DarkStar called it a long time ago. Pontiac is done.
I was hoping that following the new Camaro would be a re-release of the Firebird. So much for that.
Archive for April, 2009Got the idea for this from Blackink (as usual). Most of these are prolly songs I ain’t go no business listenin to. Some are just songs I could be embarrassed to admit I like so much. But here they go: Alone Again (Naturally) – Gilbert O’Sullivan. One time this joint came on when I was in the middle of a bad break-up. It got quite misty out there. Bitch Betta Have My Money – AMG. Actually, in this case I’m probably talking more about the album than the track. For whatever reason, and I’ve never been sure exactly what it was, I LOVE this album. I can play it from cover to cover with very little skippage. And I know good and well… Bitches Ain’t Shit – Ben Folds. If Dr. Dre’s version ain’t bad enough, this one’s even worse. Lyric-for-lyric faithfulness, meaning that you got a white dude sayin — no, singin the word ‘nigga,’ on top of the whole rest of the song. It’s truly a mess. And I liiike it. Infamous Prelude – Mobb Deep. Even though I never believed a word of the superduperkillanigga raps, this little speech? I dug this joint right from the get-go. Findum, Fuckum, & Flee – NWA. Horrible, horrible, horrible song. But Dre freaked that beat right! And the way he dropped the bass during Ren’s verse? Come on. That’s production right there, yo. Good Morning Heartache – Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Only reason this is here is because I think it’s my favorite version of this song. Across the board. Like, if you asked me, ain’t nobody messin w/ this song better than Dirty. And it shouldn’t be that way. But it is. Sing Song – Buddy Baker. The Beatnuts got their samples from everywhere. This song proves it. When you listen to it, it’s like they’re singing a list of the signs they see on the way home. It’s really absurd. Not absurdly good, just absurd, like somethin you’d think of when you’re good and high. Let alone to make a song off it. But then, about 2/3 of the way through the song, you hear that sample and then they flip to a jazzy walking bass and it’s like…okay, this joint got some traction to it. Prince Ali – Aladdin Soundrack. Yup. I know it’s antithetical to his way, but that on the wrong day at the wrong time, I could be provoked to violence by somebody talkin greasy about Fred Rogers. I post that clip because last week, I was reminded of the need of people to think — no, know that there are people who love them and think that they are special regardless of who they are, what they’ve done, or what situation they are currently in. I have several problems with this, although it’s not so much with the bullies. What they did is wrong, but it’s not abnormal. Nothing I’ve read, and I’ve looked at a few different sources about this, seems to indicate that it’s any more severe than the normal garden-variety teasing that goes on all the time. Which is not to say that it should be winked at or tolerated, but it is to question a more important variable. While the kids were wrong, the adults in the picture were more wrong. Of course the teachers and school personnel should have intervened. By all means, they should have. I find it kinda hard to believe that the kids at school could’ve been riding these boys enough to make them think that life wasn’t worth living without any adult being aware of it. I know when I was teaching, I heard about one of my students messing with another student in another class, and I stepped to the bully about it. And I never even saw it. Somebody had to have heard something. But I’m really looking at the parents here. Two things: 1) How does an 11-year old get the idea that suicide is even an option? I’m not at all suggesting that the parents were the source of the ideas, but it just strikes me as very odd that a child would even seriously consider committing suicide, let alone go through with it. There’s something seriously wrong there. 2) Which means that the parents should’ve noticed. Maybe it’s just my mother (and I know it ain’t), but from childhood to adulthood, even when I’m not necessarily willing to talk about it, she’s known about 94% of the time when somethin was wrong. She might have guessed wrong on the cause from time to time, but she could tell when somethin was just off. And I’ve never been close to suicidal. It staggers my mind to think that a custodial parent would not know when a child was psychically/spiritually distressed enough to be on the threshold of suicide. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the parents. It’s not their fault per se, but it just makes me wonder. What coping mechanisms that were being taught in those homes. Having been on both sides of the teasing equation when I was in school (I’m hesitant to call anything that doesn’t involve physical violence bullying), I know that it can make going to school a really, really unattractive option. In fact, I had a real bully when I was in 1st grade, and I cut school because of it. I didn’t wanna go to the bus stop, so I decided I’d walk to school. But there were too many strip malls. I actually wound up walking about twice the distance, going to a Toys R Us and trying to make off with a Luke Skywalker action figure. Without telling the whole story, suffice it to say that that little 2nd grader wasn’t doin no kinda beatin that I should’ve really worried about, and once we got past the “You skipped school and did WHAT?!” part of the discussion, we got to the “here’s how you handle a bully” lesson. (Looking back, it’s kinda interesting that I simultaneously occupied so many strata in the various pecking orders at school, very low on the bus, fairly high in the classroom, and somewhere in the upper middle on the playground. But only low on the bus in the morning. By the time we went home in the afternoon, I was in good shape. It was weird.) But some of that’s just me. I can’t really imagine being at school and somebody busting on me without me busting back. It wouldn’t matter how often they called me gay, because every time they did, there would be some variation of “that ain’t what your mama/sister/auntie said last night.” Everybody’s not like that. Talking this over with a good friend of mine, she suggested that I have a fairly strong sense of self, and ultimately don’t care what people think — or at least not to any great degree. Some people are seeking validation from elsewhere, so constant teasing to them could have devastating effects. And so we see it here. But again, what we see in these instances is just so beyond my comprehension that I really don’t know where to place it on the “response to teasing” continuum. When we lost Mr. Rogers, we lost one of the last safe spaces on television. Jokers can be snide about it all they want, but I couldn’t watch Mr. Rogers and not feel comfortable. It was probably more important that I felt safe and comfortable at home, but I can easily imagine that hearing kind words during those 30 minutes each day could make a big difference. Those of us who know better would do well to try to be more deliberate about using healing words on people. We give out fightin words for free. I got mixed feelings about this KFC commercial. Yeah, the first person to appear is white (??), but colored folks dancin for chicken in 2009? Really? But the REAL problem is that that KFC grilled ain’t even that good! I could see it if they was buck-dancin for some Popeye’s or somethin. Popeye’s will have you out there on the good foot. Even Original Recipe might be worth a little “hambone” action, but that tiny grilled chicken? No sir. Still, you can go to a KFC and try it for yourself for free today.
I have an East Coast bias. I admit it. When you ask me about my favorite groups and songs, chances are it’s gonna have originated in New York. However, when I sit down and think about it for a while, I can get past those ‘first thing that comes to mind’ answers and get into some stuff for which I can actually make a cogent answer. Outkast is one of those groups that I rarely mention right away, but I can never really deny once I get started. Kast is definitely in my top 5 groups, probably right behind De La Soul. Like De La, I think their first four albums put them above just about any other hip-hop group’s four-album stretch. In fact, I’d almost say Outkast’s 1st 4 > De La’s first four, but not by much. Given that, it’s not hard to get 15, but it is hard to limit it to 15 and it’s even harder to rank em. So I’m not. Except for Number 1. Cuz that joint is SO superior, it can only be at the top (or bottom, in this case) of the list. Rosa Parks – The song that lauched a $10 Billion lawsuit. For the life of me, I can’t understand what the protest would have been about, because her name was only mentioned in the title, and the chorus, “Ah ha/ hush that fuss/ everybody move to the back of the bus/ do you wanna bump and slump wit us/ wt the kinda people make the club get buck” is hardly disrespectful. All that notwithstanding, the song is dope. Elevators (Me and You) One of the bad parts of having a collection that goes beyond a certain level is the quality of songs that don’t get too much run. Elevators is cold-blooded. It’s like, I ain’t mad at what I’ve been listening to, but I am kinda mad I haven’t been listening to this joint. Elevators is just a good a time as any to mention that Andre 3000 is a name that deserves to be in that upper echelon of emcees. I’m not doing a ranking any time soon, but he’s up there. Crumblin’ Erb – A word here about production. While Dre gets noted for his band’s reworking of songs for a live interpolation of a lick, as opposed to a sample, Organized Noize represented on that tip, as well. This is just one of the many examples. So Fresh, So Clean – You talmbout a cold-blooded record, this is one. Concept and execution are killer. Wheelz of Steel – At some point, dee-jaying actually fell off of the map in most hip-hop. Early on, the DJ always had a break. Wheelz of Steel at least gave us a taste of scratching, even if it wasn’t necessarily very prominent. Reset – One of my all-time favorite Outkast songs, on Big Boi’s Speakerbox disc, has one of the verses that typify why I think Big Boi is criminally underrated.
