oooh twisted transistor



the new korn vid, in which the band are portrayed and sent up by lil jon, snoop, dbanner and xzibit in spectacularly played out spoofumentary fashion. inadvertantly reminds me of channel 5's race swap, where (prepare to spit out ur delicious mouthful of butternut squash) samantha fox was made up to look like an elderly indian lady. i only saw the end, but she managed to fool pat sharp (!!?? FUNHOUSE MOTHERFUCKER) with her offensively cartoonish accent and hunchbacked posture (you know cos old indian ladies are always hunched over the kitchen worktop grinding some spice paste?). good one guys!?!

anyway "twisted transistor" itself is aight but fucking hell nu metal dudes and megastar rappers - take yourselves serious for five minutes! (cos these are some serious times!!!)

(i am still feeling this.)

HE'S JUST DOING HIM

clip of bruza/dido tune with 1xtra dj jenna g cutting it off for being shit and playing omar's "there's nothing like this" instead!

(omar is wicked.)

(especially "say nothin" why does no one remember that shit???)

hello footer fans!



them three on westwood. funny. anton sings. marlon known as black homer simpson. nigel the sensible one. westwood snarky. don't download if you are anyone.

(NEW SPIZZONGS IS UP)

sassy weekend soca music



destra - independent ladies

BCOS WHY WOULD U POSSIBLY WANT TO LISTEN TO ANYTHING ELSE.

SEAN PAUL AND SHAGGY



so as per some interview i read, sean paul went and did some stuff with the neptunes and must have been as monumentally depressed as we all were when we heard "can i have it like that", dear god! (lil missy likes it tho.) i feel for him cos we can all switch off the neps but sp's label was probably saying, sean your whole international fanbase is relying on you to create something hot from the looped n*e*r*d outtakes skateboard wee just handed you! ugh! so sp says, oh fuck this i repped for jamaica at olympic water ping pong, i can do the same for my album!

which amounts to the trinity being like... oh hello kopa riddim, nice to see you again but i don't wanna get dangerous anymore; hello "ever blazin" from 2 and a half years ago, you belong to a different lifetime and now you're back on the 1xtra playlist (fuck daytime 1xtra at the moment); hello siren riddim and your weeee woooo ironside shit, you're wasting my time! a lot of these songs have worn me out.

fair enough it might be hot for people who don't check dancehall radio and so on but to talk up this album of mostly tried and tested local hits (as sp himself has done!) as brave? what a load of balls. you can say, hey guy this is just ragga album convention! but the difference between the trinity and tok's album is the MASSIVE MEGASTAR BUDGET and inherent pop context which allows sp to discard neptunes beats in the first place! if u have that kind of cash and status it is almost your duty to work with shania and mutt lange in a bizarre one-drop/country-pop crossover misstep aaand believe you are saving the world by doing so! cos if not sp then who? and why not have your sound reflect the oddness of crossing over into megastardom anyway?

this perhaps applies to anyone stepping out from their localized genre but look at shaggy's recent clothesdrop. (clothesdrop, indeed!) it is sometimes a fairly dull record but in staking its peculiar patch of rnb-dancehall-pop territory it reflects his unique relationship to the foundation realness of all three genres: dude has reggae hits, rnb hits, pop hits, has crossed over and crossed back again 278 times. unless he decides to go punkfunk, each shaggy album will have twin foundations it must deviate from in a fresh way (simply cos it's 05 and not 01 or 94!): 1) reggae realness and 2) the more abstract ephemeral blah blah international pop fanbase. now i ain't disparaging reggae but it is not especially difficult for the well-respected veteran shaggy to satisfy the realness quotient (tho perhaps more about reassuring HIMSELF if i can enter shaggy's brain for a hot minute). he still voices the occasional strangely random riddim for the jamaican market too.

satisfying a mysterious ginormo pop audience is another matter, and tryna do that with one foot still entrenched in the realness of your genre is what can lead to this fascinating sort of grasping. it is often the sound of people searching for an ideal urban sound that will finally unite everyone who ever bought a destinys child or craig david or sean paul or 50 cent album, and in the inevitable failure to achieve this the results can become weirdly loveable and idiosyncratic. so er sean paul remains unfeeling alien and shaggy is the people's hero, OK??

(check these two ridiculously sick dj keyz tapes for more happy missteps!)

busta rhymes - touch it



i am reminded here of nine's forgotten "lyin king" single, where the 90s' most 90s rapper opens the first 16 subdued and relatively calm like, 'i heard your album and i don't believe a word of it' and after a brief instrumental break repeats that same 16 in his macho man randy savage garden gruff performance voice. AHH - I HEARD UR ALBUM AND I DON'T BELIEVE A WORD OF IT. he was trying to say something about the nature of performance i think!

on "touch it" busta alternates every 8 bars in similar fashion and the beat changes with him, from collipark throb to wild-out stomp and back again. it is all quite exciting, especially after a year or more of pissing about from the nu interscope busta. there was that scott storch staccato violin one, "hurt you" i think? what a fantastically annoying song! anyway he was probably ecstatic when ying yang's "wait" blew up - who's likely to thrive better in a environment of flow-based gimmickry and mood conceptualizing? helpfully, the answer is in "touch it".

(listen to the bit i recorded.)

'spizzazzz plz post pics of the rihanna lp sleeve'



...is a request we ain't had yet but just look!

- i think somehow listening to this record i am reminded of a g stefani cheerfully cherrypicking from her fav joints and her fav moods, minus all the 80s bollox and plus ability to handle tru rnb mid-tempoism

- such as the super-sweet "there's a thug in my life", where ri-ri hooks up with some ruggedness (cos he's got mad personality) and directs the song partly to her mums! so real

- i think maybe u love all gently caribbeanized twilight album-track bangers or u love none of them! (cf. rihanna's title track, mya's "things come and go") i love them all but experience has proved you ain't gonna win anyone over by pointing them out. bah!

- i was wrong about "pon di replay" - sorry everyone!

- listen to "the last time" , rihanna's very own "don't speak"!

mtv awards on sunday! PART TWO

aight i got my man jack cable to write part two cos i was knackered out! so listen to what he has to say!

kelly clarkson

having a famous dad can be as much a hinderance as it is helpful, just ask k.osbourne, actually don't. k.c grew up on the set of top gear where she developed a keen passion for glossy driving rock. her father was dead against her pursuing a career in the entertainment industry, he knows all too well the pitfalls and predators a young lady will encounter in the shark pool that is popular music.

kanye clarkson

kanye's fake jaw is made out of stretchy rubber, he can actually pull it up over his brow giving the appearance that he devouring his own face. HE IS NOT. it is just a party trick.

50 cent

50 cents' fake jaw is made out of titanium, a premium, but not uncommon, material for the manufacture of bodily enhancements.

coldplay

i hate coldplay. it's a personal thing, me and chris.m have beef that goes way back....to 2003. i was driving my bus, it was just after the school rush and senor coldplay was loitering around a wintery bus stop at the bottom of the dip. he alighted my step, no need for lowering the ride - he is perfectly able - "single", he commanded. i've met his type before, no manners YOU AINT THE LORD OF MY MANOR SON! i thought to my self. be professional jackers, hold it together, I AINT NEW TO THIS. indie rudie schmucks can't phase me. i punch the button, the ticket is confirmed NO TURNING BACK NOW. he fiddles with the pockets on his fitted denim jacket and pulls out his wallet. he stops and contemplates something far off out of my offside window, my head turns, what could he be looking at? "got change for a twenty?" he interupts my stare. no, no i haven't got change for a twenty pound note. however, i've already administered the ticket........you know the rest. *this may not be true*

the killazzz

look to the left, look to the right. the original grime superband, they are kinda like a lank-haired alien ant farm. the VMA's are saved.

mtv awards on sunday! PART ONE

i'm excited cos diddy is presenting, and cos all our fav big stars take it serious SO WE HAD BETTER TAKE IT SERIOUS TOO. it seems the performing line-up is grotesquely unimaginative but lets prvw them anyway

green day

hi guys! still going huh? look i desperately want to reminisce about 14-year-old facelift listening to dookie all the time but i probably did that before! so what have they done for me lately? i liked that one where he's walking a lonely road, BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY ROAD HE'S EVER KNOWN. i feel that! but i heard this other one and they had reverted to that crusty levellers punky-bollox swing beat, christ i hate that. so i am undecided about 05 gd. now how comes only rhythm section rockers age as leathery and rat-faced as this:



fucking hell guy maybe take a year off from them open air festivals??

