As all you lovers probably already know, Where the Wild Things Are opened yesterday. It’s a lot like a waking dream. And seeing it inspired me to share my favorite video work by Spike Jonze:
Weezer – Buddy Holly
Jonze did a lot of work with Weezer which I think is all good and this is just the one I like the best. Dig the washed out graininess, the old preppy look, the random Fonzie appearence, the bewildered Asian man. Check out the videos for Island in the Sun (elastic shininess happy times) and Sweater Song too.
Praise You – Fatboy Slim
Before YouTube and before Napoleon Dynamite Jonze perfectly captures the weirdness of dancing weird people.
Electrobank – Chemical Brothers
I love how this video is graceful and dirty at the same time. It’s also the best story I’ve seen told in a music video.
Da Funk – Daft Punk
Out of everything I had read, seen, or heard about New York City before I moved here, this is what I thought my life would be like most. A true lover just doesn’t ditch the boombox. (And it works out for the better)
Drop – The Pharcyde
Everything about this video is dope. The backwards effect gives it that surreal touch which Jonze likes to drop right into the real world. I mean, how do you even rap backwards? I don't know what else to say...it's just so dope.
The 1 is a gray snake of asphalt that lies right up against the coast of the Pacific, all the way up and down the entire span of California. For drivers, its never the most practical choice, but neither is California generally; driving with your windows down is required by law. The air is cold and fresh, brisk I guess, and a bit salty. The sun hangs pinned to a blue wall sky in your side mirror. On bad days or in the morning, there is fog that rolls over the roads, obscuring notoriously rocky terrain and sudden sharp turns. For this reason it's important not to light a bowl until after the most dangerous curves have been navigated safely, at which point it is by all means recommended to smoke, and is in fact required by law in some counties and state national parks. Eventually you reach Big Sur, the approximate center of the coastline, a towering forest of redwoods with cliff side views of the sea in the gaps between trees. Various artists have spent long months there lodged in isolation, seeking to capture its elusive essence in words and songs. Various other people just take pictures on their cell phones. And it goes on, and on, the road. One of those roads that’ll take you as far away and back again as long as you eventually remember to turn...
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BEACH HOUSE
Oh, to be young, carefree, maybe even a bit lost. You know, those days of happily laying in bed even as daylight fades away. Maybe you are right now, as you read this. But if not, perhaps Ceci G can remind you. Her new EP, The Sleep, sounds like the morning after. The good kind.
Ceci G is a 19 year old singer-songwriter in New York City in Tisch's Recorded Music program at NYU. She's an emerging artist without a large following yet, but if this EP is any indication she will have one soon. The Sleep’s superb mix of acoustic and electronic instrumentation pad her sweet, Feisty voice. Her songs sound kinda like a nice rainy day in the city. Then again, I might still be dreaming. How about you start off your day right – whatever time that might be - and just give it a listen?
The Sleep EP, released last Saturday, is currently avaliable on iTunes.
Honestly, I didn’t expect anything this fresh from Kid CuDi. Personal expectations for his debut Man On The Moon: The End Of Day were low. I wrote him off as just another blog fad, riding the electro wave to its crash with the Crookers remix of megahit ‘Day N Nite’, and overshadowed by a star-studded guest list and production on ‘Make Her Say’ without proving anything about his own artistic merit – of which I believed he had none. His flow was too awkward, too much of a pale imitation of his producer and mentor, Kanye West (and we all know by now the world only needs one Kanye West). But after giving the album a solid listen and more, the music has spoken and I’ve had a change of heart: CuDi is for real.
But before we begin, a preface. People who know me know I’m a sucker for this intangible musical quality which I like to call sincerity. What I mean by that is the music isn’t just a critic or fan pleaser but it’s clear that what the artist wanted most was to make a recording that actually carries some vestige of meaningful personal depth. A truly excellent work sounds like putting a stethoscope up to the heart and mind of its creator. Anyone who has ever labored over something that personal knows the vulnerability of putting whatever it is ‘out there.’
