Evolution of Media - Hip-Hop Narrative Entry #9

For my final (official) entry for my hip-hop intersession class, I'll be commenting on a handful of tracks that have been making their rounds around the web in the last week.

Arguably the highest profile track that has been circulating the blogs is Britney Spears' highly-anticipated first single off of her upcoming album, "Hold It Against Me." For me personally, Britney Spears hits her best strides when producers allow her to become a vehicle for trend-setting. The reason Britney was once widely considered to be the Madonna of our (my?) generation is not because she was as edgy or envelope-pushing (she's neither), but because she set the standards for everyone else to desperately keep pace with in her chart-topping singles.

With "Hold It Against Me," the dialogue surrounding the track mostly deals with the heavy dubstep influence being represented. Dubstep is a subgenre of electronic music best characterized by its proclivity for propulsive percussion, sample clipping, and - perhaps most famously - wobbly, droning, and heavily syncopated bass lines. The production on dubstep tracks is generally very tight and is thrust along with urgency every time the instrumental breakdown hits.

Dubstep takes a lot of cues from preexisting forms of electronic music, including techno, jungle, acid, drum ‘n bass, and – of course – hip-hop (especially with sample clipping and the emphasis on percussive elements). Vocals may be interspersed throughout a track, but tend to be a great deal more on the sparser side compared to vocal trance or trip-hop. Unlike much of music which includes vocals, they are usually not the centerpieces to the actual dubstep tracks themselves.

It’s is hardly a new subgenre, but dubstep is poised for its biggest push into American mainstream when Britney Spears finally introduces dubstep to the rest of the world, even if it is considered a somewhat diluted version. There have been a handful of artists (specifically hip-hop artists) in the last year or so who have bolstered the visibility of certain elements from European style dance and electronic music, including Akon, Taio Cruz, Ludacris, Usher, and Far East Movement with Dev (“Like a G6”). “Hold It Against Me” will be the first time I’ve heard anything as explicitly dubstep as this out in the open, and it features enough of a hip-hop feel for it to be embraced by the club crowd.

It also seems that Britney has Rusko in her corner for this upcoming album (an electronic producer who specializes in radio-friendly dubstep), which actually keeps her vocals as close to the front and center as possible. A lot of elitist dubstep connoisseurs clown on Rusko for that very reason, but as we have learned in the music world time and time again, ease of accessibility always leads to increased visibility, and I think Rusko will end up having the last laugh as far as that goes.

Unsurprisingly, the lyrics are nothing special, and Britney’s voice is heavily sifted through an autotune filter. Her level of artistic input on her records seems to be diminishing as she has gotten older, and little things like that will go a long way toward eroding her longevity as well if she’s not careful. For now, however, it looks like Britney’s got another pending mega-hit on her hands.

Yelawolf is another cat I’ve been listening to more frequently since I heard his eccentric delivery on Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty this past summer. He’s an Alabaman white rapper with American Indian roots, and while he boasts a lot of similarities with Eminem (he’s focused on precision and quality of lyricism, and wisely showcases his impeccable sense of rhythm and metric timing), he definitely doesn’t sound much like him. Yelawolf’s output up to this point has been unabashedly Southern, and he seems to enjoy switching up his flow in various ways in order to fit the feel and tempo of a track.

I didn’t like him very much at all on the first few listens of the track he shared with Big Boi (“You Ain’t No DJ”), but it was hard to ignore that his verses, while delivered wildly and erratically at a spitfire pace, were well-written. Then I heard his mixtape Trunk Musik 0-60 shortly afterward, and I got to sample a far greater palette of styles that Wolf was capable of. A leaked song featuring an older standby Houston rapper named Trae called “Shit I’ve Seen” is, so far, my favorite thing I’ve heard from Yelawolf, and demonstrates that he has a really good ear for beats as well. I’m not sure if he’ll change the world, but it’s been awhile since I have been genuinely excited about an up-and-comer with actual talent.

Finally, Kanye West and Jay-Z’s first collaborative single “H.A.M.” dropped last week, and I think it’s complete shit. West is definitely using the tide of critical acclaim from the last two months to his advantage by masking his more familiar terrible flow and rhymes beneath the somewhat interesting and sometimes cool production.

I’ve always had a problem with Kanye’s actual rapping for years, and I think a lot of his issues stem from the fact that he doesn’t have an intuitive approach when it comes to interpreting tracks. Since figuring out how to ride a track doesn’t come naturally for him, it makes sense that his best rhymes are usually borne out of months of painstaking writing and brainstorming (the majority of the songwriting on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was tolerable and even good at times). His verses on “H.A.M.,” on the other hand, find Kanye drifting back towards mediocrity, as demonstrated by the following wack-ass lines:

Like a nigga ever left up out this bitch, huh?
And if life a bitch suck my dick, huh?
And I bet she fucked the whole clique, huh
By the way nigga, you should fuckin’ quit, nigga
Just forget it, you talk it, I live it
Like Eli I did it, jokes on you muthafucka and I get it
No paper hoe, but you can have some more of me
Or-gy, or are we speaking metaphorically

People have championed Kanye West for being “not your average mainstream rap artist” for the better part of the last decade, but his output from at least the last two years have preoccupied the very lyrical space that people slag hip-hop for in the first place.

[Reserved for Jay Electronica]

(I’m in Jamaica and in a hurry at the moment, so I’ll have to finish the rest of my thoughts later)

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #8

It's funny and interesting how the trajectory of an individual's own personal history and public celebrity can go a long way toward shaping outside interpretation of his or her artistic work. As I noted in my last entry, I'm generally in the business of evaluating music and other forms of art purely on their own merits, divorced from my personal feelings about its creator. But sometimes outside influence from components of the artist in name's life can have a great and profound effect on how you view their art, whether you like it or not.

In the case of R. Kelly, it has not only served as a platform for remaining relevant in the public sphere, but he demonstrates with his most recent album, Love Letter, how it can be used as a vehicle for reinvention as well.

If anyone has been paying a minutiae of attention to Kelly over the last decade, they will be able to quickly identify that his songwriting has been on a slow downward spiral into the pits of the lowest common denominator in terms of bizarre sexual metaphors. This already starkly contrasts with the first half of his career, where his music embodied the cheese, smooth soul, and slow-burning romance of 1990s R&B; a style that could be more likened to Boyz II Men. The thing about Love Letter in particular, however, is that it is not necessarily a direct return to the core tenets and styles he initially built his career on. This record sounds much more modern than that. The production crisps, smolders, and breezes by in a rush when its appropriate, and it spans decades' worth of different styles and iterations of R&B and classic soul.

Additionally, all of his shockingly sincere proclamations of love throughout the album carry with them Kelly's knack for being immediate and captivating, since Kelly's effusive personality and lyricism defiantly shirk a lot of qualities that characterizes the much-maligned neo-soul. He's able to convey the sub-genre's soulful earnestness, but in a decidedly charming and lighthearted way.

The kicker about this album that I'm not so sure it would be as head-turning as it is had it been put out by someone like Ne-Yo or Maxwell (the latter of which carried the title of my favorite R&B record from 2009). My sentiments about this record is, admittedly, amplified slightly because of how much Kelly's sexually deviant fantasies have informed his music for the majority of the new millennium. To qualify this statement, it's also worth distinguishing that Love Letter isn't good simply because "it couldn't have gotten any worse." Considering R. Kelly's history, it's tempting to assume that stance. But really, it's a great (amazing?) album because of how effortlessly Kelly channels the spirit of older R&B styles, paying homage and sounding neither antiquated nor self-important while doing so. The suppression of his nefarious ego gives the record its shiny and candid finish; Kelly is, after all, used to deploying his charisma in order to sell tasteless sexual innuendos of epic conceit. These things also contribute to making the arguably greatest voice in modern R&B the focus of his music once again.

While the back story preceding the inception of this album definitely makes the music more interesting, it is also just categorically great and compelling in its own right.

On "Lost in Your Love," Kelly openly and defiantly declares that he wants to "bring the love songs back to the radio." For the duration of Love Letter's 50-minute running time, he has me absolutely convinced that he can single-handedly do just that. Here's to the hopeful rise of one of the most interesting figures in the world of popular music, period.

