His new single sounds like 70s perv disco with Philly International strings and blaxploitation funk horns and bongos. Fuck yeah Robin. And then there's the falsetto bridge...
"If these trends continue...Ayyy!"
Monday, June 30, 2008
robin thicke
it's got nothing to do with the fact that he's been on a certain rapper's last two albums or that he's signed to the label that happens to be owned by a Major dude (who also produced most of his secondalbum). I remember when he first was coming up he seemed like pretty typical post-hip hop R&B, blue eyed soul crap . And then I was escorted to a very fancy and quite lovely New Years Eve party that made me feel kind of like an immigrant street urchin and his dad (the famous TV guy) was there, and as I shook his hand and stared into his eyes I felt the power of a thousand years of familiarity rushing through my pathetically television-addled brain but couldn't place who he was until like ten minutes later. Anyhoo. I thought, "Yeah, that guy's son has to be a douche." Then when his last album came out it was so dope. Listen to it and don't feel kinda gay because real men should listen to music that girls like, too (totally guessing here).
His new single sounds like 70s perv disco with Philly International strings and blaxploitation funk horns and bongos. Fuck yeah Robin. And then there's the falsetto bridge...
"If these trends continue...Ayyy!"
His new single sounds like 70s perv disco with Philly International strings and blaxploitation funk horns and bongos. Fuck yeah Robin. And then there's the falsetto bridge...
"If these trends continue...Ayyy!"
Saturday, June 28, 2008
bravo vice, bravo
haters wish they could feel the wood
This is the kind of shit that meth-manufacturing bikers would decree “righteous.” It is the kind of shit that makes you want to simultaneously “make it” with a “foxy mama,” peak on four hits of pure windowpane, and fire off a greasy, hot AK-47 indiscriminately into a forest, all on New Year’s Eve, which also just happens to be your birthday and you just got out of jail.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
boy 8-bit horror mix
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Fuck yes. probably my favorite post ever....
Italian horror film scores + Boy 8-Bit = this guy right here! Fulci, Argento, Romero....it doesn't get any better than that, folks.
CLASSIC trailers from some of the flicks in the mix:
Tenebrae
Zombi 2
Demons 2
The House By The Cemetery
City of the Living Dead
Inferno
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
summer robot rap
so I posted about "Put On" right when it came out and I wasn't so crazy about it at the time. I think the true breadth of the track needed time to simmer and burrow itself into my already autotune-rap-filled consciousness. But this is so fucking epic it's like confusing me. There's nothing about this track besides the personnel that would point to it becoming a big hit right now during the summer. It sounds dark and sad, big synths and drama but not in a "Got Money" way. I could see it being a big street track for Jeezy fans who loved that Shawty Redd, Southern gothic sound from Thug Motivation, but add an event appearance from Kanye and you don't know what you're gonna get. As has been mentioned elsewhere on these innernets, Kanye sounds like a dying robot who just found out how to feel feelings and wants to sing all about it. I got to give one thing to the dude, he's never satisfied. Which is good, considering he just came off like the biggest tour ever and basically knows he's the shit in every conceivable way right now. But there's still bitches that owe him sex!!!
Of course, the verse is tinted with a little bit of melancholy, being only one of three major appearances he's made since his mom died. This verse is proof positive that Kanye is a world class rock star, taking a pretty good concept (if not entirely mundane) and elevating it to his vaguely-delusional bizarro universe where Kanye is Jesus and Jay-z combined times a billion. But I have to call bullshit. Dude, I was at your Chi "Glow In The Dark" show and you didn't Put On. Also, this verse is a lesson in overtly exaggerated sentimentality. We know you Kanye. This is the guy that cried after he didn't get a fucking MTV award. I'm not claiming the guy doesn't miss his mother or isn't feeling a little slighted (and for his credit this dissatisfaction is clearly driving him to what looks like some of his best and most interesting work yet), but I am questioning whether he really gives a shit at all about all the people he "put on from the 'Go"..."The top is so lonely" but you forced yourself up there, would never even consider yourself anywhere else.
