Sunday, October 06, 2002
have very suddenly discovered tons of great current singles. to wit:
eminem's "lose yourself" appropriately has a real cinematic feel to it - yeah, I'm probably going to go see 8 mile, if for no other reason than to see how much it apes purple rain in style if not substance - and is stronger than anything I've heard from the eminem show (I've always preferred the 8000 "without me" bootlegs to the song itself; dre's vaguely technoid wonking is boring, people, and absolutely nothing new). there's an urgency in em's voice on "lose yourself" I haven't heard since "kim" and "the way I am," and that's a very good thing. intense eminem generally equals great hiphop. this is no exception.
I could rave about missy's "work it" for days, but already have. and I still feel that the best writing on it was done by nate, right here.
in fact, where did all this 2002-face-saving-hip-hop come flooding from? erykah badu may not inherently be hip-hop, but she's certainly of it, and the point has never been made more clear than on her new single featuring common, "love of my life (an ode to hip-hop)." about fucking time someone wrote and recorded a sequel to common's "I used to love h.e.r."! just like its predecessor, this works just as well as a straightahead love song as it does a straightahead love song to hip-hop, and sounds like just what you'd hope, a collabo between badu and common, complete with vaguely old-school-ish beats underpinning the keybs (this could actually get played on adult r-and-b stations). the video is riotous, including cameos from mc lyte and chuck d, and some truly alarming hairstyles on badu.
"luv u better" is l.l.cool j's return to form, and what a return it is. most of my buds will likely scorn it as "too commercial," and that's their loss. sounding nothing like a neptunes track (but it is), it's a slice of ultra-smoove r-and-b complete with male crooning on the chorus. and uncle l, who may not be the future of the funk anymore, but he's certainly not in the past. akin to "hey lover" without sounding as schmaltzed, this is l.l.2k2: still a loverman, still in amazing shape (have you seen him?! the man has an eight-pack!), and still dexterous as all get-out. and how is it that he's one of the very few rappers who sounds sincere when talking about relationships? I guess the precedent of his teenaged "I need love" could have something to do with it, but it still impresses me. quit acting and come back to the game fulltime, you mogul, you. james todd smith, hip-hop still needs you.
she's baaaaaaack! and to these ears, "die another day" is the best song madonna's put to wax since - well, since she woke up and smelled the electronica. better than anything from ray of light or music, this is the sound of machines having fever dreams of beautiful women and string sections. tim finney nails the core of it very nicely on his superb skykicking blog.
and she's back, too! thought by dumb people to be the antithesis of real country music, or at least its enemy - they're so wrong and so foolish - shania twain returns from her celine-esque absence with "I'm gonna getcha good!," which is, well, classic shania: all def leppard drums and steel guitars. the reason shania's crossed over from country to pop so effortlessly can be attributed to 2 factors. one is, obviously enough, her husband, producer "mutt" lange, who himself produced def lep and ac/dc, among others, in the '80s. the other is that like no artist since dolly parton on the cusp of the '80s, shania's records are simultaneously country and pop, effortlessly straddling the divide while being wholly both. why can't you like patsy cline and def lep the same, anyway? alison krauss does, but because she goes the opposite direction on her records, no one seems to mind. get over it, y'all. shania is country to the core; she just uses synth processing instead of dobros, but gets to the same end with her means.
eminem's "lose yourself" appropriately has a real cinematic feel to it - yeah, I'm probably going to go see 8 mile, if for no other reason than to see how much it apes purple rain in style if not substance - and is stronger than anything I've heard from the eminem show (I've always preferred the 8000 "without me" bootlegs to the song itself; dre's vaguely technoid wonking is boring, people, and absolutely nothing new). there's an urgency in em's voice on "lose yourself" I haven't heard since "kim" and "the way I am," and that's a very good thing. intense eminem generally equals great hiphop. this is no exception.
I could rave about missy's "work it" for days, but already have. and I still feel that the best writing on it was done by nate, right here.
in fact, where did all this 2002-face-saving-hip-hop come flooding from? erykah badu may not inherently be hip-hop, but she's certainly of it, and the point has never been made more clear than on her new single featuring common, "love of my life (an ode to hip-hop)." about fucking time someone wrote and recorded a sequel to common's "I used to love h.e.r."! just like its predecessor, this works just as well as a straightahead love song as it does a straightahead love song to hip-hop, and sounds like just what you'd hope, a collabo between badu and common, complete with vaguely old-school-ish beats underpinning the keybs (this could actually get played on adult r-and-b stations). the video is riotous, including cameos from mc lyte and chuck d, and some truly alarming hairstyles on badu.
"luv u better" is l.l.cool j's return to form, and what a return it is. most of my buds will likely scorn it as "too commercial," and that's their loss. sounding nothing like a neptunes track (but it is), it's a slice of ultra-smoove r-and-b complete with male crooning on the chorus. and uncle l, who may not be the future of the funk anymore, but he's certainly not in the past. akin to "hey lover" without sounding as schmaltzed, this is l.l.2k2: still a loverman, still in amazing shape (have you seen him?! the man has an eight-pack!), and still dexterous as all get-out. and how is it that he's one of the very few rappers who sounds sincere when talking about relationships? I guess the precedent of his teenaged "I need love" could have something to do with it, but it still impresses me. quit acting and come back to the game fulltime, you mogul, you. james todd smith, hip-hop still needs you.
she's baaaaaaack! and to these ears, "die another day" is the best song madonna's put to wax since - well, since she woke up and smelled the electronica. better than anything from ray of light or music, this is the sound of machines having fever dreams of beautiful women and string sections. tim finney nails the core of it very nicely on his superb skykicking blog.
and she's back, too! thought by dumb people to be the antithesis of real country music, or at least its enemy - they're so wrong and so foolish - shania twain returns from her celine-esque absence with "I'm gonna getcha good!," which is, well, classic shania: all def leppard drums and steel guitars. the reason shania's crossed over from country to pop so effortlessly can be attributed to 2 factors. one is, obviously enough, her husband, producer "mutt" lange, who himself produced def lep and ac/dc, among others, in the '80s. the other is that like no artist since dolly parton on the cusp of the '80s, shania's records are simultaneously country and pop, effortlessly straddling the divide while being wholly both. why can't you like patsy cline and def lep the same, anyway? alison krauss does, but because she goes the opposite direction on her records, no one seems to mind. get over it, y'all. shania is country to the core; she just uses synth processing instead of dobros, but gets to the same end with her means.
# posted by Thomas : 6:57 AM