shakira

remember that summer when we all did the shakira leg stepping over locked arms dance? perhaps the tuffest mainstream dance ever. jamaicanists had to invent signal the plane just so the world had something easy to do in clubs. i flicked through her recent espanish language album a while ago but, apart from that reggaetonish one, i didn't know wtf was going on. it was all live instruments doing things i didn't understand. so frankly, fuck off shakira for making me confront my own conservatism AND GET SOME BEATS. lil missy keeps telling me shakira likes depressing rock music 'in real life', i hate real life! i think she will do something cool at the awards though, like walk around on stilts made of men.

mariah carey

so fucking amazingly kewl that me and jack cable gotta have the same 'which is mariah's best single' discussion every six months, and now suddenly we have to contend with the "we belong together" curveball! jack was calling it her best ever joint till i reminded him of the piano riff in "honey". wbt has serious heartfm legs though, i still ain't even close to bored of it. mariah was on the mtv movie awards a few months back too, mtv knows which side their bread being buttered! the... mariah. shaped. side. they got her to lead this wet ad campaign as well



and yeah she looks insane and kinda cool but somehow the luda version turned out well gross

ms dynamite - judgement day



(haha soz those are the most unpleasant screenshots ever)

- ms dynamite busting the traditional 'awwww shit i hate tellin like it is!' body language when we all know the opposite is true!!! sometimes i think the only really real video was that insane destinys child "nasty girl" clip where they put the screwface chokehold on every slag stereotype u can think of, no one has ever had more fun being judgemental!

- address loved ones, haters, gucci bags, whatev, if you got fans and public profile you will always be addressing the tunes you share air and head space with, and dynamite is clearly telling other songs to GROW UP AND TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY. what a fucking downer. no wonder lethal b's paranoid.

- this is not a terrible song! but i can't be doing with motherfuckers too afraid/self consciously adult to come back with a superclubbanger!

special bonus spizzong

damian marley ft bounty killer - khaki suit



oh. my. days.

oop sorry, hyperboley.

this is from damian's album OUT NEXT MONTH. it is ridiculously sick in that special way we love. i don't have nothing more to say right now!

weeeell we ain't heard the damn album yet but there's all these leaked bits and pieces of unforced late summer goodness - ESPECIALLY "here i go again" and its transcendant lovers-reggae orange glow, ooh. it might be the best song i ever heard in my whole life, a future heartfm late night love songs champion.

(last night i had it on heartfm and they had that bit where a listener programs like a half hour of music specially for their loved one and this dude had come up with what i could only describe as the most beautiful half hour there has ever been on radio - frustratingly i have forgotten everything he played! except he began with kci & jojo - "all my life", what an incredible way to blast off! so if that dude happens to be reading, I LOVE U AND UR GIRL TOO.)

anyway RIHANNA'S ALBUM WILL BE VERY GOOD

(how comes teirierry mari is so wack??)

foxy brown ft sizzla - come fly with me (spizz blend)

why boybands gotta have short careers? / why my solo single have to flop so hard? etc



so you might have realised before we did: kray twinz of lethal b/twista fame are them dudes that co-produced "mundian to bach ke"! and twista had his own rmx of said song so it all kinda makes sense now. this was still fairly unremarkable news until i peeped their website and saw they did a rmx of jadakiss' 04 annoying conscious anthem "why" with ex-blue dude lee ryan on the asian flava hook! now look, we all know bhangra type dudes got some bad ideas, not to mention some bad team-ups! just look at bobby friction and nihal. but pairing jada and lee turns out to be kinda hot, i'm on fifth listen now! YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE, COOL.

nathan / beverley knight / floetry / sabrina / zagu zarr / yt / estelle - 20/10 riddim



more british riddimization, this time with beverley knight*! jd... was he in so solid?? i might be mixing him up with k.g. or something. christ it's like when i thought for about seven years thee jay-z had produced whoridas' "shot callin and big ballin" so at the climax of nas vs jigga arguments i would drop my PRODUCTION BOMB: 'ah yes, but how many secret digger classics has nas produced?? in your fucking stupid face!' i would wrongly exclaim. well whatever, some industry dude called jd has done this 20/10 riddim for britain's (mostly major label) urban warriorzzz to voice separately, and it is not complete pony. it is fierce 120bpm gut-stomp in fact, in the style of 10 jamaicanist beats released every week.

what it sounds like however was always gonna take a back seat to what the intentions are of this strange project! (to the seven people who are interested in what sabrina of misteeq is gonna do next - i hope they are at least reading this.) the list of names evokes the overly comfy end of brit black music: c4's chancers; touch magazine; hanging out with the dreem teem in pastel-coloured one-step-too-plush recording studios WHERE EVERYONE'S JUST WAITING AND WAITING FOR EST'ELLE TO SPIT HER 16 BARS, GET ON WITH IT FOR GOD'S SAKE! so i can only read 20/10 as a revolt, an attempt to tap a creative urgency that's usually alien to anyone who is chart-hopeful uk urban.

cos right now what is nathan forinstance meant to do?? he gets one hot single which sounded like it was recorded a year earlier anyway. then he is left waiting a long-ass time to either get his album out or get dropped, and his label is saying, motherfucker don't be leaking tracks or no one'll buy your shitty album! so no street tape from nathan, or anyone else non-grimey, and another opportunity to show some hotness (or awfulness for that matter) is missed. the tragedy is we can't even say nathan is wack because who knows apart from perhaps his own mum. as jd's riddim hints at, it could be so much more fun for everyone starting with the listener!

* that og version of b knight's "made it back" (wiv redman!) from like 98 was super-hot!!!

kano ft the streets - nite nite



in these times when only grand sentiment counts (cf last twenty hundred posts) i am feeling the whole performance from er... that dude who isn't m skinner or kano, can someone tell us his name!!! especially sudden wailing climax 'MAYBE WE CAN DO THIS AGAIN SOMETIME' etc when i had no clue a climax was needed. rewarding.

what the fuck is lady stush up to these days??

she is on sticky's semi-proper dancehall charleston riddim (one minute clip off 1xtra), with all them same vocal tics from 02. when i hear the shit i sort of want to curl up in a ball and mutter 'ur awful UR AWFUL!!!' but er really good fun anyway innit. so

a) charleston riddim

b) that jason jermaine tune

c) masterminding the twista/lethal b/etc collab

STICKY WHAT ARE YOU UP TO MAN

rasheed ft wine-o - be honest THE FACELIFT RMX

sean paul - never gonna be the same



(this year i have endeavoured to respect the gangsta of local seasonal produce, cooking all types of asparagus and nu potato and leek and RAINBOW CHARD based meals in spring, more recently moving on to huge piles of broad beans (oh my days broad bean mash on toast) and chillies and offensively pert salad leaves and these astounding local tomatoes from the organic shop which made me feel lame for all the tuff faraway land motherfuckers i ate during winter!)

sooooo the seasons riddim innit. so pretty and so hooked by raised-eyebrow bass twists and first thought, ah yes, drop leaf pt2 but it's not really at all, sneaky! ok it is - certainly living outside of your common workaday roots sphere by getting big playlist slots and a s paul voicing - but part 2 like the part 2 of "why don't we fall in love" or er "independent women", a different farm of salmon, or at v least a thoughtful rethink of og formula with sensible regard for listener progression rather than how much radio noise can be sapped into its corner.

drop leaf was so amazing as a vehicle for GRAND EDGE-OF-WORLD SENTIMENT. sizzla's 'YES U'VE GOT TO BE STRONG' still killing me eight or nine months later. jah cure reaching his most perfect strained regretful man-note (and he is always going for that note, it's a wonder the warden never hears him). and there is the entirety of tok's "footprints", single of 05, probably sad communal singalong of the decade (MAYBE EVER ?!), i reach for the stupid hyperbole because it just seems silly for all other music to not be as affecting (and very funny, it is worth noting) as footprints is. and the seasons riddim is not trying to repeat that!

it is a more restrained forum for s paul and others to bust a more restrained sentiment, but here i am still getting emotionalist from the way the NEVER GONNA BE THE SAME / MEMORIES STILL REMAIN chorus is multi-tracked so pretty! how fucking cool.

rihanna - if it's loving



rihanna is strange with her mirage-like relationship to dancehall, like when i heard this song i thought 'ah yes the new song from def jam's reggaeist diva rihanna' but wwwwwhy, cos her big hit is called "pon de replay"?? it operates at the same comfy distance as w smith's "switch" and somewhat desperately taps into the n sky/lumidee bleary summer ladyanthem tradition, the one time i actually demand realness! but 'pon de replay' was about as real as train station couscous, DON'T BRING YOUR INEDIBLE RUBBER TO MY SUMMER WHEN I'M ASKING FOR SUPPLE AND DELICATELY SPICED! the video is a complete waste of time too.

