by Nicole Powers
“We’re willing to put our balls on the line.”
– Chester Bennington
It’s been over a decade since Linkin Park released their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which spawned the breakout, radio-friendly crossover hits “Crawling” and “In the End.” The SoCal rock/rap band, whose vocal interplay between singer Chester Bennington and rapper Mike Shinoda became their sonic signature, have come a long way since then.
But though Linkin Park’s subsequent full-length offerings, Meteora (2003) and Minutes to Midnight (2007), were solid performers, they failed to match the excitement of the band’s initial release. Consequently, when we were invited to a special laser listening event a week ahead of the street date for Linkin Park’s fourth studio album, A Thousand Suns, we weren’t sure what to expect. However, the album – and its presentation – quite frankly, blew us away. And, judging by the reactions of those gathered at Hollywood’s Music Box Theatre, we weren’t the only ones who felt that way.
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by Brett Warner
Few bands manage to perpetually frustrate their fans the way Weezer does. With each new album, singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo – a semi-secret musical genius, we’ve been instructed to keep in mind – continues to disappoint a very vocal legion of cynical, skeptical, and especially jaded twenty-to-thirty somethings with one word on their tongues: Pinkerton. No other album in rock history (save maybe Sgt. Pepper) gets tossed around as much; you won’t find any Weezer album review after 2001 that fails to mention it. The 1996 proto-emo classic was a commercial flop upon its release, but word of mouth and the band’s 5-year hiatus lifted it to cult classic status. Its supporters tend to hail the album’s intensely personal lyrics: a smorgasbord of frustrations aimed at groupies, lesbians, Asian girls, and Cuomo’s various other insecurities. Weezer’s latest album Hurley (their first on independent label Epitaph Records) has gotten some choice positive reviews, many comparing its rougher, lo-fi sound to Pinkerton’s – but still, many rock fans seem unwilling (or unable) to give the band another chance. To them, the deeply confessional tone of Pinkerton’s songs has been replaced on post-millennial Weezer records with sarcastic, ironic, sophomoric humor – when in actuality, Weezer have never been ironic. They are quite possibly the only completely honest, agenda-less band to come out of the ’90s alternative boom. So why the shift in general cultural opinion of the group? The reason why Weezer continues to frustrate listeners is because they draw attention to the generational shift between X and Y listeners. Throughout this significant transition in social attitudes, Weezer have remained remarkably consistent – we’re the ones who’ve changed.
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By Edward Kelly
On paper, it seems like a no-brainer. Comedy and rap should, in theory, go together like Shakespeare and the stage – or CBS and derivative police procedurals. Even on a surface level, the similarities between comedy and hip-hop are many. Both are, essentially, spoken word art forms that are performed, at least in the beginning, at open mic nights in front of sometimes-hostile crowds. Both are very much raw and individual acts – an oftentimes undiluted, nerve-wracking display of what happens when a fan stops simply appreciating and starts producing material. As such, they invite a very personal dissection of an artist’s skill and talent.
But in practice comedy and rap rarely combine successfully. Sure, performers like MC Frontalot or MC Chris or Baddd Spellah are rappers and comedians, but part of their success is attributable to the postmodern, wink-wink comedic juxtaposition of gangsta rap clichés mixed with nerd culture quips. And while I love the nerdcore rappers, I can’t help but feel like I’m held at arms length. There’s an artifice there that can’t be bridged because, they’re essentially playing characters.
Rappers (and really all musicians) are at their best when the music feels, for lack of a less overused word, “real.” When Ice Cube told us that it was a good day because he didn’t have to use his AK, there was a certain sense of truth – a frustrated, angry condemnation of a society that allows injustice to continue. Likewise, transcendent comedy occurs when the comedian isn’t afraid to be uncomfortably honest about his life, such as when Louis CK rants about his young daughters’ bratty attitudes. The difference, of course, is that Cube uses testosterone-fueled posturing, while CK opts for exaggerated self-deprecation. Does that mean that CK doesn’t care about the injustice he sees in the world or that Cube isn’t aware of the inherently absurd nature of childrearing?
