouldnt-have-to-wait-ryan-leslies.html">Brandon dig him so much</a>, but <span style="font-style:italic;">Transition</span> might be the record to do it for me, and "You're Not My Girl" is definitely driving me nuts, earwig-style. Recreating Ryan's (who looks like Jay-Z and Drake's market-tested offspring) slightly-sneering and completely cocksure seedy loverman strut over this amazing Stevie Wonder-damaged groove for upwards of 45 minutes in the library stacks of my on-campus employ is the most worthwhile thing I've done maybe all year.<br /><br />Speaking of which, hopefully I can get enough senior project/thesis work done to actually get regular posting back on schedule, especially since there's about 7 or 8 in the backlog.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-22787867728760020122009-10-20T19:37:00.007-04:002009-11-29T21:12:26.790-05:00NYC Pity Committee<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tQlMYhcYBps&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tQlMYhcYBps&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Harris Publications owes me fucking $18.<br /><br />For some reason I didn’t anticipate that this would be a kind of bullshit night. I left campus sometime Saturday afternoon with absolute unawareness that, after being spoiled since I was 16 by live music experiences that were started on time and didn’t offer mirages of gratuity, I was to finally experience the dreaded “rap show in a club”.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style:italic;">Internal Affairs</span> 10th Anniversary show story starts in the middle of the week. I go to xxlmag.com virtually every day to read Byron Crawford and Ron Mexico’s respective blog drops. To the immediate left was a blurb about a Harris Publications contest to go see the Pharoahe Monch show in Brooklyn (literally like a 20 minute or so walk from my pre-Bed-Stuy-gentrification brownstone) for free. Because of all the Brooklyn Vegan contests I’ve entered in the last year, I’ve grown pretty used to entering this sort of thing, plus the question was easy enough: “Which artist has Pharoahe Monch never been featured on a song with?” All four of the answers except one were pretty obvious, or at least would be if you dug Phaorahe in the least bit, so I emailed them “MF DOOM” from the choices and got an email the next day or so saying I had won.<br /><br />I’d never seen Pharoahe perform before and had to skip the Organized Konfusion reunion shows and this year’s Rock the Bells out of budgetary constraints/sloth so I thought this was fate. I was meant to see Monche destroy a small, intimate Brooklyn club I’d never heard of playing one of my favorite post-Golden Age rap albums for free.<br /><br />They asked for my email because, not trusting XXLmag of Harris Publications for shit based on the widespread knowledge of the shadiness and bootlegged lack of professionalism from rap mags (i.e. the lingering taint of the Source and the 5 Mic lottery of the Benzino era) so I gave them my AOL when I initially entered the contest as my college email is actually important and I don’t give my government out to the sort of people who’d give vapid chicks from Drake videos a week-long blog column. Probably a mistake since my college email would’ve inherently given them enough info to’ve put me on the RSVP for the show, which was in jeopardy by the weekend as I realized, after a long day in class away from my computer and checking my email for the first time at 5, that they had yet to send me an email back saying they received the last email and that I was good to go.<br /><br />“What kind of bullshit business doesn’t respond back to emails after Thursday? There’s another work day, right?”<br /><br />Cut to Thursday. I picked up a few items from my house to take back to college (Halloween mask, PS2 games, etc.) and checked up on my mom who’s having a rough time health wise. At no point during the weekend had I cleared the enthusiastic haze out of mind and thought of printing out my e-correspondence with XXL just in case they were as unprofessional as I’d reckoned and didn’t put me on the RSVP. Nor did I think to borrow my mom’s unlimited metrocard just in case some bullshit happened and I had to come back to the house to sort it out or for any other reason. It’s this kind of lack of foresight that has me coming out of pocket for a second senior year in college.<br /><br />I take the A to Schermerhorn, hop to the G, get off at Classon and walk through the neighborhood, which is a part of Brooklyn I’ve never been to since, in all honesty, I don’t really fuck with the boroughs like that. I know Manhattan and west Brooklyn better than relatives’ birthdays yet the Bronx, parts of Queens and the other %75 of Brooklyn I never have to visit could be Philly for all I know. A little sketched out to be in the kind of area where the projects have their own embedded police precinct (you’d think that’d help, but if anything it’s the opposite), I made an L to the venue, this odd Bohemian nest in the middle of a semi-gully remnant of pre-Grizzly Bear Brooklyn called Sputnik. Real neo-soul looking inside, calming earth tones, candles, people that look like ?uestlove. Like walking into the jazz club from “What They Do”, actually.<br /><br />I had Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bill Maher on DVR, but I watched two episodes of Curb and rushed to the venue because the show was supposed to start at 10pm. Once again, lack of foresight. This wasn’t like any of the metal or hardcore shows I’d gone to or even the Ghostface and Roots shows or Rock the Bells. Those shits started on time. It was organized by professionals and had actual money going into it, presenting an opportunity cost if any post-<em>Forever</em> Wu-Tang bullshit scamming or delays happened. When I got there, we were told that the doors for the show would open at 10:30. From the hundreds of shows I’ve gone to, I knew that meant the show would probably go on at 11:15 at the very earliest. I asked the doorman if I was on the RSVP for contest winner to make sure that the sinking paranoia I was starting to feel was just that.<br /><br />Nope. Not on the list. For his credit the guy seemed genuinely concerned and not pretending to be distant and superior like most NYC doormen. But at this point I had a choice: either pay the fare and go home to print out the emails or stay there and cough up the $18 door charge. Stupidly, I just lingered around there and, after double-checking with the stampstress downstairs and going to get a $10 from the Chinese spot ATM, just said “Fuck it” and paid the money. I was dejected, especially since I was alone, bored, playing text tag on some interpersonal drama shit with a girl from school and quickly realizing that the show was taking so long that I would not be able to catch the last 1’o clock Metro-North to White Plains or the last 2’something free shuttle back to campus. Meaning I’d be stuck in NYC for the night and likely not get back in time the next day to get any meaningful amount of work or anything done.<br /><br />Anyway, the actual show was great. The intimacy was the entire reason I was doing this, plus the promise that Monch wouldn’t be playing <span style="font-style:italic;">Desire</span>. I might give that record another chance later but from what I remember it wasn’t great, but rode a wave of well-wishing because you’d have to be a complete asshole to not love the guy. That goodwill is how I convinced myself that I didn’t mind XXL’s inefficient fuck-up that was costing me $18.<br /><br />“Monch deserves the money, goddamit. I mean, he couldn’t sell <span style="font-style:italic;">Internal Affairs</span> for 10 years over sample issues, <em>Desire</em> did Q-Tip numbers and who knows how much of the Diddy ghostwriting money is still around. If I can support the dude enough that he can cop a Popeye’s 5-piece boneless chicken strip meal and take a cab back home after, so be it”<br /><br />Although Monch's kind of getting back to "Fudge Pudge" status so clearly he's both caking and eating, figuratively and/or literally.