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The Grammys + a rant against modern rappers

Posted in Beastie Boys, music, pop culture, rap with tags Beastie Boys, music, pop culture, rap on February 21, 2013 by Paxton

I love music, but TODAY’S music mostly leaves me cold. And not just the music, the artists themselves feel like used car salesman They only want to sell me their product, not actually entertain me with a good song. And the s**t that goes on the radio is 90% crap.

Now, I realize I sound like an old man, but you can’t tell me that vintage Van Halen, Motley Crue, Run-DMC and Beastie Boys aren’t better than anything else out right now. Plus, there really isn’t any “rock and roll” on the radio anymore. It’s all R&B riffs and hip hop filled with astonishingly not subtle euphemisms for sex. And as a rap/hip-hop fan since the early-to-mid 80s, I will unequivocally say that today’s rappers are f**king terrible. Can I get that off my chest? TERRIBLE. Lil Wayne may be the worst rapper I’ve heard in my entire life and the 80s were filled with bad rappers (I’m looking at you Tim Dog). And don’t get me started on Drake, or Kanye West, for that matter. That could be a whole other article.

And how unoriginal are all of these modern rap songs? Where are all the storytellers in hip-hop? The Slick Ricks, the Rakims, the KRS-Ones, the Chuck Ds? There is no one of their skill rapping today. Check out this video from 1991, The Piper by MC Cheba. It’s better than literally 99% of hip-hop released today. It tells a story with a very smooth and slick rhyme and a funky bass line He’s not spending the entire song telling me how much weed he smoked or chicks he’s banged or how much money he has. Which I don’t personally have a problem with rappers doing, but it gets OLD after 300 rappers talk about it on all their songs. Another good story based rap, The Mission by Special Ed.

But I’ve digressed…

Now that this article was high jacked by my rant against modern rappers, let me try to steer this ship back on course. The Grammys.

For the reasons above, I’ve sort of become jaded with the music industry in general. However, did anyone else watch the Grammys? I didn’t. I haven’t watched it in YEARS, but my wife DVR’d it and I wound up watching it with her a few days ago. Wow, I really liked the new format where they mashed up artists into different performances. For the first time in a LOOOOOONG time I felt like the artists were actually on stage having fun performing and not just doing it as a commercial for their song.

The highlight of the night, for me, was probably the closing number with LL Cool J performing his new song with CHUCK muthaf**king D! Chuck is 50+ years old and still gets after it better than any other rapper on the radio (however Cool J should have given him more to do than yell the hook). Cool J was also joined by Travis Barker from Blink-182 and Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. It’s actually a pretty great song.

Here’s the performance. If you want to hear the actual single, listen here.

And how cool was it that Cool J gave a shout out to MCA, the recently deceased member of the Beastie Boys? Cool J got his start around the same time as the Beastie Boys on Def Jam records. You can see them together in the movie Krush Groove. I’m surprised they never collaborated, to be honest.

Anyway, while Cool J was the highlight, there were several performances that totally surprised me in how much I enjoyed them. Here are a few of them.

This was a memorial tribute to Levon Helm, the deceased drummer of The Band. This group probably had the least star power of any of the other performances, but damn, it might be the best performed song on the whole broadcast. Elton John, Zac Brown, Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons and Alabama Shakes singer Britney Howard brought the house down with an awesome performance of “The Weight”. This was definitely an eclectic collection of talent but the end result was bonkers it was so good. I’ve actually been looking up Zac Brown and Alabama Shakes songs on YouTube because of this. And this performance in particular is the blueprint for why this new “mash up” format works.

Bruno Mars’ performance was fantastic. He normally does, but he looks like he’s having so much fun. And then Sting comes out and does his thing, then out comes Rhianna and the Marley brothers for a tribute to Bob Marley and it just looks like everyone is happy and really enjoying the performance. I know I was.

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I go ahead and rank the Beastie Boys’ albums in order from best to worst

Posted in Beastie Boys, music, rap with tags Beastie Boys, music, pop culture, rap on December 7, 2012 by Paxton

I’ve been thinking about doing this for a few months. Usually ideas like this kick around for awhile until I finally have to say, “ENOUGH, VOICES IN MY HEAD! YOU WIN, I’LL WRITE THE DAMN ARTICLE!” And writing the article will silence the voices…for a little bit. This is how my three part article on New Coke was written. You’re welcome, by the way, for that little “peek behind the curtain”.

So, the Beastie Boys released their first album, License to Ill, in Nov 1986. I bought that album, on tape, either later that year or early 1987. I had just started getting into rap at the time. I listened mostly to Run-DMC and The Fat Boys. I liked both group’s rap style, which wasn’t surprising since both of them were on Def Jam Records, famously portrayed in the movie Krush Groove. And, not surprisingly, The Beastie Boys were also a part of the Def Jam family. They even had a track on the 1985 Krush Groove soundtrack that I had completely forgotten about when License to Ill was released. That first album blew me away. I loved it and listened to it non-stop until I completely wore the tape out and had to buy another one. I have been a fan of the Boys ever since.