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #7

The recent rash of incarcerations and re-incarcerations of hip-hop stars is starting to both annoy and disillusion me. T.I. has been my favorite rapper for the last 7 years, but his recent trip back into the joint has forced me to revaluate my attitude regarding rap artists whose careers are consistently plagued and beleaguered with breaking the law.

I remember an episode of Growing Pains (at least I think it was that show) where Mike Seaver (Kirk Cameron, if we’re still assuming this is Growing Pains) meets his rock star idol and subsequently discovers that he is a tool bag. His dad, Jason Seaver (Alan Thicke, father of Robin Thicke, weeeeird), caught Mike tearing down posters of his idol and throwing out his records, and he proceeds to tell Mike that, even though that the guy was a douche, he should not let that come between him and his enjoyment of his music.

I’ve always held that advice closely to me, and I’m aware that I probably enjoy and consume a lot of music and movies made by people I would probably hate if I ever met them face to face.

The thing with hip-hop stars, however, is that these people’s serial brushes with the law literally seem never-ending. Their proclivity for violating their various probation terms and outright disregard for the multiple opportunities they receive to rejoin society blows my mind; at that point, it becomes impossible for me to ignore the possibility that not only could you be a douche bag or an idiot (or both). This psychological inability of theirs to kick old, bad habits also has a debilitating effect on their music, as causes all sorts of internal mayhem at record labels in terms of release deadlines and contract fulfillment. Rappers lose their free pass the moment their own idiocy compromises the main thing I care about: their music.

It would be nice to think that since these guys are artists and all, they would be able to channel some sort of lyrical or thematic inspiration from serving time, but so far, these lofty expectations have been a bust. 2Pac has far and away been the only clear exception to the rule (he reportedly wrote much of the outstanding All Eyez on Me during his 11-month prison term for a sexual assault conviction); everyone else, as far as I’m concerned, is on notice.

Even the mention of 2Pac in this case has one glaring caveat: he never managed to fully rehabilitate himself, and ended up being personified by the press as something of a public menace as a result of his increasingly erratic behavior and incivility, all the way up until his murder. So really, this makes 2Pac the best and worst example I could have used to make my case.

Depth of lyrics takes a distant second place to how well put together a track is sonically in my overall considerations as to what I consider good music. I’m no stranger when it comes to fun or disposable pop, and I appreciate it in the same way I appreciate songs sung in Spanish or French; I don’t typically don’t mind or care for whatever is being said as long as it sounds and feels pleasant. Even though my enjoyment of rap is predicated more on the technical side of things (a rapper’s ability to emcee, skill of production, etc.), my enjoyment is inevitably linked back to what these guys are literally saying.

This hasn’t bided well for the personal satisfaction I used to derive from listening to T.I. He’s already framed Paper Trail (2008) in the context of redemption and remorse, right before he went to jail for the second time in his life. Now, T.I.’s in jail again, and we have last month’s unfortunately-titled No Mercy, which means we have entire second round of tales of played-out apologetic bullshit.

The worst part about this is that the comeback album that he originally intended to release (which he ironically called King Uncaged) featured a host of leaks and songs that completely outclassed all the garbage that we eventually ended up with on No Mercy. All those monster tracks are shelved, and who knows when they will see the light of day? It feels as if the window of opportunity for those specific tracks (“I’m Back,” “Yeah Ya Know (Takers),”Ya Hear Me,” etc.) have passed, and even if they ever receive a proper release, I’m not sure I would be able to divorce myself from the sheer stupidity associated with them in order to fully enjoy or appreciate them as I once did.

It really baffles me how even the best and brightest of the pack – 2Pac – was never able to truly break this cycle. Pac was a sharp and talented cat, even academically. Not only was he into classical theatre and a prolific poet, but he was well-read; he was well-versed in political philosophy, and two of my favorite writers (Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli) were his as well. It’s obvious that all of the literature that 2Pac absorbed over the course of his lifetime informed much of his lyricism, as they often occupied racial, economic, and sociopolitical spaces. There’s absolutely no question that the dude was educated, but it’s also apparent that it didn’t do a damn thing for him in the end, as far as his own sense of self-preservation goes.

I’ve been wrestling and rationalizing contradictions in hip-hop culture for a long time, but if there’s one thing that’s become crystal clear to me after all this time, it’s that rappers need to cut the bullshit and clean up their act. There’s a coming of age in every man’s life where rapping about how you are a product of your environment and blaming bad decisions on one’s poor upbringing is no longer a sufficient excuse.

It’s also really unfortunate that hip-hop culture has more or less institutionalized this kind of cyclical pattern of criminal misconduct, and for what? – All in the name of “staying hood” or “keeping it real?” This problem not only makes question marks over the quality of life in urban/poverty-level areas of the country more pronounced, but it also makes evident the need for a more serious push for prison reform.

“Once a thug, always a thug” doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth, but a notable handful of rappers are doing a hell of a job making a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I came across a couple of news blurbs a couple of days ago stating that both Gucci Mane and his new protégé Waka Flocka Flame were re-incarcerated in completely separate incidents. Gucci just got out of jail himself not too long ago either. Good luck to both of you idiots, and long live the Dirty South.

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #6

So, with all the conversations I've been participating in regarding what hip-hop is and what constitutes an actual rapper, I have to ask myself one question: Is Travie McCoy, lead vocalist of alternative upstarts Gym Class Heroes and a general menace to legitimate rapping talent everywhere, hip-hop? I guess he unfortunately is, considering the broad definition of the concept I've been peddling in and out of my hip-hop intersession class. This, of course, won't keep me from getting the following off my chest.

I try not to wallow too terribly much in all of the negative aspects in an entire year's worth of music (although it's been hard to divorce myself from that sentiment, especially since I have been personally perceiving the quality of music to be on a disturbing decline in the last four years), but "Billionaire," McCoy's flagship single for his debut solo album, has to be one of the worst songs I have heard this past year and beyond. I can already see what his thought process resembled:

"I am going record a faux-humble beachy, 'Santeria'-aping surf jam about a carefree hipster-slacker wishing he was rich. But wait! - I'm already fairly rich due to the freakish accidental success of awful pop tunes that are already in my back catalogue, so it wouldn't be right for me to be singing about wishing I was a millionaire. I've got to put this into realistic perspective: I will have to wish I were a billionaire."

Thus is the genesis of 2010's most appalling and patronizing pop song: a song, released during the worst recession for 100 years, in which a mere million dollars is deemed not quite sufficient enough to get by on. Thanks a lot, Travie McCoy, for making 2010 a lot more insufferable than it had to be, and for your stupid first name. And thank you too, Bruno Mars, with your equally worthless and faceless contributions to the R&B sector, and your equally stupid whole name. There were fewer songs released this past year that made me switch over to NPR faster than this song did. And in a year featuring the pop dominance of the likes of dollar-sign Ke$ha and Katy Perry; Taio Cruz's Euro-dance electro-R&B garbage; a Nelly comeback; the inescapably annoying Nicki Minaj; and the most irritating Train single since the last irritating Train single, that's definitely no mean feat.

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #5

I'm pretty ambivalent when it comes to female rappers. There are a whole host of different categories that the female rapper can fall into, and not all of them are what you could consider palatable.

First you have traditional female rappers in the vein of Missy Elliott, Eve, MC Lyte, Rah Digga, Lauryn Hill, Foxy Brown, Yoshamine, Lil' Kim, Shawnna, Trina, and Lady Sovereign. They are exactly what the label implies: females who have the technical ability to rap at varying degrees. Nicki Minaj is also fall under this broad interpretation of a traditional female rapper, although some would argue that she extends it a bit with her theatrical delivery (although I would counter that a difference in delivery doesn't really necessitate an entirely separate category of rap in this case).

Then there is another camp of female rappers that can be more aptly described as talk-rap, or sing-song rap. Probably the earliest (and most prevalent) example of this style would be Gwen Stefani, who more or less helped the style gain traction in the mainstream. Other pop artists quickly followed suit, including Fergie, Nelly Furtado, Uffie, Isis Salam (of the electronic duo Thunderheist) Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, and Dev (of "Like a G6" fame).

