CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS

Friday, May 22, 2009

Why do producers push the mainstream?

Why the Flobots should just do a spoken word album instead of a rap album:

Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks
Cover girl cutouts throw up pop-up ads
Infecting victims with silicone shrapnel
Worldwide passenger pigeons deploy paratroopers
Now it's raining pornography
Lovers take shelter
Post-production debutantes pursue you in Nascar chariots

They construct ransom letters from biblical passages and bleed mascara into the holy water
supplies

There's a war going on for your mind

Industry insiders slang test tube babies to corporate crack heads
They flash logos and blast ghettos
Their embroidered neckties say "Stop Stitching"
Conscious rappers and whistle blowers get stitches made of acupuncture needles and marionette
strings

There is a war going on for your mind

Professional wrestlers and vice presidents want you to believe them
The desert sky is their blue screen
They superimpose explosions
They shout at you
"Pay no attention to the men behind the barbed curtain
Nor the craters beneath the draped flags
Those hoods are there for your protection
And meteors these days are the size of corpses"

There's a war going on for your mind

We are the insurgents


Pretty intense, right? I was shocked that the kids who put out a single called Handlebars that was just over mediocre, just good enough for me to get the whole album, put this, which was quite possibly the most incredible spoken word piece I've heard from a mainstream band. That's saying something, since I can't take spoken word seriously since William Shatner's Rocketman. The only problem? It wasn't the whole album. Unfortunately, the rest of the album goes downhill from there. There are few standout tracks aside from "There's a War Going On For Your Mind" and "We Are Winning", and they're just a college-rock-rap band that sounds a little too much like Linkin Park crossed with Rage Against the Machine trying to be Public Enemy. Unfortunately, 'we want welfare and healthcare' doesn't have the same ring to it as 'fuck the police'.

Alas. They'll get enough album sales from angry, anti-establishment teenagers to keep going, and maybe they'll do a completely spoken word album. I'd buy it.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

"He's Behind You, He's Got Swine Flu"

Much to Elle's annoyance, I've been cranking The Streets' Original Pirate Material in the car lately. So Mike Skinner's timing is perfect for a brand new track, and a topical one too. The video is made up of clips from zombie flicks, including generous helpings of Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, as well as 28 Days Later and a bunch of others I didn't recognize on the first viewing.

Never thought I'd say this about the Oak Ridge Boys

but this is amazing. It's from their upcoming album. Making those instrumental parts into background vocal parts is a very nice touch.