Ridiculous Song of the Day

This song really needs to be shared with the world, simply because it's entirely ludicrous. And by that I mean R. Kelly clearly had gone Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Proof? Who in their right mind would preposition a lady friend with:

Me and you get together babe
and raise a little one.
Half on a baby
all I need is your body next to me.

Now HOLD UP... What?!?! Yeah, you read that right. R. Kelly is asking the girl to split the task of having a child. Did he really think this would be a turn-on? Did he think the girl he's speaking to would be racing him to the sack with such a comment? Given the language used, it doesn't really seem like a favorable thing to say, does it?

So then the question arises: is R. Kelly *really* asking this girl if he can get her pregnant and start a family? Or is he just trying to get some?

My main point with this blurb is just to share my sadness for the music world that such a song was ever even *permitted* to be recorded. Music is an art. This is trash, not art. Silly record labels.

Monster Mash

While checkin' out the latest on The Hype Machine website, I came across this great mash-up by +VIBES called "Get That Dirt Off Your Pipes".  +VIBES skillfully mixes Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulders"with Ratatat's "Pipes" - and they make a wonderful pair.  Listen here: http://awe.sm/58yAN

TFAD Joins The Spectator!

Touching From A Distance is now very pleased to provide coverage of arts and culture for the online edition of the highly-esteemed British magazine, The Spectator! For those of you that follow my work on that blog, please visit the link below now instead of the previous TFAD site. Cheers!

http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts-and-culture/touching-from-a-distance/

Rock the Bells 2010

The line-up for this show is outrageous this year! I don't even care if I'm going to be in the area; I'll buy a ticket for a flight back just to see this. Classic hip-hop albums performed *in their entirety*?!?! Spectacular.

I think if I had to choose one artist that completely sells me on this show, it would be Lauryn Hill. The woman hasn't come out with an album since her "Unplugged" album, and I'd absolutely LOVE to see her live. Of course, Snoop Dogg, Tribe, Wu-Tang, Rakim, Slick Rick...and basically all of the others are wonderful as well. I'm going crazy over here if you couldn't tell. Concert of a lifetime!

If you've never been to a Rock the Bells show, they're a lot of fun. It's basically an entire day full of hip-hop blasted in your face. Check out more details on the festival at http://rockthebells.net/. Ticket sale information is supposed to be up soon too.

A Tribute to the 2010 Grads

Commencement speaker I am not, but I'll still take a moment to say a few things to all of my fellow 2010 graduates. What prompted this post is a matter of sheer coincidence (at least I think) that I happened to notice, and thus have analyzed as a sort of 'sign'.

In case you can't recall our high school graduation in 2006, our senior song was "Forever Young". There was a great cover version of Alphaville's original that the band Youth Group created that year, which was featured on The OC (and of course, that's why we all knew it). It was a great song, and an obvious pick for our graduation ceremony. We didn't have to worry about any cuss words or hidden messages. Our task was plain and simple: please the grads, and please their parents. Of course Youth Group's "Forever Young" made the cut, it was a modern-sounding version of a song that our parents used to sing when they were growing up. No possibility of trouble with lyrics like:

Youth is like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever.



What I find interesting is that just within the last couple of weeks... just about the time we're getting ready to close the next chapter of our lives, another great cover of "Forever Young" hit the radio. Four years later and just before our college graduation, radio stations are now playing the newest version of the classic, this time created by Jay-Z and British singer Mr. Hudson (one of whose albums I have reviewed earlier in this blog).

Now let's take a deeper look and contrast the new version's lyrics with the old though. Jay-Z's lyrics that are supposed to be equally profound to those of Alphaville say:

So let's just stay in the moment,
smoke some weed, drink some wine
Reminisce, talk some shit,
forever young is in your mind.

My my, how the times have changed. Look how far we've come?! I have to say, although I'm a Jay fan, he has never been the best lyricist in the rap game. Interesting thought, Mr. Carter, but I think I'll pick the Youth Group contender as the winner in this battle. Jay's rendition of "Forever Young" is a worthwhile listen nonetheless. Mr. Hudson's voice provides a great parallel with the original version of the track, which creates an interesting contrast with the new lyrics. However, I'm not sure if I would want this one playing at my UC Davis graduation ceremony in a couple of weeks though.