The thing most people will note about the talk-rap camp is that most of them are white (or at least not black). Fergie could be argued to have at least some degree of technical skill (she was able to match Nelly pound for pound with her triple-time follow-up bars on "Where the Party People At?"), and even Nigerian-born Isis Salam makes a convincing hip-hop presence on her debut album, so where does that leave these other girls?

There is one thing about this latter style that desperately needs to be acknowledged: accusing a vapid artist such as Kesha as neither being a legitimate rapper or nor hip-hop in any sense of the word is no longer a valid claim. Kesha, of course, is the furthest thing away from my personal concept of what a good female emcee ought to be; but her very existence and ability to move singles and records by commodifying a two-dimensional take on rapping challenges not only the traditional notions of what a rapper is, but also what can be considered hip-hop.

This doesn't even take into consideration the fact that she either matches or exceeds Nicki Minaj in both popularity or commercial success, someone most people would consider to be more thoughtful, technically talented, and avant-garde than Kesha. Conversely, Kesha's lyrical content and presence share a common strain with blunt frat humor; and punch-lines are generally shallow and are usually the product of obvious rhyme structure. But it's obvious that technical ability doesn't always dictate the ability to sell or outsell another, and the unfortunate broadening of Kesha's own skills with each song she puts out makes it more difficult to marginalize her as completely talentless.

So at what point does it become impossible to eschew these white sing-song rappers of any consideration of what it means to be either a rapper or hip-hop? All it has taken for a number of high-profile R&B and pop artists to garner more hip-hop credibility was for them to get guys like Timbaland or The Neptunes in the studio with them, and for the artist in question to adjust their flow and delivery a bit and boom! - we're suddenly saddled with previously innocuous stars like Nelly Furtado knocking out chart-topping club jams. Kesha recently got producer Bangladesh (best known as a Lil' Wayne collaborator with "A Milli" and, more recently, "Six Foot Seven Foot") to produce a track or two on her new EP, Cannibal, and her mic presence sounds admittedly fuller and slightly more agile. Is this enough to make someone like her hip-hop, or does the fact that her personal lifestyle is not a representation of the traditional "struggle" or "plight" of the black man make her somehow inauthentic?

Also, why hasn't West Coast talk-rapper Dev (best known for her hook duties on "Like a G6") been levied with the same attention or criticisms regarding her authenticity? I have to admit that there is a breezier and more effortless cool associated with Dev's performance, making her presence more appealing; but is that enough to give her a free pass? There just seems to be a lot of double standards and confusion regarding the topic, even if we correctly assume that not all talk-rap is created equal.

In the very least, it's worth sidestepping traditional assumptions that talk-rappers like Kesha are artistically worthless in order to evaluate what kind of impact their popularity or influence will have on hip-hop and the marketplace. I don't see how, in 2011, it is at all possible to divorce hip-hop from commerce, and commerce has definitely become a driving force behind reshaping what hip-hop has become and what it will look like down the road.

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #4

English producer and occasional hip-hop collaborator Mark Ronson (Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse) had a Christmas-themed rap track leaked featuring Saigon and Rhymefest a couple of nights ago called "Wreck the Halls." I didn't have to listen too closely to it to reach a handful of conclusions before the 30-second mark:

1. Saigon and Rhymefest are two extraordinarily talented emcees. How has Saigon in particular gone so long without one official major-label release? And why is he still only known as that rapper on Entourage? His level of renown in the hip-hop world are at criminally low levels.

2. The same can pretty much be said about Rhymefest as well, although I think he's more or less boxed himself into a perception that he is only a serious, no-fun-nancy hip-hop activist. While his contributions to community awareness relating to a number of social issues are notable, it is important for him (and a number of other "socially conscious" rappers) to extend the reach of their sound by showing off their technical abilities on tracks that aren't always steeped in heavy topic matter.

3. Mark Ronson needs to become a hip-hop producer full-time, or at least consider contracting his services to more high-profile talent. He's got a great ear for beat-matching, and very distinctive funk/Motown flavor to what his idea of hip-hop sounds like. His creative approaches could go a long way toward reinvigorating the sound of a lot of ailing stars.

Lookin' forward to Saigon's official debut, as long as it doesn't get delayed again.

Mark Ronson - Wreck the Halls (feat. Saigon & Rhymefest)

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #3

A new leaked track popped up in the blogosphere a couple of days ago, one presumably pulled off of Dr. Dre's fabled and comically delayed Detox. I'm personally beyond any inkling of excitement or curiosity about a Dre record right before the dawn of a new decade, especially since his presence and relevance in the previous 10 years was questionable at best. Dr. Dre's sound, like a slew of other high profile hip-hop producers, haven't aged as gracefully as I would have hoped, and Dre couldn't have picked a worse lead single than "Kush" to reaffirm my suspicions about where his quality of work currently hovers around.

This track, on the other hand, made me do a slight double-take. "Syllables" was curiously labeled as an Eminem track featuring Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Stat Quo, and Cashis. It's a track that showcases some entertaining social commentary regarding the shallow and vapid state of rap music, mostly on the parts of Eminem and Jay-Z. Em's fluid internal rhyming and proclivity for channeling that into making his raps more conversational naturally makes his bars the best; Jigga, although pretty sharp and compelling in his own right, comes up a somewhat distant second (as it usually goes when these two get on the same track together). The commentary lamenting the deterioration of I guess what these guys consider "good rapping" drops off significantly with everyone else, and the rest of the verses turn out to be pretty forgettable fares comparatively.

The actual production on the track itself isn't noteworthy and sounds somewhat anonymous. Dr. Dre's ability to compel as a rapper depends entirely on whether or not Eminem's ghostwriting is on point on a particular day, so that's not really something I look out for in a Dre solo record...but the string of leaks that have been making the rounds on the web definitely don't do Dre's knob-turning any favors, either. These tracks are some of the most boring, dated, or outright terrible beats I have heard, and that's saying a lot. I forced myself to sit through garbage featuring Timbaland shitting on his own legacy a thousand times over with Shock Value II; not to mention having to deal with Pharrell wanting to live out his fantasies as the lead singer to faceless, garbage alternative band in the latest N*E*R*D train wreck, Nothing.

If the rest of the trend plays itself out, Dr. Dre would simply be completing the trifecta of once phenomenal and innovative late 1990s/early 2000s hip-hop producers who have now swan-dived into mediocrity. I'd love for any of these guys to prove me wrong, but so far, they have all demonstrated that ego and brilliance inevitably leads to a sad state of irreversible creative stagnation.

Eminem - Syllables (feat. Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Stat Quo & Ca$his)

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #2

Yesterday's class session showcased a handful of senseless arguments regarding hip-hop and the "direction" it's heading in. One girl in particular was pretty adamant that rap music was not all there was to hip-hop, and that the culture of hip-hop was far bigger than the music; big enough for the other aspects to exist on their own, and that any consideration that could be made about them could be made independently of rap music.

Her argument went something like this:

Classmate #1: "I don't like Soulja Boy, or where hip-hop is going for that matter."

Soapbox Girl: "Why can't we talk about hip-hop without having to refer to the music? Soulja Boy isn't hip-hop, and I don't think we have to talk about rap in order to discuss what hip-hop culture really is."

I was pretty worn out after she repeated her circular arguments, so I didn't bother commenting by the end of her soapbox, but I respectfully and completely disagree with her sentiments. There may be components of hip-hop that comprise the culture as a whole, rap music is precisely what gave birth to the entire movement. Things that hip-hop has come to affect and shape over the years - fashion, vernacular and colloquialisms, mainstream music trends, drugs, media, etc. - are areas that have been directly influenced by rap music, and are able to exist peripherally because of rap music's extensive reach.

Rap might not be all there is to hip-hop culture on the cusp of 2011, but it is arguably the biggest component of hip-hop culture, by far. To consciously omit rap from any consideration of what hip-hop is or the direction it is going in is outrageous, and willfully ignores the primary force that has driven hip-hop culture and its deep mainstream penetration since its inception. If one is attempting to divorce his- or herself from the projected shortcomings that tend to dominate present day rap dialogue (material fixation, misogyny, homophobia, etc.) because that person believes that the heart and soul and hip-hop as it "used to be known as" has fallen by the wayside, that person is just being idealistic. That is one person's concept of what hip-hop culture ought to be, and not how it exists today.

