In My Stereo

Friday, July 20, 2007
Fabolous - From Nothin' To Somethin'
Lil Boosie and Juvenile - Life After Katrina, Vol. 1
Kelly Rowland - Ms. Kelly
Eddie Izzard - Dress To Kill
DNA - Something 4 The Strippers 2
K-Swift The Club Queen - Jumpoff Vol. 11: Not Guilty
Team Arson presents Young, Fresh & New Vol. 1
Maryae - Forefront
Wade Waters - Dark Water
UnReal - Da F$$k Else U Want 4 Free

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9:54 AM

Wednesday, July 18, 2007


The City Paper's annual Big Music Issue is out today, so go pick that up. My big piece in it this year is Ladies First, an examination of the huge amount of female talent in Baltimore hip hop right now. I interviewed B-Fly, Jade Fox, ShellBe R.A.W., Nik Stylz, Kelly Connelly, Tufflon Dona, Amotion and Symantyx for the story, and tried to at least mention every local female MC I knew of that I didn't get a chance to talk to. The other story I contributed to was Baltimore's Jukebox, where we sat down with various local musicians and played them other local music and discussed it. I talked to Midas and a couple members of the band Thrushes, and also producer Say Wut, although it looks like his part wasn't used (I feel really bad about that since his interview was cut from my article in last year's issue too, but at least I got to feature him on Noise recently), and other writers spoke to Scottie B. and Ogun, among others. I haven't gotten a chance to look through the whole issue yet but I'm looking forward to reading everything else, especially the piece on one of my favorite record stores, Dimensions In Music.

(photo by Sam Holden)

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9:33 AM

Sunday, July 15, 2007
T.I. - "We Do This" (mp3)

The first time I popped T.I. Vs. T.I.P. in the CD player, the biggest surprise, more than any of the songs I hadn't heard yet, was that "Big Shit Poppin'" actually sounded good. Don't get me wrong, it's still a total non-starter as a single, but it's a pretty decent song, one that apparently only sounds good with CD-quality sound and a good stereo. On TV speakers, or on the FM dial, or a 128kbps mp3, all you hear is the pounding drum and the cheesy guitar line, and all of the other intricacies of Mannie's beat get swallowed up. So it was a minor revelation to finally hear all those things, as well as hear the explicit version again after months of being subjected to the awkward "Things" edit.

The other big surprise is that most of the ill-advised collabs with aging or washed up rappers turned out pretty well. Busta's verse kills, Wyclef has jams (who knew?), Jay is just aight (which for '07 Jay is a compliment), and the song with Nelly is even pretty tolerable after he and T.I. previously made the horrible "Get Loose," which Tip bizarrely regretted not releasing as a single. Of course, there was never any hope that the song with Eminem, "Touchdown," wouldn't be terrible, and yet it's inexplicably slated to be the next single.

I'm not gonna argue with anybody about the fact that the concept is silly as hell (especially the CD booklet photos that depict Tip wearing a hat looking at a hatless T.I. in the mirror), or that it's nowhere near as good as King, which was itself kind of ruled last year by default, good and all but definitely a beneficiary of not much else around to compete with. But I've barely copped any Southern rap albums this year anyway, and while I'm sure the UGK will kick the shit out of this in a few weeks, right now this is at least kicking the shit out of the Rich Boy. The 3 beats by Danja, especially "Hurt," confirm what I suspected after "We Takin' Over," that he's better without Timbo, and The Runners inch further away from one-trick-pony status with "We Do This." So I'll bump this for the time being and hope that the Tip/Toomp project comes along sooner than later.

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1:56 PM

Friday, July 13, 2007


What I've been up to on the City Paper website's music blog/column thing, Noise @ http://noise.citypaper.com, in the past month or so: on the Baltimore club side, I profiled Say-Wut in the Club Beat column. On the hip hop side, I reviewed M.O.L./Comp/Kartel/Greenspan @ 5 Seasons and Mic Life Wednesday @ The Brass Monkey Saloon and Tufflon Dona/Tyreika Renee/1st Family/Comp/Ty Gudda/Sport Mills @ The Polish Home Club. And on the rock music side, I reviewed New Age Hillbilly/The New Flesh/New Thrill Parade/Wildildlife @ The Sidebar and The Deep End/Evolve @ ESPN Zone and Gary B. And The Notions/Payola Reserve/Deleted Scenes/Bellflur @ The Mobtown Theatre.

