brittanybf
Songs You Should Be Listening To
Similar MOGs' Top Songs This Week
Posts
Ch-check it out. Grand Theft Auto copped a new Nas song for their soundtrack. What do you think of it?
On their sixth studio album, Atmosphere have squeezed out some fresh, new elements to their sound, without straying from the well-delivered, intimate storytelling which fans have come to expect from Slug. Meanwhile, DJ/producer Ant has concocted a different sound, the most obvious addition being his synth-heavy beats, followed by jazzier touches of piano, horns, bare guitar riffs, and featured female vocals.
Slug has often been categorized as an “emo rapper,” due to his innate ability to reveal his own real life struggles, as well as fictionalized narratives that are told so convincingly the line becomes blurred. Coming with less anger and more resolution, Slug’s taking life’s problems and doing as the album title says, “painting that shit gold.”
One of the more personal cuts, set to a simple piano melody, “Yesterday” finds Slug addressing an important person, who isn’t revealed until the end of the song. No longer having a “chip on [his] shoulder” has allowed Slug the attitude adjustment needed to gain a new perspective on emotional struggle. He grasps it as a necessity in making him the person he is today. Addressing this significant person, he shares, “I can’t even get mad that you’re gone/ Leaving me was probably the best thing you ever taught me.”
Equally as personal, “In Her Music Box” shows us Slug in real life, as Sean Daley, father to a little girl whose childhood is one where “Daddies drive around/ Mommies work night-shifts.” His daughter’s solace is found in riding around with her father, “Daddy in the front seat, frontin’ like a rap star,” singing along to the radio, napping to the “sweet, pretty sounds of gangster rap.” The dysfunctional dynamics surrounding his daughter make for a heartbreaking depiction. Sadly, it’s a familiar scenario, one that humanizes Slug to his audience; at this point in his career his fans have come to expect this.
Still present are narratives delving into the world of wayward women. The difference is the haunting mood embellished by the dissonant “sci-fi” sounds of the synthesizer. In the song “Your Glass House,” Slug speaks directly to its main character, a woman who is all too familiar with waking up in a stranger’s house: “And everything still spins/ And then the chills begin/ And then the, ‘God, please kill me right now’ hits/ And you still don't know whose house this is.”
Perhaps the most spaced-out track is “Can’t Break Away.” It opens like the battle scene soundtrack of your favorite arcade game, or on the “Tom Sawyer”-by-Rush tip. The somber, yet alarming vibe matches the sentiment, as Slug repeats, “I feel and I fear and I want and I can’t break away.”
In the past, life has handed Sean Daley crates of lemons. In previous years, over various albums, he’s expressed life’s stresses while still fuming mad and bitter. Even his fictional stories were told from the minds of characters that seemed to thrive on being unhappy and unwilling to seek resolve. When Life Gives You Lemons… exhibits a more mellowed out Slug. Longtime Atmosphere fans, have no fear. It’s not that Slug has “gone soft;” he’s merely given a bit of a spin on his perspective on life (no easy task), and the result is anything but sour.
Comments
I'm not familiar with this group but now you've piqued my curiosity and I'm going to check them out.
I'm learning a lot from you about genres that are totally unfamiliar to me. Thanks!
When I think of Madonna I think of my ’80s childhood: a toy room exploding with Barbie’s, a Fischer Price microphone stand, and Madonna’s hits blaring from the tape deck. My neighborhood clan of girl friends and I prided ourselves on our ability to combine the hard-to-match talents of Barbie & the Rockers with the vogue-ability of Madonna. We’d spend our afternoons performing from the front yard, and using a picnic table as our stage, sing our hearts out to “Express Yourself,” “Like A Virgin,” and “Papa Don’t Preach.” Some material girls we were, all right.
Once I found out about Boyz II Men and C+C Music Factory, my devotion waned. Or maybe I was just felt it was time to retire as a rock star (alias “Roxy”). And so, hanging up my hot-pink metallic, tinsel wig for the last time, I stopped listening to Madonna altogether. Hard Candy is the first Madonna album I’ve listened to since then, but it’s got me seriously considering bringing Roxy back.
The fun, club sexiness, and pent-up energy of her lead single “4 Minutes,” carries through the majority of the album. Madonna co-produced this album with the likes of dance floor hit-makers The Neptunes, who are responsible for over half of Hard Candy’s yummy goodness, as well as Danja, Timbaland, Kanye West, and Justin Timberlake.
“Candy Shop,” opens the album with the a pleasing enough Pharrell-styled beat, but the real anticlimactic aspect is Madonna’s voice. Reflecting the electronic elements of the beat, her voice lies in between sounding robotic and sounding utterly unenthused. However, it’s refreshing to hear hip hop producers create a sound to fit Madge’s musical sound palette, which is currently bent towards, what I can only loosely classify as Euro dance-club music. One example is “Beat Goes On,” which has Kanye West throwing in a verse or two. Even with his larger than life hip hop presence, the deep, house-y bass, echo effects, and synthesized electronic bits manage to eat him alive.
“Give It 2 Me,” has follow-up single written all over it. “Don’t stop me now/Don’t need to catch my breath/I can go on and on and on/When the lights go down and there’s no one left/I can go on and on and on.” Madonna, approaching the big 5-0 later this year, hasn’t had enough, and all the up-tempo songs that fill up the album, are clear proof of that. The song’s breakdown is evidence of the fun she’s still having in her career, as Pharrell’s got her calling out, “Get stupid, get stupid!” In “Heartbeat,” she trades her faux British accent for a more appropriate American accent, with a little bit of street attitude. “See my booty get down!” she repeats.
Of course I should’ve expected Madonna and The Neptunes to be a good pairing, and although Timbaland produced the lead single “4 Minutes,” it could’ve been an even better decision to have only worked with The Neptunes. Regardless, the result is Hard Candy, an album teeming with spaced-out club songs and just enough ’80s appeal to satisfy my inner “Roxy.”
Comments
great review! i have been so wondering about this as i have been seeing the commercial on tv for the last week or so and she looks and sounds amazing! i'll have to give this a listen...and i'm not to old to dance on the front lawn am i?? ha! :)
Thanks for the blast back to the 80's-the Barbie's and picnic table stages, along with jelly shoes (which are back again) and Jem and the Holograms and ohhhh I'm there! Thanks for the review, I too, have been hearing a lot of Madonna banter, but I haven't looked into what it's been about. I'll have to check out Hard Candy with some bangle bracelets on and leg warmers to set the mood!
I say bring Roxy back, make a video, and post it for us all here on the MOG . I want to see that hot-pink metallic, tinsel wig back in action!
All kidding aside, thanks for a good write-up.
My Digital Music Collection
Last Songs Played
MOGs That Trust Me (8 of 625)
MOG Meter
Comments
i like. is it just on the soundtrack, or is he putting it on a new album?
glad you like it, sam. I think it's a track exclusive to the soundtrack. who knows when his new album will be out but hopefully soon!
Mann! that beat is Hot. Nas is awesome!!! A true MC!!!