Respect Authority

By this time next year, we’ll all carry personal auto-tuners around with us and even the fucking Beatles will be reuniting. It was a weird year for music, and it’s hard to say where the industry is headed (I mean, other than down). But one thing is for sure, those iPod earbuds still look great with some dark denim and a Palestinian kaffiyeh (that trendy scarf you’ve appropriated and know nothing about). Here are our picks for this year’s music that’ll rock you harder than a suicide bombing.

Lil’ Wayne
I don’t care if its The Carter I, II or XXLVVII, if Weezy is spitting hot fire, I will be there, guns blazin’. Okay, so I don’t have any guns, but if I did, this is exactly what I would use them for — to shoot in the air as I rapped along about gangster themes like drugs, girls and being an alien rapper from outer space who came to Earth to literally eat the sub-par hip-hop competition. Vibe magazine readers may have named Eminem the best living rapper, but I would bet cash money (millionaires) that’s because they haven’t listened to “Shooter” while smoking a joint on the fire escape.
— kira

The Hood Internet — The Mixtape Volume 3
My debilitating lack of attention span means I generally get bored of an album after only a couple weeks, leaving me an insatiable fiend always itching for his new fix. Having The Hood Internet’s third mixtape on my iPod is like walking around with an endless methadone IV attached to my arm. The Chicago-based DJ Duo are producing some of the most innovative mashups in the supersaturated genre, and their albums are consistently more surprising and more accessible than King Girl Talk, who, on his own solid release this year, started to wander off into the land of Bar Mitzvah Top 40. — aaron

Beyonce — Single Ladies
The song’s retarded but clearly it wasn’t made for the radio; it was made for YouTube. The video is ridiculous, her ass is ridiculous, and the fan videos make the original seem like a masterpiece. Absurd doesn’t begin to describe it. — lou

This isn’t the newest thing in the world, but for those of us who, every few weeks or so, like to spend a period of days living under a rock, the song “Thou Shalt Always Kill” by Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip is pretty fucking awesome in a “that weird Sunscreen Song that came out a few years ago” kind of way, without being so new-agey and appealing primarily to not-quite-entirely jaded baby boomers. The lyrics are funny, insightful, and just edgy enough that you don’t feel like a loser for listening to some British dude with a weird voice preaching at a microphone.

Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries as to those that occur in English speaking countries.
Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music.
Thou shalt not pimp my ride.
Thou shalt not scream if you wanna go faster.
Thou shalt not move to the sound of the wickedness.
Thou shalt not make some noise for Detroit.
When I say “Hey” thou shalt not say “Ho.”
When I say “Hip” thou shalt not say “Hop.”
When I say, he say, she say, we say, make some noise — kill me.
Thou shalt not quote me happy.
Thou shalt not shake it like a Polaroid picture.
Thou shalt not wish you girlfriend was a freak like me.
Thou shalt spell the word “Pheonix” P-H-E-O-N-I-X not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you.
Thou shalt not express your shock at the fact that Sharon got off with Bradley at the club last night by saying “Is it”.
Thou shalt think for yourselves.
And thou shalt always kill.

Thou shalt also listen to this mashup of the song with A Place To Bury Strangers by the ever-compelling Hood Internet, Thou Shalt Always Fix The Gash In Your Head. And with that, I think I’m about ready to start talking like a normal person again.

In a particularly brilliant display of clairvoyance, I featured mindfucking mixtape up and comers The Hood Internet in last week’s Be Shareful column. Well yesterday afternoon, when I finished listening to every song they’ve ever created and was at a loss as to what I would listen to next, I headed over to their blog and have since spiraled even further into the depths of addiction because of it.

The Chicago-based duo premiered their third mixtape on Monday in a unique display of nonexistant pre-release hype, particularly compared to the kind of press Girl Talk got leading up to the release of this summer’s Feed The Animals. With the kind of work these guys are putting in though, it’s only a matter of time before there isn’t a loft in Williamsburg that hasn’t heard of them, so get downloading now or you’ll be more passé than your dork ass wayfarers.

While the album isn’t necessarily their far and away best effort yet, it’s certainly the most creative of the three and easily holds its own next to their previous releases. Additionally, The Mixtape Volume Three is the longest of their full lengths, clocking in at a monstrous 34 tracks long, spanning perhaps the most diverse array of samples The Hood Internet have ransacked yet. It probably also breaks some record for number of Lil’ Wayne appearances, and would come close on the T. Pain front as well if not for mainstream hip hop, which currently requires songs to feature a T. Pain vocal to be considered part of the genre. Read More ›

Be Shareful highlights a band/musician/hip hop superstar number one in the game/whatever and offers free downloads of some of their music. The MP3s will be available for one week so get them before the RIAA gets me.

Despite the explosion of mashups available on the Internet and the insatiable consumption of tracks by mash monsters like Girl Talk, there was a hole in the genre that no amount of “Umbrella” samples could fill. R. Kelly may be a flirt, but when would he flirt with bearded indie rock supergroup Broken Social Scene? And how would Lil’ Wayne sound blazing over Modest Mouse? Would Dre ever consider collaborating with synthy sound technicians Fujiya and Miyagi? Well, probably not, but that’s why there’s The Hood Internet.

The Hood Internet

DJs STV SLV and ABX are a fearsome duo, and as unlikely as a couple of dorky white dudes having such a command over booty rocking beats may be, the rap-indie hybrids they produce are perhaps even more so. But considering the extreme oversaturation of popular samples as of late, unlikely is as disarming as a pregnancy scare but, like, way more enjoyable than that. Read More ›