Not You – Chromatics
To occupy myself until such time as Chromatics’ Dear Tommy ever gets released (c’mon, already!) I’ve been listening a lot to this Hazy Mountains remix of early advance single “Just Like You”.
While the more-sedate original may work like gangbusters in the context of the album, as a standalone single track I like this version better; it beefs up the dance rhythms (Johnny Jewel has been known to rhythmically-subtract, presumably to play up the space, even going so far as to release a completely-drumless version of Kill For Love).
It’s also part of a long tradition of songs that hollowly-boast of having found a new lover who is equal or superior to the old one in nearly every way, save in one nagging respect.
Hints of that disquiet come through in certain robotically-delivered lines. Ruth Radelet sounds hypnotized or narcotized; of her new lover she sings, “he’s always hanging upside-down / he says he’s going underground”.
Advanced vampirism is usually a relationship drawback.
(I also really like the phrase “deep inside a death machine maze”.)
Still, the biggest flaw of her new paramour is made clear via its pointed absence in the repeated ending refrain, “He looks just like you / He even loves like we used to.”
It’s what’s unsaid; it’s the obvious implication of addressing a song to “you”, to tell you all about “him”.
He may be “just like you”, but…
He’s not you.
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What are you listening to?
[Header Image: Cover Art for Dear Tommy, out on Italians Do It Better, sometime this century.]
The wife is big Chromatics fan, and got me listening to Kill for Love. Good album.
Spent a good part of the day listening to old Bad Brains on the Youtube.Report
Your wife has good taste 😉
You just reminded me that Dr. Know was in the hospital recently in critical condition, and I never heard any more about it. Looks like he recovered. Take that, 2016!Report
Yeah, after the news about Vanity that is indeed good.Report
That last discussion of Kendrick got me back to listening to To Pimp a Butterfly again it’s become obsessive. I’ve also been watching a bunch of live performances of him and I know it’s cliched at this point, but what he is doing is really on another level. It’s become obsessive.
And of course all of this culminated with the live Grammy performance yesterday, which cemented all of the various strains of thought that have been floating around in my head. The Grammy performance had a certain impact, but he did a couple of Late Show performances that demonstrate where he is even better:
https://youtu.be/oS0geQsfcHk
I can’t really think of another rapper who’s done the same things musically and vocally, together. I feel like I’m watching David Bowie channeled through James Brown.Report
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s not get carried away, now. The Godfather and his band didn’t use click tracks.
(I mean, it’s possible that the ‘phones in Lamar’s and the drummer’s ears are either sound bafflers or monitors, but generally when I see a drummer with ‘phones, I assume “click track”, and the start/stop/rhythm changes in the song would certainly necessitate one, for most people who aren’t James Brown or his band).Report
Dayyyyy-um.
We saw him perform in a small (tiny) venue at SXSW in ’14. It was so packed that you could barely move, but he was so intense that it didn’t really matter. Everyone was blown away, and he was the talk of the festival everywhere we went because of performances like that (he did like 6 shows in 3 days, because he has seemingly unlimited energy). But what he’s doing now is at a whole ‘nother level.
I’ve said it before, but he’s pretty much the most requested collaborator in hip hop right now, and every damn time he does a verse for someone, you realize just how far ahead he is of everyone else on the planet. It’s almost scary to see how much he’s stepped it up over even 2014 Kendrick.Report
By the late 60s, James Brown had spent ten years turning his band into a finely synchronized drum kit and invented funk. Obviously, the comparison has its limits. My real point is that I’ve yet to see a rapper either perform so well-synced with a band or exhibit that level of vocal control.
Watch the untitled track from the same Colbert appearance that comes after the video I posted. It’s even more impressive.
@chris
Have you listened to the Black Friday verse over J Cole’s “A Tale of 2 Citiz” beat? Scary is the right word. It makes the “Control” verse look tame.
And speaking of Control, what the hell is wrong with Jay Electronica? He drops a Kendrick diss track on the day of he Grammys, which only serves to make people wonder what exactly he’s been doing for the past ten years.Report
The “Black Friday” remix even has a 10,000 hours of practice line. It’s a great verse. And Jay Electronica is a mess.
Last year we saw both Chance the Rapper and Ghostface Killah with live bands. Chance’s band The Social Experiment (which put out its own album last year, of course) is awesome, and he is great with them. As with Lamar, the combo of hip hop and live band makes for an incredibly fun and energetic show. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an artist with more energy than Chance with his band.
Ghostface is playing with BADBADNOTGOOD, a jazz/hip hop fusion group from Canadiana (Toronto, I think), who studied jazz formally and are seriously good musicians. Here’s one of their official videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YW_RqTuZMw
Just audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-qmZ_J7WGc
Here’s Tyler the Creator with BADBADNOTGOOD (Not Even a Remotely Safe for Work!!!!! I’m talking from the first words out of Tyler’s mouth):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBYZIMIhdd0
And BADBADNOTGOOD by themselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caY0MEok19I
Live, they do several Wu-Tang songs, and since Raekwon was in town for SXSW, they brought him out for about 4 songs, and even did an ODB tribute. It was pretty damn awesome.Report