Monday, April 10, 2006
hiphop
for bean, who actually has a predilection for dance music! i did not know this.
1. ice ice baby-- vanilla ice
white boy can rap, yo. no! this is not a joke! look past the lame-cachet of this song, turn up the bass on this, and dance, you know you want to. that fantastic hook may have been stolen from "under pressure"; but i think he made far better use of that hook than david bowie and queen ever did. "kick it one time, boyyyy!" nice, fluffy. and it only gets better.
2. ozomatli-- saturday night
first surfaced in madden 2005, then got picked up by apple in one of their ipod commercials. good beat, great hook, and cute lyrics.
"dip, dive, socialise, get ready for saturday night"
3. december 4th-- dj dangermouse, the grey album
the grey album is one of my favourite albums. why? it's one guy (dj dangermouse, who then went on to rap in gorillaz's demon days, taking the place of aesop rock) taking the best beats, hooks, and nothing else from the beatles' white album and mixing it with the a capella (just the words!) version of jay-z's swansong, the black album. harder than it sounds. all by hand, no less-- splicing vinyl with vinyl. listen to this track and appreciate all the effort that went into this baby.
3. touch the sky-- kanye west ft lupe fiasco
fantastic bumping syncopated beats, with beautifully-sprinkled vocal samples, and an amazing hook blasted by a triumphant brass section (always a bonus for me) and a clean bassline. kanye's lyrics oscillate between crazed despondency and breathless mania, but are always irrepressibly-catchy.
"come up on the spot lookin' extra fly, for the day you die/ i'm sky high/sky, sky high"
4. we got the beat-- talib kweli
kweli is one of the smartest rappers out there. he hasn't broken into the mainstream like kanye has, yet. (perhaps it's because he tends to rap about pot and sleeping with girls, albeit in a damn-intelligent way. hmm.) funky. catchy. unsurprising that he guests on kanye's albums quite frequently (once credited on college dropout, and once not), and vice versa (uncredited on we got the beat)
5. oh my gosh-- basement jaxx (link to music video)
from jaxx's sort-of best-of, the singles, comes some classic basement jaxx. funny, beguiling vocal line over thumping beats and psychedelic samples. hilarious, fun dance. the music video is classic-- seduction in an retirement home, with lip-synching, naughty tea-spilling, and a septuagenarian aerobics dance-off climax!? how funky! how awesome! how jaxx.
he said "how many sugars do you like in your tea?
i said "forget about the sugar, have a spoonful of me!" (mmm!)
6. harder better faster stronger-- daft punk
i love daft punk. i have a soft spot for all quirky french groups (think sondre lerche, air, kraftwerk etc) but bleepy robotic-vocal french music= GO MAD! yeah. it starts slow, admittedly; but 2 minutes into the song, when the cymbal stutters start to warm up, and the vocoder samples come thick and fast, if you don't throw your hands up into the air and dance, or at least do the robot, you are not human.
7. filthy/gorgeous-- scissor sisters
eh! how can you not love this gem? i can't believe their one single was "take your mama out"-- such a waste. this is hilarious one-hook bubblegum dance, replete with quirky triangles, sighs, and cute licks. and (in the album version) a totally-awesome kraftwerkian vocodered sample right in the middle of the song. plus, have you heard the lyrics? ehh.
i'm a classy honey kissy huggy lovey dovey ghetto princess!
bored. my attention span just ran out. anyway as usual limewire probably has all these songs. just hunt around a bit.
+ fictions&fires
2:17 AM
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plangere, latin: to strike, or to lament.
in the depth of winter i finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
--albert camus
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to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
-- ee cummings
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