"if its loving" comes as a minor shock then, i mean it retains the weird distance but with its singy songy relaxedness and "bridge is over" interpolations manages to be both real and charming enough to win over adjacent garden crowds and finally push that def jamaica misstep from memory. (you cannot run a sub-label purely on the basis of attractively citrus 12" sleeves and unnecessary dmx/wayne wonder style collaborations.)

ricky martin ft amerie & fat joe - i don't care



TIME TO TAKE OUT THE TRASH

the worst spizzazzz post ever



spizzazzz's fav big brotherist this year is obviously science, the beligerent large-haired herb from leeds, not only modelling his whole steez on pre-forever wutang but spending all his sunday afternoon spitting cappadonna verses! fucking strangely apt!

here's science doing a few lines from "triumph" and "winter warz"!

ACTUALLY i do think science is interesting as a possible past and future of brit rap dudes because soon those who grew up intensively on wus and mobb deeps will be taking over the important roles like uhhh replacing shortee blitz on kiss or whatever and... nah ok this doesn't work. just forget the whole thing!

crazy double time flows of reggae music pt3

crazy double time flows of reggae music pt1



everyone's doing it now

nivea - breathe (let it go)



hypergloss intro, pro-toolsish acoustic guitar, piano, moogy synth - now listen, any uk-ist who secretly pines for the mid nineties is going to recognize the similarity to gabrielle & east 17's astoundingly classic "if you ever". but this kind of rip is easy to respect coz even moreso than it's forbear, the arrangement and instrumentation is just so. ahhh. relax. you are in the hands of professional rnbists. they can drop a sumptuous, thought-provoking semi-ballad while you're in the toilet. relax. now listen to what the fuck nivea has to say! "even kodak couldn't fix this picture / you can take this as a lesson learn / kinda like usher u gotta let that shit burn" she is regretting some dude leaving, tho i am baffled as to why he left beyond vague talk of not appreciating him til it was too late. maybe this dilly-dallying vagueness was the reason he got out, niv!

(first verse and chorus directed towards absent 'him', second verse directed towards female audience as if niv has tired of internalizing her regret and suddenly longs to atone in a positive way.)

you might also have spotted the meta-crazy "burn" ref: every 05 rnb album must have its burn moment; i ain't going to say usher's tune was strikingly original, it's more like it reached such a exquisitely rarified pitch for danceable slow jams (think hard drums, regretfulness, lush swirly atmospherics, wordy verses, MASSIVE POPULARITY) that it has forced its way into being a feather in every rnb singer's bow. why the fuck would you NOT have a burn moment?? and whether niv has played me with her powers of suggestion or dazzled with her knowingness, "breathe" is by far my favourite 05 burn moment.




(having said that i'm feeling "we belong together" more each day!)

general b - many gal

mmmmmm hm!!!



man i know he looks shy but "many gal" is a crazy crazy crazy reminder of why you loved mc acrobatics in the first place. mumble-mouthed (tho technically brill) people caressing a mic and hitting supernaturally perfect phrasing every line just cos its possible and cos there is an audience who will adore it and cos there is a tuff beat to facilitate their gangsta! support general b.

sticky ft jason jermaine - something good

fucking hell it is hot. i just read that sticky first tried his hand at ukg with the rmx of (now 1xtra dj) nesha's "what's it gonna be" after they made the rnb version together. common sense tells us it's fucking tough to make beats for a long time and still be the exhuberant graf dude with a swag bag of sprays and a gigantic plain wall in front of you, but i swear even with all them bizarre comedy records and endless recycling, sticky still got some kind of beautiful ukg magic! usually when he reaches for greatness, as with for instance joy's "beggin" or slk's "hype hype" (good tune made amazing by crazy energetic vocal performances MAYBE THE BEST I EVER HEARD! get lost with your dystopian wonder rmx), it's about sticky's melodic rainbow world serving a hot vocal.

j jermaine on "something good" is going for a kinda golden age c david level of moreish fem virility, also i am reminded of kevin lyttle's 'yeah i'm a man - A MAN WHO'S ALL TINGLY tee hee hee' vibe on "turn me on", cool! for all that, "something good" has it's own special alchemy in the way it connects youngstar style kick'n'clap flurry with salsa patter; ricky martin would love this shit. sticky's magic is i guess to make you forget the mechanics and feel the rainbow rush.


OH YEAH LOOK OUT FOR THE SPIZZAZZZ TOP TEN R'N'G RECORDS COMING SOON

korn ft xzibit - fight the power

elvis was a hero to most but he elvis was a hero to most but he elvis was a hero to most but he



ahhh remember them days when the world was real? honestly i thought everything was different-shaped now but listen: a hot new system of a down song on the radio, three six mafia busting double-kickdrum powerful-calfed vinnie paul patterns on the spizzong to ur left, and lil jon producing korn and xzibit on a cover of "fight the power" for the new xxx movie ! crazy. it's like lil missy just said to me, 'i don't even know who these people are!'

i can't really do it justice so i'll just break some things down:

- lil jon gets his own hysterical-synthed intro and then NOTHING ELSE apart from trademark vaguely spacey electro drums for the verses

- which segues into big bad krashing korn drums for the chorus!

- the spizzazzz-endorsed fav korn video is probly that "blind" one where the song ends and they break into some hot nu metal beat, just playing it relentlessly in their dingy squat with the huge korn banner behind them, no doubt the only non-musical posession they had at the time, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT NU METAL DUDES DO!!!



- but the one we still see all the time is that shit where there's bullet holes everywhere so jonathan 'korn' davis blows on a bullet to trigger the hot percussive-bass breakdown



- i hate xzibit! well ok "bitch please" was good one million years ago but his current mtv omnipresence grates no end! jack cable mysteriously loves that wack "hey now" song

- oh yeah, "fight the power"! x and j davis share the verses, passing the mic in racially harmonious fashion - x probly sounds best but then j davis gets nearly the whole chorus so call it a draw on the battlefield with lil jon, as ever, secretly winning the war

- and i'm done

50 cent / tony yayo - i run ny



(recent new york dudes falling out stories have been boring but styles p's response was good where he was like, erm i better stay out of it as i'm on interscope too and 50's bigger than me! spoken like a true second most popular member of the lox! i wonder if sheek louch could be even more pragmatic)

inevitably (rightly!) there's not much talk about the beats on dis songs, tho by nature they are the hardest and most purposeful you'll hear on a rap show right now. and if you listen to rap shows a lot you're gonna hear them all the f-ing time! let's look at the recent 50 dis sequence: "piggy bank" was a bit useless but the awesome opening strings, the distortosynth and general clatteringness won me over; jada's reply had a sleazy funk-rock gallop (he is v good at dis songs coz hypnotically never altering your rhyme scheme is good for long verses!) and fat joe busted over a super-dramatic string loop.

all deadly functional and carefully chosen for once; no need for a wack timbaland beat or whatev tho maybe because big producers are afraid to tie themselves to disses. and now the "i run ny" beat (originally mobb deep's "cobra" ahh nobody cares coz they're not glamourous): horrendous saw slicing thru metal noise, palm-muted guitar, controlled-explosion drum track - a release from dull producers endlessly recreating real-band dynamics of melodic lead instrument plus drums and bass. bands don't have a saw! well maybe rammstein does or something but you know wot i mean. this is my fav beat for ages.

