listen.

I can talk and talk about how much i despise the state of mainstream hip-hop. The materialist obsession, the lack of innovation and the strive to center the song on a catchphrase are all huge detractors to the genre. I also feel rap has become a business, with all the emphasis on the capitalist potential of the song than the actual song itself. But anybody can catch me off guard when I argue these points when you bring up Lil’ Wayne, because I can’t deny it: Lil’ Wayne is the best mainstream rapping talent. His cadence, his unbelievable mixtapes, and his stance in rap politics are just scratching the surface. Of course, any good producer can make a killer beat but it’s still gonna be a shitty song when the MC is shit too; but, like in the case of this single, a good beat is even better with a great MC. The wonderful thing about Lil’ Wayne is that he feels genuine when he says he’s here for the music, not the money. Of course the money’s nice, but Lil’ Wayne takes the Nas approach to the state of rap — rappers are like pop singers now–it’s all money, not hip-hop for hip-hop’s sake.

Before I start with Lollipop, I’d like to say a few things about the genre first. Three or four years ago, I didn’t think much of Lil’ Wayne. During the heydey of the Cash Money Millionaires, the music overall was pretty silly. The beats were subpar, all but two members (Juvenile and Lil’ Wayne) were pretty much shit, but the same could be said about most of southern rap. Juvenile was probably the real star of Cash Money Millionaires, but to me the music always was immature, kind of like a more gangsta and poorer-funded Ludacris. But as the years went on, the music matured; Juvenile released “Get Ya Hustle On” in 2006 when he left Cash Money and joined Atlantic, and his attack on the (lack of) federal response to Katrina was one of those heart-stopping moments in mainstream rap when the old roots of revolution and protest of hip-hop appeared. Sadly, it faded away just as quickly. Moving the focus to Lil’ Wayne, his first three LPs were frankly pretty weak. He was extremely young at the time of the first three LPs (around the turn of the century) and the production was dominated by Cash Money. Tha Carter I was average, nothing to write home about but a solid album. But Tha Carter II ushered in a mature, new Lil’ Wayne. Production improved, his rapping improved, and the album garnered a lot of praise. But it was after TCII where Lil’ Wayne found himself: enter the mixtapes. 2006 and 2007 were great years for Lil’ Wayne even though he released no official LPs. He proved, especially in Dedication 2, that he has simply the best cadence in mainstream rap today. He isn’t particularly fast, but the way his voice flows through the lyrics is brilliant.  Maybe I’ll speak in detail more about said mixtapes later on.

Enter 2008. The first single from the hugely anticipated Tha Carter III, “Lollipop” came out in Feburary.  It’s a rather dramatic departure from Lil’ Wayne’s usual output, shying from, well, rapping. This is both a curse and a blessing; it’s a curse in the way that Weezy, well, can’t really sing. He kind of talks, teetering between rap and sing-song. But at the same time, it gives Weezy a chance to lay back and let the beat and the production take over — given the repetition of lyrics, Weezy’s lyrics almost feel like a facet of the beat. “Lollipop” is also a breath of fresh air because it’s a chance for him to try his hand at a slow song, and it works remarkably well.

First off, the lyrics. There’s not much subtlety here when it comes to mood development; Lyrics like “I get on her on top, she drop it like it’s hot / And when i’m at the bottom, she hit me red bottom / The middle of the bed, give and gettin head, give and gettin head, give and gettin head” don’t hide what Weezy’s trying to get at, but it’s excusable to avoid subtle literacy in your lyrics when the real center of the song is the beat. Vocals switch between Weezy and the late Static Major, who simply has a better vocal for a song like this. Weezy’s vocals are mostly consumed by heavy use of Auto-Tune, which in Weezy’s case gives an alien vocoder sound than it does hide the fact that he’s off pitch. Static Major, however, sings clean of the pitch modification and the contrast actually gives the song a lot of texture.

Where this song shines, however, is the beat. Like many rap songs now, the beat is dominated by the classic, timeless sounds of the TR-808. For a good chunk of the track the bassline is a modulated 808 sine wave, which sounds fantastic under the simple synthesizer beeps that producers Deezle and Jim Jonsin use as a substitute for 808 hi-hat and snare. During the breakdown and the bridge, the sine wave is replaced by classic 808 kicks which are less interesting but, when combined with the Auto-Tune’d vocals, sounds pretty damn good. The sine wave is sadly underused in pop music; one of the best things about “Umbrella” is actually its loud, overdriven sine wave (it almost sounds like a low square wave combined with pink noise) baseline during the chorus. Most rappers tend towards the kicks which often work, but 808 kicks are way too overused for baselines. The glitchy female vocals, which are almost indecipherable given the collage-like nature of the production, add a nice sound to the quieter moments when Weezy travels outside of the chorus.

