scream club: fine as fuck.

dl: SCREAM CLUB f/ PEACHES - Fine As Fuck (YSI)

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A friend of mine was just telling me of plans to play a show with Scream Club. I had never heard of them, but was immediately sold upon hearing their collaboration with Peaches, "Fine As Fuck" (featuring the lyric "Wanna put it down like Trina and Trick Daddy.")

According to the space, their influences range from Morrissey to No Limit Records. These are tunes strictly for the kids today. You know which kids I'm talking about! The ones that say, "Do or do not, there is no try? Doing it or doing it, there is no doing not it." Okay, so that didn't make much sense. Let the tunes speak for themselves. Speak from the VAG.

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BONER TRACK: SCREAM CLUB - Life Of A Heartbreaker (YSI)
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samuel: timbaland remix.

d/l: TIMBALAND f/ KERI HILSON & D.O.E. - Way I Are (Samuel remix) (YSI)

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I am a sucker for the "Woo! Yeah!" sample. My love stems from my pre-puberty days spent shaking to "It Takes Two", but it has expanded to allow me to appreciate such recent jams as Ciara's "Make It Last Forever". If a song includes the "Woo! Yeah!" sample, I will probably listen to it. Feel free to test that theory.

Samuel's latest remix of Timbaland's "that's so 2007" international hit "Way I Are" uses said sample. In fact, it is essentially the basis of this entire remix. It's entirely simple, but I already told you-- I am a sucker for this sample.

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arabesque: anna conda + feist remix.

I promise I'll return with real posts in the near future. I'm not a business man, I'm a BUSY-ness man.
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dl: FEIST f/ ARABESQUE - My Moon, My Man (Boys Noize/Arabesque remix) (YSI)
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EDIT: Okay, okay...not quite a "remix" so much as adding a rap towards the end. Pardon my lazy ass blogging. I come from the era when Missy Elliott adding a rap to something was considered a "remix". However, peeps in the comments are right-- Boys Noize should be given credit for this remix.

skillz: 2007 rap up.

I keep getting hits on Google from people looking for the Skillz rap up for 2007, and I feel like it's a total disservice to NOT post about it.

As I said in last year's post, Skillz has been on the hip-hop scene since 1992 hustling all over the place, ghostwriting, freestyling, and dropping an annual rap-up since 2002.

This year's effort comes with a first-- a video, complete with supporting visuals such as an Amy Winehouse lookalike. It features references to...DJ Drama, The White Rapper Show, Cam'ron, 50 Cent, All-Star Weekend, Jennifer Hudson, Mims, Fantasia Barrino, Tony Yayo, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse (duh), Robin Thicke, Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston, Karrine Steffans, Don Imus, Russell Simmons, Oprah, Anna Nicole Smith, Akon, Three 6 Mafia, ringtone rappers, Virginia Tech, Barry Bonds, Ray J, Diddy, Eve, Rihanna, Paris Hilton, the final episode of The Sopranos, Hurricane Chris, Lupe Fiasco, Britney Spears, Jamie Lynn Spears, O.J. Simpson, Usher & R. Kelly, Kelly Rowland, Beyonce Knowles, Jena Six, Michael Vick, the iPhone, Foxy Brown, Lil Wayne & T-Pain's omnipresence, Kanye West, Souljah Boy, American Gangster, UGK & Outkast, DJ Khaled, T.I., and Lauren London.

Personally, I think this is a huge step down from the 2006 rap-up. Did he really have to cut out paying his respects to those who passed away? There was no reason to mention Mims, Hurricane Chris, or Souljah Boy. All he needed was the line, "For most of the year, a ringtone rapper would make a hit and his career would disappear." Can we get a holler to Donda West, Ike Turner, Pimp C, Yolanda King...Kurt Vonnegut?