1, 2 brap



or: 1, 2 dexplicit; c-oh-lder; eski-oh; b-oh; baddies; griairam

ciara ft ludacris - oh (spizz blend one)

ciara ft ludacris - oh (spizz blend two)

we haven't had a pic on spizzazzz since mad cobra?!

so here's babygirl ciara drawing a magic o.

sleazy dance motherfuckers

you know what i'm talking about! videos sprung from the juggernaut success of "call on me": michael gray - "weekend", sunset strippers - "falling stars", kabin kkkru - "star to fall", studio b - "i see girls", max graham - "owner of a lonely heart", even "my my my" by my man armand! (where are the ghetto mandivas??). plus at least a few more. they all feature roughly the same cheap-looking film stock/dv processing, the same speedup/slowdown fx offering a respectable real-music-vid sheen to endless tit-jiggling shots, the same vaguely fashionable-haired women in flight attendant/secretary/undefined glamour model roles. all have the traditional british bawdy-humour getout clause. just a bit of fun! WE LOVE IT etc

are these all from the same director/company? ministry of sound? i dunno.

the "owner of a lonely heart" clip is interesting as meta-critique of this whole sequence of vids: two barely secondary skool-kids put up ad for ladies in bikinis to come audition for them (for some reason - i can't remember if it's explained!) after they see bikini'd mannequin in shop window; bikini bitches, delighted at opportunity, dance for them in mysterious audition room; kids get picked up afterwards by mum and share cheeky we-got-away-with-it look when asked what they've been up to.

these kids are clearly the perpetually juvenile dance twats behind the scenes, forever cheekily getting away with their wearying extreme objectification. arse-pinching their way right back to innocence. this i spose is what nuts magazine is like.

it's also wack because "weekend" and "my my my" are amazing songs. and twenty wonky-faced actually-singing trance ladies just got put the fuck out of work.

mary j blige - mvp / cassidy ft mary j blige - i'm a hustla rmx

ok sometimes i think it's endless industry complacency and a probable network of grizzled old-timer djs with their hiphop-soul 90s glory days that allows mjb to instantly get buzz for stuff like this, but it's also coz she actually bothers innit. mary bothers to make the connections and bothers to love (in the case of "mvp") "hate it or love it" enuff so she can spin it full of r'n'b goodness and bothers to make bold choices - come on, you never thought she was gonna be on the "hustla" rmx! it hasn't just got pretend hard drums like "lose my breath"! and it's a bold choice that comes off too; there's a back and forth type section with cassidy that is just like, yeaaaahhhh i should have known she would kill it like this! (also swizz refs his early o.t.t. programming with a one-bar doubletime flurry like wot he used to do on every song ever, cool!) sorry i doubted.

evans ft pusha t - goin out

oh faith, if anyone should get out of the bleeding house it's you. doo doo doo-doo doo-dooooo. me and my girls are goin out tonight / me and my girls are goin out tonight. a fabolous song to sing along to but i'm always singing girl-specific songs! where is the man-track i can put my heart into?

so, songwriting mechanics! "goin out" has that fing where you have a cool little one-or-two bar motif, if you run it over one bumping never-changing uber-chord then it's always hot, but if you hit it over pharrell-caressed descending / ascending chords it kind of moistens and makes the one-chord bump you just heard seem strangely poignant. an easy trick but so effective, especially for updated latin freestyle splurts as sticky-sweet as on "goin out", in fact it is probably the least miniature neptunes track for ages; i like "drop it" etc ok* but i feel rigorous questions must be asked of anyone poiposely lo fidelitizing their sound - like what reason is there not to make it sound as big as possible / why must you hate / plz don't reinvent weedsmoke boombap for the mid-00s! sorry that last one isn't a question.

and that brings us back to faith! because when not being real on ballads she has consistently killed it over hard r'n'b tracks with proper low-end ("love like this" "burning up" "you gets no love" loads of rmxs etc). it seems fair to credit her with saving the neps from their lame selves! also from her own personal drug hell so she can go out again and stuff.

*ahhh god i just remembered that "tit 4 tat" one though! terrible.

nail.



man what an amazingly real song "ain't no doubt" was, the verses were word-hop like an angry "dry your eyes" and everyone would do that knocky knocky gesture during the chorus, though lil missy claims she has done forgotten. j nail had a missing front tooth in the video and treated it all like a weird method acting exercise! oh and the drums were kinda big, honest.

i don't want nobody else, i luv u

SHE'S LYIN!





(erm hurry up r them co with your epic dancehall post!)

spizzazzz rvws some chart songs part one

shapeshifters - back to basics

i wish things would stop going back to basics! just like "lola's theme" this shit is blighted with weak drums, i don't get who's meant to be impressed with ultra-smooth anti-bjaxx patterns unless they care more about what mj cole thinks than your edgy drum pattern loving wo/man on the street! we didn't cut off mike pickering's head and parade it thru the streets only for this to happen! the m in m people stands for murderation.

phantom planet - california

so i've totally gone off the oc lately coz, well, ahhh so many reasons!

- it's not funny any fucking more! seth's quips all reference a previous seth quip, and everyone else's quips reference a seth quip too! haha yes very meta and everything but so tired!

- marissa's fucking arms, just put them away you weird alcoholic gazelle! it's crazy coz they are probably the thinnest, longest arms on tv but in smallville they have recently allowed fat-armed chloe to show her fat arms (not in reality fat arms, but fat tv arms), so american tv: finally celebrating diversity hurrah.

- plot contrivance taken to the xxxxxxxxtreme, no no no not another girl's night out which leads to another boys night out which leads to another parents dinner, fuck you!

erasure - whatthefuckever

fair or not, i blame rachel stevens for this wackness.

the faders - no sleep tonight

man i love this song, all those different parts and vocal fx and then a flange/phase on the guitar and drums and then that stop start solo, it's like a testament to the awesome power of pro tools. i was gonna pad this out with some lyrics but they're all exquisitely boring, oh well!

jem - they

so easy to be uncharitable when you hear something that's kinda a dour version of another amazing song (sugababes "overload"?) but "they" is pleasant and if you hate pleasantness then you are probably a twat. triangles are still cool.

natalie umbruglia - sorry i don't know what this is called

lil missy will tell you she hates n umbruglia for some arcane reason like she stole the lead singer of silverchair or brad from neighbours away from her but it's actually coz missy wrote "torn" and didn't get no credit. anyway fucking hell i'm completely indifferent to her! i thought this would be the best chart for ages coz of mario, christ i love "let me love u"!

50 cent - candy shop

aight a while ago i had long, impassioned defence of "candy shop" i was gonna post but i sorta forgot it now. i do think it is deep tho, deep like there's all this space the beat creates which normally happens in minimal house type records or something - an exact balance going on between the pitch and the reverb that stops it from sounding slowed down but keeps it low and deep and spacey and real and all those words. amazing clarity of sound plus more of 50's tiny hooks. maybe not on the 02/03 level but still so fucking catchy! "girl what we do / and where we do / the things we do / stays between me and you", ahh so great. still, i hear this song is apparently about sex! oh my poor twatty patronizing ears.

tony christie - is this the way to amarillo

fuck this shit for stopping mario!

mario - let me love u (one drop reggae rmx)

this was on spizzongs for about six months but let me just reiterate: this is the greatest one drop remix ever! it should have two drops, one for each of your disbelieving ears. so wholesome sunday afternoon reading the observer and listening to roots radio, and so sinister when mario drops that jarringly harsh first line ("do you enjoy being hurt?") (it is kinda sinister on the og version anyway.) (mario is so real.)

amerie ft fabolous/juelz santana/gravy/royce the 5'9/peedi crakk - one thing (spizzazzz many men edit)

so there's this song called "one thing", oh christ i'm boring myself already errr this is the exclusive spizz mix with all the guest verses because like the og doesn't need no guest verse but we can't help being curious what peedi done does with the beat! so now you can purify the original but still have some larks. (life probably would have marched on if i never heard the gravy version but it turns out to be my... fourth favourite.) i dunno download this because you love my silky editing.

also if you hear any proper guest verses not featured here (not that jay-z one coz it's off some old song innit??) send em to us so we can add them!

random bizarre destinys child pic found while 'researching' the mini cowboy hat controversy which could tear spizzazzz apart!

brooke! valentine! album! (part one)

- i knew someone at school called brooke, she was a bit of a knob really. the first song on her album is the single "girlfight", i was excited by this coz lil jon is best doing these endless two-chord doomy repetitions, unforgiving and suddenly hitting you in the gut after three hours (my fave is still "damn"), but listening now it's quite a useless song. i hate big boi.

