Before I get back into my own faggotry, Joey's list convinced me to ride on the Weiss auto-musical phenomenon and notate the albums, per year I was alive, not counting Dec '86 when I was conceived, that make up the internet's number 2 greatest mulatto music blogger.
1987: Boogie Down Productions- Criminal Minded 1988: Pixies- Surfer Rosa 1989: Pixies- Doolittle 1990: Entombed- Left Hand Path 1991: De La Soul- De La Soul Is Dead 1992: The Prodigy- The Experience 1993: Wu-Tang Clan- Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) 1994: Notorious B.I.G.- Ready To Die 1995: Raekwon- Only Built For Cuban Linx 1996: Ghostface Killah- Ironman 1997: Jay-Z - In My Lifetime Vol. 1 1998: Refused- The Shape of Punk to Come 1999: Mos Def- Black on Both Sides 2000: Badly Drawn Boy- The Hour of Bewilderbeast 2001: Converge - Jane Doe 2002: Clinic- Walking With Thee 2003: Three 6 Mafia- Da Unbreakables 2004: Death From Above 1979- You're A Woman, I'm A Machine 2005: Kanye West- Late Registration 2006: Converge- No Heroes 2007: UGK- Underground Kingz 2008: Danity Kane- Welcome To The Dollhouse
A couple of interesting things- 1989, 1991, 1994, 2000-2004, 2006 and 2007 were hard to pick a favorite because there were a bunch of albums that were fucking amazing. Also, 2005 had no great rap album besides Late Registration, which is interesting in retrospect since 2007 and 2006 had a bunch of great ones and the public discussion on the creative death of rap started around 2006. In fact, 2007 and 2002 were probably the hardest years and I had to listen to UGK, Devin, Kanye and Battles all at once to choose my favorite album of last year.
Since the tie-breakers were based on musical preference, doing this was very informative about what kind of sounds and genres I tend to prefer on gut reaction, as opposed to seriously and objectively weighing the albums out. So really, this becomes "the albums that I'd rather listen to at any given time than the other albums that came out that year that were great".
In taking a break from my bullshit ass space of the Blogspot universe, I don't feel the need to eulogize or sentimentalize George Carlin. He wasn't that type of comic and, though he was certainly more human and dignified and complex than most of the people I've actually met, heavy-handed ejaculations of adjectives and achievements won't sum up the life and sad death of one of my favorite comedians and, up until today, the best comedian alive. Besides, the next week will be filled with tons of deserved discussion and biography of the man, all of which can be safely assumed I'd write about anyway. So in the coming days, the best pieces will be culled and linked here.
So with that, some clips from his angrier, nihilistic and trippy latter days, of which is my favorite Carlin era.
R.I.P.
Chuck Berry better not even fucking consider dying.
Dead-ass. Only solid album released this year so far. And dammit, despite the horrible ringtone production (in the rockist sense), shit is catchy as hell.
Seriously. I know the labels are retarded and think the loudness warms and compression and making shit ringtone-ready is a good idea, but what if I actually enjoy listening to Danity Kane for the music and don't want to focus on the tinny drums and anemic EQ?
Arbitrarily: 1. Danity Kane- Welcome To The Dollhouse 2. Erykah Badu- New Amerykah 3. Origin- Antithesis 4. Portishead- Third 5. Lil' Wayne- Tha Carter III 6. Disfear- Live The Storm
And there's still Arghoslent, Coffins, Dismember, Cursed, The Day Everything Became Nothing, and Protest The Hero to soak up. Unsurprisingly, all of that is metal/hardcore.
Although I do think L.A.X will truly define The Game as an important, creative, original, and surely, important rapper.
A few weeks ago, in what seems to be standard for big album releases or album releases by big names the last two years or so, Busta released two videos for two simultaneous singles, undoubtedly devised and conceptualized to appease everyone or at least enough people that it sells more copies than Busta's last few albums.
Maybe the fall-off wouldn't have happened if he hadn't based the bulk of his past albums around the concept that there was "...only 5 years left" and that the year 2000 would be the End Days.
