mixtape maestro (2.0)

This past week, BBC’s Live Lounge was on fire thanks to a handful of blog-beloved acts entering it’s studio doors. Below, peep a rundown of some of the artists that stopped by and how they fared:

The Gossip

Appearing in support of their EXCELLENT new album Music For Men, Beth Ditto & Co. blew the walls off the sucka with a thunderous walk-through of that set’s lead off single “Heavy Cross” (oh how great it is when a band is able to recreate such a dynamite studio recording so impeccably in the live form).

As for their taking on of Kanye West’s tirelessly-covered “Love Lockdown”? Some cool things are captured instrumentally (love the guitar licks on the verses), but, as with their audience-polarizing remakes of Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody” and Wham’s “Careless Whisper”, one’s total satisfaction of it will fall on how well Ditto’s unrestrained and often off-key, near-soul diva wails hits the ears.

La Roux

It would have been nice for La Roux to have kept “Bulletproof”‘s kiss-off fun and punchy where it registers best, but we’ll admit to being slightly charmed by the melancholy lullaby they reduced it to in their Lounge spot.

The same can’t be said for their foolish attempt at adapting White Lies’ weighty, Bravery-mock “Farewell To The Fairgrounds” to their chintzy ’80′s pop style, though. Singer Elly Jackson’s needle-thin peep started to get so high-pitched, we feared her head might explode.

Florence and the Machine

With each new gem introduced in advance of the July-set debut Lungs, Florence and The Machine focal Florence Welch has gradually won more and more over as one of today’s most captivating new female musical figures. Her band’s fourth single, “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” stands as one their most alluring creations yet, an ambitious onslaught of mythy, New Age grandeur and soul-seasoned indie-folk singing brought to a potent apex by way of a quadruple-tracked chorus.

Unable to cram into the Lounge studio the hundred or so musicians it seemingly took to initially create the record though, a stripped-down live dishing of “Rabbit Heart”, while lovely, doesn’t bear the same magical hold of the original.

When covering Beyonce’s soft rock ballad “Halo”, Flo hits a few vocal bumps when trying to compete with the original singer’s perfected caterwaul; yet when looking beyond the imperfections, there lies some evidence that, given a few practice runs to make her more comfortable with the material, this could end up being a fine future B-side.

DL: “Love Lockdown (The Gossip)” (alt)

DL: “Halo (Florence and The Machine)” (alt)

I know, I know. Covers/ remixes of “Love Lockdown” seem so 2008 right about now, but this stripped-down rendering of the 808s & Heartbreak lead-in by buzzworthy London singer-songwriter Alan Pownall is still worth mentioning.

Effectively recreating the track with a swampy, New Orleans-styled grit that explodes into a disparate acoustic playground on the hook, Pownall’s down-home take ultimately sounds like it could have been the original (and dare we say, superior) “Lockdown” incarnation that Kanye covered instead.

If Kanye truly was as much of the musical genius he tirelessly claims himself to be, he’d use this remake as inspiration for an entire re-release of Heartbreak with other “true” singers and organically-woven framings attached. At least, before somebody else does and reaps all the critically-acclaimed benefits.

DL: “Love Lockdown (Kanye West Cover)” (alt)

It seems the people have spoken. R. Kelly might have gotten off scot-free from that forever-long child porn case, but post-trial, his dominance over urban playlists has come to a screeching halt with recent singles “Hairbraider” and “Skin” failing to muster up much chart love (despite both bearing the blueprint of becoming major hits). So what does a down-on-his-luck, one-time R&B kingpin do next? Attach himself, bootleg-style, to one of the most talked about records of the season and hope it reminds people why they adored nearly everything else he put out for well over a decade.

To Kells’ credit, he makes a better fit on the heavily Auto-Tune-shaded “Love Lockdown” than the less vocally talented Kanye (who still came off sounding underwhelming after releasing numerous track revisions), but R. also obliterates much of the original’s cool mystique in his efforts to turn “Lockdown” into a typical “R. Kelly song”. Shouting out a highlight of his old-school catalogue by dubbing this “a “version of ‘When A Man’s Fed Up’”, he needlessly fills in the lines of West’s vague laments of romance woe, spewing disdain towards a lover who just couldn’t get it right even after multiple attempts, while throwing in zany metaphors like “we used to be like a Vegas night on a winning streak” and, predictably, winding the narrative into a “picking up sexy chicks at the club” scenario.

If this version had came out first, it would be a little bit easier to get behind, but compared to West’s far-superior original (and the fact that most have already bypassed the now-passé “Lockdown” and begun indulging in the handful of other 808s & Heartbreaks leaks that have since flooded the blogosphere), this redux doesn’t really register has anything special beyond a single curioso listen.

Remember when Kells was starting R&B trends rather than tardily following them in a desperate attempt to stay relevant?

DL: “Love Lockdown (Remix)” (YFH)

While most of this year’s VMA’s oddly came across a little too sedate, the show did feature at least one performance that got folks REALLY talking the next day, whether positively or negatively. Mr. Kanye “I’ll never appear at another VMA again” West capped the night off with an extraordinary performance of neck hair-raising new single “Love Lockdown”, featuring a glow-in-the-dark heart brooch thing, shadowy tribe-men filling the air with booming drum work and some neat explosion tricks. Oh yeah, and the track saw the rapper/ producer SINGING robo-voice-styled for it’s entire length. As expected, message boards across the vast World Wide Web lit up with all kinds of extreme public reaction concerning his latest artistic move, much in the same way the masses got all uber-excited once his game-changing “Stronger” dropped last summer.

With the release of this sub-quality studio rendition, we now have the opportunity to better absorb what the hell he’s doing. Is “Love Lockdown” the best song ever, or does it’s demented soul-tronica edge come off a little underwhelming in this off-stage translation? For the time being, we’ll have to say our initial reaction lands somewhere in between the two.

Kanye manages to make nearly every one of his records a ginormous event and “Love Lockdown” ranks as one of his biggest and strangest. From the clever bass-as-heartbeat that hauntingly back-ends the track to the manic percussion explosion, freaky piano lines and animal shrieks that eventually emerge, the spooky instrumental lures you with it’s sinister mood. The lyrics feature him crooning with the weight of a heavy sadness, sounding like the ghost of a soul-man raised from his grave. “I’m not lovin’ you/ The way I wanted to,” he opens, succeeding lines echoing the same gloomed melody as he further colors the internal strife he’s found himself trapped in-betwixt (“See I wanna move/ But can’t escape from you…”; “I can’t keep myself/ And still keep you too”).

As far as smart career trajectories go, “Love Lockdown” lands as the logical next step for an artist aiming to keep challenging himself and his audience creatively. But where it slightly disappoints is in it’s failure to retain some of that edge-of-your-seat suspense demonstrated in it’s introductory VMA execution, something that’s not entirely his fault since that was the first time most of us had got a strong gist of what the song was. Thankfully, we’re given hope in that this isn’t the final version, and if we know West as much as we think we do, once the final mix is unearthed, this alt-blues confessional will truly shine as the classic stunner he most likely already thinks it is.

DL: “Love Lockdown (Studio)” (YFH)