Music Discovery #2

"I thought Eminem killed all the boy bands off"

Alright, so, after having made it through Disco64's "The First Estate" I've had a little difficulty getting a hold of a new album that I really want to review.  I've tried to go back and listen to some older albums such as T.I.'s "Paper Trail" and Porcupine Tree's "Fear of a Blank Planet," both of which are great albums, but they're not really anything I want to talk about.  Plus, I do like to try to keep my reviews fairly fresh, so I'd like to do something more up to date.  With that being said, I think its time I do my second issue of "Music Discovery."

As with the last entry, I'll start with bad music.  If you remember from my last post, I mentioned having found an Korean boy band (at least that's what I thought at the time) thanks to a friend of mine on Facebook.  This artist goes by Taeyang and evidently started out as a hip-hop artist.  Now, seeing as how I don't speak any sort of foreign language very well, let along an oriental one, I can't really comment on his flow or his rhyming because I have no idea what he's saying.  However, there are some things he says in English, and these things I can analyze.  The song I chose from Taeyang is called "Where U At," which consists mainly of him singing in what I assume is Korean and saying in English "Where U At" come the chorus.  Now, its not his talent that I think is bad; he has a fairly good voice and a decent range.  However, what I do think is bad is that I feel like he should have exhisted in the boy band era.  He looks and acts very similarly to a contemporary N'Sync or Backstreet Boys, except without the boy band part because evidently he flies solo.  I don't know if this is where his country's pop culture is at or if he's just behind in the times compared to America's time line, but either way, he gets the same sort of disgust I showed N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys when they existed.  Taeyang is way over the top: he's decked out in a flat rimmed hat cocked to the side, all sorts of bling, and designer clothes.  However, that's not the worst part about it.  While rocking this soft boy band persona, around 1:50 into the music video we see him for how he really is: a bad ass wearing all leather, leaning up against his motorcycle, tossing up a delicious red fruit and/or ball; Oh, and what's under the hat?  A mohawk.  Yeah, that just happened.  This seemingly contradictory persona really makes me cringe.  One second he's the soft, sensitive guy: singing, dancing, and picking flowers;  the next minute he's decked out in leather with a mohawk making sure he gets his four daily servings of fruit.  Now, this double persona doesn't just happen in this video, but it seems to happen in all of them.  There might be two entirely different people, but I'm pretty sure there aren't seeing as how Taeyang is one person and there aren't any featuring artists.  As far as I'm concerned, he's the perfect contradiction of sweet and fluffy, bad ass and healthy, I mean... leather?

Now, more importantly, let's talk about the good music I stumbled upon: Jesca Hoop.  Now, while her name only makes me think of Brian Regan ("Hi, Jes...sica?" "Its Jesca, Bryan.  Jes-CA"), she seems to have a fair amount of talent musically.  Her most recent album release, "Hunting My Dress," received an average Metacritic score of 78 and is one of the highest rated albums for the month of July, 2010.  Unfortunately, I'm not really sure I would enjoy her whole album, so I won't be getting it, but one song in particular of hers really blew me away.  I took a listen to her song "The Kingdom" just to see what she was like.  She seems like your typical girl who has a pretty good, somewhat unique voice and can play the guitar.  As I was about to close out of the YouTube video, I couldn't help but notice the song had taken a bit of a turn; just before I clicked the "X" the song picked up, transitioning from soft singing and gentle guitar plucking to some sliding guitar licks and heavy, almost tribe like drumming.  This, to say the least, peaked my interest in the song.  Not only does she have a beautiful voice, but she seems to have some creativity lyrically that really creates an interesting picture.  On top of that, the music video is really intense, transitioning back and forth between several different characters, each of which Hoop plays.  This video is something you really have to take a look at for yourself to experience.  It has a sort of fervor and really possesses a different feel, more so than any other solo female vocalist I've listened to in her genre, save for Regina Spektor's early work.  If you like her, definitely give her album a listen,  its gotten pretty positive reviews.  I may reconsider listening to her, but we'll see.

