This post is brought to you by Big Love, the TTC strike and the Toronto Raptors, who broke my heart.
The title of this post may be a little inaccurate. I don't know if Kool Keith and Princess Superstar are actually friends. I don't know if Keith has ever helped Princess move, or if Princess has ever tried to set Keith up with a lady. I have no idea if they read each others blogs.
What I do know is that they're about as similar as a small white girl from suburban Philly and a tall black guy from the South Bronx can be. They're both degenerate sex perverts, they both have a tendency to jam either too many or too few words in a verse, the both like to use weird non-sequiturs, and they both don't get along well with major labels. Most importantly, when Princess and Keith do a track together, they kick wicked ass.
The question is, who would win if they went head to head?
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the woman who said "I won't beat around the bush, so you can eat around mine," PRINCE-ess SUUU-PERRR-STARR.
Princess Superstar was born to a Russian-Jewish father and a Sicilian mother, who named her Concetta Kirshner to honour both halves of her heritage. I firmly believe that this may be the best real name of any rapper in history, with the possible exception of Obie Trice, who realized his name was so awesome that taking a stage name would be pointless. Both Concetta's parent's were psychologists, which might explain why she's so filthy.
Concetta started rapping and playing guitar as Princess Superstar in the early-'90s while attending NYU. In 1994, she put out a cassette EP called Mitch Better Get My Bunny. She sent copies of Mitch to the Beastie Boys and the folks at College Music Journal. In 1995 she released her first full-length album, Strictly Platinum. Strictly Platinum also produced Princess Superstar's first college radio hit, "I'm White."
After releasing almost an album throughout the back half of the '90s, Princess' production has trailed off considerably in recent years. Her last studio album, My Machine, came out in 2005, and the last one before that, Is, came out in 2001. That's not to say she's been slacking. She still performs live and has been doing a lot of work as a DJ, making mixed albums, playing gigs, and working as part of a duo called DJs Are Not Rockstars.
This is the video for "Bad Babysitter" off of Is. I like it for a number of reasons. One, I dig young girls, or 30-year-old women pretending to be young girls. Two, I like Mr. Eon, who guests on the song. He has the worst case of white rapper disease (great lyrics, no flow) ever, but he makes me laugh. Three, the whole thing feels like a weird In Living Colour sketch.
The Opposition
In the red corner, from The Bronx, New York, the man with more than two dozen alter-egos, KOOOOL KEITH!
Kool Keith first started rapping in the mid-'80s as a member of the Ultramagnetic MCs. As a group, Ultramagnetic was known for weird lyrical imagery and polysyllabic rhymes, but Keith took that to a whole new level with his boasts of having spent time in New York's Bellevue mental hospital. He allegedly was the first MC to come up with multiple aliases, although that sort of thing is hard to prove. He also provided the key sample for The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up." When Ultramagnetic broke up in 1994, Kool Keith headed out to California and signed a deal with Capitol records. Sadly, Keith never released anything on Capitol. In 1996, he re-appeared with a new alter-ego, Dr. Octagon, and released what may be his best-known album, Dr. Octagonacologyst.
If any of you are curious as to how many alter-egos Kool Keith has, here's a complete list, along with the origins of each name, from KoolKeith.co.uk.
KEITH THORNTON – His real name.
KOOL KEITH – His rapper name.
KEITH TURBO – He used this alias for the "Keith Turbo" track from the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH TELEVASQUEZ – He used this alias on Clifton with Motion Man on the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
KEITH KORG – His Analog Brothers alias.
MATTHEW – Keith’s middle name and alias for a full LP.
DR. SPERM – Known to be his first alias as a rapper.
DR. OCTAGON – C’mon, you know this one.
DR. ULTRA – He was Dr. Ultra in the “Five Deadly Venoms” Sprite commercials.
DR. DOOOM – He created this character with sick rhymes and a goal of killing Dr. Octagon.
BLACK ELVIS – Dr. Dooom’s twin. Created for the Columbia Records album.
POPPA LARGE – He’s Poppa Large, big shot on the East Coast.
MR. GREEN – He used this alias on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
MR. GERBIK – The dangerous 208 year old uncle of Dr. Octagon. Half Shark Alligator Half Man.
MR. ORANGE – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
MC BALDYLOCKS – Unknown right now.
THE FOURTH HORSEMAN – He considered himself The Fourth Horseman on the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
BLONDE MAN – He referred to himself as Blonde Man in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
CLEAN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
SHARK MAN – Another name for Mr. Gerbik.
ELEPHANT MAN – From 1996 to 1998 he always said he planned on releasing an album under the alias Elephant Man.
ALIEN MAN – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
JIMMY STEELE – He referred to himself as Jimmy Steele in the liner notes of the Black Elvis/Lost In Space LP.
WILLIE BIGGS – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP. He also used it on the back cover of Ultra’s Big Time LP.
BIG WILLIE SMITH – He released a limited EP with the Beat Terrorists under this alias.
WILLIE NATURAL – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
REVEREND TOM – He first used this alias on the track "Fat Lady" from Ultra’s Big Time LP and later used it on Thee Undatakerz LP.
MIKE STANLEY – He uses this alias in DJ Sooky's Riddim Warfare LP.
LARRY LOPEZ – He used this name with Heather Hunter for “Toot Toot Hey Beep Beep”.
THE X – He used this name on the inside cover of the Ultramagnetic MC’s Four Horsemen LP.
RHYTHM X – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-CALIBER – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP.
X-74 – He used this alias in the song "Kick a Dope Verse" by the Cenobites.
FLY RICKY THE WINE TASTER – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
RICO FROM PUERTO RICO – This was an alias he used back when HipHopSite.com ran KoolKeith.com.
FUNK IGNITER PLUS – He first used this alias in the track "Funk Radio" from Ultramagnetic MC’s Funk Your Head Up LP, and he still uses this alias.
ROBBIE ANALOG – He used this alias to make fun of the RZA on the inside cover of Dr. Dooom’s LP.
SINISTER 6000 – He used this alias on Automator’s A Better Tomorrow.
CRAZY LOU – He Used this name as the guns and ammo salesman in "Weapon World" from Prince Paul’s A Prince Among Thieves.
LONNIE HENDREX – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
LIGHT BLUE COP – This was one of his characters in the "Livin’ Astro" video.
THE KID IN THE COMMERCIAL – This was one of his characters in the Livin’ Astro video.
JOE KINGPIN – He used this alias in the track "Still The Best" from the Sex Style LP.
