Crib Notes

Saturday

Overheard at Bonnaroo: “I never thought I would have to fight this hard to take a shit! I feel like an old black man in the ’70s!” — My moron neighbor who didn’t understand why his tent mates didn’t want him to poop next to their tent.

Important things I have slept through:

— A Weezer concert in 2000.
— A presentation in a womens’ studies class in 2001
— A tornado
— Pearl Jam, Sigur Ros and Chromeo at Bonnaroo 2008

Don’t hate me. I hate myself enough already. I blame Jack Johnson, whose laid-back tones led me to nap, thinking I would get up in a couple hours when Pearl Jam started. Then I woke up and it was 2:15 a.m., and well, there went that.

But don’t worry, I wasn’t the biggest asshole at Bonnaroo on Saturday night. Rightly or wrongly, that title went to Kanye West, who went on 8 hours late (his 8:15 p.m. set was rescheduled to 2:45 a.m. so that his “Glow in the Dark” tour would, you know, glow in the dark.) But more onn that in a bit. Here are some timelier musicians I saw on Saturday:

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings: 100 Days, 100 Nights is a great album, but Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are really in their element, live. Jones, who is a tiny lady in her early 50s, took off her shoes and earrings and did her idol and fellow Augusta native James Brown proud with her incredibly energetic antics onstage. She dances! She wails! And then they had to go and cover “What Have You Done For Me Lately.” Definitely one of the best shows I saw all weekend.

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Ok, so if I remember correctly, in the late ’90s the biggest stars in America were an armada of Nordic Supersoldiers. Acts like 98°, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, ‘N Sync, Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera dominated the charts with their vacuous “teen” ballads.

Pop music was a future Stepford Wife proto-High School Musical prom afterparty. All the girls were sassy and all the boys had six packs. Then, 9/11 happened.

Americans suddenly thought (and quite reasonably) that we were finally the underdogs. The prosperity of the ’90s began to fade, setting a new precedent. In short, things got complicated.

Everyone still wanted to party, but pain was back. Sept. 11 gave us pain for months (years). As we got further away from that day, record companies needed to manufacture gravitas where there wasn’t any. I solemnly believe that besides the talent of artists like T.I., 50 Cent, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, Eminem and Arcade Fire, their greatest asset is their constant triumph over adversity.

Triumph is why superhero movie franchises have been so successful recently. A nerdy frail wimp transforms into a web-slinging smart ass who gets with Kirsten Dunst and saves all of New York City (Ground Zero, ding!). A corporate war profiteer escapes from a terrorist (Al Quaeda ding!) camp and defeats his own greed as well as the powerful traitors in his circle (the White House maybe?). We love to see people over come. Remember that song “We Shall Overcome?” That was a really big hit.

“I Put On”

Kanye West’s production catapulted Jay-Z into solidified classic status all while remaining in virtual anonymity. Next thing you know, he falls asleep at the wheel and gets in a nearly fatal car accident. Instead of wallowing in self pity he, 3H and Damon Dash turned his misfortune into the ultimate backstory for a man who was perhaps neither Gangster nor conscious enough to be understood by record execs. Starting with “Through the Wire,” Kanye built an entire career with two key foci: decadence and perpetual underdoggery. He’s made pop rap songs about vague everyday trials and tribulations (“All Falls Down”) and continuously assails his doubters to this day (“Can’t tell me Nothing”). Even though, no one really doubts him anymore, it is completely necessary for him to continue this fight against the now imaginary naysayer (remember that MTV Awards bullshit).

The most compelling development in Kanye’s trajectory is the tragic death of his mother. She was a victim of the mindless vanity and decadence embodied in many of his songs. I ponder how her death provided real life meaning to the vague conflicts in songs like “Stronger.” (more…)

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Instead of going to see Jack Johnson tonight, I think I’m just going to watch the SNL video below and take a nap — Kanye had to go and reschedule his show for 2:45 a.m., and there’s no way I’m going to miss being his black Kate Moss tonight.

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(Photo by Sarah Friedman)

Fresh from his memorable performance at the 50th annual Grammy Awards, hip-hop genius/royal brat (depending on your point of view) Kanye West is heading to Atlanta. He’s bringing a killer lineup with him, too: Rihanna, Lupe Fiasco and Pharell Williams’ N.E.R.D., which is putting out a new album this year. It all happens at Gwinnett Center in Duluth on Sunday, May 4. Tickets go on sale on Friday, Feb. 15.

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THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: Herbie Hancock wins Album of the Year at the 50th annual Grammy Awards.

(Photo by Kwaku Alston)

Every year, we get excited about the Grammys and the Oscars in the weeks before they’re held, and then complain about them the night afterward. But out of the two, I think the Grammys have it tougher. When it comes to film, people love their niches — art flicks, action movies, teen comedies, whatever — but manage to agree on a few great movies. Unfortunately, music is hobbled by generational, cultural and even racial divides. Worse, each group claims to have the best musical taste, and has little tolerance for anything else.

It’s rare when everyone agrees an album is good, which seemingly happened with Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black last year. An indicator of its vast appeal was the wide range of media that gossiped about her well-chronicled drug problems: websites and blogs, tabloid glossies such as Us Weekly, music magazines such as Rolling Stone, and even mainstream publications such as the New York Times. Black and white, young and old audiences bought Back to Black, and everyone took interest in her musical and personal life.