As far as up and coming releases, there aren't a whole lot of things I'm looking forward to, which is unfortunate seeing as how I'm currently in a music drought.  However, some things are coming up that have some potential.  Arcade Fire is expecting to release their new album, "The Suburbs," some time next week and Gov't Mule is releasing a live album, "Mulennium," as well;  T.I. is also releasing a new album, "King Uncaged," on the week of August 15th.  The one thing that I am really anticipating is N.E.R.D.'s release of "Nothing," which will happen some time during the week of September 5th (check out their single, "Hot N' Fun"), as well as Eels new album "Tomorrow Morning," which is being released some time during the week of August 22nd.  So, now that I've told you, what sort of music have you stumbled upon?  Also, if you have a music suggestion for me, please toss it out there.  At this point, I'm definitely up for suggestions.

Music Discovery #1

Music: Some good, some bang-your-head-against-the-wall worthy
Since its a little difficult to find, listen to, and review more than about two or three albums a week, I thought I would start something new, but still music related, similar to my "Guilty Pleasures" posts.  This time, however, I thought I would write a bit about music I have recently stumbled upon. 


First off, I'd like to start out with the bad music I've found.  While I was writing my Miley Cyrus post and watching her music video on YouTube, I read a comment that said something along the lines of "Young girls can't look up to Cyrus anymore, blah blah blah, she better watch out for Cymphonique."  Now, after reading the name "Cymphonique," I thought to myself, "Maybe this is some sort of up and coming, young, R&B singer."  Well, I was pretty wrong.  After searching YouTube for "Cymphonique," this is what I found: "Lil Miss Swaggar."  At first, I thought it had to be a joke or at least some sort of Kidz Bop thing.  Unfortunately, this is serious.  I thought I had found the epitome of child extortion, but thankfully, she's related to a rapper or two.  For anyone who hasn't heard of Lil' Romeo, you're better off, he's terrible.  He was like a worse version of Lil' Bow Wow, ehem, excuse me, Bow Wow (fun fact: Bow Wow started getting upset at people for calling him "Lil'").  Lil' Romeo and Cymphonique are the children of Master P who has done little to nothing significant outside of the song "Oohhhwee," a song that's only redeeming quality is.... well, its sort of funny.  Oh, he was on Cribs too.  Anyway, if you couldn't tell, Cynmphonique's "Lil Miss Swaggar" is pretty catchy, but nevertheless, she scares me and needs to go away.  She's almost as bad as Bieber... almost...  I have one more bad thing I stumbled upon, but I'll save that for a later post (Hint: Asian pop song).

Next, I'd like to talk about something I found that was surprisingly good: J. Cole's "Who Dat."  I came across this song because I was listening to something on YouTube in the morning and he came on immediately after by mistake.  J. Cole's video, as far as I can tell, was taken in one shot and includes a mob of people follow him, a marching band, and lots of stuff exploding as he shouts "Who dat?  Who dat?  Bitch I got that flame! So don't worry 'bout my mother fuckin' name!"  J. Cole has some pretty impressive flow and has great personality and inflection on top of that.  His voice sounds good, a little similar to Kanye West, but has a certain rhaspy quality to it that really makes him stand out.  He also has lines that really make you go "Woah!" or, my favorite, "OOOOOOOOOOH SNAP!"  Among these lines are: "Clown told me, 'Ain't you rock, where the fuck your chain at?'/ Guess its something like your girl, nigger, it ain't came yet" and "Boy I'm picture perfect baby, you can check the Kodak/ Hey! So anything you can do, I can do better/ And any chick you can screw, I can get wetter."  All I can say is that I would absolutely love to see this guy throw down in a rap battle.  I may be mistaken, but at some point I can distinctively hear a clip of Andre 3000, and all I can say is that if Andre 3000 is backing this guy, I can too (it would make sense seeing as how Big Boi recently backed Janelle Monae with great success).  I am now eagerly anticipating the release of his new album, which should drop some time later this year.

As a finishing point I'd just like to mention a few things happening as far as releases go in the music world.  Big Boi, half of the Outkast duo, is coming out with his solo album "Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty."  Kylie Minogue is also expected to have a release coming out this week, although I'm less excited about that one.  3Oh!3 came out with their newest album "Streets of Gold" which, unfortunately, has received underwhelming reviews averaging a 47.  Lil Jon also came out with his newest album, "Crunk Rock," averaging a 59, just shy of overall positive reviews.  I may just have to give that a listen, for a laugh if not for anything else.  As for me, right now, I'm listening to the new Roots album "How I Got Over" and The Decemberists' "Hazards of Love."  Hope you enjoyed this new segment, and hopefully I'll be able to keep it going in the future.  What music have you stumbled upon?