BLACK LINEN – He used this alias in the track "Silk Suit, Black Linen" from the Masters of Illusion LP. Motion Man was Silk Suit.
ELVIN PRESLEY – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Elvin Presley.
DELI BOY – He was called Deli Boy in the comedy/porn “Sex For Life Too”.
SK8 JOHNSON – He used this alias in the Bootleg Skater videos.
PLATNINUM RICH – One the Diesel Truckers, along with The Funky Redneck.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE PLUS MEGOTRON – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a longer version. He also used this alias in Ultramagnetic MC’s track "Traveling At The Speed Of Thought."
ACTIVITY – This was his name when he was with the NYC Breakers
EXXON – He gave away cards at concerts. The cards had a picture of him with the name Exxon.
CAPTAIN KOOL – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
CAPTAIN BLACK – This was an alias he was supposed to use according to Liveonerecords.com.
EXOTRON GEIGER COUNTER ONE GAMA PLUS SEQUENCER – He used this alias on Marley Marl In Control in 1989. He also used a shorter version.
ROBERT PERRY – He used this alias for the track Robert Perry from his Lost Masters LP.
JOHN CLAYBORNE COUSIN OF JIMMY HICKS – He used this alias on the Clayborne Family LP with Marc Live and Jacky Jasper.
MR. NOGATCO – Released an album under this name with Izreal.
TASHAN DORRSETT – Supposed to release an album under this name with DJ Junkaz Lou.
NAQUAN aka UNDERWEAR PISSY - Alias on the NEW Ultramagnetic MC's album, The Best Kept Secret.
In fact, he has so many alter egos, he's actually had rapper beef with himself. Dr. Dooom killed off Dr. Octagon at the start of First Come, First Served. Black Elvis then called out Dr. Dooom when his album was released.
If you haven't noticed by now, this is a blog that appreciates prolificness in an artist. I realize I should care more about quality than quantity, but sometimes I don't. I respect people who know how to produce, and nobody produces more than Kool Keith. In addition to releasing 17 albums and mixtapes between 1996 and now, he's also collaborated on projects like The Diesel Tuckers and The Analog Brothers, working as part of 12 different collaborative projects since 1993. He also keeps popping up as a guest on other people's songs.
This is the video for "Livin' Astro" off the Black Elvis album. Black Elvis was my least favourite Kool Keith album for a long time, but it's managed to grow on me. This video kicks fairly major ass, and more to the point, it sort of embodies everything Kool Keith is about.
Comment to vote, you know the deal.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Big Wins a Gwaan: Buju Banton Wins
This week's reggae battle provided us with the strangest result to date, with four votes cast and final tally of 2 - 1 - 1 in favour of Buju. (The extra vote was a write in for Shabba Ranks. Thanks for fucking up the system Stephanie.)
For a victory video, I decided to do something a little more recent. Unlike Super Cat, or Shabba Ranks, Buju still has a really active career. This is the video for "Driver A," it came out last year on the album Too Bad. Too Bad was Buju's first real dancehall album after spending the last decade getting progressively rootsier. This song is straight fire, and the guy in the video has a good hat. Enjoy.
For a victory video, I decided to do something a little more recent. Unlike Super Cat, or Shabba Ranks, Buju still has a really active career. This is the video for "Driver A," it came out last year on the album Too Bad. Too Bad was Buju's first real dancehall album after spending the last decade getting progressively rootsier. This song is straight fire, and the guy in the video has a good hat. Enjoy.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Dancehall Heroes of the 1990s: Buju Banton vs. Super Cat
This post comes to you courtesy of playoff hockey and high school nostalgia. It also come courtesy of my buddy Nemo Burbank who said he was going to start his own version of Music Video Violence, but all dancehall reggae. It would be pretty much the same as this blog, but make readers 400% more likely to commit hate crimes.
I first got into reggae in the fall of 1995. Sure, I liked reggae before then. I asked for the Bob Marley Collection on cassette for Christmas in Grade 7, and I remember digging what ever dancehall crossed over to whatever Top-40 station I was listening to at the time. I have very clear memories of listening to Chaka Demus and Pliers and Nadine Sutherland and Terror Fabulous on AM 640 -- does anyone else remember 640 before it was a news station? -- but reggae didn't become seriously become part of my environment until the fall of 1995.
The reason the date is so specific is that in the fall of 1995 I left my small K - 8 grade school where predominant ethic groups white and Canadian-born-Chinese for a large, windowless, concrete high school where the predominant ethnic groups were Caribbean-Canadians and Chinese kids from somewhere else, presumably China.
It immediately became clear to me that if reggae had been a rare, exotic additive to my old musical diet of mid-'90s alt rock and cheesy pop-dance, it was going to be a staple from now on whether I liked it or not. Reggae was everywhere. It rumbled out of cars in the parking lot, drifted down from the balconies of the highrises that backed onto the school and made up a solid 40% of every school dance. Some of the other white kids went on crazy anti-reggae rants fueled by equal parts racism and religious devotion to Trent Reznor, but I rode the reggae wave as much as possible.
Sure, I was still mostly listening to Epitaph punk and Sonic Unyon CanRock, but I found that reggae was a) easier to dance to and b) made girls more willing to make out with me than, say, Rancid. I still couldn't understand the lyrics most of the time, but I also couldn't always understand what my classmates were saying, so that wasn't a big deal.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Salt Lane, Kington, Jamaica, with a bad judgment call of militant homophobia and dissing dark skinned girls, BU-ju, BAN-ton!
Like almost all dancehall artists, Buju Banton started rhyming at a ridiculously young age. He inexplicably chose the moniker "Gargamel" for the early bit of his career, but later changed his stage name to Buju Banton. Buju for a childhood nickname, Banton as a tribute to early '80s dancehall chatter Burro Banton. Presumably he also got tired of being outsmarted by the Smurfs.
Buju had huge success in Jamaica in the early '90s. Unfortunately, he also made two huge mis-steps. The first was a song called "Boom Biddy Bye Bye," which basically advocated killing gay people. (He subsequently took it back, ish.) The second was a song called "Love Me Browning," where he got all internalized racism on everyone and expressed a strong preference for light skinned women. (He also took that back, sort of.)
In 1993, he started his North American career with a the album Voice of Jamaica. Voice of Jamaica showed Buju getting a little more conscious, rhyming about issues like AIDS and crime. In 1994 he converted to Rastafarianism and started making progressively rootsier, less-dancey records before going back to his club roots in 2003.