Alternatively, the subject matter that preoccupies much of the rap conversation in the mainstream did not just come out of nowhere, either. These topics have been floating around since rap even started; they have just been pushed to the forefront now due to significant changes in the market landscape of music caused by hip-hop itself. Sex, drugs, violence, and controversy of all breeds have always been prevalent in all genres of popular music, and hip-hop is simply the latest trend to capitalize on the market. Then one also has to consider how the basic "struggle" for up-and-coming hip-hop artists has shifted considerably; the absence of a compelling origin tends to make newer aspiring talent more faceless and appear less original than their predecessors.

Nas famously proclaimed that hip-hop was dead at the tail-end of 2008. Whose hip-hop? There definitely seems to be a stark disagreement about what hip-hop is to begin with, so it is even feasible to have this argument without any sort of consensus?

Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #1

Sorry, Ryan - I'm hijacking this joint blog of ours for the next three weeks for my hip-hop intersession class. Just so you know what's going on, I have to write at least 9 hip-hop-related blog entries, and I plan just writing about whatever comes to mind.

You can have this bad boy back in 2012.

I still can't decide whether or not I am actually incredibly annoyed at the free pass Kanye West has gotten this year with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, or if I think that the groupthink that has ensued in both the press and popular consensus is fascinating phenomenon, or both. I concede that it's easily the most enjoyable album since his debut with The College Dropout, and that it is probably the most elegantly produced album of the year, period. From a sonic aesthetics perspective, West is in as fine of form as he's ever been, and it's somewhat of a relief for me to be able to enjoy his output again (especially after coming down off of horrible, emo, autotuned warble of 808s & Heartbreak).

Conversely, there are a lot of things to dislike about the record, too. He has an entirety of one genuinely funny punch-line across 14 tracks, and the rest of it is a catastrophic mess of thoughtless and outright bad lyrics, and the fact that Twisted Fantasy is West's best rap showcase in the last three years hardly persuades me that West is more than above-average in that category at best. There are a handful of moments where West allows the subject matter to drift into thoughtful introspection, but the rest of the work is badly marred by a lot of his questionable rhymes.

It's pretty mind-blowing how universal of a consensus the music press have granted this album, considering that these highly childish, witless and predominantly misogynistic lyrics will forever be held in the same company of other five-star, Perfect 10 records belonging to the likes of Wilco, Radiohead, and The Flaming Lips. As a (former) music reviewer myself, I understand that hip-hop criticism is accompanied by a different set of criteria, but under no circumstances should the standards be actually lowered. Truly bad lyrics on an otherwise great hip-hop album should not get a pass simply because mainstream hip-hop has a tendency to be lyrically vapid.

One evaluation of the record (courtesy of TinyMixTapes) interestingly noted that "Kanye West is so big, he's indie." This is pretty illustrative of how 1) "indie" as a descriptor continues to be meaningless on the cusp of 2011; and 2) the sea change of hipsters rushing to legitimize themselves as avid admirers of all genres is finally revealing itself in a really bizarre way.

Although I pretty much call bullshit on this, it is very interesting to see how deeply this album has moved and penetrated the music criticism community, and the hand job domino effect that has followed.

Best of ONE World

My world specifically.

Perhaps, not the "best," but that's a pretty subjective statement I suppose. I'm just going to use this area to unleash little bits and pieces of my life that I currently don't have a place for. The idea behind this blog was initially a way to hone my writing skills while being able to keep in touch with my good friend from Norman, but I suppose one out of two isn't so terrible. So here's a terribly revealing vignette about my life and the kind of things that can send my poor heart reeling in ways that even the sappiest of love songs never do.

I love the Marx Brothers. And it's the worst kind of love. Remember Heidi from grade school? You would rub sand in her hair and steal her shoes and be completely obvious to anyone who wasn't in 3rd grade? Eventually she moves away and you go on with life and then finally one day you look back to analyze the many inane decisions that led you to where you are and you piece together those crazy emotions that your heart had no room for when you were 8. I suppose it's not really love, but it was still as intense as love could be at that age. That's how I feel about the Marx Brothers in a way. I don't misunderstand my emotions for them, but I do love them long after they are gone and it pains me in a profound way. Just like you will never connect with that girl from grade school again in the only way that matters, I know that I will never see a new Marx Brothers movie. Sure I have a few left that I have purposely avoided watching, but I know they aren't the best ones and I will watch them a foreboding presence over me, knowing that I have precious few jokes left to laugh at with the sound of surprise in my voice. The fact that they are all dead looms over me with every viewing too. It gets my sense of humor all tangled up with the awareness of how short a time we have here and makes for a really unique state of mind. Sometimes I end up enjoying the viewing even more because of this and then sometimes I can't bear to wait for the screen to fade to "The End" before I get up and turn off the TV.

There is far too much that I love about the movies for me to espouse in this one entry, but I will hit on a couple, and I'll make them the small moments so you know just how important the big ones are to me as well.

I could point out the musical segments of Harpo, the slapstick mute of the group, playing his harp and be perfectly happy writing a couple pages about that, but I'll go even smaller here and hone in on his eyes. For the uninitiated, several of the movies include musical segments and generally feature either Chico on the piano or Harpo on his harp. Chico playing piano is the same Chico you see the entire movie, brash and loud, haphazardly slapping the keys in unexpected ways and playing to entertain the crowd more than to satisfy himself. Harpo, though, is transformed every time he sits down to pluck. He goes from having that inane smile permanently plastered on his face to a look of complete serenity. As a kid I used to mistake his demeanor at the harp as boredom. I figured he just wanted to get on with the movie so he could pull another blowtorch from his jacket and get in bed with a horse, but as I've grown older I can see the love of music in his eyes. A word I've gotten hung up on for awhile now is "earnest." I want to be earnest in my words, my actions and my life so badly that it sometimes keeps me from being anything at all. But Harpo, my god, the word was invented for that man and you see it in his eyes. You can see him pouring his soul into a filler number squeezed into a anarchist comedy. Who else would care so much about something that means so little in the big picture? The same energy that he attacks his madcap character with is right there on the stool with him, but its focused so purely on one thing, making the music matter to the 10 people who didn't go off to buy popcorn during the number. And then of course as soon as the song is over you see his eyes roll back in his head and the character returns, the true self is pushed deep inside to reveal the facade that we have come to accept as fact. And its all in the eyes, I could watch those scenes without sound (but why would I?) and still feel moved in the silence.

Another thing I love about the movies is something I would never have predicted me one day admitting as a child. I love Zeppo, the 4th Marx Brother, the straight man, the absolute most boring part of any film he has ever been in. Eventually he left the troupe to go on and form one of the most successful Hollywood agencies, but during the first few films you could always depend on him to play the male romantic lead and perform at least one cheesy musical number, usually performed with the help of the female romantic lead. My love for him has grown out of familiarity more than anything else. There is a certain predictive nature to all the films that is comforting for the viewer, and Zeppo is anything but surprising. My love for him increased even more recently though when I was reading up on the history of the brothers and discovered that most considered him to be the funniest brother off camera. He could also impersonate Groucho so well that even stood in for him during the black out scene in Animal Crackers. So the most boring brother is also the most versatile and completely content with standing in the shadows of comedic giants. Perhaps he thought being more legitimate in the films would lead to solo roles in big budget pictures, but I like to think that he was just happy to see his other brothers shine and did his best to keep the spotlight on them.

So yes, I love you now too Zeppo, and I get sad when I think that you died 15 years before I was born.

Flash back to this evening now....

I was watching At the Circus tonight because it's Monday and I felt like fucking with my brain chemistry without the help of illicit drugs and a mid-late Marx Brothers movie that I've only seen a couple times will usually do that. Especially if it isn't their strongest showing. It's good enough to get me laughing but not absurd enough for me to completely shut off the nagging parts of my self that like to remind me that they ARE ALL DEAD AND YOU WILL BE TOO. I know, fucked up, right?

