Expanding Your Music Interest
It has been a few weeks since my last post. I have taken the time away to focus through the last minute challenges of getting this project off the ground.
If you reading this than it means that you been checking semi-frequently, wondering what the hell’s going on. Let me attempt to answer that question.
HipHopDX tips us off on how the one and only Lil Jon manages to say “YEEEEAAAAHH!!” to lucrative product endorsements.
Here’s his wishlist for future swag:
Mac needs to holla at me. I’m always on my Mac. Send me a free Mac. I need the glossy screen, a 17-inch glossy screen. Boost Mobile showed me a lot of love. And T-Mobile, I’m a Sidekick fanatic. I got the new one at a party. I’m digging it. I’m digging adidas right now and Puma. I’ve been rocking the Pumas and all the different colors. And Numark. I need the turntables; the black with the gold. Numark, hook me up.
Oh, and the picture above? That’s right: The Crunk master is an NHL fan! Currently of his hometown Atlanta Thrashers, but also from way back in the day:
I can skate. I used to come to the games when they were the [now-Calgary] Flames, I’m even wearing [an Atlanta Flames] throwback jersey. I’m real old school - we used to ice skate over here when it was the Omni, so I’m sure I could play a little hockey.
Let’s hope the Thrashers win that Stanley Cup soon, just so we can see this:
That would be great - we’d have to put some crunk juice in the Cup, drink that out of it, it’d be awesome.
Where are the latest musical influences in pop music coming from? Increasingly, it seems like you need a world almanac to find out:
On any given night in an American rock club you can hear bands like Gogol Bordello, Man Man, Beirut and Balkan Beat Box playing odd-metered songs drawing on the rhythms of Eastern European Gypsy music. You might encounter Antibalas or Vampire Weekend riffing on African sounds, Dengue Fever making psychedelic Cambodian pop or a D.J. like Diplo spinning Brazilian funk. On the recent “Kala,” a contender for the year’s most exciting pop album, the British-Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A., who works from Brooklyn, draws on Indian, African and West Indian sounds. The folk-rocker Devendra Banhart creates fusions with Mexican and Brazilian musicians on his recent CD, “Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon.” And the veteran musical adventurer Bjork toured this year with a West African percussion troupe and Chinese pipa virtuoso.
Some of that funky polyglot of sounds can be experienced in these clips from: Beirut (”Postcards from Italy”), Devendra Banhart (”Cristobal”), and DeVotchKa’s cover of Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs”.
But is this a good thing? PopMatters’ Stu Sherman argues that it amounts to cultural theft and sanitization, basically robbing audiences of the experience of authentic native musical forms.
If only there was a direct way for fans of Beirut and Vampire Weekend to listen to the original source material (and vice versa).
Oh yeah — 8trk.com!
A big part of the vision for this site is to provide a knowledge source where, yes, you can see how an indie hipster band from the Lower East Side is “related” to, say, Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti. What better way to do that than to solicit the wisdom of all those avid music fans who know all this, and want to share with others?
As even mainstream tunes become infused with so many different musical inspirations, I really see 8trk.com (through the work of its contributors) becoming the place to drill deeper and learn. To find out about the music behind the music. (Hey, does that sound like a great motto for this site, or what??)
As we get closer to launch, that’s what we’re hoping to see come out of this experiment. So don’t be shy, all you fans of Brazilian-techno-synthpop piano thumb music! Bring it on!
Following the lead of Starbucks and its coffeebar-distributed recording label, Victoria’s Secret is finding its musical synergy with the Spice Girls, in the form of becoming the exclusive retail distributor for the re-formed group’s greatest hits album.
Girl Power with garters? In this case, it’s a match — a marketing-manufactured match, given that both sides of this equation owe more to hype than to actual quality.
Which brings to mind a particularly telling Chris Rock joke from his movie I Think I Love My Wife (I’m paraphrasing from memory, since I can’t find the exact quote online):
“I’m buying records in a record store, while I still can. With Starbucks selling music, pretty soon you’ll have to go to a liquor store to buy gangsta rap CDs!”
Jay-Z Feat. Pharrell - Blue Magic
Okay, now I’m feeling the track. Didn’t love it at first but that’s how it goes sometimes. What do you think?