This is some vintage mid-'90s, pre-Rastafarianism, post-raw ignorance Buju. The song is "Deportees (Things Change)" off Voice of Jamaica. There are two really dope things about this video: 1) It has a bit of a plotline, as does the song, and 2) it has some absolutely killer examples of period urban wear.
Now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Cockburn Pen, Kingston, Jamaica, with severe career mis-step of selling out and guesting on a Sugar Ray track, SUUU-PER CAT!
Super Cat is sort of a tragic figure. After spending the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the '90s as the man to beat in dancehall reggae, he found his popularity starting to fade. Rather than rush back to the studio start trying to kill it, he guested on a Sugar Ray song, made a shitload of fast money, shot his credibility and effectively ended his career.
Now, in Cat's defense, I'm being a little harsh. I'm just speculating here, but one has to think that he felt sort of entitled to Sugar Ray's filthy lucre. Him and Shabba Ranks worked their asses off to get dancehall on African-American radio stations. They got signed by major labels in the U.S. and guested on songs to help break the genre, only to see guys like Buju, Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, make the real money.
For those of you who don't know, Super Cat was the closest thing to a crossover superstar in the mid-to-early 1990s. He worked with a who's who of '90s hip-hop and R & B (Biggie and Puffy, Heavy D, Mary J. Blige, Kriss Kross, Method Man) and was the first guy to do hip-hop remixes of his songs for play on American radio. He had a song on New York Undercover. This guy broke down doors.
Ironically, Super Cat has had a bit of a comeback in the last little while, doing guest vocals for American rappers and R & B singers. It seems like the taint of "Fly" finally wore off enough for him to be credible again. He also released his first album in nine years back in 2004.
He's probably been helped by the fact that every crossover dancehall artist to come out in to past half-decade has named him as their number one influence. Damian Marley sounds like a rootsier Super Cat, Collie Buddz is a white Super Cat with a slower flow, and Sean Paul has just jacked his sound outright.
This is the video for "Scalp Dem" off The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Crazy, an album he co-produced with Junior Cat, Nicodemus, and Junior Demus. That's right folks, double your Cats, double your Demuses. This video is awesome. First of all, it highlights the odd obsession of early dancehall artists with Western movies. (Guys were using Josie Wales and Lee Van Cleef as stage names. Super Cat called himself the Wild Apache.) Second of all, it may set the record for the largest number of white people in a dancehall video.
I first got into reggae in the fall of 1995. Sure, I liked reggae before then. I asked for the Bob Marley Collection on cassette for Christmas in Grade 7, and I remember digging what ever dancehall crossed over to whatever Top-40 station I was listening to at the time. I have very clear memories of listening to Chaka Demus and Pliers and Nadine Sutherland and Terror Fabulous on AM 640 -- does anyone else remember 640 before it was a news station? -- but reggae didn't become seriously become part of my environment until the fall of 1995.
The reason the date is so specific is that in the fall of 1995 I left my small K - 8 grade school where predominant ethic groups white and Canadian-born-Chinese for a large, windowless, concrete high school where the predominant ethnic groups were Caribbean-Canadians and Chinese kids from somewhere else, presumably China.
It immediately became clear to me that if reggae had been a rare, exotic additive to my old musical diet of mid-'90s alt rock and cheesy pop-dance, it was going to be a staple from now on whether I liked it or not. Reggae was everywhere. It rumbled out of cars in the parking lot, drifted down from the balconies of the highrises that backed onto the school and made up a solid 40% of every school dance. Some of the other white kids went on crazy anti-reggae rants fueled by equal parts racism and religious devotion to Trent Reznor, but I rode the reggae wave as much as possible.
Sure, I was still mostly listening to Epitaph punk and Sonic Unyon CanRock, but I found that reggae was a) easier to dance to and b) made girls more willing to make out with me than, say, Rancid. I still couldn't understand the lyrics most of the time, but I also couldn't always understand what my classmates were saying, so that wasn't a big deal.
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Salt Lane, Kington, Jamaica, with a bad judgment call of militant homophobia and dissing dark skinned girls, BU-ju, BAN-ton!
Like almost all dancehall artists, Buju Banton started rhyming at a ridiculously young age. He inexplicably chose the moniker "Gargamel" for the early bit of his career, but later changed his stage name to Buju Banton. Buju for a childhood nickname, Banton as a tribute to early '80s dancehall chatter Burro Banton. Presumably he also got tired of being outsmarted by the Smurfs.
Buju had huge success in Jamaica in the early '90s. Unfortunately, he also made two huge mis-steps. The first was a song called "Boom Biddy Bye Bye," which basically advocated killing gay people. (He subsequently took it back, ish.) The second was a song called "Love Me Browning," where he got all internalized racism on everyone and expressed a strong preference for light skinned women. (He also took that back, sort of.)
In 1993, he started his North American career with a the album Voice of Jamaica. Voice of Jamaica showed Buju getting a little more conscious, rhyming about issues like AIDS and crime. In 1994 he converted to Rastafarianism and started making progressively rootsier, less-dancey records before going back to his club roots in 2003.
This is some vintage mid-'90s, pre-Rastafarianism, post-raw ignorance Buju. The song is "Deportees (Things Change)" off Voice of Jamaica. There are two really dope things about this video: 1) It has a bit of a plotline, as does the song, and 2) it has some absolutely killer examples of period urban wear.
Now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Cockburn Pen, Kingston, Jamaica, with severe career mis-step of selling out and guesting on a Sugar Ray track, SUUU-PER CAT!
Super Cat is sort of a tragic figure. After spending the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the '90s as the man to beat in dancehall reggae, he found his popularity starting to fade. Rather than rush back to the studio start trying to kill it, he guested on a Sugar Ray song, made a shitload of fast money, shot his credibility and effectively ended his career.
Now, in Cat's defense, I'm being a little harsh. I'm just speculating here, but one has to think that he felt sort of entitled to Sugar Ray's filthy lucre. Him and Shabba Ranks worked their asses off to get dancehall on African-American radio stations. They got signed by major labels in the U.S. and guested on songs to help break the genre, only to see guys like Buju, Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, make the real money.
For those of you who don't know, Super Cat was the closest thing to a crossover superstar in the mid-to-early 1990s. He worked with a who's who of '90s hip-hop and R & B (Biggie and Puffy, Heavy D, Mary J. Blige, Kriss Kross, Method Man) and was the first guy to do hip-hop remixes of his songs for play on American radio. He had a song on New York Undercover. This guy broke down doors.
Ironically, Super Cat has had a bit of a comeback in the last little while, doing guest vocals for American rappers and R & B singers. It seems like the taint of "Fly" finally wore off enough for him to be credible again. He also released his first album in nine years back in 2004.