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11:08 AM

Monday, July 09, 2007
New blurbs on the Stylus Jukebox:

UGK ft. Outkast - International Players Anthem [8/7]
Timbaland ft. The Hives - Throw It On Me [3/2.8]
T.I. ft. Wyclef Jean - You Know What It Is [7/6.75]
Katharine McPhee - Love Story [7/6.17]
Justin Timberlake - Lovestoned/I Think She Knows [6/7.83]
Justin Timberlake ft. The Benjamin Wright Orchestra - Until The End Of Time [8/6.29]
Rick Ross - Career Criminal [4/4.5]
Johnta Austin ft. DJ Unk - Video [3/4.5]
My Chemical Romance - Teenagers [7/8]

Surprisingly a lot of stuff to be positive about lately, even some things I probably could've given a slightly higher score than I did. Note that I am the only panelist who likes "Until The End Of Time" more than "Lovestoned," as well as the individual who gave both the highest score to the former and the lowest score to the latter. Am I totally alone on this one or is it just Stylus's wacked out priorities re: Justin (which also resulted in "What Goes Around," which has pretty much sounded worse and worse every time I've heard it, being the highest rated Jukebox single of the past 6 months)?

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10:56 AM

Saturday, July 07, 2007
Styles P. - "Frustration" (mp3)

The release of the independent album The Ghost Sessions, less than six months after Styles P. finished his Interscope contract with the long-delayed Time Is Money, is a commentary on the weird, depressing state of his career: where MCs like Prodigy and Joell Ortiz are releasing albums on Koch to gear up for major label albums, Styles is releasing an album on no-name indie Streetcore to gear up for his Koch album, Five Star General. So it's kind of a minor work by design, the least hyped of 3 albums that he may put out in the space of 12 months. And it's still pretty good, because, well, Styles is good, dropping poignant rhymes as well as goofily earnest non-sequiturs like "I'm conscious but I like to blow weed, too...so I'm complex." The first 12 tracks proper are uniformly good, roughly equal to my 14th favorite album of 2006. And then it all comes off the rails with the 3 "rock remixes" tacked on at the end, which I think were produced by the same guy who worked on M.O.P.'s metal album. They're all predictably pretty mediocre, as rap and as metal (oh god those sloppy double-bass pedal blasts), but then, "Come One, Come All" was a pretty annoying song to begin with.

The overall best tracks are the two Large Professor productions (dude hasn't had a lot of notable credits this decade, but he still shits on 95% of all producers out there), and "The Lessons," which features some awesome live horns from the Hypnotic Brass Band. But my favorite is "Frustration," a 2-minute track where he talks over the beat between verses in lieu of a hook. After so many direct, venomous diss tracks thrown back and forth in the D Block/G-Unit beef, he addresses the toll it's taken on his career without really calling out anyone or dissing anyone, just venting about the two years that Interscope kept his album on the shelf, possibly on 50's command: "here's a little story about some shit that need to stop/ somebody somewhere don't want me to drop/ got me frustrated to the point/ waking up every day, hand is on the joint/ contemplating to myself, should I go and use it/ tell 'em I'm the ghost, I just wanna make my music." Now he can at least do that, even if it's no longer on a major label.

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10:55 AM

the first 6 months of 2007

Saturday, June 30, 2007
Albums:
1. Sloan - Never Hear The End Of It
2. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
3. T-Pain - Epiphany
4. Eleni Mandell - Miracle Of Five
5. Prodigy - Return Of The Mac
6. Ted Leo - Living With The Living
7. Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
8. Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High
9. Trans Am - Sex Change
10. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
11. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
12. Styles P. - The Ghost Sessions
13. Kelly Clarkson - My December
14. Rich Boy - Rich Boy
15. R. Kelly - Double Up
16. Redman - Red Gone Wild: Thee Album
17. They Might Be Giants - The Else
18. Consequence - Don’t Quit Your Day Job
19. DJ Khaled - We The Best
20. Ted Leo - Mo Livin’ EP