I finished it and was feeling not too terrible so I started getting ready for my shower because it's Monday and I like to be clean on Tuesday. I was thinking about my dad because he is so close to my love of these movies, it gets a little mixed up in my mind sometimes because of that. You see, he first exposed me to the movies. I can't recall the first one I ever saw, but I do remember being in Y-Indians and having him show us A Day at the Races, truly one of the classics, at one of our meetings, I think it was a sleepover at the YMCA. I really enjoyed it and so did the other kids. The movies are great because even if you are too young to get all the quick turn of phrases from Groucho, you can still sit back and enjoy Harpo antics and the funny mustache. You have to imagine our neat rows of sleepings bags, TMNT if you were lucky and a plain red one if not, and the eager little faces being illumated by the whites and disappearing behind the blacks. You have to imagine our faces lighting up when we finally adjusted to the machine gun pace of the jokes. You have to imagine being a kid again and how every little thing in the world could be THE world for you in that moment and then you start to understand how these movies grabbed such a strong footing in my being. Looking back, it must have made my dad so happy that one of his childhood loves was being accepted by a new generation, he could see himself in us, which is always what kills people when it comes to kids. A kid can do the cutest things and some asshole might not be moved, but when he sees the kid pick at his ear the way he used to or show him a truck that looks like his old one, even the hardest of hearts melts. And now, years later, it gives me such immense happiness to know that my dad was happy that night, and it means SO much to me that he was, there were certainly other times I saw him happy, but I guess I can finally relate to what he must have felt. Nowadays I strive to expose someone to these films and I have to keep myself from watching their faces with nervous expectation, praying that they "get it," that it clicks for them like it did for me and in that moment I have to make room for another person in my heart. I think of my dad sitting at the back of the darkened gym, looking at the kids, maybe focusing on me even, and feeling that elation in the moment when the connection is made and his love is finally shared, with his own child no less. I'm so happy I could give him that.
Hindsight for me is not 20/20 though, especially when it comes to the younger years, but I never want to know if I remembered this wrong because it means too much to me now.

So I thought about that when I was getting ready for my shower and of course the spectre of Marx Brothers death crept in there too and I cried for the first time in a long time because my dad is going to die someday and I finally understand what that means at 24 for the first time.

Music Review: Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

I know I should probably spend some time writing a review for something that has come out in the last month one of these days, but I figure anything that gets me to a write a thought out entry is a good thing. So here's something about a great band.

Let’s talk about Bon Iver, specifically For Emma, Forever Ago.” I have no idea why Bon Iver finally clicked with me, but I’m so happy that it finally happened. I remember having my iPod on shuffle when it just happened to come across “Skinny Lover” and the song was vaguely recognizable, but I hadn’t made a real effort to dig into the album yet so I couldn’t have told you who it was at the time. When it came on I was in the middle of running to a plane that I would end up missing so I didn’t have time to pull out the player and check it out, which made it even more exciting to me as the song went on. I knew that I had a new favorite song, and possibly a favorite band, and I had no idea who it was. When I got around to checking it out, the name didn’t go with the sound at all for me; I had expected something chaotic or noisy for some reason and instead came away with some of the most gracefully layered music I had ever heard.

On the plane I worked my way through the rest of the album and even though the sound was the same, I still needed more time to appreciate every song in the same way as “Skinny Lover.” It’s not a complicated album in terms of composition, but each song needed a different situation or feeling to cling to before it would all come together for me and I could finally get to the core of the painfully meager nine tracks. This made listening to it all the more enjoyable though, I would find myself coming back to the album again and again every few weeks and finding another way to love it.

Apparently the album is about the lead singer, Justin Vernon, dealing with breakup(s) and the entire album has a sense of resignation and passive acceptance, but the songs are not completely caught up in identifying one aspect or feeling so you still get the freedom to explore each song in a unique way. The first track, “Flume”, for instance is about a baby still in the womb and while you could stretch the themes out to relate to the innocence of the unborn child and the lamenting of the pain that is to come, it’s better to take it for what it is and enjoy the picture that Vernon paints with expert precision. You feel comforted in an odd sort of way during the haunting track and eventually I came to realize that the song actually reminds me of a memory that I do not even have, I still can’t get over how weird it felt when I first came to that realization.

Vernon also has a knack for putting you smack in the middle of a situation and bringing you up to speed on the severity of it in almost no time at all, see: “Skinny Lover.” This is the song that would go on my mixtape that I have to make five minutes before the bombs drop and I have to escape down the hatch to my underground shelter where I will be stuck with only a walkman, an endless supply of batteries and one CD. This is the only definite breakup song of the album, the other ones are musing on what comes before and after and how you deal with it, but this is definitely a song of the moment. Vernon acts like the consummate grief victim in the song, going through all the different stages and finally coming to a sort of acceptance. “Come on skinny lover just last the year,” the first line alone is enough to paint the entire picture, Vernon is pleading not just with the girl, but with the relationship itself all while finally seeing that it will be over by the second stanza. Vernon’s normally angelic voice flies into a justified frenzy as he retraces all the missteps that led them to this point and you can’t help but begin to make the same pleas he does to an unfeeling and immovable force.

It’s probably pretty clear by now that I could go on talking about this album for a long time, and I probably will to myself and in other excerpts that I’ll leave out in this “review,” but that would be pointless because I’ve gotten my point across by now. This is a fantastic album, the kind of album that you listen to at 3 in the morning and suddenly feel the urge to write about. The feelings that Vernon stirs up with the sparsest of sounds are as powerful as the music is subdued and it while it doesn’t plead for your attention like so much other music does these days you will still find yourself inevitably drawn to it as it slowly carves the smallest of crevices inside your heart for itself.

Music Review: Lloyd - Lessons in Love

This will be my first review as PopMatters' newest R&B specialist. It's what they consider a "high priority" release, so I imagine they'll be getting this published within the next week. It's been a weak-sauce year in R&B, though, so I'm being allowed to steer clear away from the genre for awhile. Upcoming albums I have in the pipelines are by country artists Heidi Newfield and Jessica Simpson (?!); Roman electronic connoisseur Jacopo Carreras; Israeli surf rockers Boom Pam; singer-songwriter Sonya Kitchell; and a bunch of indie rock cats who call themselves Ten Kens. I'll keep interested parties posted in the coming weeks.

It’s really not much of a secret anymore these days: R&B has spent the bulk of the last several years falling off a cliff. There have been a lot of arguments offered pertaining to where and why the genre has taken this near fatal swan-dive into systematic mediocrity, but many sources consent that R&B’s gradual merger with hip-hop has been an undeniable contributor to this disaster. The new century has seen a slew of top-shelf hip-hop producers strike Top 40 gold with both rappers and crooners alike; and as long as their paycheck has a sufficient number of zeroes, they all seem to be equally and frighteningly indiscriminant with who they contract their services out to.

While this boom in collaborations culminated between the two genres has certainly resulted in a handful of genuinely enjoyable hits in recent memory (Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Love’ immediately springs to mind), the reverse compatibility between backing R&B and rap tracks has – in the end – arguably produced more bad than good by having the unintended consequence of severely narrowing the sonic palette of R&B. Unique traits that the genre has touted for years (danceable mid-tempo jams with a strong, often interesting sense of melody) now sound exhausted and formulaic. Alternatively, even the most average of rappers benefit from this fusion greatly, as the assimilation of R&B’s inherent base for melodic progression has gone long ways to diversifying the soundscapes of hip-hop. The days of being able to actively distinguish between hard-hitting rap anthems against the smoldering balladry of rhythm and blues on the basis of production are nearing an end.

Lloyd Harlin Polite, Jr. is one of the latest in a long line of young, fashionable and artistically faceless R&B vocalists peddling this precise trend. Not one to break the mould, Lloyd has spent his entire career (which is now surprisingly three albums deep) reheating worn-out street love truisms and simplified innuendo; naturally, this would also mean that he has made almost no discernible strides in the direction of trying to differentiate himself from his peers.

