Cris Cab has made an Internet name by releasing covers of hit songs by Foster The People and Wiz Khalifa. In anticipation of his upcoming mixtape Echo Boom, the 18-year-old singer/songwriter released this new song entitled “One Thing.” Produced by Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes, “One Thing” is a smooth, breezy song made for the Summer. Echo Boom drops January 31st. Until then tide yourself over with this one.
Britney Spears Unplugged? The idea isn’t as far-fetched as you think. Ever wonder what a Britney Spears MTV Unplugged performance would sound like? This might give you a little insight. Thanks to LukeHakan we now a 2000 era Britney Spears could pull off this money movie. Luke uses the stems from her biggest hits included “Womanizer,” “Gimme More” and “Hold It Against Me” with mellow instrumentals, giving each song a new smooth, sexy side to Britney’s music. Listen and download LukeHakan’s Britney Spears Unplugged mixtape below.
In what could be considered a ludicrously audacious move, The Weeknd chose to open Echoes of Silence with a Michael Jackson cover. This, apart from initiating a deluge of #mindblown twitter posts, turns out to be frankly inspired as it fits into the rest of his catalog scarily well. It actually makes you reassess the Jackson original with new found realization of how dark it is, rather than questioning its place here. The initial loops of breathy, shuddering, sighs reinforce this suggestion that the third part of the Balloons trilogy will maintain the lurid atmosphere and thematic concerns of hedonism and intoxication that were established in the first mix-tape of the trilogy, House of Balloons, back in March. Sure enough, the lyrics, when layered together with woozy, faltering synth, convey the obsession with sex and drugs, whilst the undercurrent of violence is reflected in recurrently bellicose production elements: when the drum machine beat comes in on D.D, it cuts through the texture like a gun shot and Outside are intermittently punctuated by blasts evocative of muffled explosions.
As much the Four Evangelists as they are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Britney, Jay-Z, Kanye, and GaGa – our proud and prestigious pillars of Pop – stood tall and held rapturous court this year as the cause and cure for our ailing culture…
(September 14, 1983 – July 23, 2011)
The modern music industry’s Mitochondrial Eve returns with a fervor to prove – once again – that despite all patriarchal restrictions and destruction: she who bears the womb… the forever battlefield, and said burden… is she who is best equipped to commandeer the cultural revolution. Who rev the world? Girls.
I’m sitting here about to get my next tattoo at a popular tattoo shop in downtown Atlanta. This next tattoo is the one with the most meaning. It’s maktub. Maktub is Arabic for ‘it was written’. A strong, spiritual sentiment that eludes many to think of faith and destiny, all heavy religious concepts automatically once the denotation is learned. I picked up the phrase from one of my favorite books, The Alchemist. But I’m getting it tattooed on me. So, a religious thought is becoming a fashionable trivial decoration on my body. This trend is not rare in our society. I’m participating in seemingly the bastardization of a sacred world. Making things that are of God be also in vogue, no matter what the eventual results may be. Even when those results are most commonly breaking the sacred and holy.
Nicki Minaj is the pre-eminent female MC of Generation Now. She’s a massive attack on the senses; scorching eardrums with fire-breathing vocals, and blinding corneas with neon-shine vestments – and it’s all at once. She’s so pink you can taste it – a Blow Pop, scattered, chopped, and cooked up by a local street vendor on the Brooklyn block: pank; young culture’s saccharin-infused quarter water: Pank pop. Hype, hair, and hyperimmediacy with hood-pass in hand – she is the pop face of urban misses.
Growing up I was scared of few things. One of those few things was The Sixth Sense. The imagery isn’t what really fucked me up; it was that epiphany at the end. It was the reevaluation of what was reality that I had to do when I was having a tough enough time mastering long division. The funny thing about one’s reality is that no matter how stark and scary or warm and lovely it is, the one who has accepted that reality is comfortable with it. Changing it sends us into shock and panic. Something else that stirred up fear in my heart was Marilyn Manson.
6. Technology Is Wonderful, But Let’s Not Race To Get Ahead Of Ourselves
As someone who writes about music, I feel like I have to keep up with everything that goes on within that realm. Sometimes it’s very taxing and often it is very frustrating, especially within the sphere that I have chosen to examine, which is usually the lesser-known, more independent brand of music. These days, there is just so much that it’s hard to keep up with.
Read More