I catch a lot of crap from my friends for the music I listen to, basically because I listen to pop. It wouldn't be far from the mark to say that my musical taste is similar to that of a 15-year-old girl.
So let me tell you about two CDs--wildy different--that have been finding heavy rotation on my iPod (disregarding the idea that iPod's do or do not technically have "rotations").
The first is really girly (or so others would claim), so I'll get that out of the way. It also happens to be one of the best rock CDs I've listened to in a long time.
I'm talking, of course, about Fall Out Boy.
Now, I've been a fan of theirs since "Sugar, We're Going Down" (which is still their best song) off the album From Under the Cork Tree. For those of you unfamiliar with them, you might have heard of their wacky bassist, Pete Wentz and his "famous" fiancee.
Most consider them the poster princes of emo, a musical genre so broad I'm not quite sure what falls under its purview. That said, I don't really care if the music I like is called emo. Especially when it is pretty much the only rock music on the radio today. I think. I don't really listen to the actual radio.
But I have listened to Fall Out Boy's latest album, Folie à Deux, and it's fantastic. What helps is that, although Pete Wentz writes the lyrics (which I usually don't understand), Patrick Stump, the lead singer, also writes the music. And he's extremely talented. He's also got the most soulful voice for a white guy since this singer.
And what he's done is write a great album, with a number of particularly notable songs. It starts off strong--like all their albums tend to--with the song "Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes" (yeah, the titles are fairly ridiculous). But it doesn't let up, following with the singles "I Don't Care" and "American Suitehearts," which sandwich a very good song, "She's My Winona." Then, except for the totally unforgettable "W.A.M.S.", it continues along with good track after good track, including "What a Catch, Donnie" and my favorite song, "20 Dollar Nose Bleed," which is a duet with Panic at the Disco's lead singer, Brandon Urie.
Now I'm not promising anything, but I think if you like rock music--if you like good melodies and catchy hooks--then you should at least try Fall Out Boy. If they're not your cup of tea, try coffee. Because, really, they have plenty of fifteen-year-old girls to be fans.
Of a different genre--although very in the "music that white people like" category, much like this guy--is Kanye West's newest album, 808 and Heartbreak.
Named after the Roland MC 808 drum machine, it meant that Kanye only had a minimal sound selection to work with, creating a sparse, semi-futuristic track-list that is built upon with the use of the Auto-Tune, the voice-changer that somehow made this clown 2008's Nate Dogg.
While not for everyone, there is a simplicity to the music that makes the depressing subject matter of his mom dying and breaking up with his girlfriend so much more powerful. Kanye is a guy who always brought the ego, and although I think he's always been musically deserving of his own accolades, I find that by taking away some of that hubris, he actually proves just how talented he really is.
Although I can listen to the whole album front-to-back on repeat (except for the last song, the live bonus track), I particularly like the three-track set right in the middle: "Love Lockdown," "Paranoid," and "Robocop."
This isn't the Kanye West you're used to, and maybe that's a good thing. This is hip-hop I haven't really ever heard, and I find myself fascinated by it.
Which I'm sure was his plan all along.
Showing posts with label hip hop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hip hop. Show all posts
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Two Albums, a Book, and a Pizza Place (The Pizza Place Will Be Dropped Next Season)
Let's see how much of these I can tackle.
First, as I mentioned in my last post, I was reading The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland.
Well, I finished said book, and I really rather enjoyed it. I like Coupland's detached style – he's part of that middle-generation between the baby-boomers and what I guess is my generation, people whose formative years were in the late 70s and 80s, and he's clearly a voice for people who thought they were inheriting the future, but instead found themselves inheriting the past's problems.
He might come across as a little cynical.
