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