Beautiful Song Of The Week

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In the 1980s, rock and roll had become ridiculous.

Or at least, the most popular bands were ridiculous. A genre that started out as something rebellious, grassroots, and political had become a parody of itself. The outfits. The huge hair. The songs about partying and girls. Overly sanitized production and lyrical emptiness that took the heart out of the music. There is certainly a place for that kind of music, don’t get me wrong. But as the 80s turned into the 90s, mainstream rock was not doing anything new.

Meanwhile, a new kind of musical culture was emerging. Hip hop was rebellious, grassroots, and political in the same way rock had been a few decades earlier. I remember buying my first hip hop record and feeling immediately connected to something exciting.

Fast forward to the present day. I would argue that hip hop has evolved in the same way rock did. Most mainstream hip hop today gives us very little in the way of rebelliousness or political statements, but is more concerned with partying and girls, just like mainstream rock was in the 80s.

Which is why artists like Lupe Fiasco, and albums like his 2007 release, “The Cool”, are so refreshing. He’s a reminder that hip hop is doing fine, as long as you’re ready to search beyond what makes it to radio, and the generic, watered-down suburban mall rap that is currently occupying the mainstream.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The percussion is really light and crackly. It almost sounds like a needle skipping at the end of a record that someone forgot to take off the turntable.

2. Guest vocalist Matthew Santos has an interesting voice. The way he articulates his words reminds me of Feist.

3. With each chorus, there’s a bit more harmony. Except the very last chorus, when everything else fades out, and we’re left with a single vocal line.

Recommended listening activity:

Giving something a second chance.

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Bandcamp.

Vanilla is a producer from the UK who makes delicious soul-inspired beats. If I were a rapper, I would immediately hire him to make beats for my upcoming platinum-selling release. But since I’m quite clearly not a rapper, I will instead encourage you to listen to the title track from what I believe to be his strongest album, “Chrometrails”.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. Sparkly piano. Hip-hop thrives on low-end, but a lot of beatmakers forget that they key is having something nice and shiny in the high frequencies to complement the bass.

2. Off-beat percussion. Can’t tell if the kick is a bit behind, or if the snare is a bit ahead, but it gives the track a laid-back, Flying Lotus type of groove.

3. High-def vinyl crackle. Especially when those strings come in. Like the fabric-fluff sound you hear when you plunge your face into your favourite pillow.

Recommended listening activity:

Riding the bus through your favourite neighbourhood at night.

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Sleeping is one of my favourite things to do.

I’m not trying to imply that I’m lazy, but nothing beats a really good sleep. Especially when it’s punctuated by a really good/bizarre/realistic dream.

One of the coolest dreams I ever had was…well, like all cool dreams, it’s almost impossible to explain. But basically, it involved commuter trains that transformed into rollercoasters whenever I wanted them to. They functioned in slow-motion, and I could control everything about them; direction, speed, even when I wanted to feel weightless. I only had the dream once, but for years I tried to fall asleep while thinking about rollercoasters, just to try to trick my brain into doing it again.

But that’s the crazy thing about your brain: even though it creates your dreams, you can’t tell it to replay one. And when it does replay one, it’s probably a dream you didn’t particularly want to experience again, like the one where you’re trying to recite tongue twisters while naked and dizzy in front of every ex you’ve ever had.

Anyway. This all comes to mind because I’ve recently been listening to DJ Cam. He was France’s main contribution to the trip-hop craze of the mid-90s, and his jazzy samples really set him apart from the sea of Portishead clones that the era gave us.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The opening sample. It’s eerie and inviting, the opening bars to the dreaminess that’s about to come.

2. The vibraphone. So clean and clear compared to the gritty sampled drums.

3. The quote at 3:17. A great and paradoxical quote to include in a song built out of samples. The speaker is Eric Dolphy, and although he’s talking about music, he might as well be talking about dreams.

Recommended listening activity:

Daydreaming.

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There are two versions of this song, and I couldn’t decide which version to post, so we’re going to do this the “choose-your-own-adventure” way. Here’s the situation:

You’ve just gone through a difficult break-up, and are worried that the emotional baggage you’ve been left with won’t allow you to move on with your life. Do you skip work and spend the day curled up under a blanket with a bottle of wine and a trashy novel? Listen to version 1: 

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Do you dance your anger away while throwing out anything that reminds you of your ex? Listen to version 2:

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What makes this a beautiful song:

1. (Version 1) The soft but militant marching-drum. Smooth and purposeful at the same time.

