…And by later this week, I clearly meant at the beginning of
next week. Let’s get back to it.
80. Primitive
Radio Gods- Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth (genre: alternative rock… first
listen: Summer 1996… spot on 2009
countdown: 40)
I’ll forever remember the Primitive Radio Gods and this song
because this was the first CD I ever ran into that had a “parental advisory”
sticker on it, and I was pissed when my parents told me I couldn’t get this CD.
I’m sure the rest of the CD is wack (I don’t know why I feel that way, I just
do), but this song is absolutely amazing. Very mellow stuff; it’s kinda the
mid-90s version of “Tom’s Diner”, except even more chill. It’s dropped
considerably, yes, but I don’t see it leaving the countdown in 2014.
By the way, have these guys done anything since this track?
I’m pretty sure they haven’t. One of these days, I’ll check out this CD and buy
it to shove it to my parents for holding me down as a nine year-old boy.
One other note, I couldn't decipher that vocal sample "I've been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met" until like 11 years after I first heard the song. Yeah, I'm not on the uptake much.
79. Robin S.- Show
Me Love (genre: house… first listen: Summer 2001… spot on 2009 countdown: 47)
I might have some tracks you’ve never heard of, but if there’s
ever a track you’ve heard of but don’t know the name to, this is it. As soon as
the melody drops, you’ll be like “oh yeah, THAT song!” Straight up classic
house music right here. Songs like these only prove my thesis that love songs
are best when in house form. And, along the lines of Primitive Radio Gods,
house music also seems to have the most one-hit wonders out of any genre.
Pretty much every house cut on this countdown is the only song I have by the
artist. Some formula: make like four bars of a catchy melody, build it up,
break it down, get some hot vocals, and you’re set for however long you can
live off royalties from a house song.
78. Tupac- Until
the End of Time (RP Remix) (genre:
hip-hop… first listen: Fall 2000… spot on 2009 countdown: 16)
Yeah, this song plummeted like a worldwide mob figga. The
harrowing truth is that I just don’t like Tupac nearly as much as I used to, as
much of a hip-hop sin as that is. Don’t get me wrong: I still love Tupac and
recognize him for what he did for the rap game, and the story surrounding Tupac’s
death is probably the second-best modern day conspiracy theory behind the
Illuminati’s involvement in hip-hop. But eventually, people are going to come
around who can deliver the message better than a man who died 16 years ago
could, and that’s what has happened here to some extent.
All that said, Tupac is at his best when he goes
introspective on a track, and each of the four Tupac songs on this countdown
follow that mold. This cut makes the countdown for its great storytelling and
reflection on friendship.
77. Rasco- Gunz
Still Hot (DJ Premier Remix ft. Edo G and Reks) (genre: hip-hop… first listen:
Fall 2003… spot on 2009 countdown:
85)
The original version of this song sucks. Why? Because Premo
didn’t do the beat and I could barely even listen to what Rasco was saying.
Premo throws on a vintage Premo beat, Edo G and Reks come through with beast
guest verses and Rasco takes us home with a nice extended 20-bar verse. The
result? No. 77 on the only countdown that matters. This song also has one of
the catchiest hooks for an underground rap song- it’s one of those hooks where
I’ll have this song on in the background, but when the hook hits, I start
spitting along as if it’s out of command. This beat though…yeah. Premo is by
far the best producer of all time.
76. Mozes Gunn ft.
Profound, Maintain & Juice- Verbal Warfare (genre: hip-hop… first listen:
Summer 2001… spot on 2009 countdown:
74)
This is battle rap at its finest- aggressive lyrics and
punchlines out the ass. Juice has the best verse (he’s the last dude on the
cut), but all three other MC’s do their thing considerably well. I haven’t heard of three of these dudes before
or after this song, but one of them (I believe it’s Maintain) delivers the best
lines of the track:
Before approaching me,
set aside all that weak s***/ Trying too hard to keep it real; can’t
even keep it, beef get/Blown out of proportion
over stupid s***/ (And everybody swear to
God they got a good excuse for it)/ To sum it up, too many rappers
act like b*****/ If you can’t *slight pause*
take the heat, then get the f*** up out the kitchen
Tell me that’s not hard. Anyways…
The dude I have heard of- Juice- is what drove me to this
track. I’m not sure there’s a better freestyle MC out there besides J-U-ICE.
The stuff dude comes up with off top is ridiculous. If you can find it, “100%
Juice” is well worth the price of purchase (this song isn’t on it though).
75. Tupac- Changes
(genre: hip-hop… first listen: January 1999… spot
on 2009 countdown: 18)
See? Another precipitous drop for MC New York. Still, this
song is a classic, and if you’re my age, chances are you were bumping this in
middle school, unless you went to an all-white middle school where you had to
listen to rap music in the closet (*looks
at himself*)… Uh… maybe I was just too self-conscious. That aside, this is
another great uplifting track from Tupac with a classic sample and some nice
male vocals for the hook.
