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  • Friday Throwback – I Can’t Sleep Baby (If I)

    Before I get to the Friday Throwback, I wanted to quickly write about an interview that R. Kelly did with BET. Why did he do this interview? I have no idea.

    If you didn’t watch the video, the moral of the story is that whoever told him to do this interview is an idiot. The interviewer asked him if he likes teenager girls. R didn’t immediately say no or get upset about the question. He asked for clarification. Now, I’m not sure if R is just that specific or what, but when you’re a 40 year old man and another man asks you on TV if you like teenage girls, the correct answer is “Hell no!” unless, well, you do. Then R asked if teenage girls meant nineteen years old. The interviewer is so befuddled that he paused and said that it could be anywhere from nineteen and on down. Then R admitted that he has nineteen year old “friends”, but he said he doesn’t like anyone “illegal”. Again R, the correct answer should’ve been no.

    Further on in the interview, R basically says that no one should listen to speculation about his life from people he has hired and then fired, or people he has hired and are currently on staff. Huh? I think what he was trying to say is that people who are no longer on his staff are spiteful and want to bring him down. But that makes no sense as far as why we shouldn’t listen to the people who he hasn’t fired yet. I’m not sure that R is sane.

    Now, after reading about this interview (and now watching it), I started to wonder how I could’ve ever been a fan of the man and his music. I specifically thought about two songs that I can still listen to and not have to immediately turn off. One is Half On A Baby and the other is I Can’t Sleep Baby (If I).

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  • Gym Class Heroes Earn a Passing Grade with “The Quilt”

    Gym Class Heroes' Travis McCoy. photo by Cha0scontr0ll
    Gym Class Heroes

    Here’s an easy way to get me to notice your band (coincidentally, it’s also a good way to score a hit single): make a catchy single that references yet another catchy single. It’s how I became acquainted with the rock/rap group Gym Class Heroes. Their first hit single, “Cupid’s Chokehold”, not only sampled Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America”, but featured the recognizable voice of Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump. They followed it up by repeating the exact same formula: “Clothes Off!!” also boasted a chorus by stump and a large chunk of Jermaine Stewart’s “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off”. As opposed to outright samples, these new songs were built on the choruses of those moldy oldies, and the gambit worked-at least for me. I found myself in possession of GCH’s breakthrough album As Cruel as School Children, and actually found it enjoyable in a mindless fun sort of way.

    Fast-forward a year and a half later. GCH lead singer Travis McCoy is something of a star, the band boasts a Gold album, and they’re back with their follow up, The Quilt. This album has a much more pronounced hip-hop influence than its’ predecessor, with guest appearances from the likes of Busta Rhymes and production from beatsmiths Cool & Dre. Nevertheless, McCoy has more charm and variation in subject matter than the average commercial emcee, so it’s not what you would consider the typical hip-hop album in 2008. It also boasts more than its’ share of influences from other genres-featuring bits of emo-ish rock, ska, and plain old pop.

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  • The (Old) Boys of Summer

    I had a disturbing realization last month. Disturbing, at least, from the point of view of a guy whose entire adolescent self-identity was wrapped up in the idea that he was ahead of the curve in all things pop music, that he could tell you with metronomic precision the Top 10 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at any given moment (at a time when the Top 10 actually changed from week to week – and not just due to the latest event single). At the end of the summer, I’m looking back on the music I’ve purchased and listened to this year, and I’m finding that a disproportionate number of my favorite records of 2008 are by old farts.

    Willie Nelson. Photo by Kjell Ove Hattrem.
    Willie Nelson. Photo by Kjell Ove Hattrem.

    Now, I realize that as most people settle into their adulthoods and are faced with the imminent onset of middle age – dear god, I can already smell the despair-laced liquor and cigarette smoke at the hall of my 20 year high school reunion – with growing debt loads, and growing children with growing attitude problems, it’s perfectly natural for a guy to reassess his priorities away from discovering the hottest new pop thing. No offense, Katy Perry, but it’s perfectly natural, and even admirable, for a guy like me to spend his Sunday night watching an inspirational Disney movie on DVD with his kids and dogs rather than sequestering himself in his basement tracking the hit parade according to Seacrest. And as we settle into our cosy adulthoods, it’s perfectly natural to fall back on the favorites and golden oldies (like “Rock the Casbah”!) we grew up with.

     

     

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