But his cynicism has a sweetness to it – a glass-is-half-full kind of cynicism. As such we get the story of Roger and Bethany, an unlikely friendship as you'll probably ever come across. Roger is a forty-something alcoholic who is divorced, depressed, and working in Staples (which seems more like a cause rather than a symptom, for any of you who may have worked retail – by the way, if you have, and you want to check out a perfect representation of that life, check this out; Clerks works, too, although less box-storey). His life is shit, and when his journal finds itself in the hands of the 19-year-old Bethany, it is also the subject of ridicule.
Except Bethany is a bit of a pain-queen, a Goth-chick with enough suicide in her life, Sylvia Plath would be jealous. So while she has initial scorn, she quickly realizes she's found a kindred-spirit. What begins is a series of journal entries back-and-forth, as Roger and Bethany form a tenuous alliance to stave-off the direction their lives are moving in.
It is the format of the book that is the strongest feature. The use of journal entries, and then later letters, e-mails, and novel excerpts, combines to create a cohesive story. Roger's novel in particular, Glove Pond, is an exercise in metafiction that, in turn, is an exercise in metafiction. The layers Coupland stacks in this novel are very intricate, at one point writing a novel about a novel about a novel (which, in turn, is almost a re-telling of the primary novel). What's amazing is that there's nothing exceptionally intricate about the plot – it moves inexorably forward, the characters grow in an organic manner – nothing that happens is really extraordinary.
But it's funny and natural and sad. Roger is an anti-hero, but he's not a villain. Rather, he's a loser who is not only bad at the game, but doesn't seem to even know the rules. The same goes for Bethany – what you realize is not that losers find their own, but that trying to find yourself is an activity that knows no age. In the end, Roger isn't filled with redemption, but he isn't beyond finding it, either.
I think if you like Eggers or Foster Wallace or Lethem or Safran Foer, than you might find this a little lighter. But that essence is there, that bit of snark, bit of swagger, that makes those other readers enjoyable. This is what I think writing should be. It tells a story in an amusing and accessible way, staying intelligent without losing the reader in style or vocabulary.
You know – it's great to be able to actually understand the books you read, is all.
I just bought two recently released, wildly different albums, and I haven't been able to stop listening to either one. That is, um, except when I'm listening to the other one. Screw you, logic!
The first one – and boy, I don't know how else to say this without being covered in shame – is the self-titled album, Day26.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Who the hell is Day26 (and why isn't there a space between “Day” and “26”)? The second question I don't know the answer to, but the first can be answered by the powerful words: “Making the Band 4.”
Yeah, they're a put-together band, manufactured for look, sound, style. Their songs are written for them and their voices are honed to be commercially viable. They epitomize the very worst of what pop music stands for.
And I loved every minute of it.
I've mentioned my unnatural love for reality TV (“The Hills” is back! Lauren was in Paris, and she almost ruined 2 dresses!). Well, “Making the Band 4” sucked me in – especially once I heard the first song they had to learn. Sung a capella, the song “Exclusive” has a melody that is perfectly soulful. When the five guys put their heart into it, I get that tingly feeling.
Not that tingly feeling!
It's just that, for me, good music makes an emotional connection. I don't care if it's technically good, I care that I feel compelled to listen to it. Whether it's making me want to dance, or making me want to sing along, or just making me react positively, music means a lot to me, and I don't care if others think the music I listen to is crap.
So when I say Day26 is a great album, I mean that. I always say (always – I've said a few times) that if an album starts off strong, that can cover a lot of ills. This album is on exception. The first song, “I'm the Reason,” is a fun opening number, and it leads right into the first single, “Got Me Going.” After that you get solid hip-hop/R&B straight through, the possible exception being “Ain't Going” featuring the other “Making the Band 4” members, Danity Kane and Donnie, but even that has a great beat.
It's fun, danceable album. I could listen to it many-times over, and it didn't get old. I say check out the first three songs I mentioned, and, if you like them, you'll like the rest of album. Otherwise, you might be suffering from bitchassness, which is a terrible, terrible disease.
The second album, as I said, is really, really different. Not only is different from hip-hop and R&B, it's different from what the band is known for: overly verbose emo.
