A little high school nostalgia...
Back when I was a lad, there was a period of about a year where, as far as I was concerned, every band except two could have stopped making music and I would have been a-OK.
This post exists as a tribute to those two bands, the two bands that made punk relevant to people born after the mid-'70, two bands that I've seen a combined 13 times, and the two bands that were represented on the right and left sleeves of my army surplus parka in grade 11 and 12.
That's right, I'm talking about H2O and Rancid, the two best bands EVAR!
The Main Event
In the red corner, from Albany, California, a band that really, really wishes they could be The Clash... RANCID!
Rancid were formed in 1991 from the ashes of another really important American punk band called Operation Ivy. Op Ivy ran from 1987 to 1989 and featured Rancid bassist Matt Freeman and guitarist/vocalist Tim Armstrong. The band broke up just as they were starting to flirt with mainstream success. Tim responded to the death of the band by taking the borderline alcoholism he'd had since his teens and making it a full time occupation, drinking like a maniac until he wound up homeless.
In '91, Matt suggested to his wreck of a former bandmate that they give music another try. Matt's since said that he only started Rancid to keep Tim from drinking himself to death. They recruited a drummer (Brett Reed) and later added a second guitarist (Lars Frederiksen, who had just finished a brief stint filling in with the UK Subs) and the rest was basically history.
In their 18-year career, Rancid have experimented with pretty much every punk sub-genre. They've released a couple of streetpunk-type albums (their self-titled debut and breakout hit Let's Go), a ska album (...And Out Come the Wolves, my personal favourite), a pop-punky sort of album (Indestructible), a hardcore album (their other self-titled album) and a weird sort of experimental new wave-meets-dub reggae sort of album that I'm fairly convinced no one liked but me (Life Won't Wait).
They also broke-up, got back together, spawned a couple fairly awesome side projects (Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards and The Transplants), and Tim Armstrong engaged in the time-honoured rock n' roll tradition of age inappropriate marriage when he married Brody Dalle of The Distillers, who was like 12 at the time.
(She later left him for one of the douches from Queens of the Stone age, like the worthless little Aussie whore she is.)
Here's the video for "Time Bomb."
The Competition
In the blue corner, from New York's Lower East Side, the most successful band ever started by another band's roadie, H2O!
H20 was founded in 1994 by Sick of it All roadie Toby Morse. In the early '90s, Toby had started getting on stage with the band during encores, and was so well received that he started a band of his own. He recruited a bunch of his buddies with band experience to back him up and started playing shows in New York, New Jersey and New England.
As with pretty much every '90s punk band, they released a couple albums on Epitaph, had one (middling) major label album, broke up and re-formed as mature men. Their story is pretty interchangeable with the stories of several of their NYHC contemporaries, particularly Madball, who they've toured with about seven hundred zillion times.
What's important about H2O is how they fit into my personal narrative. No band helped ease the transitions from hip-hop kid who dabbled in punk to punker who dabbled in hip-hop and back again more than H2O. Guitars aside, there's very little that separates H2O from, say, the Wu-Tang Clan. They both sing about the same topics: loyalty to your friends, standing up for your 'hood, holding it down, and kicking asses. H2O even covered an Ice Cube song and had a hip-hop style beef with another artist. (That would be Ray "Of Today" Cappo, of 1980s Straight Edge outfit Youth of Today and '90s Krishnacore bands Shelter and Better Than a Thousand.)
Like Rancid, H2O's hiatus at the dawn of the millennium allowed them to be in a bunch of side projects. Toby formed Hazen St. with members of Madball and, inexplicably, the non-Blink member of Boxcar Racer. His brother Todd joined Juliette Lewis and the Licks, and Rusty Pistachio (rhythm guitar) was in a band called And a Pizza Place.
Here's the video for "What Happened," off their 2008 comeback album Nothing to Prove. It has Michael Rapaport in it, who's sort of a hero of mine.
Comment to vote, votes due by midnight on Friday.
Showing posts with label 1990s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1990s. Show all posts
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, November 9, 2008
So, it's a draw?
Sorry for not updating for a while. Truth be told, I was figuring out how to play this.
Thanks to a vote sent to me on Facebook, which I've set a precedent of accepting, we ended up with a draw in a battle that drew little voter interest.
I've decided to call it a draw and move on.
Here's "Low Rider on the Boulevard" by supergroup Latin Alliance, which feature both Ace and Frost.
Thanks to a vote sent to me on Facebook, which I've set a precedent of accepting, we ended up with a draw in a battle that drew little voter interest.
I've decided to call it a draw and move on.
Here's "Low Rider on the Boulevard" by supergroup Latin Alliance, which feature both Ace and Frost.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Odelay Ese! Latin Rap Classics of the Early '90s: Kid Frost vs. Mellow Man Ace
If you're wondering about the creative process behind this blog, it goes a little something like this.
Usually, I'll stumble across a video I like on the Internet, decide it's combat worthy and start looking for an opponent. It's not actually that complicated. It's not like there's a ton of thought that goes into it.
This week was no different. I ran across a video I loved as a kid, then looked for a worthy match.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, by way of South Gate, California, the lost member of Cypress Hill, MELLOW MAN ACE!
Mellow Man Ace (aka Ulpiano Reyes) started rapping in the mid '80s. In 1987, he formed a group called DVX with his brother Senen and their friends Louis Freese and Lawrence Muggerud. A year later, Ace would quit the group to go solo. Senen, Freese and Muggerud, better known as Sen Dog, B-Real and DJ Muggs, would re-christen the group Cypress Hill and go on to convince millions of fifteen year-olds to smoke pot.
Ace released his solo debut, Escape from Havana, on Capitol Records in 1989. The album did close to nothing for eight months until, in total defiance of music industry logic, someone decided to release "Mentirosa," a song where close to fifty per cent of the lyrics are in Spanish, as a single.
""Mentirosa" was a tremendous hit, going to number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100. It would also be Ace's only solo commercial success. (He would have a minor hit with a remake of War'sLowrider" called "Lowrider on the Boulevard" as part of Kid Frost's supergroup The Latin Alliance.) His second solo album, 1992's The Brother with Two Tongues, sold poorly. He was dropped from Capitol shortly afterwards. He wouldn't release another album for eight years.
Here's the video for "Mentirosa." If anyone knows where I can get a hat like the one Ace is wearing in the video, let me know.
The Opposition
In the red corner, from East Los Angeles, California, the Hispanic Causing Panic, KID FROST!
Arturo "Kid Frost" Molina started rapping in 1982 as part of Uncle Jamm's army, the massive electro-hip-hop crew the was the West Coast's equivalent of the Zulu Nation. He chose the stage name Kid Frost as a tribute to the man who was alternately his mentor and his rival, Ice T.
After the breakup of the Army in 1988, Frost started working on his first solo album. Hispanic Causing Panic was released in June of 1990. Panic charted at number 45 on Billboard's Hip-Hop and R & B chart on the strength of the single "La Raza," the clip for which features some of the most awesome cholo fashion in music video history.
In 1991, he formed the Latin Alliance, a Latin Rap supergroup featuring Mellow Man Ace, ALT, Markski and The Lyrical Engineer.
In 1992, he released the concept album East Side Stories. The album flopped and he was dropped by Virgin.
In 1995, he dropped the "Kid" from his name, signed with Eazy-E's Ruthless Records label and released Smile Now, Die Later, which produced the hit single "East Side Rendezvous." He left Ruthless in 1997.
Frost is still making albums. His last album, Blunts and Ballerz, came out in 2007.
He all spawned hip-hop progeny. Frost's son is producer Scoop DeVille, who's made hits for Snoop Dogg and Baby Bash.
Here's the video for "La Raza."
As always, comment to vote, votes are due by Friday at midnight.
Usually, I'll stumble across a video I like on the Internet, decide it's combat worthy and start looking for an opponent. It's not actually that complicated. It's not like there's a ton of thought that goes into it.
This week was no different. I ran across a video I loved as a kid, then looked for a worthy match.
The Main Event
In the blue corner, from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, by way of South Gate, California, the lost member of Cypress Hill, MELLOW MAN ACE!