So far rap albums have been pretty unmemorable for me this year, although I'm entirely open to the possibility that I'm listening to the wrong albums. I think I'm comfortable in my stodgy preference towards indie rock bands I've already been listening to for 5 years or more. The new school indie shit getting a pass on Pitchfork/blogs generally scares the shit out of me. Seems like a decent year for popular music, as far as big hyped albums by folks like Fall Out Boy and Kelly Clarkson being pretty good. FOB's breakthrough album didn't have a lot going for it past the singles, but the new one's weaker singles are hiding some really ace deep cuts.

Singles:
1. Swizz Beatz - “It’s Me Bitches”
2. R. Kelly f/ T.I. and T-Pain - “I’m A Flirt (Remix)”
3. UGK f/ Outkast - “International Player’s Anthem”
4. Kelly Rowland f/ Eve - “Like This”
5. DJ Khaled f/ Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman and Lil Wayne – "We Taking Over"
6. Maroon 5 - “Makes Me Wonder”
7. Fantasia - “When I See U”
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Hump De Bump”
9. Amerie - “Gotta Work”
10. The Game f/ Kanye West - “Wouldn’t Get Far”
11. R. Kelly f/ Usher - “Same Girl”
12. Bobby Valentino - "Anonymous"
13. My Chemical Romance - “Teenagers”
14. Justin Timberlake - “Until The End Of Time”
15. Fergie f/ Ludacris - “Glamorous”
16. Kanye West, Rakim, Nas and KRS One - “Classic”
17. Daughtry f/ Slash - “What I Want”
18. Puddle of Mudd - “Famous”
19. Fabolous f/ Swizz Beatz - “Return of The Hustle”
20. Bow Wow f/ T Pain - “Outta My System”
21. Relient K - “Must Have Done Something Good”
22. Muse - “Starlight”
23. Paul Wall f/ Jermaine Dupri - “I’m Throwed”
24. Papa Roach - “Forever”
25. Mika - “Grace Kelly”
26. DJ Unk - “Two Step”
27. Fall Out Boy - “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs”
28. Prodigy - “Stuck On You”
29. Natasha Bedingfield - “I Wanna Have Your Babies”
30. Paramore - “Misery Business”
31. Fergie - “Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal)”
32. Taylor Hicks - “Heaven Knows”
33. Diddy f/ Keyshia Cole, Big Boi, Yung Joc, Rich Boy, and The Game - “Last Night (Remix)”
34. Dashboard Confessional - “Stolen”
35. T.I. f/ Wyclef Jean - “You Know What It Is”
36. Young Jeezy f/ Keyshia Cole - “Dreamin’”
37. Nelly Furtado - “All Good Things”
38. Lil Wayne - “La La La”
39. Avril Lavigne - “When You’re Gone”
40. Young Jeezy f/ R. Kelly - “Go Getta”
41. Justin Timberlake - “What Goes Around...Comes Around”
42. Fall Out Boy - “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race”
43. Three 6 Mafia f/ Chamillionaire - “Doe Boy Fresh”
44. Audioslave - “Revelations”
45. Saliva - “Ladies & Gentlemen”
46. Katharine McPhee - "Love Story"
47. Queens of the Stone Age - "Sick Sick Sick"
48. Lumidee f/ Pitbull - Crazy”
49. Vanessa Hudgens - “Say OK”
50. Incubus - “Anna Molly”

"Flirt" and "Bitches/Snitches" keep switching places in my top two spots and I'm not sure which will win the battle eventually, or if it'll be something else entirely. My soft spot for active rock radio has really gotten to me this year, enjoying singles by Daughtry, Puddle Of Mudd, Saliva, and Papa Roach more than I expected to. The biggest revelation I've had lately is "Anonymous," which for months I dismissed as too similiar to the one TimbaHandz track I really loved, "My Love," without much else going for it. But it finally cornered me on the radio after only half-listening to it on MTV, and it's pretty fucking great, one of the first times that I've actually felt like Timbaland's recent hype hasn't been just belated acknowledgement of earlier masterpieces. R&B is completely murdering rap on the radio this year in general, though, so I shouldn't be surprised that even lame-ass Bobby V.'s got jams.

