RevEx Loves Prince!

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Okay, this one is more than two months in the making. We sat down and listened to all 39 studio albums from Prince and various compilations and singles and came up with RevEx Loves Prince!, our playlist that not only features the best of Prince's songs from his albums, but includes non-album tracks, remixes, live tracks, covers by Prince, songs written by Prince for other artists, artists developed by Prince and select cover versions of songs written by Prince. If you like Prince, you're really gonna love this playlist...

Play it on Spotify!

Are you ready to S.P.L.O.O.S.H.?

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You'd better get ready, because S.P.L.O.O.S.H. is coming!

S.P.L.O.O.S.H. is a new concept. It's a monthly audio comic book. Once a month, we'll release a new issue of S.P.L.O.O.S.H. in podcast format. Each issue will be 30 minutes or less and will follow the adventures (and misadventures) of a team of superheroes as they take on the world's most dastardly (and silliest) villains!

S.P.L.O.O.S.H. lovingly parodies comic books, superhero movies and other parts of geek culture. The jokes will fly fast and often, but the action will be there, too. And, drama? Oh, do we have drama!

Speaking of drama, here is your main cast, the members of S.P.L.O.O.S.H.!

Brittany Gates is Green Star
Kayode Kendall is Captain Echo
Diana Liao is Miss Starry
Gern Blanston is SniperZzZ
Jillian Cardillo is Ribbon
Kristen Sunshine is Slaughterhouse
Michael Nasser is Brute
Monica Schneider is Ms. Cadbury
Samara Mizrachi is Puppy
Shawn Logue is Bob
Tom A Kaze is The Mastermind
Professor Rex is Voice Over Man

Issue #0 also has a special appearance by Vashti Joseph as Fashonista!

The show will have a large cast of revolving villains and supporting characters, so there will be many opportunities for performers to join us for new and exciting roles. We will also be producing some scripts for the show written by you! Keep your eyes out for submission procedures, coming soon!

For now, all you can do is wait until mid-August for S.P.L.O.O.S.H. issue #0, which introduces you to the team and gets the whole story rolling!

The RevEx 2017 in Review

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2017 was a busy year for RevEx. We wanted to make sure to catch you up on the amazing content we made last year and let you know that our 2018 is going to be bigger, faster, stronger and more!

Check out our 2017 content...

RevEx Albums & Singles: This year, we went for quality over quantity with music and released the following albums and singles.

RevEx Album Re-releases: In addition to our new albums and singles, we've re-released higher quality versions of some of our earlier albums.

RevEx Movies: We've started making short, funny videos and will be working on a lot more for the future.

RevEx Podcasts: We greatly expanded on our podcast series that launched at the end of 2016. In addition to a diverse show discussing all kinds of topics, from how to find a job to toxic masculinity, we've started producing original fictional podcast presentations.

RevEx Playlists: In addition to making our own music, we've started curating playlists for you on Spotify.

RevEx Events: On top of all that, we run a year-round schedule of events. In 2017, for instance, we held a long list of unique and fun events, including: the Drinking Game Game Show Live: Superbowl Edition, Album Release Party: Ghettoghandhi, Spoken Word & Poetry Night, RevEx Presents the World Championship Rap Battle, RevEx's StandUpComedyOke, RevEx Presents the World Championship Musical Battle, The NerdCore Symposium, RevEx Storytellers Live, RevEx Presents What Is Improv, Anyway?, Karaoke Idiot: The Musical, Job Search Series, Spoken Word Brunch, RevX 2017 Year-End Blowout Show and Songwriters' Showcase!, Karaoke Brunch, and RevEx’s Not-Your-Office-Holiday-Party Brunch.

Wait till you see what we have planned next!

Our Values

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Revolutionary Exchange Productions is a diverse group of progressive individuals who collaborate to make creative and innovative projects that span multiple media. Through feminist, supportive and inclusive practices and policies, RevEx provides an open and empowering environment where groundbreaking and fun content can be created. Above all, RevEx events are respectful, safe places where we invite new friends into our community. These are our values:

1. We give artists 100% creative control. We like what you do already, that's why we're working with you.

2. We are about music, film, art, and games. Our focus is to develop creators and support them in making interesting things that break down barriers (musically, artistically, and otherwise). Creativity can change the world, and we seek to empower you to do that.

