999 Times That Same Note
Download: LCD Soundsystem: All My Friends
I think the greatest testament to this song is that nothing I've read about it has been able to approximate what it feels like to listen to this song or what you feel like after you listen to this song. Like, every Panda Bear review I've read has been able to rather accurately describe what it's like to listen to the record in the way that internet rock crits do, i.e. "like filtering sun through your eyelids" or "like being suspended in water" or "groggy on a beach," etc. and all of those sound like reasonable approximations of what that album sounds like in terms of a nice Metacritic blurb.
What's more, a lot of people aren't even attempting to tackle this song in Sound of Silver reviews, I'm guessing because the idea of writing about this song is so absurd (the best piece on the track I've read is this), not in the "it's so good that words won't do it justice" kind of way (but almost), but because it's impossible to try and describe this song without making it sound like the worst thing ever.
At it's core it's just that piano loop and a simple drum beat maybe some guitars, synths or whatever, but "this song is eight minutes of two piano notes" isn't really an appetizing description. The lyrics are great but they aren't as important to the song as the delivery of them, and the best word to describe that is maybe "yearning" or "aching" or something better than those but nothing really quite accurate.
Moral: Leave it to James Murphy to turn his absolute worst idea into his absolute best song.Labels: internet, lcd soundsystem
Where My Macaroni?
Weezy F. was starting to scare me; his best rapper alive boasts were becoming increasingly harder to defend when it was all but pudding this summer. It seems like he's been getting bored with himself, so like he decided to get on forgotten 106 & Park stars' singles (hello Mya) or that he wanted to start rapping like Elephant Man. Not to mention, he was striking out like P. Diddy (get familiar) on said major singles ("Give good brain like you graduated from a good school"= low point of my '06) insomuch that it I was for a second scared that he was not just Fat Joe's bff, but that he was actually turning into him.
And then this arrived rather inconspicuously on the once dominant XXL Bangers section, with Weeze rapping over T.I.'s rather meh "Top Back." And naturally, dude is in top form, the form that made rather prominent bloggers bonkers over an internet only mixtape on which said dude had like 8 songs. Here he is again sounding like he hasn't eaten in nine days, like he is the hungriest of the hungry, like he would bite your face if you stepped to close, pushing and pulling and stretching his voice and vowels like someone who aimlessly fiddles with gum. He patently slams the breaks on his flow mid-verse not as a gimmick, but because he literally can't control his own self, because he has yet to calculate his actions, because he is the most reckless of all rappers. And he's even sounding increasingly more insane by the leak, so here he is moving through his various personalities (Jovial Wayne, Agressive Wayne, Snarling Wayne, Manical Wayne) with a shout out to the long lost Fresh Fresh F-ere Fresh, ramblings about T.I. (...?) and a hyena laugh in a matter of like two and a half minutes.
All of that is fine and dandy (it is), but his punchlines are my heroin and I've been shaking and sweating for a few months. So when he dropped the equivalent of an ounce of smack, "A pint of DJ Screw and that Hawaiian/ I am... leaning like a three-legged lion," I couldn't help but grin the toothiest of grins to no one in particular, in my mind saying to the walls of my dorm room, "Don't fear, peasants, for the king has returned."Labels: internet rap, lil wayne, rappers who aren't fat joe
Take That and Rewind It Back
Not sure if it's due to a consistently disappointing 2007 (with the exception of this and uh, this...), but I've been completely mesmerized and entranced recently by albums I previously had absolutely no feelings for. They are:
Spoon: Gimme Fiction
Up until about a week ago, if this band unexpectedly broke up, I would've slept and probably rolled my eyes through all the eulogies, even the drippingly morose Status Ain't Hood best band in music/ I loved this band in high school obit. I mean, who really needs power pop in their life? The answer, apparently, is me. The thing about this that really grabbed me— besides the utter hookiness— is how well produced and nuanced it is. It toes that incredibly fine line of being dense without overly stuffy, and for a power pop record it's really unpredictable, like everytime there should be some cheesy guitar solo they just drop in some distorted squall ("The Beast and Dragon, Adored") or pseduo-ambient samples ("Sister Jack"). If I had ever given this the time of day two years ago, I think I'd care immensely about this band, even though they strike me as stunningly cold.
Dizzee Rascal: Boy In Da Corner
Whenever I can't sleep I usually end up re-reading end of year wrap ups and I think "I Luv U" was in the Top 10 in Stylus' list of Top 50 Singles of 2000-2004 and I was trying to think back to like the 2 times I listened to this album to remember what "I Luv U" sounded like, and I had absolutely no recollection. So I listened to the song and I didn't fall completely in love with it, but it was alluring enough that I was compelled to let the album play through. Where it sounded jagged and blunted to me the first few times, the mix of Dizzee's no-flow and the constant pulsating stabs of whatever Playstation/grime this shit is called kind of has me in awe. It always sounded unapologetically dirty and "grimey," but I never realized how many interesting sounds there were on this album, the least of which is Dizzee's voice. I'm sure this made for a lot of sickening M.I.A.-esque romanticizing of a foreign kid where people used Dizzee's real name in write-ups and whatever so I'm happy I wasn't aware of the internet in 2003 when this came out, and so I'm happy that I stumbled upon it instead of being beaten over the head with it.
The Dismemberment Plan: The Dismemberment Plan is Terrified
Instead of just not caring about this, I was really unaware of its existence up until a few months ago when I started reading more about the D-Plan. I like Emergency & I a lot, but I was never compelled to get a hold of Terrified, but I became friends with this kid a bit older than me that's really into D-Plan, so I got it from him and it's raw and awesome and hilarious and magical and all that teary-eyed adjective shit. I wish I was like 6 years older so I could've been an unrelenting obsessive disciple of this band.Labels: 2007, d-plan, dizzee rascal, spoon