He's probably been helped by the fact that every crossover dancehall artist to come out in to past half-decade has named him as their number one influence. Damian Marley sounds like a rootsier Super Cat, Collie Buddz is a white Super Cat with a slower flow, and Sean Paul has just jacked his sound outright.
This is the video for "Scalp Dem" off The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Crazy, an album he co-produced with Junior Cat, Nicodemus, and Junior Demus. That's right folks, double your Cats, double your Demuses. This video is awesome. First of all, it highlights the odd obsession of early dancehall artists with Western movies. (Guys were using Josie Wales and Lee Van Cleef as stage names. Super Cat called himself the Wild Apache.) Second of all, it may set the record for the largest number of white people in a dancehall video.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Nothing's Changed, I Still Love You, and Apparently You All Love Morrissey: The Smiths Win
A solid, but by no means definitive, win for Morrissey, Marr and the other two dudes. While The Smiths took the battle in a 5 - 2 decision, the Sisters' supporters did manage to make a strong case for The Sisters' brand of theatrical, over-the-top gothic silliness. I like it when we get a good debate going around here.
Picking a victory video here was hard. The video I really wanted to post isn't really an official "video" per se. It's actually footage of them performing "Shoplifters of the World" on the legendary British TV show Top of the Pops. At first I thought it would violate the concept of the blog, but then I figured that it's my blog and I can do pretty much whatever the fuck I want. Just so we're clear, I wouldn't put this up in a battle, but I feel like I can get away with it as a victory vid. Even though it's just straight up performance, the angles on this puppy are killer, and more importantly, Morrissey is so gay here. It's really killing it.
This was one ofThe Smiths "between albums" singles, and is also one of my favourite Smiths songs. My period of heavy Smiths fandom overlapped with a phase in my life where I was stealing a fair bit. I really liked having this song going on my headphones as I walked into Wal-Mart to stuff a bunch of shit down my pantleg.
Picking a victory video here was hard. The video I really wanted to post isn't really an official "video" per se. It's actually footage of them performing "Shoplifters of the World" on the legendary British TV show Top of the Pops. At first I thought it would violate the concept of the blog, but then I figured that it's my blog and I can do pretty much whatever the fuck I want. Just so we're clear, I wouldn't put this up in a battle, but I feel like I can get away with it as a victory vid. Even though it's just straight up performance, the angles on this puppy are killer, and more importantly, Morrissey is so gay here. It's really killing it.
This was one ofThe Smiths "between albums" singles, and is also one of my favourite Smiths songs. My period of heavy Smiths fandom overlapped with a phase in my life where I was stealing a fair bit. I really liked having this song going on my headphones as I walked into Wal-Mart to stuff a bunch of shit down my pantleg.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
English Bands Loved by People Who Had a Tough Time in High School: The Smiths vs. Sisters of Mercy
High school wasn't brutal torture for me.
Apart from the usual adolescent dramas and a really odd bit of Grade 11, I had a pretty good time. I went to a lot of park parties (the urban equivalent of bush parties, for those of you who didn't grow up in GTA), had a couple pretty decent teachers, managed to lose my virginity before heading off to university and had a decent supply of dope. On the other hand, I spent most of my high school career so stoned I didn't know where the fuck I was, so my memories may not be totally accurate.
That said, I did get my ass kicked a bunch of times over being "different" or "mouthy," did poorly with girls, had bad acne and greasy hair, spent the first half of my teens really skinny, then got really fat overnight. I figure that gives me as much claim to a harsh adolescence as any other middle-class white kid.
People who had a "hard time" in high school -- by which I mean most people who didn't play football but weren't gang bangers or huge ginos -- almost inevitably liked mopey English bands from the 1980s. Even when I went to school in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a strong contingent of cats who were moping around in mod-style army parkas, trying to look as disaffected as humanly possible while smoking Dunhills and John Player's Special, feeling like every word out of Morrissey's mouth was about them.
This is for them.
Before I get down to the heavy shit, I feel the need to explain my choice of bands. The Smiths are both the mopiest and Englishist of the mopey English bands. It would be hard to argue their presence here. The Sisters require a little explaining. The Cure would probably be The Smiths' natural opponents here. Morrissey and Robert Smith are one and one-a to depressed teens. And there may one day be a battle where The Smiths and The Cure go mano a mano, as much as that's possible for bands fronted by two supremely androgynous dudes. For this week, it had to be the Sisters for two reasons: one, my boy Shaan got hella excited when I mentioned the prospect of this battle and two, the video for "This Corrosion" is so above and beyond that it has to be recognized here.
The Main Event
In the Red Corner, from Hulme, Manchester, England, with disaffection factor of a sexual identity crisis, THE SMITHS!
Pretty much the entire world more or less knows the story of The Smiths. They were founded in 1982 by Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr, they became tremendously popular in the UK and Ireland and developed an almost obsessive cult following in Canada and the US. In 1987 they broke up, in part because Marr got sick of Morrissey's obsession with '60s pop and in part because Morrissey has an ego so large he needs a fleet of tractor trailers -- or lorries, as they say in England -- to haul it around.
Here's some lesser known facts about Morrissey, which I gleaned from Wikipedia and True to You, an online Morrissey fanzine.
1) He was saved from bullying as a child because he was a pretty decent athlete, something I'm sure his hardcore fans have a hard time dealing with.
2) He was briefly the lead vocalist of Slaughter and the Dogs, which blows my mind.
3) He regularly wrote very opinionated letters to Melody Maker and New Musical Express before he was famous.
4) He's still not officially gay, which also blows my mind.
When I was in Grade 10 and 11, I loved the shit out of The Smiths. They were the only "soft sounding" band I would let interrupt a personal playlist that was dominated by Rancid, The Wu-Tang Clan and TSOL. I was impressed that there was a band who could take a song about going to the fair and make it depressing as shit. ("Rusholme Ruffians," for those of you who don't know.) The sad cow sounds in the background on "Meat is Murder" convinced me to try and go vegetarian. I failed, but at least I know the sweet tasteless taste of soy.
My absolute favourite Smiths album was, and still is, Strangeways, Here We Come. Strangeways was the only Smiths album that British music critics didn't like, and was produced when the tensions between Morrissey and Marr were at their highest. The band actually broke up before the album came out, and Morrissey apparently recorded most of the vocals in the booth by himself, after Marr et al had already laid down the instrumental tracks in another session.