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11:08 PM

Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Senor Pants: EMI Music Marketing announced yesterday that it's releasing "Music From the Mound," a compilation of Dice-K's favorite tunes. The album will include one original track, "Gyro Ball," which will feature former J.Geils harmonica player Magic Dick, former Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, and NESN announcers Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.
Senor Pants: lol magic dick.
Al: girl you know it's no fun without the magic dick
Al: lord help me but I kind of like Amusement Park
Senor Pants: 50 Cent's pleasure is pleasing you.
Al: Lots of activities and fun things to do!
Senor Pants: Dub Says:
June 25th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
I heard T.I.P did dat shit…. T.I ol punk ass wouldnt even around when da shit popped off.
Al: haha yeah that incident has really helped the T.I./T.I.P. concept take hold in the public's mind
Senor Pants: TIP punches Chaka Zulu, while TI straightens his tie and enjoys his club sandwich.
Al: lol
Al: T.I. cares about shit like Grammys, T.I. doesn't but still gets pissed at the rapper who wins the Grammy instead
Senor Pants: i donbt believe that uncle murda is really signed to def jam.
Senor Pants: he'll have to change his name to uncle uncle
Al: uncle ghostface
Senor Pants: Uncle Unintentional Manslaughter
Al: Uncle Inc.
Senor Pants: The Uncle
Al: Murder Unc.
Al: not "murder Unk," btw
Al: although I am sick of "Walk It Out"
Senor Pants: i am tired of all songs that boss me around
Al: seriously
Al: I need raps that are descriptive, not prescriptive
Al: Despite considerably less-than-planned involvement from Dr. Dre on the album, Eve says she's still on his Aftermath label. And Swizz Beatz was able to fill in quite nicely in Dre's absence. "The decision was to have Dre start off the album, but Dre is kinda busy," Eve said. "Swizz is my brother. He knows how to work with me. What was supposed to happen, [Swizz] was just going to do a couple [of tracks], but once we get together, we can't stop working. He knows me really well. We decided he might as well be one of the executive producers."
Al: wtf is Dre so busy with
Al: "oh sorry I did 3 beats for Jay-Z, i'm all spent for the rest of the year"
Al: "i'm way too busy right now, gotta have Detox ready by 2011"
Senor Pants: hahaha yeah
Al: although honestly guys like him and Axl Rose probably enjoy their wealth way more than people who are putting out albums all the time
Al: if i was that rich i'd never get shit done either
Senor Pants: HAHAH WORD TO THAT

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10:08 AM

Monday, June 25, 2007
T-Pain f/ Teddy Verseti - "Church" (mp3)

I had pretty high hopes for T-Pain's new album, despite the fact that I hadn't really liked any of his solo singles to date (I only actively dislike "Buy U A Drank," am kind of ambivalent to "I'm Sprung" and "Bartender," and warmed to "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" after the remix). Mostly the guy grew on me because of his increasingly great string of guest appearances on remixes, from his melodic twists and turns on "I'm A Flirt" to the evil robot "ah-AH" bit on "Pop, Lock & Drop It" to the scene-stealing "Two Step" verse. There aren't many artists in hip hop/R&B I have more disdain for than good rappas ternt mediocre sangas like Mos Def and Andre 3000, but T-Pain, who doesn't come off as being particularly good at either, pulls off the transition with charm and none of their pretension.

I talked a little about his self-deprecating sad T-Panda act on ILM a while back, and that brutal MTV interview: "For him to be calling me, he could have called anybody. He could have called Akon! But he called the dude that everybody says looks like the neighborhood weed man. Everybody is dissing me, they don't like my music, they don't like how I look, 'he can't sing,' and Bow called that person? You can't imagine how that feels." I hope having a #1 single and album since then have helped him get over some of that insecurity. The artist he's referring to, btw, is Bow Wow, and "Outta My System" totally would've been my "wow, T-Pain really can sing!" moment if not for the fact that it's actually Johnta Austin emoting on the 3rd verse.

