This week in the Mixtape Mondays segment we have one of the more interesting albums of late. New York-based producer Minty Fresh Beats has created Jaydiohead, an album that mashes up the best of both Jay-Z and Radiohead. It’s garnered much attention since it’s release, and has been featured on MTV.com, NME.com, and Last Call with Carson Daly, among others. A few of the must-listen to tracks include “Wrong Prayer” and “99 Anthems.” [read more…]
There are few things in life more satisfying than having bad taste redeemed. Such redemption is rare because the label “bad taste” usually applies to pop culture, and once we label something as bad taste, the label is permanent. There are exceptions, of course, mostly outside of pop culture—Nabokov’s Lolita was considered in bad taste but only by the uptight literati whom no one pays much attention to anyway, unless you buy your clothes from J. Peterman and refuse to watch television and scoff at things like Bruce Willis movies.
Pop culture sets the bar low. But low doesn’t necessarily mean “terrible,” except 90% of the time. So when we look back and rediscover the joy of bad taste…damn if it isn’t satisfying. And thus we are brought to this week’s column, a tasty blend of 80’s hair metal band Winger, really bad mix tapes, and the worst break-up of my college days.
[read more…]
After being spotted outside of Place de la Bourse in Paris, Bloc Party lead singer Kele Okereke was asked to perform a song by the guys who run La Blogotheque. After 25 minutes of gentle coaxing, the notoriously shy Okereke finally agreed to perform “This Modern Love,” one of the hit songs from Bloc Party’s 2005 debut album Silent Alarm. What followed next was 5 minutes of one of the coolest, most sincere renditions of a Bloc Party song that I’ve ever heard. From La Blogotheque:
“We cut, during the editing, because it took us 25 minutes to talk them into doing it. Just enought time to stop him from running away, go get Russel, decide what song they were going to play. When Kele eventually started singing, Colin was pressed against him, and it felt like he was jumping from a diving-board too high for him… He caught us off-guard. Everyone was speechless. There’s nothing more to add. Five minutes of rare sincerity, two artists doing something with no safety net and without really understanding why. They took that risk, and that’s what we thank them for.”
[read more…]
Dick Flink and Nick Fenmore – or the Super Mash Bros – describe their group as “Girl Talk’s Hot Cousin.” Despite the abundance of family terminology, they manage to put together some extremely danceable stuff, with samples ranging from MGMT to Death Cab for Cutie to Nelly. With a few of these samples, it’s tempting to write off the group as a Girl Talk knockoff, but once you begin going through the album, listening to tracks like “Meet Me at Fantasy Island” (which samples Blink 182), or “Stop that Booty” (sampling Modest Mouse and Bubba Sparxx) you begin to understand that the Super Mash Bros sample sources much more diverse than Girl Talk. Spanning the spectrum from indie rock to Top 40 to european electronica, Fuck Bitches, Get Euros should be the next mixtape you download. [read more…]
I’ve always loved Biggie Smalls’ music. His beats are sick and his flow is unbelievable- there’s no denying it. With the release of the biopic Notorious on Jan 16th, I did some digging on the internet to learn more about the man. I stumbled across this video, which features Biggie Smalls at age 17 in a lop-sided rap battle. It’s clearly evident that even at that young age, Biggie was bound for stardom. He had something special. Take a look at the clip, and let me know what you think. [read more…]