But the first video is some bullshit with Linkin Park where everyone is over-emoting and doing that post-mid-90's thing where people thing putting a facade of emotion on is the same as evoking anything at all. Also, besides that one good song on Meteora and the singles from Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park invariably equals fail. Plus, the video reeks of, "Hey, let's get with the rock demograpgic! Like when we tried to do when we had Jonathan Davis in that video no one ever played off that album no one liked", as well as this bullshit black conservative Tony Robbins bullshit that's been peddled through mainstream rap and what's left of R&B since Pac was a alive. Its all just sort of empty and meaningless regardless of whether they're trying to be genuine or, more likely, just offering some bad faux-alt rock to make Donkey Kong-era Busta seem more interesting or eclectic than he may be.
(Note Jonathan Davis from 3:30-3:40 and, for some reason, Ghostface at 3:42-3:44)
So the Linkin park video, and song, are awful. But thankfully, there's a second single and video, "Don't Touch Me", which as a track is awesome. But as a video, it carries a bunch of signifiers that, like every (successful) rapper out who is not Lupe Fiasco, Lil' Wayne, Devin the Dude or Kanye West, his peak is long gone and despite all of the recent attempts to climb back on top it probably won't happen.
Frame by frame, the video is basically kind of an homage to "Gimme Some More" in terms of the Warner Bros. cartoon aesthetic, but the issue is that Busta, as opposed to all of the transformations that emerged after he decided to cut his hair and make decent but odd singles with Mariah Carey is trying hard to remind the naysayers and old heads that he can still be the wild, colorful and creative figure he was some 7 or 8 years ago before his sales started slumping and 50 Cent emerged, fucking up the entire NY rap landscape for years to come.
Interspersed throughout a sort-of cool but ultimately pointless and aimless video are these really awkward shots of Busta's weedcarriers and hangers on and basically shots revolving around a lyrical concept of his since his first record that everyone ignored until The Big Bang because people weren't actually paying as much attention to his rhymes that they did for his flow and behavior and videos, that he's tough and used to sell drugs and will kill you or have his goons do it. Basic whitebread-ass thug posturing. But in a post-Get Rich Or Die Trying world, all of that gets amplified because clearly there is a market for dumb Pac-worshipping G-Unit dickriders who hate music but love hollow machine-gun drums and vaguely homoerotic album covers. And rightfully so, Busta has drawn criticisms for, not the toning down and smoothing out of his flow, which is understandable, being being more and more of an asshole since The Big Bang. The vitriolic homophobia, the dumb-ass DMX-ish run-ins with the law, getting his bodygaurd and friend murked and then upholding the dumb-ass "no snitching" rule, and most of all going overboard on trying to portray himself as a vicious, hardbody NY boss that should be feared.
And its kind of obvious what happened to the guy based on this video. The various shots, one of Busta just counting money, sitting next to girls, intimidating two larger dues who run up on him and Swizz, weird shots of him and his crew just standing around mean-mugging, and the implied "throwing away goons in a trash bag" shot around 1:47-1:54. If you asked him he would probably say he's balancing what he is now, the parts of him that have always rapped about beating people up but has gotten more extreme now, and the silly vibrant animated part of him, which he had clearly been, as opposed to Redman who has always had the balance, running away from. Especially the embarrassing attempt at beef after The Black Albumcame out. The direction and editing of the video is pretty shoddy so those odd rising shots of Busta and what I assume to be Flipmode affiliates come off awkwardly and just emphasize the taking-yourself-too-seriously-because-you-want-respect mode of thinking Ludacris has been in lately.
Its sad that Redman was the only rapper to balance the funny/thuggy persona out. But even sadder that after all this scrutiny and Busta starting to become reviled in his attempts to combine nostalgia (note the DAISY colors) with his new marketing scheme than he would've on his previous path.
And its logical. Who wants a murderous Busta Rhymes anyway?
Usually I don't do reviews, unless its a case where the artist is someone I like but am constantly infuriated by or disappointed in, which makes for a more interesting read than "OMG, Converge RULEZ!!!". And so, to put a nail in the coffin of any more mention of Lil' Wayne on here, Tha Carter III track by track.
