I’ve got this mix I put together about five years ago which I creatively titled “Life Altering Songs,” comprised of completely random songs that just so happened to be on heavy rotation in my CD player (remember those?) when I was going through some sort of relevant rite of passage in my life.
For example, “On Bended Knee” by Boyz II Men is on the list because that’s the song I danced to with my first big crush at a junior high dance. “Blue on Black” by Kenny Wayne Shepherd burned all summer long in the months immediately following my high school graduation. And “I Just Wanna Be Loved” by AM Radio hit me as I began my student teaching experience and fell out of love with a college girlfriend.
There’s a lot of emotional reminiscence wrapped up in that song, folks, but it wouldn’t mean half as much if the song itself wasn’t absolutely perfect musically. It simultaneously reminds me of something from the 1960s and the 1990s, despite the fact that AM Radio’s album “Radioactive” was recorded in 2003. It rocks, but it’s under control. The hook hits with a melody that turned into earworms more times than I can count. It’s one of the few times in my life that I’ve been able to put a song on repeat and just let it run.
I seriously love the song.
The rest of the album is solid, too. It’s early millennium pop-rock, like something in between Hoobastank and the Juliana Theory, and every song on the record has legitimate toe-tapping potential. Highlighted by “Hush,” “This is the End of the World,” and “Becoming You,” the album is definitely worthy of some extended play on an iPod. Or CD player, if you do, in fact, remember those.
Trimmed down to two members and experimenting with a new musical style with 2009’s “Bigger Better Bolder Brighter,” but it’s “Radioactive” that holds such a special place in my heart and my memories. Maybe if my dog dies or something while I’m listening to the new record I’ll find a way to get it into regular rotation, but for now “I Just Wanna Be Loved” will remain my favorite AM Radio song.
Seattle has churned out some great stuff over the years. Great coffee, what was the SuperSonics, that super-sweet Needle thing, a baseball team that brought Ken Griffey Jr. to super-stardom and, in-turn, created one of the best baseball video games of all time. The list goes on. And at the top of that list, is Band of Horses.
This relatively new rock group, first formed in 2004, created a total of three award-winning albums. I’m not actually certain they were “award-winning” in the literal sense of the term, but you get the point. Plus, you know they’re pretty big if they have the “Starbucks iTunes Pick of the Week”. Yeah, they’re kind of a big deal.
Their most recent album, Infinite Arms, released in May 2010 is a great mix of their signature melodic rock sound. Their style has hints of Silversun Pickups, The Shins and The Strokes but remember: it’s only hints. Band of Horses have a style all their own and it would be insulting to insinuate otherwise. You got a lot of nerve.
These guys make the rounds all over the world, but if you get the chance to check them out on tour, they have a few U.S. dates already planned for this summer. I hear they put on a great show, plus there might be horses there. Who knows.
Overall, if you’re looking for a great album to chill to this summer, pick up anything by Band of Horses. And if you’re not looking for a great album to chill to this summer, pick up anything by Justin Bieber.
Check out the old school video for their first single “The Funeral” from their first album Everything All the Time:
Buy Infinite Arms:
I remember when Joss Stone first came out when I was in college and I was like, “What??!! This girl can sing!” And then I was all “Oh snap!” and “Get out!” After I ran out of exciting things to say, I grew to love her style of old school soul with new school R&B. After this initial introduction into the newer, younger soul with hints of throwback, I started getting into other artists with similar styles (because after all, you can never have too much soul.) Little did I know there was someone born a mere four years before Stone that would release an album a mere two years after her debut release that would match Stone’s powerful vocals and soul.
Leela James was born in 1983 (four years before Joss Stone) in Los Angeles, California making her an astonishing 26 years old – after you listen to her newest album My Soul you will know why this fact is astonishing. Her vintage style makes her music appealing to multiple audiences. Songs like “Let It Roll” and “I Ain’t New To This” will get your booty shaking guaranteed.
If you like Joss Stone, you’ll love Leela James. Check out the video for her single “Tell Me You Love Me”:
Buy the album:
Check out Laura Izibor!
Jimmy Needham – “Firefly”
I don’t care what anybody says about spring being the season of love. To me, it’s always been the summer. It’s lighter longer, the weather is gorgeous every day, the pools and beaches are open, and there are cookouts and fireworks and vacations. Everything is ripe for tummy butterflies and young love, and this Jimmy Needham song that just so happens to share a title with another summer staple is sheer happiness. And I’m giving it to you just in time for June. You’re welcome. Now go fall in love with somebody and have yourself a picnic.
Ashlyne Huff – “Heart of Gold”
This is a song you could, and should, dance to. In fact, Huff is originally a dancer, and in the video she puts on an impressive display of juking and jiving. Beyond that, the song’s hook is catchy, the beat is hot, and the singer is more than a little attractive. This video is pretty much rolling on all cylinders.
Game – “Shake” (Travis Barker Remix)
We know that Game (Formerly THE Game of G-Unit Fame) isn’t exactly a new name that we’re putting out there, but the Travis Barker remix of his song “Shake” is one of the head-bobbingest hip-hop tracks we’ve heard in a while. The normal version of the song is hot, too, but Barker’s extra layer of drums that kick in about a third of the way on the remix add a whole layer of dope to this musical soufflé.