<br /><br />As evidenced by the video, and the entire thing is on that same Youtube account, the shit was nuts. There are maybe 2 or 3 songs off <span style="font-style:italic;">Internal Affairs</span> that I’ve never really liked or felt, so I was bound to enjoy the shit. Plus, he didn’t stick to the script completely. Throughout the evening (or morning because after the warm-up acts, a guy who did a rap where he just pieced together the names of streets in NYC and a member of the X-Ecutioners crew who did a DJ set that felt like a good hour, it was like 12:45) Monch took requests (some tall white dude that looks like he fucks with Jedi Mind Tricks, Kool G Rap and R.A. the Rugged Man heavy shouted out some <span style="font-style:italic;">Soundbombing</span> track after ever song until Monch finally did it.) and did his verses from “Oh No”, “My Life”, “Desire”, and an Organized Konfusion song, I think “Stray Bullets”. He was helped halfway through the set by two singers who, Unitarian Christ bless, were talented but the kind of budget nondescript singers that you get in NYC. A thick-bordering-on-“BBW” chick with ridiculously immaculate cleavage a dude the size of Buckshot that kind of looked a lot like <a href="http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=gandhi%20clone%20high&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi">Gandhi</a> from “Clone High”.<br /><br />The set list is on the youtube channel, but the M.O.P song, maybe my favorite <span style="font-style:italic;">Internal Affairs</span> track, lacked any M.O.P. Monch apologized, but I don’t think anyone, even me at this point, was surprised. The flyer promised tons of guests, basically everyone who guested on the record, but no one showed up. Jean Grae (looking fine and amused at everything), DJ Scratch and Evil D were in the booth, though, though Jean was spectating and didn’t come down to the stage to spit anything.<br /><br />The night ended with “Simon Says” of course, this was probably my favorite rap concert moment ever and definitely in my top 5 concert experiences in general. I haven’t yelled that loud and spazzed that hard since the last time I saw Converge live, and save for hopefully getting to see M.O.P. do “Ante Up” live in the future. Plus Monch is just as much of a playful virtuoso with a preacher's prescence and a king's tendency to proclaim. I’ve been hearing about S.O.B’s and their rap shows for a minute but I’ve always been hesitant. Seeing Monch live just convinced me to check their listing and check out live hip-hop more than I have been, especially since I unfortunately missed the Boot Camp Clik show and could prolly catch Sean Price there any time.<br /><br />The second highlight of the Monch weekend? Running into R.A. the Rugged Man at the Fulton Street 4/5/A/C train station. He asked some dude for directions a few feet away but I didn’t geek out and tell him how much I liked <span style="font-style:italic;">Die, Rugged Man, Die</span> just because I’m terrible at talking to people I recognize, like when I ran up on Jay Smooth this summer at a KRS-ONE free show in the Bronx and kind of made him feel uncomfortable as I struggled to verbalize how much I love his work.<br /><br />Now to get someone to go with me to Vivian Girls.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-54391050789519824432009-10-07T23:04:00.013-04:002010-01-13T04:53:30.617-05:00Tom Breihan is Fucking Retarded (Or Better Living Through Ad Hominems)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi40Bei_BAoOCRqy2nzNMQmz55jS7kxFDuGB4uxOszdpw1kyXBo7mF4wiZmV6WtR8LXbsytMcQXSvq-plkGuxIJ7vMDlL4YTomkKsiRabcFsmFiq1QBTutiaeVEoDJ6IZqCbWMC98rFWpY/s1600-h/wizard+of+poetry.bmp" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390064667013461010" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi40Bei_BAoOCRqy2nzNMQmz55jS7kxFDuGB4uxOszdpw1kyXBo7mF4wiZmV6WtR8LXbsytMcQXSvq-plkGuxIJ7vMDlL4YTomkKsiRabcFsmFiq1QBTutiaeVEoDJ6IZqCbWMC98rFWpY/s400/wizard+of+poetry.bmp" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 196px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>I have to preface this post with the fact that I enjoy Breihan's writing. Before Status Ain't Hood got dropped like Ron Browz, I used to read the archives and check for updates like I do on the regular for Brandon or Joseph, Doc, Byron Crawford, Dallas Penn, Metal Inquisition, and etc. Although I never followed him to his personal blog afterward.<br />
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There's a reason for that. Like Robert Christgau, who I'm sure he gets compared to derisively quite often, he's a great writer with a knack for details and makes interesting reading, which is something missing from most music journalism as things get progressively more craven and desperate and bloggers scrounge around for any inkling of a trend or interesting slant to exploit. But also like Robert Christgau, he has shit taste and opinions. A sort of shit taste acceptable for a music writer, not the drab and easily confused popist, Phil Collins dickriding local music hack of Patton Oswalt-ian lore. What's insulting about the rating that ran in Pitchfork this morning for <span style="font-style: italic;">Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry</span> is not that it didn't crack the 8.0 club, which would've been nice but unrealistic. I don't have anything emotionally of financially vested in this record, or really, anyone's album. My main contention is that, to judge by Breihan's score, the new Ghost album is not only the <span style="font-style: italic;">worst</span> Ghostface album, but its pretty much, if going by the trend of only 8.0's and higher getting notice or love, a shit record. Which is far from the case. I've listened to it plenty in the last few weeks and its a legitimately good album.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmMJSv-QTweClW9mFVJ41g2sNRJjju_AvMQuGNbLAJNh3V8wdYluX3sdYTUbYd1Uttb4koNt8fz9C0LzikWB00s6qm_fQEr7PYIF-UrRsLkbjWK62wUx_Mch6f7w4gUMqtF1C2bZlj7Y/s1600-h/large_ghostface-killah-du01.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5390060228505424162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVmMJSv-QTweClW9mFVJ41g2sNRJjju_AvMQuGNbLAJNh3V8wdYluX3sdYTUbYd1Uttb4koNt8fz9C0LzikWB00s6qm_fQEr7PYIF-UrRsLkbjWK62wUx_Mch6f7w4gUMqtF1C2bZlj7Y/s400/large_ghostface-killah-du01.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 325px;" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"<a href="http://www.avclub.com/articles/ghostface-killah,13988/">A 5.1 ain't gonna feed my kids</a>, B. Fuck outta here with that bullshit"</span><br />
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The majority of the complaints about the record seem to be, <a href="http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2009/09/from-wifeys-to-wives-from-wildflower-to.html">as Brandon noted in the comments section of his post last week</a>, about the production and the singers, which seems like a bullshit cop-out way of saying "I don't like radio R&B". Its softball critiquing, like when people chose to attack Dane Cook for stealing jokes because they couldn't express his unfunniness eloquently or convincingly or were intimidated by the sheer wall of resistance from his fanbase. Its disingenuous and kind of ball-less. Rest assured, the production is not cheap sounding post-Roc Dipset tinniness. The R&B features, two or three of them not very well known names at all, all work well on the songs they're on (though Adrienne Bailon was an odd choice and just sort of operate on during her feature). I'm not sure when someone not being a household name was ever a legitimate cause for complaint but its emblematic of detractors pulling things out of their ass while simultaneously trying to convince everyone that <span style="font-style: italic;">Cuban Linx II</span> is much greater than what it is, a very consistent and at times great NY oldhead rap record that gathered momentum solely on the strength of it knowingly being marketed as the sequel to the 2nd or 2rd greatest rap record of all time (depending on whose temple you frequent).<br />
