New Music: Clipse, Popular Demand (Popeye’s) [ft. Cam'ron]

10.25.09

Song: Popular Demand (Popeye’s) [ft. Cam'ron]
Artist: Clipse
Album: Till the Casket Drops
Producer: The Neptunes
Label: Columbia Records
Notes: none
Analysis: Cult followings in hip hop don’t get much bigger than that of both Clipse and Cam’ron. Neither act has had a mainstream hit in years, but both have fans hungry for new material constantly. In Clipse’s case, most of the material they put out is worthwhile, but with Cam’ron, for every ‘Dead or Alive‘ there is an absurd track like ‘IBS‘ (which  happens to be about his irritable bowel syndrome). Thankfully, on the drowsy piano-laced banger ‘Popular Demand (Popeye’s)’, Malice, Pusha T and Cam’ron stick with what they’re all best at – shit talking, bragging and drug raps:

New Music / Music Video: Arctic Monkeys, Cornerstone

10.23.09

Song: Cornerstone
Artist: Arctic Monkeys
Album: Humbug
Label: Domino / Warner Bros.
Notes: 2nd single from LP
Analysis: ‘Cornerstone’ has a simple, slowly-strummed sweetness to it that Arctic Monkeys songs don’t usually go for, as far as I know. Here, Alex Turner sings a tune about (or at least what I interpret as) wanting to pretend that every woman he meets is a different woman in particular, and in the end settles for the woman’s sister. It’s the kind of song that I picture will get the crowd of a Monkeys show swaying back and forth and singing grinningly.

New Music / Music Video: Snoop Dogg, Gangsta Luv [ft. The-Dream]

10.23.09

Song: Gangsta Luv [ft. The-Dream]
Artist: Snoop Dogg
Album: Malice in Wonderland
Producer: The-Dream
Label: Priority Records
Notes: 1st single from LP
Analysis: Snoop decided to play it a little bit safer with his latest lead single. Unlike the stripped-out classic ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, or the auto-tuned disco-flaired weirdness of ‘Sexual Eruption’, ‘Gangsta Luv’ is a more straightforward pop rap dance track.

New Music / Music Video: Frightened Rabbit, Swim Until You Can’t See Land

10.22.09

Song: Swim Until You Can’t See Land
Artist: Frightened Rabbit
Album: The Winter of Mixed Drinks
Label: Fat Cat Records
Notes: 1st single from LP
Analysis: ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ is a song about abandoning all hope and getting the hell out of dodge before the worst hits the horizon.

Dip a toe in the ocean. Oh how it hardens and it numbs.
And the rest of me is a burgeoned man
built to collapse into crumbs.
And if I hadn’t come down
to the coast to disappear,
I may have died in a land-slide
of the rocks, the hopes and fears.

New Music: Big Boi, Shine Blockas [ft. Gucci Mane]

10.22.09

Song: Shine Blockas [ft. Gucci Mane]
Artist: Big Boi
Album: Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Producer: unknown
Label: Def Jam Records
Notes: none
Analysis: When you’re using a sample better than Jay-Z, you have to be doing something right, regardless of how many times your album is pushed back. ‘Shine Blockas’ rocks a soulful ‘I Miss You Baby’ sample by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes once used in the Kanye West-produced ‘This Can’t Be Life’ on Jay-Z’s Dynasty album. Where Jay (along with guests Beanie Sigel & Scarface) spat about the problems of their worlds, Big Boi takes a different turn by going in about those darn haters that always sound like such jerks.

New Music / Music Video: Death Cab for Cutie, Meet Me On the Equinox

10.21.09

Song: Meet Me on the Equinox
Artist: Death Cab for Cutie
Album: New Moon (OST)
Label: Atlantic Records
Notes: 1st single from LP
Analysis: Death Cab has had a great 2009 thus far. Riding the success of their near-perfect 2008 LP Narrow Stairs, they released two of my favorites from the album: ‘Cath…‘ and ‘Grapevine Fires‘ as singles this year, followed by the equally-superb The Open Door EP followup that further cemented my admiration of this band. ‘Meet Me On the Equinox’ is a track written specifically for the soundtrack to a teen-fad film franchise of the last couple of years; New Moon.

New Music: Gucci Mane, Spotlight [ft. Usher]

10.21.09

Song: Spotlight [ft. Usher]
Artist: Gucci Mane
Album: The State vs. Radric Davis
Label: So Icey / Warner Bros. Records
Producer: Polow da Don
Notes: 2nd single from LP
Analysis: Mark my words, you will be hearing this one everywhere for the rest of 2009. Convicted criminal and gutter-flowed mixtape rapper Gucci Mane is likely to hold a Top 40 spot next to Miley Cyrus with this song, and deservedly so. This track drips of the spilled Heineken Lights of women flocking to the dance floor to get busy to their new favorite song.

New Music: Torae & Marco Polo, Hold Up [ft. Masta Ace & Sean Price]

05.22.09

Song: Hold Up [ft. Masta Ace & Sean Price]
Artist: Torae & Marco Polo
Label: Duck Down Records
Producer: Marco Polo
Notes: none
Analysis: The first two leaks from Torae & Marco Polo’s upcoming Double Barrel album were pretty good, but ‘Hold Up’ is fucking great.

Music Video: The Killers, The World We Live In

05.21.09

Song: The World We Live In
Artist: The Killers
Album: Day & Age
Label: Island Records
Notes: 3rd single from LP
Analysis: If you weren’t feeling the first two singles (‘Human’ and ‘Spaceman‘) from The Killers’ late 2008 release, you might enjoy ‘The World We Live In’ a little bit more. It’s less house music and more prog rock anthem. The video’s a little too icey for my springtime/summer mood, but it’s shot really nicely and Brandon’s wardrobe is only slightly less outrageous than previous videos. It’s as close to Hot Fuss as the album gets, which is the best compliment that I can give a Killers song lately.

Music Video: Modest Mouse, Satellite Skin

05.15.09

Song: Satellite Skin
Artist: Modest Mouse
Album: No One’s First And You’re Next EP
Label: Epic Records
Notes: 1st single from EP
Analysis: Modest Mouse is one of the most important bands in of my generation for me. Back in early 2004 when Good News for People Who Love Bad News came out, they really cracked my taste in music wide open. Before I heard that album I was mainly big into the emo/post-hardcore genre, as well as alternative metal & popular hip hop stuff. But Modest Mouse really introduced me to a lot more sounds and types of music, which happened perfectly right before I went away to college, which was also obviously a huge turning point in my life. Not to get all sentimental, but to this day that album is one of my most played favorites, and I’ve since caught up greatly on the group’s influences, influencees, and learned to love so many new bands and genres in a way that I never could have had I not been given a copy of their cd in 2004. With that out of the way, ‘Satellite Skin’ is a new Modest Mouse track off of their upcoming EP of unreleased joints from the Good News sessions, as well as the We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank b-sides. The sunny, crunchy tune has a bizarrely cool video to go along with it featuring walking birdhouses, alien cults and a disgusting patch of pulsating hairy flesh. You have to wonder how Tool music video animator Kevin Willis could even think up an idea for a storyline this odd, but Modest Mouse is a very imaginative band also so I’m sure they had something to do with it.