Whats in a Name?

Utensils have become popular names for bands recently-- the Knife, Spoon, even the Utensils. While these bands don't push the creative limits with their names, their music more than makes up for their lack of apparent ingenuity. Spoon will be releasing its new album on July 10, entitled Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga -- possibly the worst album name ever, right next to Too Fast For Love by Motley Crue and Fungus Amongus by Incubus. I hope that the members of Spoon put more thought into naming their children, then into their albums (although Gimme Fiction and Kill the Moonlight are great titles).

Spoon's semantic blunder got me thinking about how bands name their albums. Where does the inspiration come from? Is it the music? Some random idea? Do they pull names out of a hat? Or flip through a dictionary into they find a word that sounds funny?

I remember my brother saying that any title from a song on the album was worthless -- it was a black mark on the band, officially killing any hope of that album ever achieving any commercial, underground, cult popularity. I didn't agree with him. I was listening to Phish's Farmhouse at the time, one of my favorite albums. I had By the Way and Californication from the Red Hot Chili Peppers in rotation. All successful albums in their own right. And there was a multitude of classics that fell under the same category -- Radiohead's Kid A, the Beatles Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, Blur's Parklife. So what was my brother talking about?

I took his comments in vain for a long time. I listened to a lot of great albums with titles from the songs. I got caught in the hype of the music, the enjoyment of listening. I wasn't until I attempted to make a electronic postmodern album on Garageband (email me for copies) and had to think of an album title that I realized my brother was right. Artists can't name their album after one of the songs. Its absurd. Why put so much effort and time into an album and limit it to one single song? Why not just put out an EP with that song? Market it as a single - put the track in the Itunes music store and let people download it for 99 cents.

The title song defines the entire album. There may be other good tracks, but the final review comes back to that one song. It makes more sense for the artist to just make up a name -- look around your room and pick anything that sticks out: Pabst Blue Ribbon, the color Purple, anything, as long there is some freedom for the rest of the songs.

I understand that this approach is more marketable. Names can be powerful and if gets tossed around enough, people will pay attention and buy the product (like the Axe body wash in my shower or the Starbucks coffee on my desk). Why do you think drug companies give out free stickies and pens? Take By the Way for example. It was the first music video off the album. It played non-stop on MTV and on the one hour that VH1 now shows music videos. People watched the video and remembered the name. Its an easy plug for the whole album.

Music, unfortunately, is a product. It needs to be sold. Artists often succumb to this pressure and sacrifice their creativity and talent for more money. Its a trend that is becoming even more difficult to break and avoid.

But there is hope, especially after Vincent Chase turned down Aquaman 2 for Medellin.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Brandy

Kick, Push

Dillo Day is around the corner, Northwestern's pseudo music/beer festival. Usually the music sucks or occurred way before any college student was born - The Wailers, George Clinton and the Parliament Funk, or Northwestern short changes the student body and signs bands for a half hour set - Ben Folds. Well, finally someone good is coming to this college - hip-hop phenom, Chicago born Lupe Fiasco, Philly's own hip-hop band the Roots, and eclectic 90s rockers CAKE. Like most other college students, who dream of a life of beer and quality music, I am very excited.

Student DJ's, a battle of the band winner, and various acapella groups will also perform throughout the day, but the night block is the most incredible. You need a Wildcard to get in or you could sneak passed the guards or scuba dive up Lake Michigan.
Here is the schedule:

12:30-1:00		REAL LUNCH
1:30-2:30		PETE FRANCIS
3:00-5:00		THE ROOTS
5:30-6:00		OFFICE
6:15-7:00		LUPE FIASCO
7:30-9:30		CAKE

Dillo Day 2007

But I'm sick of feeling impotent watching the world burn

There is no artist with more biting, socially exposing lyrics than Immortal Technique. No artist bold enough to push boundaries, to express an intelligent opinion with such vigorous force and spite. His music speaks about a plethora of social and political issues, from urban plight to religious indifference. Where there is a topic for debate, you will probably find Immortal Technique on one side of the fence with a microphone and a snarling grin.

Revolutionary Vol. 2 is a continuation of the activism started in the first volume. I've listened to the album so many times that it dominates the most played list on itunes, right ahead of Blur, which I listened to continuously during my recent Britpop phase. Its difficult to tell what I like most about the album, whether its simply the lyrics or the way each beat and rhythm appropriately fit the message of the song.

Revolutionary Vol. 2 is one of my favorite albums of all time and it deserves a more in depth analysis than any album I will ever review in the Comaforum -- an individual analysis of a few of my favorite songs.

