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I don’t know if it’s a coincedence or not that Eminem and Busta Rhymes both released an album during the same week but there are definitely similarities between the two.
Both are veterans of the the late 90’s/early 2000’s hip hop scene getting a bit long in the tooth who have been on lengthy hiatuses from making albums. Both have larger than life, cartoon-like personas. Both have had their share of drama and bridge burning.
But in my book, Busta and his super fast flow has always been the superior rapper though Eminem (obviously) has gotten way more commercial and critical success.
Unfortunately, Busta’s eighth album “Back On My B.S.” won’t do much to change people’s minds. There are a few strong tracks here, but most of it is full of well, B.S.
The opening track “Wheel of Fortune” begins with a faux opera that shows that Busta is bringing more of his lighthearted brand of party rap, but from then on, every track that finds him back to his full-on old school tongue-twisting ways (”Don’t Believe ‘Em”) or ranting about tabloid gossip in an amusing way (”If You Don’t Know”), there’s a song like “Hustler’s Anthem ‘09” which features T-Pain in all of his now annoying Auto-Tune glory. Even worse is “Arab Money” a terrible song made worse by its racist overtones.
As is the trend with too many hip-hop albums, this one is overstuffed with guest stars – Mike Epps, Mary J. Blige, Common, Pharrell, Akon – you name it. Not to say it’s all bad, Lil Wayne and Jadakiss spice up “Respect My Conglomerate” - even if the lyrics make no sense at all. But after awhile it doesn’t even feel like a Busta Rhymes album, it might make more sense to call it - “Busta Rhymes Presents: Superstars of Rap.”
It’s too bad Busta is underutilized here and has chosen so many poor tracks because he’s destined to stay relatively low on the hip-hop radar compared to Slim Shady.
Chicago band “I Fight Dragons” proves that having a gimmick isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s easy to be initially skeptical considering the band uses the old school Nintendo video game system’s low-fi MIDI sounds to provide some of its music and they use old NES accessories like the Power Pad and the Power Glove during live shows, but this is anything but nerd-core with lame comic-book lyrics.
A listen to their new EP “Cool is Just a Number” reveals that IFD has a power-pop sensibility that recalls Weezer before they started sucking, and a bit of the electronic sounds of Postal Service mixed in. If you don’t believe me, check out this great video for their song “Money.” It’s got cool references to Super Mario Brothers, Pac-Man and Pole Position and the chorus has stuck in my head for the past three days.
I’d totally recommend checking out “Cool is Just a Number,” which is available for free on their website (when you sign-up for their newsletter). They’re also performing at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue, in Chicago on May 22nd at 7 p.m.
According to Dictionary.com, a the definition of the word Maudlin is: “Tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental.” In other words, the title of Camera Obscura’s fourth album My Maudlin Career is a self-conscious nod.
Sure, in the title track My Maudlin Career, Tracyanne Campbell sings, “This maudlin career has come to an end/ I don’t want to be sad again,” but it’s clearly ironic considering the album is full of tracks that tend towards sticky sweet pop and lyrics that wax poetic on lost relationships, heartbreak and loneliness.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Long compared to fellow Scots Belle and Sebastian because of a taste for low-fi indie rock with a classic pop A.M. radio twist, Camera Obscura here is full of irresistable sunny pop songs, with tinges of Motown, blues and jazz.
The best track is the opening act, “French Navy” a big, happy powerhouse of peppy strings, and a perfectly catchy chorus. It’s a song I might have to set to my alarm clock because even if I had to wake up at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning - “French Navy” might be able to stir me into a good mood.
Not that My Maudlin Career is a happy record. It’s a bit melancholic, sometimes with a bit of wry, humorous sarcasm and sometimes more bluntly.
“How many times have you told me you want to die? / How many times will I let you get away with murder?” sings Campbell on Away With Murder.
If there’s a fault with the album, it’s that there’s not a whole lot of variety, especially to the back third of the album when it feels a bit too stuffed with sluggish ballads.
Still, My Maudlin Career is a great piece of indie-pop and here’s hoping their maudlin career continues for a long time.
Has this ever happened to you?
There’s this band you really, really like but they break up after only releasing a couple albums or EP’s and so you sort of lose track of them. But then years later you discover that some members of that band started a new one and have put out some amazing work and that you had NO CLUE! You rush out and buy it all and feel equally thankful that there’s all this great new material to listen to but also disappointed that you were spending time sitting around listening to the old band and lamenting the fact that they broke up when there was all this new stuff sitting around.
OK, this is a very specific feeling, but it’s exactly how I’ve felt after learning about the band “Medications” recently. See, I loved a group called Faraquet, a math rock outfit from the late 90’s that was on Dischord. The band played from 1997 to 2001 but only released a handful of recordings (an LP on Dischord and a few EP’s on a smaller label) that I thought were amazing.
Well, it’s been nearly a decade and until about three weeks ago I had no idea that two of the three members of Faraquet started a band called Medications that have played, recorded and toured for several years now. I was stunned. Since then, I’ve picked up all their recordings and I’m blown away. Imagine if the band Rush played complex indie rock with shifty time signatures and you get a bit of a sense of what Medications is like. If you haven’t listened to them before, feel free to hop on the late blooming bandwagon like I did.
The 2009 Lollapalooza Festival’s lineup, though partially leaked weeks ago, was announced earlier this week. Every year this causes a lot of predictable complaining and hand wringing on the Internet about how so-and-so headliners are old and how bloated and corporate Perry Ferrell’s festival is. Some of these complaints are valid - but it’s hard to argue that there won’t be some great acts at the festival,scheduled for August 7-9 at Chicago’s Grant Park.