I don’t know the answer. But I have the feeling that Donald Glover does.
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by Nicole Powers
The Pleasure Principle is an album that’s provided its maker, Gary Numan, with both instant and delayed gratification. Three decades ago, when the now classic electro album first came out, it made a massive impact culturally and commercially. The Pleasure Principle, and the iconic single it spawned, “Cars”, hit the number one spot simultaneously on the album and singles charts in the UK in September, 1979. The following year, the records crashed the US Billboard charts, making the painfully shy young vocalist, composer and musician a household name here too.
Numan’s Kraftwerk-inspired tracks, which channeled the voice of the machine, had a raw energy and DIY aesthetic that served as the bridge between ’70s punk and the early dance and hip-hop scenes of the 1980s. Indeed the bare break beats from the opening segment of “Films” (the fourth track on The Pleasure Principle) became the sample of choice for a generation of producers, thanks in part to the song’s inclusion on Street Beat’s tastemaker compilation series Ultimate Breaks and Beats (which served as the primary DJ and studio sample resource pre-CD).
Ironically, as the spotlight faded on Numan, the sounds he created proliferated exponentially through the fabric of pop music culture. As a new generation of producers sampled samples, the origins of these staple breaks escaped many. However those in the know – such as Basement Jaxx, Armand Van Heldon, Afrika Bambaataa and Dr. Dre – openly covered, used, credited and paid homage to Numan’s body of work.
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by Blogbot
It’s been ten years since Tommy Lee has made a record under the Methods of Mayhem moniker. But with Mötley Crüe on hiatus in 2010, the drummer-cum-multi-instrumentalist decided now was the perfect time to revisit his hybrid dance/rock side project. The new album, A Public Disservice Announcement, comes out tomorrow, but the fab folks at Roadrunner Records have been kind enough to give SG an exclusive preview of one of the tracks, “All I Wanna Do,” which is sexy and nasty in the nicest of ways.
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by Nicole Powers
“I’m going to write songs about fucking blowing my head off and giving in to apathy,” says Filter founder and frontman Richard Patrick during our interview. It’s not that he’s going to do either, it’s just that he understands what anger combined with a sense of hopeless can do to a person’s psyche.
In 2008 he released Anthems For The Damned, which served both as a protest against the Iraq war and a tribute to a friend it had claimed. (Anti-war, but very much pro-troops, Patrick has traveled to the Middle East twice to play concerts for those who risk their lives to serve our country.) Two years on, though our president may have changed, the status quo (or lack thereof) remains the same in the Middle East. After too many years listening to grim reports from the frontlines of a war that was misguided from the start, both the troops on the ground and the masses here at home are suffering from a severe case of fuck up fatigue. With dissent now largely falling on deaf ears, and, even worse, serving to remind the proletariat of their powerlessness, Patrick gets why it’s therapeutic to embrace indifference, shrug your shoulders and say “fuck it” to the world.
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by Ryan Stewart
April 11, 1983 was the definitive day in Dave Mustaine’s professional life. As lead guitarist and contributing songwriter for an up-and-coming thrash metal band called Metallica, he had been living out his dream of making a living at playing metal for over a year and a half. Like many at the time, he was also beginning to sense that his band was something truly special, a ferociously talented foursome that had the potential to go where no metal band had gone before. A musical virtuoso with unlimited ambition, Mustaine’s eyes were fixed on the future, but he was badly neglecting the present. A problem with drinking and drugs, owed in part to a rootless childhood, had plagued him for years, and as success drew closer his reckless behavior increased and lines were crossed. No one knows what the final straw really was, but on the morning of April 11, while Metallica was in N.Y.C. on business, Mustaine was awoken by singer James Hetfield and unceremoniously handed a Greyhound ticket home to L.A. He was out of Metallica, without so much as a warning.
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