Rolling Stone Does Playlists

The latest issue of Rolling Stone highlights 50 legends of music, past and present, and has them do variations on a theme: the top ten list. MGMT gives their top 10 psychedelia songs, Yoko does John, Drake does Hendrix, Keith Richards does roots and reggae. All in all, it's awesome.

Since I'm 1) feeling a little lazy and 2) really want to share this, I'm highlighting two lists from two huge record heads -- Mark Ronson and ?uestlove.

Mark Ronson on Stevie Wonder:

Mark Ronson has been DJing for dozens of years while also bringing the soul to the studio as a producer for Ghostface, Amy Whinehouse, Lily Allen, Wale, and many more.

1. "Big Brother"
2. "All I Do"
3. "I Was Made To Love Her"
4. "Superwoman"
5. "As"
        This song just builds and jams on itself. Ronson says it incites soul dance-offs and lovefests. Stevie's voice commands the track while his fingers blow your mind.
6 "I Don't Know Why"
7. "Happier Than the Morning Sun"
8. "That Girl"
9. "I Believe"
10. "Living for the City" 
          This song just got so much emotion going into it. Every time I hear it I get a little chill. Not to mention it has one of the darker and funkiest keyboard intros in the history of music.


?uestlove on Prince:

?uestlove of The Roots fame is a music junkie with a record collection befitting of his giant frame and persona. Dude's also a killer DJ.


1. "Baby I'm a Star (Live from Landover, MD)
2. "Movie Star"
3. "Irresistable Bitch"/"Tricky"/"Cloreen Bacon Skin"
4. "Little Red Corvette"
5. "Lady Cab Driver"
      This is a funky little number that according to ?uestlove turned him onto Prince back in the day. Maybe it was the angry sex/orgasm vocals that play for a good minute smack in the middle of the song, or maybe its the dope disco jam that follows for another 4 minutes. Both had me going.
6. "The Bird" (Rehearsal Demo)
7. "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker"
8. "The Sex of It"
9. "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore"
      Aside from the title sounding like a text a middle school girl would send to her crush, this song is sophisticated sexy. Prince channels early soul and gospel while getting to the basics of acoustic bass, piano, and drums done to minimalist syncopated perfection.
10. "Erotic City"


Check the source for all the playlists at Rolling Stone

Can We Get Much Higher?

Kanye dropped My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on Monday, the clean version leaked a little over 2 weeks ago, but I haven't really given the thing a fair thorough listen until today. When I heard Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10 and Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars, I was immediately skeptical. I had heard a bunch of the singles and Good Friday tracks and while there were some great moments, by no means was it at a "best shit ever" type level that those ratings should connote. (The last album to get a 10.0 from Pitchfork was "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel" in 2002). Having really listened to it, shit is hot but not perfect.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy might be the best and most accurate album title of any album in the past few years. Each of these words alone can aptly describe the album, or Kanye himself :

My - This is Kanye's album. He is on top of the world and he aint making albums for anyone else. He can be a douche, he's arrogant, he knows it, but thats him and thats his music. I mean he solos on a vocoder for 3 minutes in "Runaway." But interestingly, while this album is Kanye West, more than any other album, he lets go of the reins. Every song has an incredible guest rapping a verse, singing a hook, or even laying the production. RZA is the principal architect of the perfect "Dark Fantasy," S1 led the production of"Power", and "Devil in A New Dress" is produced by bink!. For this I only have praise for Kanye. Ironically, it takes a lot to put some ego aside in the name of a better record.

Beautiful- A lot of this album is just beautiful. The instrumentation, the plush beats, the singing, the complexity. The re-emerging musical themes. The more chilling, barer and starker instrumentations. 

Dark- While everyone is quick to say how this album is such a celebration, especially compared to 808s and Heartbreak, Fantasy still a a darker element to it. Although Kanye has recently semi-apologized for his remarks about George Bush hating black people, you can tell 'Ye is still effected by racism. 

"As long as I’m in Polo, smilin’, they think they got me
But they’d try to crack me if they ever see a black me
I thought I chose a field where they couldn’t sack me
If a nigga ain’t shootin’ a jump, try runnin’ a track meet
But this pimp is at the top of Mount Olympus"

Beneath all the maximalism and ego of this album there's still a man struggling with race, fame, and identity. All narcissism is bedded in some insecurity. For him to acknowledge that is what makes his art relatable.

Twisted- Have you seen the album covers?

Fantasy- The album is indulgence. And maybe thats what we need. It's not flawless. It's not a 10. But its damn fuckin good. 

Hottest Tracks:

"Dark Fantasy", "Devil in a New Dress", "Power", "Monster", "Gorgeous"

Best line:

"Yeezy reupholstered my pussy"

mp3:

Kanye West - Devil in a New Dress

Nicki Minaj aka Roman Zolanski aka Best Rapper Alive

Ok, so maybe my title is going a step too far, but for real, name a rapper out there right now who has eaten up (and i mean fuckin devoured) more tracks in the past year. She's shared the mic with Eminem, Jay-Z, Drake, Weezy, Kanye, Rick Ross, etc etc, and she has showed up almost every single one of them (I declare a tie with Eminem). If you told me a year ago that a female MC would dominate the game and make my pants tingle by just listening to her rhymes, I'd probably just have chorkled and proceded to take another bite of my steak.