"3 Peat"- There's a plague in this decade of people trying to manufacture what they think emotion is, both in inflection (the scourge known as whisper-rapping) and production. So its always faux-melodrama and bad string synths because most rappers are full of shit and can't really put across like feeling, say, Ghostface. And then of late they've been heaping on the production to mask rappers' deficiencies to the point that all you need is an impressive sounding voice (Yung Joc, Jeezy, Shawty Lo) and you can get by on being awful. Wayne isn't really awful at all, but a lot of his album beats in the past have been, residing in that place of stale pretend melodrama that I'd hope people over 17 could see as bullshit. This intro track is better than all the "Fly In/Out" shit from Tha Carter II, but its still pretty "stock", to quote Lars Ulrich. And for a rapper who is split between lyrically great and impotent , its a bad move to have your conceptually dramatic and regal opening track be this stale.
"Mr. Carter"- People have been making these songs since Blueprint, so listening to this is more cute than anything. As a 16-year-old I'd probably be really impressed by this, and this will definitely be played in cars and on blocks for a minute. But more than "Hello Brooklyn 2.0", which was apparently a cut and paste job, this shows the lineage between Jay and Wayne and the differences, being Jay became boring whereas Wayne's whole selling point is being weird and entertaining. Also, is Wayne what a high Jay-Z would sound like if Jay really fell off a lot, or is Jay what Lil' Wayne would eventually evolve into if he improved his lyrics? I feel its the latter when hearing Jay say pretty much nothing of semblance on the song, but making it sound ten times better than Dwayne. Although, I can't help but hear some Wayne-biting on Jay's part, flow-wise. Hm.
"A Milli"- The mixtape version is better since this version has excised all the fantastically fucked up parts, including the random mention of "the almighty power of Allah". And, this is sort of representative of why Lil' Wayne probably won't be able to put together a good album for a while but can shit good mixtapes for days. "A Milli" would work on an album only as a mass posse track, like "Scenario", although that's giving it credit because "Scenario" had a hook to keep everything together. That's going to be the common thread to all of this, it feels like a well-produced, DJ-less mixtape and not an album. But kids these days don't know shit and don't care about albums so I'm sure it won't bother a lot of people.
Seriously. Fuck this generation.
"Got Money" Feat T-Pain- Fucking awful. And I'm sure I've heard the synth line in another song before. This is the most unnecessary thing he could've put on this.
"Comfortable"- The most unnerving thing on here, just because there's no transition between this timeless sounding old man Rap&Bullshit and the previous T-Pain ass-baby. Its a pretty beat, for sure, but the only good thing Wayne says on here is the opening line, "To the left to the left/if you wanna leave be my guest you can step/feeling "Irreplacable" listening to Beyonce/That's okay I'll put you out on your B'day". Its weird because at the heart of it all, when he isn't spazzing out he's addressing pretty mundane topics, which makes him perfect for the time we live in, I guess. Dude is the Family Guy of rap.
"Phone Home"- I listened to this again last night and it always makes me laugh from how ridiculous it is. Not to beat a dead horse, but I like to compare this to "Nutmeg" by Ghostface, "Sex Style" by Kool Keith and "Rollin Wit You" by ODB. And by far, no one will ever do this shit as good as ODB. Ever.
LOL @ Nicki Minaj's Rosie Perez-ass voice talking about "Planet Weezy" and some guy purposely yelling "Phone Home" with a retard's inflection.
A Retard's Inflection would be the best title for a Weezy anthology.
Honestly, there's schoolkids across the US who are having their mind's blown right now because they've never heard any rap album or non-mainstream record made before 2003.
"Dr. Carter"- I sense a pattern. I can't wait for him to rap over ye-ye and call it "Misseur Carter". Decent enough beat, although this is some old cool urban jazz soundtrack shit I've heard before and it doesn't actually amount to anything. I'd say the beats are wasted on Wayne, but the beats aren't that spectacular in the first place. Just sort of good and enjoyable.
"Tie My Hands"- I used to really like Robin Thicke. But then again I used to claim allegiance to artists based on hearing one good song by them, only to be disappointed with weedplate albums. This is another rare political addressing of Katrina by Wayne, which is a shame because the song is boring. Would it be fucked up to suggest that Katrina wasgreat for Wayne's career?
"Shoot Me Down"- Unlike Devin The Dude's last album, this is the type of beat where recontextualizing something corny through a hip-hop lens doesn't make it good. ::Delete::
"Playin' With Fire"- You can see what he's going for, but a better rapper would've succeeded in milking all the drama and legitimate fire the sample and the hook break actually have. Wayne starts his verses weak and doesn't really rise above that. And also, is the umpteenth track to have awful simile's. "I get better with time like a watch". Actually that only applies to wood instruments and wine. Everything gets worse. Speaking of guitar, I would've actually loved a solo Weezy guitar track on here. Why didn't he think of that? Go all in, man.
