Thursday, May 27, 2004
Rhymin' and Skatin'
Morning Commute:
Beastie Boys, License to Ill
Kanye West, The College Dropout
I have been friends with my current drummer and musical partner in crime for some twenty years now. That's pretty impressive seeing as we are but a mere twenty seven. While I have literally thousands of musical memories that he is part of (finding backwards messages on Tone Loc recrords, being in no less than ten bands together, a mutual obsession with Appetite for Destruction, lip-syncing with a personified gumball machine a la George Harrison's "(I've Got My Mind) Set on You" video to name a few), one of the least recalled and silliest is our rollerskating around my parents' basement listening to License to Ill. While my mother never DIScouraged me when it came to my intense musical obesession as a child, she did precious little to encourage it; so I didn't really start owning much recorded music (save the 45 of "Jump", "Eat It", and the requisite Thriller LP) until I started buying my own - startng with Run DMC's Raising Hell. Anyhoo, my friend came over and put the casette into my sister's boombox in our pre-finished basement and strapped on our rollerskates for an afternoon of fun. Frankly, the only musical recollection of that day is hearing the actual recording of "Brass Monkey" (I had only heard kids sing it on the playground up to that point) and being transfixed by the backwards kick and snare drum sounds. I tried my best to ignore the Beasties through most of high school as they had been adopted by the nascent indie-rockers and I was still a pretty mainstream kid at that point. At some point in college I found my way back to the group, falling in love with their second LP Paul's Boutique. It was only a month ago that I acquired/re-acquired all of the Beastie Boys albums via MP3 disc from my tacher friend - the same on who gave me the aforementioned Fun House, ZZ Top, etc. MP3 disc.
As per Kanye West: I bought this album during a Princeton Record Exchange spree after only hearing the first two singles and watching some of my students stream the videos for them. It's without question that West is one of the premiere producers in hip-hop, having created the beats for a good deal of Jay-Z's better songs (and a bunch of other people I could mention if I actually did some research). This foray into rhyme, luckily, has been a successful one as well. I quickly took to this disc, much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, but for some heretoforunknown reason abandoned it after about a week. That's one of the shittier side effects of being a member of the itunes universe: getting distracted by having SO many records to listen to that you sometimes don't get the opportunity to invest any REAL time to just one album. Anyhoo, the opening tracks on this disc are not only HI-larious but also really smart and well done. The rest of the disc is choc full o' great samples and fun skits, but it never loses sight of the vaguely serious (yet sarcastic) theme stated within the album's title, The College Dropout. . While his voice isn't captivating like Jay-Z or Tupac's, and his rhymes aren't all rhythmically ambiguous. like Eminem, his concept and syllable play is smart enough to get you throught the whole record. The first track has got some great one-off's i use on my kids at school everyday. Por ejemplo: They ain't got no tuition for those with no ambition and they don't give no loans for sittin' your ass at home. The singles prove to be the best tracks on this one, but the filler is strong enough to get you through.
Beastie Boys, License to Ill
Kanye West, The College Dropout
I have been friends with my current drummer and musical partner in crime for some twenty years now. That's pretty impressive seeing as we are but a mere twenty seven. While I have literally thousands of musical memories that he is part of (finding backwards messages on Tone Loc recrords, being in no less than ten bands together, a mutual obsession with Appetite for Destruction, lip-syncing with a personified gumball machine a la George Harrison's "(I've Got My Mind) Set on You" video to name a few), one of the least recalled and silliest is our rollerskating around my parents' basement listening to License to Ill. While my mother never DIScouraged me when it came to my intense musical obesession as a child, she did precious little to encourage it; so I didn't really start owning much recorded music (save the 45 of "Jump", "Eat It", and the requisite Thriller LP) until I started buying my own - startng with Run DMC's Raising Hell. Anyhoo, my friend came over and put the casette into my sister's boombox in our pre-finished basement and strapped on our rollerskates for an afternoon of fun. Frankly, the only musical recollection of that day is hearing the actual recording of "Brass Monkey" (I had only heard kids sing it on the playground up to that point) and being transfixed by the backwards kick and snare drum sounds. I tried my best to ignore the Beasties through most of high school as they had been adopted by the nascent indie-rockers and I was still a pretty mainstream kid at that point. At some point in college I found my way back to the group, falling in love with their second LP Paul's Boutique. It was only a month ago that I acquired/re-acquired all of the Beastie Boys albums via MP3 disc from my tacher friend - the same on who gave me the aforementioned Fun House, ZZ Top, etc. MP3 disc.
As per Kanye West: I bought this album during a Princeton Record Exchange spree after only hearing the first two singles and watching some of my students stream the videos for them. It's without question that West is one of the premiere producers in hip-hop, having created the beats for a good deal of Jay-Z's better songs (and a bunch of other people I could mention if I actually did some research). This foray into rhyme, luckily, has been a successful one as well. I quickly took to this disc, much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, but for some heretoforunknown reason abandoned it after about a week. That's one of the shittier side effects of being a member of the itunes universe: getting distracted by having SO many records to listen to that you sometimes don't get the opportunity to invest any REAL time to just one album. Anyhoo, the opening tracks on this disc are not only HI-larious but also really smart and well done. The rest of the disc is choc full o' great samples and fun skits, but it never loses sight of the vaguely serious (yet sarcastic) theme stated within the album's title, The College Dropout. . While his voice isn't captivating like Jay-Z or Tupac's, and his rhymes aren't all rhythmically ambiguous. like Eminem, his concept and syllable play is smart enough to get you throught the whole record. The first track has got some great one-off's i use on my kids at school everyday. Por ejemplo: They ain't got no tuition for those with no ambition and they don't give no loans for sittin' your ass at home. The singles prove to be the best tracks on this one, but the filler is strong enough to get you through.