Mellow Man Ace (aka Ulpiano Reyes) started rapping in the mid '80s. In 1987, he formed a group called DVX with his brother Senen and their friends Louis Freese and Lawrence Muggerud. A year later, Ace would quit the group to go solo. Senen, Freese and Muggerud, better known as Sen Dog, B-Real and DJ Muggs, would re-christen the group Cypress Hill and go on to convince millions of fifteen year-olds to smoke pot.
Ace released his solo debut, Escape from Havana, on Capitol Records in 1989. The album did close to nothing for eight months until, in total defiance of music industry logic, someone decided to release "Mentirosa," a song where close to fifty per cent of the lyrics are in Spanish, as a single.
""Mentirosa" was a tremendous hit, going to number fourteen on the Billboard Hot 100. It would also be Ace's only solo commercial success. (He would have a minor hit with a remake of War'sLowrider" called "Lowrider on the Boulevard" as part of Kid Frost's supergroup The Latin Alliance.) His second solo album, 1992's The Brother with Two Tongues, sold poorly. He was dropped from Capitol shortly afterwards. He wouldn't release another album for eight years.
Here's the video for "Mentirosa." If anyone knows where I can get a hat like the one Ace is wearing in the video, let me know.
The Opposition
In the red corner, from East Los Angeles, California, the Hispanic Causing Panic, KID FROST!
Arturo "Kid Frost" Molina started rapping in 1982 as part of Uncle Jamm's army, the massive electro-hip-hop crew the was the West Coast's equivalent of the Zulu Nation. He chose the stage name Kid Frost as a tribute to the man who was alternately his mentor and his rival, Ice T.
After the breakup of the Army in 1988, Frost started working on his first solo album. Hispanic Causing Panic was released in June of 1990. Panic charted at number 45 on Billboard's Hip-Hop and R & B chart on the strength of the single "La Raza," the clip for which features some of the most awesome cholo fashion in music video history.
In 1991, he formed the Latin Alliance, a Latin Rap supergroup featuring Mellow Man Ace, ALT, Markski and The Lyrical Engineer.
In 1992, he released the concept album East Side Stories. The album flopped and he was dropped by Virgin.
In 1995, he dropped the "Kid" from his name, signed with Eazy-E's Ruthless Records label and released Smile Now, Die Later, which produced the hit single "East Side Rendezvous." He left Ruthless in 1997.
Frost is still making albums. His last album, Blunts and Ballerz, came out in 2007.
He all spawned hip-hop progeny. Frost's son is producer Scoop DeVille, who's made hits for Snoop Dogg and Baby Bash.
Here's the video for "La Raza."
As always, comment to vote, votes are due by Friday at midnight.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
No Gas Face for Professor Prince Paul: De La Soul vs. Third Bass
What up y'all?
I was watching some Ultimate Warrior clips on YouTube, which put me in sort of a retro mood. I decided to run with that and do a little tribute to one of my favourite hip-hop producers, Prince Paul, and have two of his proteges square off.
THE MAIN EVENT
From Amityville, Long Island, New York, representing Da Inner Sound, Y'all, DE LA SOUL!
De La Soul was founded in 1987 by high school buddies Kelvin "Posdnous" Mercer, Dave "Trugoy" Jolicoeur and Vince "Maceo" Mason. They first started to get noticed in 1988 when a demo version of a song called "Plug Tunin'" landed in the hands of Prince Paul, then the DJ for the group Stetasonic. Paul was impressed enough with Trugoy and Posdnous' offbeat rhymes that he arranged for them to be signed by Def Jam. In 1989, they released their Prince Paul produced debut 3 Feet High and Rising.
3 Feet High was a massive commercial and critical hit and, almost 20 years later, is still De La's best selling album. It also spawned some anti-De La backlash. In a genre where street cred is king, some saw De La as soft. While all three members were born in New York, they were raised in the mixed race, middle class suburbs of Long Island. That, mixed with their unusual style and love of '60s pop samples got them labelled "hippies" in the hip-hop community, a label that continued to piss them off for most of a decade.
Their next album, De La Soul is Dead, was much darker and angrier. They lashed out at critics and took shots at fairweather friends trying to launch their own careers off of De La's new found fame on "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)" and wrote a downright disturbing song about child molestation ("Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.")
Their third album Buhloone Mindstate would wind up being their last collaboration with Prince Paul. Despite getting great reviews, Mindstate wound up being a commercial failure, getting swept aside by the growing popularity of West Coast gangsta rap. For their fourth album, Stakes is High, De La would go it alone, looking for a new identity.
Still, Chris Rock called Mindstate one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time in a list he wrote for Rolling Stone, so that has to count for something.
Here's the video for "Ego Trippin' (Part Two)" off Mindstate. This video really pissed off Tupac, as he was pretty sure he was the shirtless rapper being referenced in the video. The female MC in the video is Posdnuos' cousin Shorty No Mas.
As an aside, seeing De La live still ranks as one of my greatest concert experiences of all time.
THE COMPETITION
From Queens, New York, the group that gave hope to white hip-hop heads everywhere, 3RD BASS!
3rd Bass where probably the first white rappers to get a real Hood Pass. Sure, the Beastie Boys were down with LL Cool J and Run DMC, but everybody knew they were essentially a white frat boy's take on hip-hop. 3rd Bass was different. They made a point of not sampling rock songs, were almost obnoxiously conscious of race politics and made a point of mentioning that MC Serch (aka Michael Berrin) came from the mostly black Far Rockaway neighbourhood. They also had one black guy in the group (DJ Richie Rich, aka Richard Lawson), which undoubtedly made the other two look a little more down.
The group was founded in 1987 when a mutual acquaintance introduced the three. Serch was already recording as a solo artist, Rich was DJing in local clubs and Pete Nice (aka Pete Nash) was hosting a hip-hop show on Columbia's campus radio station. The three starting working together under the name Three the Hard Way, which would later get changed to 3rd Bass.
In 1989, shortly after the Beasties unceremoniously left Def Jam for Capitol, the mighty Jam signed 3rd Bass to a recording contract. 3rd Bass inherited their label's feud with the Beastie Boys, calling them out in the press and on wax.
Their debut album, The Cactus Album, was a critical success and produced a moderately commercially successful single, "The Gas Face."
Their second album, Derelicts of Dialect, has the Bass boys replacing the Beasties with the much more deserving Vanilla Ice as their object of mockery. The single "Pop Goes the Weasel" achieved crossover commercial success based largely on the video, where the band kicks the shit out of an Ice lookalike (actually Henry Rollins in costume).
Sadly, the party had to come to an end for 3rd Bass, and they split up in 1992, citing creative differences. Neither Serch's solo album (Return of the Product) nor Pete Nice and Richie Rich's debut (Dust to Dust) managed to achieve anything close to the commercial and critical success they had enjoyed as part of 3rd Bass.
MC Serch was last seen on Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show. He also has a show on a Detroit hip-hop station, and briefly ran his own record label, Serchlite. He also does a little acting. (He was hilarious in Bamboozled as the white Mau Mau.) Pete Nice splits his time between a baseball memorabilia shop in Cooperstown, NY and a baseball-themed bar in Boston. He also wrote a book about baseball. Richie Rich attempted a comeback in 1999. No one's heard from him since.
Here's the video for "The Gas Face." I enjoy it for two reasons. One, they make fun of MC Hammer. Two, it features guest vocals from KMD's Zev Love X, who would later re-invent himself as MF Doom.
The rules are the same as always. Comment to vote, votes are due midnight Friday.
I was watching some Ultimate Warrior clips on YouTube, which put me in sort of a retro mood. I decided to run with that and do a little tribute to one of my favourite hip-hop producers, Prince Paul, and have two of his proteges square off.
THE MAIN EVENT
From Amityville, Long Island, New York, representing Da Inner Sound, Y'all, DE LA SOUL!
De La Soul was founded in 1987 by high school buddies Kelvin "Posdnous" Mercer, Dave "Trugoy" Jolicoeur and Vince "Maceo" Mason. They first started to get noticed in 1988 when a demo version of a song called "Plug Tunin'" landed in the hands of Prince Paul, then the DJ for the group Stetasonic. Paul was impressed enough with Trugoy and Posdnous' offbeat rhymes that he arranged for them to be signed by Def Jam. In 1989, they released their Prince Paul produced debut 3 Feet High and Rising.
