joe budden - "focus"

wow. pharaohe monch is trapped in rawkus semi-limbo so def jam had to sign his thug soundalike instead!* i love it when they try to pull shit like this because it normally results in a few brilliant tracks: cru (featuring the soundalikes of snoop, busta and um, the high-pitched dude from lords of the underground [unless it was him!]) put out one of my fave 12s ever on def jam ("just another case"/"pronto" ), and they were utter nobodies! it follows with "focus" because this beat is incredible, all nasty broken funk micro-samples taken apart and reconstructed to work on the dancefloor and fit with budden's flow. also it works with the "grindin"-inspired nu hardcore rap movement which will hopefully genuinely exist soon if it gets talked up enough - i suppose the link isn't immediately obvious, but i have the same kind of involuntary "finally! some real rap!!" reaction to both songs.

* this is at least fifty per cent true ok!

1xtra is the best thing ever.

craig david - "what's your flava"

i'm easily one of the world's biggest supporters of compression technology which flattens everything on the radio and 'ruins' all modern rock albums (= makes them all equally good) but this shit is ridiculous! when i think of this song in my head i imagine like a really overwhelming spazz p-funk sound but when it gets played it's actually kind of weedy and completely fails to move me. also fails to capitalize on what makes craig david the saviour of brit soul by hardly letting him sing at all. wtf! i suppose the chorus does it's catchy/annoying job, but is it really a positive thing if everyone is singing it to each other just to make fun of him?

ashanti - "happy"

"it's the world's most talented record label!"

for some reason when i heard this maybe the fourth or fifth time, everything about ashanti suddenly made sense, even her man-brows and erratic fashion sense (don't ask me to explain how they make sense in this new light!). "happy" follows a very particular lineage which probably began with the mary jane girls' "all night long" - squidgy, cartoony drum hits (can drums be light hearted?!); bittersweet tinkly melody; swoony, aching vocals and a subject matter which makes me sad because of course how long could ashanti remain this elated about being in love? making the lyrics so single-mindedly positive can only highlight any doubts about the future/love/obsession which remain unspoken. (yes, i don't know what the fuck i expect from a song called "happy" either.)

all this can make ashanti's blank style a virtue - if she had genuine presence i might not be able to project so many feelings onto this song! gotti was working pretty much the same textures on "i'm real", which is really good too, but this fits together so nicely that i'm hearing all murder inc tunes differently, and even enjoying the relentless whooshy gloop fx shrouding all the recent hits. (especially the backwards-cymbal-building-to-first-snare-hit effect at the start of "down 4 u" which is the best thing ever!)

big brovaz - "nu flow"

big brovaz are to outkast as spooks are to the fugees - this is some lovable-schlub-who'll-never-quite-make-it loser music. i mean by now i suspect even people who loved "the whole world" when it came out just want to forget it happened, but bb are apparently convinced the bouncy circus beat is the future of urban music! it sounds like maybe they're a perfectly competent uk garage crew (none of the mcs are really awful!) who don't know where to go now nobody is allowed to make straight ukg records. (when was the meeting which decided this??)

blue - "one love"

they just won't give up on this exact same song they've pushed three times now! it's lucky the song is pure fucking gold - super-orthodox mid 90s r'n'b with embarrassing lyrics and moments which can break out and catch you by surprise, like the strings and the "hypnotize" rip on "fly by" and the part on this where blue-dude's vocal gets all intense: "i refuse to give up/i refuse to give in". calm down you're scaring us! this genuinely hit me in the gut today though.

ms dynamite will do as she pleases! like for instance now she will go and watch ja rule on the mobos, leaving you and/or craig david cruelly in the lurch!

look, fine then, you are craig david. i hope you're proud of yourself. ms dynamite is emotionally exhausted now.

ms dynamite is worried about.. i mean i'm worried about your mental health, dude! any time craig david and ms dynamite are brought up it's like you slip into this funny roleplay psychosis! perhaps its time you stopped living vicariously through the lives of britain's leading urban pop stars. i don't want to make a big deal out of it...

no man, look, you're just being random again! i mean i'm not ms dynamite and you're not craig david despite your comic attempt at that well-trimmed playa beard.

i didn't want to bring this public style but our comments are fucked: dude, why is craig david sad about britney's dress? i mean that's just some random shit isn't it?

madonna - "die another day"

wow, this is just like how i imagine one of jack cable's freaky music dreams to sound! i'm thinking specifically of some kind of pub meeting between madonna and daniel bedingfield where they perform an oppressively melodramatic version of "james dean". (madge is the dennis hopper of the music scene.)

xzibit ft nate dogg - "multiply"

xzibit has distinguished himself recently by getting producers to build weirdo beats - like the clanking, broken beat tech-horrorcore-for-02 style on "multiply" (man vs machine, see!) - and then rhyming like it's just another verse on "bitch please", seemingly unaware of the shuffle thats going on behind him. i think it's a fun concept: xzibit testing himself like "let's see how fucked up a beat has to be to derail my juggernaut rhyme style!". all three verses on this are contructed beautifully, all a great summation of his semi-outsider "i work harder than you" persona (i wouldn't mind if he sold out but x is the most convincing no-sell-out commercial rapper ever!). it's a shame the wasting nate dogg's awesome talent trend continues though!

anyway, x's new album = dre came back again already!