matt’s music blog

I haven’t really listened to a lot of Common’s music. Only really this album, and one from the mid 90’s called Resurrection. But I have to say that I really like this song, and album, a lot. Really cool and solid beats, and good rhymes, hold it all together really well. Also, this album is produced by Kayne West, which I think shows a lot, in the beats.

There are quite a few things that I like about this song. I really like how it tells a fairly simple succinct story. Also, it has Lily Allen, who is an unlikely choice, but works really well. And she’s also very attractive, and adorably British. Not that it really affects her singing. Just sayin’. Anyway…

We start off with a cool march style drum loop, and Lily Allen’s almost eerie backing vocal line, that stays pretty constant throughout the whole song. She gives us the chorus, and then we move into the first verse.

She was the type to watch Oprah and the Today Show
Be on the treadmill, uh, like “Okay, go”
Had a body, A body that you can’t pay fo’
That mean she had some Ds on her but they wasn’t fake though
Had a drive for a drive for Rodeo
She spent pesos on those Lebeaus
Spin class at the gym, strip tease on a pole
She was so obsessed with her body and clothes
To every party she goes, tryin hard to be chose
They say it’s hard for a pimp but extra hard for these (hoes)
Readin Us and People Mag, tryna get the scoop
Chasin a actor for a Bentley Coupe
She been through the ball player from the Clippers, then came the pumps
All thinkin she number one where she was just a jumpoff
Doin all she can for a man and a baby
Drivin herself crazy like the astronaut lady

OOoooo. There are a lot of lines I like. Like… On the treadmill like OK GO, a reference to their famous music video for Here It Goes Again. Also drivin herself crazy like the astronoaunt lady, very good.

I’m not going to say a lot more on it, because really the genious is all in the lyrics. But rest assured, that this is a really good song

-James out

MIA is quite an artist – her music is strikingly simply, yet unavoidably catchy. There are hooks that are just impossible to ignore.

Take for instance Bucky Done Gun, a song about child soldiers. Right off the bat, you get slapped hard with snappy snares, rumbling bass, and spunky female vocals – and then that iconic horn sample.

Bucky Done Gun
What you want
The Fire Done Burn
What you want
Bucky Done Gun
Get Crackin’ Get Get Crackin’

The breaks are repetitive – tom, tom, glitchy kick, snare, horns – but so satisfying! The cut up and remixed version at 1:53 really milks it to get the most out of the sample and sequence. It’s simple, short, but man – oh so very satisfying. Good for blasting when you’re stuck in traffic.

Okay, okay, I know. This is a song about getting STDs from unsafe sex. Yes, this is the chorus:

Your nuts we want your nuts
We’ll itch and scratch and bite your nuts
Your nuts we want your nuts
Please, oh please, fuck dirty butts

Your nuts we want your nuts
We’ll itch and scratch and bite your nuts
Your nuts we want your nuts
Please, oh please, fuck dirty sluts

Here’s the thing though – it’s catchy. The rapping has some pretty clever stuff going on rhythm-wise, and the instrumentation somehow manages to communicate the idea of an itchy crotch – blurpy synth bassline, clicky drum machine percussion, guitar stings, and this tiny little synth line that I think is freaking in genius at 1:24 – just two little notes, bleep bloop, but somehow it swings you right around from the entertaining “got me a purdy woman’s love” sample into the next batch of rapping.

And then you’ve got stretches like this:

So you wanna fuck around, always gotta buck around
Lift up your dingaling nothing but a bug ya found
Now they call you funky nuts cuz you like funky butts
Scratching and biting them, now they call you monkey nuts
But I ain’t sayin nothing, cuz you ain’t playin nothin
Bring the track back and I get back to the nutsac track

Everything is cut way back to a slim drum loop, and the syncopated lyrics almost become another percussive elements – and the twisty ryhmes almost remind me of something like Beasty Boys, despite the fact that I hardly ever listen to them. Something really works about stuff like that.

One thing I’ve got to admit that I find undeniably entertaining about some of these ICP tracks is the ridiculous things that they come up with:

Somebody asked me how I got scabies
Probably that homeless fat redneck bad lady
That I fucked in the shed

Did you make it through to the end of the song? If not, skip ahead to 3:26 for a little bonus action.

“Hey, check this out man, I can remember back in school, back in elementary school. 
Yeah, shit used to be cool then, ya know what I’m sayin? 
Cuz it was all about shootin’ dice and playin’ dodge ball and shit, you know? 
But then something happened man, everybody grew up and now ain’t nothing the same, 
like this one punk mutha fucka. 
The same mutha fucka I was trading G.I. Joes with and playin’ kick ball,
is gonna run up on me and throw a gang sign 
talkin about he’s gettin ready to fly my head and shit. 