The Point of No Return

The first song of the album, after an introduction by Mumia Abu Jamal, throws down a gauntlet of fury and aggressiveness. It is the cannon in Tchaicovsky's 1812 overture, except at the beginning of the album. It is the unveiling of Immortal Technique and his onslaught on mainstream culture and ideas.

In Point of No Return, Immortal Technique begins unraveling an avalanche of conspiracy theories. He attacks the government for supporting terrorism and fascist regimes and outlines a history of human corruption and destruction.

The evolution of the world, bloody and dramatic
Human beings killing monkeys to conquer the planet
The kingdoms of Africa and Mesopotamia
Machine gunnin' your body with depleted uranium

His ideas are too broad and numerous to cover in a single song. Its purpose is to plant the seed of revolution, to push forward the fact that these ideas need to be said, need to considered, and need to be acted upon.

Peruvian Cocaine

Like most rappers, Immortal Technique plays homage to the movie Scarface. He samples a beat from the track used in the opening scene in Bolivia and also puts in audio clip, at both the beginning and end of the song. Overdone? Yes, but song is catchy and use of Scarface is appropriate and not overly cheesy.

After reading the song title, its fairly evident what the song is about - coke, and more elaborately, the corruption and disparity that underlies the drug trade.

Born and bred to consult with feds, I laugh at fate
And assassinate my predecessor to have his place
In a third-world fashion state, lock the nation
With 90% of the wealth in 10% of the population
The Central Intelligence Agency takes weight faithfully
The finest type of China white and cocaine you'll see

A bunch of other rappers provide lyrics for the track, names like Poison Pen, Diabolic, and Loucipher, that seem equally as angry as Immortal Technique. Each add additional fuel to a growing conspiracy theory that builds and builds throughout the entire album. Most of the time it is so drawn out that the theories become ridiculous. Unfortunately, Immortal Technique often loses his vision in these theories, one of the main criticisms of his music. He takes a cursory glance at too many social issues and ties them together in a confusing mess.

His lyrics, at times, are too much to swallow for the listener -- its paramount to taking every genre of music and trying to listen to it all at the same time. There is just an overabundance of information, a complexity that leaves the listener feeling hopeless. Immortal Technique often gets caught in his own fury. He connects events for the purpose of pushing boundaries, creating a new fallacies over the untruth that already exists in the topics he discusses.

So why even listen to his lyrics? They are meant not to be believed entirely, but instead, they provide a basis for a continued discussion about social injustices. Someone needs to say it first and Immortal Technique just grabbed the cat by the neck and threw it out of the bag. To argue whether his opinion is right or wrong is nearly irrelevant. The importance lies in speaking up, something that has not occurred in hip-hop since the early 90's with artists like NWA, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, and Ice-T. Rage Against the Machine assumed the mic for a few years but disbanded. Its difficult for an artist to keep a revolutionary voice throughout his career -- to be able to maintain the same edge and cynicism with more and more exposure to the mainstream.

Immortal Technique did not sign with a major label. He joined Viper Records, an independent label that released his first two albums and avoided Song BMG and Def Jam because he understood the creative influence labels have over their artists, propelled by the need to produce marketable tracks. He kept his voice pure and powerful and shunned popularity for a better message.

You Never Know

At night in my cell, I'd close my eyes and I'd see her
Hold her close in my dreams, but when I woke she disappeared
Just an empty cell until the state gave me parole in the summer
came back, in tact and on track
But the fact of the matter, is I still felt cold

This is a definitive example of pure expression and emotion in music. My own words would fail to describe the magnanimity of the story told and the despair realized at the end of the song. So check out the rest of the lyrics here.

Immortal Technique
MySpace
Biography

He says, son, can you play me a memory?

Hip-hop week will be briefly interrupted with a short plug for the City of Chicago (somewhat in honor of their Olympic bid and I hope it will resonate with all of my international readers). Chicago is a great city. Music, art, sports, aquatic sports, beach sports, academics, public works, public projects (debatable) -- there is not enough time to explore it all, especially in four years of college, and especially, with the quarter system and a midterm every two weeks, give or take a day.

So when there is an opportunity to go downtown, I try to take it as often as I can. Chicago never disappoints, there is always something to do or at least an open bar with an icy cold beer, some roasted peanuts, and 80s classics playing from the Jukebox. Last night was no exception. It was my best Chicago experience (narrowly beating out the time I got lost in Hyde Park) and one of the most memorable nights of college. The venue: Howl at the Moon -- a dueling piano bar or as their website puts it more poignantly - "the most fun you can ever have with your clothes on".