But anyway, it turns out that Epiphany is a pretty damn good album (once you get past that intro where he reads the definition of the word "epiphany" out of a dictionary, which is like my least favorite way to explain an album's title ever, although I'm not sure who else has done it before). And surprisingly, he does a fair amount of singing (and rapping) without any Antares autotuning, which will hopefully help people get past his admittedly well-earned gimmick status. And that's why I'm really hoping that he follows through on his promise to make "Church" the album's third single, as he's said according to Wikipedia. I'd love for him to come out with such an amped-up, fast-paced, batshit crazy single after so many sleepy snap songs,and one in which he really raps, even if the raps are by one of his indistinguishable alter-egos (hopefully we won't get an ill-advised T-Pain Vs. Teddy Verseti Vs. Teddy Pain Vs. Teddy Penderazdoun concept album somewhere down the line).

The whole album is full of minor pleasures besides "Church," though, from the great Shawnna feature on "Backseat Action" (another one that sound be a single) to the wistful closer "Sounds Bad." I'm really impressed by the range of the production, considering that he did every beat on the album. I mused a couple weeks ago about whether someone as bland and earnest as Ne-Yo was fit to pick up R. Kelly's mantle as the dominant auteur of radio R&B. But it turns out that Kells has been trying to tell us all along that T-Pain really is funny and creative and weird enough to hang with him, and Epiphany is full of quirks and tricks that still feel fresh, where Double Up, even at its best, is full of material that can't help but feel overly familiar to anyone who's heard a Kelly album before.

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6:05 PM

In My Stereo

Thursday, June 21, 2007
Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High
T-Pain - Epiphany
Styles P. - The Ghost Sessions
DJ Khaled - We The Best
B.G. - The Heart Of That Streetz, Vol. 2 (I Am What I Am)
Ying Yang Twins - U.S.A. Still United
Steve Newsense - A Baltimore Club Tribute To Disco D
Say-Wut - Club Chronicles: Level 1
Tha Profitt - Baltimore Entrepeneur
Stackz - No 2morrow

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9:57 PM

Wednesday, June 20, 2007


This week in the City Paper I've got a feature on Los, the Baltimore MC signed to Bad Boy Records who I wrote about a little on Gov't Names after he first got signed. This article's actually been a long time in the making, I did the initial interview with him 8 months ago, but we were having a hard time getting him to do a photo shoot, so we ended up shelving it for a while. But when I saw that he was having that big event at Ram's Head Live earlier this month, I decided to revive the article and make sure it got published, so it's good to finally see it come out. I haven't done a GN post with multiple mp3's in a while, but since Los doesn't really have a lot of material readily available on the mixtape market right now, but should be doing big things in the future, I'll put up a few tracks:

Los - "10-Minute Million Dollar Massacre" Freestyle (mp3)
Despite the title, this joint is closer to 11 minutes, and he runs through about 20 different beats. He did the track for a mixtape for Owners Illustrated magazine, and a performance of this for Diddy is what got Los signed to Bad Boy. There's also a video of him performing the whole thing on his MySpace page.

Los - "Die Hater" (mp3)
This is the first Los track to appear on an official Bad Boy mixtape, last year's Don't Call It A Comeback.

Skarr Akbar f/ Los - "Gunshots" (mp3)
Los and Skarr always do hot songs together, good combination. This one has appeared on a lot of mixtapes, Da Bloc Radio: The Triangle Offense, The Hood Legend: The Best of Skarr Akbar, Part 3 and a Whoo Kid mixtape.

Los - "Lyrical Exercise" Freestyle (mp3)
This was the first track I ever heard by Los, on Real On Purpose's The Movement Mixtape Vol. 2 back in 2004.

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9:16 AM

Monday, June 18, 2007
DJ Khaled f/ Beanie Sigel and Pooh Bear - "Before The Solution" (mp3)

I wouldn't call myself a DJ Khaled fan, but I definitely don't dislike him as much as a lot of people seem to. Even folks who will rhapsodize about the amazing talents and accomplishments of DJ Drama will hate on the dude, which I don't really understand at all (although I suspect the difference has something to do with all the racist-ass terrorist jokes that Nah Right fruitfly types crack about him). Granted, Drama probably feels weird about Khaled totally jacking the "on the run from the feds" theme that he has way more of a right to use for that "We Takin' Over" video. I gave Listennn...The Album a solid B grade last year, and by the low standards of hip-hop compilations by committee, that makes it damn near a masterpiece. So I figured him dropping a follow-up so soon was good news, another decent mix of new tracks to get me through the Summer.