- "taste of dis" is kinda like when just blaze used his newfound industry power to do crunchy hiphouse tracks, the one with rah digga that was terrible but then also that joe budden/busta one which was aight. just blaze is a fucking weirdo! rah digga and joe budden's careers were ruined after those singles! b valentine's hiphouse track is really heavy though, as her website sez: 'valentine delivers the kinetic energy and seduction that listeners will immediately grasp. amid syncopated beats she encourages women to celebrate their sex appeal and tap into their inner diva.'

- the third song has the camp lo "luchini" horn loop, about as novel as choosing to eat food off a plate, everyone samples it these days. i think even jill scott and some drum'n'bass dudes? who will dare sample "black nostaljack"?? but! this is solid r'n'b realness with a whispery floaty breakdown.

- attention fantastic pop brigade: the fourth song is called "blah blah blah". the beat is a proper re-recorded "sweet dreams my la ex" and it features odb! now run along you scamps!

- it also says on her website that 200+ songs were recorded for this album! b valentine: the lost tapes will last forfuckingever! anyway "ghetto superstarz" is another fast song, with the sequenced drum style that you only get on non-thug ladyalbums, they try to be so perfect but they're just too piss-weak vanilla to belong to any actual genre of music! and usually they are fun too. you know, like "get this party started"? actually this song is very much like 02 pink and ends with a long 'in character' monologue, i think it is a satirical thing about how some girls are insecure, particularly in the music industry.

- "i want you dead" is another comedy satirical song. this album is bizarre!

man i love that mini cowboy hat!

why must there be hate??

it's swizz beatz day on spizzazzz

bcoz we found the compilation listed to your left (look over there now) (see?) and it is inevitably amazing. i had forgotten that lox track ("who do you expect") from dj clue backstage, incidentally the best official release dj vanity mixtape i ever heard, someone should make a list in fact! (dj vanity would be a cool name for a reggae dj.)

oh look they didn't even put "banned from tv" on there, lame.

xscape - wassup

look xscape if you are going to sample what, planet rock? debbie deb? for your comeback after a lot of years then why be all coy?? there is a purposeful vinyl-crackle home-listening vibe to this record when it could be a big time smash to drop right after "1, 2 step" and then maybe segue into a boring electro set or an amazing girls singing over 140bpm set where u can play "my boo" and "swing my way"! in fact i kind-of want to know the exact numbers it cost to clear the samples vs. what jazze and/or lil jon are charging for a hot nu electro beat. (or the genius craftsmen in-house slip n slide type people paid to sound like big-name producers.) i don't think it makes econosense.

i suppose xscape must be like 40 now and they remember planet rock from when it came out? ciara probably doesn't even remember xscape! anyway this is still wicked just for being a good bpm, i think at the end of the day i only care about bpms anyway, fuck music.

fat joe - so much more

thematic intro setting up final name-based pun. reference to widely available biographical info leading silkily into expectations for forthcoming album. witty reference to notorious incident in subject's past. alias of subject used in chatty conversational tone suggesting easy familiarity. cursory description of music hingeing on key adjective. tenuously illustrative lyric quote. reference to tropes of subject's chosen genre and subject's adherence/disregard of said tropes. summation of position lightened with reference to unrelated topic. name-based pun.

let's look at ciara

coz she might be a ladyman!

...

(come off it, internet)



ghetto mousy glam-hoodie realness for the album cover, softened with that expensive lipstick and eyeshadow combo, a lil bit unambitious. the hi-class hoodie died a death already with those terry toweling juicy couture versions from 02 but we are feeling the lameness of the paintshop smudged background!



suspiciously nicely distressed tshirt sleeves bely hoodrat status. end of drawstring bow craning downwards like lil jon's claw finger. clawfinger were cool. ciara still shatters glass ceiling with gridiron shoulderpads! (shoulderpads not pictured.)

instantly reminded of:



the day britney invented crunknb.



that's not a dude! anywho, another thing about ciara, the dancehall/dirty pop physicalness - rnb as the most worthwhile athletic pursuit ever. even slowed down to a 70bpm steroid abuse metabolism grind on "oh" the shit is tiring to dance to! she will probably unleash an amazing routine for it as well. perhaps the reason ashanti never did a "1 2 step" type song.



i dunno wtf the idea was here though, she looks terrible!



and this is too twee, you can't even see the tartan wellies!

i've gone off this whole thing now. but here's a bizarre japanese bonus pic.



waaaaaaah, that's a different person!

CHECK LIL JON VS WESTWOOD REGGAE SOUNDCLASH LIVE ON RADIO ONE RIGHT NOW IT'S THE HOTTEST THING I EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE

you missed it!

we keep it gutter u should know



hi. i'm ciara, and i thought i'd tell you britain bought twenty one thousand copies of my debut single goodies! huuh haah! let me see u one two step!

(what's up with those feathery trousers? gross)






(i can feel the armlegging though)

fresh for 05

--- making "lose my breath" better

amazing soca version (destiny's beat with soca vocals and extended marching drums + soca whistles intro!!!) 'doing' the 'rounds' on 1xtra. but i dunno what it's called or if it's a blend or wot. it might be the hottest thing i've ever heard in my life. also there is the northwest allstars' inspirational double-time cut-up spazz version of the beat on "north weezy" ('why do we hate girls? they're sleazy!'???), those dudes are angry! more to come about them soon so we can do some kind of southside vs northwest face-off.

--- uk raphop

could be a breakout year for roots ma-... no wait i hate him! good uk rap remains as rare as i don't know the fuck what. but channel u fave "ey ey" by def 1 is disturbingly catchy hotness! check the video on this page.

--- amerie

"one thing" is so achingly sick (the best song of 04 and 05 except for "oh") i had to ration playing it in case it gets the world ubiquity vote by summer! and it had better otherwise it's your fault, jackass! rich lovecraft harrison and amerie still the j nicholson and h hunt of r'n'b.

--- clownstep

innit.

--- mid-nineties rnb revival

yeah you might reasonably suggest this happens every year but akon is the mid-ninetiesest dude ever. "locked up" is the kind of tune which made thugs shed a tear directly over their tear tattoo during the blossom ad break, and his newest single ("ghetto" with biggie no less) is like classic 96 stiff programming with all rhythmelodic friction coming from the (great) sample. it's wicked! let's all put on 112. NOW. (112 have a new crunk'n'b single as it happens.)

