Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
The New New Age of Music
This is how I discovered a band called The Fratellis.I was watching the new iPod ad, which was back-dropped by one of the most catchiest songs I'd heard in a long time - "Flathead" by the Fratellis, an red-hot group from the UK. I did not know this song, but in two days, I would be singing along to Costello Music, the Fratellis' debut CD.
It was a website called The Hype Machine that further sparked my interest. The popular music hot spot has streamable songs that anyone can listen to. It's music library is made up of millions of audio files found on blogs across the Internet. One of the bands featured were the Fratellis. So when I was bored in a long lecture, I logged on to The Hype Machine, and started listening to music from a group I had heard about in a TV commercial.
Depending on who you ask, I then totally downloaded Costello Music legally. But my friends will tell you I just ripped a copy of the 'net. They're liars. I totally downloaded the album legally.)
But all in all, it doesn't really matter how I got the CD in my hands. All I knew is that I had another really cool band on my list of really cool bands. Another 13 tracks to listen to on the feels-like-two-hour long ride to colledge. And if the Fratellis ever tour in Toronto, you can bet your ass I'd be the fifth in line to get tickets.
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That is why a new trend happening on music scence is taking the industry to places it hasn't gone in a long while. The Internet has become a fresh medium for young musicians, allowing them to get their works from their basement studios to their listners. Web surfers are using websites such as Last.fm and online forums and tools to spread the world about favorait bands, tracks and records. People are starting to turn away from big record lables and look at independant releases to get their music fix. Big Brother is falling.
Sputnikmusic.com, an internet startup which allows users to post reviews about records and artists, hosts thousands of reviews, written by a userbase of over 110, 000 members. For every Foo Fighters review to enter the site, there are three reviews about independant, less known bands. Sputnikmusic is proof of how the Internet has turned into a viechle for small bands to connect with their audience. Even in our fast paced world today, listners are always waiting for that new sound, no matter how small the band which produces it.
. During the mid-to early nintees, befor the Internet boom, music sales were enough to satisfy the industry. This explained the emmergance of boy bands such as N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys, who lived off the big pockets of Eurpoean and North American spenders.
A report in Billboard PostPlay eZine in late June 2006 confirmes that the music landscape isn't like that anymore. During the Intneret age, people are less conserned about buying cd's than about enjoying them. The recorded music market has dramtically shrunk, but merchandise and concert markets have grown.
The Intneret makes choice happen. Web goers choose which music they want to listen to, and because the Intneret is such a varied place, even small bands get exposure. Last.fm is a website which tracks what songs users are listening to, by letting users download software that tracks tracks as users play them at home. Users can then ad their own tags to their music.
Users recomend tracks to other other users, and special software within the website rolls out automatic recomendations, expanding a user's music library ten fold within a matter of weeks.
Last.fm has -_____. The music industry is hardly in trouble when such websites host such figures. Last.fm does not distribute any music illigally, it only recomends, and then points users to the apporpriate places to buy.
Niruban Saverimuthu, a user who has been active for the past two years, feels that the Internet is just another way to show support for an independant group or artist..
"Attending shows, buying merchandise, spreading the word, or even contributing to the scene if they are local," are all ways to spread the word about an indendant group, according to the the 19 year old film maker from the University of Toronto.
The Interner allows Nirbun to spread the word to friends about a local talent. He is active in music forums, along with his Last.fm account. Being a film maker and a sinsere metal head, he's had his share of moments when the biggest band in his mind isn't on Billboard's chart. "Be a street teamer," he says. "Post up flyers, or film them."
Music isn't dying. It isn't even fading away. Not while there are groups such as the Lyricals, resources such as the Internet, and music lovers like Nirbun, who play well to said resources. The Internet is helping a generation get access to music, rather than make music obscure. Websites which allow users to target a music genre, and explore within it to extract aritss and friends with similar tastes, are helping mold a new way to appreciate music. And this one doesn't come at a cost.
- Ankur Taxali, pop/rock/features/live events
Got Music? Write for CJM.
