"when music really mattered..."

Great piece by Tom Breihan on why pop music is political, why it isn't usually political in a way that clueless rockers and rock critics notice, and why Tom Morello is an idiot. What could also have been included in the same piece: why that Sandi Thom single is the most pernicious piece of shit that will be released this year. Forget avian flu: nostalgia is still the disease of which we should all be most afraid.

Maybe.

This blog: 200? - 2005.

Not necessarily a permanent hiatus, but for the near future. There are some links on the left for you to go to instead. Those of you who are very clever may be able to find where I'm writing these days that way, too.

show me where your friends at

So Thursday night I was tired and a little stressed and really couldn't find a way to write anything of worth for this week's Stylus, but I wish I'd been able to make just one contribution. Because I just knew, knew, that this week's best single would not get the respect it deserves, that is to say TEN out of TEN.

The Game - 'Put You On The Game'

Timbaland - laughing at the fact he never fell off and the Neptunes did - brings the crazy noise shit, a massive bumping grind reminiscent of both RZA's Ghost Dog soundtrack and his beloved Black Dice. The Game brings the heat. Do you think he really means he wants a woman with a big back, rather than that being a shorthand euphemism? Because y'know, broad shoulders, I totally see the appeal.

alive

Missing Six Feet Under? I know I am. This despite the fact that significant stretches of it depressed the hell out of me at the time. But that doesn't include the last few episodes, which were as good as the show (and by definition any show) has been, and life-affirming to boot.



UK people who are still waiting to see Season 5: I feel your pain, but then again, you've got a treat in store. The rest of you: here's something to remember it by. (But keep the comments box spoiler-free!)

loud

I haven't quite found my album of 2005 yet. Sure, there have been lots of good or even great ones, but I haven't found the one that makes me go totally doolally and obsessive and want to listen to it over and over again.

I suspect Chemistry may be that album. Features the lyrics "If every guy's a dog then baby throw me to the wolves". And 'Biology', the most avant garde single of the year etc etc.

Recent silence has been due to fluxuating internet connection at home. Coming very soon: more MP3s! And they're hot shit, too.

Stylus' UK Singles Jukebox has been held over until Monday, a whole week after stuff actually comes out. I was saving this to coincide with linking to it, but it's too good to wait: the best thing out this week. Clue: it is British hip hop and it is BANGIN'. It will make you want to MOVE or rather MANEUVER yourself. Do you see?

It's official: Everybody Loves Jay-Z. Even Nas!

The stunned crowd of thousands inside the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, screamed in approval as Jay and his former nemesis Nas appeared onstage together, signifying that two of rap's biggest names had finally deaded their once-bitter beef.

"A lot of ni***s is makin' money and still f***in' mad at the world!" Nas said. "We [are] savin' the East Coast with your help."

Nas performed the hook to Jay's "Dead Presidents", followed by his own classic, "The World Is Yours." Jay-Z exited briefly and gave his counterpart time to rock his classic songs like "It Ain't Hard to Tell" and "New York State of Mind."

Jay-Z rejoined Nas onstage and said, "Damn, this is some s**t right here!" Nas spun into "Made You Look'" with Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs, who also performed "Hate Me Now" with the Queens superstar.

"We all in this s**t together," Jay-Z said after the songs. "Y'all witnessed history. Everybody in this building is a part of history. All that beef s**t is wack."

Get that: Nas performed the hook to 'Dead Presidents'. I guess he made it a hot rhyme, and Jay made it a hot song, right? I can't help but feel that Nas has really come to be at peace with himself and his career now - see also the line about "Nas, what the fans want is Illmatic still" on 'We Major' - and I do wonder if Kelis is largely to be thanked for this. Not on much evidence other than the idea that being married to Kelis would probably make a man like Nas a lot less tense. And note that Nas and Puffy performed the song they once fell out over. It really warms your heart.

(This via me_aulnes.)

late review

I must stop trying make things I write for this blog comprehensive, or I'll never get anything posted to it at all, and it'll all be very frustrating. This was intended to be a track-by-track breaksown of Kanye West's Late Registration, which in itself is a frustrating album, because it manages to display an awful lot of talent, whilst ultimately not being very good. It's not just that it's inconsistent and patchy: that was also true of The College Dropout to an extent.

