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It may be rainy-dreary-cruddy here (“here” = moral-artistic-capitalistic center of universe), but that didn’t stop me from making a summer mix. Just some stuff I’ve been listening to a lot lately. It’s pretty good, whatever. The last eight, ten months have been awesome for music, especially rappy pop or poppy rap, which most of this stuff is. You can download it here. To get into it a little bit (this is a seam - can you tell?), I think there’s a lot of cool shit going on lately. Cloud rap is apparently really taking off since, I believe, it’s entirely predicated on stuff, ahem, old white people listen to. Ie, new age music. So ofc. it would end up influencing the style of music that would make money someday. Gen Y is the new baby boomer generation, statistically speaking and drug-speaking as well. Weed and valium (or xanax in this case) predominate, and everyone wants to be in Mad Men. Instead of jazzbo soulcats that are the cool others, though, here it’s bay area cloud rappers. I guess that’s fine. I’m certainly making absolutely zero claim to authenticity or authority. But speaking to the generational cohort, I would just like to say: “Remember the baby boomers and how much you might think they suck.” I think “Foreign Shit” - even though I don’t listen to it a lot - has almost supplanted “Rack City” as my favorite rap song of the year. If you’re laying in a park drinking box wine taking pictures of the sky there’s no better music for you than Julianna Barwick. I had originally tried to make this mix like an Ouroboros (I’ll be able to spell that someday without googling it) so that the last song would be chill enough to fad back into the first song, but that didn’t work out. Anywhichway, maybe she should produce some songs for kitty pryde? That would be OK with me. The bounce-snap-ping production style is certainly great for a lot of activities that physiologically resemble “bounce-snap-ping”. “Stupid Hoe” creates action in a reverse-onomatopoetic manner. We all know that Future made the best rap-ish album of the year. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place kitty pryde - JUSTIN BIEBER!!!!! Lil B - Worldwide Future - Astronaut Chick Future - Turn On the Lights Charli XCX - Nuclear Seasons A$AP Rocky - Palace (Prod. By Clams Casino) kitty pryde - okay cupaid (prod Beautiful Lou) Kanye West - I Don’t Like (Remix) Ft. Pusha T, Chief Keef, Big Sean, Jadakiss Waka Flocka Flame - Foreign Shit Tyga - Rack City Santigold - Freak Like Me Kool A.D. - Manny Pacquiao [prod. by Trackademics] Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe Drake - Crew Love (Feat. The Weeknd) (Produced By Illangelo, The Weeknd & 40) Kilo Kish - You’re Right Azealia Banks - 212 Grimes - Oblivion Icona Pop - I Love It I made the cover by manipulating a painting by Ho-Ryon Lee.

It may be rainy-dreary-cruddy here (“here” = moral-artistic-capitalistic center of universe), but that didn’t stop me from making a summer mix. Just some stuff I’ve been listening to a lot lately. It’s pretty good, whatever. The last eight, ten months have been awesome for music, especially rappy pop or poppy rap, which most of this stuff is. You can download it here.

To get into it a little bit (this is a seam - can you tell?), I think there’s a lot of cool shit going on lately. Cloud rap is apparently really taking off since, I believe, it’s entirely predicated on stuff, ahem, old white people listen to. Ie, new age music. So ofc. it would end up influencing the style of music that would make money someday. Gen Y is the new baby boomer generation, statistically speaking and drug-speaking as well. Weed and valium (or xanax in this case) predominate, and everyone wants to be in Mad Men. Instead of jazzbo soulcats that are the cool others, though, here it’s bay area cloud rappers. I guess that’s fine. I’m certainly making absolutely zero claim to authenticity or authority. But speaking to the generational cohort, I would just like to say: “Remember the baby boomers and how much you might think they suck.”

I think “Foreign Shit” - even though I don’t listen to it a lot - has almost supplanted “Rack City” as my favorite rap song of the year.

If you’re laying in a park drinking box wine taking pictures of the sky there’s no better music for you than Julianna Barwick. I had originally tried to make this mix like an Ouroboros (I’ll be able to spell that someday without googling it) so that the last song would be chill enough to fad back into the first song, but that didn’t work out. Anywhichway, maybe she should produce some songs for kitty pryde? That would be OK with me.