"Lollipop"- I hated this song almost as much as Roger Ebert hated"North". And then two weeks later, it kind of bloomed in my head. The verses on this song actually seem brilliant and well-written in comparison to the rest of the record, which is a goddamn shame. The best song on the album, no homo.
"La La"- David Banner, after "Rubberband Man" got popular quickly realized that those little kid major key melody beats would sell like hotcakes, so I feel like he's got a whole Raffi album's worth of shit in the vault somewhere, considering how sporadically he gets beats out. Again, despite an interesting 00's "serious" Busta Rhymes verse (Side note: Busta Rhymes is a faggot and should get suppurated. Not because he's actually gay, though one can hope, but because he's an fucking asshole of "Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down" status and my schadenfreude knows no bounds.) the track goes nowhere.
"Nothin' On Me"- Would be cool on a Dipset album or something. This reeks of "second-tier radio track", something decent but not serious enough to release with a video but you release it to Hot 97 or whatever to play anyway. And I'd like to see Juelz shot in the mouth. Not through the mouth, but in a way to fuck up his jaw and let him have recovery time, so maybe his bullshit will be more tolerable if he comes back with a different sound for those garbage lyrics. Hey, worked for 50.
"Let The Beat Build"- A minute too long and Wayne is not the rapper to have on this track. Or anyone, at that. Its kind of dumb, now that I've listened to it too much. ::Delete::
"Mrs. Officer"- Everything Bobby Valentino touches sucks ass. This song is no exception. As Brandon previously opined, dude's trying to be everything for maximum commercial saturation and he ends up just sucking in the end. Also, this story seems to clash with what I've learned from his condom ads. Strange.
"Misunderstood"- One of few tracks I don't instinctively fast-forward through. Solely for his batshit ballsy 6 minute political monologue towards the end, which wouldn't matter if, say, Dead prez, El-P, or Immortal Technique said it. But when a high-as-fuck Lil' "Wobbedly Wobbedly Drop it Like I'ma Eat A Star" Wayne starts dropping some intro to PoliSci talking points, its simultaneously jarring, funny, and endearing, solely for being a guy whose calling card and career is built on dumb-ass shit like spending 6 albums rapping about the same shit everyone else raps about but in a shallower, more disingenuous way. And in this regard, Wayne is like Pac. But I can't wait for Al Sharpton to catch wind of this from his grand-nephew or whoever. Especially since Wayne isn't wrong about disliking Al Sharpton, who does more harm than good in pretending to represent black America. The only addicting thing on this album, really.
"Lollipop Remix"- Hahahahahahaha. Right.
So basically, I will definitely never listen to this album in its entirety again. 7/8'th of it is going right to the recycle bin right now and I'm in the process of downloading last year's leaked Tha Carter III for a comparison and to mix-and-match like everyone else is doing.
So overall, the shit is like a 5 out of 10. A 10 being ...Cuban Linx, a 1 being Da Musicianz.
The leak of the previous incarnation of the album definitely fucked things up for this version of the album and its a shame that Wayne OD'ed on material because, though a cliche, the stuff he released for free had enough great shit where if he had someone helping him cull and do quality control, this album could've easily been something like an 8 or so.
Well, I hope Tha Carter IV at least has a Tracy Chapman cover.
From Vampire Weekend to The Strokes to 50 Cent, hype, whether deserved or fabricated (as in the case of every shitty band touted as the saviors of post-punk jangle), is always a tricky and tragic thing. We live in a time where constant consistency can make people tire of you, while on the other hand many aren't even given the proper time to develop their craft or mature before becoming has-beens. Its pretty arduous to navigate shit when everyone's a lot more savvy and hip to bullshit and attention-starved stunts or the kind of "transformations" Madonna and Bowie are hailed for.
With it much safer to me a mid-to-underground level musician, its this weird pendulous thing to be huge. But especially interesting is the ascent of Dwayne Carter since 2004.