This is the video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before." This song was only released as a single outside of the British Isles. The label felt that releasing a single that references mass murder only a couple months after the Hungerford Massacre, one of the worst mass murders in modern British history was a bad move. On one hand, I sort of think the label pussied out on this one. On the other hand, you'd have to think sales would have been pretty soft given the timing. As a result, the footage for the "Stop Me" video was also used in the British video for "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish," which was released instead of "Stop Me."
A couple more observations here. One, how is Morrissey not openly 100% gay? His bike has a wicker basket for Christ sakes. Two, guys who rock the Morrissey look look like dorks. (I know, I tried to pull this off for a bit.) Girls who rock the Morrissey look are strangely attractive.
OK, now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Leeds, England, with a disaffection factor of being hailed as the founding father(s) of modern goth music, The SIS-TERRRS of MERRRR-CY!
The Sisters of Mercy aren't so much a band as one guy, a rotating cast of other people, and a drum machine/musical version of Dr. Who's robot dog named Doktor Avalanche and the Chorus of Vengance.
The one guy is Andrew Eldritch, lead vocalist, drum programmer and allegedly a very difficult guy. I say allegedly because I've never met the man and I don't want to get sued. He could be very nice. However, the fact that every Sisters album had a different line-up, with Eldritch and the machine Avalanche being the only points of the continuity, indicates that he might be a little hard to get along with. His legions of former bandmates have also made loud, public statements to this effect.
The Sisters were formed in 1980 and went "on strike" in 1994 after Eldritch got in a fight with the band's label over money. The "band" -- read, Eldritch and whoever else was willing to hang out with him -- starting performing again in 1996, but have yet to release an album of new material.
The Sisters are important for two reasons. One, they're credit with influencing every goth band since. Eldritch hates being called goth. He claims he was pigeonholed after experimenting with goofy clothes for a couple weeks. While that may or may not be the case, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for The Sisters, we wouldn't have legions of black-clad bands with electronic drums and deep, monotonous vocals. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on where you stand. I also firmly believe that Eldritch's insistence that he's not a goth makes him the gothest dude of all time. If there's one thing goths and hipsters have in common, it's that the more you deny being one, the more likely it is that you are.
Two, they were involved in one of the ugliest legal battles in rock history. Two Sisters cast-offs -- original bassist Craig Adams and former Dead or Alive member Wayne Hussey -- started gigging as The Sisterhood in the mid-80s, playing songs that had been vetoed by Eldritch. Eldritch claimed the name was too close and responded with a resounding "fuck you." He started a side-project of his own, also called The Sisterhood, and sued the hell out of everything that moved. The two sides eventually settled when Hussey and Adams changed the name of their band to The Mission, who were also hugely influential in the goth-rock scene. Spike wore a Mission t-shirt in several episodes of Degrassi.
This is the video for "This Corrosion" off the album Floodland. This song came out at the peak of The Sisters commercial success. It's rumoured to be a sort of goth diss-track aimed at Hussey and Adams. If that's the case, goths are really horrible at insulting people, because the lyrics make almost no sense. The Eldritch and the Doktor were the only official members of the band for this album, but American bassist Patricia Morrison (formerly of The Bags and The Gun Club and a co-conspirator Eldritch's version of The Sisterhood) was brought on for live performances.
This is another video where I don't want to say too much about it because it's just so out of hand. Every time I watch it I feel like I'm watching someone try and stage Cats, Les Mis and a musical adaption of Mad Max on the same stage at the same time.
For those of you who are still unclear, comment to vote. The future of democracy depends on you.
Apart from the usual adolescent dramas and a really odd bit of Grade 11, I had a pretty good time. I went to a lot of park parties (the urban equivalent of bush parties, for those of you who didn't grow up in GTA), had a couple pretty decent teachers, managed to lose my virginity before heading off to university and had a decent supply of dope. On the other hand, I spent most of my high school career so stoned I didn't know where the fuck I was, so my memories may not be totally accurate.
That said, I did get my ass kicked a bunch of times over being "different" or "mouthy," did poorly with girls, had bad acne and greasy hair, spent the first half of my teens really skinny, then got really fat overnight. I figure that gives me as much claim to a harsh adolescence as any other middle-class white kid.
People who had a "hard time" in high school -- by which I mean most people who didn't play football but weren't gang bangers or huge ginos -- almost inevitably liked mopey English bands from the 1980s. Even when I went to school in the mid-to-late '90s, there was a strong contingent of cats who were moping around in mod-style army parkas, trying to look as disaffected as humanly possible while smoking Dunhills and John Player's Special, feeling like every word out of Morrissey's mouth was about them.
This is for them.
Before I get down to the heavy shit, I feel the need to explain my choice of bands. The Smiths are both the mopiest and Englishist of the mopey English bands. It would be hard to argue their presence here. The Sisters require a little explaining. The Cure would probably be The Smiths' natural opponents here. Morrissey and Robert Smith are one and one-a to depressed teens. And there may one day be a battle where The Smiths and The Cure go mano a mano, as much as that's possible for bands fronted by two supremely androgynous dudes. For this week, it had to be the Sisters for two reasons: one, my boy Shaan got hella excited when I mentioned the prospect of this battle and two, the video for "This Corrosion" is so above and beyond that it has to be recognized here.
The Main Event
In the Red Corner, from Hulme, Manchester, England, with disaffection factor of a sexual identity crisis, THE SMITHS!
Pretty much the entire world more or less knows the story of The Smiths. They were founded in 1982 by Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr, they became tremendously popular in the UK and Ireland and developed an almost obsessive cult following in Canada and the US. In 1987 they broke up, in part because Marr got sick of Morrissey's obsession with '60s pop and in part because Morrissey has an ego so large he needs a fleet of tractor trailers -- or lorries, as they say in England -- to haul it around.
Here's some lesser known facts about Morrissey, which I gleaned from Wikipedia and True to You, an online Morrissey fanzine.
1) He was saved from bullying as a child because he was a pretty decent athlete, something I'm sure his hardcore fans have a hard time dealing with.
2) He was briefly the lead vocalist of Slaughter and the Dogs, which blows my mind.
3) He regularly wrote very opinionated letters to Melody Maker and New Musical Express before he was famous.
4) He's still not officially gay, which also blows my mind.
When I was in Grade 10 and 11, I loved the shit out of The Smiths. They were the only "soft sounding" band I would let interrupt a personal playlist that was dominated by Rancid, The Wu-Tang Clan and TSOL. I was impressed that there was a band who could take a song about going to the fair and make it depressing as shit. ("Rusholme Ruffians," for those of you who don't know.) The sad cow sounds in the background on "Meat is Murder" convinced me to try and go vegetarian. I failed, but at least I know the sweet tasteless taste of soy.