I've waxed rhetorical about emo before, so I won't bore you. But I will say that as much as I enjoyed Panic! At the Disco's first album, I also found it a bit wearing. Musically, it was fun, but lyrically, it was just too much. Arrhythmic (and that's a weird word to see capitalized, right?) sentence structures are a little hard to listen to.
So on their new album Pretty.Odd., Panic at the Disco (yeah, they dropped the exclamation point, although they took their punctuation to their album title) goes to a very new place. At least, new to them. And, like those old NBC promos: “If you haven't seen it, it's new to you.” Well, if you're like the members of Panic and you haven't gone to college yet, then listening to The Beatles will seem crazy. “Dude, have you ever heard of this rock & roll shit? It's crazy!”
I love The Beatles, though, so I have no problem with a band emulating them. And that's what they do. Pretty. Odd. is an accurate summation of the eclectic nature of this album. While never really delving into the harder rock of Sgt. Pepper's or The White Album, there is definitely a great mix of lyrical and musical content. These guys have grown up and discovered their parents listened to music, and said music was pretty good.
I highly recommend “Nine in the Afternoon,”
and “Northern Downpour,” but once again, this is another strong album. Like My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade, this is a sophomore effort that can easily make a claim for being one of the best rock albums of their respective years.
Make a bolder claim than that, suckers!
First, as I mentioned in my last post, I was reading The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland.
Well, I finished said book, and I really rather enjoyed it. I like Coupland's detached style – he's part of that middle-generation between the baby-boomers and what I guess is my generation, people whose formative years were in the late 70s and 80s, and he's clearly a voice for people who thought they were inheriting the future, but instead found themselves inheriting the past's problems.
He might come across as a little cynical.
But his cynicism has a sweetness to it – a glass-is-half-full kind of cynicism. As such we get the story of Roger and Bethany, an unlikely friendship as you'll probably ever come across. Roger is a forty-something alcoholic who is divorced, depressed, and working in Staples (which seems more like a cause rather than a symptom, for any of you who may have worked retail – by the way, if you have, and you want to check out a perfect representation of that life, check this out; Clerks works, too, although less box-storey). His life is shit, and when his journal finds itself in the hands of the 19-year-old Bethany, it is also the subject of ridicule.
Except Bethany is a bit of a pain-queen, a Goth-chick with enough suicide in her life, Sylvia Plath would be jealous. So while she has initial scorn, she quickly realizes she's found a kindred-spirit. What begins is a series of journal entries back-and-forth, as Roger and Bethany form a tenuous alliance to stave-off the direction their lives are moving in.
It is the format of the book that is the strongest feature. The use of journal entries, and then later letters, e-mails, and novel excerpts, combines to create a cohesive story. Roger's novel in particular, Glove Pond, is an exercise in metafiction that, in turn, is an exercise in metafiction. The layers Coupland stacks in this novel are very intricate, at one point writing a novel about a novel about a novel (which, in turn, is almost a re-telling of the primary novel). What's amazing is that there's nothing exceptionally intricate about the plot – it moves inexorably forward, the characters grow in an organic manner – nothing that happens is really extraordinary.
But it's funny and natural and sad. Roger is an anti-hero, but he's not a villain. Rather, he's a loser who is not only bad at the game, but doesn't seem to even know the rules. The same goes for Bethany – what you realize is not that losers find their own, but that trying to find yourself is an activity that knows no age. In the end, Roger isn't filled with redemption, but he isn't beyond finding it, either.
I think if you like Eggers or Foster Wallace or Lethem or Safran Foer, than you might find this a little lighter. But that essence is there, that bit of snark, bit of swagger, that makes those other readers enjoyable. This is what I think writing should be. It tells a story in an amusing and accessible way, staying intelligent without losing the reader in style or vocabulary.
You know – it's great to be able to actually understand the books you read, is all.
I just bought two recently released, wildly different albums, and I haven't been able to stop listening to either one. That is, um, except when I'm listening to the other one. Screw you, logic!
