Lupe Fiasco - Lasers
Disappointment. That's pretty much the best way to summarize my feelings of this album. I remember when I heard Lupe for the first time. I was shocked to hear rap through a mainstream source with someone who could actually carry a beat. Not only that, but he was rapping about ACTUAL stuff, not going to the club/fucking bitches/other stereotypes.
So yeah. Anyone familiar with Lupe knows that Food and Liquor and The Cool are DAMN good albums. The same cannot be said for Lasers, unfortunately.
The first track starts off with an autotuned hook. As soon as I heard this, my hopes dropped a bit. I absolutely despise autotuning. The only times it works, for me, are certain kinds of techno and T-Pain. But I listened on anyway.
For the majority of the album, Lupe just doesn't seem into it at all. One thing I really liked about prior albums was the passion I could sense in that he really cared what he was rapping about. Here, its not the case. He also just comes on really strongly with some of his ideas. Namely political ones. In "Words I Never Said" he makes a lot of references to the Middle East. That would have been more appropriate four years ago. He attempts what I'm going to assume is irony in this song, in that it's called "Words I Never Said" but the lyrics juxtapose this with "Words I Should Have Said." It's a mix of coming on way too strong with his opinion and trying to say what he thinks people want to hear.
I also noticed a few instances where he pretty much rips off other songs. I know it can be popular to sample songs in hip hop, but this definitely wasn't the case. In "Don't Wanna Care" part of the beat sounds pretty damn identical to "Down" by Jay Sean. In "Show Goes On" he BLATANTLY rips off Modest Mouse's "Float On." Hey look at that, the titles are even similar.
Lupe reminds us just how liberal he really is with "All Black Everything" again just saying what people would want to hear. Mind you, I am an independent, but it just annoys me to hear over the top anti-war/other stereotypical things in music. Politics and music can definitely work, there are PLENTY of good anti-war songs. But there's a thing called subtlety. If you're over the top, it's going to be annoying and just not work.
There were a couple good songs though. "Coming Up" was really good, it was probably the first song on the album I genuinely enjoyed. "Never Forget" was a great song, really the only one that struck me as classic Lupe. John Legend did some guest vocals on that song and at first I thought it was Russel Brand. For a moment I thought the album had ended and a song from Get Him to the Greek had come on. Still good though, I was able to tell the difference after a moment. That's not meant to be criticism at all, it just made me laugh so I figured I would share.
Anyway, all in all, the albums mediocre at best. I want to give it a second listen to try again, but I honestly do not see it as a keeper. Lupe's fame has gone to his head. I've known this for a while. It's a shame and hopefully he'll bounce back to his old self, but the album just wasn't that good. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I guess I just expected a lot more. I was quite excited for this album and currently I feel pretty let down.
But still, here's a link, judge for yourself.
http://fileserve.com/file/3JyHyXZ/Lupe_Fiasco-Lasers-2011-H3X.rar
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Arcade Fire: Album of the Year
First off, I'd like to give my congratulations to Arcade Fire for winning album of the year. It's always nice to see a good band get some well deserved recognition.
I really don't give two shits about the Grammys or any award show, but when something that's apparently underground (I had thought the band to be fairly mainstream, but I'll address that in a moment) wins over utter shit such as Lady Gaga, it brings a smile to my face. To me it says that some part of the music industry still cares about actual music, not just pop bullshit that sells. I think Eminem was a contender too, which I would have been okay with. Recovery was a pretty damn good album.
Which brings us to http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/
What gets me is the reaction that has come as a result of this. For starters, you people care way too goddamn much. It's a fucking award show. I doubt any of the artists who lost care as much as you seem to.
You're not familiar with the band. Okay, that's cool. You're a purebred MTV clear-channel zombie. I don't expect you to know what real music is beyond the shitty overproduced pop you bend over backwards to receive. But to start a blog asking who the band is? Just google it, it's honestly not that hard. It makes you look like a simpleton.
But wow. Some of these posts are just baffling. Most people are incapable of even spelling the band's name correctly, and more seem to have the album name confused with the band itself.
It all comes down to opinion, of course, but the moron who said that Gaga is better needs to clean his fucking ears. I'll admit it, I actively avoid Lady Gaga like the plague that she is, so this might not be the most fair assessment of her, but since I'm not a fan of hers, why should I care? Lady Gaga is the absolute epitome of shitty pop. It's at least partly autotuned (which is a trend that really needs to go away), writes simplistic songs and uses shitty beats. My biggest quarrel with her though, is her fucking act. The woman honestly needs to get over herself. She is not unique, artsy, or any of the pseudo-bohemian intellectual shit that she claims. Want to fight that? Look at all the shit Madonna did sixty years ago when she was culturally relevant. Now look at Gaga. There's quuiiiiite a few similarities. Well, okay, Gaga made everything twelve times bigger so that people wouldn't notice, but whatever.
(Post writing the article side note: coming out of an egg? That's just fucking stupid.)
When you do things for the sake of doing them, it's almost always a waste. Something is unique when it's NOT ripping off what's done before and it's pretty good to actually make a point. Granted, it's fashion, but still. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you're this amazing fashionista goddess and go back to fantasizing about sucking off Worhol while Picasso jacks off in the corner.
Anyway. Back to the point. I was honestly surprised by how few people seemed to know about the band. I was under the impression that Arcade Fire was at least somewhat mainstream, I was almost certain that "The Suburbs" or "We Used To Wait" had good exposure. But still, people are up in arms about someone with actual musical talent winning an award. DEAR GOD NO! WE CAN'T HAVE THIS!! THE BRAINWASHED MASSES MIGHT WAKE UP AND STOP BUYING INTO THE EFFORTLESS SHIT WE SELL THEM!! (by the way, if you want to comment about how hard it is to make a top 40 hit, watch this: http://www.wimp.com/popsong/. It really is quite easy to make a pop song).