Unfortunately, We The Best is pretty much worthless, not nearly as consistent as Listennn despite being a full 20 minutes shorter. Both albums are on Koch, so it's hard to characterize one of them as a cheapo rush job and not the other, but We The Best makes its predecessor seem like a big budget masterpiece by comparison. I don't even like "We Takin' Over" as much as "Holla At Me," and it's still by far the best song on here. Noone really needed lesser sequels to "New York" and "Born N Raised" (although Flo Rida's verse on "Bitch I'm From Dade County" is pretty incredible).

Part of the problem is that four of the ten (only ten!) full songs are produced by Cool & Dre. They're not nearly as ubiquitous as they were a year or two ago, and I'm hesitant to say that any producer fell off simply because they haven't placed as many tracks on major albums as they used to. But based on their contributions here, I think they fell the fuck off. The beats aren't all way below par for their earlier work, but they clinch it with the horrible R&B vocals mixed way too high on "Brown Paper Bag" and "I'm From The Ghetto." If I'd known that "Brown Paper Bag" was gonna get scores of 7 or higher on the Stylus Jukebox today, I would've thrown my opinion in there to bring the average down, shit is terrible.

The real shame of DJ Khaled's albums is that they constantly prompt the question "what does this guy even do?" because he farms out most of the production to more established beatmakers, and he doesn't have to. As Beat Novacaine, he's produced hot album tracks for Fat Joe, Fabolous, and Pitbull, but for some reason won't do more than a beat or two on his own projects. And by far my favorite track on We The Best, "Before The Solution," was produced by Khaled (according to the liner notes at least; this site says it was done by Beanie Sigel's frequent collaborators Dre & Vidal, so I'm curious who really did the beat). It's practically the only cut on the album with one MC, and Beanie absolutely murders it, as much as he has any track in the last few years (another bad R&B hook, but that doesn't detract from it too much). I haven't really been expecting much from Sigel lately, considering that he barely rhymed for the first year after he got out of jail, and I've since realized I kinda overrated The B. Coming. But if he can sober up long enough to focus like he does on this song and stop mumbling about how the dudes who produced half his singles are mad gay, then I'm ready to be excited about The Solution.

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6:44 PM

Saturday, June 16, 2007
Lots of new stuff on the Stylus Jukebox, and I can't believe my highest score went to Taylor Hicks, but maybe that means I'll be spared by the army of Soul Patrol commenters:

R Kelly - The Zoo [4/6.6]
Hilary Duff - Stranger [5/6.17]
Lil Wayne - La La La [7/5.86]
Blake Lewis - You Give Love A Bad Name [4/3.6]
Ca$his ft. Eminem - Pistol Poppin’ [6/6]
Kanye West - Stronger [5/5]
Keith Murray ft. Tyrese - Nobody Do It Better [5/6.25]
Twista ft. Pharrell - Give It Up [4/4.4]
Natasha Bedingfield - Soulmate [3/5.4]
Paul McCartney - Dance Tonight [5/5.5]
Kelly Clarkson - Sober [7/5.25]
Avril Lavigne - When You’re Gone [6/4.5]
Taylor Hicks - Heaven Knows [7/4]

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9:08 PM

Tuesday, June 12, 2007


The latest stuff I've had up on http://noise.citypaper.com in the past month: The Club Beat with DJ Equalizer, some rap show reviews of Rock Da Mic Wednesdays at Club Taste, Hezekiah, Oddisee, E Major, Sean Toure, Ab-Rock and UnReal @ the New Turntable Club, and Even A Man Can Do This 2 @ 5 Seasons with ShellBe R.A.W., Jade Fox, B-Fly, G.E.M. and Symantyx. Also, some rock show reviews of Sloan @ the Black Cat, Elvis Costello @ Ram's Head Live, and 98 Rock's Noise In The Basement showcase at Fletcher's with Empty Gratitude, Armoreta, Gatsby Gets The Green Light and the Dangerous Summer.