The Beastie Boys released 8 official studio albums beginning with that first one in 1986. There were also several other compilations, EPs and video albums that were released at various times throughout their career. However, I’m going to focus on the main 8 studio albums.

Here we go, The Beastie Boys albums in order of my personal preference.

1. License to Ill (1986) – Their first studio album and, to me, their best. You will never convince me otherwise. I learned pretty much every song back to front. It is still the album I listen to first when I want my Beastie Boys fix. You can tell they are very much influenced by Run-DMC on this album to the point that their song Slow and Low is a cover of an unreleased Run-DMC song. Some of my favorite tracks include Fight for your Right (To Party), Paul Revere, No Sleep till Brooklyn, She’s Crafty, Posse in Effect, The New Style, and Hold It Now (Hit It). Essentially, the whole album is a classic.

2. Check Your Head (1992) – This, their third album, is amazing. Whereas Paul’s Boutique (see below) was a more experimental rap album, this one is a grittier version of License to Ill. This is the album where the Beasties abandoned synthesizers and began playing all their own instruments on every track. They also started using on this album the “echo voice” effect for which they’ve become known. The soundscape of this album is just awesome and I love it to death. Classic tracks include So What’cha Want, Pass the Mic, The Maestro, Jimmy James and Professor Booty. Just so you know, I think So What’cha Want is probably my favorite Beasties song of all time. This album was remastered and re-released in 2009. This re-release added a bonus disc which featured extra tracks like The Skills to Pay the Bills which was the B-side of the So What’cha Want single.

3. Paul’s Boutique (1989) – It may be a bit controversial that Paul’s Boutique is not higher on the list. This was the B-Boys’ second studio album and the one magazines like Rolling Stone love to pretentiously put as a “greatest album”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really good and offers a nice variety of traditional and “experimental” rap. The singles Hey Ladies and Shake Your Rump are really good as are the tracks The Sounds of Science, High Plains Drifter, B-Boy Bouillabaisse and Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun. The Beasties were really stretching themselves to try something new on this album, but the important thing is that they didn’t overreach. An almost perfectly formed experimental rap album. Perfect parts traditional + experimental rap.

4. Hello Nasty (1998) – This is a great album. The Beasties turn back to the synthesized sound for this record. Most of the songs sound highly processed like they were run through a computer. It’s a fun one to listen to and I keep forgetting how much I really do enjoy it. Songs I like from this album include Super Disco Breakin’, Put Shame in your Game, Unite, Remote Control, Intergalactic and Three MCs and One DJ.

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I listen to one of my old mixtapes from 1996

Posted in music, rap with tags mixtape, music, pop culture, rap on August 16, 2012 by Paxton

The assignment for the League this week wants us to talk about mixtapes. Specifically our own mixtapes.

What songs were forever being looped on your car’s stereo [tape deck] back in high school?

I loved mixtapes. I made dozens of them over the years. Mostly for myself, but some for friends and some for “the ladies”. I would make the mixtape and listen to it on my portable headphones whenever I would go somewhere. I could be seen bobbing my head while walking along listening, most likely, to my current crop of hardcore rap songs.

My mixtapes usually weren’t random. I tended to theme them by genre. I had rap/hip-hop tapes, Disney soundtrack tapes, oldies/Motown tapes and novelty song tapes (ie Weird Al and Dr Demento). However, most of my tapes back in the day were hardcore rap because that’s what I listened to. And when I labeled the tape, I usually used a lyric from one of the songs on the tape.

Well, as for today’s assignment, I don’t need to recreate a mixtape because I still have a box of my old mixtapes in my basement. So, I just pulled out one of those mixtapes, popped it in my tape player and gave it a listen.

Below is Side 1 of today’s mixtape. I labeled it “I Think You Better Recognize”, but that’s hard to see because the ink has faded over time. That is actually the title of a song by Sam Sneed, but that song for some reason doesn’t appear on this mixtape. You may be wondering how I know this is from 1996, which the easy answer is that the newest song on the tape is from 1996. Which may not be entirely correct. But that was around my last year in college, so that sounds about right for these songs.

So let’s take a look at the song list for Side 1.

Mixtape Side A
1. N-Trance – Stayin’ Alive
2. Run DMC – Rock Box
3. Quad City DJs – C’mon ‘N Ride It (The Train)
4. MC Lyte (feat Xscape) – (Keep On) Keepin’ On
5. DJ Quik (feat AMG, 2nd II None, Hi-C) – Skanless
6. Ice Cube – When Will They Shoot?
7. 2Pac (feat Stretch) – Pain
8. MC Ren – Bitch Made N***a Killa
9. D-Nice – Time to Flow
10. Eazy-E (feat Knocc Out and Dresta) – Real Muthaf’n G’s
11. Coolio (feat WC) – U Know Hoo?
12. Too $hort – Hoes

This first side had a bunch of good songs. I had a lot of fun listening to them again. Surprisingly, I remember nothing about that Coolio song, U Know Hoo? I don’t remember it and I don’t know why it’s on the tape. That’s just odd. You’ll notice lots of NWA/Ruthless Records influence with Eazy-E, MC Ren, DJ Quik and 2nd II None. I also always enjoy Bee-Gees influenced rap songs like the #1 track in this list as well as Wyclef Jean’s We Tryin’ to Stay Alive (which I know was on other mixtapes I’ve done).

