[Pitchfork]

I just get the most painful nostalgia

[The Alt Report]

Stuff White People Like: Thinking they know more about hip hop than other white people

Apparently, in his recent review of Big Boi's new album, Sasha Frere-Jones didn't find it important to talk about any of the rapper's work pre-2003, and, furthermore, to properly discuss the album he was reviewing. This isn't the first time Frere-Jones has fallen short in the face of a hip hop review. While that piece on MF Doom last fall was solid, really solid, I always find his reviews to exhibit such a narrow, well, aging white person perspective; they lack a general understanding of hip hop as a genre, and base their critiques on trivial elements usually involving an artist's career, blankly bypassing the heart of the album, the point. In this review, Frere-Jones spends a lot of time discussing the style on Big Boi's most recent Speakerboxxx album and his decision to release Sir Luscious under Def Jam, but doesn't bother mentioning any of Big Boi's, or Outkast's earlier work. I understand that Frere-Jones is attempting to paint a portrait of the artist by spending 3/4 of the article dissecting his previous work, but when you limit the scale of that portrait to that of a single, fairly commercial album released ten years after the beginning of an artist's career, it just seems silly. I appreciate that the New Yorker branches out into the genre when it does, but I just wish it tackled the subject with the same level of no-fucking-around-legitimacy that it does everything else. Like, if they want help, they can just ask, you know? In any case, the last paragraph was pretty good, so here it is:

"The musical DNA of 'Sir Luscious' lies in a simple strategy that Big Boi has used for years: he often raps in double time, no matter what the tempo of the song is. This means that even the slower songs, like 'Fo Yo Sorrows' and 'General Patton' (the latter has one of the better opera samples in recent hip-hop), which hover at around eighty beats per minute, don't drag--Big Boi uses the space in the beat to provide another rhythm with his words. More than once, I thought of the clatter of a lawnmower, where secondary rhythms whisper underneath the main beat. Though there are rappers with more puns and wider purviews than Big Boi--he raps too often about the club, for instance--there are not many who can be simultaneously forceful and careful. Despite any clichés about Southern dispositions, Big Boi is never laid back when he raps: he defines wide-awake."

[The New Yorker, 8/2/2010]

"Almost midway into Pilot Talk, there's a line that gets right to the heart of Curren$y's appeal: "Xbox web browser/ Download a updated NBA roster/ Play a 82-game season/ Condo full of snacks, Spitta not leaving." Not too many rappers could get away with bragging about sitting in their apartments all day playing NBA Liveand eating Doritos, and even fewer would try. But Curren$y has hit a certain level of mixtape-level cult stardom in part because he's perfected his amiable everydude stoner persona, and that comes across vividly in that line even though he never mentions weed. He doesn't have to; it's implied. The other thing about that line is its specificity. Curren$y's not just a guy who plays NBA Live all day; he's also one who makes sure he does it right, getting the updated roster. It might harsh his buzz if new Bull Carlos Boozer suddenly turned up in his old Utah Jazz uniform. He appreciates the smaller things."

The opening paragraph of this Pitchfork review of the new Curren$y album is pretty spot on, mostly because I've definitely had that thought at one point while listening to that track, and a couple others on that album, while sitting in my apartment eating Doritos and feeling elite. I've been bumping that album a lot since it came out earlier this summer, been burning it for my friends, recommending it to strangers. For fear of sounding too Pitchfork-happy, I'll just say that yeah, it is a perfect mid-summer album, especially if you have to spend three days cleaning your new house because the previous tenant was a hoarder.

[Tom Breihan, Pitchfork, 7/30/2010]

These are selfish times, I got shellfish dimes and sanddollars

I've been listening to Why?'s Elephant Eyelash all week. It's very nice, which you probably already know. This album is like if cLOUDDEAD fucked Built to Spill, and Interpol filmed it, then laid down some guitar riffs in the background.

last.fm/user/davidguest

I've created a new Last.fm page, as my previous one was corroded with all the crap I've been listening to dating back to my discovery of Rilo Kiley. Consider this a new era indeed. No but seriously. Can't believe I danced for so long in those cowboy boots last night without sawing off my feet. Or that I just trekked to the beach (was it even a beach?), even climbed a big tree, barefoot, after having consumed a pot of mussels and a bottle of wine. Or that I have three days to pack up everything in this apartment and get to Spain. Or that I just accidentally ordered a heap of 120 film instead of 135 for the third time in a row. Or that this weather is so, fucking, amazing.

