30.3.04
what we saw on music tv yesterday
- lil dude of grime ashman, with his amazing song that i've forgotten the name of! the video has real authentic school kids wot live in london and the grimy stairway where skepta makes all his beats. channel u in the daytime is like ninety per cent public service brit hop now, and shit is still addictive! all the videos cost twenty squid and most of them feature specially hired police cars (the same police car??) for well-dressed uk rap dudes to stand on top of.
- also on channel u we finally caught the video to my favourite song of all time, "dipset anthem", and omg it felt like a cultural event! albeit one that happened a year ago! like when cam'ron steps out of the car, pink shoe first, has life ever made more sense? i wish i could rewind back to 03 because this year sucks in comparison.
- some new girl called fefe dobson?! she has a weird name and she's black but her song has guitars, mental. the video is cool in a 'i identify with your pain, troubled teen!' way, like at the start she's taking a mutliple choice test and all the dots on the page turn into the word average - the best way to spend an effects budget ever!
- milian rolling around in ink again.
- lil dude of grime ashman, with his amazing song that i've forgotten the name of! the video has real authentic school kids wot live in london and the grimy stairway where skepta makes all his beats. channel u in the daytime is like ninety per cent public service brit hop now, and shit is still addictive! all the videos cost twenty squid and most of them feature specially hired police cars (the same police car??) for well-dressed uk rap dudes to stand on top of.
- also on channel u we finally caught the video to my favourite song of all time, "dipset anthem", and omg it felt like a cultural event! albeit one that happened a year ago! like when cam'ron steps out of the car, pink shoe first, has life ever made more sense? i wish i could rewind back to 03 because this year sucks in comparison.
- some new girl called fefe dobson?! she has a weird name and she's black but her song has guitars, mental. the video is cool in a 'i identify with your pain, troubled teen!' way, like at the start she's taking a mutliple choice test and all the dots on the page turn into the word average - the best way to spend an effects budget ever!
- milian rolling around in ink again.
28.3.04
24.3.04
we love them roc-a-fella stickers
hey i like hip hop, i'm glad it's back. my god, "all falls down" is still really bad! the cam 12 is kind of disappointing because "get em girls" is only in some lame clean version with different drums. even people who didn't like the og version have been known to make the screwed up face and go wtf! it's ok though because you get "shake" - initially sounding like one of those boring def jamaica songs... ok it will always sound like that but the def jamaica album didn't have amazing squeaky voiced hooks and cam's "foolish lyrical antics" (- xxl magazine!). now let's just look at the stickers.
hey i like hip hop, i'm glad it's back. my god, "all falls down" is still really bad! the cam 12 is kind of disappointing because "get em girls" is only in some lame clean version with different drums. even people who didn't like the og version have been known to make the screwed up face and go wtf! it's ok though because you get "shake" - initially sounding like one of those boring def jamaica songs... ok it will always sound like that but the def jamaica album didn't have amazing squeaky voiced hooks and cam's "foolish lyrical antics" (- xxl magazine!). now let's just look at the stickers.
five reasons it's cool usher is number one
1) "yeah" is usher's fourth greatest single. at first i thought it would become so annoying as to be like my favourite song of all time, but the subsequent lack of 'ahhh my ears are burning' has taken the edge off.
2) usher is clearly a bitter, miserable fuck and this news might bring a flash of a smile to his bewildered face.
3) on the uk 12 there's another lil jon-laced song which you can't find on the album - it turns out to be a melancholy flipside to "yeah", where usher recounts the day he met some prostitutes and judged them to be morally unsound. it has that same amazing synth preset.
4) my sister loves "yeah" and plays it all the live day long, which is by some distance better than her previous fave - motherfucking franz ferdinand with whatever that stupid song was!
5) the video has those cool space lights. if you watch lots of usher videos you might notice dude has never ever changed his hair. isn't that kind of weird!
1) "yeah" is usher's fourth greatest single. at first i thought it would become so annoying as to be like my favourite song of all time, but the subsequent lack of 'ahhh my ears are burning' has taken the edge off.
2) usher is clearly a bitter, miserable fuck and this news might bring a flash of a smile to his bewildered face.
