Jingle Fever: April 2007

Sunday, April 29, 2007

It Must Be Summer Love

LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

THE OFFICIAL SNACK OF HIP-HOP!

Labels: rap snacks, rappers who aren't fat joe, yung joc

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

"DARK SIDE OF THE MOON" OF STARBUCKS ROCK

Leslie Feist bridges the geographical gap between France and French Canada and your face as seamlessly as she consumes the interval between talented chanteuse and stone cold fox (eat that, Mama Cass!). Her voice is terrific, and while it's easy to be tempted to sign off her niche as one tackled ad nauseam, I refuse to capitulate. Instead, her siren song is one of another world, a refreshing and heartening waft that eludes even Starbucks, unless they're playing her I guess. Feist brings delightful vitality even to those songs she didn't scribe. There's a great adventurousness and escapism to her style, from her uplifting voice to the dazzling keys and heavy, ubiquitous bass that color her cheery sepia lyrics. Her music videos mirror that fantasy and cheekiness beautifully- lots of hedonist smiley-clappy group dancing a la Blues Brothers and vapid situations-turned-dance spectaculars.

So I'm on a Feist kick. I got Let it Die a month ago and I've been all over it since. I'm trying to compensate for the three years I didn't spend with LID before I jump into The Reminder, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The fact that I've only recently happened upon Feist makes every song all the more sweet- like finding out you're not actually allergic to something delicious after two decades of silly apprehension. Feist registers more with personal distinction than soft jazz ingenuity- she's talented, pretty, and charming behind a microphone and her large, obscuring electric guitar.

Feist- Mushaboom
Feist- Secret Heart
Feist- 1234
Feist- My Moon My Man

Labels: allergies, crushes, feist

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Please, Take a Ride With Me

My favorite blog on the internet is called Free Darko. It's dudes who blog about the NBA. They have an abstract, never-defined, much bantered about "defintion" of what Free Darko stands for and the players that represent it. Here's a list from a while back. Many people argued about it.

Basically, I've compiled a list of artists who most define what I stand for in this here pop music world. I'm not waxing romantic or philosophic as much as trying to let it be known who in music I ride for. These aren't my favorite artists. Many of my favorite bands in the world (Bloc Party, the Strokes, Wolf Parade) do not appear on this list. I don't necessarily like much or any of the music of some people who appear on this list. I think 98% of Juelz Santana's recorded music is complete shit, but the man walks around in public with a tissue sticking out of his nose to stop sinus problems and keeps stacks of money in the bandana around his head. I ride for this man.

What my criteria here is unexplainable really. The abstract term gully might be the closest actual word that would encompass where I'm coming from. But with that being said, I would classify Paula Dean as gully, so take my definition of gulliness with a grain of salt. So here, then, is my list of the artists/bands (currently alive) that for some reason(s) have a permanent and nearly-forever home in my heart.

(In order of JFness.)

(Meandering explanations on the inclusion of artists' on this ever-expanding list possibly available upon request.)

1. Lil Wayne
2. Akon
3. Da Band (R.I.P.)
4. Meg White
5. Murphy Lee
6. Juelz Santana
7. The Rapture
8. Cam'ron
9. Beyonce
10. Kanye West
11. Remy Ma
12. Yung Joc
13. Andrew Bird
14. Jim Jones
15. The Clipse
16. Crime Mob

Labels: jingle fever

Friday, April 13, 2007

...If You Apply Some Pressure

Download: LCD Soundsystem: "North American Scum" (LP Version)
LCD Soundsystem: "North American Scum" (Live on Letterman)

Please hold back your vomit, but Sound of Silver is also my favorite album of this short year. I find "North American Scum", though, to be quite drab and punishingly anticlimactic. It's maybe the 7th or 8th best song on the album, buoyed only by what is some pretty great writing and that awesome "TAKE MEEEEE BACK TO THE STAAAAAAATES MAAAAAAAN!" part.