But besides all that, the love for this song is the most encouraging thing this year, for me. After a endless strings of "Low"s and "Crank Dat"s people are feeling these two guys for their weird, dark, overly dramatic selves. Jeezy is one of my favorites right now, and he's doing something that most other rappers don't have the balls to do, just doing themselves and whatever comes with that. And people are feeling him.
jeezy and kanye last night at BET via nahright
"Put On" is an unexpected summer jam. And with the "Lollipop" Remix and "Got Money" it forms the 2008 Triumvirate of Autotune Masters and a strange network of Weezy, Yeezy and T-Pain dominated bangers and ubiquitous Hot97 summer-in-BK car window blasters. (Props to Maino and T.I. for having the other best songs out right now).
Of course, the verse is tinted with a little bit of melancholy, being only one of three major appearances he's made since his mom died. This verse is proof positive that Kanye is a world class rock star, taking a pretty good concept (if not entirely mundane) and elevating it to his vaguely-delusional bizarro universe where Kanye is Jesus and Jay-z combined times a billion. But I have to call bullshit. Dude, I was at your Chi "Glow In The Dark" show and you didn't Put On. Also, this verse is a lesson in overtly exaggerated sentimentality. We know you Kanye. This is the guy that cried after he didn't get a fucking MTV award. I'm not claiming the guy doesn't miss his mother or isn't feeling a little slighted (and for his credit this dissatisfaction is clearly driving him to what looks like some of his best and most interesting work yet), but I am questioning whether he really gives a shit at all about all the people he "put on from the 'Go"..."The top is so lonely" but you forced yourself up there, would never even consider yourself anywhere else.
But besides all that, the love for this song is the most encouraging thing this year, for me. After a endless strings of "Low"s and "Crank Dat"s people are feeling these two guys for their weird, dark, overly dramatic selves. Jeezy is one of my favorites right now, and he's doing something that most other rappers don't have the balls to do, just doing themselves and whatever comes with that. And people are feeling him.
jeezy and kanye last night at BET via nahright
"Put On" is an unexpected summer jam. And with the "Lollipop" Remix and "Got Money" it forms the 2008 Triumvirate of Autotune Masters and a strange network of Weezy, Yeezy and T-Pain dominated bangers and ubiquitous Hot97 summer-in-BK car window blasters. (Props to Maino and T.I. for having the other best songs out right now).
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
sincerely yours, southside
This is the weirdest/coolest mixtape I've ever heard from a deflating mega star rapper like 50 Cent. He managed to win me over (for the time being) with an awesome idea and a pretty good sense of humor and TASTE. If you haven't heard about it yet, this mix, which is given away free at thisis50, consists of a bunch of classic 70s and 80s R&B and dance tracks...not beats but TRACKS. Fif basically throws a verse onto the intro of each one and then lets the rest play out while he plays goofy hypeman and yells about how great he is. This includes the appropriation of "Genius of Love," "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and "Ring My Bell." (!) This last one deserves a big AYO! After the "Rider Pt. 2" video and those Village People-esque navy outfits, 50 and the whole Unit is a little suspect! Free Buck!!
some of the songs used for the mix:
Thursday, June 19, 2008
lexie mountain boys (girls)
these girls are so next level I don't even want to show my internet face anymore in fear of being totally outdone. They're like so beyond any existing cool spectrum for anything: art school hipsters, musicians, crazy people you see walking around the street, crazy people you party with and who do too many drugs. Way past that. There are so many things that are cool about Lexie Mountain Boys that you could ignore their music totally and the list would still be pretty thorough.
1. They're from Baltimore.
2. They're girls.
3. They wear beards on stage.
4. They don't need any gear or even microphones when they play shows.
5. Their music is pretty much just them humming and chanting and chirping and breathing(!) and banging on things.
6. They have a song called "Fried Swash Accidental" and another called "Glasses Are Classy."
Even though they sound like cave-women I imagine them to be really attractive. Not clicking on their myspace because I want to hold on to that, OK? Some of my favorite excerpts from the email interview of theirs that I just coded:
"we got big religion. we are souls growing together and looking out on the world from the mountain we form. we got a big mountain of religion."
"Acapella music in general sounds vaguely religious, it is spare cause the lord don't like no junk cluttering up His praise."
"We are zealous and dedicated and backsliding and contrarian so that makes us a new scary type of ultra-conservative -- so far left we've already fed everyone in the world and so far right we enforced mandatory helmet-wearing and smoking-cessation."
