Let's Go To The Future, Where Everything's Happening
Happy 2007 everybody. This is a good year to be in, I think. I have high hopes.
Last year, and perhaps even the year before that, I blogged about my favorite albums of the year previous. I've kinda been putting off doing a list for a few weeks now, and I guess it's time I got around to it. So here it is, in no particular order, some of my favorite albums of 2006:
Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
The Thermals - The Body The Blood The Machine
The Lemonheads - Self Titled
Soul Position - Things Go Better With RJ and Al
Lupe Fiasco - Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor
Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards
The Bicycles - The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly
Ratatat - Classics
The Roots - Game Theory
The Rapture - Pieces Of The People We Love
The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime
Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
Hawksly Workman - A Treeful of Starling
Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
There you go. If you haven't heard of some of these albums, simply ask politely and I'd be more than happy to share them with you. In the meantime, I have a favour to ask.
I realize that we have a great musical catalougue of intelligence within the readership of these blogs, of which I need to draw upon now. Naaz is going to be starting up her dance class for small children again, and requires some music. Like most of us, she is saddened at the state of hip-hop today, and wishes to impart something a little more culturally significant than "Sexy Back" to her students. The problem is thus: The music must be appropriate for 10-year olds. This means that even if you are rapping about the evils of prostitution and drug pedalling, it's no good. It has to be 100% clean. Any suggestions to add to the playlist that I'm making for her would be appreciated. Thanks!
16 Comments:
What type of dance will it be? i.e., is she looking for things that have the beat/speed/style of Sexyback, but isn't Sexyback?
M.I.A.? I'll come up with some other stuff for you, but that's all I've got off the top of my head.
You know, the type of speed/beat/style that is conducive to a dance. So long as it isn't too slow as to be boring, I think anything else should be fine.
The first half of Verve ReMixed 3? Jamie Cullum "I Could Have Danced..." is a good tune. And you can't beat the Tower of Power for some old school funk (sans drugs & ho's!). Also some Jamiroquai for Napoleon-inspired choreography.
Maybe I'm the only one to listen to this, but what about Nerdcore Hiphop? MC Frontalot has a bunch of free songs on the d/l that would be fine for kids. Things like "Floating Bridge", "Fresh Dog", "Gonna Be Your Man", "Indier Than Thou" and maybe "I Heart Fags"...or not.
Tolerance is always a worthy lesson. Sensei knows.
Culturally significant AND no questionable content AND a dancable beat? You, sir, are asking for the impossible. At the very best you will still only get 2 out of 3. Here are some songs that aren't by Justin Timberlake that are pretty sweet.
Eric B & Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul" from the album "Paid in Full". It is maybe culturally signifcant beacuse the sampling James Brown is often recognized the song that started the trend of sampling soul songs.
LL Cool J's "I Need Love" from the album "Bigger and Deffer". This was probably the first big rap love song. The beat on this one is a bit slow though.
Run-D.M.C.'s "My Adidas" from "Raising Hell". It represents a time when selling out was totlly awesome and not Nelly's "Air Force One" and singing songs about your shoes was manly as fuck and totally street.
Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way". Marks the first time a popular rock and rap acts would colloborate (this is a remake of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" which was released almost ten earlier) and is the birth of a genre that would become the musical scourge of the last 90's, rapcore. The song is apparently about sex, group sex even, but you might not come to that conclusion on your own and I very much doubt that 10 year olds would.
Mos Def, Diverse & Prefuse 73's "Wylin Out [RJD2 Remix]". Significant because all four of those guys are awesome and pretty much no one knows what "wylin" means.
DJ Format's "3ft Deep [f. Abdonimal and D-Sisive]" because Canadian MCs are usually not so good. This is song from that DDR vid we watched.
Guitar Vader's "I Love Love You [Love Love Super Dimension Mix - Hideki Naganuma]" because it's about love and the thought of a bunch of 10 year old kids dancing to it seems so right. That also how I feel about the Katamari theme.
Chali 2na's "Anchor Man" from Dan the Automator's "2k7" album. It's not significant in any way, but it's Chali and the Automator, how can you go wrong?
Lyrics Born's "I Changed My Mind [Stereo MC's Rattlesnake Mix]". This is just a really good song.
Jin's "I Download" from the album "I Promise". It lets kids know that downloading is illegal and makes artists cry. I'm pretty sure it has the word "shit" in it once though.
Kardinal Offishal's "Sunday" from "Fire and Glory". Reasonalbly good message. Might wanna double-check that though.
And even though it's not hip hop, Plantlife's "Appreciate" is an awesome song.
All of these songs should be double-checked for cussin'. I listen to so much rap that I don't even notice swearing half the time.
Does Bullfrog swear? Didn't they do that song about Reverse Psychology, and in it quite literally spell "Psychology" backwards? Spelling is also another worthy lesson, backwards spelling even more so.
Do you pump that track at psych parties?
Ryan, your list is very appreciated, if not limited in it's usefulness. There's basically cussing on almost every single track you suggested. There are a couple good songs on there though, so they'll totally make the list.
Mike, your suggestion of nerdcore is not terrible, but these kids are only 10: let's give them a fighting chance. They're already in dance class, they have it bad enough.
Hahaha! I had a feeling that might happen. Is it the old school tracks that don't have cussin'? I think that swear words weren't invented until the mid-90's.
And by "Bullfrog", I of course meant Kid Koala. The album is Bullfrog, duh. And no I don't pimp that song at psych parties, people probably think I'm crazy enough as it is, all roaming the halls of UTM at 3am...
Oh! I forgot: The Lovecats by Jamie Cullum & Katie Melua. Awesome. (I don't even like Jamie Cullum that much anymore, why do I keep talking about him?)
Man. Why does all fun music swear? Esthero... Planet Smashers... all sweary. Fuckers.
And I know this might not count as "culturally significant", but Tom Jones + Cardigans' cover of Burning Down the House is very boppy.
Ok I'll shut up now.
Maybe.
Dammit, one more. Eightrack Mind are from freakin' Montana, I don't think that state has discovered swears yet. "Direct Hits" while it sort of talks about war, seems to be entirely swear free. Besides, you can download it for free.
The band is Bullfrog. Kid Koala is the DJ for the band, MC Platypus is the emcee and I guess there are other people too most of the time.
Dammit! Exotic animal-named musicians 1, Cara -1.
I guess you were 2/3 right. You were right the first time with the band name and the album "Reverse Psychology" if from is their self-titled release.
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