If you've read my blog since the beginning, you'll know that I've been a fan of Baltimore based Spank Rock. Rarely do you get an act which drastically alters the rules of a genre, and especially to the extent of Spank Rock. A couple of years ago the hip hop options were 'backpacker' and 'neo-gangsta' - both options painfully pretentiousUdgiv indlæg and totally out of contact with everyday life. Thank God Spank Rock decided this wasn't to be. Baltimore was brought to the mainstream, everyone was yelling Rick Rubin, and 'Yo yo yo yo' was on every end-of-year chart. If you didn't notice, the Spank Rock trick was to take the 2006 blog-house zeitgeist and mix it up with the irony of Fat Boys and 2 Live Crew, both kings of party hip-hop in the late 80's. It worked wonders, but the question obviously is: "Where do you go from there?" The only way possible, you link up with Benny Blanco and do a full on 2 Live Crew homage band: Bangers and Cash! The goal is obviously to remove any last grain of pretentiousness and just go have fun doing it. Doesn't make sense? This is how they describe themselves: "Fat girls in a hot tub, popping bubbly, after a long night of playing slots at Caesar's Palace. We sound like the X rated Motorcycle Diaries meets Kweli on crystal meth!" - there you scenesters!
Finally this blog's favorite pop queen is releasing a new album - It's gonna be called 'X', out late november! Mylo was originally assigned to do a couple of tracks, but for some reason they got canned. He's been nice enough to put them on to the internet, and here, without further delay, are the creations:
Kylie - Spell of Desire / (Zshare) She sings 'la-lal-la-la-la' on this one, which should be enough of an argument for this song to make world peace. Sadly it probably won't, nice running bassline and Mylo'ish drumsounds.
Kylie - In the mood for love / (Zshare) This track is classic Kylie, seductive and playing. Kylie on the prowl in what could have been a good Girls Aloud song is dangerous stuff - I'm amazed that they dropped this of the album.
Mylo should get his ass around to releasing a new album, Destroy Rock and Roll is still better than most anything released the last couple of years! Go to his myspace and hear unreleased oldie Salt Lick if you haven't already. It sounds like the eighties reborn by Daft Punk!
I don't know why, but Rex The Dog just really tickles my fancy. The amazing use of 80's synths just gets better with old age, much like old wine, Paolo Maldini and errrr cars?
Rex stormed on stage in 2004 when he did the amazing remix of post-millenium classic Heartbeats and released dancefloor classics Frequency and Prototype! His output has been pretty concistent ever since, slowly, but steadily carving himself a small shelf from which he sends beautiful clouds of anthemic dance music.
New single is Circulate, which has an excellent piece of promo writing instead of the usual crap. I'll just do my attempt at the crap writing though: New single Circulate from Rex The Dog establishes him as the leading man of Miami Vice synth - This track should be a dancefloor mainstay where ever you go. If Phil Specter had to reinvent the whole wall of sound concept today, this is what he'd come up with! Or something like that. Anygays it's out on Kitsune, and you should have it in your record bag! If you really have to nail the good Rex for anything it is staying with the same sound, but when it's tried, tested, and it still sounds fresh, then why chance a winning formula?
Sometimes you get to see something so delightfully trashy that you just have to show to someone else - And we're not talking about you learning how your mum got that new TV-set. If this was a genre NYC based Trash Yourself would be king and queen!
Apparently sounding like sex they turn the clash button all the way up to eleven! This will propably destroy dancefloors everywhere:
I've been really slow to get into the new M.I.A. album (Kala - out on XL) - It's been really hard finding the right angle from which to approach this latest foray in world music. Finally the other day I got around to hearing Paper Planes which, despite my initial reservations about the gun shots, is mindblowingly catchy. The thing about M.I.A. is that her political mission at times seems a strained mix with her more artzy side. On the one hand it might be that it at some level is lacking substance, I won't be the judge, but it sometimes comes of a bit too speculated. Many artists and bands have tried to ride this razor edge and many have failed. On the other hand being that M.I.A. is an artist I find it absolutely legitamete not to have a hammered out manifesto Manics-style. Musically the new album is less Brazil more India. She has definetly moved away from the Baile-funk drum heavy Bucky sound and into a more, dare I say it, world music orientated sound. The result is simply put that Kala probably has more staying potential (In the lack of a better word), but not quite as many bangers as her first album.
If you sit back after listening to Paper Planes and think: Hmmm I know that melody in the background - Good for you! It's The Clash at the peak of their reggae punk powers. The use of the sample actually fits really well with the original Strummer banter. Like M.I.A. in general this song is a classical condemnation of the era mainly directed at the plethora of American influenced problems in the world (for a nice walkthrough go here).
M.I.A. apparently got royally pissed at pitchfork (here) after they gave Diplo the main production credits for her last album. According to the young world idealist it was a joined venture and on the new album the big Dipper is only a small fixture not to overshadow the work of especially Switch - To be fair Paper Planes is actually a Dip' masterpiece with extra Switch helpings. Here a nice remix of dubstep famed Skream:
The Scandinavian show down didn't go as planned, Denmark didn't win. We're still alive though! Todays excellent song by The Wombats is thus dedicated to Thomas Sørensen, Island (1-1 against Spain) and Latvia (1-0 against Northern Ireland):
Private have been formed from thje leftovers of band Superheroes. Troelsen, the mastermind of the band, describes the band as a mix of sophisticated beats and the classic pop song - which is always a good starting point! Their mission is to produce the perfect dance pop record, a tall order! But, if anyone can do it, it is Troelsen and co, they have impeccable records!
First single is My Secret Love starting of sounding like a rather perfect Chromeo song it slowly takes you into poppy dance country with a killer chorus - And face it, any song with a telephone break and what sounds like childrens rap is always going to be a hit!
The album of the same name, is out on Universal on the 8th of October, in the meantime, mosy on over to their Myspace and checkout the video for My Secret Lover!
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