It was weird to see the guy retain and increase his popularity, as with most people over 18 I vividly recall how the Cash Money Millionaires were everywhere in 98 and 99, usurping the No Limit throne and unleashing a bunch of hit songs under assorted group monikers that never made any sense considering every Cash Money album was a group album anyway. This is evident from the fact that no one remembers that "Bling Bling" was a BG song.
According to lore, a then 16/17 year old Lil' Wayne came up with the term that would quickly become to replace "jiggy" as the go-to overused piece of mainstreamed slang that would be retired out of embarrassment. I remember being about 11 when this all started and reading up on Wayne in the back of Jet magazine and how he was a 16-year-old father, which I though, as an 11 year-old myself, was kind of outrageous. That same element that made him being a teenaged baby daddy kind of made easier to relate to than other rappers, in the sense that dude was super young and a 6th grader can relate to a Lil'Wayne (or, in the darkest moment, a Lil' Zane) more than a DMX or M.O.P. Being so young is probably what helped him push so many copies of Tha Block Is Hot, despite the hit-or-miss Pac-Man beats of Mannie Fresh.
Wayne's other accomplishment at this time, besides being a retardedly young upcoming rapper in a clique of dudes bubbling in the mainstream and huge in the south with every gnarly, busted pidgeon-toed chickenhead without a gag-reflex trying to get backstage to molest the kid, was being the "wobbedly-wobbedly" guy. This shit was on TRL for weeks and weeks and became, strangely, the biggest Cash Money hit so pretty much that's how people would know him for a long time. But the nature of a lot of Southern rap is that despite guest spots on Jay-Z albums and national airtime, the tastes of the country were moving fast and people started getting sick of Cash Money and their 15-weedplates-a-year output and they started fading like No Limit, although unlike No Limit they still survived on BET and 106&Park and anywhere that non-lyrical Southern rap can flourish.
With no one giving a shit about Lights Out or 500 Degreez much despite some airplay of some of the videos and the defection of both Juvenile and BG, all of a sudden Mannie Fresh and Baby become the face of Cash Money. The Big Tymers actually have hit songs, and Baby goes on to make THREE solo records, all with pretty decent first singles. Meanwhile, Wayne is basically doing nothing but growing dreads, listening to Jay-Z a lot, and apparently, being tutored by Bun B on the finer aspects of rapping. And then sometime in 2004, a year after the official start of the dominance of Southern rap as Atlanta is controlling shit and Roc-A-Fella records is starting to crumble, out comes this:
And this is where the hype starts. Not only is it weird that all of a sudden Lil' Wayne has, though an oft-maligned and cliched concept, "swagger", but he had improved a whole hell of a lot lyrically. Of no small help was also that he basically rapped like he was from New York, which was unusual since only a minority of Southern or West Coast rappers do that. So all of a sudden, there's renewed attention of the guy, as evidenced by the standing ovation he got at the BET Awards in 2004 when he performed "Go DJ". It all started enough small enough, and then he began releasing mixtapes, the first of which is the pretty crappy Dedication which didn't really have much going for it except the interludes displaying a strange oddball streak permeating everything Wayne was starting to do.
Then there was him being stoic and seemingly tripped out when he hosted Sucker Free Sunday on MTV2 and the ensuing arrest with weed and a bunch of anti-depressants. Which in my eyes at the time made him a lot more interesting than everyone else rapping. Already his likable aspects were emerging. Then Tha Carter II came out.
"Fireman" got a lot of MTV2 play, and I recall "Shooter" being a really late single, made months after it would've done any good and really not being played much at all. So though the full fervor wasn't on yet, there was some mumbling at the most. Tha Carter II has about 4 or 5 legitimately good songs on it, so that at least gave some buzz for the inevitable clusterfuck that would follow the release of Dedication 2. I have to go on a limb and say that Dedication 2, along with We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 2 are the only really good mixtapes ever, based upon the quality of beat selection and quality of rapping on each. Soon, everyone was catching wind of Wayne and the praise was starting to mount, allowing the odd vanity project Like Father Like Son to come out as both a stopgap measure before Tha carter III and seemingly an altruistic move to put Baby back in the spotlight to allow Cash Money to have two public faces rather than to just have the weight on Wayne.
...and this is where shit gets weird. A lot has been made about this, or maybe not, but all of a sudden, Cash Money has concepts. Not just concepts, but second-rate B-movie plots and a constant of Wayne putting on a show and making memorable videos and seemingly just telling Baby what needs to be done to keep the brand alive. There seems to be a lot of "Trust me" going on, especially in "Leather So Soft" which, until "Sexual Seduction" came out was my favorite video.