3. Revolutionary Exchange Productions isn't about money. Not for us. We plan to foster an environment where our creators have total freedom of expression, and our ultimate goal is ensuring that our creators will not have to worry about having a day job. We will do what we can to make that happen.

4. We will be offering creators a full range of services to help further your career, from help with writing, filming, composing, recording, finding gigs, touring and participating in festivals and shows, marketing, promotion, and other services that allow the creator to focus on making and creating and performing. We do the dirty work.

5. Revolutionary Exchange Productions doesn't work with creators who promote hate. We actively recruit creators from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. In particular, we look for creators who are women, people of color, LGBT, international, who have disabilities, or are marginalized by our country’s culture.

6. Our creators don't have to be political, but racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other beliefs that are rooted in fear and hatred will have no place with us. We foster unity, not division.

7. We encourage, but don't require, our creators to go beyond music and think about ways to supplement their works with live shows, visual art, dancers, music, video, and anything else that expands upon what the creator is trying say. We don’t care how crazy your idea is. Our first question is "How can we make this crazy idea a crazy awesome reality?"

8. Our goal is to make our creators’ success as inexpensive for them as possible, using the full range of modern technology and techniques to keep costs down. The sooner we can help you make a living as a creator, the happier we are.

9. We are not interested solely in the business of creating music or art. We are fans. We love music, film, art, and games and seek to share that passion with everyone we interact with. We are your No. 1 fans, other than your parents and your significant other (if you have one). Then we will be your No. 2, 3 or 5 fans, and we’re ok with that.

10. We're also new at this. We ask your patience in giving us some leeway in figuring out how best to navigate a rapidly changing entertainment industry. We have your best interests at heart (don't worry, we'll put that in writing), and will always be working toward your future success.

11. Call us RevEx for short.

Every Prince Song on Tidal Ranked: 100-1

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In the last week, I listened to every Prince album and single on Tidal. And I ranked them all. Somewhere between a combination of "I like" and "most popular" and "most important" or some other such ranking. Some albums aren't on Tidal, including: The Black Album, The Gold Experience, Chaos and Disorder, Crystal Ball, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, The Rainbow Children, Planet Earth, and 20Ten. This means that great songs are missing from the list (see: Pussy Control, Guitar, The One U Wanna C, Gold, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and others). Here they are in reverse order...

100. "3121" (3121)

99. "Mr. Nelson" (HITnRUN Phase One)

98. "Wall of Berlin" (Lotusflow3r): Oh, I do love the metaphor here and Prince is doing virtuoso things with the instruments here.

97. "Pope" (The Hits 2): Prince rappping + Bernie Mac + weird metaphors equals a solid B-side.

96. "Push" (Diamonds and Pearls): This one is basically an extended jam that allows the New Power Generation players a chance to work out with Prince, with the key being the note-for-note matching of Prince and Rosie Gaines that is really something to behold.

95. "Ronnie, Talk to Russia" (Controversy): Prince has always been political. Before this one, though, most of his politics were about sex and race. Here, he gets super explicit about it, but stays ridiculously catchy. This is how musicians should preach when they preach.

94. "Strollin" (Diamonds and Pearls): After the filthy funk of Cream, this light pop confection messes with your senses. Are we still listening to the same album? Is that note he just hit humanly possible?

93. "Like a Mack" (HITnRUN Phase One): The guest on this one, Curly Fryz, is another great Prince find. Never heard of this woman, but she both raps and sings here and it meshes super-well with Prince's funk/EDM hybrid music.

92. "4ever" (Lotusflow3r)

91. "Shut This Down" (HITnRUN Phase One)

90. "It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night" (Sign o' the Times): Prince said "oh, you think I can't recreate a live show in one song? Watch me."

89. "My Little Pill" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale): This is creepy and weird. I love it.

88. "Feel Good, Feel Better, Feel Wonderful" (Lotusflow3r)

87. "Million $ Show" (HITnRUN Phase One): Oh, I like the retrospective nature of this song, particularly for his last album cycle.

86. "The Truth" (The Truth): After the previous few releases were all Vault-related things with odds and ends that mostly amounted to Prince's worst releases, this outtake of acoustic songs from Crystal Ball is much, much more interesting. This one has Prince getting philosophical and pulling it off.

85. "The Max" (Love Symbol Album): On this one, I kind of picture Prince as a gangster, with a hard -er, and he and his NPG friends are in Zoot Suits and are going to beat up you and your friends and take your dates home (willingly).