"I tease at the Idea of us being a goober cult."
"Beards protect our delicate faces from the harsh elements, filter large particles from the air we breathe and delight children far and wide. In their furry fettering of our faces, they allow us to do our work freely and unfettered indeed."
"I like peering out of a beard. It is like armor and like fun underwear."
1. They're from Baltimore.
2. They're girls.
3. They wear beards on stage.
4. They don't need any gear or even microphones when they play shows.
5. Their music is pretty much just them humming and chanting and chirping and breathing(!) and banging on things.
6. They have a song called "Fried Swash Accidental" and another called "Glasses Are Classy."
Even though they sound like cave-women I imagine them to be really attractive. Not clicking on their myspace because I want to hold on to that, OK? Some of my favorite excerpts from the email interview of theirs that I just coded:
"we got big religion. we are souls growing together and looking out on the world from the mountain we form. we got a big mountain of religion."
"Acapella music in general sounds vaguely religious, it is spare cause the lord don't like no junk cluttering up His praise."
"We are zealous and dedicated and backsliding and contrarian so that makes us a new scary type of ultra-conservative -- so far left we've already fed everyone in the world and so far right we enforced mandatory helmet-wearing and smoking-cessation."
"I tease at the Idea of us being a goober cult."
"Beards protect our delicate faces from the harsh elements, filter large particles from the air we breathe and delight children far and wide. In their furry fettering of our faces, they allow us to do our work freely and unfettered indeed."
"I like peering out of a beard. It is like armor and like fun underwear."
Sunday, June 15, 2008
"day 'n' night" crookers remix
so this is that latest internet remix to get love from DJ nerds and work at mainstream Betty and stripe shirts spots, apparently. I wouldn't know. What I do know is that the OG is one of the catchiest, spaciest melodies I've heard in forever, and it's a strange track that I've never really known where to place. It's somewhere between the hispter-hop and blawg haus hype worlds and just some normal pop shit for the radio. Then there's the monster remix from the crazy ass rave-talians that just takes all concepts of a normal dancefloor and smashes them straight into the sides of your brain until you forget what it was supposed to look and sound like. These dudes have a way with the heavy-handed house rhythms and rave energy that basically no onther remixers or even producers at their level can keep up with right now. That's why they're in F55! It's lose-your-shit type of stuff...like the track off their EP "Big Money Comin" is what I imagine life to sound like when they invent the prefect drug tailored for each person individually and parties stop being about who you know or who you are and everyone just automatically gets assigned to their party-mates for the night with whom you have the greatest night ever with every night. This Kid Cudi thing is like that except less rave and more swagger. It's a special track, like a nu-disco banger on hgh, but without the super beefiness or over-the-top samples. A lot of that has to do with the tastefulness of Kid Cudi's original, but I a lot of credit is due to crookers for realizing that a peak time killer doesn't always have to be all whistles and molly and shit
this is what Uzbekistan looks like. So crazy cuz when I was in 2nd grade I used to study maps like a weirdo and it was right around the time that the USSR broke up so all the new maps came out with all these bizarre new countries on them. And I used to love telling people I knew all the capitals of all the -Stan countries like Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan and how I could tell them all apart. Then Borat came out and now everyone knows what Kazakhstan is. But this shit is real and people actually live in places like this.