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5:39 PM

Sunday, June 10, 2007
R. Kelly f/ Snoop Dogg - "Double Up" (mp3)

The release of Double Up has kind of become the occasion for a public referendum on R. Kelly's career, specifically the element of humor in his music, and where everyone stands on him being a genius or a clown, or an ingenius clown. Last week in the City Paper, Jess summed up the different sides of the argument pretty well, including Rich four four's take, which is trenchant if more negative about the album than I'm willing to be. At the very least, Double Up is a much better album than his last one, TP3: Reloaded, which, aside from the polarizing "Trapped In The Closet" finale, had maybe 2 good songs, and a bunch of bad reggae/reggaeton/dancehall pastiches.

I'll admit that I can live without the rote metaphor tracks like "The Zoo" and "Sex Planet," although, as I said on the Stylus Jukebox, R. indulging in that formula on his worst day is still better than 50 Cent comparing his dick to Six Flags. Most of the best stuff on the album still works on the level of plain old R&B, although it still occasionally works when he gets high concept. I mean, I don't think it's possible not to find "Leave Your Name" at least a little funny, whether or not it reminds you of George Costanza's outgoing message. But that song's autotuning, and the subtle vocoder textures on the backup vocals on "Double Up" that might be my favorite sound on the album, make me wonder whether the guy is hanging out with T-Pain just to make him feel okay when he bites his style.

Ultimately, it's about whether the music's good, and lately with R. it has been, although it seems like he's going for the same Mr. Song-Of-The-Week status he attained in 2003 and matching that year for quantity but not so much in quality. He's still got a few months to try and top it, though. I'm torn on whether I even want to hear the umpteen new chapters of "Trapped In The Closet" that he's supposed to drop next month, though. I have to admit I got pretty caught up in the excitement of that stuff in 2005, but even in my City Paper piece, my approach was kind of dry and clinical, if only to avoid most of the hysterical snickering that was going on around it at the time. Unless he miraculously pulls the "Trapped" plotline off the rails and fulfills the promise of its initial chapters, or makes some remix appearances that are better than the overrated-ass "Make It Rain" verse, I'm thinking it'll be the straightforward tracks like "I'm A Flirt" and "Double Up" and "Hook It Up" that will have made him one of my favorite R&B artists of 2007. I mean, who else is fucking with him, as an auteur/songwriter or as a star? Who else we got, Ne-Yo? Dude's hitting a sophomore slump and just reinforcing that he really is as boring as he initially seemed, despite all the "no, really, I'm a sex addict" lyrics insisting otherwise. R. Kelly doesn't have to try nearly as hard to come across as the endlessly creative, hypersexual superstar that he is, but he works so much harder at the actual music that he'll be cracking the code of his 40th songwriting gimmick while Ne-Yo is merely writing the 40th version of "So Sick."

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7:15 AM

In My Stereo

Friday, June 08, 2007
The Police - Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings
R. Kelly - Double Up
Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
Lil Wayne/DJ Drama - Dedication 2
Leo G/DNA/Celo - XM 66 RAW All-Stars
K-Swift The Club Queen - Jump Off Vol. 10: We Fly High Edition
Ab-Rock - Rock Mics Volume 1
Skarr Akbar - The Warning Shot: Believe In Me
The Deep End - The Soul Has Left My Building
E. Joseph - Absinthe Minded

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7:40 PM

Monday, June 04, 2007
My latest blurbs for the Stylus Jukebox, even worse stuff than the last batch:

USDA - Corporate Thuggin’ [6/6.75]
The Fixxers - Can U Werk Wit Dat [5/6.25]
Lumidee ft. Pitbull - Crazy [6/6.2]
Kelly Rowland - Come Back [3/5.5]
Avril Lavigne vs. Lil Mama - Girlfriend (Remix) [3/6.17]
Smashing Pumpkins - Tarantula [6/5.67]
Jordin Sparks - This Is My Now [3/2.86]
Tank - Please Don’t Go [4/4.25]
They Might Be Giants - I’m Impressed [2/3.5]

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7:16 PM

the first 5 months of 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007
Albums:
1. Sloan - Never Hear The End Of It
2. Prodigy - Return Of The Mac
3. Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
4. Ted Leo - Living With The Living
5. R. Kelly - Double Up
6. Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
7. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
8. Eleni Mandell - Miracle Of Five
9. Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
10. They Might Be Giants - The Else

Still loving: Sloan and Prodigy. Insurgent: Kells and Parts & Labor. Not really high right now but I suspect will stay at about the same spot on the list for the rest of the year while a lot of the stuff above it slips further and further down: Eleni Mandell. Need to spend more time with to really figure out how I feel about: Jarvis and NIN.