3) on the uk 12 there's another lil jon-laced song which you can't find on the album - it turns out to be a melancholy flipside to "yeah", where usher recounts the day he met some prostitutes and judged them to be morally unsound. it has that same amazing synth preset.
4) my sister loves "yeah" and plays it all the live day long, which is by some distance better than her previous fave - motherfucking franz ferdinand with whatever that stupid song was!
5) the video has those cool space lights. if you watch lots of usher videos you might notice dude has never ever changed his hair. isn't that kind of weird!
18.3.04
milian - dip it low
things that are annoying in 04 r'n'b part one:
that fucking slowed down clap in place of using a proper snare! handclaps in general have become so annoying!
despite having separate fabolous and shawnna guest-rap versions, "dip it low" was first promoed in january to super-muted response. i think even trevor 'leave your preconceptions at the door' nelson himself was non-plussed. it's pretty but the drum hits are in wilfully non-danceable places and millennial golden age r'n'b songs only sounded good during the golden age! perhaps milian was annoyed she only caught the spizzazzz-inventing dirty pop tail end of it but whatever, time to move on and be more like beyonce or joe. we should all be more like joe in fact. so in a move that helpfully suggests her record company hate her, "dip it low" actually went back to the lab and returned with... some handclaps! and a slow-ass dancehall drum pattern on top of most of the song.
really i'd like to hate on it (maybe because it feels like she's cynically backing the jamaican horse - even rob them co will say behind your back that dancehall sucks at the moment anyway!) but it does become more danceable and likely to further milian's success, which is now more important to me than some song i was sick of by february; whatever her next single is, it is likely to be amazing. there is still a problem in the shape of the video: milian goes around looking like beyonce, wears horrible leather, twists her legs into strange positions and finally lays on a bed of ink while several dudes pull her around so she gets covered in it. wtf is she trying to say??
things that are annoying in 04 r'n'b part one:
that fucking slowed down clap in place of using a proper snare! handclaps in general have become so annoying!
despite having separate fabolous and shawnna guest-rap versions, "dip it low" was first promoed in january to super-muted response. i think even trevor 'leave your preconceptions at the door' nelson himself was non-plussed. it's pretty but the drum hits are in wilfully non-danceable places and millennial golden age r'n'b songs only sounded good during the golden age! perhaps milian was annoyed she only caught the spizzazzz-inventing dirty pop tail end of it but whatever, time to move on and be more like beyonce or joe. we should all be more like joe in fact. so in a move that helpfully suggests her record company hate her, "dip it low" actually went back to the lab and returned with... some handclaps! and a slow-ass dancehall drum pattern on top of most of the song.
really i'd like to hate on it (maybe because it feels like she's cynically backing the jamaican horse - even rob them co will say behind your back that dancehall sucks at the moment anyway!) but it does become more danceable and likely to further milian's success, which is now more important to me than some song i was sick of by february; whatever her next single is, it is likely to be amazing. there is still a problem in the shape of the video: milian goes around looking like beyonce, wears horrible leather, twists her legs into strange positions and finally lays on a bed of ink while several dudes pull her around so she gets covered in it. wtf is she trying to say??
12.3.04
lelee/showki-ru - baby baby
well at first we weren't sure it ws her, like any sort of weird basketball playing looking woman could have wandered into the studio in jamaica and said 'oh yeah i ws in swv' to get session work and who would have questioned her? but i listened and it's really true, it does sound like a swv, although we still think it must be that extra lanky one who had heavy bangs in the late 90s... but it's her and she's gone reggae! unfortunately that means she now sounds nothing like the 'dance remix' of i'm so into you. yeah i guess i have to admit the song itself is pretty boring but it's nice to know that lelee is still into music and hopefully having a really fun life in jamaica!
well at first we weren't sure it ws her, like any sort of weird basketball playing looking woman could have wandered into the studio in jamaica and said 'oh yeah i ws in swv' to get session work and who would have questioned her? but i listened and it's really true, it does sound like a swv, although we still think it must be that extra lanky one who had heavy bangs in the late 90s... but it's her and she's gone reggae! unfortunately that means she now sounds nothing like the 'dance remix' of i'm so into you. yeah i guess i have to admit the song itself is pretty boring but it's nice to know that lelee is still into music and hopefully having a really fun life in jamaica!