Douglas Martin also pondered the deeper meaning of “The Birthday Song” yesterday. The great conundrum about You Turn Me On is that we’re still basking in its relevance after twenty years, even though it sounds like it took twenty minutes to record. It’s kind of weird to picture Bret, Heather, and Calvin– the latter being […]

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Douglas Martin. Dum Dum Girls covered them. At the height of their popularity, The Shins titled a noisy 56-second song after Pam Berry. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart should have to have their Slumberland paychecks garnished and paid back to the band they bit their whole style from. For […]

Sach O‘s got an Eraserhead haircut. Classic K-Def & LL Cool J collabo that was apparently lost behind a radiator for 17 years before being unearthed and released on limited edition orange vinyl. Seemingly recorded after Uncle L got his Chronic induced gangsta-rapping out of his system on 14 Shots to the Dome but before […]

Sach O is ‘Arkore. As if to prove my previous assertion that paid mixes face heavy competition from the web, Fact had seminal 90s breakbeat mainstays 2 Bad Mice drop an awesome 70 minute clinic on London proto-jungle via instrumental Hip-Hop…aka ‘Ardkore. While Ninja Tune style downtempo found a niche audience on this side of […]

Fast-forward to the 1:10 mark for 16 bars from W.C., who at 40, still immolates Cube’s new Lench Mob henchman and O’ Shea himself. As for his old Lench mob, maybe Doughboy discarded them because he read on the world’s most entertaining encyclopedia that they are “Black Supremacist racists.”Apparently, Glen Beck is putting in Wiki-work. […]

It’s rarely discussed today, but re-visiting Spice 1 (and Celly Cel) I’m struck by how pervasive the G-Funk influence was on mid-90s Bay Area production. Dre’s snake eater synths were everywhere. Obviously, the Bay had its own distinct identity, and these sort of generalizations are dangerous — inasmuch as theorizing to the web void can […]

  Douglas Martin knows a thing or two about Northwest punk. However, he saves his true genius for the region’s vast array of Thai restaurants. Do you know a native of the Pacific-Northwest? Ask them to name the greatest Northwest band of all-time. If they say Nirvana, they only listen to the radio. If they […]

I haven’t wanted to listen to anything but Fela Kuti for weeks. It’s getting a little weird. In the car, Expensive Shit/He Miss Road has monopolized my stereo. and at home, rather than feebly attempt productivity, I’ve burnt countless hours scrounging around miscellaneous legally dubious corners of the web vainly attempting to acquire his entire […]

“Cool Like Dat,” Digable Planet’s breakout single, was inescapable in winter of ’92/93. From top 40 radio airplay to its black and white video that played constantly on MTV, the Brooklyn Bohemians fit perfectly into the left-of-center aesthetic that that hip-hop seemed evolving towards. From Tribe Low End Theory’s appropriation of jazz to Guru’s Jazzmattaz […]

On the surface, it would seem tough to be Inspectah Deck. Sure, there’s that whole fame-and-fortune thing, but let’s be real, it has to hurt a bit that that most people consider him at best the fourth or fifth-best rapper in the Wu. Not nearly as emotionally resonant and vocally complex as Ghost, lacking the […]