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A 7.5 or something similar would even make sense, as this record has decidedly mixed reviews and not everyone digs on the concept of an 11-song (ignoring tacked on label tracks) Power 105-type hip-hop album. It'd be especially fair considering that<span style="font-style: italic;">So Far Gone</span> received a 7.4, and even the uninitiated are aware that Drake is a personality-less mixtape rapper whose singing voice and penchant for lukewarm bubble bath x Real World Vegas x Pitchfork class of 2008 beats (as close to new age as you can get in rap and still push units) routinely redeem his almost total lack of lyrical grace or narrative or metaphor or anything that would impress anyone whose ever recited a BIG song verse for verse. Speaking of that review, there was a portion of it that struck me odd when I read it earlier this year, shortly after Drake played his first show at my college (Youtube SUNY Purchase and Drake. Kind of sad. Long story about that.),<br />
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<a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13238-so-far-gone/"></a><br />
<blockquote><a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13238-so-far-gone/">See, Drake's not a great rapper. His delivery manages to convey confidence at pretty much all times, but it's still halting and awkward. Half the time, his lines barely even make sense: "I never get attracted to fans/Cuz an eager beaver could be the collapse of a dam"-- huh? And even if the tape is mostly crammed with emo soul-baring, he still comes up with lines like this: "My delivery just got me buzzing like the pizza man." Ugh. In his four appearances on the tape, Lil Wayne just annihilates Drake. <span style="font-style: italic;">This wouldn't be news, except we're talking about circa-2009 syrup-fried Wayne here, and it's rarer and rarer that he gets the better of anyone on a song</span></a><br />
</blockquote><br />
Breihan's opinions have traditionally been derided by actual hip-hop journalists/bloggers/hangers-on with way too many Saigon mixtapes in their Acura for things like this. Tom Breihan, along with whoever wrote the Pitchfork review for <span style="font-style: italic;">Da Drought 3</span> became embarrassingly fanboy-ish shills for all things Lil' Wayne between 2005 and 2008, to the point that Breihan's mid-2008 decision to turnaround and decide to no longer worship every half-baked badly (not or ghost)written simile Dwayne Carter would "not spit" but "vomit" was probably made with trace amounts of Wayne's pre-come stubbornly encased in his beard. For two years Breihan not only embodied the "trying-too-hard-white-hipster-hip-hop-critic" in his purposefully contrary pieces on Pitbull being better than Nas and the like, but also the strangely over-enthused blogger tastemaker set that decided they were over Ghostface, DOOM, Cam'Ron and the Clipse and that Lil'Wayne was going to be their next object of unquestionable and incredible uncritical fawning. Blowjob metaphors would seem gratuitous if it wasn't for the tone of the pieces themselves. One could chalk this up to the subjectivity of art and other assorted excuses but you'd think someone who writes for a living would recognize bad writing, which Lil' Wayne's career about half contains at this point, sometimes in the context of a solitary verse. A later review of <span style="font-style: italic;">Da Drought 4</span>, which was genuinely a shit mixtape, came off like the measured lament of someone who had a personal investment in Lil' Wayne (this coming from someone currently riding for Nicki Minaj, by the way):<br />
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<a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12444-dedication-3/"></a><br />
<blockquote><a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12444-dedication-3/">When I heard that, I wrote that Wayne might need to slow down, that his appetites and his volume of output were finally starting to bring down the quality of his work. Wayne pulled it together for Tha Carter III, and a handful of post-album guest-appearances (Drake's "Ransom", Keri Hilson's "Turnin' Me On") show that he's still a monster when he wants to be. But when he stops wanting it, we get bullshit like Dedication 3</a><br />
</blockquote><br />
Tom Breihan famously couldn't muster the objectivity to type "nigga" when quoting rap lyrics, which would seem to belie the seriousness of his writing (bowdlerizing one's attempts at art criticism tend to do that) and betray a feeling of awkwardness or perceiving himself as being out of place when writing mostly about rap. And he probably was. Part of the fun of Status Ain't Hood posts of Breihan at Summerjam and etc. was that it read as half-informed, half utterly-clueless-spectator. Its like watching the development of whichever Trey/Tray it is that everyone finds annoying (I forget) as he comments on what seems to be every rap blog in existence. Or to be more straight to the point, Breihan has always been the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108002/">Rudy</a> to Noz's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162346/">Steve Buscemi in Ghost World</a> in terms of white rap writers having subtle issues handling their whiteness in a public forum. <a href="http://dallaspenn.com/weblog/?p=1331">The ethering from Combat Jack years ago</a>, though hilarious, if somewhat too easy, didn't help any at all.<br />
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People with good taste are often shit writers, quick examples being many of my early (and arguably later) posts on here. This is why Breihan and Christgau and half the 2000-2007 era Pitchfork staff get a pass, because the quality of writing is paramount so egregious ballyhooing of questionable bullshit gets a slide. But the Ghost review is just fucking lazy. Anyone familiar with Pitchfork is aware that for the most part getting below a 7 means that to most people, your album sucks . Technically its getting below a 7.8-8, but there's wiggle room. First, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wizard of Poetry</span> is by no means bad. Its arguable one of the better thing's he's done since <span style="font-style: italic;">Fishscale</span>. Second, if you would take a numerical shit on the record, it'd be nice to actually offer some insight into the derision.<br />
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He invokes "All That I Got Is You" and "Holla" as preferred means of achieving a Ghostface R&B record, completely forgetting that a record of "Holla"'s was already made. Its called <span style="font-style: italic;">The Pretty Toney Album</span>. Also, "All That I Got Is You" is a mid-90's R&B radio cash-in, despite its high-quality. Breihan seems to forget that in his claim that the approach is different, which it isn't at all. Yes, most of the songs on the record aren't nearly as stirring, but I don't get the feeling that being on the Def Jam graveyard allows him to cop a Keyshia Cole feature as readily as The Game can (Considering Chrisette Michelle closed the last Ghostface album, Cole is probably one of the few current R&B singers he <span style="font-style: italic;">hasn't</span> worked with). The rest of the scant 6-paragraph review lacks any specific examples of or expounding upon what makes the record so "half-assed". He essentially bullshits to the reviews conclusion on the idea that most of the record's moments are "dispensable". <br />