My absolute favourite Smiths album was, and still is, Strangeways, Here We Come. Strangeways was the only Smiths album that British music critics didn't like, and was produced when the tensions between Morrissey and Marr were at their highest. The band actually broke up before the album came out, and Morrissey apparently recorded most of the vocals in the booth by himself, after Marr et al had already laid down the instrumental tracks in another session.
This is the video for "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before." This song was only released as a single outside of the British Isles. The label felt that releasing a single that references mass murder only a couple months after the Hungerford Massacre, one of the worst mass murders in modern British history was a bad move. On one hand, I sort of think the label pussied out on this one. On the other hand, you'd have to think sales would have been pretty soft given the timing. As a result, the footage for the "Stop Me" video was also used in the British video for "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish," which was released instead of "Stop Me."
A couple more observations here. One, how is Morrissey not openly 100% gay? His bike has a wicker basket for Christ sakes. Two, guys who rock the Morrissey look look like dorks. (I know, I tried to pull this off for a bit.) Girls who rock the Morrissey look are strangely attractive.
OK, now the opposition.
In the blue corner, from Leeds, England, with a disaffection factor of being hailed as the founding father(s) of modern goth music, The SIS-TERRRS of MERRRR-CY!
The Sisters of Mercy aren't so much a band as one guy, a rotating cast of other people, and a drum machine/musical version of Dr. Who's robot dog named Doktor Avalanche and the Chorus of Vengance.
The one guy is Andrew Eldritch, lead vocalist, drum programmer and allegedly a very difficult guy. I say allegedly because I've never met the man and I don't want to get sued. He could be very nice. However, the fact that every Sisters album had a different line-up, with Eldritch and the machine Avalanche being the only points of the continuity, indicates that he might be a little hard to get along with. His legions of former bandmates have also made loud, public statements to this effect.
The Sisters were formed in 1980 and went "on strike" in 1994 after Eldritch got in a fight with the band's label over money. The "band" -- read, Eldritch and whoever else was willing to hang out with him -- starting performing again in 1996, but have yet to release an album of new material.
The Sisters are important for two reasons. One, they're credit with influencing every goth band since. Eldritch hates being called goth. He claims he was pigeonholed after experimenting with goofy clothes for a couple weeks. While that may or may not be the case, I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for The Sisters, we wouldn't have legions of black-clad bands with electronic drums and deep, monotonous vocals. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on where you stand. I also firmly believe that Eldritch's insistence that he's not a goth makes him the gothest dude of all time. If there's one thing goths and hipsters have in common, it's that the more you deny being one, the more likely it is that you are.
Two, they were involved in one of the ugliest legal battles in rock history. Two Sisters cast-offs -- original bassist Craig Adams and former Dead or Alive member Wayne Hussey -- started gigging as The Sisterhood in the mid-80s, playing songs that had been vetoed by Eldritch. Eldritch claimed the name was too close and responded with a resounding "fuck you." He started a side-project of his own, also called The Sisterhood, and sued the hell out of everything that moved. The two sides eventually settled when Hussey and Adams changed the name of their band to The Mission, who were also hugely influential in the goth-rock scene. Spike wore a Mission t-shirt in several episodes of Degrassi.
This is the video for "This Corrosion" off the album Floodland. This song came out at the peak of The Sisters commercial success. It's rumoured to be a sort of goth diss-track aimed at Hussey and Adams. If that's the case, goths are really horrible at insulting people, because the lyrics make almost no sense. The Eldritch and the Doktor were the only official members of the band for this album, but American bassist Patricia Morrison (formerly of The Bags and The Gun Club and a co-conspirator Eldritch's version of The Sisterhood) was brought on for live performances.
This is another video where I don't want to say too much about it because it's just so out of hand. Every time I watch it I feel like I'm watching someone try and stage Cats, Les Mis and a musical adaption of Mad Max on the same stage at the same time.
For those of you who are still unclear, comment to vote. The future of democracy depends on you.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
BONUS POST: Famous is Killing It Right Now
Hat's up y'all?
(Osama, that was for you.)
OK, so this isn't a battle, but I've been loving this video for the past month or so so I thought I'd put it up here.
Two weeks ago I put up a battle between the Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, and I kind of bitched a little on how it's harder to hear Canadian rap now than it was 15 years ago. Rather than just sit around and complain, I thought I'd give a Canadian rapper a dozen eyeballs worth of exposure. (Hey, at least I'm realistic about my level of influence.)
His name's Famous, he "borrowed" the beat from "Black Republicans" and looped it to make a really long song, and he has a killer mystery poster campaign going on right now that you've probably seen but didn't get what you were looking at.
(Osama, that was for you.)
OK, so this isn't a battle, but I've been loving this video for the past month or so so I thought I'd put it up here.
Two weeks ago I put up a battle between the Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, and I kind of bitched a little on how it's harder to hear Canadian rap now than it was 15 years ago. Rather than just sit around and complain, I thought I'd give a Canadian rapper a dozen eyeballs worth of exposure. (Hey, at least I'm realistic about my level of influence.)
His name's Famous, he "borrowed" the beat from "Black Republicans" and looped it to make a really long song, and he has a killer mystery poster campaign going on right now that you've probably seen but didn't get what you were looking at.
Felicitações ao CSS, o Mais Buzziest das Faixas Brazilian do Zumbido
The people voted and, aside from Sqwd's pronounced love of pauses, the results were pretty clear, 3 - 1 for CSS. I don't know what did it; if it was the iPod ad, the ghost puppets in the video, the DFA reference or just how freakishly hot Lovefoxx is, but people had a clear preference here.
Their victory video is the clip for "Music is My Hot Hot Sex," aka "The iPod Touch Song."
Even before the ad, this was one of my favourite CSS songs, in part because Lovefoxx busts out her native tongue at the end of the song. I also love this video, because it encapsulates how hard it must be to make a video with a band who's whole shtick is making music for people with severe ADHD.
Their victory video is the clip for "Music is My Hot Hot Sex," aka "The iPod Touch Song."
Even before the ad, this was one of my favourite CSS songs, in part because Lovefoxx busts out her native tongue at the end of the song. I also love this video, because it encapsulates how hard it must be to make a video with a band who's whole shtick is making music for people with severe ADHD.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Female Fronted Brazilian Buzz Bands: Cansei de Ser Sexy vs. Bonde do Role
OK, so I know I promised Sqwd a special edition of Music Video Violence just for him, to make up for disappointing him so bitterly. That, and because he's a whiny little bitch. My whiny little bitch. I promise that The Sqwd Special Edition will be forthcoming, but first I wanted to do something a little less creepy and a little more tropical.