3 Feet High was a massive commercial and critical hit and, almost 20 years later, is still De La's best selling album. It also spawned some anti-De La backlash. In a genre where street cred is king, some saw De La as soft. While all three members were born in New York, they were raised in the mixed race, middle class suburbs of Long Island. That, mixed with their unusual style and love of '60s pop samples got them labelled "hippies" in the hip-hop community, a label that continued to piss them off for most of a decade.
Their next album, De La Soul is Dead, was much darker and angrier. They lashed out at critics and took shots at fairweather friends trying to launch their own careers off of De La's new found fame on "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)" and wrote a downright disturbing song about child molestation ("Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.")
Their third album Buhloone Mindstate would wind up being their last collaboration with Prince Paul. Despite getting great reviews, Mindstate wound up being a commercial failure, getting swept aside by the growing popularity of West Coast gangsta rap. For their fourth album, Stakes is High, De La would go it alone, looking for a new identity.
Still, Chris Rock called Mindstate one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time in a list he wrote for Rolling Stone, so that has to count for something.
Here's the video for "Ego Trippin' (Part Two)" off Mindstate. This video really pissed off Tupac, as he was pretty sure he was the shirtless rapper being referenced in the video. The female MC in the video is Posdnuos' cousin Shorty No Mas.
As an aside, seeing De La live still ranks as one of my greatest concert experiences of all time.
THE COMPETITION
From Queens, New York, the group that gave hope to white hip-hop heads everywhere, 3RD BASS!
3rd Bass where probably the first white rappers to get a real Hood Pass. Sure, the Beastie Boys were down with LL Cool J and Run DMC, but everybody knew they were essentially a white frat boy's take on hip-hop. 3rd Bass was different. They made a point of not sampling rock songs, were almost obnoxiously conscious of race politics and made a point of mentioning that MC Serch (aka Michael Berrin) came from the mostly black Far Rockaway neighbourhood. They also had one black guy in the group (DJ Richie Rich, aka Richard Lawson), which undoubtedly made the other two look a little more down.
The group was founded in 1987 when a mutual acquaintance introduced the three. Serch was already recording as a solo artist, Rich was DJing in local clubs and Pete Nice (aka Pete Nash) was hosting a hip-hop show on Columbia's campus radio station. The three starting working together under the name Three the Hard Way, which would later get changed to 3rd Bass.
In 1989, shortly after the Beasties unceremoniously left Def Jam for Capitol, the mighty Jam signed 3rd Bass to a recording contract. 3rd Bass inherited their label's feud with the Beastie Boys, calling them out in the press and on wax.
Their debut album, The Cactus Album, was a critical success and produced a moderately commercially successful single, "The Gas Face."
Their second album, Derelicts of Dialect, has the Bass boys replacing the Beasties with the much more deserving Vanilla Ice as their object of mockery. The single "Pop Goes the Weasel" achieved crossover commercial success based largely on the video, where the band kicks the shit out of an Ice lookalike (actually Henry Rollins in costume).
Sadly, the party had to come to an end for 3rd Bass, and they split up in 1992, citing creative differences. Neither Serch's solo album (Return of the Product) nor Pete Nice and Richie Rich's debut (Dust to Dust) managed to achieve anything close to the commercial and critical success they had enjoyed as part of 3rd Bass.
MC Serch was last seen on Ego Trip's The (White) Rapper Show. He also has a show on a Detroit hip-hop station, and briefly ran his own record label, Serchlite. He also does a little acting. (He was hilarious in Bamboozled as the white Mau Mau.) Pete Nice splits his time between a baseball memorabilia shop in Cooperstown, NY and a baseball-themed bar in Boston. He also wrote a book about baseball. Richie Rich attempted a comeback in 1999. No one's heard from him since.
Here's the video for "The Gas Face." I enjoy it for two reasons. One, they make fun of MC Hammer. Two, it features guest vocals from KMD's Zev Love X, who would later re-invent himself as MF Doom.
The rules are the same as always. Comment to vote, votes are due midnight Friday.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Opening weekend music: Kano vs. Happy Mondays
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.
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.
Monday, July 28, 2008
So, How's Your Liver? Also, Chemical Brothers Win
Hey gang,
How was everyone's weekend? Mine was good, although I'm pretty sure I caused permanent damage to my body. Thanks, Big Guns.
In other news, Chemical Brothers won last week's battle 6 - 2. I can't say I'm surprised. The girl in that video is absolutely smoking hot.
Here's "Hey Girl, Hey Boy," off 1999's Surrender.
Superstar DJs, here we go.
How was everyone's weekend? Mine was good, although I'm pretty sure I caused permanent damage to my body. Thanks, Big Guns.
In other news, Chemical Brothers won last week's battle 6 - 2. I can't say I'm surprised. The girl in that video is absolutely smoking hot.
Here's "Hey Girl, Hey Boy," off 1999's Surrender.
Superstar DJs, here we go.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Remembering Big Beat: Chemical Brothers vs. The Prodigy
If you were born between 1977 and 1985 and live in Southern Ontario, you may remember a period in the 1990s where fully one-third of your teenage friends suddenly declared themselves "ravers."
They left school on Friday afternoon as a jock, or a faux-gangster, or a goth, or a math nerd, went to some mysterious gathering over the weekend, and came back on Monday morning with a wardrobe made up entirely of fun-fur and cyan ballcaps and a small meth problem. When you asked them what the hell happened, they either began to blab uncontrollably about new friends named "Sunshine" and "Zippy," or else passed out due to drug-and-dance induced exhaustion.
One could point to several causes for this phenomenon: evil drug dealers, unscrupulous fun-fur manufacturers, or the fact that something like seven different active promotions meant that, for a brief while, Toronto was the dance music capital of North America. I prefer to point the finger at two bands from England.
Before 1995, electronic music was pretty much the exclusive property of gays, ginos and gay ginos. Then the big-beat explosion happened. Suddenly, "rave" acts started using guitar samples and rock drum loops. Dance music songs used a "verse-chorus-verse" song structure. Electronic acts had good videos and charismatic front men. "Electronica," as was the stupid catch-all term for all synth-based music, was the new rock 'n' roll.
And if electronica was the new rock 'n' roll, then the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy were like Elvis and Chuck Berry.
The Main Event
From Manchester, England, a band that makes really good videos, THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS.
The Chemical Brothers (aka Tom Rowlands and Ed Simon) started as a DJ duo in 1992, spinning in small venues around Manchester under the name "The Dust Brothers," as a tribute to the Beastie Boys' production team of the same name. One of their regular gigs was at the Heavenly Social Club, a spot frequented by a who's-who of Mancunian rock. By 1994, they working with acts like The Charlatans, The Stone Roses and Oasis. (Their relationship with Oasis ended rather suddenly. In 1995 they were DJing before an Oasis gig when Liam Gallagher decided he didn't care for their set and literally threw them off stage.)
In the summer of 1995, after finishing their first LP, The Dust Brothers were set to embark on their first American tour with fellow "electronica" acts Orbital and Leftfield. Before their first show, they received a cease and desist order from The other Dust Brothers, forcing a sudden name change.
Their debut album, Exit Planet Dust, went gold in the UK, mostly on the strength of the single "Life is Sweet."
Two years later, they released their second album, Dig Your Own Hole. Where Dust has been a domestic hit, Hole made the brothers international superstars. The single "Block Rockin' Beats" appeared on the soundtrack for every youth-marketed movie for the next half-decade and The Brothers became one of the few electronic acts to successfully make the transition to arena rock style shows.
You can look up what happened to them after that, but chances are you already know because you own at least one of their albums.
This is the video for "Setting Sun," their first hit video in North America. If you've ever done a bucketload of acid, then had to try and act normal in front of your parents because you were still high at 10 o'clock the next morning, you know what this video is all about.
The Competition
From Essex, England, a band that has kept re-making the same album for the last 10 years, THE PRODIGY!