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Problem is, his oversight is canonical. When the average person goes to Pitchfork and sees this review, especially in an era where Pitchfork has markedly less histrionic/college writing 101 bullshit reviews going up and more diverse tastes and opinions (allowing an argument to buttress detractions from the "Fuck the hipster hegemony" crowd which I was admittedly a part of two years ago), it's taken as "the new Ghostface, you know that guy you casually cared about three years ago in between spins of the Knife and the Fiery Furnaces, is a piece of shit. <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11271-i-shall-exterminate-everything-around-me-that-restricts-me-from-being-the-master/">Apparently its even worse than those last few Electric Six albums, and those records were fucking awful</a>". Even the last Clipse mixtape/album x clothingline promotional device got a 7.6, in spite of it being as unremarkable and in some stretches, boring and annoying, as the hastily released Re-Up Gang record (which was almost 1997-today Wu-Tang in its level of half-assed shady bullshit) It's one thing to underrate a record. That's eligible for contention. But to fall asleep at the wheel while being pretty fucking wrong from a position of media privilege is just retarded. <br />
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And apparently, Tom Breihan is fucking retarded.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-75405276812488380692009-09-16T23:19:00.008-04:002009-10-07T23:03:57.763-04:00IMMA LET YOU FINISH MICHAEL, BUT BOB GELDOF HAD THE BEST WELL-MEANING MESSIAH COMPLEX OF ALL TIME<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZxrBe7kSvtk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZxrBe7kSvtk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />For the record, Jarvis Cocker is a useless twat and Pulp were always terrible. He's much more reasonable of late, as the lower clip illustrates, but there's still a sense of needlessly embarrassing and mocking an easy target and having a well-presented, but not totally valid reason (As if Christ iconography hasn't always been a part of rock imagery?) Running up and taking the piss out of Michael Jackson in 1996 as a drunken 30-something fool doesn't take any balls.<br /><br />Now jumping onstage and shitting on a 19-year-old beloved and white popstress as an already half-reviled/half-beloved 33-year-old black man with everything to lose (including a public empathy only recently regained by your mother's death and an endearing blog epiphany following a South Park parody) and a publicly bisexual white girlfriend with a buzzcut? Balls.<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LCI6zmVOf14&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LCI6zmVOf14&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />For actual thought out assessments of this meme:<br />-<a href="http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2009/09/it-takes-a-socially-transcendent-moment-to-remind-us-what-makes-life-worth-living-kanye-west-is-a-valuable-member-of-society.html">Quite Possibly the Most Brilliant Hipster Runoff Post Ever, on the Subject of Kanye, Taylor Swift, and What Makes Life Worthwhile</a><br />-<a href="http://brandonsoderberg.blogspot.com/2009/09/thank-kanye.html">Brandon Cruelly Cuts Through The Bullshit. Applaud This Man.</a>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-69084572751821540992009-09-04T23:42:00.006-04:002009-09-11T01:52:48.661-04:00Because Rosie Perez Was Never All That Cute Above The Neck<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PMZ5s7o2F88&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PMZ5s7o2F88&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />How can you <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> love Nicki Minaj? There's that line in Pulp Fiction about "personality going a long way", and that's always been especially true about rappers. To be real, Kim was never <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> nice and her best material (<span style="font-style:italic;">Hard Core</span>) just sounds like the majority of it was ghostwritten or directed by Biggie, and all the Michael Jackson drama that came later was just a bad look. Foxy was the same way, except her albums and rhymes rarely measured up to Kim, which left a host of true school femcees like Bahamadia, Jean Grae, and Rah Digga to pick up the slack. But Jean Grae's career never took off (despite being extremely likable and clever), Bahamadia always sounded like Frieza from Dragonball Z, and Rah Digga is best known as the babysitter from "13 Ghosts". Trina was never taken seriously because shed always been too good-looking, and Mia X, Gangsta Boo and a slew of others had to deal with the double curse of being female and Southern, two things that until 2004, were hard obstacles to hurdle. So that just left Queen Latifah and Lauryn Hill, the former pulled a Will Smith and moved on from rap and the latter went fucking batshit. (Remy Ma's in jail and never got past the mixtape stage in her career so her faults go without saying) A lot been written about the dearth of female emcees and the reasons, but Nicki Minaj might be able to overcome that, despite suffering from nearly every flaw listed above.<br /><br />Jean Grae and Bahamadia could rap, but their voices weren't all that great and weren't sexy enough to arouse interest or push units. Nicki also suffers from this, but after listening to her enough, that grating Rosie Perez, Queens-as-fuck accent becomes somewhat of an asset in being able to tell her apart from legions of other female MC's with "grating New York accents" (to quote Byron Crawford). Another potential chink is her close association to Lil' Wayne, which depending on how Drake does and how well Wayne can actually put out talent (no Tyga) could be good or bad. But judging by the fact that her first mixtape appearance had spot-on Harry Potter references and that she spazzes out on the "Donk" beat for this song is promising. I don't see an issue with a female Lil' Wayne with a better good-to-bad punchline ratio(as of post-<span style="font-style:italic;">Da Drought 3</span>) and ridiculously heaving breasts.<br /><br />Not that that's all she is but, really, those titties are reckless.<br /><br />Luckily she seems to have been blessed with a good amount of self-awareness for a rapper in general, not just a femcee, which is good to see. Several interviews from this year have shown that she's trying to distance herself from being interpreted as a Lil' Kim clone (minus the pre-mortem Michael Jackson self-esteem kit) or merely a dime-a-dozen NY rapper with a marketable body. For most women, especially in hip-hop, there's an internal debate about just simply riding the wave of interest produced by your looks and displaying your talents without foregoing that very same aspect of your womanhood, and there is a fine balance there (to rhyme about riding dick or to not rhyme about riding dick), which Nicki Minaj not only seems extremely aware of, but she's trying to shift the conversation about her to something other than the fact that people want to see her naked (and would probably rather see her naked than hear her ape Lil' Wayne's cadences and inflections)<br /><br />And with a voice like that, she should be trying to display depth. One hacked Sidekick might be all it would take to derail further interest in Nicki Minaj, Cassie-style, so establishing a more complex identity and becoming a better rapper is definitely a must. Although probably not as every instance showing that she's moving away from tat lane has two where she's using it for promotion. Her wackiness is her main asset right now, and it might be shallow to cosign a rapper for that reason alone, the field is kind of barren for female rappers (and Crime Mob sort of fell apart) and I can do without Lil'Mama/Bow Wow.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/D_EtgFZCpfE&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/D_EtgFZCpfE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-53444413882731571282009-09-01T20:46:00.004-04:002009-09-01T23:33:44.858-04:00Thoughts On The Blueprint 3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCEm0JmDrmK8_612qgcj5fPRuOjNblwCO7jtgTznVNpmHSNGROhLxSkkwVedxHMHk0KHo068MmSgGGk56PYhZUCoL2zfhmO1CmymticyKYAN0kgKImovCrdCJgVb-1S3umMgw17SD0Q7E/s1600-h/blueprint2-tracklist-450x337.