The bounce-snap-ping production style is certainly great for a lot of activities that physiologically resemble “bounce-snap-ping”. “Stupid Hoe” creates action in a reverse-onomatopoetic manner.

We all know that Future made the best rap-ish album of the year.

  1. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place
  2. kitty pryde - JUSTIN BIEBER!!!!!
  3. Lil B - Worldwide
  4. Future - Astronaut Chick
  5. Future - Turn On the Lights
  6. Charli XCX - Nuclear Seasons
  7. A$AP Rocky - Palace (Prod. By Clams Casino)
  8. kitty pryde - okay cupaid (prod Beautiful Lou)
  9. Kanye West - I Don’t Like (Remix) Ft. Pusha T, Chief Keef, Big Sean, Jadakiss
  10. Waka Flocka Flame - Foreign Shit
  11. Tyga - Rack City
  12. Santigold - Freak Like Me
  13. Kool A.D. - Manny Pacquiao [prod. by Trackademics]
  14. Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe
  15. Drake - Crew Love (Feat. The Weeknd) (Produced By Illangelo, The Weeknd & 40)
  16. Kilo Kish - You’re Right
  17. Azealia Banks - 212
  18. Grimes - Oblivion
  19. Icona Pop - I Love It

I made the cover by manipulating a painting by Ho-Ryon Lee.

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The one where austerity lost and a pair of rappers diagnosed a “structural crisis of capitalism”: The Venezuelan foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday night that Socialist President Hugo Chávez, who has been undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba, congratulated Mr. Hollande. The statement said that at a historical moment “marked by the structural crisis of capitalism” the Venezuelan government hoped that France would “take up again the path of the construction of a multipolar world.”

The one where austerity lost and a pair of rappers diagnosed a “structural crisis of capitalism”:

The Venezuelan foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday night that Socialist President Hugo Chávez, who has been undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba, congratulated Mr. Hollande. The statement said that at a historical moment “marked by the structural crisis of capitalism” the Venezuelan government hoped that France would “take up again the path of the construction of a multipolar world.”

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“While Dean’s mix may be impeccable, there is one kink in MBDTF’s technical solidity. For proof, compare the G.o.O.D. Friday version of “Monster” that first dropped this summer with the version that appeared on the album: The latter is harsher, clipping more frequently; the waveform confirms it, resembling a long, ugly brick. Dean does not deserve the blame, however. According to him, whoever mastered the final cut (Vlado Meller, say the liners) turned up the volume too loud.”

From a Respect Magazine interview with Mike Dean. This seems plausible, definitely, but I’m just slightly unconvinced. I mean, look for yourself below.

I’m not audiologist. It looks to me like there’s more compression on the album cut, but it’s not like the G.O.O.D. Fridays version is much better. Still, it’s good to know that genius Mike Dean isn’t for some reason totally incompetent. (I mean, he’s the opposite and then some: very competent.) Phew. Perplexing, still, why there’s some random-ass old white guy significantly ruining-up Kanye’s albums.

On the other hand… Watch The Throne sounds fucking awesome, and I’m pretty sure it was mixed and mastered by Dean. Damn. Take a look at “Ni//as in Paris”.

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My Variety Of Religious Experience

oneweekoneband:

It was an emotional reaction. Sometimes, and I believe I’ll get to this in a later post, you feel like you’re broken down inside — soupy — and it’s not your fault. Or everything lights up for you, not in a way that makes anything clearer — the opposite of that, really — but everything lit up. Or you feel like you’re very far away from where you’re supposed to be, but that you belong where you are. Or you feel like nothing really matters, that everything that worries you is a subtle riddle (like an LSAT problem), and that finding answers to them all is not important. That finding answers to them actually means you got them all wrong.

When I watched that movie, which ended up closely tracking how the album came out, more or less, it felt like discovering that your favorite and most pleasurable activity in the world also actually was beneficial for the world, made it work better. Listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an endless task for me, and I know on an intellectual level that it’s pointless and not even that interesting probably. I know people who read Ulysses every year and make their living studying it and actually finding new things to say about it. I know people who are, like, scientists and they’re actually making things. But transcendence always only has as its root, material cause an accident, a contingency. You can trip on a pebble and transcend, but it has nothing to do with the pebble. That won’t preclude you from setting up a shrine to that pebble, though.

Today’s vanity reblog. I tried writing about how listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is like a religious experience.

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