Singles:
1. R. Kelly f/ T.I. and T-Pain - “I’m A Flirt (Remix)”
2. Swizz Beatz - “It’s Me Bitches”
3. Fantasia - “When I See U”
4. Red Hot Chili Peppers - “Hump De Bump”
5. Kelly Rowland f/ Eve - “Like This”
6. DJ Khaled f/ Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Birdman and Lil Wayne – "We Taking Over"
7. Maroon 5 - “Makes Me Wonder”
8. Natasha Bedingfield - “I Wanna Have Your Babies”
9. My Chemical Romance - “Teenagers”
10. Amerie - “Gotta Work”
11. The Game f/ Kanye West - “Wouldn’t Get Far”
12. R. Kelly f/ Usher - “Same Girl”
13. Diddy f/ Keyshia Cole, Big Boi, Yung Joc, Rich Boy, and The Game - “Last Night (Remix)”
14. Justin Timberlake - “Until The End Of Time”
15. Fabolous f/ Swizz Beatz - “Return of The Hustle”
16. Young Jeezy f/ Keyshia Cole - “Dreamin’”
17. Nelly Furtado - “All Good Things (Come To An End)”
18. Huey f/ T-Pain and Bow Wow - “Pop, Lock & Drop It (Remix)”
19. Bow Wow f/ T Pain - “Outta My System”
20. Kanye West, Rakim, Nas and KRS One - “Classic”

Still actively resisting: "Umbrella," "Party Like A Rockstar," "Lip Gloss." Finally giving into grudgingly, after months of active resistance: the blatant Prince rips and faux-LinnDrum action on "Last Night" and large sections of that Justin album, the last track of which R&B radio has picked up on and made me obsessed with. Finally giving into with complete, joyful abandon: all things T-Pain, except "Buy U A Drank." Still loving regardless of anyone giving a shit either way: "When I See U," "I Wanna Have Your Babies," "Hump De Bump." So relieved they finally released a single I like, after 3 in a row that I was completely ambivalent towards: "Teenagers," "All Good Things (Come To An End)." Can't believe that this is the best they can come up with to try and overcome the huge slump in rap album sales: "Can't Tell Me Nothing," "Big Shit Poppin'," "Amusement Park."

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11:15 PM

Sunday, May 27, 2007


Scratch isn't so much my favorite music magazine as it is the only rag I actually go to the newsstand to cop every single issue of anymore. Even now that they're increasingly putting more rappers and less producers (or even producer/rappers) on the cover, it's about as close to my ideal rap mag as there is, more about the recording process than the cult of personality of some MC who's usually a lousy interview anyway. So I'm pretty thrilled that my first piece of writing in a national print publication is in the new issue of Scratch, which should be in stores in the next week or so. My piece is just a little Boiling Point profile of The Bakery, the kids who produced Huey's "Pop, Lock & Drop It," but hey, it's a start. Big thanks to Noz for thinking to give me the gig. I'm still a little squeamish about the gradual blogger takeover of music writing, but I can't complain when dudes like him get editorial positions, especially when I'm a benefactor. I mean, it's nice to get paid for the nerding out on rap production that I'd do in my spare time anyway.

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11:06 PM

In My Stereo

Thursday, May 24, 2007
They Might Be Giants - The Else
Common - Resurrection
Int'l Shades - Hash Wednesday
Jaheim - Ghetto Classics
Ruth Ruth - Laughing Gallery
T.I. - King
Donald Fagen - Morph The Cat
Prince - 3121
Juvenile - Reality Check
50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin'

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2:49 PM