I think I’ve read the word “nerdcore” in association with MC Paul Barman’s style of hip-hop like six or seven times while reading up about the guy.
And I get it. He’s a white rapper with curly, floppy locks and glasses. His delivery isn’t urban at all; unlike someone like Eminem or Bubba Sparxxx, when you listen to MCPB it’s pretty clear you’re listening to a white guy. The guy attended an Ivy League school, so he doesn’t even pretend to be a thug.
In short (if it’s not already too late for that), he’s not what you’d call a typical hip-hop artist.
If we’re going with “nerdcore,” though, I think it’s necessary to point out that nerds are characteristically very smart, and as a result, Barman is lyrically one of the best there is.
“That stuff is supposed to be totally, totally fun,” Barman said in a recent interview with Fresh Scouts. “It’s supposed to work on its first listen, and I also try to make every line quotable. It’s not supposed to be so complicated that you can’t quote it. On the contrary, something I strive for is to make every line inevitably to follow the previous, and simultaneously be applicable to everyday things out of context.”
If you listened to some of his songs, you’d know exactly what he means. He’s the king of the multi-syllabic rhyme, and we’re not just talking about two-syllable words here. I’ve heard this guy do six or seven at a time on more than one occasion. For example:
“Smirkin’ jocks with hacky sacks
“In Birkenstocks and khaki slacks.
“I’m the hypist lyricist
“While they’re like, ‘What type of beer is this?’”
See what I’m sayin’?
That particular song, “Get MTV Off the Air, Part 2,” is ten years old, and while it still holds up after all this time, a lot has changed since then.
“I toured a lot and then I didn’t tour anymore,” Barman said about his seven-year hiatus between 2002’s “Paullelujah” and 2009’s “Thought Balloon Mushroom Cloud,” which has been very critically acclaimed.
“I recorded in Cincinnati and then all over the place,” he continued. “I became a dad twice. New York fell apart, the music industry fell apart, and then the world fell apart.”
But Barman’s music never did. Despite having to take a break from hip-hop for a few years to raise his sons, he found himself back in the game a few years ago after meeting up with DJ Memory Man, who helped get the ball rolling again.
“He started working with me on this one 12-inch—a brilliant 12-inch called ‘Live from Death Row,’” Barman explained. “I started just by doing a verse for him, then I helped him conceptualize a song. Then, we started talking about how the B Side should reflect the A Side, and then we kept working together. Then, he demanded to hear everything that I’d been working on, and then he helped me put it all together and make some new songs.”
Nine of those new songs appear on the new album, in which DJ Memory Man played a huge role. Barman also brought back his old pal Prince Paul, who discovered Barman sometime around the Turn of the Century, to produce a couple tracks as well. Even the great ?uestlove of The Roots helped lay down a beat for the record.
In fact, Barman hinted that more work could be in the hopper soon with hip-hop’s favorite afroed drummer, and it comes in the form of what MCPB calls “creative biographies,” or bio-rhymes. Inspired by Nas’s “Unauthorized Biography of Rakim,” he put together two similar tracks of his own for Wu-Tang’s RZA and, of all people, Weird Al Yankovic.
“What’s so revolutionary about Nas’s song is that it’s an homage to someone still alive, which doesn’t happen in any genre in history nearly enough,” Barman explained. “I’m giving props to a living artist… it’s about a person, which people relate to and are interested and entertained by.
“The challenge is not so much really rhyming about information, which I’ve trained myself to do over these many years, as much as telling biographies differently from one another,” he continued. “I can’t just start with birth and end with death, partly because so many of these guys are still living. Structurally, it might get boring in a linear chronology, and that might not be the best way to present someone’s biography anyway.”
And that’s what comes next for Barman—taking this intriguing new idea and running with it. On deck are bio-rhymes for Little Richard, Chuck D, and a host of others Barman has been thinking about. But at the heart of it all, there will be a commitment to lyrical creativity, to poetry, to hip-hop.
Call him “nerdcore” if you must, but the stuff he writes is funny and intelligent and thoughtful. How many rappers currently on Top 40 radio stations right now can have the same said about them?
“In the song that Ludacris sampled from Rakim, where he says, ‘Emceeing to me means move the crowd,’ I was listening to that song and suddenly I realized, as obvious as it might seem, you can move a crowd physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally,” Barman said.
“There have been times where I can and do move crowds physically, but I’m trying to go all the way until I break through, and go further.”
He’s been breaking through for over a decade now, and “Thought Balloon Mushroom Cloud” could be the vehicle that drives him straight into the hearts of the masses. The problem is that some record executive somewhere doesn’t think the world is ready for MC Paul Barman yet. I’m saying that you are read, and Barman would like to tell you, too.
Check out “Thought Balloon Mushroom Cloud” in full at MC Paul Barman’s website, or buy the album at his store.
Check out “Get MTV Off the Air, Part 2″:
And one of my favorite tracks from the new album, “Allahu Akbar”:
