"alright you little sexpot"

that's what elise just told as i was grooving to the tunes i've picked for tonight's post; it must mean i'm on to something good.

sorry about the last couple posts skimping on the text and such. the gf suggested to me a week or so ago that i should do a post with my top ten songs of all time. i'm not sure if i'm ready to make a commitment like that (narrowing my favorites down is just such a daunting task!) but a "top ten of ____ greats" sounds like it would be something right up my alley.

so, without further ado, here are TEN SONGS WITH SOME HELLA HARD DRUMMIN, homie.

(in no particular order)

Led Zeppelin - When the Levees Break

not even the beastie boys really did this break justice when they opened their first album, licensed to ill (originally to be titled 'don't be a faggot', i kid you not) with it. the great blues sliding riff is killer as well. these are some hella hard drums, homie.

Joe Cocker - Woman to Woman

i think josh homme of queens of the stone age was talking about this song being hella hard in some interview a couple years ago, and he mentioned that the drums here are pretty much the basis for dr. dre's drum programming career lately. i think dre borrowed a little more than the drums, but for the life of me i can't realize which song he sampled it for... hmm... 

The Cool Kids - What Up Man

i can't believe that this hadn't been done already (to my knowledge). old school hip hop drumming is always referred to as "boom bap", but it took a long time for someone to take that phrase quite literally. boom. clap. bass.

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows

Ringo Starr always get a bum rep for being a shitty drummer that got really lucky. i always took that for gospel until i started really listening to the fab four. this doesn't exemplify anything techincally proficient or anything, but the song that launched the psychedelic phase of 'the greatest band there probably ever will be' probably wouldn't be half as great without ringo's little stutter number.

Air - Remember

this song hit me in the face when i first listened to moon safari, probably because the drumming alone turns the vocodorama into something completely different than any other song on their otherwise chill pill of a debut. wait for my eyes to roll when kid cudi or drake (or kanye for that matter) realizes this as well and snatches it for some mixtape. hella hard and smooth like silk at the same time.

Daft Punk - Rollin' & Scratchin'

i can't say enough good things about this track. when i first bought homework (we're talking back in high school) i couldn't stand this song. its just some annoying high pitched squeal that goes on for like eight minutes. it took a long time to realize it's absolute genius. without rollin and scratchin, there would be no justice, or electro-bangers or anything. i'd put this up against slayer for degrees of metal brutality any day of the week. the premise is incredibly simple, yet at the same time so perfectly executed. sure, the pitch-altered metallic synth growls and shrieks its way into climax heaven, but its the drums that turn the party level from 3 to an 11, and all that enters at that one point is a goddamn hi-hat. dp do fantastic things with this song live (obviously), but probably the best version i've found is off alive 1997 (it's a 45 minute single file, too long to post here), where they throw in some bass drum rolls to add a little swing to this beast's stomp. how can something so abrasive be so fucking danceable at the same time?

Schoolly-D - PSK

they say schooly-d invented gangsta rap. i guess psk stands for parkside killers, which sounds like a crew i wouldn't want to run into doing my jazzercise routines down the sidewalk late at night (sometimes there's no other time in my busy schedule). that doesn't impress me, but what does is the little bird who told me dude recorded this whole song in one take. that's vocals and beats, while operating the drum machine manually at the same time as kickin his little raps. oh yeah, and biggie does a great tribute to this on life after death's disc one.

The Honey Drippers - Impeach The President

i hadta include a classic break break in this list somewhere, and this is none more hella hard than impeach the president. it's the claussen pickle of old soul breaks: cold, crisp and delicious. and if you know me, you know claussen's the only brand i'll stand for.

Spoon - Paper Tiger

again, sometimes its not the level of difficulty or studio tomfoolery that makes or breaks a hella hard drum, but just a great idea done perfectly. the idea here is to waste nothing. every element has its role and adds something completely different to the mix: the reverb bass drum, the stuttering/phasedthephuckout tom tom, the steady rim shot. whoda thunk a couple dudes from austin even knew what hella hard meant?

Blur - Song 2

i had to include this one, mostly for personal reasons. growing up in the school band playing the lame ass (or so i thought at the time) trumpet, i was nearly salivating with envy at the drum section (who, for the most part, only played their stupid snares or bass, which made them even lamer than me). but this one kid would always sneak onto the little kit in the music room when our teacher wasn't looking, and he would always hammer out the opening drum pattern to song 2, which if you remember was like the end all be all for sixth graders in the mid to late 90s. and yeah, it still does kick groovy.

and before anyone mentions it (all because of that goddamn movie trailer), the drums at the end of 'in the air tonight' are too hard to include in this list, since they would undoubtedly put everyone else to shame. i think there should be some sort of musical drug testing committee, because phil had to have injected his snare drums with steroids or something. it's just not humanly possible otherwise.

i'm like gnarls barkley, meets charles barkley... ummm...

i can't remember which came first, me realizing that i liked song no. 2 off gnarls barkley's second album, the odd couple, or seeing this video and then realizing that i loved song no. 2 off gnarls barkley's second album, the odd couple. a little surprised that chris milk of kanye's good-clean-wholesome-fun-but-not-award-worthy 'touch the sky' vid directed this; i wonder how much input cee-lo and danger mouse had into the process. anyways, just a fantastic video, i promise it gets really good a couple minutes in.

in case you can't wait that long, one of the guys from 'nsync is supposed to be in the beginning of this video. i can't tell which one with all the weird costumes and accents, but a special prize awaits the first person to comment with the correct answer (sorry elise, you aren't eligible).