2. (Version 2) The harmonies and handclaps. Feels like you’re partying with at least 5 Erykahs.

3. (Both versions) The repeating guitar line. If I hear it in the morning, I’m whistling it all day.

Recommended listening activity:

Having a two-course meal in which both courses are dessert.

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1987 was a big year for hip hop.

Looking at a list of hip hop releases from that year, it becomes obvious that this was a genre struggling with the fact that it was breaking into the mainstream, but not sure whether doing so would harm its authenticity as an artform.

Rap was heading into a lot of directions all at once; Public Enemy pushed the political side, NWA was building the foundations of 90s gangsta rap, and the Beastie Boys were…well, white. A comment in the liner notes of Kool Moe Dee’s 1987 album “How Ya Like Me Now” hints at how apprehensive many experienced rappers were of hip hop’s sudden appeal: “The Beastie Boys: We rappers have worked very hard to get rap to the level it’s at. Don’t mess it up.”

One of my favourite hip hop songs of 1987 is “A Touch Of Jazz” by DJ Jazzy Jeff. When I first heard it, I hadn’t even considered the fact that you could make a hip hop song without someone rapping, and it really made me listen to the way he blended samples to make something new. It was the beginning of my love affair with sample-based music, and the soundtrack to many a solo dance session in my room.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. His choice of samples. Jeff earned his nickname by sampling outside of the standard roll of funk breaks that DJs were sampling in the 80s. The jazzy, spacey vibe he accomplishes sets him apart, and makes his songs interesting enough to stand alone as instrumentals.

2. The sample at 0:51. It comes out of nowhere and totally changes the direction of the song.

3. You can tell it’s mixed live. This is one guy with two turntables. Sometimes the cuts are just a bit off the beat, something that wouldn’t happen nowadays, as everything would be done to a click track and edited with computer software. But the fact that he’s not metronome-perfect reminds you that it’s a human manipulating various records on the fly. That’s real DJ-ing.

Recommended listening activity:

Developing a secret handshake with a friend.

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When the unmanned Voyager space probe was flung into space in 1977, with the hopes that it would one day be found by intelligent (and, we assume, surprised) aliens, it contained a golden record that included 90 minutes of music from around the world, carefully compiled to give a complete sampling of what music was like on planet earth.

By now, Voyager has probably left the solar system, and that golden record is still sitting patiently inside, just waiting to be discovered. It’s an incredible thing for us to have done, if you think about it…one of the most hopeful yet desperate, admirable yet futile things the human race has ever attempted.

However, if we ever decide to do it again, I’d like to suggest that we save ourselves the trouble of compiling another golden record, and just include a copy of DJ Shadow’s 1996 masterpiece, “Endtroducing…” If you have never listened to it, start to finish, you really should. It’s like boarding a time machine that malfunctions, sending you simultaneously into the past and the future.

But if you haven’t got 63 minutes to spare, then at least spend the next seven listening to “Changeling”.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The 7/4 time signature. Different enough to stand out, but still head-nod friendly.

2. The sample at 1:38. It comes from this song, and it’s unexpectedly bright and cheery.

3. It starts to break down at about 4:37. The drums get clippy, then drop out altogether, giving way to ethereal guitars and atmospheric noises. It’s like the song is disintegrating, slowly coming apart and floating away. Entropy.

Recommended listening activity:

Closing your eyes and imagining that you’re slowly leaving the solar system.

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Bandcamp.

Everything about BadBadNotGood seems designed to freak out old people.

Their Bandcamp page proclaims that “no one over the age of 21 was involved in the making of this album”. They dropped out of a highly-regarded jazz program at Humber College, apparently bored with teaching methods that prioritize tradition over exploration (read the fallout here and here). Even their name flouts the common rules of typography with its blatant disregard for the space bar. Scandalous!

But whether you think of them as innovators or aggravators, you’ve got to love the spooky intensity of this track, from their 2012 release, BBNG2.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. It’s heavy. The percussion alone is enough to knock you out of bed; the fact that they don’t treat the drums with any reverb makes it sound like the drummer has set up shop somewhere in your inner ear. By the time the upright bass comes in, you’re not sure whether to nod your head or check your ear for a trickle of blood.

2. It’s moody. The great melody played on the electric piano in the opening minute is contrasted by the uneasy b-section that begins at 1:19. Chromatic and edgy, it builds in intensity until finally going back to the melody. (Random thought: the chromatic section of this song reminds me of the music at 7:39 in this video. Maybe I’m crazy.)

