Nearly bursting out of it’s seams with a kitchen-sink-like musical make-up that dabbles in DIY electro-pop, Streets-y UK rap and bits of 2-Tone, “Single Dad” from London trio Man Like Me, almost feels too rambunctious for it’s own good, but in the end it emerges a keeper, it’s ever-morphing bag o’ sonic tricks held together under an amusing lyric about one of the most frightening things that could ever happen to a responsibility-phobic young man.
“Shock! Horror!” cries singer/ rapper Johnny at the news that he’s about to become a dad, “How can you be a father?/ Yourself you can’t look after/ Let alone another”. If this was Maury Povich, he would be the one frantically racing to that damn back hallway, Povich hot at his heels, not to console him, but rather to cruelly continue informing Johnny that he’s “99.9% sure” he’s the pop.
As the track’s lively main boogie of bobbing basslines and blaring horn fare illustrate the pressure-cooked chaos his life now falls under, Johnny dizzily speeds his way through all kinds of panicky emotions, at one point selfishly wondering aloud how this sudden revelation will disturb his music career aspirations. Alas, he eventually cools down and comes around to accepting the new “tag” thrust upon him, resulting in “Single Dad”‘s greatest moment: a charmingly melodic detour that finds him re-assuring himself that “It’s gonna work out in the end sometime/ I’ve got to…believe it”.
A contagious serving of real-life humor delivered under an equally wacky musical pedigree (we’re especially fond of the out-of-nowhere steel drum celebration that arises towards the song’s end), “Single Dad” has enough entertaining ideas bubbling within it’s four minute frame to generate some curiosity in what other intriguing hilarities their Spring-set debut will have to offer. In the meantime, hit up their MySpace to peep more LOL-worthy video clips and download (for FREE) their B-Sides & Rarities mixtape.
The single will be digitally available February 9th.
Rihanna and her “Umbrella” songwriter The-Dream prove their golden pop chemistry still stands on their newest collaboration “Hating On The Club”, a future radio dominator that slides with ease into the ears with it’s playful hand claps, relentless drum thump base and tinge of doo wop air, not to mention it’s involving of another successful dose of single-syllable stutters.
“Now this will be the last time you did me wrong/ No more laying up in your arms,” Ri-Ri snaps. But this isn’t some hard-as-nails anti-guy anthem, it’s celestial synth washes and pretty piano touches instigating a far more sentimental affair. Hit with the grapevine gab that her beau was seen smooching with another gal outside a nightspot, her initial anger-fueled instinct is to start packing bags, but that immediate stint of ire just as soon dissolves into an epic emotional breakdown, leaving her lashing out not necessarily at her philandering man, but instead at the club, for being the crux that so suddenly snatched all her “happily ever after” dreams away.
“There’s only one reason why we’re apart/…If it wasn’t for the club I’d still have my love,” she, somewhat foolishly, reasons through her tears and stiff “Oh-Oh” android-whimpers.
Damn Rihanna, we were kinda looking forward to finally falling out of love with you and your oh-so-perfect pop-crafting ways in this new year, yet your dumbfounding hold over us remains.
So what Kid Cudi‘s “Day N Nite” isn’t so easy to tag with one of those corny genre-mash-up descriptors folks like us love to cook up (not to say we haven’t tried), with or without some “clever” label to snap onto it, the “lonely stoner” anthem is increasingly becoming the one song seemingly no living entity within the galaxy can deny.
A casual listen may not instantly birth an idea of what all the fuss is about, but there will be at least one of it’s many mystifying elements (that hypnotic electro warble, those space-beamed “What, what” line enders, Cudi’s emotion-less sing-rapping, a distressing need to figure out what the hell the song’s about) that’ll move one to give it a repeat peep…then another…then another, until you have reached the conclusion that you can’t go a day without it because it’s THE BEST SONG EVER!!!
Unfortunately, as has become the case with anything this widely appealing, both the unknown and the known are coming out of the woodworks, anxious to nab a piece of it’s luster. To add to the equally monstrous Crookers house do-over and remixes featuring Jim Jones, Pitbull and Collie Buddz, catch the So So Def swag-biter unnecessarily hogged by the ever-bragging JD (who has slowly lapped Kanye and Soulja Boy as one of hip hop’s most annoying figures) and a killer seven minutes-plus dancefloor revision by the Bingo Players, below:
North Carolina singer-songwriter-producer Jake Troth lit up the blogosphere with one of the better of a zillion “Love Lockdown” remixes that we obsessively coveted during the last months of ’08. Hoping to continue some of that momentum as well as start building more interest into his own original material, Troth is not only kicking off the new year with a new six-song EP (entitled Might As Whale) but he’s also cooked up this cover of T-Pain’s “Chopped & Screwed” as a bonus offering.
A bit reminiscent of Hot Chip’s similarly sleepy take on “Sensual Seduction” last year, Troth turns “Screwed” from a herky-jerky R&B slow jam to a dreamy synthesized lullaby set over a rapid-paced drum beat somebody like Luke would have rapped all nasty over back in the good ol’ days.