NEW MUSIC: starrrrrchild

i'm duper pumped about this one. i decided it's too good for me to throw anybody else's vocals over it. EPPIIIIICCCCCC!!!!!!!! or, as kanye would say, stadium status.

here are a list of people i would consider producing this song for, in no particular order, and not intentionally misogynist:

1. weezy f. baby

2. drake/kid cudi (is there really that much of a difference?)

3. cee-lo

4. bob dylan

5. the streets

big leagues, here i come.

Hear Mars - Starrrrrchild

the sample (great song btw, shout out to my dad who finally figured out i inherited his good taste in music):

Electric Light Orchestra - Ticket to the Moon

saturday's soundbites to take up space

another month, another air yeezy colorway passes me by. i have a feeling the black and pink were the end all be all. too bad i have a JOB, so i can't afford to take off three days to sit on a street corner and have guys trying to pull all sorts of funny business in the line.

jake frumkin, is that you in front???

***

it's been like a month since there was anything new and worthwhile to download. music or videos. the economy's even affecting the piraters... where's the loot?

***

i hate to say it, but every time i watch the amazing video i hate it a little less. and speaking of videos everyone hates, i'm kind of digging the asher roth/cee-lo video, even if the song's just meh.

***

just in case you've forgotten, trent reznor is pop. like in a sunshine in your tummy good kind of way. don't just take my word on it.

i'm not too good at car metaphors

dear ryan leslie,

i want to love your debut. i really do. i've lost count of how many times your album's been played, in its entirety, in my car, in the hopes that after that magical number has been reached, something will click. i imagine that moment to be a little like a car engine finally turning over, after your wrist is near numb from fatigue.

but there's also that other moment, when you realize you're going to need to save at least enough energy to be able to stick out your thumb and hitch-hike to work, because this piece ain't goin anywhere, no matter how many times you give it a lil gas, just for old times sake.

ryan, you're a great producer, but this whole vocal thing i just can't dig. it could be your cliche lyrics. it could be the occasional tepid rapping. it could be that you're just not that good of a singer, and you don't really know how to compensate for it. it could be that i just can't stand fabolous anymore, and grind my teeth to point of cracking them when i hear his voice.

this would be a great album r-les, nearing fantastic, if you just let someone else sing over it. way to go pal, you really know how to hook up a hellafreshsmoothasssilkybeat. and you have good melodic instincts. but you need to know to quit while you're ahead. before you pick the pen, pick up your phone. call up kanye, his blog hearts you. call up rick ross, the second half of his latest could have used some of your proper summer synths. call up the goddamn teriyaki boyz for all i care. anyone but you. and f-a-b-o. and chris cornell.

i hope we can still be friends. after all, real recognize real. and yeah, i'll probably still keep listening to your album anyways. that's what kind of a guy i am.

your friend, constructively,

hear mars

p.s. gibberish is pretty dope the way it is, even if, as elise correctly noted, the horn melody steals a page straight from spottieottiedopaliscious. i even enjoyed the video of you making it.

first real day of summer muzak

i think tom petty's the shit, and that's an opinion i've held for quite some time.

my dad turned me on to the heartbreakers when i was very young, and at this point i listen to them very seldom, but when i do i am always reminded why they are so fantastic.

it's great pop music, simple and plain. i'm not always the biggest fan of greatest hits collections, because when looking for samples the odds are you're usually going to find that special five second clip in an obscure album cut. but tom petty and the heartbreaker's greatest hits collection is just a fabulous collection of pop songs that just hit the nail square on the head, track after track.

sure, there are a lot of petty songs i like that didn't make the final cut, some of which i'll link to below, but after queuing the album up on my itunes for a family picnic today, i was once again reminded of what quality pop music sounds like. it wasn't so overwhelming that it took control of the afternoon's atmosphere, and it wasn't jack johnson to the point of needing to break out a spliff (i will concede that i do enjoy brushfire fairytales every once in a blue moon as well however).

sometimes the music you find yourself listening to just makes a moment, and you find yourself thinking that no matter how hard you tried, you wouldn't be able to create a better soundtrack. this afternoon/evening was one of those nights. thanks tom.