Regardless of which version you prefer, the overall message is the same. Just remember that no matter where you are, and no matter what you're doing in life, you should always take time to enjoy the little things. They may seem trivial to you at certain times, but they are, after all, what keep us "Forever Young".

FYI - New Blog

Just wanted to let ya'll know (if you don't already) that I'm now also writing music posts for British culture blog "Touching From a Distance" (which I'll abbreviate as TFAD in the future). I have two posts up already - one on Ben Harper's "Diamonds on the Inside" and the other on Dr. Dog's "Shame, Shame". Many more to come. It's a wonderful blog; make sure to check out posts by other contributors for some quality writing and entertainment.

Here's the link to the website:

http://www.touchingfromadistance.co.uk/

And, of course, I'm going to keep updating this blog as well when I can. Cheers!

Beats Antique - "Collide"

I first heard of Beats Antique while listening to my Thievery Corporation station on Pandora. As with many of my new artist discoveries, after giving a few songs by the same artist an electronic "thumbs up", I decided to look further into Beats Antique and learn more about their music. You could likely guess by the cover artwork that this particular album, "Collide", should probably be categorized under world music or fusion.

A few tracks on this album definitely caught my ear upon first listen. Although my favorite tracks may sound somewhat similar, I still think that they're the best three on the album. "Dope Crunk" might be best defined as "Brass Monkey" meets traditional belly dance music with some glitch electronica. "Borino" is very clearly more of a latin-influenced track that for the most part features a muted trumpet (which I love) as far as my ears tell me. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a youtube video for "Borino" so you may have to try to find it elsewhere. Overall, I think it'd be safe to say that if you don't like the way brass instruments sound, you probably will not like this album.

To be quite honest, the track "Roustabout" sketches me out a little bit. A major part of the beat can really only be described as ... carnival music. If not creepy, it's just plain weird. I'm all for experimentation, but I think that this particular experiment may have been slightly over the top. The rest of the tracks on "Collide" are rather mediocre and don't really stand out much at all, at least not to me.

My suggestion would be to take a listen sometime when you're feeling in the mood for something different. While it works well in various environments, I prefer listening to this album as background music when I'm hanging out with buddies or doing something else. I think it's a bit lackluster to play as a main focus, but works well as a side distraction for other activity.

My vote: 3 stars
My favorite tracks: "Dope Crunk" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4HcdLyYac & "Nestavo" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDgp3w1Dl54 & "Borino"

Max Tannone - "Mos Dub"

Max Tannone serves up exactly what I needed to get me swallowing down (rather than choking on) the sounds of Mos Def once again. Yessirree, Mr. Tannone did a phenomenal job on this mash-up album "Mos Dub", which, if you couldn't guess by the title, mixes some Mos Def tracks with some legit dub reggae.

This album makes me think that Mos Def should've been making hip-hop-dub-reggae from the beginning. Yes, it's THAT well done. You get the lyricism that you want from Mos with the delivery that you know so well coupled with a rhythm that'll make even the most uncoordinated and untalented dancers ever want to dance. What's not to like? This is one of those albums that you can play the whole way through... I didn't want to skip a single track.

It gets better - the album is available for FREE download online! Visit http://mosdub.com/ and you can stream the entire album to see if you like it. Then, if you do enjoy, download it without having to pay anything more than the potential diagnosis of carpal tunnel that you'll get from clicking a computer button a few too many times than you may have without ever having known of "Mos Dub". Not much of a loss.

Seriously though, big props to Max Tannone on this one. I'm very much looking forward to listening to his other mixes (Radiohead and Jay-Z? Of course I'm interested). Will keep you guys posted if I find more treasure.

My vote: 4.5 stars (only because I seem to have an issue with giving a perfect 5-star review)
My favorite tracks: "Ms. Vampire Booty" & "In My Math" & "Mr. Universe"

Miike Snow - "Miike Snow"

Okay, I really did do a horrible job at delivering my promise of an insane amount of album reviews (we all knew that was coming). But what amazes me is that I even managed to one-up my slacker style and have somehow managed to completely fail at writing any reviews in quite some time. It's not that I haven't been listening to music... obviously that's just not an option for me. As such, I will consider the amount of time that has elapsed between my last blog and this one to be an indicator of a failure of epic proportions on my part - my apologies, kids. With that - tally ho, and on we go!

