I agree with Unnecessary, but I think that The Glamour Life and Shoulda Known are both better tracks than Toxic. The beat on Glamour Life is just so, so nice, and I like Gambino a lot more when he's getting in touch with his Drake side. A good feature idea though.
Huge huge fan of Spotify. I've paid for their iPhone service this whole year, and it's been worth every penny. I do wish that they could get mixtapes on there, though.
Also, in 2012 there are going to be releases from ASAP Mob, ASAP Rocky, GOOD Music (it could bomb but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt just because of Mercy), Big Boi, Nas, possibly Earl?, Rebirth of Detroit, Freddie Gibbs' & Madlib, and, at some point hopefully, Jay Electronica. Looks pretty good to me.
Wow. All so-called "next great rappers" have to get through this kid first. Given how young he is, how dense his lyrics are, the quality of his production, and the thematic content going on here, this is definitely a throwback to Illmatic. Not saying it's as good or particularly close, but when a 17 year old drops a mixtape this good, the same sort of prodigiousness that Nas had at 19 is definitely there.
I think Pitchfork has him, don't they? I don't know if this is true or not but I'm pretty sure there's some sort of contractual thing going on between Pitchfork and Lolla that only lets bands play one or the other per year. As far as hip-hop goes, Pitchfork is better off this year.
Agree 100%. I saw him at this music festival in Memphis called Rites of Spring two weeks ago. I was very ambivalent towards his record, but he blew me away. It was a very small crowd too, maybe 200 people all packed under a tent, but he still put everything out there for us. Definitely one of my favorite shows I've ever been to.
Upon a couple listens, I've come to appreciate the verse, but does it piss anyone else off that on a 5 minute song he decides to only do one verse? Really doesn't seem like something any other credible rapper would do. Obviously Jay Elec goes against the grain, but I don't know that it's a good thing in this case.
Wow. Including the song she did with 2 Chainz, which was inexplicably named Best New Track on Pitchfork, Nicki Minaj has gone 6/6 on bringing out the worst in every rapper she collaborated with. Maybe I just don't understand Nicki's style, but I don't understand what the appeal in her music is at all. Champion is a pretty nice beat too. A lot more could be done with that.
This is not a good song for Nas. He usually packs his lyrics in a lot tighter on his classics. Life's A Bitch, The Message, NY State of Mind, Street Dreams, Favor for a Favor, among many others, blow this out of the water. Nas has fallen off somewhat. Not saying he can't get it back, but he needs to get away from Untitled type production, and lyricism like this.
I would actually argue that DMX is a pretty good rapper. Everyone knows his crazy-ass dog-barking hits (imagine a voiceover saying that in an infomercial for his "Greatest Hits" album one day) but tracks like "Stop Being Greedy" and "Damien" are really legitimately good, just to name a couple. He captures street paranoia extremely well. I can also see why he doesn't like Drake at all, because I think DMX puts a lot more of himself into his rapping than Drake does. Check out the video of DMX freestyling with Jay-Z and you see the expressiveness and ability that people sometimes don't pick up on his albums because of the barking and such. Watch any video of Drake freestyling and you see him reading off a Blackberry. I like Drake, but when it comes down to pure rapping ability, I think DMX is better.
Check out the LollaLeaks twitter page. Metallica and The Killers weren't particularly eye-catching, but Sonic Youth and Beck could be fucking incredible. Plus The Shins were listed, MIA playing in Perry's, etc. Could be interesting if true.
It's funny that you mention Doom because I think Earl sounds a lot like him on this track. On earlier OF tracks I liked how he always had a really clear, conversational flow but on this one it's a bit more blurred, and he packs together all these crazy images in his lyrics that seem detached from one another but still form a coherent thread of thought in the way Doom does with a track like Saliva or something. Really good shit. The washed out production is nice but I hope we'll get something a bit more lush for him to go on, he got a nice beat on Blade and killed it.
M.I.A. flicking off the camera was great because I feel like you had Madonna trying to hold onto her place as the queen of pop with all the costumes and visuals and then M.I.A. saying to herself, "Wait, I actually don't give a fuck about this at all" and then letting everyone know it. Just a great way to shit on pop music, the FCC, and America. Kudos.
Lana Del Rey's next album is going to be in a year, maybe a year and a half, and will be critically acclaimed. I say this not because of her talent (I like her voice, not so much her song-writing), but because now that everyone has gotten their kicks ripping her down after she became a product of the hype, she will become slightly less in the spotlight, people will calm down and realize they overreacted, and then when the next album drops, they will seek to make up for their vicious criticisms by over-praising anything that's better about the new album, no matter how marginal. I'm pretty neutral towards her, but I can't shake the feeling that this is just how these things work.
When you give MIA and Nicki only 8 bars each then you've wasted a song that had a chance to be a great piece of pop music. Sort of frustrating that they only dipped a toe in the water like this. Martin Solveig did a good job with the production but I think they really missed out on an awesome opportunity here.
This is so, so good. Wow. Sleep and One Time stuck out the most to me initially, but I can tell this is an album that I'll have multiple favorites for the more I listen to it. The beat on Sleep is incredible though. FUCK.
I'm pretty sure that nearly everything Mac Miller has put out is terrible. Same goes for Gambino. I wouldn't expect Paste to recognize it, because they aren't that type of publication, but One Be Lo's L.A.B.O.R. is exceptional. Definitely one of the better than most hip-hop releases this year. And where the fuck is undun? It seems like Paste could give props to The Roots if they're going to recognize Drake and Gambino.
Rihanna has definitely had some quality songs in the past, but when I go on a comment thread and see that Britney Spears' "Femme Fatale" is being called "severely underrated", it's difficult to deny that the clientele of this website has changed in some way, and certainly not for the better when those are the sort of things that are being said. Responses like, "I was hating the mainstream before hating the mainstream was cool" are frustrating too. That's an overplayed insult, and unfairly marginalizes the complaints of the readers of this site by labeling them as some disgruntled hipster. Aren't people allowed to complain when shitty music is being hailed on a site that previously applauded great music? People's music tastes are allowed to change, and that extends to the writers of Stereogum, but when the website itself has established a niche in the alternative music culture, why can't Stereogum get writers or contributors who are still interested in that? There are so many other sites you could go to read about Rihanna or Britney or whatever the fuck else is out in the pop music scene. Why can't this continue to be devoted to more underground artists, just because it's difficult to find quality coverage on them anywhere else? Is it wrong for people to continue to desire that, or are they just going to be ridiculed and insulted the more they speak out? Obviously there are good ways and bad ways to phrase things on both sides of the argument, but having stupid, back-and-forth arguments on who's a hipster and who's not takes away from the fact that Stereogum should stick to covering underground music just because a) it does a lot better than other, popular websites and b) there's a myriad of music sites that have Comment Parties on Rihanna, and when I'm struck by a song from her, or anyone else on the pop music scene (which has been known to happen) I'll be sure to go to those websites to read up on them.
It's alright. I don't have anything insightful to say on the album as a whole, but I really wish him and Ross would've gone a lot harder on that Just Blaze beat. There are some great moments from the both of them on it, but they can be pretty inconsistent. If Ross had delivered the same flow that he had on "Devil in a New Dress" that song could've been fucking monumental.
Good song. The lyrics are very clever and I love the Step Brothers reference with the Fergie and Jesus line. The beat reminds me of College Dropout a bit, which is cool, but I hope we hear some stuff more reminiscent of Late Registration. This and Power make me very optimistic for November 16th though
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