The one thing I could never understand about this track was
why in the hell MTV blanked out “tune” in the line “that’s the sound of my tune”. MTV went through a phase where they
censored more stuff than North Korea, like the word “trunk” in Eminem’s “Stan”
(dropped out of the countdown this year for the first time; sorry). They went
beyond the seven dirty words and into contextual censorship, an era I hope
never plays itself out again. See, the thing with contextual censorship is that
it only makes you look up what was censored, and then you’ll urban dictionary
it if you don’t know what it means, and then you become a little more hardened
to the world. Without it, you can just mindlessly sing along, which I guess is
probably the worst of the two choices, so maybe contextual censorship isn’t the
worst thing in the world.
Whatever, I love freedom.
74. N.O.M.A.D.’s.-
Right Here (genre: hip-hop… first listen: Spring 2001… spot on 2009 countdown: 31)
*I'll have to upload this song later*
Probably my favorite “word is bond” song. This song is all
about “being boys” and sticking through the thick and thin of it. If you haven’t
been able to tell by now, I love those kinda songs. And, when I was merely 14,
this song had me in a trance. I’ve somewhat outgrown the track, but it’s still
a great one. I didn’t know who this song was by until I posted my 2005 version
of the countdown on a message board and someone private messaged me that their
brother or friend or cousin or whatever was in this group. I’m guessing it’s a
two-person group- one dude on the mic, one on the beats, because only one dude
is spitting on this track. Super-harrowing beat adds a nice touch.
73. Alchemist-
Smile (Ft. Twista) (genre:
hip-hop… first listen: August 2009… spot on 2009 countdown: N/A)
It was my first night in Europe, and I was feeling a little
homesick. I woke up in a panic and didn’t know what to do with myself. It was 5
a.m., and my friends wouldn’t be up for hours. So I went outside to the balcony
of my friend’s uncle’s apartment and just stared off into space, the Eiffel
Tower in the horizon. I was trying to collect myself so I didn’t lose it, and
all of a sudden, this plays in my head:
I’m even smiling for
me/ Smiling so you know why you can’t hurt me/ Smiling for something, not hide ‘em
from fallin/Now what you know bout what smiles are all about
And literally, just like that, I was calm, cool, collected
and enjoyed the hell out of my trip to Paris and Barcelona (if you're wondering how I couldn't enjoy a trip to Paris and Barcelona- I get homesick easy. What can I say? I love The 'Ze). Literally because
this song came through my mind, and the thing was that I had listened to this
song maybe twice before that night- it wasn’t one that had particularly stood
out to me; I had just bought Alchemist’s “Chemical Warfare” and didn’t really
like it all that much. But for some reason, this song stuck out, and it cured
my homesickness in the span of one hook.
72. Soul Position-
Final Frontier Remix (Ft. Vast Aire, Aesop Rock and Murs) (genre: underground hip-hop… first listen: Spring 2003… spot on 2009 countdown: N/A)
This is one of my favorite songs to listen to when I fail at
something and need to pick myself up. The lovely horns and synth provide by
RJD2 is enough to get my head bobbin’ again. For those wondering, Soul Position
is made up of rapper Blueprint and producer RJD2. They did a couple of albums
and an EP- the EP was tight, the first album was ok, the second album wasn’t
anything to write home about.
The original version of this song is also awesome, but the
remix takes the cake because of the more uplifting sound to the beat, and also
because the guest verses are all super on point, even if you never know what
the hell Aesop Rock is talking about.
Oh, the good ole days of Def Jux. In the early 2000s, nobody
was doing it like this backpack label. Def Jux, along with Atmosphere, Sage
Francis and a couple of other cats basically WERE backpack rap, which as you
can see, has greatly influenced this blog due to the word “backpack” being in
the title. Cannibal Ox, El P, Murs, Aesop Rock, Masai Bey, yeah man, those were
the days. But without RJD2, none of it would have sounded tight, because RJD2
was literally the only producer in the backpack scene who could consistently make
a beat worth a damn (Blockhead might have an argument here, but truth be told,
I couldn’t be bothered to listen to all of Aesop Rock’s “Labor Days”). Now, RJD2
has gotten too experimental for my tastes, but if he ever puts out another
album, I’ll still cop it unheard.
71. Weathermen-
With Us (genre: underground
hip-hop…first listen: Summer 2003… spot on 2009 countdown: N/A)
If I were to tell a girl on a first date with me that this
song had my favorite chorus, she would slap me in the face, pour her drink on
me and leave me with the tab while she hails a taxi.
Fortunately for me, I’m not dumb enough to bring this chorus
up on a first date. Unfortunately for me, it really is my favorite chorus in
any song.
I won’t bother typing out the lyrics- you can find them for
yourself- but let’s just say they don’t hold women in the most positive light.
The reason I love this chorus is because of how grimy it is- it has nothing to
do with any beliefs I may have about females. It’s just so aggressive and
hard-hitting. I have a pretty low-fi version of this song, which is perfect
because I think this song would lose its gritty-ness if I had a version that
was fully mixed and mastered. This song can only be fully appreciated grainy.
Of course, any song Cage is on is gritty by definition, and
he and Copywrite comprise the Weathermen. Copywrite is one of my favorite
backpackers out there, I highly recommend his latest CD “God Save the King”.
Over-under on how many days it is until I post 70-61: 10.5.
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