From t ‘n a to DNA?! Come on, man. Ms. Jackson – Speaking of songs that kick the truth, Ms. Jackson tells it like it is in a whole lotta ways. I frequently think of Kast and De La as similar groups, and Ms. Jackson is kinda like an expansion of one of Pos’ verses: Prototype – This was the jam. If Blackink hadn’t called it for his slow-jams list, I would definitely have pulled this one. It’s a great coolin out record, as well as a nice love song. Red Velvet – The song is dope, but the thing that always stands out in my mind is that I had a homeboy who I nicknamed “Velvet.” Every time I heard this, it made me think of him, even though he didn’t like the nickname and there’s really no other connection between him and the song. But this is the type of record that I don’t think people who actually do hip-hop don’t even know exists. What? An anti-materialist rap song? Yeah. Toilet Tisha – Again, the fellas address a serious topic while still managing to make a good record. Actually, I’m telling it backwards. It’s a dope record that addresses a serious topic. Funky Ride – This could almost have been a 70’s level slow jam, had it not come out in the 90’s and been quite as explicit. The chorus without the verse would have done it. The instrumentation is near-perfect. In fact, an instrumental of this song could have made my 36:12 one song on repeat. Git Up, Git Out – Could easily be the number one song on this list. Cee-Lo’s verse is absurdly good. F’real-f’real, they could’ve stopped the song right there, cuz there was really nothing else to add. Spottieottiedopaliscious – Damn, damn, damn James! As East Coast as I am, and as much as I prefer the boom-bap, there’s really not much foolin with this song. It’s like, exactly why have I been sleeping on this record so much? B.O.B. Hard core music electric revival. That’s what they’re saying at the end of the song. And that’s what this was. Came outta the blue. Totally different from what we were used to hearing. And cold-blooded. I know some people that never liked it, but this was always a good workout song for me. Claimin’ True – I like the song and all, but the skit at the beginning is what really sold me. When the old head is like, “Penitentiary full’a niggas thought they wasn’t punks.” 1. Liberation – Yeah, I know they ain’t rappin. But this is it. This song sons some groups’ whole discographies. Ridiculously good. With a ridiculously low play count. But that’s gon be rectified. It’s always interesting to me to compare critiques of hip-hop from those who listen to it as their primary musical staple to the critiques from people who listen to the occasional record. I don’t think the people who view hip-hop from a distance really appreciate the different perspectives and agendas that are at play with in the hip-hop community writ large (if there actually is such a thing). For instance, to paraphrase a commenter in one of the articles I’m bout to mention, there’s a definite line of demarcation between New York hip-hop and other regions. At least, there was. Once upon a time, if you wanted sophisticated word play and intricate rhyme schemes, you’d look to a New York rapper. If you wanted some ole laid-back player stories, you’d head out West. Booty-shakin club jams? South. Now even back in the day, there were exceptions in each case. All of anything is nothing. But generally, by knowing where an artist was from, you had a pretty good idea of what his sound would be. If you look a little deeper, though, you’d know that New York is not one entity within hip-hop; each borough brought something slightly different to the table. Likewise, it’s probably possible to dissect other geographical areas by content and style, as well. I don’t know too much, because I’ve pretty much had an East Coast bias right from the get-go. Keeping that in mind, I’m looking at two wildly different pieces, both calling for hip-hop to change, but within different contexts, and presumably for different reasons. Shay is all like, Hip hop’s demise among black folks is long overdue, if you ask me. The genre has become gutter music. Time to create a new sound! At the same time, Jadakiss is lamenting New York’s loss of prominence in hip-hop and I assume hoping that hip-hop’s capital will recapture its one-time glory. If you really look at it, it’s exactly the same critique, only looking with different levels of specificity and different expectations on what the “new sound” should be. Shay wants something completely different. Kiss wants a new sound that more closely resembles the old. Unfortunately, we only experience time in one direction. Personally, I