Miike Snow (note the two i's in Miike, certainly much cooler than just one) is deceivingly a group of three, not one, Swedish dudes. I discovered that two of the three actually produce music for their own little side duo... most interestingly, they were responsible for the production of Britney Spears' song "Toxic". HMMM... I mean, you have to admit the song had something going for it, besides Britney dancing around half naked.

Miike Snow's music could probably be classified as electronic indie rock. Pretty cheerful and upbeat, for the most part. They tweak and distort vocals for parts of some songs, but not so frequently that you'd never hear what they're actual voices sound like. Although, I guess I could be wrong on that. The balance is good enough for me, and sounds great regardless. This album is definitely a fun listen... sincerely hope that there are more album releases from these guys that are yet to come.

My one negative critique of the album: lyrics. What the HELL are these guys talking about? Some of the lyrics on these tracks make absolutely no sense to me. Either I'm retarded when it comes to interpreting symbolism and I just can't understand the metaphors...or these guys are on lots of drugs. Not all of the songs are as absurd as I make them sound, but a few are. They actually do use metaphor quite well in some tracks, which makes the songs a bit more interesting. I should probably say that my criticism can't really go any further because I haven't actually looked up lyrics for some of these songs. Which I guess makes my argument a bit less valid...

All in all - this album gets a "green means go" from me. I think you can listen to most of the songs on youtube, and if not, they're probably on imeem/myspace or around elsewhere. Let me know what you guys think... and, of course, ENJOY!

My vote: 4 stars
My favorite tracks: "Animal" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKT-kJfUz4 & "Plastic Jungle" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKomGBOx0I&feature=related

Thao - "We Brave Bee Stings and All"

Thao Nguyen! Very very interesting sounding lady. Her voice caught my ear to the extent that I went and listened to the whole album. A little bit of a let down, but shows lots of potential. With a little more variation in her vocal range and expression, her music could be improved drastically. Great uplifting style though. I'm pretty sure she hasn't made it anywhere near big yet...so when she does, the money and time spent for vocal training will definitely help her out. Why I'm pretty confident that she could become popular: who doesn't like a memorable voice?

The Get Down Stay Down (the band on this album) seems to be pretty rad as well. Not at all surprised that there's talent here. I probably could've told you that before taking a listen...as soon as I read that We Brave Bee Stings and All was released on the Kill Rock Stars label. Heard of Elliott Smith, or the Decemberists (if you haven't, please pretend you have, for my sake)? Same label.

Last words: it's a decent and fun-sounding album, if you don't mind chicks singing.

My vote: 3 stars

My favorite tracks: "Swimming Pools" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=966nqAtqWzE & "We Go" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MQSiwrUdUU & "Bag of Hammers" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MQSiwrUdUU

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - "Dark Night of the Soul"

Wow, I *just* found out about this album a couple of days ago, and had to listen to it immediately. I literally dropped everything I was doing to find it and make sure that it was part of my permanent collection... after I'd only heard the first two minutes. Even just the first track on this album makes it worth having.

I can't believe I didn't get this CD earlier.... this album is definitely one of the best that I've heard in a while. Dark Night of the Souls delivers precisely what I expected from two musical greats. Danger Mouse kicks ass, Sparklehorse kicks ass, and together, they'll flip your world upside down (not just rock it, they'll sway you so hard you actually get flipped upside down). The music isn't anything to rock out to though; it's pretty calm and relaxing and, thus, mildly depressing sounding... but I love it.

The only problems: "Angel's Harp" and "Pain" are both rather horrible in my opinion. "Angel's Harp" significantly worse though. Really, it just irks me that they had to throw a couple of shitty songs on the album. I'd safely say that these two songs are the only things stopping me from giving this album a 5 star rating.

"Revenge" (the first track) is phenomenal, and features the Flaming Lips. Although I haven't looked up or listened closely to the lyrics, they seem to be pretty good. Go ahead, get excited, I know you want to. Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album so far. The rest are awesome as well too though.

GET THIS ALBUM! 'Nuff said.

My vote: 4.5 stars

My favorite tracks: "Revenge" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-86OH2JREQ "Little Girl" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZfgMrhUMGU & "Everytime I'm With You" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjFJkIkna20&feature=related

Phoenix - "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix"

What a ballsy album title! Fortunately for Phoenix, their album is good enough to steer clear of disappointing and maybe even offending some seriously critical listeners. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is a great listen for all ages.