The 100-plus acts will be led by headliners Depeche Mode, Tool, The Killers, Jane’s Addiction, Beastie Boys, and Kings of Leon. Solid, but not as good for my money as Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Kayne West and Nine Inch Nails and Wilco in ‘08.
And yes, the heydey for most of those bands is the 90’s, but most of them do make sense for headliners. Let’s face it, the disappearance of music on MTV, the decline of rock radio and the fragmentation ofthe music market because of the internet means today’s big rock acts don’t have the mainstream success as their 80’s and 90’s predecessors. The big mystery here is Kings of Leon, because the “second tier” of Lollapalooza includes artists like Lou Reed, Ben Harper, Ben Folds, Snoop Dogg, TV on the Radio, Neko Case, Andrew Bird and Rise Against.
The rest of the lineup is filled with mostly current (or last year’s) indie rock darlings: Vampire Weekend, the Decemberists, STS9 (Sound Tribe Sector Nine), Animal Collective, Band of Horses, Of Montreal, Arctic Monkeys, Coheed and Cambria, Fleet Foxes, Silversun Pickups, Kaiser Chiefs, Bon Iver, Crystal Castles, Santigold, etc.
As someone who bought a three day pass last year, I’d say go if you have the $200 bucks lying around and you have plenty of endurance. Three days under the hot Chicago summer sun, even with good tunes around,can be a feat for the best of us.
For a British synth pop band that’s been around for nearly three decades, it’s interesting that suddenly people Just Can’t Get Enough (Sorry, couldn’t help myself) of Depeche Mode.
Earlier this month, the Mode was announced as a headliner for Lollapalooza ‘09, a move that delighted many of the fans of the trio’s moody and atmospheric electronica. It puzzled others considering the Chicago-based outdoor festival tends to get alt-rockers or hip-hop heavies like Kayne West to headline.
Today, David Gahan and crew released their 12th album “Symptoms of the Universe,” to generally favorable reviews with some critics calling it reminiscent of their old stuff yet managing to sound contemporary.
Now just this afternoon, the L.A. Times is reporting that the band will cause part of Hollywood to shut down on Thursday evening for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Depeche Mode is expected to perform at the infamous Hollywood Boulevard and Vine intersection at 8 p.m. - where apparently a new W hotel complex is being constructed.
As a long time fan, I’m excited for the band’s sudden resurgence. Here’s the top three songs I’d like to see them play live:
1. “Personal Jesus” - Yes, “Enjoy the Silence” is the biggest single off 1990’s Violater, but for my money “Personal Jesus” would be way more fun to experience live. It’s one of the band’s few songs that uses guitar and it’s arguably the Mode’s most dancable song. And I still get chills when I hear David Gahan’s demanding we “Reach out and touch faith.”
2. “Strangelove” - OK, OK, mostly because I’m amused with the idea to seeing thousands of people sing along to a song that’s blatently about a love for kinky sex.
3. “I Feel You” - Songs of Faith and Devotion is a wildly underrated album in Depeche Mode’s canon, and “I Feel You” is a mostly forgotten single that deserves better. It’s one of the band’s more “rock” type songs and they play more non-electronic instruments here than usual.
Confession: I had heard the Silversun Pickups’ 2006 hit “Lazy Eye” at least a dozen times before I realized that the main vocalist was of the male gender. I suppose I wasn’t alone in assuming the breathy vocals for this band that sounded vaguely like a throwback from the early 90’s alt-rock era was from a Kim Deal-lookalike. But still, I was slightly embarrassed to find out that frontman was named Brian.
The Pickups, however, have nothing to be embarrassed about with their new sophomore album “Swoon.” It’s a solid effort that won’t necessarily dispel all Smashing Pumpkins comparisons, but goes deeper beyond heavily distorted guitar fueled singalongs to something that’s infinitely more rewarding that most modern rock these days.
This Silverlake band, which had its second turn at the Coachella Festival main stage this weekend, has been most closely compared to the Pumpkins because of the swirling guitar sounds and Brian Aubert’s vaguely emo-kidish vocals and lyrics. But Swoon’s deep grooves evokes more of the wall-of-sound style of “My Bloody Valentine” - especially on a song like “Sort Of” which settles into a Shoegaze-like droning riff pattern.
The problem here though is that while listening to the album straight through, nothing here arrests you. There’s no song on Swoon that isn’t at least darkly pleasant (”Panic Room” being the highlight)- but the dynamics aren’t, well, dynamic enough - and there’s no single here quite as good as “Lazy Eye.”
Still, Silversun Pickups are on the right track and here’s hoping that the third time is the charm.
Bring me your tired, your poor punk rockers, your huddled Chuck Taylor wearing masses and send them to the Warped Tour. Tickets went on sale yesterday.
In my mind I kind of associate the Warped Tour with Hot Topic, a relic of the mall-punk 90’s but here it is still going in 2009 - its 15th year anniversary. Not that it hasn’t had it’s moments – I went once in the late 90’s in Kansas City and enjoyed seeing NOFX, Bad Religion, Propaghandi, the Deftones and others despite the high ticket prices, the sweltering heat, and all of the testosterone-fueled idiots who wanted to mosh (kicking up a ridiculous amount of dust in the process) no matter who was playing.
Warped Tour
Still, I find it a bit surreal that the same bands – Bad Religion, Less Than Jake, Flogging Molly, etc. are still anchoring a lineup featuring lots of no names (The Devil Wears Prada is now a book, movie and punk band?). Hopefully we don’t see these guys in five years when they could become the punk rock equivalent of a Journey – Survivor – REO Speedwagon state fair tour.
Still, the big concert tours have slowly given way to big destination two or three day festivals (Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, Sasquatch, etc.) so this might be the only way you get to see a few decent bands outdoors.