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCEm0JmDrmK8_612qgcj5fPRuOjNblwCO7jtgTznVNpmHSNGROhLxSkkwVedxHMHk0KHo068MmSgGGk56PYhZUCoL2zfhmO1CmymticyKYAN0kgKImovCrdCJgVb-1S3umMgw17SD0Q7E/s400/blueprint2-tracklist-450x337.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376666396887433602" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I was going to do this yesterday afternoon when I copped the leak from my second favorite rap blogspot site of all time, but it's the first week of my second senior year/superseniority and this fell by the wayside for 24 hours while I continued getting situated/wasting money on a useless political science degree.</span><br /><br />1. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“What We Talkin’ About”</span>- Sounds almost identical to just about every lush R&B chorused track on Lupe Fiasco’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Cool</span>, except Lupe is an incredible rapper and Jay is still a twitching corpse without Philly rappers to take inspiration from<br /><br />2. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Thank You”</span>- Amazing. After the initial admiration and excuse-giving that comes whenever an artist or parent disappoints you time and time again (the same that makes me check out Nas albums even though he’s to date only made one good one in 15 years), this will probably be the only track that I don’t delete. Jay goes IN during the break when it’s just the instrumental and the drums fall out and he spits all this semi-insensitive 9/11 allegory shit. I first heard this the morning the album leaked, before I found out the album leaked Monday afternoon from Combat Jack, and it’s the sole of the 5 previous leaks that made me give a shit about BP3 and offer a glimmer of hope. I’d equate this to “N.I.G.G.E.R.”, from Nas’ album last year, which was also a gorgeous almost classic quality song buried in a meh album. Also, the first memorable post-retirement Jay hook.<br /><br />3. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“DOA”</span>- The beat is ill. I wasn’t sure about it at first because I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about the song, and then I realized that it was Jay. The lyrics on the song, ignoring his actual rapping and the grating “Awwwww”s, makes him seem like a crotchety purist jerk, which is a look that only looks good on KRS-ONE, and barely at that. It’s a song completely comprised of corrective talking points, and frankly, a lot of the shit he says is rote, immaterial, and oddly conservative. Who’s really going to rah-rah about these things when they’re just shallow parts of the zeitgeist anyway? People wear colorful clothes and tighter fitting clothes. That’s just what’s happening. And to get up in arms about a superficial change that will eventually be overtaken by something just and unimportant is remarkably myopic for someone who is supposedly blessed with foresight.<br /><br />4. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Run This Town”</span>- I find songs like this and T.I.’s “Anything You Want” insulting not because they’re poppy, but because they’re instantly dated trend-chasing throwaway tracks. Like, is anyone going to think this is a good reflection of over-processed ringtone-ready rap ‘n’b in context of T-Pain, The Dream, <span style="font-style:italic;">808’s&Heartbreak</span> and a slew of infinitely better examples of the strange mish-mash of pop radio that I’ve been subjected to since my summer working at Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s in 2006?<br /><br />5. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Empire State of Mind”</span>- It’s kind of sad to follow up a song prominently featuring Rihanna’s non-singing (statuesque) ass with one with Alicia Keys who can not only sing in the traditional sense, but can sang in the Steve Harvey sense. Also, did this motherfucker just reference Anna Wintour in a piece of wordplay? The beat is okay, but Jay is, third album in a row, the problem here. He frequently sounds like he has no more idea of what to do with his rapping.<br /><br />6. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Real As It Gets”</span>- Beat is inspirational and soulful in a Jeezy by way of <span style="font-style:italic;">Graduation</span> Kanye sense as opposed to soulful in a <span style="font-style:italic;">Blueprint</span> sense but this track is perfectly decent. No real complaints.<br /><br />7. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“On To The Next One”</span>- My favorite thing about Swizz Beats, besides him seemingly existing to soundtrack dance crew movies and TV shows, is how hit-and-miss he still is. On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a college hippie’s suspended chord, Dave Matthews-inspired cover of a song from <span style="font-style:italic;">Popozao</span>, and a 10 being “21st Century Schizoid Man”m "I Luv Your Girl" or something equivalently awesome, this song is a solid 4.7, to use Pitchfork scaling. <br /><br />8. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Off That”</span>- My age group (21 and older) is the last to give a flying shit what Jay-Z thinks is cool. He should keep that in mind, as well as the fact that that very demographic is a tiny minority as I sit here listening to Auto-Tune records and wearing tight-ass yeastXcore pants. Hallelujah holla back. Also, I don’t know how it’s possible, but Drake manages to sound mulatto on record. On some 80’s Soul-Glo/School Daze shit. This doesn’t bode well for my rap career.<br /><br />9. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“A Star Is Born”</span>- You know you’re old when you spend an entire track giving praise to canonical rap icons. I’m guessing the kingly gesture is to, for the first time, actually acknowledge that Jay-Z has heard of rappers outside of UGK, State Property, Nas, Biggie, Pac, Cam’Ron, Lupe Fiasco, and (Vol. 1 reference ahead) Master P. It’s neat to hear him shout out Wu-Tang, but for the most part that’d be the only reason not to delete the song. J.Cole reminds me of Brandon’s point in deference to technically proficient rappers in a traditional New York/East Coast sense not being that interesting.<br /><br />10. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Venus vs. Mars”</span>- Fucking repugnant. Honestly. Also, I got douche chills when he referenced “Hit ‘Em Up” and “Who Shot Ya”. There’s just something very uncomfortable about hearing someone around then and so close to the beef do that in some shitty toss-off song referencing a shitty middlebrow relationship book from the early-90s. THE PLOT HAS BEEN LOST BY TRACK 10. The bridge is neat sounding, but would be best on a Kanye record or something with the rest of the elements culled and shat out of a plane, likely JetBlue.<br /><br />11. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Already Home”</span>- I really like/want to like Cudi. “Poke Her Face/Make Her Say” is fun and sports great effortless verses, “Day n’ Nite” was an amazing grower of a song, and the details of his album from Nahright seemed well contextualized (usually the mark of at least a decent record half the time) and the album art reminds me of a mix of Jacon Bannon and Giger. But that mixtape he put out was terrible minus the album singles and I’d be hard pressed to say if he offers anything lyrically or thematically that Devin the Dude or Lupe Fiasco don’t do better, respectively. But his singing on this track definitely has charm. Something I notice about a lot of these tracks, especially the singles and this, is that there’s one verse too mane and the 4 minute run times could definitely afford to be shortened if Jay is going to put out these stock verses that just go in one ear and out the other.<br /><br />12. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Hate”</span>- Douche chills. DOUCHE. CHILLS. Also, I like Kanye and Jay’s “slow Lil’ Wayne verse” impressions. Being full of yourself only works when you don’t consistently put out B- quality albums or lower. And the Blueprint is overrated, for the record. Classics don’t have “Jigga My Nigga” on it.<br /><br />13. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Reminder”</span>- This second half is pretty awful. You know who would make me love this beat? Gucci fucking Mane. Real talk. I never thought I’d say this. Get an old Pimp C verse for a screwed hook, Gucci, and maybe like Ludacris on the remix. Otherwise...feh. His raps and this hook should be violently dragged to the bottom of the abyss by a particularly ravenous and ill-tempered giant squid to be crushed like so much tinfoil in the unforgiving pressures of the earth’s watery black nexus. <br /><br />14. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“So Ambitious”</span>- The most telling thing Pharell has ever said was in a studio interview (also, I’ve always appreciated The Neptunes for being technologically craptacular and more interested in songs and sounds than taking traditional routes to them, in a very punk rock way, to misuse a rotted cliché) was how much he loves major seventh chords and how “there’s just something about them”. Checking out his post-Neptunes falling off output makes this clear, as, though “I Know” was actually a really good song, a rarity in several lush yet tepid post “Give It Me (I Just Wanna Love You)” songs. Whatever happened to the guy who produced “Grindin’” and “Mr. Me Too”? Although that clearly seems to have been Chad’s department.<br /><br />15. <span style="font-weight:bold;">“Young Forever”</span>- This album’s second half has quickly become a parody of itself. It’s unforgivably dated and terrible without aim or much of an even small inkling or anything important, profound, clever, or memorable. And this John Hughes bullshit is almost up there with “Beach Chair”, a song that single-handedly proved to rockist naysayers that it really isn’t that easy to make rap beats.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">5 songs leaked by the time I had written this album off, which was a third of the track listing. Everyone hoped those were the 5 shitty songs, it turns out the fraction should be modified: 1/3 of this album is good and will not be deleted by the end of tonight, whereas 2/3's are equally bad and forgettable. It's a testament to nostalgia and Jay's hitmaking summers of yore that we still choose to pretend that Jay hasn't completely lost the plot whenever his post-retirement records leak. Also, can someone buy this motherfucker a hook and a Premier beat? Jesus Christ.</span>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-65198847485656468632009-08-20T13:51:00.004-04:002009-08-21T02:09:49.995-04:00"When I Say 'Big Dick Style' I'm Talking Bout My Dick, Not Yours, B"<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_GWIYZDRafg&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_GWIYZDRafg&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I hope more of this interview comes out and it was just some piddling 3 minute exercise in pussy-footing around a subject because Angela Yee seems to have wasted a great moment to get some sort of debate going there or at least some discussion between Raekwon who's on some "chicks is cool but I can't stand homos, B" bullshit (disappointing that so far Ghost and Rae's transgressive beliefs have been pretty cliche. At the very least I'd like to see them go to one extreme or the other, maybe get some Westboro Bapist talking point out there) and Snoop from the Wire who might be the most loved and respected dyke in the black community (outside of allegedly Queen Latifah, Da Brat, Alicia Keys, Oprah, etc.) I don't know why I expected Snoop to not be blunted and ineffectual regarding defending or even offering an opinion on gay men, but it would've been interesting since it'd would be a conversation of equal footing as opposed to the uphill battle some kid who just took a queer studies course would have on that show.<br /><br />If Angela Yee is going to keep having Wu members say some wild shit on the air, the least she could do is have a little more backbone and not offer these overly careful responses about women's rights/sexuality and gay men.<br /><br />And "My mouth is too small to suck a dick" is not a clever retort or a funny one-liner. Its just suspect.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-51274774709773899882009-08-17T15:03:00.007-04:002009-08-17T15:35:01.135-04:00The Dave Matthews of This Africa Shit (Charlize Theron Song)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVfvxLY6TAEmkUTr2e5YNfFUifnRN_gyWssc0ZLA5POIjZ8_ppJjNyAcyerKpll80JFthe9kZznqb85kp2re_HetQyygsU33KCQREqrom5x34KJTC5835IMHnvDh9zFfBWDYe5faNTRc/s1600-h/080116-zambezi-hmed-6p.h2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVfvxLY6TAEmkUTr2e5YNfFUifnRN_gyWssc0ZLA5POIjZ8_ppJjNyAcyerKpll80JFthe9kZznqb85kp2re_HetQyygsU33KCQREqrom5x34KJTC5835IMHnvDh9zFfBWDYe5faNTRc/s400/080116-zambezi-hmed-6p.h2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5371012959860674530" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Anthony is a lot of things. Funny, Italian, studious, hard-working, genuine, my former RA and current closest (heterosexual) male friend, and as of going to Mozambique, skinny as shit. Anthony is also, unbeknownst to him until he gets my reply to his latest email, guest-blogging today as he dropped some gems/sacred treasures this morning on Akon, cultural imperialism/exportation through corporate hip-hop and its effect on third world peoples without access to the Passion of the Weiss, and more.</span><br /><br />Right now I am listening to the only constant thing in my life, Akon, as the people who live next to me have the Mozambican habit of playing music again and again and again. Next to James Blunt and Orlando Bloom, I think Akon is someone I would like to wipe off this planet. Nothing would make me happier to see his face melted and the rest of his body just crumple to the ground. While that sounds pretty intense, I literally hear the same 5 tracks THE ENTIRE DAY from Akon. Mozambique has an interesting culture in which yes, they listen to singles, but they often have this mix cd's with songs that were never released or just album fodder and they listen to those songs INTENSELY. It's pretty amazing. It's like a country of B-Sides, something in which the irony hasn't escaped me. The more I am here the more I realize how purely African Akon is. Now I'm not lumping all African cultures together in any way shape or form as Senegal and Mozambique vary on many different levels. But in regards to third world (or "Developing Countries", which by the way isn't often true if you haven't noticed) is that the attitudes by men, in this case misogynistic and controlling, exist. This of course is one of the reasons why these countries fail in the first place as men typically have a sense of entitlement that makes it very hard for them to admit mistakes or acknowledge change is needed. Akon is a complete symbol of this as his music can be broken down into two categories:<br />1. Him talking to a girl, lyrics sounding like him trying to sweet talk<br />or hit on her<br />2. Him talking about guns and how tough he is<br /><br />More than in America, where we are just inundated with bad boast-rap and R&B, the options are more limited here, which means the Akon's and Fifty Cents of the world are more closely scrutinized and observed as people scramble to translate the lyrics and then apply them to their own lives. You have no idea how badly the teenagers, especially the teenage males here, want to be a hip-hop star. Their style of dress makes them look like a white guy trying to impersonate Jamie Kennedy doing an impersonation of a back up crew member in a rap video and the way they treat women is akin to that of how people treat a new toy at Christmas, they