For this week’s post, I am expecting many people to disagree with my choice. I encounter the same problem when I tell people that I listen to Panic(!) at the Disco or Fall Out Boy; there seems to be an assumption that if a band has written some catchy songs or is enjoyed by a massive amount of people that somehow there is no need to listen to their music because it will be terrible. I sincerely hope that changes. Read More »
So the previous week I decided to spend my time convincing you to stop what you were doing, sit down, and enjoy a nice relaxing night of (mostly) gentle music to pull at your heartstrings. This week is a little different. Honestly the best thing you could do with this week’s album is put it in your car, turn the engine on, and speed off (and by “speed” I mean the speed limit, of course) into the sunset blasting the music. With Love and Squalor by We Are Scientists is what happens when you take the heavy production out alternative music; there are only three guys in the band, so you hear three instruments. The guitar is not overdubbed into fifteen parts, the bass is not thrown into the background, existing simply because it is assumed that there should be a bassist in a rock band, and the hi-hat is the only thing panned hard left, so you don’t have to listen past production value to hear what the drummer is playing. What is the result? An album that is as enjoyable to listen to quietly with headphones as blasted through 15 inch speakers. Read More »
“A man broke his jaw trying to say what I / say on the microphone, you shoulda left it alone / just for the record, let it be known / that my ego’s only partially grown / and never will I ever condone / biting, in any form”
-Masta Ace, “The Symphony,” 1988.
Nothing can inspire indignant hip-hop purists and classicists quite like Justin Bieber’s flirtations with rap music. When Raekwon featured on the 2010 remix of Bieber’s hit “Runaway Love,” many “real hip-hop heads” were up in arms, disturbed by how their favorite gritty street rapper would sell his soul to the marshmallow-soft teen pop star. Read More »
“If the Quest don’t look good, then Queens won’t look good
But since the sounds are universal, New York won’t look good”
-Phife Dog, A Tribe Called Quest, “God Lives Through,” Midnight Marauders, 1993.
Welcome. In this, the first Boom Bap Backstory, all the readers out there deserve an explanation. Some of you out there might be asking, “what is boom bap, and what’s its backstory?”
Boom bap is one of the sounds of hip-hop: steady, pounding, swinging drums. Any hip-hop song from New York from 1989-2000 that you’d call an anthem is most likely boom bap.
The term boom bap also has a connotation of classic-ness. And therein lies the aim of this column. I take the hip-hop of today, and add in the “Boom Bap Backkstory” to it. I want to show the roots and long-term trends that have led to what’s present within the music today. The point is to tie everything together, and make hip-hop of different eras and styles more accessible. Read More »
In 1974, David Bowie asserted, “Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars…quite as good as Jagger…he staged a country.” With this statement, Bowie commented on how similar the showmanship of fascist leaders and rock stars could be. Many other artists made a similar commentary, often joined by criticism from a more detached perspective, an unfortunately large body of pro-fascist songs, and many songs viewing other trends through the lens of fascism. Read More »
This is a companion piece to the Wed. April 13th episode of Footnotes that streams on WGTB from 9-10pm.
In the last 50 years, the United States’ per capita real GDP has increased almost threefold. The largest factor contributing to this growth has been innovation – new technologies like cell phones and the internet, which have increased output and standards of living by essentially all quantifiable measures. Why then are there so many artistic efforts to depict modernity as a weight on humanity’s back? Read More »
This is a companion piece to the Wed. April 6th episode of Footnotes that streams on WGTB from 9-10pm.
On a rainy night in August 2009, a man sporting a beard, dark-sunglasses, and a hat pushed down to his eyes was looking around Long Branch, NJ. Afraid, a local family called the police, who questioned and then detained the man, when they did not believe his claims to be Bob Dylan. Eventually, at the station the policewoman’s superior recognized him and sent him on his way. Why was Bob Dylan skulking around the New Jersey suburbs during a storm? The block was where Bruce Springsteen lived during the Born to Run era, and Dylan had been visiting former homes of his favorite contemporary artists. During the year prior, he was noticed on a public bus tour around London sights related to John Lennon and visiting Neil Young’s former house, showing that Dylan was seeking to understand what they were thinking. Other artists have explored similar themes, without police confrontation and braving stormy nights, though song. Read More »
[INTRODUCTION TO BETWEEN THE LINES: OK, books, right? Music, right? Musicians writing songs about books, right? Those songs are the best kind because they pander to those of us who like both. This may be the hands-down nerdiest thing I will ever have to say, but: I’m always so, so satisfied with myself when I pick up on a literary allusion in a song. I’ll always remember finally getting the Nathaniel Hawthorne Scarlet Letter reference in the Music Man soundtrack’s “The Sadder But Wiser Girl” on yet another never-ending family roadtrip. I excitedly announced my epiphany to the entire car, especially exalted because I had finally beaten my English professor father to understanding some reference of literary merit for the first (and, for all I knew, last) time in my long 15 years of life. I have since managed to make a few more such song-to-book connections, and have come to see literary allusions by musicians as secret high-fives between artist and listener—it’s like we have our own inside joke, isn’t it? And just like everybody loves puppies and winning, everybody loves inside jokes—there’s an eternal satisfaction, even a vindication in being able to pick apart a song and trace it back to the pages of your favorite books. So I thought I’d write a column about these songs. And no, not about this song, though it does fit the category, even a little too well.] Read More »