From the sounds of it, MGMT and Phoenix could probably make a great collaboration together. Just a thought. As long as we're on the subject, Phoenix would probably do well with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! too. To think of it differently, Phoenix sounds like a mix between the two bands.

I think I may just possibly like every song on this album, so it's difficult for me to choose my favorites. Gotta love the 80s groove thing going on with "Fences". "Love Like a Sunset" is a bit drawn out, but I think it's like an electro-rock version of a jam session or something. The build-up in the track is pretty cool and the song shows some versatility. Even so, it's probably my least favorite of the bunch. It's worth mentioning that, if I'm not mistaken, "Lisztomania" is the first radio hit off of this particular album.

I absolutely suggest you take a listen to Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix for yourself. You can probably find the whole track listing streaming on myspace, youtube or last.fm. I'm pretty sure this is an album that almost anyone will grow to like... that is, unless you really just hate this type of music.

My vote: 4 stars

My favorite tracks: "Lisztomania" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhhzV5Xv9Tw & "Fences" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68sBpKAWsX0

Weezer - "Raditude"

It's been a while since Weezer has released an album I've actually been interested in. Raditude seems like it's a good edition to Weezer's list - yet still a bit made-for-the-radio sounding on some songs. The lead-singer, Rivers Cuomo, definitely wrote some very catchy choruses for this album.

While perusing through the songs, I was shocked to hear Lil' Wayne (among other surprising additions). At the sound, I stopped to make sure I was actually still listening to Weezer. I pretty much had that feeling throughout this entire album, as there were definitely a few deviations from the norm...

For some odd reason, Weezer also decided to put a little bit of Indian (the country) influence on this album. "Love is the answer" features some crazy instrumentals and is totally hippy sounding considering the lyrics.

"The Underdogs" reminded me of a Ben Lee song on first listen, and continues to do so almost every time. Not only is the song slow, but Rivers sings in almost an identical style to Ben Lee's and his voice even sounds similar. Seriously, take a listen to a slower Ben Lee song and compare it to this one. You'll see exactly what I'm talking about.

I commend the band's effort to think outside of the box. Not sure how much I'll like this album after I keep listening to it though. Their older stuff seems better off the bat, but I'll give the new sound a try.

My vote: 3 stars
My favorite tracks: "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To" -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDIzMGh94vo & "The Girl Got Hot" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovEoRAXf6zc

K'naan - "Troubadour"

K'naan can definitely check off the "collaborate with awesome musicians" box for this album; tracks on "Troubadour" feature Damian Marley, Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5), Kirk Hammett (guitarist of Metallica), and Mos Def & Chali 2Na (of Jurassic 5).

This album gives a completely different perspective than most American rap. The lyrics almost serve as an informative political statement for the world basically saying "Somalia's effin' crazy", except in a more tactful manner.

The beats on Troubadour are fairly basic, but still sound good. K'naan did a great job with matching artists' rapping/singing styles with the instrumentals for songs, giving the album quite the eclectic sound even from track to track.

On "America', K'naan raps in Somali. Pretty rad, not gonna lie. I think my personal favorite track is "ABCs" with the catchy elementary school sound on the hook paired with some hard verses to compliment. Although Adam Levine helps out singing on "Bang Bang", I'm not the biggest fan. Also interesting to note that K'naan steals some Pharcyde lyrics on this song - probably the reason why I don't like the song. I'm all for listening to good music (which he proves by quoting a classic), but I also think there's something to be said about lyrical originality.

Overall, worth the purchase? Perhaps, just because it's an interesting album. K'naan definitely shows promise as an artist and clearly has the connections, but I think he needs to choose a narrower musical focus to become a great rapper. By that, I mean he's mixing too many genres on this one.

My vote: 2.5/3 stars

My favorite tracks: "If Rap Gets Jealous" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlBFLuW-_ek & "ABCs" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu3biFTak2I & "America" -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cTC6rGE9jo

Oh dear...it's a new year?

It's been a while; I've been horrible, I know. BUT, I promise I've been listening to plenty of new (at least for me) music, and will review several albums soon! My apologies go out to those of you that have been squirming in painful anticipation...