Music [3]

Bluebottle wrote:This is pretty cool. (From a fjordlandian artist, no less.)

This video is for the little boy who couldn't find the conqueror in himself.
The conqueror is within you.

There's something very true about that too, I think. Aren't we all looking to be swept off our feet?

I liked that
Being swept off your feet is a momentary luxury of Romance. Them that find it have been blessed......

A luxury? Well, definitely not one I can afford then.

This is pretty cool.

I've never listened through the whole of To pimp a butterfly before this bus trip. It really is a stunning album. Record of the year? Record of the decade.

I think production alone still puts GKMC above it for me, but that might just because I've listened to that album more. TPAB's more experimental style might just need more time to grow on me.

Been on a big Metallica kick recently, for the first time in years. I recalled my favorite album of theirs being ...And Justice for All, but now I'm going back between that and Master of Puppets. Currently I feel that the latter is more consistent, but the former has higher highs. I might feel differently later, though. Both are phenomenal, of course.

(In case we have any Metallica hipsters on here, I like Ride the Lightning almost as much as the above two. Kill 'Em All is great as well, but I wouldn't consider it to be in the running for my favorite. Same deal with The Black Album. Have barely listened to any of their later stuff, but what little I have (plus what I've heard from other people) doesn't really inspire me to want to spend more time on it.)

Eldorion wrote:I think production alone still puts GKMC above it for me, but that might just because I've listened to that album more.  TPAB's more experimental style might just need more time to grow on me.

Oddly enough, that's just the reason I'd highlight To Pimp a Butterfly. But I haven't actually listened to that one, so I'll withhold judgement. I'll say like Kendrick himself though, butterfly was how he wanted to do his first album, but he wasn't confident enough. And that's what sells it to me, it stands out as an amazing piece of music, not just an amazing rap album.

Having gotten curious and sampled both albums on itunes, I think the earlier album sounds like most of what I don't like about rap bundled into a slick package. I prefer the more human and freer sound of To Pimp a Butterfly.

Note that Kendrick admitted he didn't want to do the work (I assume dancing) to become as big as Michael Jackson.

No no no, he didn't want the accolades without feeling he had done work of the same quality and societal impact. (Nothing to do with dancing.)

I definitely have respect for Kendrick for pushing musical boundaries and doing things that are stylistically outside of the mainstream. And I do quite like TPAB too.

No no no, he didn't want the accolades without feeling he had done work of the same quality and societal impact. (Nothing to do with dancing.)

He knew he meant dancing: he used the word 'never'; not time/accumulation dependent.  Michael wouldn't have had half the impact without revolutionizing dance as pop art. Even Elvis would have been greatly diminished without his physicality.  Kendrick clearly doesn't want to go there.

You're wrong, I'm sorry. He starts the whole segment of the conversation by talking about his respect for Michael Jackson, and he has talked about it elsewhere. Kendrick talks a how he "would not want to go past" his number of Grammy nominations", "I can't fathom being as great as Michael without putting out the work." There's nothing there about dancing. It's about number of grammy nominations and about music. I'm sorry. He was probably a great dancer too.

Full disclaimer: "i", the song whose music video is being parodied there, is my favorite song off TPAB (and a great video to boot).

I posted that on the last page. (Agreed. (Although the album version is, let's say, different. ))

Eldorion wrote:

May I rest my case?

I'd claim a large part of his respect for Michael Jackson was the dancing, which IMHO had a greater impact than his music. But I suppose grammy nominations has to be for music.

Oh, I wasn't claiming that dance wasn't an essential part of MJ appeal. Just that it wasn't primary in Kendrick Lamars' mind in this exact context.

I mostly picked up on it because I think I completely get what he was getting at. That, all the while the media and your fans might hail you as the greatest thing in the world, thinking of yourself in the same breath as your idols is still a next to impossible thought for any sane and/or reflected individual.

God, I can never quite get over how cool early Bob Marley and the Wailers stuff is. (Like pre international fame and success.) It really is something different, and you can really hear how refreshing it must have been to contemporary popular music even 40+ years later.

I'll vote for cute over creepy, but they may be finger-syncing.

So, uh, Hamburger Helper (yeah, the processed food thing) probably won April Fool's Day this year because their prank was to drop a hip hop mixtape that is actually quite good. I mean, the lyrics are all about using Hamburger Helper in the kitchen, but it's really solid on a technical level and absolutely hilarious both as idea and in execution. And so, yeah, the marketing department of General Mills is somehow killing it in the rap game. What a world we live in.

https://soundcloud.com/hamburgerhelper/sets/watch-the-stove



The unbelievably true story behind the April Fools' Day Hamburger Helper mixtape - Los Angeles Times

It's possibly the greatest April Fools' Day prank of all time. Every other corporate #brand can just quit now. Most of these sorts of pranks make people feel stupid for believing something that's too good to be true. This one made people feel the opposite: It sounds too ridiculous to possibly be true.

But it is true. Hamburger Helper has a mixtape. And it's absolute fire.