My clothes stayed on the entire time and between singing Piano Man to watching an 80 year old man in a sailor hat take the most beautiful girls in the bar and start dancing with them, I was fully convinced of their slogan. The beer (Miller Light/Coors Light/MGD?) was four dollars and the cover, on friday nights and possibly saturday nights as well as ten dollars. But hey, for good live music, its sometimes worth it.

The live band plays whatever the audience requests. From Elton John classics to punk rock tunes from Green Day, the band covers a great collection of music. And each member is incredibly talented at the keyboard and they take turns dueling to the musical death. My favorite song of the night was, cliched enough, Bohemian Rhapsody, not so much for the song, but the fact that everyone in the bar was singing and acting out the entire song with extreme emphasis. It was nuts.

Howl at the Moon reminds me of a blues bar (I don't remember the exact name) in Memphis. My dad kidnapped my brother, sister and I about 6 years ago and took us 16 hours down to Tennessee to stay at the Heartbreak Hotel and visit Graceland. After an emotional moment at his grave, we traveled to Memphis to enjoy some fine Creole food and live blues. In this bar, a woman, with one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard, was singing Janice Joplin covers, and nailing the voice and every note perfectly. I knew some of the words and sheepishly sang along. Eventually, we had to leave and later traveled to a music store where my Dad bought a CD of Bernard Allison that was playing over the store speakers. In time, I will review that album, with such classic hits as the River is Rising and Feels Kinda Funny.

If you are ever in Chicago, head down to Howl at the Moon

Howl at the Moon
Howl at the Moon Chicago

I'll Sleep When You're Dead

Alright, enough time past by since the last post and its time for the week to begin (celebrated with a new blog layout and font size). A review of 5 hip-hop albums for the first Comaforum themed blog week. The first, because of no particular reason, is the best album of 2007 so far. It is El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead -- the title is appropriate, the rhymes are relentless, the combination of vengeance and intelligence elevates his lyrics above most anything marketed as hip-hop music. At its basics, hip-hop is poetry and lyrical expression over well-crafted beats. El-P does not ignore the importance of his lyrics or mask them with fancy rhythms. Here's an example of a few lines from the track No Kings:

Welcome to my bastard delight night, gents
Where everything has a meaning but none of it makes sense
Living is so demeaning but rappers still wanna offer
Fake aliens...from lying saucers
I don't have the time, man
I'm searching for bigger answers

Most people have not heard of El-P. He grew up around music. The son of a jazz musician, he learned hip-hop in the streets of New York City, probably the best place to learn the culture. For El-P, hip-hop is life, there is nothing more to him then the feeling and emotion of music and it shows in his songs. I like to review albums where the artist devotes himself entirely to his project and invests his time, not for the sake of money, but to push the boundaries and to make songs that are intelligent, creative, and most importantly, ones that have a great sound.

A friend introduced me to El-P only a few months ago. I listened to a few songs of his early stuff casually, but never paid any strong attention to his lyrics or sound. When I was in Virgin Records, I decided to check out his new album. After browsing through a few songs, I bought the album and started listening to it immediately when I got home. I've had the album on repeat ever since.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead is a great synthesis of story and beat -- obviously not the story told to children about kings and castles, but a cynical tale that rips apart the way hip-hop glorifies material value. Instead of bragging about the size of the rims on his Escalade or the amount of dope he smoked lost night , El-P raps about disparity, whether in finding love or living in the inner city. In Tasmanian Pain Coast, he describes the story of a man addicted to crack -- a man who becomes invisible, yet still has a tangible effect on the mainstream:

He pulled his hoody off his cabbage rugged practical
And began to fancy the words I mistakenly jostled loose
The stogie he brazenly lit where he sit looked legit
But when the flame touched to the tip I could smell it's of another nit
He leaned his head back and inhaled the newpie dip and said
"The whole design got my mind cryin', if I'm lyin' I'm dyin'..shit"

Sometimes the lyrics are a little befuddled -- he at points scarifies lyrical quality to make a rhythm or fit the lyrics to a particular beat. However, the imagination is always present, whether you agree with his opinion or not. Ingenuity is something that is absent in music -- there is a lack of perspective in tying the personal problems of the artist into the broader issues of society and into the constraints on our generation. Hip-hop does not have to be overtly political or cover every social problem throughout the course of the album. It does however need to recognize its importance and saliency in the lives on millions, especially those that live in the poorer neighborhoods and in the inner city. Hip-hop should be a vehicle of positive change and progression and it should at least identify and address some of the problems that are faced by the people who listen to it.