Sarcasm aside, one more post from the blog that struck a negative chord with me was the post that stated that the winner of album of the year should be known by everyone. By that logic, the quality of music has NOTHING to do with whether or not it deserves an award. To an extent, yes, something good will be exposed to a large number of people. But shitty pop gets far more exposure because it's what sells. Speaking in a strictly musical sense, those songs are not very good. Vocal talent is less than present with autotuning, and the beats are simplistic. I do get that market, even though I'm not a fan. People like simple music because it's catchy and they can dance to it.
However, popularity has nothing to do with how good music is. Hipsters take the opposite approach the aforementioned guy, in that the less people who know of an artist make that artist better. But both are wrong. The number of people who know of an artist and how good that artist is have NOTHING to do with one another. Music isn't some fucking popularity contest.
Anyway, to summarize, I'd like to congratulate the band again on the win. It's nice to see some integreity in what I perceive to be a dead industry. I think people are fucking stupid for hating a band simply because they're too brainwashed to have heard of them, but whatever.
If you want to check out Arcade Fire, start with Neon Bible. An absolutely amazing album. Suburbs is damn good too, but I'm usually a fan of chronology. And yes, I do know Neon Bible is the second album, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you to check out a bands entire discography to prepare for one album.
I really don't give two shits about the Grammys or any award show, but when something that's apparently underground (I had thought the band to be fairly mainstream, but I'll address that in a moment) wins over utter shit such as Lady Gaga, it brings a smile to my face. To me it says that some part of the music industry still cares about actual music, not just pop bullshit that sells. I think Eminem was a contender too, which I would have been okay with. Recovery was a pretty damn good album.
Which brings us to http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/
What gets me is the reaction that has come as a result of this. For starters, you people care way too goddamn much. It's a fucking award show. I doubt any of the artists who lost care as much as you seem to.
You're not familiar with the band. Okay, that's cool. You're a purebred MTV clear-channel zombie. I don't expect you to know what real music is beyond the shitty overproduced pop you bend over backwards to receive. But to start a blog asking who the band is? Just google it, it's honestly not that hard. It makes you look like a simpleton.
But wow. Some of these posts are just baffling. Most people are incapable of even spelling the band's name correctly, and more seem to have the album name confused with the band itself.
It all comes down to opinion, of course, but the moron who said that Gaga is better needs to clean his fucking ears. I'll admit it, I actively avoid Lady Gaga like the plague that she is, so this might not be the most fair assessment of her, but since I'm not a fan of hers, why should I care? Lady Gaga is the absolute epitome of shitty pop. It's at least partly autotuned (which is a trend that really needs to go away), writes simplistic songs and uses shitty beats. My biggest quarrel with her though, is her fucking act. The woman honestly needs to get over herself. She is not unique, artsy, or any of the pseudo-bohemian intellectual shit that she claims. Want to fight that? Look at all the shit Madonna did sixty years ago when she was culturally relevant. Now look at Gaga. There's quuiiiiite a few similarities. Well, okay, Gaga made everything twelve times bigger so that people wouldn't notice, but whatever.
(Post writing the article side note: coming out of an egg? That's just fucking stupid.)
When you do things for the sake of doing them, it's almost always a waste. Something is unique when it's NOT ripping off what's done before and it's pretty good to actually make a point. Granted, it's fashion, but still. Get off your high horse and stop acting like you're this amazing fashionista goddess and go back to fantasizing about sucking off Worhol while Picasso jacks off in the corner.
Anyway. Back to the point. I was honestly surprised by how few people seemed to know about the band. I was under the impression that Arcade Fire was at least somewhat mainstream, I was almost certain that "The Suburbs" or "We Used To Wait" had good exposure. But still, people are up in arms about someone with actual musical talent winning an award. DEAR GOD NO! WE CAN'T HAVE THIS!! THE BRAINWASHED MASSES MIGHT WAKE UP AND STOP BUYING INTO THE EFFORTLESS SHIT WE SELL THEM!! (by the way, if you want to comment about how hard it is to make a top 40 hit, watch this: http://www.wimp.com/popsong/. It really is quite easy to make a pop song).
Sarcasm aside, one more post from the blog that struck a negative chord with me was the post that stated that the winner of album of the year should be known by everyone. By that logic, the quality of music has NOTHING to do with whether or not it deserves an award. To an extent, yes, something good will be exposed to a large number of people. But shitty pop gets far more exposure because it's what sells. Speaking in a strictly musical sense, those songs are not very good. Vocal talent is less than present with autotuning, and the beats are simplistic. I do get that market, even though I'm not a fan. People like simple music because it's catchy and they can dance to it.
However, popularity has nothing to do with how good music is. Hipsters take the opposite approach the aforementioned guy, in that the less people who know of an artist make that artist better. But both are wrong. The number of people who know of an artist and how good that artist is have NOTHING to do with one another. Music isn't some fucking popularity contest.
Anyway, to summarize, I'd like to congratulate the band again on the win. It's nice to see some integreity in what I perceive to be a dead industry. I think people are fucking stupid for hating a band simply because they're too brainwashed to have heard of them, but whatever.
If you want to check out Arcade Fire, start with Neon Bible. An absolutely amazing album. Suburbs is damn good too, but I'm usually a fan of chronology. And yes, I do know Neon Bible is the second album, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you to check out a bands entire discography to prepare for one album.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Attendance is Mandatory
Dog Fashion Disco is playing a two day reunion show to commemorate the releases of Anarchists of Good Taste and Adultery. You need to go.
That's pretty much it.
www.razortowrist.com
Buy your tickets while you still can
That's pretty much it.
www.razortowrist.com
Buy your tickets while you still can
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