Overall, the song gives a nice little peak at what Lil’ Wayne is moving towards to for his official releases. The mixtapes, of course, reveal a lot about his evolution as an MC, but “Lollipop” adds a little bit of variety to what’s usually a non-stop barrage of rhymes.

To begin what could be a habitual center for my thoughts on the state of music (on an album to album basis of course), I’d like to clear a few things, at least for my own guidance in developing this blog. Although my interests mainly fall into the extreme side, I won’t hesitate to write on an album that falls into gentler or even mainstream territory: I have no doubt there will be something here the moment Lil’ Wayne’s new album leaks. But I know that I like my comfort zone, namely metal, drone/noise and hardcore, and it’s likely I will focus a lot on these genres. But the latest in general rock, or even sometimes electronic and hip-hop, won’t go under the radar. Anyhow, as the first post of hopefully many, I feel that it’d be a good idea to start off with a classic.

Ah, the glorious Napalm Death. Founded in what is essentially middle-of-fucking-nowhere England, this band founded in 1982 by Nicholas Bullen and Miles Ratledge (neither of which are in the band any longer, might I add) took everything we learned from the British punk and New Wave of British Heavy Metal movements and, well, shit on all of it. The band has been through countless many members throughout its existence, from Mick Harris (who later did some fantastic work with avant-garde jazz legend John Zorn and Bill Laswell under the guise of Painkiller) and Justin Broadrick of Godflesh and Jesu fame. They sound almost nothing like they did back in ‘82, when they were essentially an angry punk band, while now their sound is a fusion of death metal and grindcore. Even though I am a big Napalm Death fan, I have to say their overall discography is extremely inconsistent; some albums are absolute classics (Scum, From Enslavement to Obliteration) to utter crap (Harmony Corruption). But as the title implies, I’d like to focus on a single album in particular, specifically the one I consider to be not only their best but also one of the best albums ever: Scum.

Released in 1987, Scum was not only the full-length debut of Napalm Death to the world, but probably the debut of the nihilistic grindcore genre that they almost singlehandedly created (some might say Carcass was also instrumental in this, as well). Those who found The Clash, or Wire, or even Iron Maiden to be the epitome of anger in the English middle class during the 1980s will find themselves probably turned off by Napalm’s complete lack of production, the non-stop pummeling of Broadrick’s guitar and Harris’s drums, and the blunt lyrics that include such lines as “Paid to obey / Forced to be silent / Human garbage / to be destroyed.” In fact, it’s not hard to see Napalm Death in the same way one would view Black Flag, in the way that Napalm has no pretensions about how they express their bitter anger towards society. But there is a fundamental difference between the two bands; Black Flag, as angry towards the Reaganite lifestyle they were, had no problem with having a little fun, alcohol-driven or not. Napalm Death, on the other hand, doesn’t even stop to reflect on such delusions of grandeur. In fact,only one song on Scum reaches 3 minutes, “Siege of Power,” which turns out to be a rare occasion for Broadrick to loosen up and have a guitar solo. Otherwise, Napalm pummels through song after song with driving guitar riffs that even the most avid 80s hardcore fan would find discordant and Harris’ machine gun drumming that often descends into a chaotic but glorious blastbeat. In fact, little trivia — Scum’s 12th song, “You Suffer,” has the world record for the shortest song ever recorded. Go figure.

 While the album is 28 tracks, it only takes little more than 30 minutes for Napalm Death to make their point. When listening to grind, traditional metal fans often find themselves alienated by the anger-fueled ADHD combo of extremely distorted guitar, cymbal overload and the growls of most grind vocalists, but “Scum” seems to be the exception to this. This is due to something Napalm Death had that’s rare in many grind bands: they’re entertaining. Modern grind like Nasum or Discordance Axis try hard to push the limits and, for many listeners including me, this is a good thing. But often I will even admit that such bands are like coffee — you’re gonna hate it first time off no matter what (I certainly did). But it’s not hard to see that Napalm Death has a unique sense of talent, with their mishmash of the speed of Motörhead, the brutality of bands like Morbid Angel, and the social message of Black Flag (albeit filtered through angry nihilism), there’s something for every metal fan here. In fact, when I first heard Scum in 7th grade,  I was at the stage where Rancid and Bad Religion were kings to me; but I loved Scum immediately, as I did that same year for Slayer’s “Reign in Blood”in the same way — i.e. one of stunned shock at how extreme it was but also how liberating it was to know somebody in the world pushed this far. But unlike Rancid, this album and this band stayed with me, even through the times that the only bands i listened to were Sonic Youth and Pavement.

To conclude, it’s been 8 years since I first heard this album, and my respect has grown for it more. 8 years ago I certainly wasn’t listening to or tolerating what I tolerate and listen to now (then I thought Cannibal Corpse was pushing it — now i find Cannibal Corpse to be humorous background music for gaming sessions), but Scum has yet always had a staying power in my music library that few albums have ever obtained. A true classic.