Lessons in Love’s missteps are numerous, and with the witless kitsch of ‘Sex Education’ leading off, it’s not very difficult to ascertain how the rest of the album will play out based on this introduction. Dull lines like, “Give me your permission to take a trip with me / To satisfy you is my mission and a bed is all we need” are rife throughout the record, but some of you may shudder to hear that this instance is probably the least severe of the lyrical offenses. Not far around to corner is the synth-heavy slow jam ‘Year of the Lover,’ which houses this nefariously laughable come-on: “Don’t make plans for dinner / I’mma put you up on the stove and take off all your clothes / Girl, watch me cook.” This admittedly wouldn’t sound as scrawny or awkward if he had half of R. Kelly’s charismatic verve or performance flair (whom he is very clearly trying to emulate) in order to properly sell the conceit.

Lloyd’s own syrupy tenor, as pleasant and innocuous as it is, presents an array of problems with each passing track, as well. He has a tendency to sound tinny and childlike against the backdrop of warbling guitars and droning bass. Lloyd is able to wrench attention back from the insistent production whenever he delves into his falsetto, but this is also where his vocal frailties are even more accentuated when he’s forced to compete against the rest of the track. ‘Girls Around the World’ is a crisp ‘80s groove that tries to mask Lloyd’s thin vocal presence behind a veil of multi-tracked harmonies, but ends up having the reverse effect of marginalizing his presence in a muddle of over-production. Even the glimmer of opportunity for Lil’ Wayne to salvage this legitimately engaging track is squandered, as he decides instead to rest on the laurels of his most recent commercial triumphs and sleepwalks through some of the most forgettable and uninspiring 16 bars of his career.

Occasionally, even Lessons in Love's strongest suit in production will yield less than favorable outcomes. Most records – especially those of the hip-hop and R&B variety – would normally benefit from the fluidity and uniformity that accompanies the use of two or three likeminded producers. What ends up happening here instead is that a bland homogeneity in the overall sound of the record emerges, and entire tracks start running together (most notably during the four-track stretch between ‘Year of the Lover’ and ‘Have My Baby’). Lloyd’s generally two-dimensional songwriting, being as prevalent as it is, does little else but punctuates this distinct lack of variety.

Truth be told, however, Lessons in Love is not entirely an unlistenable affair. Where Lloyd tends to falter with absurd sexual propositions and drippy, clichéd love ballads, he tends to fare better with club-oriented material. Pulsing, mushrooming synth pangs swell over the mechanical beat-keeping of space-age snares and bass in producer James “J. Lack” Lackey’s best impersonation of The Neptunes. The focus is shifted away from Polite’s fragile vocals and placed squarely on the track’s persistent, transmittable dance groove.

From a soundboard standpoint, the agile lead guitar as well as its accompanying rhythm guitar flourishes on ‘Love Making 101’ easily makes it the album’s greatest production accomplishment. It’s a surprisingly meticulous and layered song, and Lloyd himself even sounds in command of the entire track itself with his creamy vocals barely rising above a whisper before the chorus. ‘Treat U Good’ slightly picks up the dance pace and also showcases how powerful an ally vocal restraint is to Lloyd; the entire song is almost bereft of him indulging in the upper registers, and he sounds noticeably more robust and melodic as a result. The strengths of his immediate vocal range go a long way toward imbuing his syncopated enunciation on both tracks with a more pronounced punch, as well.

This handful of keepers is unfortunately not enough to redeem what is otherwise an entire record’s worth of vapidity. Run-of-the-mill airwave fodder is exactly what the public has been conditioned to expect from R&B and consume for the last several years, and Lloyd has done nothing but contribute to to its slowly deteriorating state. But do you want to know what greatest tragedy behind Lessons in Love is? – It’s that the album’s sporadic moments of charm and promise make it incredibly tricky to dismiss Lloyd’s efforts all together. Somewhere buried underneath Lloyd’s artistically fruitless four years in the mundane genre trappings of urban radio lies what could potentially be, if not a unique voice, a winsome and entertaining personality. Of course, presenting the mere possibility of being enjoyable doesn’t earn artists extra credit in the world of criticism, and that will (hopefully) be the single greatest lesson that Lloyd takes away from his third album’s imminently short shelf life.

Frownland

Reviews are such a tricky thing. I could construct a hefty list of the reasons why but the most important reason is because you are not me. No matter how similar you think our tastes in awesome things are, you still won't be me and you won't experience things the same way that I do. We all try so hard to to make our friends experience the same feelings we do. When you want to show a movie to a buddy, you generally don't just have them borrow it, you watch it with them so you can see the same emotions it elicited in you boil up inside of them as well and are often disappointed when they take it all in the most slightly different of ways.

Anyway, this is all quite a buildup to say that I really like the movie Frownland and while I am not completely alone, there is a large group of people who do not like it. In fact they hate it. The movie premiered at SXSW and was followed shortly by a few walkouts and a great deal of commotion, the end result was heated discussion from both sides of the aisle and an award for the writer/director, Ronald Bronstein. After watching it this past week at Facets, most likely the most amazing establishment I've ever set foot in, I can see where all this disagreement comes from.

The movie follows Keith, a painfully dysfunctional stuttering short man, who just can't seem to relate to people on the level he wants to. We see him at his depressing apartment in New York City, a one bedroom apartment he shares with a pretentious bully, dealing with his depressing friends, who all treat him worse than even a stranger ever would, and at his depressing job, where he sells coupons door to door. The result is a film that some could say comes off as a tad depressing.

As the movie builds more and more towards the inevitable psychological collapse of this lost soul audiences become quite clearly split. You cannot remain ambivalent about Keith, you can only either hate him down to his core or pity him to the point where you must look away at times. It all depends on how much you see of yourself inside of him. I see Keith not as a sort of plague person that I should try to avoid at all costs, I see him as a cautionary tale. I can clearly see the circles that have brought him to the point where he can barely compose a coherent sentence without falling over his own words and eventually collapsing into a pile of useless apologies. I see the loneliness of a cold city that can strip you of yourself and the things that you used to hold up as a testament to your good character. Keith is not a reality that I expect to ever have to endure, but it is interesting to see where the end of some roads lay.

In the end, the movie portrays a type of person that Hollywood would never dare touch and that is why I appreciate bold films such as this. The story ends up leaving audiences with such a sense of dread and hopelessness that is not hard to understand why the reaction was so varied. Generally we see movies to inspire us or show us a part of life we never knew was there, but this movie shows us a part of life we all know, but have looked away from. To watch Frownland is be force fed desperation while having an intravenous of failure at the same time, and it's a truly glorious achievement.

I am very upset with Hanson's review.

Anyone who has heard me ramble on and on about how well the movie maneuvers through all the interesting facets of one of the greatest comic heroes ever knows that I loved The Dark Knight. However! What is most frustrating about Mr. Le's scathing write up for the current movie of the year is that I now have to counterpoint the review instead of just going on with assuming that everyone loves the movie and being able to talk about it's tie ins to The Killing Joke and The Man Who Laughs. I was so excited to go back and reread these comics and see if even they can hold their own against this milestone epic, but alas, it is not to be as I must once again postpone more exciting endeavors to instead revisit old battlegrounds and set right this egregious error made by my roommate.

Let's start off with an easy one.

"Entire combat sequences are suffocated by series of jarring cuts, split-second angle changes and extreme, claustrophobic close-ups to the action. This tactic is usually deployed in order to mask the lack of actual hand-to-hand combat experience of actors and stuntmen, and to simulate the presence of choreography."

I will admit that if I was forced to pick out my favorite action movies ever based solely on the fightscenes, there are several others that would beat out The Dark Knight but it is hardly what I would consider second-rate. The fighting I felt improved drastically over the first movie, finally I felt that Batman was moving and fighting in the way that he would actually have to, as opposed to what he was doing the first movie, dropping down on some sort of rope and pulley system to sneak up on goons and knocking out the lights to save Nolan the hassle of shooting actual footage. Nolan's movie is rooted very heavily in realism and the first movie sometimes had him moving and fighting in ways that seemed more hassle than it would be worth. I did feel that the S.W.A.T. team scene was a bit awkward, but it was more due to the needless cuts back and forth from SONAR vision. I think if I saw that scene again and knew what to look for I would not be nearly as disoriented, and while a movie shouldn't have to be watched twice to enjoy, I never thought it was unenjoyable to begin with, merely a mediocre scene in the middle of several spectacular ones. (Note: I did indeed watch the movie again last night and the fights weren't as jarring, however, the S.W.A.T. team rope trick is still a bit out of nowhere.)