Breakfast

I've been listening to pretty much this cycle of tracks every morning for the past week, and we all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I've been bumping all of these albums fairly heavily lately, especially the Pete Rock & Slum Village, and I'm quite fond of the new Gorillaz album--it's a funny little album, but somehow the whole Lou Reed/Mos Def hanging out at Koopa Troopa Beach thing manages to come off as refreshing; whimsical and subtle, for an experiment with jungle dub. It's unapologetically silly. Even the cheesy Snoop Dogg track is great. An excellent Madlib beat, some Of Montreal classics, etc. etc. Well balanced; twenty minutes of music is just enough time for a double espresso and a joint before class; good morning.

[Download]

1. Pete Rock f/ RZA & GZA - Head Rush - Soul Survivor II

2. Slum Village - 5 Ela Remix - Fan-Tas-Tic, Vol. 1

3. Gorillaz f/ Little Dragon - To Binge - Plastic Beach

4. Madlib - Dirty Hop (The Shuffle) - Beat Conducta, Vol. 5-6

5. Of Montreal - Mingusings - Skeletal Lamping

6. Of Montreal - So Begins Our Alabee - The Sunlandic Twins

7. Otis Redding - She's Alright

Don't even mix coke with the Henney

Clean up: the past two months

End of Week Beastmode

[And just because it's Sunday Funday]

T-bone steak, cheese eggs, and Welch's Grape

"Forget the telly, we just go to the crib and watch a movie in the jacuzzi, smoke L's while you do me."

Everything in that sentence is just so appealing. I like to think I wouldn't go for it, but I probably would. This track is always so tight, even if it is played or whatever. I think the key is to understand that Biggie is not the guy trying to generically creep on chicks at the bar, but the subtle, solid underdog who sneaks up behind you after the other dude has already paid for your drink, politely asks about your interests, and then smokes you up and lets you watch tv in his hot tub.

I'm fit with the stuff to ride in the rough

Happy Friday

Today's glitzy androgyny

I'll stop believing in you if you stop believing in me

I can think of few more pleasurable situations than riding shotgun in your own car on a rainy DC night as your designated driver high-tails it home through the city after a delightful evening of plastic-cupped martinis and early-'90ssitcomthemesongsingalongs, while this plays over the shitty soundsystem, and the rain pours through the cracked window to splatter the right side of your wasted body while you suck and puff, and the sound of the wetness under the tires whooshes, and the road glistens.


I farking love the Unicorns, always will.

the worth of my birth is a billion

Bon Vendredi.

She lifted up her wings..

Get yourselves through the week.

Comin' down on a sunny day

On Saturday it rained so hard that Brigid's car filled with water. That, upon coming home from the liquor store, we were so hesitant to get out and run inside that we just stayed in the car and drank in the driveway. That the pool almost overflowed. On Sunday we drove a long time to get to the beach, and then, shortly after we watched the lifeguards drag in their stands from the shoreline, it rained again, and we left, watching gaps in the sand fill with water to form tiny, tin-colored lagoons. So it was what it was, the weekend it rained. Last night we went to Wendy's well after closing, 1/3 of us barefoot and 3/3rds drunk, and we walked through the drive-thru, and I ordered a fruit punch with my cheeseburger because they didn't have orange soda, and when we got back home I spiked it with vodka, and this morning, Brigid found all the rain in her car.

drink my liquor from an old fruit jar

A local radio station around these parts is giving away tickets to this. I don't even really know what a "Blue Suede Cruise" entails.. I just know I sort of want to be on it, sporting a bouffant.

It was Johnny Hopkins and Sloane Kettering, and they were blazin' that shit up everyday.

Current interests include: oil pastel sketches of common bathroom items, the whistling sound in the background of "Good Vibrations," rose-salted baths, silk nightgowns, vegetarian mayonnaise, sitting on the pier chomping on Swedish Fish with the surprisingly sharp-witted Joshua, not biting my nails, Ponds face cream, picking wildflowers, anxiously awaiting the return of Mad Men, turning my ex-boyfriend's boxers into art, that topless picture of Putin, and this song:

young fashioned ways