Well fuck you ya know, cuz your still the same fake ass bitch you always was, 
so don’t come up on me with that shit, 
cause I know ya too well. 
You still the same ‘gotta be in by 6,’ jello eatin’, mutha fucka ya always was. 
Oh yeah, and a couple years ago I fucked ya sister at your birthday party. 
So don’t come up on me, cuz I know ya too well bitch boy.”
“Yeah mutha fuckin’ bitch boy!”

Once again, I know, it’s not the most appealing way of saying it, but… it’s an appealing sentiment. “Don’t try to act like someone else, because I know you too well.”

ICP confuses me – I actually like a fair amount of music off of their Great Milenko album. Unfortunately, the albums which bookended this release aren’t anywhere as enjoyable – and the ‘juaggalo’ aspect of their music and fanbase is intriguing, (is it acting? is it marketing? is it sincere?) but not particularly appealing. I have trouble separating the apparent violence, hate, and bigotry in their lyrics from their non-violent, non-judgemental, non-everything-their-music-appears-to-be message – the progression of their albums or ‘joker cards’ introduces a mythology that leads the listener to heaven. I don’t know what to make of it.

I do know what to make of a few good tracks though – and since it’s been about a month since I posted anything, I’ll take this opportunity to look at a few of my favorite ICP songs.

Things start out right – whispery chorus in the intro, overlapping laugh track, and a nice solid ’slam’ to start the first verse: (sorry about the slang and bad spelling – it’s all [sic] from the source, unfortunately.)

I was just a child but you seemed like so much more. 
The way you would approach me and drift across the floor, 
I’d see you in the hall and you’d kiss me with a smile. 
I never understood it was I even worth your while? 
The other kids at school they would hate me and they’d spit. 
Cuz I was just a no one to them I wasn’t shit. 
But you would always hold me and stand there by my side, 
We were only 17 we’d be together till we died. 

Wait, this isn’t about killing rednecks, dark carnival mythology, killing rednecks, or dismembering children - it’s a love song!

But then it all happened the ever dreadful day. 
Somebody tried to rape you and now I’ll make him pay. 
You pointed him out to me- my thoughts began to race. 
I took my daddy’s 45 and shot him in the fuckin’ face! 
I did it all for you and though I’m facin’ years 
I would do the time just to equal all your tears 
The last thing that you told me when I left the courtroom 
Is that we’d always be together… cause we’re both under the moon.

A tragic love song, no less. Listen to that percussion! The quick little hi-hat flicks, the kick, the solid snare/clap hits… it’s a pretty interesting pattern. Unobtrusive string hits, chromatic runs of more strings, plus occasional synth pads… it doesn’t get boring, to a certain extent because the lyrics are there to keep it interesting, but also because it’s just good instrumentation.

“I’ll forever love
you even in your doom,
we’ll always be together cuz we’re both under the moon”

Romantic sentiment, eh? Now things get a little more tragic:

I sit here in my cell and the walls are made of stone 
I justified your pain but now I sit alone 
I write another letter I write one everyday 
I never got a letter back I write em anyway 
I try to call collect- your number has been changed 
I’m starin at the light bulb and I start to feel deranged 
You never came to visit me I sit facin tha glass 
No-one’s on tha other side and now its in tha past 
My head is always spinnin I’m poundin’ on the wall 
I feel like I’m forgotten no sign of you at all 
You’re probably gettin’ married you’re probably gettin fucked 
I’ll break out of this cage and try to cut that muthafucka up 
I curl up in the corner my body will corrode, 
My teeth are turning into dust skin is growing mold 
I’m starin’ out tha window of my eternal doom 
I know that you are out there… somewhere underneath the moon.

This is a story – they’re telling a story about a poor kid who murdered the guy who raped his girlfriend (and the only one who made him feel like someone worthwhile), then experiences the agony of losing her while he rots away in prison.

Which side are you on? Was it right for him to latch onto her as his only way of feeling good about himself? Was it right for her to be raped? Was it right for him to seek retribution? Was it right that he be punished for his crime? Was he right to count on her continued devotion to him during his punishment? Was she right to move on with her life?

Many many years many more to go
duz she still remember? God he only knows
I now become a savage they chain me to a wall
I still can see your body I still can hear ya call
I’m nothin but a maggot I’m locked away and lost
the world that duzn’t want me
my dignity is tossed
and to tha girl for who I feel this doom look here…
fuck you and the moon

I’m too lazy to clean up the inane ‘z’ usage, but he’s finally broken – he obsessed over her until he went insane, and he finally ends up cursing her. Is this a good thing? Has he accepted reality and is he now able to move on with his life, such as it is? Or is she really the one to blame in all this – leading him on, driving him crazy? And yet, for all his denial, he can’t help sadly singing -

Still under the moon
I’m still here under the moon

So fuck her, fuck the moon, he’s crazy, he’s a murderer, and on top of all that… he’s still there, waiting for her, under the moon, hoping things will go back to the way they were before.

Come on. You know this is good stuff – after all, it ends on a major note, whereas everything else has been minor – is there hope of redemption at the end? If you know me, you know I like redemption at the end of a story.