The first one – and boy, I don't know how else to say this without being covered in shame – is the self-titled album, Day26.
Now, I know what you're thinking: Who the hell is Day26 (and why isn't there a space between “Day” and “26”)? The second question I don't know the answer to, but the first can be answered by the powerful words: “Making the Band 4.”
Yeah, they're a put-together band, manufactured for look, sound, style. Their songs are written for them and their voices are honed to be commercially viable. They epitomize the very worst of what pop music stands for.
And I loved every minute of it.
I've mentioned my unnatural love for reality TV (“The Hills” is back! Lauren was in Paris, and she almost ruined 2 dresses!). Well, “Making the Band 4” sucked me in – especially once I heard the first song they had to learn. Sung a capella, the song “Exclusive” has a melody that is perfectly soulful. When the five guys put their heart into it, I get that tingly feeling.
Not that tingly feeling!
It's just that, for me, good music makes an emotional connection. I don't care if it's technically good, I care that I feel compelled to listen to it. Whether it's making me want to dance, or making me want to sing along, or just making me react positively, music means a lot to me, and I don't care if others think the music I listen to is crap.
So when I say Day26 is a great album, I mean that. I always say (always – I've said a few times) that if an album starts off strong, that can cover a lot of ills. This album is on exception. The first song, “I'm the Reason,” is a fun opening number, and it leads right into the first single, “Got Me Going.” After that you get solid hip-hop/R&B straight through, the possible exception being “Ain't Going” featuring the other “Making the Band 4” members, Danity Kane and Donnie, but even that has a great beat.
It's fun, danceable album. I could listen to it many-times over, and it didn't get old. I say check out the first three songs I mentioned, and, if you like them, you'll like the rest of album. Otherwise, you might be suffering from bitchassness, which is a terrible, terrible disease.
The second album, as I said, is really, really different. Not only is different from hip-hop and R&B, it's different from what the band is known for: overly verbose emo.
I've waxed rhetorical about emo before, so I won't bore you. But I will say that as much as I enjoyed Panic! At the Disco's first album, I also found it a bit wearing. Musically, it was fun, but lyrically, it was just too much. Arrhythmic (and that's a weird word to see capitalized, right?) sentence structures are a little hard to listen to.
So on their new album Pretty.Odd., Panic at the Disco (yeah, they dropped the exclamation point, although they took their punctuation to their album title) goes to a very new place. At least, new to them. And, like those old NBC promos: “If you haven't seen it, it's new to you.” Well, if you're like the members of Panic and you haven't gone to college yet, then listening to The Beatles will seem crazy. “Dude, have you ever heard of this rock & roll shit? It's crazy!”
I love The Beatles, though, so I have no problem with a band emulating them. And that's what they do. Pretty. Odd. is an accurate summation of the eclectic nature of this album. While never really delving into the harder rock of Sgt. Pepper's or The White Album, there is definitely a great mix of lyrical and musical content. These guys have grown up and discovered their parents listened to music, and said music was pretty good.
I highly recommend “Nine in the Afternoon,”
and “Northern Downpour,” but once again, this is another strong album. Like My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade, this is a sophomore effort that can easily make a claim for being one of the best rock albums of their respective years.
Make a bolder claim than that, suckers!
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Long and Intersting Blog of Dave
Have you ever picked up a book, read it, put it down and gone: What the hell did I just read? And, more importantly, did I like it?
Welcome to my recent book-choice, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. With almost no background and/or context, George Saunders (a man who knows how to throw down a title like it’s nobody’s business) throws the reader into a world in which two countries battle each other for sovereignty of Inner Horner. Here’s where it gets weird.
You see, Inner Horner is tiny – it has a population of six, and when the land settles due to geological reasons, they all of a sudden find parts of their bodies on Outer Horner land.
So Phil declares they are being invaded, and takes matters into his own hands.
