What's up all?
So as two or three of you may know, this weekend was Opening Weekend for the English Premiership. As a fairly major soccer fan, this warms my heart tremendously. After spending the summer sleeping in until noon, I was actually kind of happy to get up on Saturday morning and watch Blackburn Rovers beat Everton while I ate my Raisin Bran.
To celebrate the return of the Prem, here's some good footballing music.
The Main Event
In the Chelsea blue corner, from East Ham, London, England, a former West Ham Youth player who once tried out for Chelsea, KAAAAANOOOOO!
Yeah, you read that last part right. Kano once tried out for Chelsea. Thankfully, the Lions didn't like the cut of our man Kane's jib and failed to sign him on. After that crushing defeat, he did the smart thing and focused on music.
Kano first started getting noticed as part of the NASTY Crew in the early 2000s. At a 2005 Lord of the Mics, he got on stage and battled Wiley to a draw. Wiley, for those of you who don't know, pretty much invented Grime as a genre and is (arguably) responsible for finding talents like Dizzee Rascal, althought Dizzee might disagree.
Around the same time, he released his debut full-length Home Sweet Home. The album went gold in Britain, produced three hit singles ("Ps and Qs," "Typical Me" and "Nite Nite") and received a full-on bukkake party from the press.
His second album London Town, came out in 2007 and featured noticably smoother R & B edges. While I didn't like this development, apparently the British music buying public did. London Town debuted at #14 on the British pop charts.
That said, Kano has recently parted ways with 679 records. Apparently he wanted to get back to a harder sound on his next album, but the label had other ideas.
Anyway, here's the video for "Typical Me." It's about getting tossed from bars.
The Competition
In the Manchester United red corner, from Salford, Manchester, England, The HAPPY MONDAYS!
The Happy Mondays were formed 1980 by brothers Shaun and Paul Ryder and fellow delinquents Gary Whelan and Mark Day. As far as I know, none of the Mondays ever played high level soccer, but they were often described as football hooligans by the music press, so that has to count for something.
In 1987, the released their debut full-length, the improbably named Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out). Their second album, Bummed, received massive critical love and the Mondays' mix of soul, funk, indie pop and acid house became the template for the Madchester Sound.
Their third album, Pills Thrills and Bellyaches, brought them commercial success and enough money that a band that already had a gift for a substance abuse was able to fulfill their incoherent crack and heroin filled dreams. The band began to have trouble making it to gigs, or knowing where they were at any given moment, as this famous quote from Shaun Ryder proves.
"I'm not too sure where I've been, I've just got off a plane, mate. I think it was Spain or Norway or some mad place like that… in fact ask Bez."
That was after returning home from Holland in 1992.
In an attempt to get the band back on track, the minds at Factory Records sent them to the Barbados to record their fourth album Yes, Please! Instead of focusing on music, the band sold their gear, and later their clothes, for cocaine. The massive cost overruns from the Yes, Please! recording sessions wound up bankrupting the label. The band broke up shortly afterwards.
This is the video for "Step On," off of Pills, Thrills.
As always, votes are due by Friday at Midnight. Comment to vote.
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5 comments:
80's always beats grime well not always but this case HAPPY MONDAYS!
So I was was underwhelmed by Kano (what? no half naked chicks in the club scenes?), I was put to sleep by the Happy Mondays. I think I've reached my limit for watching that guy take his glasses on and off and play with his hair. So my vote is for Kano, who DID something in his video.
The happy mondays guys looked really at home trippin balls and drinking on the roof. Kano's rap song was, somehow, the more comprehensible for the two. That feels wrong for rap so I vote for happy mondays
Man, The Happy Mondays are Fucking Rockstars. Their behaviour, from their time frame and their long-ass album/song titles to their drug use and incoherent ramblings is what Rock n' Fuckin' Roll is all about. I've lost many a teenage crush to drug addiction and overdose. Props, yo.
They were however, as Morgan noted, boring to the fucking extreme.
You know what excited me? That obviously-British rappin'/singin' black dude with the grills in Kano's Typical Me. Who the fuck is that guy? Why don't I know his name? I wouldn't mind screaming it out sometime.
BIG UP - Kano's got my vote.
I thought the Kano video would have been better. I agree with Morgan, that it lacks the half naked chicks of American club videos. However, its sort of endearing in some way that a rapper if writing a song about being kicked out of clubs.
Also, I fucking hate the Happy Mondays.
So I'm giving Kano my vote.
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