Kate Bush – “Cloudbusting”

“but just saying it could even make it happen”

because we were talking about it at work and it is one of the best songs.

Oooooh. E-40. Minimalist beat. You can’t go wrong.

Set countdown timer for 30th of March. “Revenue Retrieving”. Two albums. “Day Shift” and “Night Shift”.

Still the rapper doing the most with rapping? Most probably.

Nice to see The Rangers getting some. The kid Langston has been the nicest dancer I’ve seen in a while. The kids are alright.

So actually I think I will do an end of year post. 15 songs. One per artist. Youtube links for sampling. Uh…

1. Big Boi – For Your Sorrows (Feat. George Clinton & Too $hort)
Yes. Exactly. This is the music I would like to spend my time listening to in the coming decade. More please. After “Synthesizer” and this I think it’s also fair to say that a Big Boi and George Clinton full-length would be wholly agreeable.

2. The Rangers – Tag Em In (Feat. Myles “Big Deal” Brown)
This is an invitation, across the nation, a chance for the folks to meet. There’ll be laughin’ and singin’ and music swingin’, and dancin’ in the streets.

3. G-Side – So Wonderful (Feat. Chrystal Carr, G-Mane & SupaKing)
It’s kind of a piece with the preceding track “Rising Sun” and it’s definitely guilty of feeling like a Rap equivalent of some Euphoric House or a 90s U2 track but uh… G-Side probably made my album of the year two years in a row. I don’t think that ever happened before. Not that albums mean anything any more anyway. This song does though.

4. Florence and The Machine – Howl
Taking your production cues from “Hounds Of Love” is most creditable. The world is a better place when the Pop records you have to hear whilst out shopping happen to be good records. Ta. Ten points for the ending too.

5. Tha Dogg Pound – They Don’t Want It
Just two dudes rapping over beats. Daz is pretty formidable on this.

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Skeletons
It’s like “Maps” but with interesting music and more Scot-ish. Guitars are for old men anyway.

7. MJG – Dope Track
“You a baseball, man, I’m a baseball bat”.

8. Jay-Z – Empire State of Mind (Feat. Alicia Keys)
Yeah! Woo! Put your diamonds up!
The version on the Alicia Keys album is a little too cloying. Even for me. Hovi doesn’t really say anything on this but I see it more as an “Izzo” than “some thought provoking shit”. Chee-Z, am I rite?

9. Fabolous – Everything, Everyday, Everywhere (Feat. Keri Hilson)
I kind of played this to death and I’m not sure if I like it any more. I played it most of the year though. I think if Fabo wasn’t so vacuous it would be higher up. Ryan Leslie’s personality is way too Self-Help-Guru for me but he makes some slaps. Like this one. I like Keri too, deal with it.

10. Gucci Mane – Wasted (Feat. Plies)
I have nothing to say about this song other than that it is one of my favourite songs of the year. Oh actually, the synth on the chorus sounds a bit like a 16-bit console trying to approximate steel pan drums. The video/clean version is stripped of almost all the words. Lolz.

11. R. Kelly – Echo
Kellz + Yodelling = Oh, off course, why didn’t I think of that!

12. Clipse – Popular Demand (Popeyes) (Feat. Cam’ron)
Heartbreakingly disappointing album. I guess calling for them to give up on having a hit record is as pointless as asking for a Malice solo LP, right? Just write rhymes all day (if you can find the time between cooking and bagging) and then get some minimalist beats from someone and don’t bother with choruses. If you really have an independent income then what do you need one rap dollar for?

13. Royce da 5′9″ – Shake This
The only Trad-Rap tune I actually listened to this year. Produced by DJ Premier no less. Quaint.

14. Willie Isz – Loner
I have a feeling that this Goodie Mob Rapper+Hipster Producer album didn’t get quite the attention that Gnarls Barkley got. Funny that. It is far better.

15. The Streets – Blinded By The Lights (Nero Remix)
Just an excuse to reprise that synth line. Appreciated. Now with less Mike Skinner. If only Dubstep producers came up with catchy rave tunes like this themselves…

I have nothing significant to say about the year in general. Next.

The best thing about “Number One” and indeed this here “Number One Sex Remix” (!!!) is that it’s like what if adlibs and backing vocals could be a whole track. But it still has verses.

Best bit is at 4:20. “I was allllllover your body”.

I hope everyone saw the recent Westwood 1Xtra promo. I hope the Academy was paying attention as well.

Best cartoon video mashup ever. (Via Altrap)

Alice can flow.

I can’t decide if this Newsome cover is impressivegreat or too much but the dude has a lot of balls for a dude that sings like he has no balls.