Tom Petty - Yer So Bad probably my favorite tom petty song, from his best album, full moon fever

Tom Petty - It's Good to Be King can i compare this to kanye's amazing? if you really listen to both of them, it's pretty easy to see this single from wildflowers is cut in the same vein

Tom Petty - Big Weekend - this is new new petty, and while the album it comes on is kind of a drab affair, this is just a swell number

kind of funny coincidence, i realized after i picked these three songs that there are only three solo tom petty albums, and i managed to pick songs from each of them. and if i had to pick a fourth, it would be 'you don't know how it feels', which to my surprise is also from wildflowers. heartbreakers, beef does not live in this house.

amazing is not that amazing

here's a first in the hearmars world: i am thoroughly unimpressed with kanye's new video.

although conveniently i can't find the link because pitchfork is covering its ass, the far-cry-from-having-the-pretentious-stick-shoved-up-its-ass website called the song itself something like dull and uninspired when it first leaked. now we don't even get shortsightedness. that's not going to stop me from dusting off the soap box though.

at least when kanye was ripping off ralph bashki he was doing it in style. here kanye rips off every nature documentary ever, and manages to present himself so dully throughout the entirety of the video that there's really no reason for him to be in it. in fact, why don't i just pop in my planet earth dvd, turn the sound down, roll up a doobie and play 808s on some dark side of the moon/wizard of oz? (i would wager that the coincidental cuts matching with the music would be a hell of a lot more interesting too)

saying that kanye is the only hip hop artist that would ever do something like this is a point declared moot ages ago when he stopped being hip hop. the only thing this says to me is that hype williams has never seen a jungle before (or the discovery channel for that matter), because when he points his camera at it all he can muster up the ability to do is drool. mr. west, even though you're pretending to be, i know you can't possibly be this humbled by mother nature. 

i hope ye gives paranoid a better treatment than this because if not you're going to see me get really saucy.

everybody bleeds, eventually

it's a beautiful day outside i know. but only because i stepped outside briefly on my way home from work. my tunes are consuming me; if i could spend every waking second in front of ableton and reason i probably would.

which brings me to this ny times article (that's right i'm one of THOSE people), and a proposition along the same lines:

i would be willing to let the newspaper pay me only $25,000 to take a year off. for much less than half of what the lawyer's getting, i would to do zero pro bono work for the community, unless providing them with dope ass beats counts.

speaking of dope ass beats....

oh yeah and i started work on the graffiti track today and it's a DOPE ASS BEAT!

good grief-itti

grafitti sesh (do you spell it out phonetically?) went well today, besides the fact that memories (and batteries) fade in the coldest winter. no seriously, it was really cold and we were in a fuckin tunnel. anyways, i have about 45 minutes of footage that i can edit down. gratis (that's his graf tag) said he wasn't really feeling the biggie song (he'll come around someday though) so i'm left scratching my chin about what song to make this video for. if my computer worked i would make a new one, but that's still up in the air.

i got this really dope, very expensive takashi murakami book for christmas, after of course being turned onto him by kanye. mr. west is funny that way - he'll post about something i've never heard of and i'm like oh shit that's really cool and i totally just bite his style, but when he went and sampled harder better faster stronger i was like what you just heard that song i was bumpin that back in the womb. its funny how being cool and hip and all up on the latest crazes work.

i couldn't resist. i think this might be a parody of heartless, and if it is it's about ten times funnier than it already is. i've already burned a new copy of 808's with the old version replaced with south park's song because frankly i need a giggle break in between all that heartbreak shit.

NEW MUSIC - Hypnotize Remix!!

i swear its not a comparison lol now that kanye's eating humble pie somebody's got to step up to the buffet line

two days without a post; what seems like years since i brought the realness...

and all i've got is some weird outer space shit. as my brother would say, it's avant grad. let it simmer for a lil while though you'll see. smoke some with ya doggs it's the new dark side of the moon

as you can see i'm dabbling more and more in the wonders ableton has to offer. still making all of the beats in reason though. you should have seen the ghetto set-up i was using to get the carl sagan clip haha

let's go for two new music posts a week (that might be a little ambitious though) and culture crap the rest of the time. on three break!

The Notorious B.I.G. - Hypnotize (Hear Mars Pregnant Robots Remix)

the sample:

The Soul Children - I'll Be The Other Woman

i'm not lovin you lovin you

i heard this sounded flat. actually it was my first kanye remix, contrary to be posted second. no sample here, other than the obvious. i also spent a lot more time on this one than the porn star edit. what's the verdict?

KanYe West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Clubbin Mix)

updates:

trying to learn abelton since i dled the latest cracked version. reason is cool, but if i'm going to be sporting a robot mask rocking out on top of a giant light pyramid in five years time i've gotta upgrade.

elise's pics

don't front on phil!

i forgot to mention that the porn star mix samples "if leaving me is easy" by the one and only phil collins. growing up watching south park psychologically trained me to associate phil with the taste of burb-up in the back of my throat, but after finally giving in the reverby awesomeness of the drums at the end of "in the air tonight", i did give the album a fair chance. kanye was right, again (eyes roll).

the sample

Phil Collins - If Leaving Me Is Easy

and dessert

Phil Collins - This Must Be Love

both off FACE VALUE

EDIT: by burb-up i of course mean burp-up and not surburban-up

love lockdown porn star mix

i always thought it'd be cool when i started a blog that the first post wouldn't acknowledge anything about it being the first post, it would just open in medias res

KanYe West - Love Lockdown (Hear Mars Porn Star Edit)