Additionally, there is a word that Hanson uses to criticize the fighting style of this movie that I find a bit interesting. He laments the movie for not properly conveying what has always been seen a bit of a "mythical" fighting style in the comic books. I think that what he forgets is how deeply rooted in realism that this movie is supposed to be. Sure they pull out some crazy plot devices like the SONAR and the fact that people supposedly wouldn't blow up each other's boats (I mean seriously, you're gonna die for some criminals? Here give me the damn remote) but beyond that the Nolan's seem pretty determined to make Batman something that could exist. They do not entirely disregard the mythical sense of the character though, they just make it something that only exists in the wild imagination of criminals and civilians alike.

MOVING ON!

"My first gripe has to do with the condensed focus on both Christian Bale’s Batman and Bruce Wayne."

This complaint is a bit odd I think mostly because Hanson spent the last few paragraphs before this statement raving, rightfully so, about the amazing performances given by both Aaron Eckhart and Heath Ledger. While I do understand the idea that the titular character in the movie should be heavily focused on and sympathized with, I feel like I do not need Christian Bale on the screen the entire time for this to occur. If someone came into this movie without having seen Batman Begins they may not be able to enjoy it as much, but as someone who has seen the first movie a few times I feel that I know Bruce Wayne well enough that I don't need to see the pain and torment he is going through first hand, I know how he will react and how he will feel without having Batman on screen telling me how sad he is. Nolan obviously took a bit of a risk by taking the limelight off of Wayne for this movie but the performances that were turned in by the other stars made the gamble pay off several times over. I should also note that before I used to think Gary Oldman was always out of place and awkward as Jim Gordan, however, after watching the movie a second time appreciated the new side he has brought to this character, he seems more vulnerable and yet somehow more resilient than ever. His monologue at the end initially comes off as a bit out of place at first, but that can be excused for the way that it ties the entire movie together so beautifully. Tell me you didn't have a "oh shit" moment when you finally pieced together the title and what it really meant.

"The biggest qualm I have with Nolan’s intentions in making a brainy (albeit ham-fisted) summer spectacle comes at the end of the film, where Batman has apparently pegged every last possible nuance of masked heroism and vigilantism in the span of four villains. Here, Batman speaks with an unrealistic amount of foresight (something which took scribes decades to flesh out and his comic book alter ego an equal amount of time to realize), and the soul of an entire mythology is breathlessly compressed into a few lines of forced dialogue."

I automatically win this argument because obviously Hanson was even paying attention to this scene well enough to notice that it was Gordon talking, not Batman, and as I said earlier, I love this monologue. His complaint about how quickly Gordon has surmised what took writers and characters decades to get to is not fair at all considering the first few decades of Batman stories had him traveling to other solar systems to meet alternate reality Batmans and time traveling to joust with the Joker. His mythos grew more in the mind of the readers at this time and was never fully explored until more ambitious writers came on board to work out what really makes the character work. I agree that Nolan did force Gordon to lay it out just a little bit too pretty for the average viewer, but I don't think that is a bad thing for a summer blockbuster where the average viewer probably wouldn't spend two seconds trying to piece together the themes unless someone gives them a little push in the right direction. Nolan has to balance keeping the average viewer informed with the ideas he is presenting while still not giving you the cliff-notes to the movie, it's a tricky thing to make a movie that people of all different types can enjoy and there has to be concessions made somewhere.

While Hanson feels that this movie layers too much on top of itself to be the best comic movie ever, I feel that if that were true, it would not be having the type of runaway success that it has been enjoying for the last two weeks. If the average summer blockbuster fan can get through such a dense and thoughtful film, then in my estimation there is not too much going on. The balance throughout the film is amazing to me, it moves organically and contains one of the longest climaxes I've ever enjoyed without ever making me feel like I was having to work for it.

All in all, it's still better than X-2. Sorry Hanson  :(

Film Review: The Dark Knight

After having spent the last 24 hours sporadically sifting through my jumble of impressions of the biggest movie of the year to date, there is one nagging conclusion that I’m constantly having to come back around to: although it’s a mostly decent and intermittently great summer event, The Dark Knight is colossally overrated.

First things first in this (mostly) spoiler-free take, though – let’s get the high points out of the way. In a sensitive, concerted effort to not beat the dead horse, the late Heath Ledger positively astonishes in his role as the Joker. Director Christopher Nolan and his brother (and co-screenwriter) Jonathan ultimately settled on a significantly more sinister take of the character; a convincingly deranged and cheerlessly brutal psychopath with an unnerving penchant for knife-inflicted torment. Although Ledger’s Joker does his best to sell you his self-proclaimed responsibilities as an ambassador of chaos, his performance throughout the movie betrays something much more meticulously crafted at play. All aspects of the performance were unquestionably products of fastidious design – everything from his cobbled swagger, his deliberately slurred enunciation, and the paralyzing dread that materializes every time that crimson, razor-blade sneer blossoms from scar tissue to scar tissue – and they all go to incredible lengths to create a compellingly threatening presence.

Likewise, Aaron Eckhart is also onboard to turn in a similarly provocative depiction as Gotham City’s new hotshot District Attorney, Harvey Dent. The show-stopping honors may very well be in Ledger’s name, but audiences would be hard-pressed not to find anything as equally engaging about Dent’s candor and winsome sense of righteousness. Even as his lopsided resolve regarding justice and heroism progressively traipses closer and closer to naïveté, it’s still difficult to not get swept away by the sheer enormity of Dent’s earnestness and seemingly unwavering conviction. Simply put, Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is as close as the script could possibly get to the archetypal “white knight” without drowning itself in a deluge of camp – and in a bleak tale that practically hinges on the classical dualities of good and evil, that is truly a sight to behold.

Unfortunately, that’s where most of the consistently decent qualities about The Dark Knight end.

Although there isn’t any singular component that is outright detrimental to the movie as a whole, it’s the minutiae of minor issues and obstacles that the film accumulates over a sometimes glacial, other times excruciating 3-hour running time that keeps it from being the masterpiece many are claiming it to be. My first gripe has to do with the condensed focus on both Christian Bale’s Batman and Bruce Wayne. It was easy to predict this outcome based on the unbridled anticipation for the Ledger’s interpretation of the Joker, but it became increasingly problematic to even sympathize with his character as emphasis on his internal struggles were sidelined in favor of developing other, more prominent subplots. In Batman Begins, Bale was able to articulate a huge array of emotions through his stoic silence, selective speech, and expressive body language; unsurprisingly, Bruce Wayne’s more meditative moments in The Dark Knight is where he is in his finest form. Regrettably, the majority of Bale’s scenes are in costume where he seems even stiffer and more lumbering than before. Stripped of Bale’s facial expression assets, one of the most sympathetic characters in comic book history is reduced to nothing more than an anonymous figure in a cape and cowl, complete with a distracting gravelly rasp.

Elsewhere, Batman’s mythical dominance in combat comes off as muted throughout much of the movie, as Nolan unwittingly carries on Hollywood’s tradition of perpetuating the worst brand of fight cinematography on the face of the planet. Entire combat sequences are suffocated by series of jarring cuts, split-second angle changes and extreme, claustrophobic close-ups to the action. This tactic is usually deployed in order to mask the lack of actual hand-to-hand combat experience of actors and stuntmen, and to simulate the presence of choreography. This style worked to Batman’s favor in Batman Begins, as his approach for most of the movie depended upon swiftness and stealth; all the quick edits worked well in creating an illusion of Batman’s silent, deadly omnipresence. Conversely, very little of that element is seen in The Dark Knight, as what we’re offered instead is Batman nonchalantly dive-bombing through at least two different windows and brutishly tackling packs of goons head-on. If we’re going to be treated to an out-in-the-open rumble with one of fiction’s greatest martial artists systematically devastating hordes of faceless henchmen, someone with a wide-angle lens and an eye for panoramic poetry needs to be filming it.