3. Instead of fading out, it grinds to a halt. Like a wind-up toy slowly running out of juice. It reminds us that even though some of the instruments sound synthesized, these are live players, and they’ll slow down if they feel like it.

Recommended listening activity:

Designing a brilliant homemade Halloween costume months before Halloween.

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One of the best things about the mp3 age is the phenomenon of iPod serendipity. This is when your iPod, happily shuffling its way through your library, suddenly seems to sense what’s happening around you and pulls out the perfect song.

You’re calling your accountant and “Taxman” by The Beatles comes on…you’re frying up some breakfast and it plays “Green Onions” by Booker T and the MG’s…you’re emptying the garbage just as “My Heart Will Go On” starts to play…

But sometimes, iPod serendipity isn’t that specific; sometimes the song that plays just seems to match the general mood of the moment rather than the particular event. It happened to me once with “Funk For Joy” by The Extremities.

I was leaving work on the last day before a summer vacation; it was a perfect, breezy, sunny day, and as I walked past a park I saw a group of kids chasing madly after bubbles that their mother was blowing. They were going nuts, in the way that only five-year-olds can go nuts. Their happy giggles sounded like part of the song, and two of them were jumping in perfect time with the beat of the song. It was as if they were dancing to the music that only I could hear.

At that moment, I realized two things: first, it was going to be a good summer, and second, I needed to stop staring at them, because their mother was getting uncomfortable.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The opening piano. It kind of makes me think of a ringing church bell. Because the interval is a fifth, you can’t tell at first whether the song is going to be major or minor. But then that soothing sax comes in and the joy-funk begins.

2. The piano flourish at 0.48. It’s pure piano happiness, and it’s mirrored by an organ flourish at 1.41.

3. The out-of-nowhere bridge section at 1:48. It would have already been a great song, but then they throw in this great moment, featuring a great vocal sample from a funky little ‘70s gem called “You And The Music” by Donald Byrd. It’s moments like this that separate groups like The Extremities from less thoughtful sample artists.

Recommended listening activity:

Breakdancing with your fingers.

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Name your own price here.

The Slakadeliqs are not actually a band, but one man, the talented and extravagantly-named Slakah the Beatchild. Having spent years producing other people’s music, Slakah adopted the Slakadeliqs moniker on his 2012 release, “The Other Side of Tomorrow”.

It’s the type of album that only someone with a producer’s mind could create; sonically fascinating, with hints of just about every genre you could imagine. This song alone has bits of folk, soul, and hip-hop floating under its soothing surface. It’s reminiscent of “Hallelujah” by k-os, but perhaps even more hypnotic.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The strummed guitar in the first verse is so soft, as if the guitarist is wearing gloves. Along with the glockenspiel and the harp, it gives the song a really fragile feel.

2. The switch to 7/4 time as the song hits 3 minutes. It’s hard to think of another song that has a rapped verse and 7/4 time.

3. The repeated chord progression in the final section. After a fairly normal descending set of chords, we get a bizarre major chord on the fourth degree of the scale thrown in, adding to the urgency of the song’s last minutes.

Recommended listening activity:

Tracing your hand and writing a poem inside the shape it leaves.

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Canada is not a country that would spring to most people’s minds as a hotbed of hip-hop, but over the last few decades, it has produced a disproportionate amount of great music in a genre dominated by American acts.

The one thing that strikes me about Canadian hip-hop is its variety; from auto-tune pop-rap to indie hip-hop with a sense of humour, the little scene that could has something for everyone.

One genre-crossing act who caught my ear a few years ago is k-os. While some argue that he spends too much time singing to be considered a true rapper, I think his 2004 album “Joyful Rebellion” is one of the catchiest and most sonically interesting Canadian releases of the past ten years. Most songs on the album are, true to its title, either joyful or rebellious, but right in the middle is this track: a quiet, almost mournful reflection on the state of hip-hop.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The organ. With the religious undertones in the song’s title and its lyrical references to Babylon, the organ was the perfect choice for filling out the sound.

2. Halfway through, he seems to give up on the words. K-os famously suffers from narcolepsy, and I can’t help but think he was on the verge of sleep during the recording of this song. But in a song about being disillusioned, it works.

3. The chaotic drums towards the end. Rather than fade out, the song disintegrates, in keeping with the message of a hip-hop industry that promotes its own worst stereotypes, and is slowly collapsing in on itself.

Recommended listening activity:

Watering a plant that looks too small to survive.