Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Streetcore January 23, 2008

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After seeing The Future Is Unwritten over the holiday break, I decided to investigate the musical world of Joe Strummer. Weirdly enough, I started with Streetcore, a posthumous album released one year after he suddenly passed away in December 2002.

This album combines a set of songs with very distinct styles: pure rock (such as All In A Day), reggae-ish songs (such as Get Down Moses), and acoustic (like Long Shadow or Redemption Song). I started listening to it, and have been playing it again and again, really appreciating each of those different styles.

This album really feels like a closing chapter on Strummer’s life though, which is somewhat troubling. First, there are multiple references to songs by The Clash: London is burning in Burnin’ Streets, This is London calling in Midnight Jam.

Second, there are lines like:

You cast a long shadow
And that is your testament

Somewhere in my soul
There’s always rock and roll

in Long Shadow or the following which closes the album in Silver And Gold:

I’ve got to hurry up before I grow too old.

Streetcore really makes you feel sad that Joe Strummer had to go so soon.

Listen to: Get Down Moses

Listen to: Long Shadow

Click here to buy Streetcore by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros.

Best of Bootie 2007 January 13, 2008

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Best of Bootie 2007 is a collection of the 21 best mashups of 2007 compiled by DJs Adrian & the Mysterious D. It can be downloaded for free, and there’s a track by a guy called DJ Moule on it (you need to be French to really get the kick out of DJ Moule’s name). How could you not give this album a spin?

Quoting Wikipedia, a mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. It allows to listen to well-known song with a brand new angle, and despite some hit-and-misses, but it’s always interesting.

Galvanize The Empire (Chemical Brothers vs. John Williams) by Party Ben has an interesting Star Wars theme that will appeal to geeks. Go Home Productions give us a good rendition of Fever using the rhythm of The Passenger on Passenger Fever (Peggy Lee vs. Iggy Pop). Fade To Pretty Vacant (Visage vs. Sex Pistols vs. The Charlatans vs. Fun Lovin’ Criminals vs. Nouvelle Vague) by Copycat is also very nice, helped by the good basis that Fade To Grey is.

I feel bad for criticizing my fellow Frenchman DJ Moule, but I did not like Sympathy For Teen Spirit (Rolling Stones vs. Queen vs. Nirvana). Similarly, I have issues with Funky Goes To Hollywood (Wild Cherry vs. Frankie Goes To Hollywood) by Earworm; all the energy from Play That Funky Music builds up, but the chorus in this mashup is the one from Relax, which feels frustrating.

Phantom On The Bottom (The Lady Tigra vs. Justice), Don’t Stop Believin’ In Planet Rock (Journey vs. Afrika Bambaataa) or More Than On Point (House of Pain vs. Boston) are other tracks that I do not care too much for.

On the other hand, Say It Right Away (Nelly Furtado vs. The Egg vs. Madonna) by Earworm (using The Egg’s Walking Away as the basis of the track), Divide & Kreate’s Illiterate City (Jackson 5 vs. Guns N’ Roses) (associating Jackson 5 lyrics with Guns N’ Roses music), and especially DJ Magnet’s Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly (Placebo vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Kate Bush) are excellent.

Go listen to it. Below are a couple of excerpt to give you a taste.

Listen to: Say It Right Away (Nelly Furtado vs. The Egg vs. Madonna)

Listen to: Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly (Placebo vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Kate Bush)

Click here to download Best of Bootie 2007.

Rihanna – Good Girl Gone Bad January 11, 2008

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I came across Rihanna for the first time on the radio when I starded hearing Umbrella. I hated this song, I found it repetitive, I couldn’t understand why people liked it, but for some reason my wife did, so Good Girl Gone Bad is another CD that I got her as a present. Once the CD was in our music collection, I got curious about why she was so popular and started listening to the album.

The album’s opening song is Umbrella, which gave the CD a bad start for me. However, I liked a number of subsequent songs quite well, such as Don’t Stop the Music, Breaking Dishes, Rehab, even though that’s a style of music that I don’t usually listen to. Question Existing is interesting, but I could not help but wonder how real the lyrics are; they try hard to show that she is a good girl, compared to today’s Hollywood’s crazyness.

Good Girl Gone Bad is also nice, but I really have issues with the repeated use of we was; I don’t like misuse of grammar in general, especially intentionally, and every instance of we was makes me cringe.

What I wasn’t expecting was that, after a few listens of the album, Umbrella would start growing on me. I now appreciate the rhythm of this song, and by listening more carefully to it, I really got into her voice.

There are other songs that I am still undecided on, such as Push Up On Me and Sell Me Candy, and others that I don’t like (e.g. Say It, which sounds like a Spice Girls song), but despite my first impressions, I quite like this CD in the end.

Listen to: Don’t Stop The Music

Listen to: Breakin’ Dishes

Click here to buy Good Girl Gone Bad by Rihanna .

Fergie – The Dutchess January 7, 2008

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My journey into pop music land continues with The Dutchess by Fergie. I became fond of the Black Eyed Peas, so I was wondering how much I would like Fergie, as she’s been one of the main personnas in the band. However, the style of her album is fairly different, not as edgy as what the Black Eyed Peas would do. That means less interesting, in my opinion.

I did not get into Fergalicious, London Bridge, Pedestal or Voodoo Doll. The beat of the music is too overwhelming.

All That I Got (The Make Up Song) makes me think of a Mariah Carey song, even though I’m no Mariah Carey expert (nor fan); it turns out that the song isn’t actually bad. Clumsy and Velvet are interesting, but my favorite songs are Big Girls Don’t Cry, Losing My Ground and Finally. This last song made me think of a tune coming straight out of a Walt Disney movie.

Overall, the album is uneven: it sometimes sounds like a number of different influences battling each other, but there are a number a number of interesting songs.

Listen to: Losing My Ground

Listen to: Finally

Click here to buy The Dutchess by Fergie .

Nelly Furtado – Loose January 3, 2008

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Loose from Nelly Furtado is an album that I bought as a gift to my wife. I would not have bought it for me to start with, but as I am curious when it comes down to music, I wanted to listen to her more carefully and give this album a spin. This basically was not setting this album for success in my rate-o-meter to start with.

The music is too much dance-oriented to my taste, so I had problems getting into it. Songs like Maneater or Maneater are not my cup of tea, neither musically nor when it comes to their respective themes. I found Glow very repetitive. Te Busque reminded me of some songs that Santana wrote for some reason, but without the cool guitar parts, and the looping keyboard bits on Do It are just too much.

I did appreciate a few songs though. Afraid, which opens up the album, is actually pretty nice. I do like Say It Right; maybe it is because I heard it many times on the radio, but I quite like the different parts with the different pitches of her voice, and the background voice effects. In God’s Hands is a mellow, enjoyable track, and the closing track – I’m ignoring the Spanish version of Te Busque, since it was earlier in the album –, All Good Things (Come to an End) is also pretty nice.

Basically, I didn’t dislike the lighter, slower songs, but I’m far from being in love with this album. It might not be a fundamentally bad album, it’s just not my style, I guess.

Listen to: Afraid

Listen to: Say It Right

Click here to buy Loose by Nelly Furtado.