But Nicki or Roman or Onicka brings an energy and complexity to her characters and verses that goes way beyond a hot flow or ill rhyme. There's the kind of in-verse conversation between her different characters which can only really be pulled off by the best (biggie, jay-z, em). When you first hear it, it sounds like she's just crazy (alla "Monster") but thats kinda the point. She's letting us see these personas, different sides of herself, and she's in charge. It's the female answer to Slim Shady, and as we see on "Roman's Revenge" Nicki's alter ego can definitely hold her own.

As Nicki continues to develop her skills, I hope these characters will continue to progress as well. Some next level shit -- real distinctive flow, voices, narratives. Maybe I'm taking it too far, but she did study drama at LaGuardia HS.  Which makes me think of "Taina" meeting "True Life: How to Become the Baddest Rapper Alive" (Taina anyone, anyone, please?)

Anywayyy, "Pink Friday" drops on Monday, but I couldn't hold my load. 

These are her latests and greatests with some not so shabby co-track murderers. Fire.
Cop the album. Pre-order here

Nicki Minaj - Blazin' (featuring Kanye West)
Nicki Minaj - Roman's Revenge (featuring Eminem)
Kanye West - Monster (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Nicki)

Throwback Thursday: The Grey Album

In honor of me moving my iTunes library to an external harddrive and my computer actually working properly for the first time in 3 years, I'm digging into the chest for another throwback. And I've pulled out Danger Mouse's The Grey Album.

The Grey Album was the first album I ever reviewed as a dreamy sophomore in high school. Half little hippy love-child obsessed with the psychedelic sounds of the 60s and half little white boy blasting rap to try and channel my inner black soul, the blend of The Beatles' White Album and Jigga's The Black Album was a God-send. Danger Mouse masterfully looped instrumental sounds from The Beatles most intimate album to accentuate Jay-Z's introspective look at his career in what was supposed to be his farewell to hip-hop.

What Danger Mouse did with the The Grey Album was much deeper than just a cool concept that sounded ill. He took the biggest giant of pop music history -- The Beatles -- and put them on the same platform as the biggest figure in hip-hop history. The result was they each made the other one better. The Beatles not only sounded good with Jay-Z, the album made us realize how edgy these dudes really were. Forty years after the fact, the music is still killing it. Not only that but they were making Jay-Z sound better too. Behind his normal plush, bass driven beats, Jay-Z was a pimp, the man, but not since Reasonable Doubt was he accessible, vulnerable. Yet when Danger Mouse played "December 4th" over a sample of The Beatles' "Mother Nature's Son" Jigga came down to Earth a little, and that's a good thing. Over George Harrison's classic "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," Jay-Z emotion feels that much more raw, his pain real.

Finally, what the album did (for me at least) was it made The Black Album and The White Album that much better. Now that I saw these songs in a different light, I could go back to the originals and understand their complexity all the better. This album changed it all and it still sounds dope. Danger Mouse, damn. This my friends is what a mashup is supposed to do.

The Grey Album - December 4th

The Grey Album - What More Can I Say

Jay-Z - What More Can I Say (Black Album)

The Beatles - Mother Nature's Son (White Album)

Body Language

Last spring I brought up Body Language to play music amongst the pine trees at my school in New Hampshire. While I wasn't sure if the mellow synth vibes and dreamy vocals would appeal to the drunken party masses, I trusted some reviews that said they killed it live. Let's just say they led 40 people running in a mad circle during "Huffy Ten Speed" and stole the show. Not to mention lead singer Angelica Bess jamming out on a mini xylophone (there's a name for this) was one of the more badass things I've seen.

Anywho, they recently put out a new 4 track EP called "Social Studies," and besides from being named after my favorite elementary school subject (sup Ms. Reisack!), it happens to hold it down pretty seriously. Starting with the spacy chilled out "You Can," Body Language hits their disco stride perfectly to a dope bass line with "Falling Out." While the verses feel like Chromeo, the chorus echoes more an Aaliyah-type R&B vibe. The third track "Social Studies" is the pop banger with hit potential. I remember them playing this up in NH, and everyone was having a blast. The EP rounds out with "Tempoture" which moves more experimental and into Dirty Projector-ish territory. They are an indie band after all.

Overall, the EP shows a lot of diversity without ever sounding gimicky or untrue to the band. They're a blast live and I suggest ringing in Hova's birthday with them on December 4th at Glasslands.

Check out the album on Bandcamp: http://bodylanguage.bandcamp.com/album/social-studies-ep
I think you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Remix time:

Body Language - Sandwiches (Alaska in Winter Remix)    so dopppeeee
Body Language - Work This City (Sammy Bananas Remix)

Julia

Muses come by all forms, shapes, sizes, and names. But in the world of music and muses, not all names are created equal. Petunia just does not sound as sweet as say Melissa. Or for that matter Julia. 

Whenever I hear a song that's named after a girl, I wonder about the story of the actual girl. Who is Julia, or Jessica, or Sylvia, or Layla? "Layla" was actually Pattie Boyd, but hearing Clapton wail about Pattie, just wouldnt sound as good, would it?

I don't know too many Julias, but the name evokes some dark, mysterious artist type...

Aight, fuck it. I just like some songs that are called Julia, and I enjoy the mystery of the muse behind the name.

The Beatles - Julia

The Very Best - Julia (Theophilus London Remix)

and

Julia - Cocaine (The Knocks Remix)

(Photo is Julia Perez)