mixtape maestro (2.0)

Don’t expect B.o.B.‘s sudden (but long deserved) placement in the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 to end soon, as the Atlanta emcee seems to have another major hip-pop hit on his hands with “Airplanes”, a genre-bridging collaboration with Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams that sounds tailor-made for Top 40 over-saturation.

How ironic though, that right when Mr. Bobby Ray Simmons has finally broken into being an over-ground sensation, he would be heard here yearning for the simpler days before “the politics that we call the rap game/ And back when ain’t nobody listened to my mix tape”.

It’s likely a holdover from those days last year when rumors were running rampant of B.o.B’s early retirement, but whatever, we just can’t wait to hear what Eminem has to say on the topic when B.o.B.’s debut LP, B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray, arrives on April 27th boasting the Shady One-featured sequel “Airplanes (Part II)”.

“Airplanes”:

BONUS DL: Solange Knowles featuring B.o.B. “I Decided (Remix)” (alt)

After all that “backing boy musicians are angry because female lead gets all the attention” drama that nearly split the group apart (a brush-up on No Doubt’s history should have really been a requisite project for these kids) and a detour into the dark and vampiry on the Evanescence-esque Twlight single “Decode”, how refreshing what is to hear Paramore kick off their upcoming junior set brand new eyes with “Ignorance”, a return to the irresistably peppy/ catchy pop-rock formula that made them the breakout act of 2007.

Yeah, it might not sport an immediately cherishable, greater-than-great hook of a “Misery Business” or “Crushcrushcrush”, but you can’t deny the sugary addictiveness of all it’s guitar thrash, heavy bass chug and rapid fire drum work nor the charismatic force known as Hayley Williams snarl-wailing her heart out atop it all.

Last week, the band entered the Live Lounge studios for a two-song live gig and, as they’ve proven with acoustic readings of a lot of their previous material, Paramore made “Ignorance” sound just as good, if not better. With the urgent intensity of the original’s thunderous rawk rage nicely re-imagined through some quickly-flitting acoustic guitar pickings and Williams commiting a more restrained vocal performance heightened by hoarsened peaks, the song manages to grasp an even stronger emotional wallop, as if the inter-band strife documented in the razor sharp lyrics is a currently festering issue rather than a tribulation of the past.

Catch the performances of both “Ignorance” and, yes, yet another amazing female-led cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” below.

brand new eyes drops September 29th.

DL: “Ignorance (‘Live Lounge’ Acoustic Version)” (alt)

DL: “Use Somebody (‘Live Lounge’ Kings of Leon Cover)” (alt)