flake music

count the number of bad gags in my shins review. count the number of bad dog jokes in my iggy screed. count how many capillaries i burst hating interpol in my julian plenti review. lastly, bye bye hero worship for jeremy enigk.

but you're only a boy

Saw the reunited Vaselines last night. Wow.

were there fat people in preshistoric times?

http://www.slate.com/id/2218400/

My beef is that Beam doesn't venture a guess to why people would sculpt "obese," "sexually suggestive" figures when by his estimation, they didn't have any. This is like proving President Lincoln owned a dildo and not spending a word on why President Lincoln would own a dildo.

21st century breakdown

has a dozen near-nadirs up until the almost-good "21 Guns" before ending with "See the Light." skip right to it and sing "You Shook Me All Night Long" over it. The worst thing about 2009 Green Day isn't that they're delusional bigheads with too much money, received politics and string sections on call, because all of that would be tolerable if their hookcraft didn't sink from extraordinary to the laziest, dumbest knockoffs of like what, latter-day Offspring? The songwriting is a far drop from American Idiot (which I'm already not crazy about) but I probably prefer the production here. Crunches harder, harmonies brighter, ambitions are stupider-stupendouser, any good songs and it would've worked. Too bad the inevitable back-to-basics move to follow will be unplugged or something.

liveblogging the new eminem album

"3 am" - lame, unimaginative concept, bad choice for an opener. or a song.

"my mom" is one of the best beats of the year. "3 am" really had me worried.

so's "insane" actually. this keeps up and we have easily the best production of his career, perfectly timed if his lyrics are gonna suck now.

ha, "bagpipes from baghdad" sounds like bagpipes from baghdad. these instrumental hooks alone.

annnnnnnnnnnnnd autotune.

least guests on an eminem album since his debut

maybe he had d12 shot and killed

maybe they did it on their own

have i mentioned how much i like the cover on this? eminem album covers usually blow. curtains and stages and shit we get it already

hey he's telling us what his name is again

new character! "tonya." when i heard a female voice in the rain i got really excited at first because i thought he was gonna find the unlikely new angle for the same thing over again by rapping as kim

these new voices are problematic. and does it count as maturity when he's killing unspecified nobodies minus the absurdist-comedist angle?

oh ha. "we made you" becomes the third eminem first single to improve in album context. loving the jingle bells and pianos and stuff. still haven't laughed since "insane."

one-ups bitch killer ice cube on "medicine ball": "homosexual dissector"

i like the "medicine ball" hook a lot. and the tastefully simple me-against-world i-run-rap braggadocio suits him. maybe he'll become a normal rapper now if he'll lose the stupid "ass like that" accent. why isn't this the opener?

good "paul" skit but i'm sad he didn't mention a gun

took a break to get chinese, accidentally hummed "we made you" the whole way. good sign.

"stay wide awake": someone listened to the red weezer's impression of him!

"old time's sake" is the most alive dre's sounded since...when has dre never not sounded dull? again, nice beat. eminem got fat learning photoshop and music theory for five years. i'm okay with this. more hooks on here should be like "medicine ball" and "we made you" though. nice growl though. i think his voice is returning to normal.

rhymed "dalai lama" and "jeffrey dahma." this serial killer thing might not be his worst idea if he can turn it into a DOOM-style supervillain persona. he'll probably get bored first but good.

weird thing that the first year in years that rap production sounds as expensive as people make it out is in the depths of the recession. maybe they're just being arrogant assholes. rappers.

these skits are mercifully quick, not the album's only advantage over the eminem show.

betting the reviews of this will quote "deja vu"'s "feel like i've been down this road before" in extrapolating their points. so have they.

prediction: "beautiful"'s gonna be huge and herald green day-sized dullness as he takes the cue all the way over the demographic hump to the elder statesman bank

oh hey, i didn't remember "crack a bottle" being this good -- whoops then he came in and ruined the nice little beat with this wordy impossible chorus that no one cares about. still, digging his new affection for bourgie-jazz plinking.

aw steve berman's back. this is overscripted. nice trailer for relapse 2 though.

awww "sometimes people ask me..." with the dramatic music is back! "underground," this is cool! some fitty (not fiddy) beat in a time signature i'm having trouble piecing with a cool choir doing his michael jackson dangerous work. full title is "underground/ken kaniff." i'm excited.

this is easily his sharpest rhyming on the album. a "fantasy" with an "amputee" in each track would've helped the dahmer shtick go down smoother though.

ok i laughed at the kaniff "we made you" callback: "this went over real big in gay.a."

our slumming genius is still entertaining on his worst album, if you care to be entertained. on to green day.

obsessive listmaking

nearly halfway through 09 and enjoying it a lot more with new girlfriend in tow

1. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
2. DOOM - Born Like This
3. Clipse - Re-Up Gang Presents: The Saga Continues
4. Rick Ross - Deeper than Rap
5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You
6. RL/VL - Chagrin
7. Neil Young - Fork in the Road
8. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
9. Burial/Four Tet - Wolf Cub and Moth
10. Wussy - Wussy
11. Living Things - Habeas Corpus
12. Death Cab for Cutie - The Open Door
13. Magik Markers - Balf Quarry
14. Amadou & Mariam - Welcome to Mali
15. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
16. Superdrag - Industry Giants
17. Glasvegas - Glasvegas
18. Art Brut - Art Brut vs. Satan
19. Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come, Easy Go
20. Sonic Youth - The Eternal

1. Animal Collective - "Summertime Clothes"
2. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction"
3. Junior Boys - "Hazel"
4. Basement Jaxx - "Raindrops"
5. Lily Allen - "Not Fair"
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Hysteric"
7. Living Things - "Let It Rain"
8. My Chemical Romance - "Desolation Row"
9. Friendly Foes - "Couch Surfing"
10. Kelly Clarkson - "My Life Would Suck Without You"
11. Death Cab for Cutie - "Little Bribes"
12. Art Brut - "Alcoholics Unanimous"
13. Pet Shop Boys - "Love Etc."

rick ross' deeper than rap

My cynicism failed so I tried this. I don't like event albums by not-great rappers usually, stuff with supposedly expensive, expansive production....The Documentary, Dre 2001, "We Takin' Over." Supposedly these things are carried by their guests and lush beats, but usually they've led to "The Boss" or "The Next Episode," or "How We Do," some of the laziest, most pro forma shit ever to gain notice. It's gotten especially bad in the post-Timbaland dirty south why-fix-808s-that-ain't-broken era. Thank fuck for the new era of autotune and The-Dream's bubbly airiness, an actual style alternative to Broke, finally heralding an album that sounds like the rich guy invested some of his bucks in it. The X-Files synths on "Face," the divebombing guitar fills on "Maybach Music 2" (actually everything on "Maybach Music 2"), the gorgeous and shit-simple hook on "All I Really Want," the attenuation to chord changes and arrangements and Isaac Hayes string-soaked crunch with actual bass and snares and some lived-in dimension to it. One "Maybach" star's own Late Registration sounds a little dinky next to the positively regal closer "In Cold Blood." Ne-Yo's jellied "Bossy Lady" does make me retch a little, but if there's a "Money Make Me Come" or "Hit U From the Back" here it's buried too well to ruin just the thing for a recession that looks to last a bit. This is an unsolicited, beautiful-sounding record by a lucky shithead enjoying himself and why not. The only missing party is Bill Callahan.