84. "Fallinlove2nite" (HITnRUN Phase One): The album version, without the duet by Zooey Deschanel, shows that the song is no gimmick, but that it is still improved a lot by her addition.

83. "Crimson and Clover" (Lotusflow3r): Probably Prince's best cover song.

82. "Tamborine" (Around the World In A Day): Ramping up the Eastern influence of the early parts of the album. This whole album is such a radical departure for Prince.

81. "The Future" (Batman): People, including Prince, seem to hate the Batman soundtrack. Shaun of the Dead is right, though, it is a good album. This song is a solid rocker with samples from the movie. It sticks in your head.

80. "PretzelBodyLogic" (Plectrumelectrum): 3RDEYEGIRL adds to the Prince legacy on this album. He was always great at spotting talent and getting the best out of it. Still true.

79. "Alphabet St." (Lovesexy): Such a weird quirky little hit. We quoted it endlessly "...to Tennessee" was part of our slang for a year. And for the second album in a row, Prince brings in an unknown female rapper to provide an interesting spark.

78. "This Could B Us" (HITnRUN Phase One): HITnRUN finds Prince getting trip-hoppy and dubsteppy at times, like on this, a much superior version to the one released a year earlier.

77. "Nothing Compares 2 U" (The Hits 1): It makes tons of sense to stick this on a Greatest Hits album, considering its massive success. But it's bold to take a song that was an iconic hit for someone else and rework it into your signature sound and promise it's going to be a hit. Prince wins. Again.

76. "Little Red Corvette" (1999): This song always made me a little uncommfortable, like I was seeing inside a private moment where I wasn't supposed to be invited.

75. "Housequake" (Sign o' the Times): The best Parliament-Funkadelic song that wasn't written by Parliament-Funkadelic. I defy you to stand still when this song comes on.

74. "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" (Prince): A pretty perfect break-up song for the era.

73. "X's Face" (HITnRUN Phase One): Prince was listening to Yeezus and trap before making this one.

72. "Soft and Wet" (For You): One never forgets that Prince did funk. And did it better than just about anyone else ever.

71. "I Wanna Be Your Lover" (Prince): Prince's first perfect song is about as representative a summer 70s pop-disco song as one could imagine. One of those songs that immediately takes you back to a specific time and always works to establish the era when used in movies.

70. "I Wonder U" (Parade): This one is masterful in its beautiful simplicty.

69. "FALLINLOVE2NITE" (FALLENLOVE2NITE): Zooey's vocals greately improve this song.

68. "Let's Pretend We're Married" (1999): Basically an update of his earlier up-tempo disco style sexy jams, but in a more new wave and experimental direction. He also really, really uses his voice as an instrument here, doing things that other human beings can't do.

67. "Girl" (The B-sides): Wait, was he just singing about the West Wing? Why are my pants off?

66. "4 the Tears in Your Eyes" (The B-sides): Mid-80s spiritual New Wave Prince? Hell, yes.

65. "Walk Don't Walk" (Diamonds and Pearls): Yep, Prince can even make a great song out of car horns beeping.

64. "RocknRoll Love Affair" (HITnRUN Phase Two): There is literally nothing wrong with this song.

63. "When Doves Cry" (Purple Rain): One of the most iconic videos ever. One of the most original sounding pop tracks ever. A really uncomfortable commentary on parents and their relationships with their children that struck really, really close to home.

62. "Forever In My Life" (Sign o' the Times): I don't know what genre this song is, electro-soul, maybe? But it's a powerful, powerful moment. In anyone else's career, this would probably be a highlight. For Prince, it's an obscure album track on his weird experimental album that everybody overlooks. Crime.

61. "Paisley Park" (Around the World In A Day): Another game-changer for me. This was kind of a hippie mysticism that I could believe in. I hear things like the Beatles in this song.

60. "Annie Christian" (Controversy): If you thought Prince could be weird before you got to this song, you had no idea. Both experimental in terms of content and sound, this is the first time you have to really think that Prince is on some other level shit.

59. "Free Urself" (Free Urself): Yay! Hippie Prince is back!

58. "Life Can Be So Nice" (Parade): People slept on this album and movie a bit, but songs like this show that it has some of Prince's most inventive work, instrumentally.

57. "The Ladder" (Around the World In A Day): A.k.a., Purple Rain II. It's basically the same song, just moreso.