Well, for someone who already has two hugely popular songs with massive radio play, CuDi has put an album out there that is raw, expressing throughout his own deepest fears, especially his lifelong vulnerability to failure and loneliness. And he’s done so in an original way. First, there’s the track list. The album is split into five acts, each act transitioning with spoken word narrations by Common. They form a vague narrative about his childhood as a loner to his present-day search for identity and pressure to be great. The precise meaning of it all will be better left resolved amongst stoner circles and blunts in the coming months. Which is probably how CuDi would want it anyways, considering how often the dude raps about weed, but it’s exactly that kind of honesty about his own life I’ve come to love about the guy.
But how does it sound? Most who have been following his meteoric rise since his mixtape A Kid Named CuDi dropped last year saw it is only logical to think that Man on the Moon would be CuDi’s College Dropout. But the album is more 808s and Heartbreaks than College Dropout, a genre-bending release that exists in that musically ambiguous gray area between hip hop, R&B, pop, and electronica. Instead of taking the easy way out and depending too heavily on Kanye and his label G.O.O.D. Music’s high profile connections, CuDi shows a commitment to originality by keeping the production fresh and the guest stars low. The best beats are by little known beatsmiths Emile ('Soundtrack'), Plain Pat (‘Simple As’), Dot Da Genius ('Day N Nite'), and two particular phatties by Ratatat (‘Pursuit of Happiness’, ‘Alive’). Together, the album has a consistent ambient, downtempo, spacey feel that complement CuDi’s flow and persona perfectly.
But for all its freshness and innovation, I would hardly call the album a masterpiece. Fifteen tracks seems too long, with the album dipping in quality after the first act before picking up again six tracks later in the fourth, which is easily the best. But for all its ambition, CuDi deserves some recognition, if not a second or third listen. The way the album is put together means it’s quality is definitely enhanced by listening to it all the way through, from beginning to end. That way, even the worst, most awkward songs sound better in context.
If anything at all, the album has four or five standout tracks that make it at the very least more than worthwhile to check out. To name a few: ‘Soundtrack 2 My Life’ (CuDi at his rawest and with the best opening lines of a hip hop song I’ve heard since, well, I first heard 99 Problems), 'Pursuit of Happiness' (the third single and an amazing collaboration – Ratatat owns the beat as CuDi rap-sings with backup vocals by MGMT, followed by a signature electrorock solo), and ‘Up Up & Away (The Wake and Bake Song)’, which is a hybrid of rap and rock that I’ve never heard pulled off fantastically, but I give CuDi mad respect for making it sound more than decent. Then there’s the good stuff you’ve already heard, ‘Day N Nite’ (which I am just recently being able to tolerate again after massive overkill) and ‘Make Her Say’ (tl only big name collaboration).
All in all, while it’s not on the same level of game-changing debut that College Dropout was, Man on the Moon is definetely one of the most original and exciting new sounds of this year. It is definitely a promising start to CuDi’s career as a rapper, a career that is about to take off and take CuDi off his lonely moon and into the spotlight.
· +love · like · lo/ve
“New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems.”
CYHSY - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
"Far, far away from West Virginia
I- will try on New York City
Explaining that the sky holds you in
The sun rushes in and a child
With a shotgun can shoot down the honeybees that sting
But this boy could use a little sting! Alright!" [full lyrics]
CYHSY - Is This Love?
"Shout just let it on out
Confusion becomes philosphy
Down we're reaching the town where we dont have to stand around and look over our shoulders
Hell i never knew was what we made it
Lets just take it slow in this home on ice" [full lyrics]
CYHSY - Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
"A clean shave in the morning
And a full beard with no warning
Time has gotten by on alibis and wine" [full lyrics]
Lovers and gentlemen, the end of July is upon us. But even as the dark storm clouds of responsibility and academia gather on the horizon, the sun's rays still continue to sow the seeds of music, love, peace and weed in the hearts of the young and the young at heart. And a great chill came across the land, and the dry morning eyes of the stoner looked out his window 'pon the golden hills of his youth and saw that, still, all was good.- Book of Genesis; 3:24 (Justice Remix)
electrelane - the greater times