That’s why Winehouse dominated the 50th annual Grammy Awards last night. She won five out of the six awards she was nominated for and nearly swept the major categories, picking up Record of the Year and Song of the Year for her “Rehab” single and Best New Artist.

Winehouse’s sole loss came in the Album of the Year category. Although many observers were surprised when Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters beat Winehouse’s Back to Black and Kanye West’s Graduation, it wasn’t out of the ordinary. When it comes to the Album of the Year, the Recording Academy, which hands out the awards, tends to opt for two choices: a multiplatinum hit that draws a diverse audience or a late-period work from a legacy artist. Hancock’s win was something akin to a lifetime achievement award for a jazz legend. (My colleague Andisheh Nouraee calls this the “Steely Dan award.” Steely Dan’s Everything Must Go famously beat out West’s The College Dropout at the 2004 Grammys.)

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Canadian artist/producer Colin Munroe released a video for his unofficial remix of Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights.” He doesn’t just sing over the track, like most remixes, but adds new sounds and moves the samples a bit. Finally, we see a hip-hop artist get one of their tracks snatched and redone. Hip-hop artists do it all the time, and it’s funny to see it happen in the reverse — and done so well. Kanye must not mind. He posted it on his blog.

Munroe’s album Don’t Think Less of Me will be released with support from Dallas Austin’s Rowdy Records.

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Dear Andisheh,

My heart goes out to you. And my ears. Though I didn’t suffer from sinusitis, I did buy an iPod for the first time in ‘07 and, yeah, it did kinda freak around with the way I listen to music.

In some ways that was a good thing. But whatever the iPod and downloadable music has done to my listening experience, I’m just glad it hasn’t deterred artists from making (or attempting to make) real albums — rather than random songs strung together on one CD. Of course, some succeeded while others sucked.

Here are some of the overrated, underrated and old albums I dug and dismissed in ‘07. Maybe some of these will help you get over your ‘year in music’ blues:

1. Best and most slept-on album (I think): Saul Williams, The Inevitable Rise and Fall of NiggyTardust — I’m starting with the big category first because, as you revealed, the iPod has your attention-span all jacked up and I know I could lose you quick. So you know the story with Radiohead, Prince, the Eagles — they all dropped nontraditional releases (online, Wal-Mart, etc.). Well, Saul Williams did, too. But instead of limiting his boldness to his method of distribution, he actually hooked up with Trent Reznor who produced the album. Need I say more? Actually, I will. You can download it for free, with liner notes and artwork included, or you can pay $5. Who does that? The reason why I “think” it was the most slept-on is because I just haven’t heard much buzz about it. But it was better than his first two albums, and it was free. Uh, I mean $5. (Think I just told on myself.)

2. Most disappointing album: Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams — Turned out all the talk leaking out of the Wu camp was semi-correct. RZA produced a pretty uneven album, shifting between that “ooh baby I like it raw” Wu fans have come to expect and some borderline campy stuff. Not necessarily commercial, but compromising (the joint with George Clinton is straight corny). I was surprised. If anything, I expected the complaints from his crew about his beats meant he was leaning too far to the left. Guess it’s hard to score Hollywood flicks and keep it grimy simulaneously. Oddly, RZA sounds better rapping over his own beats than he ever has.

3. Most over-hyped album: Kanye West, Graduation — Yep, there were a lot of Kanye West dick-riders in ‘08. And honestly, I don’t blame them. It’s hard out here for a mainstream critic. A lot of disposable music rises to the top. And I think that’s because, like the industry, a lot of music writers are still depending on the old label system for the bulk of their music. But I digress. Kanye West put out another damn good album; I can’t hate. But it was a minor triumph next to Late Registration. It makes sense that he thinks Graduation is his best ever, as he spouts in every interview. He accomplished what he sought out to: achieve stadium-status by making an album full of big, bombastic songs. You can’t compete with “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”; it’s the song of the year — not “Stronger” as Spin magazine proclaimed. And the ode to his tenuous relationship with Jay-Z, “Big Brother,” is probably one of the most honest sentiments expressed in a rap song since Scarface said “day by day it’s more impossible to cope/I feel like I’m the one that’s doing dope.” I could go on, but the point is Kanye made some of the best songs of his career. Just not the best album. (more…)

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Here’s a gallery of stars at the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards. The photos were taken by Kimberly Neal and Justin Lee from J. Lee Photography.

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This in from Billboard.com:

It looks like 50 Cent is headed for retirement, if store reports continue to trend the way they were by mid-afternoon today (Sept. 11). 50 Cent had told SOHH.com that he would quit the rap game if his new G-Unit/Interscope album, “Curtis,” was outsold by Kanye West’s Def Jam set “Graduation,” both of which were released today.

Seriously, who cares?

For the past few years, the hip-hop nation has turned into a colony of SoundScan nerds. Dudes post up an artist’s numbers on chat rooms, and then loudly debate whether that artist has fallen off or is blowing up — to the exclusion of everything else (unless someone gets arrested with a gun or weed in their SUV). In a recent interview, Akon says he and 50 Cent are SSK, or SoundScan Killas, like they’re in a gang. How lame is that — “SoundScan Killas”?

No wonder hip-hop is dead. Instead of debating record sales like an accountant, why not debate the quality of the music? As Evidence of Dilated Peoples put it recently, don’t count the numbers like Rain Man.

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