56. "Love 2 the 9's" (Love Symbol Album): When you make that playlist of Prince songs to make love to, make sure this one is on the list.

55. "Gotta Stop (Messin' About)" (The B-sides): I really hope there are a lot of gems like this in the Vault.

54. "2 Y. 2 D." (HITnRUN Phase Two): This album suite just keeps on giving. This one is a classic, owing both to 70s/80s Prince and James Brown. It's hard to deny.

53. "77 Beverly Park" (Lotusflow3r): Wow, it's amazing how good the Lotusflow3r album is. Prince has made a comeback album here like few in anyone's career. This is maybe Prince's best instrumental song. It's just pure beauty.

52. "Pink Cashmere" (The Hits 1): The one new song that appeared on the Hits 1 album isn't as great as the amazing sounds around it, but damned if it doesn't feel like it is when you listen to it in sequence.

51. "Cinnamon Girl" (Musicology): Alternately rocking and melodic, this song about, let's say terrorism?, is pretty great.

50. "Computer Blue" (Purple Rain): What for many is the worst song on the album would still be a standout on many other albums. It also has the sexiest moment on the album, which is saying a lot, with Wendy & Lisa's intro.

49. "Partyman" (Batman): Jack Nicholson somehow makes the song even funkier. This is a party song extraordiare.

48. "Dirty Mind" (Dirty Mind): I think this is where Prince really starts becoming unique. There were elements of it before, but this song is singular in its vision and its a predictor of the genius to come.

47. "Comeback" (The Truth): Wow. This is why you keep listening to later Prince albums, despite their multitudes and lack of quality control. This song is simple, but beautiful.

46. "Hardrocklover" (HITnRUN Phase One): Oh, wow, this is Prince at his sexiest. It both calls back to his Purple Sex God days, but is filtered through the many years and advances in technology that have happened since. And it this is all meant as a compliment. In the biggest way possible.

45. "Money Don't Matter 2 Night" (Diamonds and Pearls): This one is like an early 80s Billy Joel piano ballad written by Bruce Springsteen. With Prince's voice. It's even better than it sounds.

44. "Darling Nikki" (Purple Rain): I remember a sleepover at my friend's house where there were no parents. My friend's older sister took each of us into her room individually to listen to the song. We didn't do anything, but quite a few fantasies were spawned in that moment. Later the song was ruined for me in that way because I grew really close to a woman named Nikki who is basically my little sister. That and the Foo Fighters cover. Awkward. Also, this was the song responsible for the Parents Resource Music Center, Tipper Gore's rise to fame, and the Parental Advisory sticker's existence.

43. "Baltimore" (HITnRUN Phase Two): The last important single of Prince's life is one that will grow in its legendary status over time. It's a great song. He killed it live when I saw him perform it in Baltimore.

42. "Around the World In A Day" (Around the World In A Day): My mind is instantly blown the second I hear the opening music and Prince scream. I also learned that my family was racist and I still remember the look on my Uncle's face when I played this at a family gathering. I was baffled that anyone could hear this music and be racist.

41. "I Would Die 4 U" (Purple Rain): This song has pretty much everything, doesn't it? Romantic, dancy, packs a wallop, original to a fault. Just great.

40. "My Name Is Prince" (Love Symbol Album): At this point in his career, Prince has started deciding to stop making up new kinds of music and is just mastering things that other people invented, and doing it better than they are. Here he puts a boast rap over the most unlikely backing track you can think of it. It works. Well.

39. "When You Were Mine" (Dirty Mind): This is where my mind starts getting blown. I had the Dirty Mind album on cassette for most of my life. And I listened to it quite a few times. And I totally forgot this song, which I rediscovered through one of my all-time favorite bands, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, whose indie electronic pop version of the song is one of my favorite things ever. I forgot that Prince wrote it and recorded it first.

38. "Shockadelica" (The B-sides): And it is on this tune that I realized that Prince invented autotune (with his Camille character). And the horrorcore hook on this one is hard to get out of your head.

37. "Screwdriver" (HITnRUN Phase Two): A bit rockabilly, a bit punk, a bit hip hop, a bit funk, a bit perfect.

36. "The Morning Papers" (Love Symbol Album): There's some kind of story going on throughout the Love Symbol album. Doesn't matter, the songs stand up alone. This is a celebratory lover song that showcases Prince's amazing ability to turn a phrase and use words you wouldn't think of to tell you the story he wants you to hear.