What’s most interesting here is how sad Pain’s lyrics now sound in this context. In the original version, hearing the protagonist fumble so bad as a nightclub mack brought out mostly giggles. But under the shadings of Troth’s sublime melodics and sad-robot vocals, you can’t help but come away feeling nothing but the utmost pity for the player wanna-be. Hearing him whimper “Shorty don’t chop me”, you get the vibe that this cat may have nothing else to live for if he isn’t successful in wheeling the dimepiece back to his crib.
Below, peep the Maestro’s favorite track from Whale, “Thanks For Coming With”. The acoustic ballad is a bit of a downer with end-of-life-focused lyrics like “If my mind should leave me soon/ And I can’t recall your name/ Please remind me everyday”, but for anyone who still believes in true love, the combination of it’s sparse melancholy and Troth’s tender script makes for one of the most touching love letters ever set to tape. Someone phone up Grey’s Anatomy and alert them to this understated gem, STAT! (Peep more of Whale over at Troth’s MySpace!!)
Mixtape Maestro isn’t ashamed to admit to being a proud sipper of the Solange Kool-Aid. Not only did she pull out one of ’08′s finest R&B releases, but with ONE single managed to singlehandedly best nearly the entire underwhelming (and under-selling) multi-solo album output of all of Destiny’s other children, not to mention previously multi-platinum (and now somewhat pointless) chanteuses like Ashanti.
But the praise has got to stop somewhere, and with Solange, she definitely hits a wall with this ill-advised cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”. As the American Idol judges famously sneer, this song is just too big for her, her humble chops hopelessly unable to match the track’s epic loom (and those needless melismastic runs she attempts to sneak in? Major no-no!).
When the only positive comment someone can say about your performance centers on the goofy choreography of your back-up dancers, you know you’ve pulled off a dud. Where’s the winning 60′s girl group motif when you need it?
There are plenty of excitingly strange going-ons throughout Brooklyn alt-hip hop-ster Theophilus London‘s amazing new set, This Charming Mixtape (download it for FREE here). The way he is able to jump from trance-soul to drum n bass to street-centric hip hop to rock-rap spaz-outs and damn near effortlessly succeed in all of them; the way he plays fan-boy to certain records like “Ain’t No Sunshine” or Lauryn Hill’s beloved cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”, letting huge chunks of them play out before sprinkling them with a bit of his personal flavor; the very random outro that finds him shower singing along to the “O Happy Day” performance from Sister Act 2.
But perhaps the mixtape’s most stupefying moment arrives with “Always Love You”, a cut based on Whitney Houston’s syllable-stretching diva staple “I Will Always Love You”. After opening with a screwed-voiced London answering back Whit’s a capella goodbye (“Get yer ass outta here,” he growls), a choppy dance beat drops, slicing-and-dicing Houston’s endless hook as Theo stutters his way through a bitter kiss-off (“No I ain’t staying with you/ I ain’t playing with you/ Six feet under homie/ See where the playing get you?”).
A genius re-take on a song we thought we never wanted to hear from again, it’s entry alone gets London Mixtape Maestro’s vote as one artist everybody needs to get familiar with.
On “22″, Lily pierces another cotton candy foundation of cutesy pop with the dark pangs of reality, telling the tale of a woman who, after spending her party-loving twenty-somethings living life without a care in the world, is suddenly slapped across the face with the emptiness of her existence as she edges into age 30.
Stuck with an “alright” job with no true love in sight (“All she wants is a boyfriend/ She gets one-night stands”), the woman teeters on a nervous breakdown, Lily’s mocking hook of “Sad but it’s true/ How society tells her life is already over” echoing within her increasingly distraught brain. Making things even worse, the backing track doesn’t offer any tinge of pity for her, it’s bouncy piano jig nonchalantly rolling along it’s merry way, as if to illustrate all the satisfied same-aged folk around her now nestling into the adult groove they had been working hard to achieve while she was too busy out getting shit-faced on the regular.
Encompassing all that we loved, then briefly grew tired of, then fell in love with all over again about Allen, “22″‘s delicious dose of sugary melody and finely-sharpened songwriting that the every-blogger person can appreciate, perfectly re-asserts why her It’s Not Me, It’s You stands as one of early 2009′s must-have collections.
From it’s opening moments, “I Love My Baby”, from soon-to-explode Swedish exports Napoleon, bursts alive with the vibrant feel-good gusto of old American R&B, a shocking projection given the menacing tone of the title’s parenthetical portion.
An upbeat big band playhouse of sound built on soaring horn elements, flickering guitars and some effervescent backing female harmonies, “Baby” never lets go of it’s celebratory mood, even as singer Johan Barrett somewhat creepily spends the entire track fawning over a “midnight genius” lover that’s no longer officially his.
Already awarded by BBC Radio as a “Single of The Week”, “Baby” impressively isn’t this band’s only surefire delight. Check out Napoleon’s MySpace and you’ll find a future winner in the breathy, blue-eyed soul ballad “Vaxala and I Part 2″.