The problem is also that the good tracks on this album are as numerous or as good in themselves as the best tracks on College Dropout. And I say that having given Late Reg time to grow on me, on the basis that I was initially ambivalent about Dropout, but ended up listening to it constantly and considering it one of my favourite albums of 2005. Without wishing to tabulate these things too much, the best track here is 'Gone', and it isn't quite as good as 'Last Call', the best track on his debut. Equally, 'Drive Slow' stands out a mile here in terms of quality, but might not have done quite so much on his debut.

Anyway, here's how far I got with the track-by-track stuff:

'Heard 'Em Say'
Con: features the singer from Maroon 5.

Pro: despite that, this is actually pretty good - Maroon 5 guy is just confined to some vaguely generic backing vocals, and doesn't really indulge in any of the distinctively bad vocal ticks which help make Maroon 5 records the disaster they are. Nice piano sample, and lyrics make me think of 'We Don't Care' in terms of tone - that almost fatalistic attitude towards life being shit that Kanye sometimes comes with.

'Touch The Sky'
Con: I actually think 'Touch The Sky' makes Kanye seem a lot like Puffy (circa several years ago now) - the obviousness of the sample, the slightly clumsy rapping, the smug-and-corny shouts of "Top of the world, baby!"

Pro: Then again, I may be one of the few people here who doesn't think that's entirely a bad thing. When I'm in the right mood, this song really amps me up (the secret is to play it as loud as possible). And I love the lines about Cam'Ron and pink Polos.

'Gold Digger'
To chop up what I said on Stylus...
Con: Kanye West's increasingly rubbish attitude to women - "I want to touch their bottoms but what if they steal all my lovely money?" - which wouldn't bother me if stupid stupid journalists for broadsheet newspapers and the like didn't tend to call him a refreshing alternative to macho sexist gangsta rap, or whatever.

Pro: The beat is 100% irresistable brilliance, particularly the sound that comes in around 2 minutes 42 seconds in. I could listen to that sound for hours. Also time has revealed that this one sticks with you - you find yourself wanting to hear it out as often as possible, so you can do the Jamie Foxx dance to it.

'Drive Slow'
Pro: Doesn't have something on it that annoys me. Makes me wonder what the Paul Wall album is like.

'Home' / 'Crack Music'
Con: I still cannot get over the way you have a solo Common track followed by a track on which The Game says like three words. Wrong way round, Kanye!

Pro: Shame too 'cos 'Crack Music' is a good beat, it could just do without that monologue at the end, and needs a guest verse.

'Bring Me Down'
I quite like 'Bring Me Down', but it's a bit too much of an inferior re-tread of 'Never Let Me Down'.

'Diamonds From Sierra Leone'
Incidentally, if Jay-Z has a cunning plan to make everybody so desperate for him to come out of retirement to such an extent that nobody ever accuses him of having planned the whole thing in the first place... He's going about it the right way.

'Hey Mama'
Pro: I've read even critics who give the album a good review dissing this as mawkish and corny or whatever. I mostly disagree: it stood out as one of my immediate favourites, that production is so LUSH, and the sentiment's no more 'mawkish' than Ghostface's 'All That I Got Is U'.

Con: Those lines about his mum being like a book of poetry are a bit much. If it was just one line, that would probably be okay, but to extent the metaphor... Ick.

'We Major'
I'm still annoyed by the way Kanye says "We major? We major!" - it's sort of over-intoned. What I like about is, I suppose, the Nas verse - the way he seems to have developed a tone of voice that says "No, I've never equalled that first album, but on the other hand, I do spend a lot of time with Kelis. With no clothes on."

'Gone'
Pro: Will definitely be on my songs of the year list if I make one. That Cam'Ron verse!

Con: I'm not sure there is one, but I might come back to this.

'We Can Make It Better'
Con: This, on the other hand, borders on the unforgiveable.

The Skits
Pro: No, there is nothing good about the skits either.

Con: The other day, I was on the Tube with this album on 'random' and got two "broke, broke broke!" skits in a row. At that moment, had Kanye appeared in front of me wearing one of his Noel Edmunds jumpers, I think I might have punched him on the nose.