The Prodigy were formed in 1990, at the peak of the British rave scene, by producer Liam Howlett and dancers/vocalists Keith Flint and Leeroy Howell. In 1991 they had their first commercial success with the single "Charly," which made simultaneous reference to a popular British cartoon of the 1970s and '80s and doing blow. "Charly" was part of a movement in electronic music known as "kiddie rave," where techno artists sampled bits of children's media in their songs. (See "Sesame's Treet" by Smart-E's for what may be the oddest example.)
Wanting to get away from that unfortunate label, Howlett took the group in a new, more breakbeat hardcore oriented direction for their first full-length album, 1992's The Prodigy Experience. While the album barely made a ripple in North America, it spawned a series of hit singles in the UK, including "Out of Space," which is still one of my favourite songs ever.
Their next album, Music for a Jilted Generation, saw the band go in a heavier, almost industrial direction on a number of songs. They even went so far as to collaborate with Pop Will Eat Itself on "Their Law," a song that took a swipe at the newly passed Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, a piece of legislation which effectively killed rave culture in the UK. Once again, the album was a huge hit in Britain, but barely existed over here.
In 1996, The Prodigy released "Firestarter" as a stand alone single in North America to help stir up hype for their dates on that year's Lollpalooza tour. With a video featuring Keith Flint in a new cyberpunk getup -- Keith had previously looked like a bit of a hippy -- and Sex Pistols-esque vocals, "Firestarter" was a massive hit and is forever linked in my mind with being 15.
Rather than strike while the iron was hot, the band wound up waiting almost a year before releasing their next album, The Fat of the Land. What they lost in momentum, they more than made up for by choosing "Smack My Bitch Up" as a single. A song based entirely around a sample of Kool Keith talking about domestic abuse, "Smack My Bitch Up" scared the crap out of parents and made Fat one of the best selling electronic albums ever.
The two big knocks on The Prodigy are that they don't make very much music anymore, and what little they do make all sounds like Fat of the Land. Both of these things are true, anyone who heard 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned knows that. But that doesn't make Jilted or Experience any less fantastic.
This is the video for "No Good (Start The Dance)" off of Jilted. Check out the strobe action.
They left school on Friday afternoon as a jock, or a faux-gangster, or a goth, or a math nerd, went to some mysterious gathering over the weekend, and came back on Monday morning with a wardrobe made up entirely of fun-fur and cyan ballcaps and a small meth problem. When you asked them what the hell happened, they either began to blab uncontrollably about new friends named "Sunshine" and "Zippy," or else passed out due to drug-and-dance induced exhaustion.
One could point to several causes for this phenomenon: evil drug dealers, unscrupulous fun-fur manufacturers, or the fact that something like seven different active promotions meant that, for a brief while, Toronto was the dance music capital of North America. I prefer to point the finger at two bands from England.
Before 1995, electronic music was pretty much the exclusive property of gays, ginos and gay ginos. Then the big-beat explosion happened. Suddenly, "rave" acts started using guitar samples and rock drum loops. Dance music songs used a "verse-chorus-verse" song structure. Electronic acts had good videos and charismatic front men. "Electronica," as was the stupid catch-all term for all synth-based music, was the new rock 'n' roll.
And if electronica was the new rock 'n' roll, then the Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy were like Elvis and Chuck Berry.
The Main Event
From Manchester, England, a band that makes really good videos, THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS.
The Chemical Brothers (aka Tom Rowlands and Ed Simon) started as a DJ duo in 1992, spinning in small venues around Manchester under the name "The Dust Brothers," as a tribute to the Beastie Boys' production team of the same name. One of their regular gigs was at the Heavenly Social Club, a spot frequented by a who's-who of Mancunian rock. By 1994, they working with acts like The Charlatans, The Stone Roses and Oasis. (Their relationship with Oasis ended rather suddenly. In 1995 they were DJing before an Oasis gig when Liam Gallagher decided he didn't care for their set and literally threw them off stage.)
In the summer of 1995, after finishing their first LP, The Dust Brothers were set to embark on their first American tour with fellow "electronica" acts Orbital and Leftfield. Before their first show, they received a cease and desist order from The other Dust Brothers, forcing a sudden name change.
Their debut album, Exit Planet Dust, went gold in the UK, mostly on the strength of the single "Life is Sweet."
Two years later, they released their second album, Dig Your Own Hole. Where Dust has been a domestic hit, Hole made the brothers international superstars. The single "Block Rockin' Beats" appeared on the soundtrack for every youth-marketed movie for the next half-decade and The Brothers became one of the few electronic acts to successfully make the transition to arena rock style shows.
You can look up what happened to them after that, but chances are you already know because you own at least one of their albums.
This is the video for "Setting Sun," their first hit video in North America. If you've ever done a bucketload of acid, then had to try and act normal in front of your parents because you were still high at 10 o'clock the next morning, you know what this video is all about.
The Competition
From Essex, England, a band that has kept re-making the same album for the last 10 years, THE PRODIGY!
The Prodigy were formed in 1990, at the peak of the British rave scene, by producer Liam Howlett and dancers/vocalists Keith Flint and Leeroy Howell. In 1991 they had their first commercial success with the single "Charly," which made simultaneous reference to a popular British cartoon of the 1970s and '80s and doing blow. "Charly" was part of a movement in electronic music known as "kiddie rave," where techno artists sampled bits of children's media in their songs. (See "Sesame's Treet" by Smart-E's for what may be the oddest example.)
Wanting to get away from that unfortunate label, Howlett took the group in a new, more breakbeat hardcore oriented direction for their first full-length album, 1992's The Prodigy Experience. While the album barely made a ripple in North America, it spawned a series of hit singles in the UK, including "Out of Space," which is still one of my favourite songs ever.
Their next album, Music for a Jilted Generation, saw the band go in a heavier, almost industrial direction on a number of songs. They even went so far as to collaborate with Pop Will Eat Itself on "Their Law," a song that took a swipe at the newly passed Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, a piece of legislation which effectively killed rave culture in the UK. Once again, the album was a huge hit in Britain, but barely existed over here.
In 1996, The Prodigy released "Firestarter" as a stand alone single in North America to help stir up hype for their dates on that year's Lollpalooza tour. With a video featuring Keith Flint in a new cyberpunk getup -- Keith had previously looked like a bit of a hippy -- and Sex Pistols-esque vocals, "Firestarter" was a massive hit and is forever linked in my mind with being 15.
Rather than strike while the iron was hot, the band wound up waiting almost a year before releasing their next album, The Fat of the Land. What they lost in momentum, they more than made up for by choosing "Smack My Bitch Up" as a single. A song based entirely around a sample of Kool Keith talking about domestic abuse, "Smack My Bitch Up" scared the crap out of parents and made Fat one of the best selling electronic albums ever.
The two big knocks on The Prodigy are that they don't make very much music anymore, and what little they do make all sounds like Fat of the Land. Both of these things are true, anyone who heard 2004's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned knows that. But that doesn't make Jilted or Experience any less fantastic.
This is the video for "No Good (Start The Dance)" off of Jilted. Check out the strobe action.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Yeah, Sorry About That aka Comeback Videos: The Kinks vs. LL Cool J
Hey all, sorry I haven't been blogging in the last month.
To be honest, I got distracted by soccer. I was producing a daily soccer round up show during Euro 2008. I also kept holding out hope that the Turkish miracle would end with Tuncay Sanli lifting a trophy, but alas.
To celebrate my triumphant return, I figured some comeback videos would be in order.
The Contest
In the blue corner, from Queens, New York, don't call it a comeback, he's been here for years, LL COOOOOL J.
LL Cool J released his first album, Radio, when he was 17 years-old. As much as we all like to knock LL for being kind of soft in 2008, in 1985, Radio was considered a heavy-ass album. It was one of the first hip-hop albums to use pop song structure in hip-hop, contained the first hip-hop ballad and, along with other Def Jam artists like Run DMC and The Fat Boys, helped LL push old school, disco minded, "a-boogie-to-the-boogity-beat" rappers with elaborate stage shows and costume changes away from the forefront. Cool J and company dressed like kids in the hood and made albums built for boomboxes, not clubs. He was also the first rapper to appear on American Bandstand.
His next album, Bigger and Deffer, was another tight record. The first single, "I'm Bad," has the distinction of being the first rap single to contain the word "motherfucker," paving the way for thousands to follow. As a balance, it also contained what may be the sappiest ballad ever, "I Need Love."
