Contemporary hip-hop's emphasis on sampling has its share of pitfalls (see: P. Diddy) but occasionally makes the old and forgotten seem wonderfully new and urgent. And given Kanye West's eclectic musical tastes, it's not surprising that a bunch of unexpected and esoteric samples pop up on his most recent effort, Graduation.
West's "Champion," in particular, anchors its hook on a triumphant-sounding lyric from Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne," a single from their 1976 effort The Royal Scam It's there because it includes the word "champion" and is generally illustrative of West's declarations of his own musical prowess.
But in cribbing some lines from a pair of the most notoriously oblique lyricists in American pop music, I believe, West is doing more than creating a record that builds his appeal amongst the hipster set. He's created his own Royal Scam, an album for the dancefloor that also reflects a certain amount of cultural malaise. It's not difficult to trace the lineage of West's darker, more spastic narratives back to the arch sarcasm of Steely Dan ("Drunk and Hot Girls" certainly owes a little something to the Dan's irrationally exuberant ode to safe sex in the '70s, "The Fez").
Even if Kanye is all about cultivating a certain image, popularizing Venetian-blind sunglasses and appearing onstage with Peter Bjorn and John, his consciousness of his own place in the pop culture spectrum is enough to turn nearly anything he does into a riff on the bling-and-booty excess of mainstream hip-hop. Is Kayne the next Walter Becker or Donald Fagen? If his music continues to resonate with the current gangsta-weary, ironic zeitgeist, it might not be as odd as it sounds.
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When I first discovered and got into the genre 4 years ago, I thought Powerpop had more or less been dead for 10-15 years. I bought and downloaded every compilation I could find: the D.I.Y. series, the Children of Nuggets 4-disc set, anything that included "Yellow Pills" in its title, etc... There were plenty of compilations to find if you looked hard enough. And there was a reason why the sound quality sounded so poor: Everything was recorded in the 70s and 80s. Every now and then I'd discover a song from the early 90s, but generally I couldn't find anything substantial "powerpop" later than 1993. What happened to this once magical genre?
The Records, 20/20, Badfinger, Cheap Trick, The Motors, The Bats, the dB's, etc...
Their sound was seemingly terminated somewhere in the late 80s...
Rather than continue on about my frustrations... I'll get to the point. Powerpop got lost amid the punk movement and the MTV generation. Much of early punk was an outlash almost directly at the suburban spheres where Powerpop bands flourished. The two hated each other. Neither got much public attention and skinny guys in skinny ties were easy targets for the punks. Where does MTV fit in? I was a tyke when it started up in the 80s, but anyone from that era can tell you the music they featured was mainstream and still is. They weren't revolutionary because they featured music videos from underground bands, they were revolutionary because they played music videos (I'll give them credit for championing pseudo/post-powerpop bands, however. Read up and R.E.M., if you are interested).
There's no clear boundary in my mind it was more or less a gradual decrease in the number of bands cranking out jangly guitar-licks and straightforward lyrics about girls they are hopelessly in love with. The day came sometime last summer. I moved back to my hometown for 3 months to wash dished at a local restaurant and enjoy the scenery and culture of the Deep South. I think it was a dream I had or a hallucination... whatever it was it finally made all the elements crystal clear to me.
Theory: Powerpop from the 70s/80s never fully died out. It simply became gradually less accessible to the public therefore limiting expose to the thousands of teens that form bands everyday and emulate their favorite groups.
It's not a nobel-winning theory, but I think it works. I realized this after coming across bands like Gentleman Jesse and His Men, Cause Co-motion, True Love, and The Nice Boys. All contemporary groups with sounds straight out of the late 70s. But why all of a sudden are they popping their heads up? Why not in 1995? Why not in 2000? It's my belief that downloading, blogs, and music forums have all enabled a new generation of impressionable teens to stumble across the genre that would have otherwise been forgotten. I mean... how did I find out about the genre? I read a thread about it on a music forum. Thank technology for allowing the cycle to continue.
The Nice Boys - Johnny Guitar
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Cheap and quick - it's how all of us expect to get our music delivered nowadays. Internet megasite Amazon.com has released their new service, AmazonMP3 to meet our expectations. Rivaling other services like iTunes, Rhapsody, and Napster, AmazonMP3 aims to provide a plethora of music downloads for relatively low prices. With currently over 2 million songs, there is surely something to please everyone.
What's the difference between this and iTunes? Not everybody has an iPod, and therefore not everybody uses iTunes. The great thing about AmazonMP3 is that it provides DRM-free files that can be played in any media player and on any media device. Also, like other services, AmazonMP3 provides all the necessities - 30 second samples for each song, embedded album art, and high quality sounds. The best part, however, is the difference in price. Here is a chart comparing it to iTunes and Napster:
What's the catch? There isn't really a catch per se, but the service does require you to download the Amazon MP3 Downloader software onto your computer. Fortunately, this is a quick and painless process. You simply choose your artist and song, pay for it using your Amazon account, and the download automatically begins in the MP3 Downloader. High download speeds will get you your music before you know it.