I'm not very well traveled. I know a lot of people who are, and I hate them. I particularly hate them because they keep telling me that I could be well traveled, too, all I need is a bunch of money and some time off. Unfortunately, I'm massively in debt, poor, lack financial discipline and refuse to take time off work for severe injury and illness, let alone a vacation, so I don't see a whole lot of travel in the near future.
In the medium term, I really want to go to Brazil.
Brazil's a country that's fascinated me for a while. On one hand, it has pretty much everything that's good in the world: fresh produce, incredible wildlife, good barbecue, the world's most exciting soccer, decent basketball, great music and really, really insanely attractive women. Oh, and they speak Portuguese, which is one of the coolest sounding languages in the world. It has almost no hard consonants.
On the other hand, it's also a pretty fucked up country by almost all accounts. It has some of the worst income disparity on Earth and you're more likely to get killed in Rio than any other city on the planet, save Johannesburg. (Strangely, South Africa is also really high on the list of country's that fascinate me. I don't know what this says about me.) Oh, and they're cutting down the rain forest at almost mind blowing speed, and they're also really odd about race.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's really into Brazil, because Brazilian bands are fucking huge right now. I think it may have something to do with both the rich musical heritage and the unreasonably attractive women. Just a thought. Anyway, this week, we're going to put the buzziest of the Brazilian buzz bands and put them head to head.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, with a buzz factor of an iPod ad, from São Paulo, CANSEI de Ser SEXY!
Sometimes a band just gets so cool you want to backlash and stop liking them. I had that urge when CSS became an iPod ad band, but I didn't because a) that's a really douchebag move, and b) they're just too good to not like.
If you believe the band, CSS was pretty much started as a joke. Legend has it a couple of them more or less learned to play their instruments in front of audiences. They got hugely blown up by Brazilian website Trama Virtual, and a writer from The Guardian said they could be the "biggest band ever to come out of South America" before they had even signed with a record label. That sort of talk is usually meaningless hype, particularly when it comes from the British music press, who are notorious for discovering the greatest band in human history every five or six days. While it's still hard to see them eclipsing Sepultura, let alone Spanish-language superstars like Soda Stereo, anyone who's seen CSS live can understand why someone would get so excited about them. They're one of the best live bands I've ever seen. I watched them open for Ladytron two years ago and they pretty much blew the dour Liverpudlians off the stage. In fact, CSS frontwoman Lovefoxx sort of scared the Ladytron crowd.
Lovefoxx is like a tiny, neon-clad, Japanese-Brazilian Tasmanian Devil. She stage dives without irony, she manages to make bad dancing look sexy, she jumps on the monitors and loses her balance and dry-humps her bandmates. She makes Torontonian hipsters dance, and that's no small feat. She also touched my friend Morgan's boob at the Ladytron show. Sadly, she's engaged to one of the guys from The Klaxons, totally breaking my heart.
This is the video for "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above." There's a couple rad things here. One, there's not many bands that would put their ego aside and write a love song to another band. Two, I feel like the ladies (and gentleman) of CSS are giving me a little tour of their hometown in this video. This video takes my urge to visit Brazil and doubles it.
Now for their opponents.
In the red corner, from Curtiba, with a buzz factor of being discovered by Diplo, BONDE do ROLE!
In Brazil, the kids in the hood have developed a music they call funk. It sounds a like the bastard child of Miami Bass and violent hate. I started listening to it when I was in my first year of university after reading an article in Spin about, funk balls, parties that got the kids so wound up they would stab the fuck out of each other in the middle of the dance floor. Apparently Diplo got into it around the same time, but because he's much cooler and more important than me, he set about trying to break the genre in North America, where I just sat in my room, downloaded Furaçao 2000 mixtapes off the Internet and smoked pot.
Discovering Bonde do Role in Curtiba was sort of Diplo's equivalent to discovering Lucy at the Olduvai Gorge. They're kind of the giant ruby in his global dance music crown, right between MIA and Baltimore Club.
For the record, Bonde do Role have about as much hood cred as me. They're a bunch of middle-class art school kids playing hood music, but they know that and they're cool with it. It's just that comparing these guys to legitimately heavy dudes like Juca or Mr. Catra is kind of like comparing MC Paul Barman to M.O.P. Not that there's anything wrong with Paul Barman, in fact, I'm a big MC PB fan. Nor is there anything wrong with Bonde do Role, they are what they are and they own it by doing things like sampling Alice in Chains and the Grease soundtrack, and Bonde do Role DJ Rodrigo Gorky produces some of the best mixtapes I've ever heard.
Bonde do Role almost broke up late last year when MC Marina Ribatski quit the band. Gorky and MC Pedro D'Eyrot decided to replace her in an American Idol-style reality show on MTV Brazil. In the end they picked two new female vocalists. The incredibly un-Brazilian-named Laura Taylor was chosen by the audience, while Ana Bernardino was picked by the band after she took a piece of meat out of her vagina.
This is the video for "Solta o Frango" off their North American full-length debut With Lasers. The name of the song translates as "Release the Chickens," which I sort of knew from eating a lot of Portuguese barbecue. Or at least I knew "frango" meant "chicken."
This video features the now departed Marina Ribatski on the mic. I think she has the same stylist as Lovefoxx. That or all Brazilian girls are taking this retro '80s hipster thing and flying it to Absurdistan. This video is so good it almost makes me want to shit myself. I can't even tell you anything about it or I'll ruin the incredible surprise.
Go do it.
I'm not very well traveled. I know a lot of people who are, and I hate them. I particularly hate them because they keep telling me that I could be well traveled, too, all I need is a bunch of money and some time off. Unfortunately, I'm massively in debt, poor, lack financial discipline and refuse to take time off work for severe injury and illness, let alone a vacation, so I don't see a whole lot of travel in the near future.
In the medium term, I really want to go to Brazil.
Brazil's a country that's fascinated me for a while. On one hand, it has pretty much everything that's good in the world: fresh produce, incredible wildlife, good barbecue, the world's most exciting soccer, decent basketball, great music and really, really insanely attractive women. Oh, and they speak Portuguese, which is one of the coolest sounding languages in the world. It has almost no hard consonants.