Labels: ankur taxali, features
Clipse: Hell Hath No Fury
Beautifully hideous. This strange juxtaposition of words is one way you could describe Malice and Pusha-T’s crack slinging opus “Hell Hath No Fury”. Despite being shelved by their label Jive records for so long, the album finally managed to come out. During the projects time in record label limbo, the word “classic” was repeatedly uttered from industry insiders who heard the album. Is this album a classic? I will say this much, “Hell Hath No Fury” is one of the most refreshing hip-hop albums I personally have heard for a long time from a major label. This short, twelve track album is pumped full of the classic stripped down
The album begins with the track “We Got it for cheap” an introduction to the cocaine capers of brothers Pusha T and Malice. In place of a traditional chorus, a dude with a heavy Cuban twang to his voice grimly speaks about the Clipse’s proficiency with both drugs and music (Think the old Pain in Da ass intros from the early Jay-Z albums). It was from here that I knew this would be a different kind of hip hop album. This introduction to all things Clipse, is followed up by “Mamma Im so Sorry” highlighted by haunting accordions and a thundering hi-hat. This record really displays the different personalities of the two brothers, with Pusha T the more charismatic of the two rhyming:
Youngin don't make my sales rise
I shoot you out ya Chuckers
Pusha hear the whispers of all you motherfuckers
Papa said stay free of them suckers
Minus the wicked jumper
Street balla like the Rucker
Skip To My Lou if you lookin for a couple
Roosters in the duffle
While Malice the older and more introspective of the two spits
Youngin, learn from me, let's not be at odds
Were more like than not, 2 peas of a pod
Same hustle, cept my hustle now flows
I once gave it away, at 30 grams a O
That accounts for all them days in the cold
Feels like kissing cake mix, can't wait to lick the bowl
But it's a bigger picture, homes trust I done seen it
From Frankford to
Like two sides of the same coin, the similar sounding voices of Pusha and Malice, in addition to their different styles create almost the illusion of one ultimate MC. Lyrically the two brothers manage to escape the traditional pit falls of your average trap rapper with their kitschy word play and pop culture references, Take for example this excerpt spit by Malace from the wonderfully dark synth masterpiece “Ride around Shining”
Listen youngin', you've only just begun
You'll understand when you're older
Said father to the son
Who would've thought such riches stem from ill rhymes?
Canary yellow diamonds size of yield signs, slow down
And procede with caution
Carousal of horses with dual-exhaustion
Fess up, youngin' you'll always be next up
Go against I, forever play catch up nigga
While the content matter of selling coke is prevalent on just about all tracks the Clipse manage to keep the listener entertained with vivid wordplay like the above quoted. The variety of soundscapes the
I make big money, drive big cars
Everybody know me, it's like I'm a movie star
Virginia nights, sellin hard white
To sellin out shows, every gangsta love my flow
Still I creep low, thinking niggaz trying to harm me
Hoping my karma ain't coming back here to haunt me
Was it that nigga, I took his powder with a smile
Praying to Lord, the gun ain't pop and hit the child, shit
Many have accused me of liking this album too much. Thinking that the beats are awkward, or the subject matter is not as varied as it could be. Be that as it may, I think this is a great album, and in my opinion one of the years best, that will be heralded with some of the other all time great hip-hop albums when its all said and done with.
9.5/10
Andy Itwaru, hip hop/live events/features
Labels: andy itwaru, clipse, features, hip hop, review
Friday, November 24, 2006
Send A Tune
You can use your iPod for a lot of things. It can hold 1000 songs and play that new voodo stuff they're calling "podcasts". It lets you view pictures. And, if you're rich enough, it can even play videos for you. But the newest rave making the rounds in the iWorld is "Send A Tune", a game that needs only two people, and an iPod full of songs.* Here's the lowdown: you can be anywhere you like. A friend's basement, a girlfriends' bedroom, a Shopper's Drug Mart. Your iPod should be full, unless you have those 80 Gigabyte ones, than who am I kidding, those are impossible to fill up. Even with the whole nine seasons of "Raymond," you'd be hard pressed to fill one of those things up.You don't have to have a big variety of songs. Even if you have all Janet Jackson tunes loaded, you're good to go. As you'll see in a minute, or however long it takes you to reach the next paragraph, it's not about what songs you pass to your friends, it's about why you pass those songs to them. (Ooohhh ahhhh)
It gomes down like this: you and a friend pick a genre, and then pick a quality within that genre. Then, you trade songs that fit within that scope. Like this: me and a friend will choose rap as our genre. The quality we'll try to show off through our songs will be ecee-ing skills - or who can spit the dopest rhymes.
So now my friend and I have to select songs from our iPods, which show off a rapper's emcee-ing skills. I'll pick a emcee who spits a vicious verse, then I'll let my friend see if he can top that verse. If I chose Eminem's verse in Jay Z's "Renegade" as my first choice, he'll come up with something from Big Daddy Cane. And you keep doing that until your ears hurt.
- Ankur Taxali, pop/rock/features/live events
* You don't have to use an iPod. Go ahead, fill those Samsungs E250s up!Labels: ankur taxali, features, iPod