Happy downloading!
Link: AmazonMP3.com
Currently listening to
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Service | Song price | Album price | File format |
---|---|---|---|
iTunes | $0.99 | $9.99 | AAC |
Napster | $0.99 | $9.95 | WMA |
AmazonMP3 | $0.89-$0.99 | $6.99-$9.99 | MP3 |
Currently listening to
Atreyu | |
Our Sick Story |
As a place known for its crabs (yum), murder rate (1 every 29 hours), and football (we don't talk about the O's when they suck), BALTIMORE sure has a weird music scene. Imagine a city sprawled out on a harbor full of east coast history and urban decay.
The ingredients:
2 cups Prep
3 pints Gangster
1 tbs. Suburbia
4 oz. Business
1/2 cup Homeless
1 Dash of Old Bay
2 Pinches of Art
It kind of makes you wonder how such a city spawned bands and artists that are so far removed from the norm (or maybe it's exactly the kind of place you'd expect anything but the norm). Oddness aside, growing up in the suburbs, I wasn't even aware a music scene existed in Bal'mor. I mean, we had maybe four music venues, a couple of rock fests, and that Orchestra my parents raised me on (not to mention the Peabody Choir I sang in... I got beat up a lot...). Who knew there was a quirky collection of artists hiding amongst the ghettoed victorian row houses and towering concrete business structures. It wasn't until I moved to such a vibrantly musical city like Los Angeles that I started to notice how a lot of the music I was getting into out here was actually coming from my good ol' hometown of Baltimore... and it was the oddest of the odd. Dan Deacon (video below), Animal Collective (all over KSCR airwaves), Spank Rock (nasty lyrics indeed), Cex (mp3), Frank Zappa (duh, he's a freak), and Beach House (tamest of them all), just to name a few Bmore artists that have been receiving more and more attention, both from me and the rest of the music universe. Even Tupac kind of got started in Baltimore (do some research). With the exception of Pac and Beach House, you have yourself some of the weirdest (or most brilliantly unique?) people making music ever.
Maybe L.A. isn't the place for you, Mr. Hipster. That is to say, even Pitchfork did a special on Whartscape. If it's the one of a kind you want blasting through your stereo, scaring all those mainstream listeners away, then head to Baltimore and pick up a demo off the street. It seems like it might be weirder than anything you'll hear here... Unless you go to the Neighboorhood Fest.
Here's Dan Deacon performing without a crazy crowd fucking up the video (youtube some more vids of this guy and you'll know what i mean).
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If you're into "indie"/"college rock" (or whatever unassuming genre you place the music you listen to into in order to avoid seeming pretentious), you're keenly aware of the music juggernaut that is Pitchforkmedia.com
Love it or hate it, we know you've got an opinion on the site. The fact of the matter is that Pitchfork is downright ubiquitous. The site has made careers (the Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!) and has blacklisted a number of bands from the "will one day receive credibility for their efforts list". The most obvious example of a group falling into this genre is the Australian garage/60's revival/absolutely terrible Jet. Pitchfork's review of their first album, "Get Born", is innocent enough. The site's review of their second album, "Shine On", is an absolute gem. And, in case you weren't aware, the site's review of Belle and Sebastian's "Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant" was used by the writers of the film High Fidelity during a discussion about the band in Cusack's "Championship Vinyl". The site has since changed the review displayed to part of the script from the film.
Alright, alright, you say--we're well aware of the site. I don't know how far along in your path to fining musical enlightenment without the 'Fork you are, but I'm here to help (the first step? Join some message boards--the one on Radiohead fan site At Ease is pretty good).
The second step is to find other credible, legitimate and well-written websites. There are quite a few, of course--and the one I suggest most is Stylus Magazine. Stylus is rarely caught in the hyperbole quagmire that Pitchfork finds itself in--there are rarely perfect album ratings given out on Stylus, but there are never 0.0s either. Instead, Stylus uses level-headed writing and hardly ever causes bands to be called "the next big thing"--which is a gift and a curse in itself.
I also enjoy the site's features. It's "On Second Thought" page looks at older records that Stylus writers feel have been "unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way". One of the latest columns in the series, about college rock stalwarts Sonic Youth's "NYC Ghosts & Flowers" is a particularly fresh and revealing read.
There are a plethora of sites out there to help you discover new music--Stylus and Pitchfork are only two of them. Another great bet would be to tune into KSCR as often as possible in order to keep your ears happy and music hunger satiated, but that, of course, is up to you.
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Now playing: Jens Lekman - It Was A Strange Time In My Life
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