On the other hand, it's also a pretty fucked up country by almost all accounts. It has some of the worst income disparity on Earth and you're more likely to get killed in Rio than any other city on the planet, save Johannesburg. (Strangely, South Africa is also really high on the list of country's that fascinate me. I don't know what this says about me.) Oh, and they're cutting down the rain forest at almost mind blowing speed, and they're also really odd about race.
Apparently I'm not the only one who's really into Brazil, because Brazilian bands are fucking huge right now. I think it may have something to do with both the rich musical heritage and the unreasonably attractive women. Just a thought. Anyway, this week, we're going to put the buzziest of the Brazilian buzz bands and put them head to head.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, with a buzz factor of an iPod ad, from São Paulo, CANSEI de Ser SEXY!
Sometimes a band just gets so cool you want to backlash and stop liking them. I had that urge when CSS became an iPod ad band, but I didn't because a) that's a really douchebag move, and b) they're just too good to not like.
If you believe the band, CSS was pretty much started as a joke. Legend has it a couple of them more or less learned to play their instruments in front of audiences. They got hugely blown up by Brazilian website Trama Virtual, and a writer from The Guardian said they could be the "biggest band ever to come out of South America" before they had even signed with a record label. That sort of talk is usually meaningless hype, particularly when it comes from the British music press, who are notorious for discovering the greatest band in human history every five or six days. While it's still hard to see them eclipsing Sepultura, let alone Spanish-language superstars like Soda Stereo, anyone who's seen CSS live can understand why someone would get so excited about them. They're one of the best live bands I've ever seen. I watched them open for Ladytron two years ago and they pretty much blew the dour Liverpudlians off the stage. In fact, CSS frontwoman Lovefoxx sort of scared the Ladytron crowd.
Lovefoxx is like a tiny, neon-clad, Japanese-Brazilian Tasmanian Devil. She stage dives without irony, she manages to make bad dancing look sexy, she jumps on the monitors and loses her balance and dry-humps her bandmates. She makes Torontonian hipsters dance, and that's no small feat. She also touched my friend Morgan's boob at the Ladytron show. Sadly, she's engaged to one of the guys from The Klaxons, totally breaking my heart.
This is the video for "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above." There's a couple rad things here. One, there's not many bands that would put their ego aside and write a love song to another band. Two, I feel like the ladies (and gentleman) of CSS are giving me a little tour of their hometown in this video. This video takes my urge to visit Brazil and doubles it.
Now for their opponents.
In the red corner, from Curtiba, with a buzz factor of being discovered by Diplo, BONDE do ROLE!
In Brazil, the kids in the hood have developed a music they call funk. It sounds a like the bastard child of Miami Bass and violent hate. I started listening to it when I was in my first year of university after reading an article in Spin about, funk balls, parties that got the kids so wound up they would stab the fuck out of each other in the middle of the dance floor. Apparently Diplo got into it around the same time, but because he's much cooler and more important than me, he set about trying to break the genre in North America, where I just sat in my room, downloaded Furaçao 2000 mixtapes off the Internet and smoked pot.
Discovering Bonde do Role in Curtiba was sort of Diplo's equivalent to discovering Lucy at the Olduvai Gorge. They're kind of the giant ruby in his global dance music crown, right between MIA and Baltimore Club.
For the record, Bonde do Role have about as much hood cred as me. They're a bunch of middle-class art school kids playing hood music, but they know that and they're cool with it. It's just that comparing these guys to legitimately heavy dudes like Juca or Mr. Catra is kind of like comparing MC Paul Barman to M.O.P. Not that there's anything wrong with Paul Barman, in fact, I'm a big MC PB fan. Nor is there anything wrong with Bonde do Role, they are what they are and they own it by doing things like sampling Alice in Chains and the Grease soundtrack, and Bonde do Role DJ Rodrigo Gorky produces some of the best mixtapes I've ever heard.
Bonde do Role almost broke up late last year when MC Marina Ribatski quit the band. Gorky and MC Pedro D'Eyrot decided to replace her in an American Idol-style reality show on MTV Brazil. In the end they picked two new female vocalists. The incredibly un-Brazilian-named Laura Taylor was chosen by the audience, while Ana Bernardino was picked by the band after she took a piece of meat out of her vagina.
This is the video for "Solta o Frango" off their North American full-length debut With Lasers. The name of the song translates as "Release the Chickens," which I sort of knew from eating a lot of Portuguese barbecue. Or at least I knew "frango" meant "chicken."
This video features the now departed Marina Ribatski on the mic. I think she has the same stylist as Lovefoxx. That or all Brazilian girls are taking this retro '80s hipster thing and flying it to Absurdistan. This video is so good it almost makes me want to shit myself. I can't even tell you anything about it or I'll ruin the incredible surprise.
Go do it.
My Definition of a Boombastic Blog Entry: The Dream Warriors Win
OK, I really don't know what down this week, but people really didn't seem to be feeling the battle. Maybe it wasn't my best writing, maybe I didn't plug this week's battle enough, or maybe people just weren't feeling the CanRap concept. I know Sqwd wasn't.
Anyway, we still managed to get some sort of a result, so that's OK. Dream Warriors took it 2 - 1.
And hey, that's all good, the people have spoken. The only problem is that it makes it a little tough for me to post a victory video. Everything after their first album, And Now, The Legacy Begins, was total crap. The original video for "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" is impossible to find, to the point where I think I may have hallucinated it, and the second video for that song is pretty pretentious and wretched.
The only thing left for me to do is post the video for "Ludi," the third single off the Legacy album. To be honest, it's my least favourite of the three singles off that album, in part because I thought the idea of a rap song about a board game was pretty weak. I still maintain that position, but listening to the song again, I'm blown away by how catchy it is. As a rap song, it's sort of weak, but re-contextualized as a pop-reggae song, it's damn near perfect.
Anyway, we still managed to get some sort of a result, so that's OK. Dream Warriors took it 2 - 1.
And hey, that's all good, the people have spoken. The only problem is that it makes it a little tough for me to post a victory video. Everything after their first album, And Now, The Legacy Begins, was total crap. The original video for "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" is impossible to find, to the point where I think I may have hallucinated it, and the second video for that song is pretty pretentious and wretched.
The only thing left for me to do is post the video for "Ludi," the third single off the Legacy album. To be honest, it's my least favourite of the three singles off that album, in part because I thought the idea of a rap song about a board game was pretty weak. I still maintain that position, but listening to the song again, I'm blown away by how catchy it is. As a rap song, it's sort of weak, but re-contextualized as a pop-reggae song, it's damn near perfect.
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