His third album, Walking with a Panther, was heavy on ballads and pop-dance songs and very light on hood-credible songs like "Radio" and "I'm Bad." At a time when hip-hop was in the midst of two rising tides, West Coast gangsta rap and and "conscious" East Coast Native Tongues shit, the weak, poppy Panther got overlooked and dissed.
Eighteen months later, he set about trying to regain some of the fans he lost with Panther, he released Mama Said Knock You Out, featuring a totally reworked ballad-to-hard shit ratio with tracks like "The Boomin' System" and "To Da Break of Dawn," where he dissed Ice T, MC Hammer and Kool Moe Dee at the same time.
Here's the title track. You know it, you love it.
In the red corner, from London, England, with a fetish for transsexuals, The KINKS!
The Kinks were formed in London, England in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies and schoolmate Mick Avory. They took their name from their stage get-up, which consisted of leather capes and high boots (considered "kinky" in the '60s, or so I'm told.)
We in North America tend to think of them as a British Invasion band, far less important than the Stones, The Beatles and The Who, but a little more crucial than the Dave Clark Five. I would disagree, putting The Kinks ahead of all of these bands, if only because they were the inventors of what's now a great rock n' roll tradition, trashing your gear on stage.
The Kinks are also remarkable because they managed to be hugely popular in two separate time periods after a tremendous fall-off. The first period was from the early '60s through to the early '70s, bookended by the hits "You Really Got Me" and "Lola." They then spent most of the '70s making super-inaccessible rock operas.
In the late '70s, bands like The Jam and The Pretenders started to talk about The Kinks as a major influence, while Van Halen made a hit out of their cover of "You Really Got Me," allowing the Kinks to stage a comeback. They produced three hit albums between 1979 and 1984 and had their most commercially successful single ever, "Come Dancing."
In 1984, Avory and Dave Davies had it out once and for all, acknowledged that they'd been pissing each other off for over 20 years. Avory quit the band. The Davies Brothers and various plugs continued to record and tour for another 12 years, but never had another Top 40 hit.
This is the video for "Come Dancing."
If you've forgotten, comment to vote. Voting closes Friday. It's good to be back.
To be honest, I got distracted by soccer. I was producing a daily soccer round up show during Euro 2008. I also kept holding out hope that the Turkish miracle would end with Tuncay Sanli lifting a trophy, but alas.
To celebrate my triumphant return, I figured some comeback videos would be in order.
The Contest
In the blue corner, from Queens, New York, don't call it a comeback, he's been here for years, LL COOOOOL J.
LL Cool J released his first album, Radio, when he was 17 years-old. As much as we all like to knock LL for being kind of soft in 2008, in 1985, Radio was considered a heavy-ass album. It was one of the first hip-hop albums to use pop song structure in hip-hop, contained the first hip-hop ballad and, along with other Def Jam artists like Run DMC and The Fat Boys, helped LL push old school, disco minded, "a-boogie-to-the-boogity-beat" rappers with elaborate stage shows and costume changes away from the forefront. Cool J and company dressed like kids in the hood and made albums built for boomboxes, not clubs. He was also the first rapper to appear on American Bandstand.
His next album, Bigger and Deffer, was another tight record. The first single, "I'm Bad," has the distinction of being the first rap single to contain the word "motherfucker," paving the way for thousands to follow. As a balance, it also contained what may be the sappiest ballad ever, "I Need Love."
His third album, Walking with a Panther, was heavy on ballads and pop-dance songs and very light on hood-credible songs like "Radio" and "I'm Bad." At a time when hip-hop was in the midst of two rising tides, West Coast gangsta rap and and "conscious" East Coast Native Tongues shit, the weak, poppy Panther got overlooked and dissed.
Eighteen months later, he set about trying to regain some of the fans he lost with Panther, he released Mama Said Knock You Out, featuring a totally reworked ballad-to-hard shit ratio with tracks like "The Boomin' System" and "To Da Break of Dawn," where he dissed Ice T, MC Hammer and Kool Moe Dee at the same time.
Here's the title track. You know it, you love it.
In the red corner, from London, England, with a fetish for transsexuals, The KINKS!
The Kinks were formed in London, England in 1963 by brothers Ray and Dave Davies and schoolmate Mick Avory. They took their name from their stage get-up, which consisted of leather capes and high boots (considered "kinky" in the '60s, or so I'm told.)
We in North America tend to think of them as a British Invasion band, far less important than the Stones, The Beatles and The Who, but a little more crucial than the Dave Clark Five. I would disagree, putting The Kinks ahead of all of these bands, if only because they were the inventors of what's now a great rock n' roll tradition, trashing your gear on stage.
The Kinks are also remarkable because they managed to be hugely popular in two separate time periods after a tremendous fall-off. The first period was from the early '60s through to the early '70s, bookended by the hits "You Really Got Me" and "Lola." They then spent most of the '70s making super-inaccessible rock operas.
In the late '70s, bands like The Jam and The Pretenders started to talk about The Kinks as a major influence, while Van Halen made a hit out of their cover of "You Really Got Me," allowing the Kinks to stage a comeback. They produced three hit albums between 1979 and 1984 and had their most commercially successful single ever, "Come Dancing."
In 1984, Avory and Dave Davies had it out once and for all, acknowledged that they'd been pissing each other off for over 20 years. Avory quit the band. The Davies Brothers and various plugs continued to record and tour for another 12 years, but never had another Top 40 hit.
This is the video for "Come Dancing."
If you've forgotten, comment to vote. Voting closes Friday. It's good to be back.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Sexist But Hilarious Videos of the 1980s: Warrant vs. Van Halen
What's up all?
This post is brought to you by the Toronto Blue Jays and a grand slam by Rod Barajas.
Before we get started, I want to make it perfectly clear that this post is not meant to denigrate women in any way, shape or form. In spite of the fact that I used to sell porn and currently work at a sports talk radio station, I totally value women as equals and respect their contributions to society. Hell, my mother is a woman.
That said, there's no point in me pretending I don't appreciate the female form, and by the female form, I mean jiggling boobs.
I'm also a huge fan of silliness. I am by nature sort of a mopey bastard, so anything that can break my bad mood is appreciated. These two videos manage to combine jiggling boobs and idiocy in the best, or worst, possible way.
It's also worth noting that as horrifyingly sexist as these videos were considered at the time, they're almost charming now. There's sort of a Russ Meyer effect going on here. In a society where Jules Jordan is filming anal gangbangs and 50 Cent is rhyming about pimping whores, there's something kind of cute about movies about huge boobed girl gangs and songs that use baseball and pie as an awkward metaphor for sex.
The Main Event
In the (cherry) red corner, from Florida and Ohio by way of Hollywood, California, with a has-been factor of being a punchline WARRR-ANT!
Warrant were formed in 1984. After years of toiling in rock's minor leagues, Warrant finally got signed to a major label in 1988. In 1989, they released Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich. The album produced three Billboard singles; powerballads "Heaven" and "Sometimes She Cries" and the anthemic "Down Boys."
Wanting to strike while the iron was hot, Warrant started recording their second album, tentatively called Uncle Tom's Cabin, while Dirty Rotten was still on the charts. The execs at Sony Music felt that the album lacked a hit single, so with the album "finished" in their minds, the band members were shoved back into the studio and told to make something catchy. Within 15 minutes, the band had written "Cherry Pie." The lyrics were written on a pizza box. Sony quickly changed the name of the album to Cherry Pie and released the album and single in late summer 1990.
The album was an instant hit, mostly on the strength of the "Cherry Pie" single and the accompanying video, which featured former Miss Teen USA contestant Bobbie Jean Brown, getting sprayed with water, molested by the band and getting a pie in the lap. MuchMusic dubbed the video "offensively sexist" and refused to air it, which was sort of an achievement when you consider what videos were like at the time.
Two more thing. One, if one band got fucked by the rise of grunge, it was Warrant. While other glam metal bands had years to get rich and then blow all their money on drugs, Warrant essentially got 18 months before Nirvana and company rolled up and blew them out of the water. Canadian glam metal act Slik Toxik were victims of a similar circumstance.
