Cool your jets, internets. Yes, yes, yes, that new snoop video that's making the rounds is aesthetically packed full of LOLZ to the max. BUT YOU'RE MISSING THE BIGGER ISSUE:
A rapper with 14 years experience of putting out successful albums has changed his style up to sound like T-Pain, a guy with 6 months experience putting out records... who's whole schtick is based around singing through a voice box.
So that's the current state of hip hop... rap music... pop R'n'B. Super.
Oh, hello. Quick note: I've set up one of those tumblr blog thinggies. It's here.
It's in no way a replacement for vanmega.com.
I set it up as a way to flag links/articles/whatever that I may/may not want to comment on, on this site, later on... since the star feature on google reader doesn't really work for me.
Also, I reserve the right to post random pictures of Lindsay Lohan on the tumble thing too.
Anyways, if you're looking for another site/feed to waste time on, here ya go.
If you only have time for a couple of the clips watch Knight Rider, Doogie Howser, and Facts of Life. But, really, I suggest sticking around for all of them.
The jist: it's an op-ed piece written by Jermaine Dupri, where he argues that Steve Jobs/iTunes is enabling the consumer to destroy his "art" (keep in mind, this guy produces Mariah Carey albums). What kills me isn't his belief that he should have creative control over his material, but rather the fact that he's so fucking out of touch with reality. Dude thinks that (1) his listening audience are a bunch of assholes, and (2) by pulling music of iTunes CD sales would sky rocket.
My plan was to pull quotes and argue the article piece by piece, but I get too frustrated reading the source material. Instead here are the thoughts that jump out while reading it:
Radiohead's entire physical catalog is available on iTunes. There's even a radiohead reggae tribute album!
At no point did MTV insist that you spend $300,000 to $500,000 on your music videos, you just opted to, as you're and your cohort are a bunch of huge egomaniacs. You recieved just as much gain in promotion as they did "video television industry off of [your] backs". PS: video television isn't an industry
Isn't the idea of "tak[ing] back the power" by "sacrific[ing] some sales to make [your] point" a really really bad idea. Aren't sales of hip hop records already a mess?
"If they just want the single, they gotta get the album". Or they gotta download utorrent.
KRISS KROSS CAME OUT A DECADE AND A HALF AGO. GET OVER IT.
"I'm like an interior decorator who comes into a house and fixes up one room"... dude, that's so not gangsta.
Intros/skits on rap albums do not set the mood. They waste time. Kanye figured this out, and incidentally his album went gold the first day, fam.
"But at what point does any business care when consumer complain?". Uhhh, when they stop spending money on your product. Which in your case, is now. So please feel free to join the rest of us in the 21st century.
I feel I've really slept on the Walkman over the past couple of years. Bows + Arrows was a brilliant disk, which I lived with for ages... but the following album and EP never really stuck. After Friday's show, for the life of me I can't figure out why.
The Walkmen delivered a solid performance for their entire set. The older stuff meshed well with the newer stuff. Things kinda jaggedly ping-ponged between their ultra gentle tunes and their post-whatever jangly rock tunes. The cool thing was that everything was held together by that atmospheric, wall of sound they so painless fire-off. It was dense and loud... and the whole time I was reminded how great some of their work really is and how I should dust off a few of their disks.
Openers, The Subjects, we're pretty good too. However, we only caught the last 2 - 3 songs of their set... actually, most people in attendance missed these guys, the place was empty when we arrived. Unfortunate.
Daytrotter has a live session with The Subjects... get up on it.
A plethora of themed mixtapes, each of which contain 1 minute clips of 100 songs, for - what else? - drinking games. Where was this site 6 years ago when I was actually doing Centurions on a quasi-regular basis?! Houseboats, represent.
Actually, the French House mix is real nice on the merits of the selected tracks alone. If you were so inclined, you could load the mix into itunes, create a playlist, cross fade in and our of each track, and POW! you've got an hour and a half weekend warm up soundtrack.
Just make sure you've got a beer handy... you know, to keep your frat street cred.
Sure there was buzz around Michael Ian Black's stand-up album that came out about a month ago, but I'm kinda thinking the brand new Michael Showalter disk is some superior shit. Not that you can't listen to and love both albums... it's just that I'm a sucker for premises which meld adventure journalism and careers in erotica writing. And the like.
But ferreals, teens... I listened to the album cover to cover at work, and ended up jamming a styrofoam coffee cup into my mouth to stop myself from lollering. Oh, the unnecessary carbon footprint.
Jesus Christ, I'm really gonna miss having my hearing intact.
If you're heading to the Commodore tonight to see the second M.I.A. show - by all means - go to see the live rendition of the album that I couldn't get behind but the rest of the world loved... and then stay for:
the Kala CD booklet visually coming to life on a widescreen, in all of its saturated cut & paste glory
the sickest/illest/loudest bass the commodore has ever heard
the all-girl, packed stage, dance-a-thon to random Baltimore club breaks
Jimmy performed over New Order & Abba samples
MIA's live show is so out of control right now... in a good way. You may want to take the next day off work to recoever... I didn't, and I'm my ears and eyes paying for it.
OH SNAP(S)! Yesterday, vanmega.com turned 7 years old.
SEVEN!
Be sure to binge on some cake and celebrate at some point this weekend.
Thanks you to everyone who's read, contributed, commented on the 32,625 (I'm not kidding) posts we've thrown up over the years. I shudder to think how unproductive this site has made us all. Kinda.
Well internet pals, here's the final mixtape of 2007.
As always, December's tape will be replaced with the annual vanmega audio almanac christmas gift mail out spectacular, which features a (gasp!) real CD. I'm certain you're counting down the seconds.
A quick FYI for those of you jumping at the soon to be released live Daft Punk album Alive 2007: all those torrents popping up claiming to be advanced copies of the disk aren't advanced copies, rather mislabeled/repackaged copies of the infamous Coachella 2006 bootleg.
The thing I don't understand is why the number of seeders on these torrents seems to shoot up by the hour. Downloading for the sake of hoarding doesn't make sense to me.
The ironic dumb thing about all this is that I haven't - and - have no intention of getting my hands on an advance copy of this album. I'm waiting until the actual release day, going to the nearest record store, buying a copy of the CD (!) and giving the subs in my car workout. Why? This is the first time in forever (since Neon Bible?) that I'm genuinely overjoyed about a release. Childlike wonder, here we come. Hell, when I listen to those hit and miss bootlegs from this year's tour I still get goosebumps. This is a good thing.
Related: Because I'm not the completest I used to be, I didn't realize that the basis for the Alive 2007 tour encore was a ultra-sublime Thomas Bangalter side-project track:
I always though this was a custom made loop for the show... you gotta admit it nicely ties up the whole Robot vs Human theme used through out the set. With that said, the bass line on this track is beyond blissful. Someone really should play with it a bit... hmmmmm, this could be a fake DJ project.
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