this is what Uzbekistan looks like. So crazy cuz when I was in 2nd grade I used to study maps like a weirdo and it was right around the time that the USSR broke up so all the new maps came out with all these bizarre new countries on them. And I used to love telling people I knew all the capitals of all the -Stan countries like Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan and how I could tell them all apart. Then Borat came out and now everyone knows what Kazakhstan is. But this shit is real and people actually live in places like this.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
caspa & rusko fabriclive
In the crisp sense of self-awareness I'm feeling right now since I got my haircut and shaved and changed my pants I now realize how much blogging there is for me to do. I think I'm just gonna write every time I listen to something I love instead of saving the posts for the stuff that HOLY SHIT I FUCKING LOVE!!! (you see how well that's working for me)...I no longer look like a dissevelled, fuzzy, crazed lunatic with a perma-shadow (for the next day or two on that front) and my pants don't look like they're painted on with the navy blue lead pain that I saw them rolling onto the iron hand rails leading down to the depths of the Montrose station this morning, dripping off my ass cuz they're too big in the waist. The iced coffee I'm drinking and change in sentiment has really amplified the brooding yet oddly exhilirating rush from the dubstep that's quietly playing on the stereo in the fader office right now. I think I'm the only one really feeling it, but that might be because I had a progressive weirdo-house epiphany the other night at Cielo while Francois K spun deep tech-house with some Norweigian dude on Fender Rhodes and other crazy keyboards. It's kind of odd to know that this bizzarre music is like sweeping European dance music circles. Instead of pumping your fist in your striped shirt and shiny black shoes I imagine this being played to (and by) angry British kids in black hoodies and white Air Force 1s, which is so cool. I love that evil-but-social vibe that music can have sometimes. Like I've been listening to a lot of Three 6 Mafia lately and wondering how so many people in Memphis could have adopted that shit as their anthemic city-pride music in the late 90s and early 00s when it was so dark and evil and nihilistic and scary-sounding. I imagine dudes driving around on a sunny, 90-degree spring day (know these two well now) blasting Chapter 2: World Domination like dudes have been bumping the Weezy Yeezy "Lollipop" remix in BK this summer. Did that happen? I don't know, but if it did Memphis would have been like the set of a Rob Zombie movie for five years...
So bobbing your head face-down with your eyes closed to ethereal, spooky samples of old rasta chants and WHUMPing bass is what's hot in some dance scene now, which makes me feel good because I like doing that anyway and if I can do it in a snazzy club with ridiculous sound and a bunch of Stella then what the hell. This Caspa & Rusko mix is like Big Club, Pacha-style dance for people on codeine. Or what a big club in Barcelona would sound like in a Ridley Scott movie. The thought of Fabric filled with people raging to this seems like London is a different universe from New York. But so is a Memphis where the big hometown tunes are about scattering body parts or NYC when all the music was either gay divas or girl group obsessed greasers. There's nothing easy or inviting about this music. Why are British people so quick to adopt and tranfsorm the best, most populist American music and then create indigenous stuff that sounds like a stuttering robot army about to explode and destroy the city. Resident Advisor claims the first track "is still very much a party-rocking, feel-good track." It makes me feel good but I'm a borderline personality with a set of iPhone earbuds and a venti iced coffee who likes Ghostface and the Misfits. The fact that this is "party-rocking," though, is inexplicable and, frankly, pretty awesome. There's a party out there with a room full of a thousand goth/jock hybrids eating amphetamines and trying to get in fights or something...jamming to old reggae melodies and rhythms over swirling, nauseous synths and the most brutal, distrorted bass ever recorded. It's a vision that I will have to hold onto, that's for sure, until I hit up a dubstep rave, which won't happen and would only when the genre has long passed into the cultural wood chipper.
So bobbing your head face-down with your eyes closed to ethereal, spooky samples of old rasta chants and WHUMPing bass is what's hot in some dance scene now, which makes me feel good because I like doing that anyway and if I can do it in a snazzy club with ridiculous sound and a bunch of Stella then what the hell. This Caspa & Rusko mix is like Big Club, Pacha-style dance for people on codeine. Or what a big club in Barcelona would sound like in a Ridley Scott movie. The thought of Fabric filled with people raging to this seems like London is a different universe from New York. But so is a Memphis where the big hometown tunes are about scattering body parts or NYC when all the music was either gay divas or girl group obsessed greasers. There's nothing easy or inviting about this music. Why are British people so quick to adopt and tranfsorm the best, most populist American music and then create indigenous stuff that sounds like a stuttering robot army about to explode and destroy the city. Resident Advisor claims the first track "is still very much a party-rocking, feel-good track." It makes me feel good but I'm a borderline personality with a set of iPhone earbuds and a venti iced coffee who likes Ghostface and the Misfits. The fact that this is "party-rocking," though, is inexplicable and, frankly, pretty awesome. There's a party out there with a room full of a thousand goth/jock hybrids eating amphetamines and trying to get in fights or something...jamming to old reggae melodies and rhythms over swirling, nauseous synths and the most brutal, distrorted bass ever recorded. It's a vision that I will have to hold onto, that's for sure, until I hit up a dubstep rave, which won't happen and would only when the genre has long passed into the cultural wood chipper.
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