Two, if you're not too distracted by Ms. Brown, go ahead and listen to the lyrics of this song. They're AWFUL. I can't believe people were shocked they wrote this in 15 minutes. I'm wondering what took them so long.
Anyway, here's the "Cherry Pie" video.
The Opposition
In the blue corner, from Pasadena, California, with a has-been factor of being reunited and it feels so good, Vaaaaan HA-LEN!
I'm not going to get into intense biographical details about Van Halen here, because everybody either knows the story already or doesn't care. I will say that I basically built this post around this video. My friend Stephie B. was possibly the biggest party girl I knew in university. She is now a high school teacher, which I find hilarious, and I regularly serenade her with this song. My other friend Beth G. also knew how to throw down pretty solidly in university, and is also now a teacher. She basically used this as her theme song for her first two years in the teaching profession.
Here's some things about the video.
1) It's inherently disturbing. At least Bobbie Brown was slutting out for the pleasure of Warrant, who are full grown men. These women are stripping for middle school students. That's fucked up.
2) The voice of Waldo is provided by a young Phil Hartman.
3) The best thing about this video, other than Miss Phys Ed's near-see through shirt, has got to be the extent to which David Lee Roth's vaudevillian sensibility is allowed to run wild here. The man has the rest of the band doing co-ordinated dance numbers. That's either incredibly lame or incredibly awesome. It could go either way.
As always, comment to vote, voting closes Friday at Midnight.
This post is brought to you by the Toronto Blue Jays and a grand slam by Rod Barajas.
Before we get started, I want to make it perfectly clear that this post is not meant to denigrate women in any way, shape or form. In spite of the fact that I used to sell porn and currently work at a sports talk radio station, I totally value women as equals and respect their contributions to society. Hell, my mother is a woman.
That said, there's no point in me pretending I don't appreciate the female form, and by the female form, I mean jiggling boobs.
I'm also a huge fan of silliness. I am by nature sort of a mopey bastard, so anything that can break my bad mood is appreciated. These two videos manage to combine jiggling boobs and idiocy in the best, or worst, possible way.
It's also worth noting that as horrifyingly sexist as these videos were considered at the time, they're almost charming now. There's sort of a Russ Meyer effect going on here. In a society where Jules Jordan is filming anal gangbangs and 50 Cent is rhyming about pimping whores, there's something kind of cute about movies about huge boobed girl gangs and songs that use baseball and pie as an awkward metaphor for sex.
The Main Event
In the (cherry) red corner, from Florida and Ohio by way of Hollywood, California, with a has-been factor of being a punchline WARRR-ANT!
Warrant were formed in 1984. After years of toiling in rock's minor leagues, Warrant finally got signed to a major label in 1988. In 1989, they released Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich. The album produced three Billboard singles; powerballads "Heaven" and "Sometimes She Cries" and the anthemic "Down Boys."
Wanting to strike while the iron was hot, Warrant started recording their second album, tentatively called Uncle Tom's Cabin, while Dirty Rotten was still on the charts. The execs at Sony Music felt that the album lacked a hit single, so with the album "finished" in their minds, the band members were shoved back into the studio and told to make something catchy. Within 15 minutes, the band had written "Cherry Pie." The lyrics were written on a pizza box. Sony quickly changed the name of the album to Cherry Pie and released the album and single in late summer 1990.
The album was an instant hit, mostly on the strength of the "Cherry Pie" single and the accompanying video, which featured former Miss Teen USA contestant Bobbie Jean Brown, getting sprayed with water, molested by the band and getting a pie in the lap. MuchMusic dubbed the video "offensively sexist" and refused to air it, which was sort of an achievement when you consider what videos were like at the time.
Two more thing. One, if one band got fucked by the rise of grunge, it was Warrant. While other glam metal bands had years to get rich and then blow all their money on drugs, Warrant essentially got 18 months before Nirvana and company rolled up and blew them out of the water. Canadian glam metal act Slik Toxik were victims of a similar circumstance.
Two, if you're not too distracted by Ms. Brown, go ahead and listen to the lyrics of this song. They're AWFUL. I can't believe people were shocked they wrote this in 15 minutes. I'm wondering what took them so long.
Anyway, here's the "Cherry Pie" video.
The Opposition
In the blue corner, from Pasadena, California, with a has-been factor of being reunited and it feels so good, Vaaaaan HA-LEN!
I'm not going to get into intense biographical details about Van Halen here, because everybody either knows the story already or doesn't care. I will say that I basically built this post around this video. My friend Stephie B. was possibly the biggest party girl I knew in university. She is now a high school teacher, which I find hilarious, and I regularly serenade her with this song. My other friend Beth G. also knew how to throw down pretty solidly in university, and is also now a teacher. She basically used this as her theme song for her first two years in the teaching profession.
Here's some things about the video.
1) It's inherently disturbing. At least Bobbie Brown was slutting out for the pleasure of Warrant, who are full grown men. These women are stripping for middle school students. That's fucked up.
2) The voice of Waldo is provided by a young Phil Hartman.
3) The best thing about this video, other than Miss Phys Ed's near-see through shirt, has got to be the extent to which David Lee Roth's vaudevillian sensibility is allowed to run wild here. The man has the rest of the band doing co-ordinated dance numbers. That's either incredibly lame or incredibly awesome. It could go either way.
As always, comment to vote, voting closes Friday at Midnight.
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.
Friday, April 4, 2008
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.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Golden Era CanRap: Maestro Fresh Wes vs. Dream Warriors
Hey folks, what's happening?
For the record, I really dislike white people who fetishize old school hip-hop. It really weirds me out when people who don't know who the Clipse are ejaculate all over old Run DMC songs and talk about how "they don't make it like that anymore." I don't like vital music genres being reduced to museum pieces, and I really don't like the idea that hip-hop is only good when viewed through the safe lens of nostalgia.
That said, I'm going to be everything I hate for the duration of this post.
For the record, I love a lot of modern Canadian hip-hop. Cadence Weapon may be one of my favourite rappers period right now, More or Les is a friend of mine, Mayhem Moriarty is one of the best lyricists running and Point Blank kind of frighten me, if we're being totally upfront.
The problem is that it's fucking near impossible to hear Canadian hip-hop any more. I don't watch as much MuchMusic as I used to, but when I do, I never see a Canadian hip-hop videos. Radio may be worse. Back when I owned a car, I used to bump Flow pretty regularly while riding in my Topaz. The only Canadian MCs who got any play were fucking Belly and Rochester, and they didn't even get that much. Sadly, it seems as if the Golden Age of Canadian Hip-Hop ended around the same time as the Golden Age of Hip-Hop as a whole.
Back in the early '90s, it seemed like there was half dozen Canadian rap videos in regular rotation on Much at any given time. Not only were the biggies like Maestro, Dream Warriors and Michie Mee getting tons of play, but acts like Ground Control, MRF, Devon, Kish and HDV (now known to Americans as Jacky Jasper) were all over the place, all putting out quality shit.
So what we're going to do here is have two great Canadian rap acts of the early '90s go head-to-head for the right to represent this fine country.
In the blue corner, from Scarborough, Ontario, with an embarrassing career move of "Certs Wid Out Da Retsyn" and a comeback factor of Metropia, Instant Star and a video with Gowan, MAESTRO FRESH WES!
The great thing about being Scarberian is that everyone has a story about knowing one or more of Maestro, Mike Myers, FeFe Dobson, Jamaal Magloire, The Barenaked Ladies, Monika Schnarre, Mike Ricci or Choclair. We're all connected in the almighty East End.
There's really no need for me to paraphrase a Wikipedia bio on this guy. You either know him or you don't. He's Asiatic and he's got the power, from Birchmount, just north of Glendower. As someone whose lame and Caucasian, but from Birchmount, just south of Glendower, I've always felt a real kinship with Maestro. As a result, I'm really happy to see him in the media again, even if it is on crappy Canadian TV shows. I was really worried about him for a while, because if we're being totally honest, there was a period in the mid '90s where he was releasing some real crap.
