[Music]-Only Built for Cuban Linx Niggas

Let's take a diversion from the usual fare here and talk about one of my favorite albums ever.

Raekwon and Ghostface, arguably the greatest tandem in the history of rap music, take you through a crime epic, the "mafioso"rap album to end all others.
It's not the typical hyperviolent, kill every man standing ever tripe. Cuban Linx is gritty, detailed. The pictures painted are vivid, the rhymes sharp. The various capers described don't feel forced or contrived. It's beautiful poetry, with out the annoying fluff and pomp.
And, as with all of the first round Wu Tang albums, the production(delivered by the legendary RZA) is epic. Nothing compares. The way the iconic boom bap sound is blended with the haunting samples is just...perfection. Nothing else to say here, just listen to the music.


"Julio Inglesias...getting cream like that nigga.."




Lawl at the Clarks dissertation.

[music]: Midnight Boom

This album is so freeform, I'm really not sure how I should describe it. The music here doesn't necessarily hit you in the mouth, but its presence is powerful enough to wholly grab your attention. And it doesn't try and pound its way into your ears, but it works its way into your mind, and grabs hold. The power The Kills' music holds is anything but typical. 
Midnight Boom's fuzzy, lofi aesthetic gives the album a sense of understated ferocity, as if at any point, the record could lose control and become pure noise and chaos. But it stays under control throughout, delivering raw melodies and riffs that are just as catchy as anything I've ever heard, and yet still keep a sense of substance and authenticity. The only sore point in the album, at least for me, was Goodnight Bad Morning, the only song that doesn't deliver the same sort of power and energy that the rest of the album does, but outside of that, Midnight Boom is flawless. 

A quick word about Telephone.

As an artfag, I feel that it is my duty to make a comment on Lady Gaga's new video, Telephone, featuring Beyonce, a bald actor/singer guy, and a cavalcade of might-as-well-been-naked wymin.

Two words: Half Assed.

A few more words: It was obviously made with their intentions in the right place: Use the video platform the way it was made to be used. Creatively, like you actually give a shit. I must give Gaga kudos for that. On the other hand, you cannot offer up a mishmash of tawdry images and innuendo and expect it to be called artistic just because you and the rest of the cast were wearing weird clothing. It aspires for Tarantino levels of greatness, and  like those who aped before her, she fell flat. Mainly because a Tarantino movie is held up by wit as apposed to spectacle, which just serves as icing. You can't make a meal out of icing. But once again, kudos for at least trying to make something worth watching. Really, it was only missing a bit of direction, otherwise it would have been palatable. She should have had Tarantino himself direct the video. Whatever.

A link to the madness.

Plastic Beach.

I've often found that my favorite music often required me to adjust to it to fully appreciate it. From Queens of The Stone Age, to The Beatles, to MF DOOM, they all made me reevaluate what it meant to be good music. When one pushes the envelope in their respective field, they often  introduce new sounds and techniques, things you've never heard before. You have to listen to it, understand it, almost study it in your head, until it clicks, and then you go, "Fuck. This is great." That's what Plastic Beach was, to me.
Gorillaz music has always been strange by conventional standards. They mix and meld genres quite easily, and in such a way that you barely recognize the individual parts, only the incredible stew, I suppose, of sounds and harmonies. Their songs have always been beautiful, in a dark, almost macabre sense. Plastic Beach isn't like that, though.