want it want it want it, they get it, they play with it, they see a new toy, etc. While that attitude prevails across the world, as I said earlier it's magnified here because America means success, success means you must copy those actions of the successful, which means acting like and doing the things they do in their videos. it doesn't help that the people here have such little access to the outside world that they really believe, once again more intensely than Americans, that everything a rapper says is real. And why shouldn't they? Who will tell them no (other than me and other foreigners)? To them Yes, Fifty Cent really will shoot you if you cross him, Akon really has been involved in more gangland activities than the A&E Biography channel, and Ja-Rule is, well, still popular. The mixture of cultural values injected with modern materialism along with the lack of expediency of trying to climb out of poverty makes it hard enough here, but rappers really don't realize how much they are hurting the developing world. A big statement yes, but very real. Jay-Z and Fifty can set up 1,000 organizations and scholarships for black kids in the inner city, but it will never hold up if they continue what they do.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ed. Note</span>-<span style="font-style:italic;">The notion of personal responsibility in what sales-minded rap cliche-pushing artists put out seems like a tired point, but it might only be tired in terms of an American context. Anyone who has taken any from of Intro to Globalization or the like can tell you that with a separate cultural history and set of norms comes a unique tendency to be more negatively influenced by things that get checked in the US by the remnants of 60's liberalism. There's no feminist or gay establishment to buffer the bolstering or pre-existing male attitudes in the third world from images and lyrics that, sure a kid like me from bed-Stuy was always able to differentiate from, but someone in a besieged and pillaged continent still in efforts to rebuild following hundreds of years of being carved up, its social order razed and machinated to better represent European ideals, and a lingering destitution and dearth of education in some areas that would make it difficult to convince a kid that Jay-Z isn't secretly pushing kilos. There's an idea, and I saw this a little in Colombia, in the youth that you can just up and become Scarface and then retire lavishly or that emulation held no consequences. It's a dangerous sort of stubbornness and refusal to budge from norms that aren't necessarily conservative but are usually in opposition to stereotypical liberal, baby-eating/"fag enabling" leftism. Jay-Z can go fetch water, yeah, but as <a href="http://dallaspenn.com/weblog/?p=3608">Dallas Penn posted last week</a>, it doesn't quite make up for what he does, represents, and has purportedly done in the past and benefitted/benefits from to this day</span>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-81225984296820561682009-08-12T23:24:00.007-04:002009-08-14T17:28:46.609-04:00Top 60 Rap Albums of the Aughts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLNkkIODAvx5fgT3NqC3R8SG1eHIP9zYgggKJG0z6hYYbPcixuxQpfyhiQ0fqynVcDZB8xmnoZM4e0JLf0CfoFx6a_v2lxXV3ptjQwEev89BuEAjCnaS8Hzpp3wVHS3XpV3D_Lp87eao/s1600-h/RAAAAGE.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 309px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlLNkkIODAvx5fgT3NqC3R8SG1eHIP9zYgggKJG0z6hYYbPcixuxQpfyhiQ0fqynVcDZB8xmnoZM4e0JLf0CfoFx6a_v2lxXV3ptjQwEev89BuEAjCnaS8Hzpp3wVHS3XpV3D_Lp87eao/s400/RAAAAGE.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369284877580932626" /></a>"INTERNETS!" -Dallas Penn<br /><br />A temporary week-long break from half-thought essay posts and me trying to figure out what I'm doing in terms of writing as a hobby, this blog (the almost two year old manifestation of my efforts to improve my non-academic writing), and a few other things. In the meantime, I'm combining my two loves as a blogger, ripping off my blogroll favorites and being reactionary to rapblog-centric events, and taking cue from Joseph in posting my completely personal and subjective top 60 rap albums. And like all my lists, the ranking ain't mean shit 'til like 15-1.*<br /><br />Also, since I forgot to do my yearly end-of-year shoutouts, I send mostly non-sexual internet feelings towards Dallas Penn, Combat Jack, Ron Mexico, Brandon Soderberg, Jospeh Oheghyi (hope I spelled that right), B.J. "DocZeus" Steiner, Jay Smooth, Metal Inquisition, and Frank Leon Roberts who are not only all my favorite bloggers/writers/intangible ghost-like internet personalities, but people whose writing, worldviews, and dedication or lack thereof are not only inspirations but antagonizing roadblocks to my success. I don't actually interact with half of those names listed, but fuck it, well-wishes travel.<br /><br />1. Fishscale<br />2. Supreme Clientele<br />3. Graduation<br />4. Be<br />5. Donuts<br />6. The Marshall Mathers LP<br />7. Temporary Forever<br />8. The College Dropout<br />9. Late Registration<br />10. Da Unbreakables <br />11. Waitin’ To Inhale<br />12. The Renaissance<br />13. The Weather<br />14. Cosmic Cleavage<br />15. Fear Of A Black Tangent<br />16. Food & Liquor<br />17. The Pretty Toney Album<br />18. Original Pirate Material <br />19. No Said Date<br />20. Made In Brooklyn<br />21. Deltron 3030<br />22. Underground Kingz<br />23. None Shall Pass<br />24. Hell Hath No Fury<br />25. Disposable Arts<br />26. Phrenology<br />27. The Dynasty: Roc La Familia<br />28. Dedication 2<br />29. The Blueprint<br />30. Madvillainy<br />31. Take Me To Your Leader<br />32. The Big Doe Rehab<br />33. The Cool <br />34. Back For the First Time<br />35. American Gangster<br />36. She’s Mature<br />37. Liberation (Talib Kweli/Madlib)<br />38. Johnson&Jonson<br />39. The Ghost Sessions<br />40. To Tha X-Treme<br />41. The Black Album<br />42. A Long Hot Summer<br />43. The Eminem Show<br />44. Jesus Price Supastar<br />45. The New Danger<br />46. Blazing Arrow<br />47. Nigga Please<br />48. The W<br />49. Warriorz<br />50. Grandmasters<br />51. Lets Get Free<br />52. Word of Mouf <br />53. Die, Rugged Man, Die<br />54. Back To The Traphouse<br />55. YoYoYoYoYo<br />56. Violent By Design <br />57. The Mouse & The Mask<br />58. Speakerboxxx<br />59. Under Construction<br />60. 8 Diagrams<br /><br /><br />*It should be noted that its hard enough to compare things you actually enjoy, buy like my end of the year list, 60 through 30 are albums that are good but not all the way through. 29 through 1 is based upon a completely subjective blanket assessment of how much I enjoy the albums relative to each other as of the two and a half hours it took to make this list. By tomorrow afternoon, I'll probably feel entirely different about my top 30 which was really difficult to compile in a short time without listening to every record in full.Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6909172332471452387.post-77690884216594592292009-08-06T13:32:00.010-04:002009-08-06T17:43:22.350-04:00Wisdom Body 101: The Tao of Dennis Coles<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7GEKqEF_1cU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7GEKqEF_1cU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Men marryin’ men/Ill…- "Mighty Healthy"<br />Fuck what they say/Cuz we against the abortions –“Beat The Clock”<br />Do business with the Jews?/Never that!- "After The Smoke Is Clear"<br /><br />The idea that you should hold a woman equal to a man is really fucking basic (no homo). No bleeding heart eyeroll-inducing feminist lectures, its just human courtesy. Sure there is a lot of typical macho bro shit that comes out the mouth of Wu members but these are 70’s babies, 90’s rap survivors and still a bunch of dudes from the projects of Staten Island and Brooklyn. What’s surprising is how backwards what the fuck came out his mouth was. You’d have to be terribly PC and sheltered to think that there aren’t women like that described in “Wildflower” and that being a male somehow neuters you from expressing derision or disappointment or out and out shitting on a woman with reason. If you accept the premise that people should be treated equally until shown otherwise then that goes without saying and makes invoking the "m" word a lot trickier and more up for discussion. The weird thing is that, you don’t have to be at all "feminist", “liberal” or “sex-positive” to draw ire with the Angela Yee interview comments.