Look for the band’s debut, Bohemians Won the Series and the Little Guy Joined the Band, sometime later this year.
No matter how old a listener might be, or what hipster-approved sub-genre mash is currently dominating the world wide web, bubblegummy confections about puppy love will never fall out of style, especially if said song is performed by actual teenagers. With that being said, our fingers are crossed that “Delirious”, the debut single from ATL girl duo Vistoso Bosses (17-year-old Taylor Parker and 16-year-old Kelci Ferguson) becomes the inescapable hit of the Spring.
Reminiscent of the INOJ, KP & Envyi and Lumidee singular entries that came before (which were mostly satisfying because you never felt a need to ever cop any one of their respective albums), “Delirious” marries a delightful hop-scotch-soundtracking mix of Legend of Zelda flutes and lightly skittering drum pitter-patter behind the familiar narrative of dodging a secret crushes’ glances so that one doesn’t melt into a pile of giddy mush.
Riding a smooth R&B-based backbeat (complete with cool Slick Rick interjections, anonymous hook-girl cooings and starry-eyed keyboards) that triggers nostalgia for the best that radio-friendly, mid-to-late-’90′s hip hop had to offer, Bow Wow’s newest single “Roc The Mic” just begs to soundtrack some long car-ride with the top down and the near-triple digit summer sun heat beaming off the top of heads. But then, one gives the lyrics a closer inspection and a tinge of awkwardness begins to settle in: are Bow and longtime mentor/ producer Jermaine Dupri REALLY bypassing the typical hoes and wheels rap banter to spit about their re-tightened “father”/ “son” bond?
Now we’re all for a little positivity in hip hop penmanship, but the brotherly love being tossed back-and-forth between these two miniature-sized emcees here ends up being a bit too close to corny ’80′s sitcom theme song territory for comfort.
In reference to the duo’s much-written-about “outs” period, JD cockily pipes in: “See I had to let him go/ Just so he can really know/ You never know what you got ’til its gone/ Welcome home”; Later, Bow calls JD “more like a Dad than just a big brother” (Awww), then giggles through an old childhood memory of wanting to “smash” all of Dupri’s pre-Janet groupies, needlessly adding, “And I did it!!” (Ewww). All of that, plus the huggy-huggy chorus chiming of “They say we talk just alike/ Walk just alike…” and a quite solid instrumental suddenly feels soured underneath all the BFF sentiment.
This is one song that perhaps should have just stayed in their respective private vault collections.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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Come on, use Amazon or iTunes and help support your favorite artists so they can continue to give us the great sounds we love.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
Nearly bursting out of it’s seams with a kitchen-sink-like musical make-up that dabbles in DIY electro-pop, Streets-y UK rap and bits of 2-Tone, “Single Dad” from London trio Man Like Me, almost feels too rambunctious for it’s own good, but in the end it emerges a keeper, it’s ever-morphing bag o’ sonic tricks held together under an amusing lyric about one of the most frightening things that could ever happen to a responsibility-phobic young man. 
Rihanna and her “Umbrella” songwriter The-Dream prove their golden pop chemistry still stands on their newest collaboration “Hating On The Club”, a future radio dominator that slides with ease into the ears with it’s playful hand claps, relentless drum thump base and tinge of doo wop air, not to mention it’s involving of another successful dose of single-syllable stutters.
So what 
North Carolina singer-songwriter-producer 
Mixtape Maestro isn’t ashamed to admit to being a proud sipper of the Solange Kool-Aid. Not only did she pull out one of 
There are plenty of excitingly strange going-ons throughout Brooklyn alt-hip hop-ster 
On “22″, Lily pierces another cotton candy foundation of cutesy pop with the dark pangs of reality, telling the tale of a woman who, after spending her party-loving twenty-somethings living life without a care in the world, is suddenly slapped across the face with the emptiness of her existence as she edges into age 30.
From it’s opening moments, “I Love My Baby”, from soon-to-explode Swedish exports 
No matter how old a listener might be, or what hipster-approved sub-genre mash is currently dominating the world wide web, bubblegummy confections about puppy love will never fall out of style, especially if said song is performed by actual teenagers. With that being said, our fingers are crossed that “Delirious”, the debut single from ATL girl duo 
Riding a smooth R&B-based backbeat (complete with cool Slick Rick interjections, anonymous hook-girl cooings and starry-eyed keyboards) that triggers nostalgia for the best that radio-friendly, mid-to-late-’90′s hip hop had to offer, Bow Wow’s newest single “Roc The Mic” just begs to soundtrack some long car-ride with the top down and the near-triple digit summer sun heat beaming off the top of heads. But then, one gives the lyrics a closer inspection and a tinge of awkwardness begins to settle in: are Bow and longtime mentor/ producer Jermaine Dupri REALLY bypassing the typical hoes and wheels rap banter to spit about their re-tightened “father”/ “son” bond?
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