I was really torn up over which Maestro video to throw into the competition. Obviously "Let Your Backbone Slide" was the biggest hit, but I kind of always thought "Drop the Needle" was a tougher sounding song, plus it samples some '80s CanRock band called Haywire, so it has a little more CanCred. If I'm being really honest, though, my favourite Maestro jam has always been "Conductin' Thangs."
Here's the reasons this video is dope:
1) More punchlines per minute than any other song of it's era.
2) The awesome prohibition-era nightclub motif.
3) Whatever it is Maestro's doing in front of the CN Tower.
4) The tight little ska-sample backbeat.
In the red corner, from Jane and Finch, with a bad career move of everything after the first album and a comeback album of Spek's solo career, The DREE-AM WARRIORS!
If you don't know anything about the Warriors, they were formed in 1988 by King Lou and Capital Q. They played sort of weird, arty, jazz-and-reggae inspired hip-hop and used a lot of slant rhymes in their lyrics. Their first album And the Legacy Begins was actually bigger in the U.K. than they were at home, but pretty well failed to get over at all in the U.S. They had three hits, the most famous of which was "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style," which had an awesome video and an even better sample of a Quincy Jones song.
Their second album, Subliminal Simulation, dropped in 1994 featured a new MC named Spek and had a single called "Day In Day Out," which was about 1/100th as cool as anything on the first album. Even at age 13, I was hugely underwhelmed. I basically blamed Spek for fucking up Canada's greatest rap group, and when their third album was crap to, I felt justified. Ironically, Spek was the only Dream Warrior to go on to have a solo career.
Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't seem to have the awesome first video for "My Definition," they only have the crappy American one they released when the Warriors signed to 4th and BWay in the States. That's almost criminal, because the first video was so good it was offensive and the 4th and BWay video eats dicks.
As a runner up, I'm putting the video for "Wash Your Face In My Sink" in to rep the Dream Warriors. It's a pretty strong video. I particularly enjoy the 12-sided die and fact that, unlike rap videos of the era, the Sucker MC in this video is very clearly labeled.
You know what to do.
For the record, I really dislike white people who fetishize old school hip-hop. It really weirds me out when people who don't know who the Clipse are ejaculate all over old Run DMC songs and talk about how "they don't make it like that anymore." I don't like vital music genres being reduced to museum pieces, and I really don't like the idea that hip-hop is only good when viewed through the safe lens of nostalgia.
That said, I'm going to be everything I hate for the duration of this post.
For the record, I love a lot of modern Canadian hip-hop. Cadence Weapon may be one of my favourite rappers period right now, More or Les is a friend of mine, Mayhem Moriarty is one of the best lyricists running and Point Blank kind of frighten me, if we're being totally upfront.
The problem is that it's fucking near impossible to hear Canadian hip-hop any more. I don't watch as much MuchMusic as I used to, but when I do, I never see a Canadian hip-hop videos. Radio may be worse. Back when I owned a car, I used to bump Flow pretty regularly while riding in my Topaz. The only Canadian MCs who got any play were fucking Belly and Rochester, and they didn't even get that much. Sadly, it seems as if the Golden Age of Canadian Hip-Hop ended around the same time as the Golden Age of Hip-Hop as a whole.
Back in the early '90s, it seemed like there was half dozen Canadian rap videos in regular rotation on Much at any given time. Not only were the biggies like Maestro, Dream Warriors and Michie Mee getting tons of play, but acts like Ground Control, MRF, Devon, Kish and HDV (now known to Americans as Jacky Jasper) were all over the place, all putting out quality shit.
So what we're going to do here is have two great Canadian rap acts of the early '90s go head-to-head for the right to represent this fine country.
In the blue corner, from Scarborough, Ontario, with an embarrassing career move of "Certs Wid Out Da Retsyn" and a comeback factor of Metropia, Instant Star and a video with Gowan, MAESTRO FRESH WES!
The great thing about being Scarberian is that everyone has a story about knowing one or more of Maestro, Mike Myers, FeFe Dobson, Jamaal Magloire, The Barenaked Ladies, Monika Schnarre, Mike Ricci or Choclair. We're all connected in the almighty East End.
There's really no need for me to paraphrase a Wikipedia bio on this guy. You either know him or you don't. He's Asiatic and he's got the power, from Birchmount, just north of Glendower. As someone whose lame and Caucasian, but from Birchmount, just south of Glendower, I've always felt a real kinship with Maestro. As a result, I'm really happy to see him in the media again, even if it is on crappy Canadian TV shows. I was really worried about him for a while, because if we're being totally honest, there was a period in the mid '90s where he was releasing some real crap.
I was really torn up over which Maestro video to throw into the competition. Obviously "Let Your Backbone Slide" was the biggest hit, but I kind of always thought "Drop the Needle" was a tougher sounding song, plus it samples some '80s CanRock band called Haywire, so it has a little more CanCred. If I'm being really honest, though, my favourite Maestro jam has always been "Conductin' Thangs."
Here's the reasons this video is dope:
1) More punchlines per minute than any other song of it's era.
2) The awesome prohibition-era nightclub motif.
3) Whatever it is Maestro's doing in front of the CN Tower.
4) The tight little ska-sample backbeat.
In the red corner, from Jane and Finch, with a bad career move of everything after the first album and a comeback album of Spek's solo career, The DREE-AM WARRIORS!
If you don't know anything about the Warriors, they were formed in 1988 by King Lou and Capital Q. They played sort of weird, arty, jazz-and-reggae inspired hip-hop and used a lot of slant rhymes in their lyrics. Their first album And the Legacy Begins was actually bigger in the U.K. than they were at home, but pretty well failed to get over at all in the U.S. They had three hits, the most famous of which was "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style," which had an awesome video and an even better sample of a Quincy Jones song.
Their second album, Subliminal Simulation, dropped in 1994 featured a new MC named Spek and had a single called "Day In Day Out," which was about 1/100th as cool as anything on the first album. Even at age 13, I was hugely underwhelmed. I basically blamed Spek for fucking up Canada's greatest rap group, and when their third album was crap to, I felt justified. Ironically, Spek was the only Dream Warrior to go on to have a solo career.
Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't seem to have the awesome first video for "My Definition," they only have the crappy American one they released when the Warriors signed to 4th and BWay in the States. That's almost criminal, because the first video was so good it was offensive and the 4th and BWay video eats dicks.
As a runner up, I'm putting the video for "Wash Your Face In My Sink" in to rep the Dream Warriors. It's a pretty strong video. I particularly enjoy the 12-sided die and fact that, unlike rap videos of the era, the Sucker MC in this video is very clearly labeled.
You know what to do.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Battle of the (Sort of) Reformed Pop Tarts: Robyn vs. Rachel Stevens
Sixteen year-olds aren’t known for their judgement.
I’m not saying this to harsh on the young’uns, I’m just pointing out the obvious. I was 16 some time ago, and I did some dumb shit. So did most of my friends. Sixteen year-olds do things like dress up like goths, experiment with bisexuality and heroin, convert to Islam and go through weird flirtations with Neo-Nazism.
The nice thing about being 16 is you can do all this dumb shit, then basically write it off to youthful indiscretion. Nobody will hold your old Skrewdriver records or kufi against you in the long term. You were 16. You were “finding yourself.” It’s all good.
Imagine what the world would be like if you were branded by your adolescent idiocy for the rest of your life? That’s kind of what life’s like for pop stars. They make one stupid decision when they’re kids, cut one dumb, treacly single, and are branded as a cheesy teen-pop star for life. That’s why so many of them live out the rest of their lives in miserable obscurity. It’s better to walk around as a nobody than live out the rest of your life as Tevin Campbell or one of the guys from Another Bad Creation.
That’s why I’m always amazed when teen popsters manage to salvage any sort of grown up career, let alone a respectable one that’s based on nostalgia.
But wouldn’t it be interesting if we were to take two recovered '90s teenyboppers put them head-to-head to find out who’s done the best job of distancing themselves from their shameful past.
Yeah, let’s do that.
The Main Event
In the red corner, with a shame factor of “Show Me Love,” from Stockholm, Sweden, ROBYN!
Here’s the backgrounder on Robyn.
She was raised by weird experimental actors in Sweden, “discovered” at age 13 and spirited away to work with weird Swedish Sven Gali Max Martin, the man who would later be responsible for most of Britney Spears’ early output.