35. "Pop Life" (Around the World In A Day): A drastically under-rated pop song that satirizes itself by being exactly what it is complaining about. Brilliant inception-y stuff.

34. "Take Me With U" (Purple Rain) : One of the top 5 most romantic songs ever. Ever.

33. "She's Always in My Hair" (The B-sides): The best Purple Rain song not to appear on Purple Rain.

32. "Peach" (The Hits 2): Prince was very, very smart about the new tracks added to his first Hits collection. This one is just stanky.

31. "Sign o' the Times" (Sign o' the Times): As much as I loved what Prince had done before, this album, more than anything else he ever did, and more than most others ever did, contributed to me being the person I am today. Starting with this song, which was a revelation to me. You could be totally talking about important issues, preaching even, didactic even, and still be funky and cool. This song channels the spirit of hip hop more than anything Prince had done before and is a bridge to him actually rapping later. And the sounds are so innovative and different. And the album is all over the map. It's a sprawling mess. A brilliant mess. No two songs seem to even be in the same genre as each other. And there are so few artists who ever could even cover all these songs, much less came up with them all for an album whose message is "I'm a freak and I'm not like you and I'm going to make you love me anyway, as I am, not as you want me to be." Man, that's powerful.

30. "Sexy MF" (Love Symbol Album): This is a song I've quoted endlessly since it came out. It's a jazz funk rap thing with amazing solos that can't help but make you dance or fuck. If you hear me quote this song, somebody has REALLY gotten my attention. It's amazing how much of my dialog in life was written by Prince.

29. "Electric Chair" (Batman): Another good rocker, this one a simple meditation on crime and punishment, gets this album off to a very good start. If you don't think these Batman songs are amazing, I suggest you check out Prince performing this one, and killing, on Saturday Night Live when it first came out. Amazing.

28. "Jack U Off" (Controversy): Bubble gum pop funk porn music? Not really a better way to describe it.

27. "Starfish and Coffee" (Sign o' the Times): Literally one of my favorite things ever. I was 15 years old and listening to the weirdness of this song (which I just learned had an accompanying Muppet video version), I realized that Prince was a fucking weirdo. And he was the most popular person on the planet. I was a fucking weirdo and if the world would let him release this song on a hit album, then I could be the weirdo I was and the world wouldn't kill me or ridicule me for it. Literally, that's the impact this song had on me.

26. "America" (Around the World In A Day): This jams so hard. The interpolation of America the Beautiful is just amazing.

25. "Face Down" (Emancipation): By far, this is the best song on Emancipation. Made the whole thing worth buying for me, back in the day. This is as much attitude as Prince shows in his post-symbol era.

24. "Delirious" (1999): Still, to this day, this is one of the most infectious and catchy beats ever.

23. "Diamonds and Pearls" (Diamonds and Pearls): One shouldn't be able to create ANOTHER fantastic, epic ballad, after having already created Pruple Rain. But with the addition of Rosie Gaines, he damned sure did it.

22. "Black Sweat" (3121): When you hear this song, you immediately think "this is a great Prince hit from one of his earlier albums," but it was from one of his last. But it could have early fit on one of his 80s albums.

21. "Hot Thing" (Sign o' the Times): The best bassline ever. And one of the greatest, most experimental musical songs. Especially at the end. One of the highlights of my life was seeing him experiment with this song live in Baltimore.

20. "Batdance" (Batman): Maybe the strangest #1 hit ever? This is basically an early EDM song, mixed with samples of the other songs on the album, an interpolation of the original show's theme, some random ass Prince guitar and ad libs, and quotes from the movie. And somehow it's all entertaining as fuck. This was my sons' first Prince song that they loved, not surprisingly. Oh, and that insane video with the dancers in the crazy-ass Batman outfits is a spectacle you shouldn't miss. My personal music was greatly influenced by this song, too, since it is assembled from lyrics from multiple songs that go together to fit a bigger whole.

19. "Cream" (Diamonds and Pearls): Prince sang a lot about sex, but rarely in as funky a way as this one. This video is also a one of the most epic and Prince things to ever happen.

18. "Controversy" (Controversy): Oh, what a perfect song about the media and how it treats celebrity. On this album, Prince starts finally getting out of his own heart and pants (and those of his song subjects) and starts adding his cultural critic persona, which was one of his key, and under-rated, elements.