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Awesomeness Elsewhere – Mar 18, 2011

Posted in 80s, blogging, movies, music, pop culture, rap with tags blogging, Freddy Krueger, music, nostalgia, pop culture, rap, The Fat Boys on March 18, 2011 by Paxton

Where you can find me this week on the Internets:

— New Forgotten Favorites this week. It involves one of my favorite rap groups. Come see me talk nostalgically about The Fat Boys and how they would rap about comic books and movies. They also had songs with The Beach Boys, Chubby Checker, Freddy Krueger and William “The Refrigerator” Perry.

— I run down the more interesting DVDs/Blu-Rays that went on sale this week. Come see WrestleMania, BMX Bandits and Sharktopus. Yes, I said SHARKTOPUS.

— Over on Held Over! I take a look at ads for The Shootist and BeastMaster 1 and 2.

Since I talked about The Fat Boys over on Strange Kid’s Club, let’s see a few videos featuring them.

It doesn’t get any more 80s than The Fat Boys on Miami Vice.

Another great 80s clip featuring The Fat Boys in the movie Knights of the City. Check out Markie Dee sporting that rad crop top. WTF, dude?

And here’s the video for the Fat Boys/Freddy Krueger collaboration Are You Ready for Freddy? It was used to promote the release of Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master.

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Krush Groove turned 25 years old + Time Travel turns 55 years old

Posted in movies, music, rap with tags anniversary, movies, music, rap, reviews on November 5, 2010 by Paxton

Well, I was going to take this week off, but, now, I can’t. I just remembered two things I really want to talk about.

The first being that today is the 55th anniversary of Doc Brown slipping on the edge of his toilet and inventing time travel (Nov 5, 1955).

(Via Gizmodo)

So let’s all remember one of the greatest American inventors of all time and his Flux Capacitor and his incredible time traveling Delorean.

The other thing I want to talk about? In the madness of AWESOME-tober-fest, there is one thing I didn’t get to mention while I was going on and on and on about werewolves and monsters. The movie Krush Groove turned 25 years old on Oct 25 (it was released in 1985).

I don’t know about you guys, but I LOVED this movie. I saw it in the theater, I recorded it off HBO, I now have watched it twice since it popped up on Netflix Instant Streaming. It is still a good movie. It helps that I was introduced into rap music by both Run-DMC and The Fat Boys, who appear prominently in this movie. It’s the fictionalized retelling of the rise of Def Jam records, its owner Russell Simmons, its most popular acts Kurtis Blow and Run-DMC and the appearance of newcomers The Fat Boys. The movie is funny, the music is great and I had a lot of fun watching it again recently.

Just as awesome as the movie is the kickass soundtrack. Featuring songs by Rap/R&B heavyweights Run-DMC, Kurtis Blow, Full Force and The Fat Boys. You also get songs from Sheila E and the then unknown Beastie Boys and LL Cool J (who both cameo in the movie). I listened the s**t out of this tape back in the 80s. You can download the entire soundtrack and see for yourself how badass it is here. Check out the awesome video for the title single on the album here.

I think the movie is more famous as a joke than anything else. Kevin Smith even wrote a quick joke line about it in his movie Dogma. It’s between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck while they are on the bus talking about being able to tell right from wrong. During the discussion Affleck mentions a bet they have about which would be the bigger movie; ET or Krush Groove. Matt Damon says time will tell on that one.

I’ll agree, the movie is cheesy, and you really have to be interested in the music and subject matter to really enjoy it. It works on the same level as Breakin’ or Beat Street (but Krush Groove is a much better written movie). One of my favorite scenes in the movie, and I mentioned this in my unofficial movie trilogies article back in July, is the quick cameo by LL Cool J. At the time, LL was not world famous. This was his big break. The scene involves auditions for Def Jam artists and they say the interviews are over, but LL Cool J ain’t havin’ none of that. He busts in, yells, “BOX!” at his friend who turns on the “box”, and Cool J begins spouting some sick ass lyrics to a booming beat. As an introduction to movie audiences, this can’t be beat and it’s hard to really describe the shock of seeing this scene when LL Cool J was still a n00b. Here’s the scene:

I love that scene and that song. Now, to be fair, there is one thing in the movie I hate. It brings the movie to a screeching halt. It’s Sheila E. Don’t get me wrong, I like Sheila E’s music and her contribution to the soundtrack album is actually pretty good (Holly Rock). However, her movie scenes are terrible. She’s inserted as somewhat of a love interest in a love triangle with brothers Run and Russell (played by a young Blair Underwood). I. HATE. HER. IN. THIS. MOVIE. Whenever she’s not on-screen, though, I love it.

If you’ve never seen this movie, I say check it out. It’s a fun movie with good music. Not bad considering it’s a quarter of a century old now.

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