At 18, after experiencing some commercial success in Sweden, Robyn was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Her single “Show Me Love” was an über-hit pretty much everywhere on the planet in the summer of 1997. I worked at a movie theatre in the summer of 1997 where I was forced to hear “Show Me Love” about a dozen times a shift. The song is still intrinsically linked in my brain with the smell of stale popcorn and harsh grease-cutting chemicals.
Later the same year, Robyn was booked as an opening act for the Backstreet Boys, but had to pull out due to “exhaustion.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to take the child of two members of an experimental theatre troupe and force her to be the new Tiffany. Robyn eventually rebelled against her masters, first by writing ballads about abortion (hers), then by covering obscure ‘60s soul records, then eventually by making weird electro stuff where she sounds like a cross between a hyper-sexual Björk and Missy Elliot re-imagined as a tiny Nordic girl.
In 2005, the idiots at Jive Records eventually said “fuck this” and cut her loose. Since then, she’s been releasing shit on her own Konichiwa Records label. She only just got North American distribution, but she’s been doing a pretty good job of getting noticed in Europe, so we could see a full-fledged comeback before long.
I’m not going to front. I think post-2005 Robyn is the fucking balls. I don’t want to bias the electorate, but I like this girl a lot. So much so that I really had to debate which video I wanted to put up as an example of her more recent work. Eventually I chose “Konichiwa Bitches”, just because I think this song/video let’s your really know where this girl’s head’s at.
OK, now for the competition.
In the blue corner, with a shame factor of S Club Seven, from London, England, Raaaay-CHEL Steee-VENS.
OK, before we even get started on this one, let’s just go ahead and admit that Rachel Stevens is more poppy, more tarty and considerably less overall reformed than Robyn. She didn’t go from Swedish proto-Britney to some sort of weird acid casualty. Instead, she went from being one-seventh of the worst musical act in human history to maker of aggressively sexed-up dance tunes and future gay-scene icon.
For those of you in need of a history lesson, Rachel Stevens was a remember of S Club Seven, the worst musical group in human history. They were sort of a mixed-gender 1990s version of The Monkees. Except, where The Monkees made music that actually wasn’t that bad, S Club Seven made music that was so bad it has no Earthly purpose other than to torture terror suspects. . You can’t like it ironically, you can’t like it in spite of yourself, You can’t even put it on at a party and have girls giggle and dance with youthful nostalgia. You can only use it to hurt people.
Here’s a refresher.
After the cancellation of Viva S Club, the final S Club series, all of them dropped off the face of the Earth for a few years. In 2004, Rachel Stevens re-emerged as with “Some Girls,” a song so intense that the song alone, never mind the video, gave me a fairly serious erection. Rachel is hot. She’s kind of like Kylie Minogue multiplied by the power of Teagan Presley. She’s not doing anything deep and profound, but she makes ladies dance seductively whenever her shit is played. I appreciate that.
This is the video for "So Good" off the album Come and Get It, her second post-S Club outing. You know how all the Britney/Hillary/Lindsay types are going for this new "more grown-up" electro sound. This is what their shooting for. Now you can see how much they fail.
OK fools. All that's left is the voting process. You shouldn't need a Google account to post now, but if you do email me at cpdart@gmail.com and I'll try and figure it out.
UPDATE: It goes without saying that the deadline for voting is Friday at Midnight.
I’m not saying this to harsh on the young’uns, I’m just pointing out the obvious. I was 16 some time ago, and I did some dumb shit. So did most of my friends. Sixteen year-olds do things like dress up like goths, experiment with bisexuality and heroin, convert to Islam and go through weird flirtations with Neo-Nazism.
The nice thing about being 16 is you can do all this dumb shit, then basically write it off to youthful indiscretion. Nobody will hold your old Skrewdriver records or kufi against you in the long term. You were 16. You were “finding yourself.” It’s all good.
Imagine what the world would be like if you were branded by your adolescent idiocy for the rest of your life? That’s kind of what life’s like for pop stars. They make one stupid decision when they’re kids, cut one dumb, treacly single, and are branded as a cheesy teen-pop star for life. That’s why so many of them live out the rest of their lives in miserable obscurity. It’s better to walk around as a nobody than live out the rest of your life as Tevin Campbell or one of the guys from Another Bad Creation.
That’s why I’m always amazed when teen popsters manage to salvage any sort of grown up career, let alone a respectable one that’s based on nostalgia.
But wouldn’t it be interesting if we were to take two recovered '90s teenyboppers put them head-to-head to find out who’s done the best job of distancing themselves from their shameful past.
Yeah, let’s do that.
The Main Event
In the red corner, with a shame factor of “Show Me Love,” from Stockholm, Sweden, ROBYN!
Here’s the backgrounder on Robyn.
She was raised by weird experimental actors in Sweden, “discovered” at age 13 and spirited away to work with weird Swedish Sven Gali Max Martin, the man who would later be responsible for most of Britney Spears’ early output.
At 18, after experiencing some commercial success in Sweden, Robyn was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Her single “Show Me Love” was an über-hit pretty much everywhere on the planet in the summer of 1997. I worked at a movie theatre in the summer of 1997 where I was forced to hear “Show Me Love” about a dozen times a shift. The song is still intrinsically linked in my brain with the smell of stale popcorn and harsh grease-cutting chemicals.
Later the same year, Robyn was booked as an opening act for the Backstreet Boys, but had to pull out due to “exhaustion.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to take the child of two members of an experimental theatre troupe and force her to be the new Tiffany. Robyn eventually rebelled against her masters, first by writing ballads about abortion (hers), then by covering obscure ‘60s soul records, then eventually by making weird electro stuff where she sounds like a cross between a hyper-sexual Björk and Missy Elliot re-imagined as a tiny Nordic girl.
In 2005, the idiots at Jive Records eventually said “fuck this” and cut her loose. Since then, she’s been releasing shit on her own Konichiwa Records label. She only just got North American distribution, but she’s been doing a pretty good job of getting noticed in Europe, so we could see a full-fledged comeback before long.
I’m not going to front. I think post-2005 Robyn is the fucking balls. I don’t want to bias the electorate, but I like this girl a lot. So much so that I really had to debate which video I wanted to put up as an example of her more recent work. Eventually I chose “Konichiwa Bitches”, just because I think this song/video let’s your really know where this girl’s head’s at.
OK, now for the competition.
In the blue corner, with a shame factor of S Club Seven, from London, England, Raaaay-CHEL Steee-VENS.
OK, before we even get started on this one, let’s just go ahead and admit that Rachel Stevens is more poppy, more tarty and considerably less overall reformed than Robyn. She didn’t go from Swedish proto-Britney to some sort of weird acid casualty. Instead, she went from being one-seventh of the worst musical act in human history to maker of aggressively sexed-up dance tunes and future gay-scene icon.
For those of you in need of a history lesson, Rachel Stevens was a remember of S Club Seven, the worst musical group in human history. They were sort of a mixed-gender 1990s version of The Monkees. Except, where The Monkees made music that actually wasn’t that bad, S Club Seven made music that was so bad it has no Earthly purpose other than to torture terror suspects. . You can’t like it ironically, you can’t like it in spite of yourself, You can’t even put it on at a party and have girls giggle and dance with youthful nostalgia. You can only use it to hurt people.
Here’s a refresher.
After the cancellation of Viva S Club, the final S Club series, all of them dropped off the face of the Earth for a few years. In 2004, Rachel Stevens re-emerged as with “Some Girls,” a song so intense that the song alone, never mind the video, gave me a fairly serious erection. Rachel is hot. She’s kind of like Kylie Minogue multiplied by the power of Teagan Presley. She’s not doing anything deep and profound, but she makes ladies dance seductively whenever her shit is played. I appreciate that.
This is the video for "So Good" off the album Come and Get It, her second post-S Club outing. You know how all the Britney/Hillary/Lindsay types are going for this new "more grown-up" electro sound. This is what their shooting for. Now you can see how much they fail.
OK fools. All that's left is the voting process. You shouldn't need a Google account to post now, but if you do email me at cpdart@gmail.com and I'll try and figure it out.
UPDATE: It goes without saying that the deadline for voting is Friday at Midnight.
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