Now the Weezy hype is alive, and the schoolchildren are downloading mixtapes. No, really. I was freaked the fuck out to hear some middle school kids rapping Wayne's "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" verse in its entirety last fall, and based upon the release of Da Drought series of mixtapes and the reaction from the under 19 set, the guy is huge and my discussions about rap with 12-year-olds at the junior high I mentored at were torture, just because its hard to tell kids they're retarded and don't know anything when they're just being kids. And I'd just look like the asshole for yelling at them about Kool G Rap and Ghostface.
Performances, a constant slew of weird interviews and magazine covers, gossip for days, and the unfortunate "kissing Baby" thing from late '06 that strangely came out (no homo) around the same time as Like Father Like Son
And then, the backlash. The huge, huge backlash, which can be separated into two groups. One, which I'm in, is people who think he's good and recognize his qualities but think the hype is a bit much, and the other group is a larger, staunch group who just think he's complete garbage and evokes all of the recent failures of the South. The long period of time between Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III didn't do much to help the case, as did the rapidly diminishing quality of his verses and mixtapes. Even worse was the blind dickriding of Pitchfork Media who saw no fault in anything Wayne did. Lil Wayne was the off-and-on number one person on Myspace, and even his throwaway mixtape tracks were getting huge downloads. But after a long delay, having Kanye West, of all people, do a better verse on a track, and the complete media oversaturation and Youtube dominance of Lil' Wayne, 2007 was the year that he should've capitalized. There's a strong feeling, even a week before the official release of the album that the moment has passed and the hype bubble has burst, despite still being popular and ubiquitous as ever. And even worse for Wayne, in the minds of all the naysayers and fans, how Tha Carter III does determines if his career will even continue past its second-wind.
So mixed news. The album, leaked last evening, is decent. But nowhere good enough to silence both camps of detractors, but definitely decent enough that he'll go platinum, at the least. There's definitely Weezy fatigue, evidenced by the fact that this is the first time that I've addressed the guy in the 8 month history of this blog, despite his visage blessing every post from the upper right-hand corner. Despite "Lollipop" and creating a model for all old "Lil'" rappers from Bow Wow to Romeo to follow and blatantly copy, things look kind of bad for Wayne, considering the embarrassing guitar playing, the inability to create cohesive music and be more than a punchline rapper and the slew of weird outbursts and bad marketing decisions (Condom ads with a dude in doggy style position behind you? Sure he's frisking you, but, come on). Ultimately, those failings might define Wayne, despite how much more lyrical and interesting he's become since pre-Tha Carter. That's why the beef with the Clipse was always interesting to me. The Clipse have punchlines but A)They're much better than Wayne and B)They have actually written whole cohesive songs before and have the ability to blend the two. Wayne has only done so on "Go DJ".
Past the hype that's synonymous with his career the last 4 years, is his actual aspects as a rapper. He evolved from having a pronounced NY-influence, particular mixtape rappers and Jay-Z, combined with all the trapping of Southern cadence and flow. But, as has been noted before, between '06 and now, his success seems to be because of the fact that he's the Barack Obama of rap. He is everything to everyone because he manages to encapsulate tiny things from a host of rappers, but he ends up being a jack of trades, never really being that great at any of it.
Example: Weird rappers have existed forever. Shit, all of Wu-Tang were weird. LL and Kool Keith were weird. But being weird was never really a way into mainstream success for any rapper since ODB, which is part of what actually makes Wayne notable. Another fault in the guy is the fact that he IS a mixtape rapper and though entertaining very little of what he's put out of late is anything that'll stick to your ribs. Then there's the fact that his Dane Cook-y tendency to over-enunciate that the younger rappers have already been dickriding, especially in NYC, is an Outkast invention. And Clipse have better coke raps. And Ghostface, UGK, Scarface and Biggie displayed emotion and moral complexities better. And Jay sort of invented the "swagger" (or stole it from Beanie Sigel and other Philly rappers around '99 depending on who you ask) that 00's rap is based upon. That's a definite weakness and the key to the issues with Wayne, as well as his tendency to say even wacker shit than Kanye and Jay-Z combined.