Not to mention that the animal rights activist within me is a little outraged at the line "It's a damn shame what they did to Michael Vick. You can't kill dogs in your own backyard but you can go to Iraq and kill whoever you want." Seriously? I can understand that he's trying to be socially conscious. I can understand that he's trying to make a point about taking a dog's life vs. taking a human life, even if I'm not certain I agree with it. However, I just can't get over the fact that he's trying to JUSTIFY dogfighting. Pssh!

Problems aside, Skillz gets kudos for simply coming up with such a cohesive look at 2007 as a whole. And you can't help but giggle at the line, "Kelly Rowland falls and yall think it's cool, Beyonce falls and yall take it off of youtube." When you put it all into perspective, the reason this rap-up sucks so much probably has more to do with 2007 sucking elephant-balls as a whole.

If anything good came out of 2007, I finally learned how to appreciate Prince. How? I made friends with a cassette tape of Purple Rain while locked away in a studio working on my printmaking senior thesis. Because of this, I direct your ears to the bonus track, which features Skillz rapping over "Darling Nikki."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------d/l: SKILLZ - 2007 Rap Up (YSI)
d/l: SKILLZ - 2007 Rap Up (Jimmy Rose Remix) (YSI)

d/l: SKILLZ - 2006 Rap Up (YSI)
d/l: SKILLZ - 2005 Rap Up (YSI)
d/l: SKILLZ - 2004 Rap Up (YSI)
d/l: SKILLZ - 2003 Rap Up (YSI)
d/l: SKILLZ - 2002 Rap Up (YSI)

BONER TRACK: SKILLZ - Darling Nikki freestyle (YSI)

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the death set: negative thinking (james stovall remix).

d/l: THE DEATH SET - Negative Thinking (James Stovall remix) (YSI)

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Ok, so The Death Set may be totally so 2007, and this remix doesn't have the Dan Deacon or Bonde do Role brand to push it to the people. However, if you're observant enough to notice the "CLICK HERE FOR OLDER REMIXES" link on their site, your ears will be graced by a wonderfully mindless interpretation by this dude, James Stovall. It makes me feel like I'm in an overcrowded moonbounce drinking red wine from a jug with my grandma. In Precious Moments sweatshirts! I believe that I can't be the only one who feels this way.

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boner track: THE DEATH SET - Distressed (Bonde do Role remix) (YSI)
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passion pit: better things.

d/l: PASSION PIT - Better Days (YSI)

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I'm not going to lie. I've spent most of the remaining days of 2007 listening to nothing but Mary J. Blige. I mean, let's be real...2007 totally sucked. So I needed a strong black woman to bring me into the new year, eh?

When I was able to pull myself away from MJB, I was bumping the crap out of "Better Days". My friend Xue sent it my way for Christmas, and it may be my theme for 2008. My New Year's resolutions haven't collapsed entirely (yet), so such optimistic lyrics as "Baby don't be unhappy, Baby don't be sad. Better things are coming, I swear there's truth in that" really resonate with me in a total 9th grade gospel choir kind of way. Plus this is a totally hot dance-party jam. Kudos to Michael Angelakos.

I also can't get over how awesome this bio is:

"So like, get it out of your mind that this is yet another avant-retro scumbag project, some kind of 21st-century revival of that 80's electropop revival from the late 90's.

No, no, that's not it at all.

It's more like...well, remember when Peter Gabriel and Scritti Politti crashed your Christmas party sophomore year and did a set of Prince covers on your little cousin's toy piano? Do you remember how pure, how beautiful everything looked outside that night, the snowflakes caught in floodlight against the black of the sky? And that girl--what was her name--how gorgeous she looked in that weird white sweatshirt with all that fake sparkly stuff in her hair? It was NOW, right now, and there wasn't anything else but now.

Yeah, that's it. But that's not all of it."

New Year's resolutions for blogging: Stop using the word "awesome" to describe things. Stop copying and pasting, pretending it is content. Stop trying to pretend that a doodle of Mark Ruffalo with an eyepatch + a kitten with sunglasses has anything to do with this song. Stop forgetting to remind listeners that there are two other songs available for download on the space.

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bonus track: PASSION PIT - Sleepy Head (YSI)
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