--- competent grime

grime so competent with the vocal tunes these days! i mean yeah there's always the peaks but the new craft-intensiveness makes shows like cameo - who killed it in 04 with his love for ladygirlgrime - a weekly decaf and a slice of toast late night pleasure. mmm pleasuring cameo. as the man himself remarked, it's the dj cameo in the fresh for the 2005 on the spizzazzz. don't sleep.

mario ft cassidy - 18


sometimes i listen to r'n'b radio shows and wonder how that weird swing sound got so prevelant, the jerky spazz bass headnod type sound. in v general terms, the drums are usually clompy super square kick-hat-snare-hat patterns but all the other sounds (like some guitar type noises and keyboards and bass) are gasping fractionally off the beat. i think this whole sound could have been developed from how people nod their heads! if, as in this kind of swing, there is a wider space where your melodic or bass element could hit on the snare and kick hits then it makes it easier for your hypothetical head to snap back satisfyingly. (your head movement does not match the decay of a kick or snare sound ie. the sound will already be gone by the time your head is back to it's regular position, unless you do that painful neck snapping, in which case you are a twat.)

you can hear different variations of it in jay dee-ish rap and probably other places but the soul version is weird because i don't think i ever heard it help a song out - sometimes it sounds like an unwilling concession to sequencing and electronics from dudes who want to play slap bass live for several hours and find on-beatness too inorganic, sometimes it is perfectly bearable, but has it ever made anything more danceable and/or fun? fucking no!

oh but listen, this kinda old mario song makes a valiant go of being fun, it's like he and his beatman actually believe in the spazzness and build the whole song around it! especially the extremely tight usher-baiting chorus: next time y'all underestimate me / recognize i just turned eighteen / that means i got seven years to catch up so what's up? huuh haah! the best get-out clause ever, split up jamesdeanbradfield-style with emphasis on wrong/unexpected sylables!

oh yeah remember if this post is rubbish i might be younger than you so get lost merry xmas!

gype clash

regional bedroom mc's wreck the new ridiculously sick gype riddim over the phone on daytime 1xtra, crazy! i think they are doing another round today, check it 3-5pm.

the chart is fifty per cent wack

the uk top 40: it used to be real. then it was somewhat less real. then i forgot to check for ages. so i wanted to decide scientifically how real the chart is at the moment, and to introduce a special yuletide hardline approach to realness, which will also apply to presents.

deep dish - flashdance: real
kelis - millionaire: real
beastie boys - open letter to nyc: fake
joss stone - right to be wrong: fake
khia - my neck my back (lick it): fake
paul holt - fifty grand for christmas: fake
blue - curtain falls: real
ash - renegade cavalcade: fake
shania twain - party for two: real
the corrs - long night: fake
brian wilson - good vibrations: fake
mcfly - room on the 4rd floor: real
mousse t - right about now: fake
maroon 5 - sunday morning: fake
michael gray - the weekend: real
jamelia - dj/stop: real
usher - confessions II/my boo: real
eric prydz - call on me: fake
u2 - vertigo: fake
babyshambles - killamangiro: real
geri - ride it: real
jay-z/linkin park - numb/encore: real
jojo - baby it's you: real
christina aguilera - car wash: fake
brian mcfadden - irish son: fake
3rd wish - obsession (si es amor): real
eminem - just lose it: real
uniting nations - out of touch: real
snoop dogg - drop it like it's hot: real
nelly - tilt ya head back: fake
gwen stefani - what you waiting for: real
natasha bedingfield - unwritten: fake
robbie williams - misunderstood: fake
green day - boulevard of broken dreams: real
lemar - if there's any justice: real
girls aloud - i'll stand by you: fake
destiny's child - lose my breath: fake
ice cube - you can do it: fake
kylie minogue - i believe in you: real
band aid 20 - do they know it's xmas: fake

wack.

destiny's child - girl

(there goes oppressive white man rob them co like he owns dancehall!)

this is my other favourite off the dc album, more wintery warm plaid and distant sparkle through your frosted r'n'b window. the whole album is so winter-specific it seems inevitable there will be another solo charge by summer - beyonce in the middle with unimpeachable powerful-thighed #1 anthem, michelle (who kills it on fulfilled) to one side with her gospel choir, kelly on the other with some bizarrely wrong-headed misstep that i will secretly love. oh kelly! on "girl" she has a mongy boyfriend who has ruined her self-esteem but b and m are there to offer choice words. they way they sing 'gir-ir-irl' in the chorus is so perfect, as are the pretty ascending strings at the end of every 8-bar and b's exacting amount of melismatic reach for her overdubs. i love dc.

sean paul - legalize it

- those spanish clicky clappy crab things like wot they have in school music rooms are cool (castanets??)

- i think i am totally starting to feel andre 3000 jaunty fake URRR CLOWNSTEP like the tracks on the g stefani lp and "millionaire". crazy! someone should legalize clownstep, never mind weed and nunchucks

- straining to hit notes is cool. sean paul has to strain for every note! sean paul is ghetto. legalize him

- lenky is cool, i look forward to his future riddims and his contributions to the lord of the rings: the return of the king extended edition dvd

'i don't normally like 'the' 'hiphop' but that ice cube tune is cracking!'



oh colin you're so witty and right!

destiny's child - if

a ballad which sounds as if still trapped in the torpor and sentimentality of immediate breakup blues but the lyrics are post survivor revelatory: if you think I caught a feeling when I heard about that other chick (no) / i already knew about it / i just needed time just to clear my mind and ask myself / (why I didn’t handle him). dc always surviving and never giving anything back! 'if' is ravishingly beautiful but it scares me like if this is what you think to yourself when you're gently reflecting then how unforgiving are you on the bus into town with your loud friends?? everyone will hear. i feel like i really did done do beyonce and michelle wrong (kelly wishes!), "playing around with them raggedy heffers" (i know wtf) and look, just stop surviving for five minutes so we can talk!

but all this isn't to say i can't relate, ok! it's also amazingly real because it's all well and good on shiny going-out anthems but to be steely even while wrapping up warm alone on a winter's night and reflecting is exactly what it takes to survive! probably?

it would be cool if "my neck my back" had been in the top ten for two-and-a-half years!

and also if khia was actually in the excessively sleazy video.

odb rip

once when i was fifteen i was at my friend carlos's house with all these older mc type dudes who had rhyme books. rhyme! books! i wasn't really in awe of them but they had better clothes and impress-me brithop attitudes which i found very intimidating! there was probably a couple of hours of dourly boring weedtalk before we all bonded spitting "brooklyn zoo" at each other, gunclapping at the "ch-ch bloaw!" parts, authentically stutter-wobbling our voices for "my hip hop drops on your head like ra-a-ain". i still can't think of a song which better communicates love of rap language, or convinces me more that there is a valuable and important understanding between worldwide rap dudes.

what the charts told us

cassidy's "get no better": not especially popular, bad video with cassidy somewhat overstating things by courting mashonda (i forget what she did, the r'n'b version of "damn!"?) in a courtyard, never heard it much on the radio; and yet it did just as well as everyone's fave spring anthem, "on fire" by l banks a few weeks ago, wtff?

what this tells us:

- british people l-o-v-e rap ballads. (we really fucking do! i think even ll's "paradise" did quite well)

- g-unit don't care that much about pushing singles anymore. (i dunno, maybe? they know they are gonna sell bare albums off the brand; the banks and buck singles don't sound that interested in converting people [like people wot throw piss at them at reading 'festival' or whatever] but yeah yeah why should they; i am still kinda hoping "let me in" will be all over radio because it's super nice but only two weeks till the release now!)

scratchscratchscratch! etc

the new dj rectangle cd is probably the best one this decade! and it has very few zzzzz dialogue samples! he still hasn't brought back the lateral thinking and big set-piece blends from 'ill rated' and 'vinyl combat' but that might be impossible in 04 anyway: too many drastically differing tempos (crazy when you think how many standard templates have been introduced since even 00, the stuff people [or at least trina!] must have at least one of on their album) when rectangle is midtempo bassline bump through and through*.

what he has kinda brought back is the nice second-string tunes life is otherwise too short to get into, like meth and snoop on "we some dogs" or whatever that silkk the shocker song is. stuff that barely even makes it onto real mixtapes. it's like foundation album-track rap, it's good 4 you but it takes some dude like rectangle to put it in the context of actually being fun. oh yeah his scratches and cuts are catchy as always too!

*having said this, six million dollar hand being so good probably suggests that midtempo bassline bump is have a really good year! probably in part bcoz of g-unit's blanket refusal to fuck with other tempos.

we love mastermind youth team

check them at the very end of this video, particularly the final dude with amazing sniper sight lock tekken hands!

christina milian - l.o.v.e.

so the released version of this song (the uk album version, dunno about elsewhere) is good but a bit weird, for one thing it features beardo freak joe budden threatening to 'take you to the 80s' but then the beat comes in and it's not what i think of as 80s at all, in fact it's really subdued - doomy descending bassline and drums from "the show" all drugged up with echo (oh right they did use echo in the 80s 4real) for no apparent reason, as unnecessary as milian's bizarrely dull mtv looky-likey show. however! there's also this other version from early promos which has loads of things going good:

- twinkly-sweet melody from the world's greatest synth xylophone, a super tuneful palette cleanser like those notes at the beginning of the scoobay riddim which have the effect of focusing you on the drums refreshed and renewed

- four hard kicks plus horn stabs like wot happens at the start of "party up"

- milian hiccupily matching the xylophone for the chorus

- the kicks matching milian's sylables when she goes 'l-o-v-e forever' (and just for that one bit she uses the #1 classic dirty pop phone call filter, cool!)