This live version here is worlds better. James Murphy and his band are forced to condense the song into about three-and-a-half minutes (basically half the runtime of the original), and the forced speed by default forces the song to muster the punch it never really had . And I know this laid-back impassiveness and detachment is part of Murphy's steez, but this sped-up version sounds like a complete call-to-arms, and it works better on about seven different levels.

Then there's the instrumentation: percussion by a few dudes that sounds like about 700 guys playing exclusively coconut and sea shells, blaring blaring blaring horns from the Letterman house band and itchy, scratchy guitars. And then there's the vocals: a pretty cute Asian girl provides the more assertive female backing vocals, but it's Murphy— with about 9 improved parts to overshadow him— who's the clincher. A completely virtuosic performance; a pitch-perfect exercise in taut restraint leading to a transcendent final minute.

Labels: 2007, does david letterman actually like indie music?, lcd soundsystem

Friday, April 06, 2007

This Is Why I'm (Insert Pun Here)

Mims' new album is called Music is My Savior (Sidebar: I thought Pitbull would have copyrighted turning proper nouns into bad acronymic rap album titles by now). I haven't heard it and I don't plan on hearing it. What's got me all twisted up is just the name itself. Not the who, what, where or when (although those also); I'm more concerned with the why.

"This Is Why I'm Hot" is pretty standard fare in terms of what we've been getting from debut rap singles recently. I'm basically referring to "It's Goin' Down" and "Shoulder Lean" here, and both are enduringly great songs that will be inextricably tied to each other, in my mind at least. More than anything about those songs, I was always curious about the empty threats and empty boasting (I guess "braggadocio" if you will), not because I was offended personally about their possible (and probable) inauthenticity, but because I was intrigued as to why Joc/Dro thought they could get away with this audacious type of braggadocio without someone calling bullshit.

Both Joc/Dro gave off this air that they had already beaten the game at it's own game, that they were just using rap or at the very least passing through it for the quick(er) bucks. This doesn't really surprise me— Clipse and Jeezy make no qualms about this rich before rap type of thing— and it's obviously the culture rap lives in now, so I assumed Mims in the same light as those guys in terms of what I thought he was trying to portray himself as.

Thing with calling his album Music is My Savior is that it makes him infintely more human than those guys, in the sense that if I also happened to stumble upon the number one single in country, music would indeed also be my savior. I don't care about my rappers being relatable, human, real or any of that crap, but I was totally thrown for a loop by Mims flipping the script and painting himself as a slave to the music when "This Is Why I'm Hot" would seem to try and do otherwise.

I never thought I'd say that I completely have no handle on who Mims is as a person, or who he's trying to portray himself as in this rap game, but I don't. This whole "savior" deal has made him in my eyes one of the most compelling personalities of this short year, joining the likes of Gilbert Arenas (R.I.P.) and (pause) Donald Trump. (In the name of all that is holy).

Labels: heat, mims, rappers who aren't fat joe

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Flava In Ya Ear 01: Only Because My Brain is Fried

More on these later... you've been warned...

(A playlist of sorts... in no particular order, for no particular audience.)

Rich Boy ft. Polow da Don: "Throw Some D's" (Effortless.)
T-Pain ft. Yung Joc: "Buy You a Drink" (Can T-Pain get some love, internet?)
The Field: "Everyday" (Gave me that feeling in my stomach like going down a roller coaster.)
Young Jeezy ft. R. Kelly: "Go Getta" (Gorilla stomps.)
Young Dro: "Shoulder Lean" (That dude.)
Sean Paul & Rihanna: "Break It Off" (Fuck a Beoncye/Shakira collaboration.)
Gui Boratto: "Beautiful Life" (Life affirming. Also: this intro sounds like the intro to "Rebellion (Lies)")
R. Kelly ft. T.I. and T-Pain: "I'm a Flirt" (Didn't call it a comeback.)
Bloc Party: "The Marshalls Are Dead" (Pre-Silent Alarm fireball.)

Labels: flava in ya ear, what exactly is house music?

Sunday, April 01, 2007

The Laws Have Changed

You know you're in too deep when you belly laugh after pilot Matt introduces flight attendant Kim.

Labels: cross-country flying

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