<br /><br />I was half expecting him to go in on some practical reasoning or maybe even bring up how <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-RuwXj-h0">when he got diabetes he thought it was AIDS because he recklessly went raw with a lot of girls during Wu's heydey and wants to avoid another scare</a>. But not some ole' style male supremacy shit. On general principle, that’s some 1950’s bullshit he’s saying, that, though perfectly in line with the Wu and, really, a classically royal/Victorian/pre liberation male notion of the Madonna/Whore complex and the worth of a virtuous woman versus one who is loose(d) (And creepily suggest that a lot of the WU kind of just want to find a girl just like their mom, who is consistently the highest revered figure in their depictions of women in song). Most reasonable people, like myself, are willing to allow a shitload of wiggle room in Ghost’s logic because A)We love him and B)It seems typical of what we’d expect to hear from a lot of people, rappers or not. The thing that’s jarring in his whole “I’m not going to wife up a chick I perceive to be a slore” steez is how low his number was. His base car loan pitch of “1 guy a month being too much” is pretty fucking ridiculous, if not insane. (And Nahright takes another L for cosigning that shit) It's reminiscent of Clerks and Chasing Amy, when Kevin Smith (“36 dicks!?”) effectively distilled male insecurity and hypocrisy about women. <br /><br />There's cognitive distance between enjoying an acceptable level of shooting and drug selling and womanizing on record up until a certain point, illustrated by the interview. Wu always had a lot more going on in the songs, and usually the difference between typically negative content that bored intellectual essay-writing rap writers aim to defend to moralists (and really people who tend to not care about art in the first place) and what we tend to eschew comes down to that extra amount of detail or soul or insight or recontextualizing. The same was really dumb attempts at art from kids at my college would be torn-apart for being one-dimensional and obvious is why “C.R.E.A.M.” is transcendent and some LCD rapper breaking the fourth wall and hollering “I ROB NIGGAS/I ROB NIGGAS (HAAAAAAAAAAH!)” like a bad Wild n’ Out is equally shat on. No matter how fucked up some of the things Ghostface has said on wax, and there’s been a few, there was always this belief, at least in my head, that my view of him as an artist was thankfully unmarred by who he might actually be as a person. <br /><br />Most of his interviews with mainstream (i.e. traditionally white) press outlets have had him seem wizened, a little ornery and pretty guarded while his interviews with hip-hop outlets always find him a bit more energetic and willing to delve into questions that he seems to always skirt and falsify when it’s the Onion or something. As someone both conscious and admittedly extremely liberal, I’ve found myself trying to doublethink the ongoing and bothersome clichés of rappers being heterosexist and (though there’s a lot more to hip-hop’s various takes on women than 1-hour VH1 rap docs would relay) misogynist. The truth is that most seemingly negative lyrics about women rarely bother me, not being a woman and rarely hearing a rapper suggest women are inferior and shouldn’t have rights, when they offer at least one reason for the song’s ire or criticism or dressing down. But I have frequently tried to justify all the “faggot” talk from rappers I admire, like Q-Tip, the assorted Native Tongues satellites (Talib, Mos, Common, etc). and others because when you enjoy an artist’s music, there’s still this lingering childlike notion that you want to like them as people also. I’ve maintained for years that I could give fuck all who a musician molested or peed on or raped or filmed peeing or shat on in a crowd or accidentally killed in a drunken car crash or forcefully annexed into German territory in the late 30’s. <br /><br />Busta Rhymes is a piece of shit as a human being but he’s still got some classic material, which is and should be all that matters. It’s not even the banal “fuck faggots” steez a lot of guys still parrot. It’s the really vitriolic learned hatred of gays that I still see pop up on rap message boards and, as opposed to classical pre-90’s racism, doesn’t seem to be dying down with newer generations. <a href="http://www.allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2008/11/11/20682024.aspx">Trick Tricks’s “ra-ra” Hutu-esque "cut the tall trees" call to arms last year</a> was made more disturbing by the fact that so many people were agreeing with him. Luckily most instances of the utterance of "faggot" are in the normative "feminized male"/"bitchass nigga" sense and not actually addressing anyone who actually identifies as gay. But the feminine implication is still troublesome, and pretty inaccurate considering I could hop on the L to Canarsie right now and find chicks harder than most of the dudes I've ever met. <br /><br />In general most of the guys who've said some reckless transgressive shit in interviews have been either smart enough or cajoled enough into keeping it out of their music to avoid hurting sales or drawing unnecessary <span style="font-style:italic;">Marshall Mathers LP</span>-like negative attention to themselves. And as someone who grew up with such a morally complex art form to deal with and discuss you're so used to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgRAgJI7aoc&feature=channel_page">assorted coonery and general ignorance</a> from mainstream rappers that it makes you almost proud to look at your favorite MC and not have to shake your head or cringe at some shit he said on a song. This Ghostface interview is sad not only because he said some questionable shit when I would've, as a fan, preferred him to've been mum or at least hold a more acceptably backwards view on the topic, but because its genuinely disheartening to know there's a 39-year-old grown man who believes this shit.<br /><br />Ghost holds onto this outmoded "women v. hoes" taxonomy that, realistically, is probably more reasonable than most other American male's, but its still a denigration of one sort of female and honoring of one based on a rubric that probably doesn't allow any wiggle room to convince him that a woman can fuck 12 or more guys a year and not be any less valuable. Ghost lyrically treasures smart, strong, and faithful women, but falters on her sexual freedom. Although, considering the era in which the WU grew up, where they grew up, and the archaic lyrical inspirations of their music (Egypt/Kemet, Islam, Christianity), it makes sense that he wouldn't extol Sontag-isms. Especially Islam, which despite revisionist attempts is pretty fucking conservative. Just a shame that his "futuristic"-ness ends at his lyrics and fashion.<br /><br />Remember when I long-dicked you and broke your ovary? Remember when I said you weren't equal because my questionable splinter religion said I was the embodiment of God and you're naturally subservient? Good times.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kK-xLUp_8Ic&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kK-xLUp_8Ic&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/izyZ8QBgSDA&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/izyZ8QBgSDA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Christopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14486617482851964733noreply@blogger.com0