- proper milian middle-eight type section with a harp no less!

- bonus-beats break right after the middle-eight (suggesting promo-version-specific not bothering to put a guest verse in, cool!)

check the too real to be released version for yourself.

slow fucking til the crack of dawn



anyone know why lil missy's favourite song of 02 (and least autumnal song ever!) is back two years later with some awful remix all over the radio? it's very weird!

goldie lookin chain - guns don't kill etc

listening to people spit, anyone, even these knobs, is pretty interesting: the words they choose, the voices they choose, the space between lines, the jokes, the breath control, the emphasis, the intangible stuff. so much stuff going on to make me forget my hellish life! glc will always make the wrong choices (i guess that's the point?). their jokes are so full of hate that i can only wish a swift end to their career.

and yet! my ears perk up when they come on (this is the most-played rap record on radio 1 for like the past two months, thanks britain!) just because they rhyme instead of sing, and because there's lots of them to contrast off each other and hearing more than three mc's on a track is a bit more uncommon now and and and rap is really good no matter what it sounds like. so i think perhaps if you don't get something from listening to "guns don't kill etc" you probably hate rap.

ciara ft ludacris - oh

i dunno do you have to be a dude to inhabit the nate dogg role in a rap sub-genre? no one called him bubblegangsta! but bubblegum crunk is apparently what ciara and nss16 make, those vapid bitches huh guys! anyway i was feeling "goodies" about as much as rtc but "oh" is the real deal - fuzzy-warm bass grind not unlike trillville's "neva eva" but much slower, in fact slow enough to touch toes at the magic 70bpm mark (the realest tempo in music??). perfect for luda and for ciara's almost sing-chat style, so understated she's like the secretly brilliant yet shy member of xscape or someone suddenly busting out with her own style!

that's not funny!

i mean really.

estelle ft some dude - free

estelle! you've wasted your fairly decent slippery double-time flow on this maroon 5 live jam beat! how brit-hop of you! i heard a couple more new songs on t nelson last night and they are full-on construction-set r'n'b like, OH I DON'T KNOW LETS SAY FOR INSTANCE, ms dynamite. the best estelle verse is still her guest on 3sl's version of "touch me tease me" which she has no doubt disowned anyway!

(in other brit ladygirl rapper news, this is proper o!m!g! amazing... do nio next!)

the nelly albums

- the best thing about nelly is in his videos and tv appearances and singles and accessories he will always tweak your imagination enough so you believe something brilliant and amazing could happen, which must be as important as something brilliant and amazing actually happening. if people don't have that i will never get to the brillmazing bits because i will be playing ps2 or keying cars instead.

- the sweat and suit thing is a big ruse so nelly could release the most outrageously wet album rap has known. i mean r'n'b albums are normally 10x tuffer than suit, for instance the recent teedra moses record is full of space-ballads and synths that mop up the audio spectrum like crusty bread in your broccoli and stilton soup. and it would fuck nelly up!

- it is important to mention that suit is also amazingly brilliant!

- sweat is quite shit.

- in fact it's not really shit but they fucked up that c aguilera duet debuted at the vmas, boring one-chord funk vamping that sounds like it was recorded just after "lady marmalade" (what happened to rockwilder btw?) - that's a lifetime ago! i don't need this shit anymore and it makes me tired with life.

- i don't need the chest-beating impotent horns in zzzzzzzzz "heart of a champion" either.

- however! "american dream" and "getcha getcha" are two insanely tight st lunatics-featuring twinkly keyboard+hard drums anthems. st lunatics are wicked! also "flap your wings" gets even better with each successive month and now it's number one in the charts, mental! it sounded like number eight with a bullet.

- "playa" has the once-improbable line-up of nelly, missy and mobb deep and will probably win the aesthete div vote for being based around some shit 80s wanktro song. mobb deep's snugly fitting in with 04-hop is in some way depressing, like just as the ultimate symbol of how the east monged everything up this decade.

- and then there was suit!

- which begins with the one-two gentle palm caress of pharrell (electro drumkit and unpleasant keys flourish suddenly in second minute due to delicate nelly/pharrell interplay...mmm the gayness) and jazze pha (elastic-bassed like that twista "badunkadunk" song but better for having good t.i. and nelly verses - the closest track to "ride wit me"-style midtempo blissout).

- oh but then it's "my place" which is wack.

- "n dey say" is that spandau ballet song! "true"! and w/o even a chunky breakbeat on top like wot pm dawn had. it's audacious and lovely and probably why nelly wanted to release two albums in the first place.

- "woodgrain and leather wit a hole" is beautiful melancholy hypnoticness which breaks down in a bizarre double-time hand clap style. "over and over" and "nobody knows" are just as beautiful although they might become embarrassing by next week!

- so you better get suit quick fast.

another thing about n bedingfield

what's this shit where people* say 'golly gosh, aren't songs about writing songs/songs about writers block rubbish!' like a) the world was endlessly swamped with meta-songs and b) it was anything other than a twatty excuse not to engage with n bedingfield's amazing 04 anthem!

(in other news i had a dream where i was sat at the bedingfield family dinner table and mum bedingfield served the most foul food i had ever dream-tasted!)

*i may have made up these people as i can't remember where i saw it now

i had forgotten the westwood uk hip hop mix!

it was really impressively bad! but now he has kinda backed ukg raphop so if he ever bothers with vol two it will be aight! (he won't bother.) (although it would be cool if westwood was the first to document good grime on a major label!)

in that respect it shows he's now following the lead of our beloved semtex, who just upped his career by like one million notches: he did the scratches on "stand up tall"!

(if you are gonna get all anal about it and do like a league of weird uk rap super dj's achievements then westwood would still be tops for getting namechecked on nore's "banned from tv" and big ted would be second for presenting kids satellite tv channel trouble and then shortee blitz would be 4th after semtex because he worked in deal real.)

who the fuck is that!?!?!

johnny mnemonic? also it is the worst tracklist of any westwood cd ever.

oopsy!

40 days of spizz blends is postponed for a while because we are nearly out of bandwith for august already. in the meantime, why not tell us which ones you were feeling or not feeling! and send us music too! gwan!

40 days of spizz blends

eighteen: j-kwon - "tipsy" spizz blend

(j-kwon is like the first rapper to make me feel old, my time must have passed because he looks so fresh-faced and vaguely like he doesn't know how the fuck he ended up in his own bizarrely scatalogical video; i kinda felt it with cassidy too when he does the 'six in the morning' gesture and looks unsure of how many fingers to hold up; back to school with you scamps! anyway it hardly needs pointing out that the tipsy accapella belongs on some extreme radio testtube science - the og beat is already quite extreme - but let me just ram it home unnecessarily with this "overprotected" beat; remember "overprotected"?? perhaps the realest britney single ever and you have to sing like the whole first verse and chorus before people remember it! fucking fools)

40 days of spizz blends

seventeen: g unit - "stunt 101" spizz blend

(sometimes i think "stunt" is my secret favourite song that i could never honestly tell people is my favourite song because it doesn't match any criteria anyone would want to put forward; i mean the beat is aight - it has those amazing digital reggae fills - but not really something to dance interestingly to [criteria #1!] and g unit just do their g unit thing - 50 gargles and lloyd has one perfect line out of every ten and buck drops his bitchy fashion stuff [this should probably be criteria #2 but anyway] and it all goes down smooth but nothing really makes you go omg wtf [the real fake criteria #2] etc; and yet it is by a huge distance the best song on the g unit album and probably the best song ever made, someone please explain that to me! so i chose to honour it with some proper real undie beats from visionaries and yeshua da poed [!!]; in other news zane is playing that old faith no more song and later he's debuting the new green day single and dizzee is in the studio, cool!)

