[mini] Prestige Format

Cold Cave - The Great Pan is Dead
This song sounds like this.

Panel from Casanova volume 1, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Gabriel Bá.
Song from Cold Cave’s upcoming album, Cherish the Light Years, available 4/5/11 in the US.

B.o.B - The Kids (ft. Janelle Monae) from The Adventures of Bobby Ray

My high schooler nephew Frankie handed this CD to my wife last night and asked her to give it to “Uncle Ryan.” Which, first of all, that’s weird. It’s weird to have family members a generation below me recommending me music. Secondly, it’s weird because he so correctly pegged me with this album.

It’s not perfect, by any means. B.o.B’s major label debut veers towards Andre 3000’s The Love Below, but with a little more pop piano troubadour/emo aspirations. He raps, again, a lot like Andre 3K, and sticks to the typical major label debut topics: songs about girls, about the state of hip hop, about self-doubt and hoping to make it big. The album has a by-the-numbers crunk track (Bet I, featuring T.I. who also executive produces) and wanders dangerously close to Jack Johnson/James Blunt territory (seriously—tom-toms and acoustic guitar included) on late album track Lovelier Than You.

Still, there’s some fantastic pop songwriting on this album. At least 75% of the choruses are head-stickers, and the production (done by B.o.B himself for the most part) is top notch. Interestingly, quite a few rock elements that pop up on the album. I’m not talking just about the live drums and solid guitar lines, but about the guest stars. Sure he features some typical rap-album guests: the aforementioned T.I., kindred spirit Lupe Fiasco, and Eminem (who delivers an 8 Mile-style guest verse which is good but frankly nothing we haven’t heard from Em). But he also has Hayley Williams from emo-rockers Paramore singing a pretty emo’d out Regina Spektor-style hook on Airplanes (“Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars? I could really use a wish right now.”) and Weezer’s resident hitmaker/creep Rivers Cuomo (who himself is no stranger to rap collaborations).

Fred mentioned to me that looking at the guest list on this album gives an interesting view of today’s pop landscape. I’ll agree, but one song illustrates how completely genre divisions are quickly flattening: The Kids (see above). Let’s hit the high points:

• Samples/interprets Vampire Weekend’s The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
• Solid, nearly old-school beat
• Features Janelle Monae singing a Beyonce-style verse
• Um, are those fuzz guitars?

So, this song touches on: indie rock, the annals of hip hop, classic R&B style, and mainstream rock instrumentation. It does it without calling attention to itself or trying too hard. I find it perfect that this was handed over to me by a youth: this is the music of the future. It doesn’t need to announce itself.

Genre doesn’t matter as long as it’s relevant and it bangs.

I discovered +/- (say “plus minus”) in my freshman year of college. During my first quarter as a college radio DJ, their debut album was foisted upon me to time (that is, to listen to each song and write down length, how long before singing, how long after singing, relative tempo, and whether or not there were obscenities). This was 2002, pre-Postal Service, and I had come off of 8 years of listening only to Christian music. Needless to say, +/- and their brand of unconventionally syncopated emotional rock surprised me. You can use guitars AND do computer edits and not be a screamy Nine Inch Nails ripoff? What??

I’ve only occasionally kept track of +/- over the years. This song first popped up on my radar more than a year ago, and it more recently came back into my scope because of my complex set of Smart Playlists and my erratic downloading habits.

(I subscribe to quite a few mp3 blogs, and weekly I’ll go through them and download stuff that looks good. Those songs will appear on my “New” playlist and stay there until they’re rated. Any song that gets a four or five star rating will pop back onto my iPod if it hasn’t been played in a while. I’m constantly surprised with the music that’s on my iPod and I like it that way.)

So, Fadeout. The song. Lyrically it’s probably about a breakup, but I’ve twisted it in my mind into addressing my currently pressing career issues. I guess you could say I am breaking up with the idea of working in an office, in front of a computer, for 8-10 hours a day and getting a salary + benefits for my work. I do not thrive in that sort of environment at all (the descriptor “soul-crushing” comes to mind), but I really like the security that it comes with. Since I left my job at the end of March, I’ve been struggling with an idea for my future. I’m mostly confident that I’ll be working at the Apple store in the next couple of weeks, which is nice though it’s a 50% pay cut at least. I’m also planning to do some freelance design work, though planning and actually doing are two very separate things right now.

I feel like I’m standing on the cusp of the future. Like Paul Muad’Dib in Dune, in front of me is a horizon beyond which is a mystery. I trust God that things are going to work together for me, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. The first 4/5 of this song know how I feel. I’m just waiting for that fulfillment like the one four minutes into this song. I know it’s coming, I can feel everything building to it. It’s just a matter of time.

Download Let’s Build a Fire from Amazon or Emusic, it’s a very solid album.

BLK JKS - ZOL!

Wow! this is a pretty big departure for BLK JKS, especially compared to their great album from last year, After Robots. That album was dark, menacing, complicated, and sounded like Mad Max looked. It was guitar-heavy and leaned towards prog-rock in a way that Mars Volta fans could get behind.

ZOL!, on the other hand, is a #1 Summer Jam. It’s a World Cup kind of song, according to their label, and I can go with that.

It’s weird, placing a song like this. For so long, all of my knowledge of African music came as interpreted by white Americans, like Paul Simon or the writers of the Lion King soundtrack. And even after I got into “authentic” African music, like Fela Kuti and the Soundway Ghana and Nigeria Special compilations, I still found myself drifting towards American reinterpreters like Vampire Weekend and Akron/Family. This bridges that gap a bit. 

This song, “There Will Be No More Scum,” is the crowning achievement from DC hardcore (spazzcore?) band Frodus. It’s off of their 2001 final album, And We Washed Our Weapons In The Sea, which is out of print (and kind of expensive) but available on emusic and iTunes (which I’m not linking because boo DRM). Recommended if you like F*cked Up, Les Savy Fav, smarter hardcore or crazy math rock in general.