Music should be timeless, but the music business is about timing. When the Knux dropped in '08, being a "weird rapper" was considered unmarketable. 50 Cent was still T-Rex rampaging through the halls of Interscope and no one there knew what to do with the Knux or Freddie Gibbs, who ostensibly occupied two different ends of the spectrum. After all, both media and moguls insist on branding/boxing in artists and thanks to the " Cappuccino " video, the Knux were falsely stereotyped as "soft hipster rappers." Meanwhile, Gibbs was wrongly labeled a one-dimensional gangsta rapper. The truth is [...]
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, World War I ended. This day became known as "Armistice Day." In 1921, an unknown World War I American soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Similarly, unknown soldiers had been buried in England at Westminster Abbey and at France at the Arc de Triomphe. All of these memorials took place on November 11th to commemorate the end of the "war to end all wars." In 1926, Congress resolved to officially call November 11th Armistice Day. Then in 1938, the day was named a national [...]
I've had a soft spot for Aimee Mann ever since I was a wee nerd. It might have something to do with the fact that "Voices Carry" was one of the first 452s I ever owned (alongside Olivia Newton-John's "Heart Attack") or it might simply be because Aimee Mann has consistently written great songs. And for those of us who tend to be glass-half-empty kinds of folks, few other songwriters have been able to give voice to the quiet despair and habitual disappointment of the world's oddball wallflowers better than Mann. Her new record, Charmer , is arguably the [...]
If tribute albums are a coverlover's bread and butter, then in-studio covers are quite often the wine: sweet, dry, subtle, and the perfect complement to the studio recordings which bring one to a musician in the first place. But if I take an arms-length approach to live concert recordings, it's because so many cause me more pain than pleasure. Years of ear training as a choral vocalist leave me unable to appreciate instrumentation which is even slightly out of tune, a problem endemic to the live session, where crowd-pleasing can rush the re-tuning process. Similarly, a [...]
Awon & Kameleon Beats - Mike Tyson Awon and Kameleon are back at it again, with a push off The Concentration Gradient, Here's more of the introspect from Awon himself "we added some more it to give the project some balance. The song is about the perils of street life, that is why I compare the block to darkness, my compadres to monsters, and the police to beast and monsters. Its about the the disparity we face on the streets and the encouragement of our culture that is synonymous with crime. A track about [...]
Filed under: Humor Tagged: internet , news
I am currently listening to Do Make Say Think, and it's got me thinking. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to see the group on tour, and, despite having high expectations, I have to say that I had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I genuinely enjoyed the performance. I am a [...]
After writing a list for Flavorpill about 33 Women Music Critics You Need to Read, I realized a few things: 1) It can be dangerous to your ego to write about scribes that you really admire. As you list their accomplishments and great works, you start to get self-conscious about your own work and wonder 'how the hell can I measure up to that?' 2) You realize that some writers should be doing a better...
Pusha T has clearly been around the block. Clipse, his duo with Malice, permanently spit about moving kilos of both powder and green. In the single Wamp Wamp (What It Do) he raps about Ferraris, selling drugs, and how the art of hustlin' seems to be recession proof with lines like: "Down to the watches, alligator strap / Six different timezones, I don't set her back / 17 a brick, yeah, go and tell 'em that / I got the wamp wamp when I move it, it's still damp" and "What's under [...]
California female-fronted black metal act Divination of the Damned has posted footage of the band performing "Into the Endless Peril of Torment and Suffering." You can check out the video clip below. Read More/Discuss on Metal Underground.com
The Passion of the Weiss
Keep the Coffee Coming
Stereogum
Cover Lay Down
The Word Is Bond
zerode
UCLAradio.com » The Blog
PopMatters
WRMC 91.1 Middlebury College Independent Radio
Metal Underground . com - Metal News
Todd Edwards Essential Mix
Noteworthy: Aleos – Things You See
Things Change And So Do We (I)
The National – Graceless