The most taxing aspect about this editing style is that the logic of stretches of scenes feels like they’re lost in the shuffle. This is most evident in the fight scene preceding Batman’s final encounter with the Joker, where a jumble of dark, schizophrenic images inexplicably lead to the defeat of Joker’s henchmen, the freeing of the hostages, and an entire SWAT team dangling from the side of a building – all courtesy of our favorite masked vigilante in a matter of mere, incomprehensible seconds.

The Dark Knight’s most glaring shortcomings become palpable when things get thematically convoluted. On paper, the juxtaposition of Harvey Dent with both Batman and the Joker as a series of events moves him from one end of the moral spectrum to the other is easily the most fascinating arc simmering beneath the surface of the story. Theoretically, even the most principled, upstanding citizens of society can succumb to the pitfalls of evil. However, it is in the execution where this concept stalls out: the motivating factors which ultimately clinch Dent’s transformation into the murderous Two-Face as well as his subsequent descent into illogical madness simply aren’t very believable. Even worse is the contrived moral dilemma that tech specialist Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) confronts Bruce Wayne with when he’s faced with the decision of invading the privacy of 30 million Gotham citizens in order to pinpoint the location of the Joker. This impasse could have been effective if the entire scene didn’t feel as if it were completely glossed over – there just weren’t any real consequences to justify the needlessly high drama of this scene.

The biggest qualm I have with Nolan’s intentions in making a brainy (albeit ham-fisted) summer spectacle comes at the end of the film, where Batman has apparently pegged every last possible nuance of masked heroism and vigilantism in the span of four villains. Here, Batman speaks with an unrealistic amount of foresight (something which took scribes decades to flesh out and his comic book alter ego an equal amount of time to realize), and the soul of an entire mythology is breathlessly compressed into a few lines of forced dialogue. The fear and anxiety that has supposedly gripped the public as a result of Batman’s presence is something that’s referenced, but sans the pathetically scant press conference scene it’s never once fully conveyed. This is the primary oversight that further sabotages the emotional impact of Batman’s greatest decision: to take the fall for crimes he didn’t commit in order to protect the heroic reputation of another. It’s a noble but ultimately hollow conceit.

As a film endeavor that straddles the line between summer blockbuster and intellectual art-house fodder, The Dark Knight indubitably draws enough from both schools of thought to satisfy a slew of happy customers. At the end of the day, though, the combined salvo of Christopher Nolan's bloated psychoanalytical character examinations and thematic identity crises is clearly indicative of an ambitious director trying to messily cram way too many layers into a grueling 3-hour test of cerebral endurance. There are too many missteps and botched opportunities for this to be the best movie of the year, or even the best comic book adaptation ever. Fortunately, you don’t always have to be the best to be entertaining, and that’s at least something this flick has in spades.

Get on those counterpoints, Ryan!

Introductions

Hi, I'm Hanson and I'm a struggling, dirt-poor college student who loves to write.

Ryan here, one of my three roommates, has recently developed an interest in writing reviews and approached me a couple of weeks ago with the idea of a collaborative blog. It’s an entertaining notion for a number of reasons – the most prevalent would have to be that out of everyone I’ve ever lived with at college, Ryan superficially seems like he resembles me the least in terms of personality and lifestyle. Regardless, I’ve had the opportunity to spend these last 5 years to really approximate the depth of the overlap of our interests and tastes (especially with music and comic books), and the results have been pretty astonishing. That’s not to imply that we necessarily like all the same things. On the contrary – it seems like we butt heads more often than not when we start dissecting the minutiae of certain segments of the arts. What’s important, though, is that we both tend to approach art criticism with a similar, analytical (although some of our friends might accuse of being overly so) frame of reference.

Currently, we have chosen to tentatively title the blog "Best of Both Worlds" for our first few trial entries. It’s an inside joke referencing a particularly terrible superstar collaboration between Jay-Z and R. Kelly from a few years ago, but we’re hoping to cultivate some sort of readership by playing off any inherent difference in opinion we might have. I suspect Ryan and I will be dealing with film, music and comic books primarily; I don’t dedicate blocs of my spare time toward non-fiction like I used to, so Ryan will probably take up the bulk of any existing book commentary. We’ll see how this plays out in the coming months.

This blog opportunity also doubles as an outlet to get my writing out to more people. Until I see exactly what this new revamp of Last.FM spells for the future of journal connectivity between users, spending on average 3-5 hours on an entry only to have 2 or 3 people read it just isn’t cutting it for me anymore. Plus, I’ve discovered that dedicating this space to free-associating with various other things knockin’ around in my head goes a long way with keeping my fluctuating interest in music invigorated – even if no one here is particularly interested in what I have to say about politics or the latest box-office powerhouses.

My roommates and I finally had the opportunity to catch a 7:00 PM showing of The Dark Knight last night, so I'll be posting my first official review on here posted in the next couple of hours or so.

Best of Both Worlds

It's more than just a landmark album by two of the world's foremost musicians, it's a pillar of sonic perfection that shows mankind what they should strive to be. So maybe that's a bit over the top, but it's a great catch phrase to yell out at parties and such and it works for what this blog is all about, writing reviews over the best, or worst if I feel something needs to be called out for sucking ass, that music and comics has to offer.

The idea here is going to be pretty simple, at least in my vision. I actually have no idea what Hanson is planning on putting together for his first post. The way I see it working is that I will be posting a goodly amount of comic reviews and a few music reviews and of course my hilarious observations about life will be thrown in there from time to time as well. Hanson will most likely be posting mostly music reviews using words that he learned from "Word a Day" emails, so bring a thesaurus. Of course I only make this unfair jab because I know my writing is going to be severally lacking in comparison for a while due to a lack of practice and my distaste for proofreading.

But that's enough musing for now. I'll get to my first review, which is completely biased, unfair, inaccurate and under researched.

Final Crisis #2:

Written by Grant Morrison
Art by J.G. Jones
Spoiled by A bunch of hack writers that DC apparently has no control over

This issue is definitely better the more I read it, I figured that might happen since it is Morrison and I really have to let a lot of his ideas rattle around in my head before I am able pull them all together and enjoy them. I remember reading the Filth, an excellent maxi series by Morrison which I might write more about later on, and having to force myself to take it slow so I could really enjoy the twists as they came about.

Final Crisis will probably be the best major event that DC has had in awhile, but honestly, that is not saying much. The last one I really enjoyed was Identity Crisis and that was because it was a great story driven by well established characters that Brad Meltzer did a great job of making you empathize with. Every major event since then has been a cluster fuck filled with more double spreads of D list characters locked in a pointless battle then actual good storytelling. That's more of less why I'm constantly amazed by Dan Didio terrible decision making ability. Here is a company that is continuing to lose major market share to Marvel and has some of the most iconic and well established characters in comics and yet DC ends up bringing in more and more throw away characters to fill in the stories instead of focusing on the heroes that fans buy the books to read about. I do admit that there is a certain amount of joy to be had in learning about where all these random characters came from, but at a certain point I don't give a shit and just want to see Batman batarang somebody in their fucking head.

Final Crisis is finally starting to address some of these concerns by bringing in characters that a lot of readers may not be too familiar with but still having a healthy amount of the story focused on the heavy hitters. My major concern with this issue is the reappearance of Barry though. I'm not sure if this was Morrison's decision or not, as I haven't had the chance to read the 1,001 interviews he has done about Final Crisis, but I would be inclined to say it wasn't. He is almost mocking the state of superhero deaths by throwing in the "Hope for a resurrection" line that Superman uses at the funeral of the Martian Manhunter. I just don't see how bringing Barry back is relevant anymore. Close followers of DC comics would probably be able to list the myriad of ways that Wally and Barry are completely different characters, but the average person who picks up a comic won't care because they wear the same costume and can both run really fast.

So that's a lot of words to finally get to the actual issue, which is actually quite good. If you have the patience to put together the puzzle that is going on here, the payoff is pretty sweet. I don't know if I will care enough to read any of the other mini series, but I'll keep my eye out for this one for the time being.