Then there's the limited nature of his rapping, which like most mixtape rappers, is extended in shelf life by all the similes, which are called metaphors because people are too dumb to get basic grammar, used. But Wayne tended to overdo it on similes. Constant one-dimensional comparisons like "I'm hot like light" don't really impress anyone who realizes people made records before 2003. Perfect example is "Fireman" whose concept is completely muddled. Wayne claims that he'll "put you out" like a fireman, but then also claims to himself be "hot" and "allergic to wintertime". Unless he meant to portray himself as a cartoon flame who moonlights as a member of the Louisiana fire brigade, shit doesn't make sense.
And then there's the disheartening but understandable obsession on money and nothing but money that has been the common thread between most rap of recent years and just seems to reflect the self-centered glamor-obsessed faux-borgeois Myspace mentality of seemingly half the country at this point in the decade. It doesn't really impress when you realize that money is a necessity for survival in the world but not the huge clumps of stacked twenties being thrown around in videos and fetishized.
But the positives are there, too. His fusion of all of those elements, his Pac-ian work ethic, the fact that he's gone on record as saying he doesn't dig Pac, and his very real charisma. The guy is entertaining and legitimately fascinating in a way I don't feel about better rappers like Ghostface. And that's really the thing. Rap has been dead for a minute and we're really just embalming it at the coroner at this point. Every supposed savior of rap are just okay and overhyped, like Kidz in the Hall and Little Brother who are both decent but also really fucking boring and not worth much mention. People are getting passes because on the whole we have such lowered expectations for music, hence Vampire Weekend. So for every Papoose, Saigon, Plies, Little Brother, Cassidy, and whatever boring conservative rap is supposed to be good, you get stuff like Cam'Ron and Lil' Wayne that are weird, funny, and interesting and are therefore exponentially more "hip-hop" that Jedi Mind Tricks and Immortal Technique. Plus, he seems to have a genuine love and understanding of rap, as evidenced by his reverence of UGK and alluding to and interpolating obscure lines on mixtape raps. He can even drop surprisingly unpretentious commentary like "...where money's more important than a person", that's bare and unironic in that early Common way but still affecting.
Overall, as most people are already saying, the album is decent and nothing spectacular or particularly great considering the hype and compared to the litany of great rap records that I hope all the Lil' Mama fans get around to caring about. It won't secure any sort of legacy, but if you'd been paying attention and being objective about Wayne this whole time, you'd know he was never going to make a "classic" or whatever in the first place. The guy isn't Kanye West, who in comparison actually consistently succeeds in his visions, but dude is trying his best to be the South's Kanye in terms of flying in the face of black conservatism and expectations. Its enough of a miracle that the dude didn't become B.G. or Turk or Juvenile, or even worse, Bow Wow, so that should be the silver lining, as well as Dedication 2 and a handful of great singles.
But for the public, that won't be enough. There's weird overreactions to the album on allhiphop.com and lastfm already, and there's only a minority of people who are calling the album what it is, decent but too much like a mixtape, and the majority are split between calling is horrible or "a classic". Ultimately, the consensus is what Wayne needed for his career, or at least until his album with Juelz Sanatana hypothetically sees the light of day, as well as the 50 other things he's promised to do that haven't and probably will never be completed, a lot like when you'd buy a Roc-A-Fella album and they'd always advertise Rell's solo LP but would never release it. He's the world's best mixtape rapper, but that's going to mean less and less in the coming months. Which is a shame since he, Kanye and Lupe are the only exciting things about rap anymore, and more the first two than the latter.
He went from being everyone's cute-ass rapper to a too-swagged-out-for-everyone NY kid trying to go dreads to this complex mess of a troll who willfully calls himself a "beast", not in the musician slang sense, but in the same way he calls himself a goblin on Tha Carter III. His failure would be a shame in a period where 50 Cent, who 4 years ago was the most entertaining person in rap but went on to ruin Eminem's career and fall off within a scant two year period of being the world's most infallible rap superstar, is now this weird homothug parody. 50 picking on Wayne was one of several bad moves because quite frankly, everyone has realized how pathetic Banks and Yayo for being spineless benefactors, that Curtis was an indefensible shit sandwich, and anyone still checking for G-Unit or Game of 50 needs to be sterilized for the good of the species.
