You are right. I think the best songs on Stankonia are better than the best songs on Aquemini -- but Aquemini is the consistently brilliant album all the way through. There are some duds on Stankonia, and some songs where the production and the rapping just don't mesh.
There is an album called Astral Weeks. It is by Van Morrison. It does NOT contain the smash hit "Brown Eyed Girl." It is better than any other album ever made. That is all.
Interesting post, Nathan, thanks. You are right, who would really have predicted that a great art scene would emerge from a smallish city 30 minutes outside the capitol of the deep south? Or Seattle, which in the early 90s, on the brink of the tech-boom, might as well have been as remote as Alaska?
Nostalgia in a de-localized world is definitely part of it -- but one thing that frustrates me is how young bands seem less and less devoted to building those local scenes, and how rabid many just seem to pack it all up, leave home, and get to over saturated, over priced, insufferable Brooklyn. The internet was supposed to make music more accessible and wide-spread - and while it certainly has done that in positive ways - I wonder what part it's played in eradicating the good parts of localism (or as you mention communities), and what that ultimately means for the music we enjoy.
LeMay’s Pitchfork review suggests you could “change” (‘fucked’) to ‘kissed’ and stick a 16-year-old girl in front of the mic and no one could tell the difference,” but he’s off base. That “fuck” means something. Replace “fuck” with “kiss” in “Fuck And Run,” and you’d have a kiddie song too.
Ha! Except "Kiss and Run" would make no sense...as "fuck and run" is a phrase that people use and "kiss and run" is something that no one would plausibly say (except as euphemism). Alongside lyrics like "You got up out of bed / You said you had a lot of work to do..." sex is endemic the narrative of the song. I mean, the song STARTS with the narrator waking up in bed the morning after ("I woke up alarmed"). In the other song, the whole sexual element is just tacked on.
I can already anticipate the endlessly overblown, hyper-intellectual articles about this album...
"Magna Carta Holy Grail - At first this juxtaposition may seem arbitrary, but Jay-Z (much like Kanye on Yeezus) is examining the tension between what is attainably human and what is perennially out-of-reach, divine, and outsized. In many ways this tension is the story of rap - burgeoning rap as protest music advocating social change metaphorisized into explorations and celebrations of the ego, the outward world shifted inward..."
For me, so much of rap/hip-hop music seems to be about how well the artist can carry you along with what he's saying, how much you can sublimate his identity into your own -- otherwise, songs like "Juicy" would just be homoerotic and songs like "I F-cked Yo Bitch" merely insulting. After a few scattered listens, I just can't get on board with this one. Yeezus, to me, has a palpable and unironic contempt for its audience. I feel really alienated from Kanye as a personality/character here -- whereas on the last album, it was the opposite.
I kind of feel you. These lists are very much, "random guy, tell us your favorite magnetic fields songs."...Sort of wish there was a way to make these feel less random and puzzling.
My prediction is that p4k goes on the backlash like they did with MIA, Animal Collective, and other acts who followed up their "best" album with a difficult, more experimental one. 6.8 is what I'm going with here.
I guess I'm alone in thinking that the swelling violins in Crown of Love make the song unbearably saccharine. Personally, I would add "Haiti" and "Headlights Look like Diamonds"
I am hoping that Trident enlists Jeff Mangum to play "Oh Gumly" in their next commercial. I will be with you when you lose your flavor. YAY MORE $$$$$ FOR ALL!
Another band makes an ill-advised move to nyc. Was really hoping they would stick around Oakland and help the budding music scene there grow into something special.
Alright, downvoting assholes, what four songs compare with the sublime sequence of "Else", "You Were Right", "Temporary Blind", and "Broken Chairs"? None. That's what I thought.
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