When it comes to music inspired by Obama’s inauguration the quiet stuff can be as emotive as Hov’s rhyme on “My President Is Black”. Maybe.

Ooh ooh, did everyone see the one where Big Boi met some penguins? It was good.

Proper blog post tomorrow? Don’t bet on it.

Sad.

“You Could Be Love” Kyp Malone of TV On The Radio (new album is solid, cop). I hope he records this solo stuff. It’s right raw like.

“The Symphony”. Big Daddy Kane and friends at his 20th Anniversary show, NYC, last week. I had to watch the whole show on there. He even did a dance routine with Scoob & Scrap!

The excellent Hypnotic Brass Ensemble playing “Moments In Love” by Art Of Noise.

FC United of Manchester sing the best songs. If I was from up there, I’d support them.

Nigel performs the song “UFO”, which he wrote and recorded as part of an after school program in Montreal. (Kids do music better than growns).

Cool Breeze “Watch For The Hook” featuring Goodie Mob and Outkast. It’s ten years since this came out and there’s still no one on this level in Hiphop. Not in my book. I couldn’t find a better copy of the video but it’s great.

Danja is pretty much my favourite producer at the moment. His trademark sound may only be a hair’s-breadth away from his mentor Timbaland’s but he seems to by going about making music with more joy and flair than the big mumbler has recently. After co-producing half the hit records of 2006 he broke out and did the Britney album without Timbaland and seems to be cranking out big drums and synths quite happily on his own now.

The Clutch are Georgia based songwriters Balewa Muhammad, Ezekiel Lewis, Patrick “J. Que” Smith, Candice Nelson and Keri Hilson. Hilson has been about-to-be-massive for guite a few years now, but perhaps too busy writing hits for other people to do her own album.

The Clutch work with a lot of different producers but it’s when Danja is on the beats that they really work. They are a perfect Black Pop production team, rhythm and harmony and energy. Music for teenagers, like it should be.

I shall include some of their produce, in the teenage medium of Youtube videos:

Nikki Flores – Beautiful Boy

Yes, make 60s throwback music but acknowledge that fact that we’ve gone forward. Mix it up. The internet is out, it’s all non-linear now anyway. If I want to listen to Martha Reeves I’ll pull out a Martha Reeves record. I like this song so much it’s not funny. Sherbetty.

Danity Kane – Pretty Boy

One of my songs of the year and unrepentantly Pop. Thanks to AtotheL for hipping me.

Fantasia – Bore Me (Yawn)

More futuristic throwback music from the American Idol winner.

Katharine McPhee – Open Toes

DRUMS from an American Idol loser. If you rock this in a playlist with “Umbrella” and “Lipgloss” you almost have a whole outfit. You could throw on a “Raspberry Beret” but it wouldn’t blend. These are almost R. Kelly level lyrics!

Ciara – Echo

This song is jawsome but not out until December or something so we have to make do with this “For clearance use only, only, only” version. The Clutch wrote Ciara’s hit “Like A Boy” too you know?

Half these tracks are unavailable in the UK so we’re kind of deprived but then the kids get their music from Youtube, right, so the music should be getting into the right hands. Ears.

Do a party.

Bonus beats: Cassie can’t sing for toffee but she has other charms and this video has Lil’ Dwayne in it looking a right old state. All the above are young women but don’t think Danja and The Clutch won’t work with boys, check the boy band Menudo! Actually maybe they should stick with the girls.

Missing – Flex & Relax 1994

If you’re programming drums then you might as well program something that no one is gonna play on a drum kit. I’d love to hear someone sit down at the traps and knock this out but I think the robots have got us beat for now.

Absolutely M&M P-nuts.

As we rumble in the Jungle I want to point out my boy DJ Bazia who is about the same age as most of the tracks he’s spinning here. Maybe a little younger. The force is strong in him.

All this music needs is an intermission with adverts for Club Telepathy and Jungle Mania: The Lion Returns. Possibly with a short statement on how the station is “not a drug-run organisation”, otherwise it’s perfect.

Hold tight all pirates!

Tomorrow is the final of the BBC’s The One and Only. It’s Pop Idol for tribute acts. A really long episode of Stars In Their Eyes.

It’s pretty lame as you’d imagine but for one thing… They have a ginger white dude blacked-up as Lionel Richie (!!!) and he’s great.

Watch this dude talking, normally, as him, and then watch him singing as Lionel.

OMG!?!
I think I like him better than Lionel. If he performed original songs (still with the prosthetic nose of course) I think he could be the biggest star in the world or something. He’d be like a reverse Michael Jackson but a little bit Al Jolson.

Anyways if you don’t want to watch the show ever (fair enough) you can find all Moni Tivony’s (what a name!) performances on the BBC youtube channel.

Kind of breathtaking right?