Seriously. Who still falls for this shitty formula? Its not awful, but its not good either. Like everything 50 does, its bland, and that seems to be the model. As gay as this song and video is, at least Wayne and Kanye defy the blandness of rap in recent years. And frankly, of people. The fact that he's gotten away with that picture of him kissing Baby (and their weed carrier having a WTF face in the background) shows that our Myspace-refreshing ADD-addled history-ignorant self-absorbed youth might not be as huge of a disappointment as I previously thought. Since the Southern club rap dominating the radio is silly but not challenging, its just those three MC's left to act as polarizing figures and I'd honestly like to see Wayne around into his 30's and survive the hype. Strangely, like 50 has.
I just hope he got all his nuts out before his career bell curves.
Unintentionally took a month off because of finals, then a trip to the motherland (Belize), then a week of procrastination culminating in a three day weekend in Baltimore for the mu'fucking Maryland Deathfest.
The lineup is always good since as opposed to most metal festivals, it eschews a deluge of crappy death metal bands or histrionic Euro-metal cliches. This years lineup, just as grind oriented as last years and a definite "Fuck you" to the people who complain and say shit like "Where's teh death?" managed to even contain some crust, powerviolence, Italian horror/EC comics-inspired deaththrash, and Blood Duster which, though I don't like them, were definitely good for a party with their generic tuned down hard rock through an extreme metal filter.
And that was the vibe. Its a weird thing because of the esoteric and underground nature of the festival, the varied crowd that shows up, the wide differences in the bands that played and the inherent awkward camaraderie within underground metal, almost everyone gets along and its ends up being three days of hanging out, people being "bros", discussing bands, supporting our failing Roman economy with our hard earned dollars, and a fashion show for t-shirts (My favorite was a chubby brunette chick in a Coroner tee).
Oh, and this guy:
In general, the crowd that shows up here is the best you can hope for at any metal shows. Even with drunkenness, there's a laid-back vibe and weird adult feeling that runs counter to all the manchildren and Dragonforce-hyping retards that occupy the metal mainstream. Oh, and the cockless self-centered dipshits in the hipster community who think they're authorities on anything, even their own genre. Those two factions, along with scene kids and the aging hesher set that ignored anything made after 1986, tend to be the public face of metal, which I guess makes sense since they're more entertaining to watch for being fucking annoying, uninformed and antaganostic groups. Its what makes things like Wacken Open Air a tremendous failure, since being into any scene,the hardest part is finding groups of people that aren't douchebags. Dickheadness is extremely pervasive and can be found in every single clique, being human nature so if you're, say, into metalcore, then you'd probably only still fuck with Converge, the Red Chord, Unearth, and Zao shows because the people who would show up are less incorrigible than your average Hatebreed or Suicide Silence fan.
Such a congenial atmosphere surrounded by people with bizarre looks and music tastes is even weirder in contrast to downtown Baltimore itself. From the two times I've been here, I've grown to love the city for its odd mix of every city landscape and structure I've ever seen, with Christian being able to cite similarities to parts of Colombia while I thought of it as Manhattan except not an over-congested pile of bourgeois failure and with better architecture. Plus, the always hilarious fact that there's a regular club right down the street from Sonar, which I've been tempted to waltz into and get my drank n' 2-step on.
And of course, the makeshift red light district down from Saratoga and N. Gay street home to two solid blocks of strip clubs and cheap-ass food. Unfortunately, besides the fact that strip clubs were ruined for me three years ago, there seemed to be only two decent joints around, and the rest were predictably full of broke-down chicks who would probably show you their ovary for a twenty if they could. Although, that's also fun.
Though my social anxiety is taxed by large crowd events like this and I don't quite mesh with most people, my friends did quite well and managed to make a bunch of connections, which is half of the function of the event in the first place. The most telling aspect of the thing is how immediately people start planning and hoping for the next one.
I can only hope Rock The Bells is anywhere as good.
Fun Facts! Number of black people at the show: About 9 or 10. Ratio of guys to girls: Around 3:1, surprisingly. Ratio of attractive to unattractive girls: About 2:1
Before I get back into my own faggotry, Joey's list convinced me to ride on the Weiss auto-musical phenomenon and notate the albums, per year I was alive, not counting Dec '86 when I was conceived, that make up the internet's number 2 greatest mulatto music blogger.
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