Part of the problem with him taking things into his own hands is that it’s not quite clear if Phil has hands. You see, all the inhabitants of Inner and Outer Horner are weird amalgamations of machine and organic beings. For instance, Phil’s brain is some sort of rack and not too securely. When it occasionally falls out, it causes Phil to go from a logical being to a pedantic megalomaniac. He rapidly gains control of Outer Horner and is well on his way to destroying Inner Horner when things just as quickly turn on him.
The novel is short, being only 130 pages long with illustrations. But it is also a complete novel: the characters are developed, the setting is defined, the conflict is introduced, and the resolution isn’t forced. Although probably considered a novella, it is not a short story – there is a complete progression here that feels more extensive than a simple short story. For instance, there’s more than just scenes, there are distinct acts. They’re just very, very short.
And the thing is, for all its “weirdness,” it’s also completely hysterical. The President alone is worth reading, being the perfect combination of 1850s political cartoonishness, gasbag, and senility. All the characters are so ridiculously over the top, but considering they are half-robots, half-men who live in a world that seems to have a population of 20, that’s not exactly a huge surprise.
As a fun, quick read, I definitely say check it out. The ending is a bit of a disappointment (a little too easy, in my opinion), but overall, I think it’s solid. Maybe not a classic, but certainly a book you’ll be glad to read.
About 10 years ago, one of the best rappers released an excellent album, Internal Affairs. Pharoahe Monch has probably some of the best flow of any rapper, and a word-play that complements that flow to create innovative rhymes that aren’t simply guns, drugs, and ho’s. Unfortunately, his best song on that album, “Simon Says,” just so happened to sample the theme from Godzilla. And, in the best hip-hop tradition, apparently he didn’t get the permission, and so he kind of got sued . . . a lot. Enough, so, that all the success his album had was pretty much washed away.
It also made it so that he had trouble getting a record label willing to sign him, and so one of the great rap artists sat on the bench for a long time. Yes, he did some collaborations – such as “Oh No” with Mos Def and Nate Dogg, “Ya’ll Know the Name” with The Executioners, and “My Life” with Styles P.
But now he’s finally been able to get back in the drivers seat, and if album titles are any indication of what the artist is feeling, than Desire is probably pretty apt.
While it doesn’t have the break-out single that “Simon Says” was, it is an overall solid album. With excellent production and his ability to craft rhymes, he is assuredly back. Maybe he won’t ever be the commercial, Hot 97 success that Jay-Z or TI is, but for those who appreciate artistry, pick up Desire.
On a much different musical note (I’d say about an F-Sharp . . . ba dum dum – that’s like a four-hit music-pun combo), I just want to mention I also recently got Sara Bareilles’ self-titled album. She’s kind of hard to classify, musically, with a kind of Fiona Apple/Sara McLachlan feel, but I think it’s good that she doesn’t fit into a particular mold. I won’t say the whole album is fantastic – the songs are good, but they’re not all incredibly innovative. They are folk-rocksy and indy-rocksy (I’m digging this “rocksy” word), but not exactly exciting.
Except for a few stand-outs. Foremost is the first song on the album, “Love Song.” With such a creative title, you might be ready to dismiss it, but the music is fantastic, and the lyrics show the beautiful, beautiful irony in naming it “Love Song.” It’s quickly making its way into the I-listen-to-this-song-too-much-I’m-going-to-hate-it territory.
On a map, it’s right next to Wyoming.
In addition to “Love Song,” “Bottle It Up” and “Love on the Rocks” (might be a theme here . . .) have definite single potential. But it’s clear that “Love Song” is not just Bareilles’ best song, but I’m going to say one of the best songs this year.
Go ahead – disagree with that in an objective manner.
Welcome to my recent book-choice, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. With almost no background and/or context, George Saunders (a man who knows how to throw down a title like it’s nobody’s business) throws the reader into a world in which two countries battle each other for sovereignty of Inner Horner. Here’s where it gets weird.
