I’ll try not to rant here.
Hip Hop and Rap are not a fad.
Most of today’s Rap is formulaic and self righteous.
However, like any “genre” of music; there are true gems and true road apples that make you feel something…good or bad.
Yesterday, I listened to fIREHOSE (which I haven’t done in years), Jay Z, and Tchaikovsky.
How’s that for diversity?
Challenge your ears and your mind.
Shem

Archers of Loaf – 1 of the top 5 bands of all time. The others are AC/DC, The Clash, Beasties, and the Dead Kennedys.

Zeppelin, Public Enemy, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Replacements, and Sonic Youth (?) would prolly round out the top 10, in no particular order.

I love your blog.

Peace.

PS: Nothing was better than our radio shows, J. And thanks for hooking me into Archers of Loaf.

You’ve got me fired up about this one.

“One is cheesy and fraught with bad intentions of ripping people off for as much money as possible. The other was created from real emotion and with no other motivation than to express true feelings with musical talent. One song deserves ridicule, and the other deserves praise. But instead, one gets massive airplay to the point of brainwashing people into humming the crap they hear. And the other is respected within tight circles for it’s complete purity.”

Rock music and hip hop could be either of those two music types.

Which type would KISS be?

The Low show on Saturday was amazing. Those are two of the best voices in music and prolly the best combo right now. Listen to Take Your Time on their new album.

You’re down on rap, but indie rock and “punk” are just as much of a total joke now. A lot of those all-black clothing wearing, spiky belt bands are as funny as the hip hop parodies on Saturday Night Live.

You should check out Unwound. No longer together but people lost their shit out there about that band when they were together. I think you’d be into them.

Listen to “Britney’s Silver Can” from James Kochalka’s recent album. A 3-minute outro with a beautifully repeated “Justin Timberlake” refrain. Pure genius.

Don’t listen to anything except M.I.A’s “Arular” for a couple weeks. It’s an amazing album that is sure to bring out your inner hoochie mama.

Even Ian McKaye wants you to listen to different music.

Take me to CMJ again.

J

Damn.

The whole thing about music is that it moves you. No judgement, no rules, no shit. Of course there’s a lot of what we hear as totally craptrastic junk out there, but just because we think it sucks doesn’t mean it’s not the tits to someone else.

It ain’t all easy to peg, either. Just as a weird example, who woulda thunk that I would be a big All Saints fan — no joke. That shit is tight — listen to “Pure Shores.” Bunch of silly Brit girls, right? Fuck that — that song is awesome. Love it, no apologies. Or check out Anastacia, if you want to get some bitchcakes white-girl soul. Lady rocks it like Taylor Dayne. And you know I still prefer Sabbath to pretty much anything else, but at least I’m open to crazy different shit.

So ends my rant,

xxoo
jpb