This week I want to take a moment to move away from rock-based pop music and move into hip hop based pop music, especially that which is found in the top forty. I think it is more than fair to say that the last decent top forty song that was rock-based was Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” and that was in 1994. Since then, rock music has unleashed increasingly violent waves of absolute crap: Creed, Matchbox 20, Nickelback, and Avril Lavigne to mention but a few.
It is no doubt the case that I’m pointing out the absolutely and completely obvious: the best pop songs of the past five years have all been hip hop songs. Hence, this week, a sample of what are, in my estimation, the most enjoyable “cross-over” hits of the past couple years.
- Outkast “Hey Ya” [
mp3] - Kanye West “Golddigger” [
mp3] - Snoop Dog “Drop it Like it’s Hot” [
mp3]
Finally, in honour of watching what is likely the third worst new sitcom this year, but also the most over-hyped (viz., “30 Rock”) a short selection of songs by Kool Keith. Kool Keith because Tracy Morgan is to comedy what Kool Keith is to hip hop.
- Ultramagnetic MCs “Give the Drummer Some” [
mp3] - Dr. Octagon “Blue Flowers” [
mp3]
Kool Keith couldn’t have said it better than when Tracy Morgan said to Tina Fey (who, it turns out, is absolutely un-funny), “I got mental health issues.”
(I need the readers assistance for next week’s edition: if anyone has a copy of Tarentel’s “Order of Things” album, I’d be much obliged if they could provide me with a copy.)
Update: some guy at “about.com” (I thought that was some sort of zero-content site) says that I’m full of crap because, clearly, both Green Day and U2 have done some great songs since 1994. He also points to the recent “hit” by Weezer, “Beverly Hills,” as another example. With respect to the first two, if I wanted my pop music with shitty liberal politics I’d … well … who the hell knows? I recall Ed the Sock making fun of Green Day for a video about suburban kids going to war – his comment was something to the effect of “Shitty rock bands writing songs that have nothing to do with war and making an anti-war video for them is like a shitty rock band writing a shitty rock song.” Or something like that. (Of course, we could instantly exclude U2 on different grounds: any gaudy, worked over rich guy who thinks he’s Corey Hart has no business in politics.) With respect to the more recent Weezer song, I’d rather listen to that last song about chasing butterflies on Pinkerton (which, as everyone knows, was better than the Blue Album, even if it wasn’t a smash-hit). And that’s saying something.
3 Comments
just sent you an email with a song attached and the file is quite large at 5.3megs so hopefully our respective mail servers will not shit themselves
“Hey Ya” is of the greatest truly popular/ songs of the period that comprises my conscious life. I recently read that following the song’s massive air and club play, Polaroid was forced to mount a fullscale awareness campaign warning users NOT to shake the picture as it develops.
I was treeplanting in Northern B.C. the summer “Hey Ya” broke, and, as a “crossover hit,” it was actually played in clubs in Burns Lake, Smithers, Vanderhoof, Fort St. John, etc. We always went nuts.
Have you heard heard KO’s “George Bush Don’t Like Black People”? A brilliant takeoff of “Golddigger,” imho.
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