40 days of spizz blends

sixteen: drama - "left right left" spizz blend

(christ it's hot today! i have used this accapella with lots of different beats and it always works about the same; the beat is soulo/jaimeson's "switch", which should be best remembered for the 12 having a 4x4 version on one side and a half speed version on the other [being a complete dick i use both in this blend!], why don't all 12s have that?? and is the 4x4 version urban house like wot spoony talks about?? spoony had spizzazzz hero victor off bb5 on his radio show the other morning and claimed he would act exactly like victor has if he were to be on bb; as opposed to chummily sucking everyone's dick, hey spoonman! dude is annoying without the rest of the dreem teem around him)

40 days of spizz blends

fifteen: trick daddy - "dro in the wind" spizz blend

(so you remember 2002 yes? time to cast your minds back! no doubt released amazing singles; girls wore skirts over their jeans; strawberries and cream frappucinos looked quite tasty; willow was evil; sugababes were good; dj's slipped old electro tunes in all the fucking time - it was an innocent time, and one which must never be repeated, but you have to wallow in it while you play this blend)

songs wot would be good if they didn't have rubbish drums

shapeshifters - lola's theme

i don't like thuddy snares which could be mistaken for hard drums but actually come off very weak and boring! also, hi-hat pattern so lame it must be a parody. good horns though.

estelle - 1980

we all inexplicably love estelle here at spizzazzz no matter how bad her beats are, but if you ever need a reason to hate brit-hop then the ineptness of our nation's drum programmers is it. just use "funky president" if you can't think of anything good!

terror squad - lean back

shit storch combines boring dre one-chord vamping with timbaland's boring asian sample cd drums. world leans back?! nah ok it's still fun but i really hate s storch!

40 days of spizz blends

fourteen: usher - "yeah" spizz blend

(sorry but i had to find a song to go with this amazing club devastator crooklyn clan mo money riddim wot never got enough play whenever it was released - i love yvette michele and all of her non-hits but this beat was wasted as a rmx! i guess it could have been a rmx to mo money mo problems proper but then no one really needs a rmx to the most perfect song ever made, ahhhh it's stuck in a terrible void! but yeah people love this beat in reggae backrooms; also i managed to fit in the "huuh haah" sound which is like public enemy's greatest contribution to the world other than when they let anthrax dude rap instead of chuck d)

40 days of spizz blends

thirteen: lil mo - "4ever" spizz blend

(there were so many good r'n'b songs last year that i feel the world is still coming to terms with them, partly by almost not releasing any good r'n'b songs this year... the og "4ever" is amazingly real apart from fabolous' annoying verse, so i delivered some ghetto blend justice and took that shit out! they stay pretty while ima stay shitty)

40 days of spizz blends

twelve: 50 cent - "in da club" spizz blend

(um so perhaps it's been long enough to hear this again refreshed and renewed? no? oh fuck off then; another old beatnuts beat that is at least more worthy of being revived than "time's up"; 50's vocal is still outrageously perfect no matter how many times you overplay it)

40 days of spizz blends

eleven: three six mafia - "who gives a fuck where you from" spizz blend

(this is just to give some love to the new shondrae beat on yung wun's "i tried to tell ya" - dude has mastered that big synth with ridiculous over-sized keys which i must assume he is using!)

40 days of spizz blends

ten: usher - "u don't have to call" spizz blend

(we love usher so much it is almost oppressive, but out of all his great songs udhtc is probably the most boring - so who could liven it up with horns and moody acoustic guitar? oh hey what about my favourite white dude rjd2!? it comes off a bit weird but there's good drama in there... i promise there will be no more rj blends after this one though)

40 days of spizz blends

nine: ce'cile - "hot like we" spizz blend

(it's the spizzazzz tribute to mid nineties ragga/rap face-offs! with three different beats! i think i chose the ce'cile accapella because i don't like the og much and wanted to feel less like i'd wasted seven squid on the 12)

40 days of spizz blends

eight: trick daddy - "take it 2 the house" spizz blend

(all slip n slide is crying out for blends with everything ever so there will probably be like seven more before the 40 is up! this one sounded better in 02 but it's still pretty fun; the beat is youngstar's "pulse xtra"; the new dizzee single is kinda pulse-ish huh! that's an electroclash-like turnaround already!)

40 days of spizz blends

seven: monica - "so gone" spizz blend

(one time i heard "so gone" in an all-night garage and it was like an r'n'b human traffic and-- oh forget it... beatnuts forgotten melodirap beat + greatest accapella of 03, it's aight!)

40 days of spizz blends

six: whitney - "it's not right but it's ok" spizz blend

(with cant contain me beats from dizzee producer taz, surely the world's leading grime guitarist?! this works quite well as a build-upon-build er skank rather than immediate slap in the earhole)

40 days of spizz blends

five: freeway - "flipside" spizz blend

(i. there's bits from like five songs in this one - you will likely be sick of them know them all already... ii. it's kinda in the dj green lantern quality produced blends style which is nice sometimes... iii. i wanted to use the entire beatbox breakdown from the "rock your body" video but by the time i had hooked the md up to sky digital mtv finally stopped playing it?!? i swear it was the very same day it went off the playlist!)

(the "didn't you know" link below is fixed now soz)

40 days of spizz blends

four: ludacris - "what's your fantasy" spizz blend

(pretty much an excuse to remind people that fantasy is the best song yet made. a bit more in the style of 02 mashup, this comes with added b jaxx [not whatever song you are thinking.. unless you're thinking that one] and it's accapella-free! twice the realness)

the polyphonic ringtone update

"slow jamz" is really overwhelmingly good!

40 days of spizz blends

three: tha rayne - "didn't you know" spizz blend

(rayney day misery blend! with old obscuro big favourite when i was 15 royal flush beat - i even remember buying it from deal real when it had only just moved to noel street, mental! mid-late nineties london record shoppers say word! this blend is dedicated to lil missy for secretly being a goth)

usher looks amazing in the "pop ya collar" vid!

though we all like "the show" here at spizz towers, it's tempting to feel "burn" beating it to number one is a symbolic victory over the 'i hate ballads!' fantastic pop brigade. girls aloud are like the new marginalized indie pulp getting to number two annoyingness! anyway, in the "burn" video usher's girl jumps into a swimming pool of fire - that's fucking cool, and surely reason enough to start engaging with ballads!

40 days of spizz blends

two: iconz - "get crunked up" spizz blend

(old attempt to prove rjd2 should in fact sign with slip n slide - not very gangsta but i choose to blame that motherfucking clean acapella!)

40 days of spizz blends

here it is the groove slightly transformed
just a bit of a break from the norm
just a little somethin’ to break the monotony
of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be
a little bit out of control it’s cool to dance
but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance
give me a soft subtle mix

right through the summer spizzazzz, in association with my other alias dj facelift, will put up 40 xxxclusive mixtapey blends! fun hey!

one: "oopdeewopdee" spizz blend

(with the head sprung beat! oh but hey the original "oopdeewopdee" is hot too, if unnecessarily gross in a nelly way.)

i'd like to publicly apologise to everyone who heard lil missy say "some girls" by rachel stevens is a good song.

fuck a spirit in the sky part two.

nelly - flap your wings

nelly nelly nelly and your disgusting "tip drill" video! you can only see that shit on late night channel u between skeevy five-minute sexchatline ads where long-nailed, tough-faced girls actually have an entire phone conversation on camera! which nobody even gets to hear! then they show the nerd lapdance video for the eighty billionth time and lil missy laughs at pharrell's pre-fame moustache. then we switch to something more wholesome obviously.

nelly is gross and doesn't really know how to reconcile his sweetness with his sexthugness like a biggie or whatever could, but of course he can still drop summer bombs that will resonate till at least november and sell eight million. i love "flap your wings" for its eyrie agility and nelly's typically playful vocal and that pitch-bent tambourine which trevor nelson said sounded like go-go. whatever oldster!

you should love it too!

ll cool j - head sprung

what is up with timbaland always giving people awful, awful, awful vocal ideas even when he knocks together a decent beat! "no no ll, more growl! you're a tiger!" what a load of shit.

(there is probably an amazing r'n'b blend to be made out of it though.)