don’t think hip-hop is actually going to change too much. As I’ve said before, I think that at one point it held the potential to be what many people would like it to be, but at the end of the day, it’s just a musical genre – one that’s had much more staying power than its many detractors ever imagined, but just a genre, nevertheless. For those who know, there are quite a few divisions among the proponents of each of hip-hop’s subgenres, including an ongoing discussion of what “real” hip-hop is. It’s spreading out in too many directions to be one thing. In the same way that people don’t really talk about rock music as a single genre any more, hip-hop probably should be evaluated based on stylistic or regional content. Cuz you can’t tell me that Luke and Rakim were the same any more than you can tell me that Soulja Boy and Little Brother are the same. At the same time, I don’t know that there’s a legitimate argument that any of the artists I mentioned is “realer” than the others; they may have different artistic merits, but in one sense, they’re all equally legitimate. Maybe it’s time we start breaking it down and calling part by its name, instead of using the part to discuss the whole. I don’t fool with the Redskins, but Clinton Portis is that dude. Inspired by a post by Esquire, this weeks playlist is simply gonna be my most-played songs (as of just now) since I first signed up for last.fm. It’s not a completely accurate count, since my non-ipod mp3 players don’t sync up the play count the way the ipod did, and I’m not always connected to the internet with my laptop, so it can’t scrobble, but this gives a pretty good idea. 1 Stevie Wonder – Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You) 552 I’m clearly in the wrong game. It seems that a study has been done showing that some men prefer fat women. That means somebody actually wrote a grant and got money to study this. In other news, water is wet.
All jokes aside, this study is interesting from a variety of angles. First, I think it’s interesting that the FA dudes like women across the weight spectrum, while the non-FA dudes have a more limited range. My intuitive guess would’ve been that there would be spectra, where the non-FA dudes would prefer a certain range – say a BMI betwen 17 and 25 – and the FA dudes would prefer a different range – say, 24-35 with there being some overlap. Second, and perhaps more significantly, I’m forced to question the use of the BMI as measuring tool here. While the BMI can give some solid information, just listing a person’s height and weight isn’t really indicative of whether that person would actually be considered “fat.” Cuz there are some women who, at 5′6″, 160, would have a BMI of 25.8, which is in the ‘overweight’ category. To look at them, you’d NEVER get that impression. (Check out this graphic height-weight chart) So I think, then, that an accompanying piece of research would center on the perception of “fatness” vis a vis the BMI. Of course, for women who are more muscular, the BMI will give false results. Serena would probably be listed as obese based on her height and weight, but we ALL know…she ain’t obese in the least. Then to disaggregate it even further, I think it would be really interesting to look at what the central locus of attractiveness is, taking various factors like race and age into consideration. Like, do men prefer meatier women as they get older? It might also be instructional to know how the man’s preferred body type compares to his own signifcant other. Like, are there dudes who like thin jawns in pictures but have big wives, and vice-versa? On the linguistic tip, I’d be interested to know where most people would center terms like ‘voluptuous’ and ‘zaftig.’ Cuz in some cases, voluptuous especially, has been used as a euphemism for ‘big jawn’…like REALLY big. And with all that, one of my main curiosities would be to see whether there really is a racial component to this stuff. Cuz I say it jokingly, but I’m fairly serious when I say that this Twix commercial right here had to be the brainchild of somebody white. John Madden is retiring. Watching football is not gonna be the same. I don’t know if I would say he was one of the greatest sportscasters ever, but much of what we see and have come to expect from football color announcers is because of Madden. We’re not even gonna get in to the small matter of that video game. Summerall and Madden was probably the most classic booth duo I can remember. To this day, I can recall their sign-off on their final broadcast on CBS sports, back when CBS carried the NFC. |
|
Entries (RSS)