when i am old i want to be like that komet dude who is like 60-odd and legendary in berlin for going to all the techno shows and doing cool old man gurns to the music
mo are you implying that one 50 year old white lady who got that pic w/ flocka ain't the coolest lady on the planet
old people who genuinely like new music are rare and most people who pretend to do so because they have some ulterior motive. Usually these people are teachers.
when i am old i want to be like that komet dude who is like 60-odd and legendary in berlin for going to all the techno shows and doing cool old man gurns to the music
mo are you implying that one 50 year old white lady who got that pic w/ flocka ain't the coolest lady on the planet
old people who genuinely like new music are rare and most people who pretend to do so because they have some ulterior motive. Usually these people are teachers.
It probably won't interest most of you, but I figure linking it is worth a try anyway.
Just so you can figure out whether you want to click it or not, the title is "Here’s a giant 800-track alt/indie-focused 90's playlist in chronological order".
To potentially reassure you, it's fairly light on radio rock-type stuff, although some of that is on there.
I am going to possibly be starting a music blog (possibly with Tre), possibly called Skeleton City Sounds
furthermore, this is possibly the first draft of a first impressions writeup I would like some feedback on
Lil Wayne - The Free Weezy Album (Young Money)
Lil Wayne is dead. "Rest in peace to the Cash Money Weezy, gone but not forgotten" he warbles, obviously and thankfully not physically dead (the last thing hip-hop needs is more dead legends), elsewhere he says that "reality bit him and continues to bite". What Lil Wayne really is, is tired. He has been tired for years, though we only recently learned why for sure (if you haven't been keeping up; long-running disputes with his former label Cash Money and specifically it's head / Wayne's father figure Birdman). A lot of the album's songs are rap-sung in the same AutoTuned cadence Wayne has been using as his main M.O. since the fourth Carter and other rappers have since made entire careers out of.
There are moments of triumph. Opener "Glory" (which should really have an exclamation point in its title) is the best rapping Lil Wayne has laid to record in several projects. It and the upbeat, horn-driven "I Feel Good" are, one hopes, the most recently-recorded songs on the tape, only because they point to a Weezy that is at least happy. The hyperrepetitive and generally strange "I'm That Ni**a" is similar, but also sees Wayne outshined by relative unknown HoodyBaby. Elsewhere, Wayne's standard money and women talk is mixed with passing mentions of death, dreams of heaven, and an atmosphere of depressed stupor. The combination makes it sound like Wayne is lying to himself on the happier tracks, and other songs just pass by entirely. "Thinking 'Bout You" is as boring as its played-out title. "Without You" sounds like Wayne couldn't get ahold of whoever he actually wanted to sing the hook (Rihanna maybe?) Sometimes he sounds like he's trying to ape any one of his stylistic descendants (Young Thug, Drake, whoever) but can't pick which one.
That said, the album surprises at times. "Murda" is a solid posse cut, featuring an AutoTune-free Wayne spitting one of the album's better verses alongside one of the others by Young Money second-stringer Cory Gunz (you might remember him as the other dude from "6 Ft 7 Ft"). "Pull Up" starts out sounding generic but quickly morphs into a genuinely impressive duet with Euro, Young Money's last notable signee, where both rappers slip into and out of doubletime and Wayne into and out of his AutoTune singing.
So what's the verdict here? Well, it's a step up from the fourth Dedication tape, which was at absolute best kinda catchy, but it's overly long and really slumps in the middle. Cut in half, it'd make a great EP. The best thing that can be said about it is that it doesn't sound phoned-in, as several of his worst tapes have. It's still a lesser entry in the Lil Wayne canon, but more than one or two verses are salvageable, and more than one or two of those verses are Wayne's.
Peak Weezy is not back. It's called Peak for a reason, and he will probably never make another Dedication 2, but he doesn't need to. A mixtape, or even an EP, of the quality as FWA's best tracks would do wonders for him, and he just might have it in him. The converse of "sleep is the cousin of death" is that sometimes what seem to be deaths are just lulls. Wayne has been in a lull for six years, and The Free Weezy Album doesn't quite wake him up, but, at the same time, when Wayne drops the album's title at its very end, at the end of an otherwise lackluster finisher ("Pick Up Your Heart") it makes waking up seem possible, something that even the best of his prior post-No Ceilings projects did not do
Definitely wouldn't mind reading more in this vein from you, Jane. Haven't heard it for myself (I'm not really much of a Weezy listener beyond the scope of hip-hop radio) but your insights about it give a pretty good idea of what we can expect from it. ^__^
(Still totally up for being a team member on the blog, BTW.)
I've been looking for an opportunity to force myself to start a habit of long-form writing for a while now, and I know about genres you two don't know much about.
I wonder if I could join. I understand if you want to keep this just between the two of you, though.
My only requirement is that everyone have at least one day a week they can regularly submit something on. I'm going to be doing first impressions (mostly of rap albums) and occasionally lists.
Evan Parker is, amongst many, many other things, the other man playing the saxophone on Machine Gun, in terms of more pop stuff he has also worked with Scott Walker and Spiritualized
Sainkho Namtchylak is a notable tuvan throat singer
Comments
also techno is kinda pop, or at least it falls under that sorta vague general umbrella if you're speaking broadly about it
i mean it's not classical and it's not free jazz, it has popular appeal
also it was bigger in Europe than in the US
but it's not that it isn't pop, it's just an older genre . . . or was that your point?
I am surprised by this, too.
jane this track seems like it would be your kinda thing
good track title also
(Still totally up for being a team member on the blog, BTW.)
I wonder if I could join. I understand if you want to keep this just between the two of you, though.
I'll figure out how I'll contribute once the blog becomes closer to being a reality.
I think I recognize Evan Parker (he is a jazz dude ye?), who is the other guy