You see, Inner Horner is tiny – it has a population of six, and when the land settles due to geological reasons, they all of a sudden find parts of their bodies on Outer Horner land.
So Phil declares they are being invaded, and takes matters into his own hands.
Part of the problem with him taking things into his own hands is that it’s not quite clear if Phil has hands. You see, all the inhabitants of Inner and Outer Horner are weird amalgamations of machine and organic beings. For instance, Phil’s brain is some sort of rack and not too securely. When it occasionally falls out, it causes Phil to go from a logical being to a pedantic megalomaniac. He rapidly gains control of Outer Horner and is well on his way to destroying Inner Horner when things just as quickly turn on him.
The novel is short, being only 130 pages long with illustrations. But it is also a complete novel: the characters are developed, the setting is defined, the conflict is introduced, and the resolution isn’t forced. Although probably considered a novella, it is not a short story – there is a complete progression here that feels more extensive than a simple short story. For instance, there’s more than just scenes, there are distinct acts. They’re just very, very short.
And the thing is, for all its “weirdness,” it’s also completely hysterical. The President alone is worth reading, being the perfect combination of 1850s political cartoonishness, gasbag, and senility. All the characters are so ridiculously over the top, but considering they are half-robots, half-men who live in a world that seems to have a population of 20, that’s not exactly a huge surprise.
As a fun, quick read, I definitely say check it out. The ending is a bit of a disappointment (a little too easy, in my opinion), but overall, I think it’s solid. Maybe not a classic, but certainly a book you’ll be glad to read.
About 10 years ago, one of the best rappers released an excellent album, Internal Affairs. Pharoahe Monch has probably some of the best flow of any rapper, and a word-play that complements that flow to create innovative rhymes that aren’t simply guns, drugs, and ho’s. Unfortunately, his best song on that album, “Simon Says,” just so happened to sample the theme from Godzilla. And, in the best hip-hop tradition, apparently he didn’t get the permission, and so he kind of got sued . . . a lot. Enough, so, that all the success his album had was pretty much washed away.
It also made it so that he had trouble getting a record label willing to sign him, and so one of the great rap artists sat on the bench for a long time. Yes, he did some collaborations – such as “Oh No” with Mos Def and Nate Dogg, “Ya’ll Know the Name” with The Executioners, and “My Life” with Styles P.
But now he’s finally been able to get back in the drivers seat, and if album titles are any indication of what the artist is feeling, than Desire is probably pretty apt.
While it doesn’t have the break-out single that “Simon Says” was, it is an overall solid album. With excellent production and his ability to craft rhymes, he is assuredly back. Maybe he won’t ever be the commercial, Hot 97 success that Jay-Z or TI is, but for those who appreciate artistry, pick up Desire.
On a much different musical note (I’d say about an F-Sharp . . . ba dum dum – that’s like a four-hit music-pun combo), I just want to mention I also recently got Sara Bareilles’ self-titled album. She’s kind of hard to classify, musically, with a kind of Fiona Apple/Sara McLachlan feel, but I think it’s good that she doesn’t fit into a particular mold. I won’t say the whole album is fantastic – the songs are good, but they’re not all incredibly innovative. They are folk-rocksy and indy-rocksy (I’m digging this “rocksy” word), but not exactly exciting.
Except for a few stand-outs. Foremost is the first song on the album, “Love Song.” With such a creative title, you might be ready to dismiss it, but the music is fantastic, and the lyrics show the beautiful, beautiful irony in naming it “Love Song.” It’s quickly making its way into the I-listen-to-this-song-too-much-I’m-going-to-hate-it territory.
On a map, it’s right next to Wyoming.
In addition to “Love Song,” “Bottle It Up” and “Love on the Rocks” (might be a theme here . . .) have definite single potential. But it’s clear that “Love Song” is not just Bareilles’ best song, but I’m going to say one of the best songs this year.
Go ahead – disagree with that in an objective manner.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)