17. "Musicology" (Musicology): This is, by far, the best song of the post-The Hits/The B-Sides era. The idea isn't original in the Prince catalog, but it's rarely been done better. This song is a party. And one you want to go to.

16. "The Cross" (Sign o' the Times): I'm not spiritual or religious. Except when I listen to this song. It's so powerful, I'm among the converted while it is on.

15. "Automatic" (1999): This is probably the first time where Prince heavily dipped into electro-hip hop kind of stuff. And it's amazing. You can hear this being played in a New York Club in the mid-80s while everyone is dancing and sweating and high as hell on coke, coming on right after Kraftwerk and before Thelma Houston.

14. "Gett Off" (Diamonds and Pearls): Something that is hard not to do while listening to this song. My greatest Prince-related achievement was unlocked to this song.

13. "Erotic City" (The B-sides): The perfect funk song. The perfect 70s hook. One of the greatest whistles ever. This song feels like drugs.

12. "Kiss" (Parade): I imagine in the five minutes or so it took Prince to write this perfect song, Prince thought to himself "yep, I just made a million dollars."

11. "Sometimes It Snows In April" (Parade): This is some Inception shit. Prince singing about the death of his character from the movie. The character died in April. Just like Prince did. Biggie did this kind of thing.

10. "The Beautiful Ones" (Purple Rain): Soon to become one of my karaoke staples, this is one of the most beautiful, profound, and personal songs ever. All at once. This is a love song. Both a love song to someone and a universal song about love itself.

9. "U Got the Look" (Sign o' the Times): Man, what an amazing fucking song. Ridiculously funky. Super duper sexy (Sheena Easton at her best). Amazing fucking percussion from Sheila E. And the beginning of what I describe as Prince's sexy feminist strain of songs. He fucking loves women and this song is a great example. He had the power to turn his vision on any woman and find the beautiful things in her, her uniqueness. He loved women, both sexually and emotionally. He sets himself up as a bit of the heel here, letting Sheena knock him back down to size ("Oh, please") without losing her interest. It's a declaration that traditional gender rules don't matter any more and that a smart, straight (or bi) man knows that a sexy, strong, powerful woman is wonderful for many, many reasons. And he's willing to give them equal footing, or even be submissive, while at the same time being masculine and powerful. What a balance.

8. "I Could Never Take the Place Of Your Man" (Sign o' the Times): This is just another perfect song, one I love to sing at karaoke. It's just a great rock song and a great song about break-ups and love and lust. And then it gets just kinda crazy and bridges the kind of extended instrumental jam that would be at home anywhere from a Doors song to a Jack White concert.

7. "1999" (1999): This is where my Prince story began. This song changed my life. Before this, I'm not sure I knew what having a "favorite song" could mean. There was nothing I did not love about this. The catchiness, the apocalyptic imagery, the sexuality, the philosophy, the synths, the lyrics, the teamwork, the weirdness. The first time I saw this video, Prince was my favorite artist.

6. "Purple Rain" (Purple Rain): The best ballad ever.

5. "Baby I'm A Star" (Purple Rain): This is my Prince go-to at karaoke. Like it works at a Prince show, I establish myself at a new place, by announcing my talent by performing this song, cockiness and bravado and all. And then I rap. My musical showmanship and sense of challenging the audience comes directly from Prince. So does a lot of my voice.

4. "Rasberry Beret" (Around the World In A Day): Just a perfect pop gem. Amazing music, amazing video, and just enough sass and attitude to melt anyone. The use of green screen and the dancing in the video still are among the most memorable images I've ever seen.

3. "Mountains" (Parade): Wow, an extension of Raspberry Beret that is somehow better than its predecessor.

2. "Let's Go Crazy" (Purple Rain): Picture this scene. Three high school boys driving around in a puke green Nova with a poster of a giant cockroach taped to the inside ceiling. They're driving around in 1988, probably cradling Keystone Lights or warm Mad Dog 20/20. The tall one in the front seat who would grow up to be a bearded, tattooed, rapper-writer in the nation's capitol turns and recites the opening monologue to Let's Go Crazy from memory. Much merriment ensued. (And no one got arrested or hurt. That night). Also, this song established Prince as a rock star, too. This is straight up rock and roll, as good as it gets. Also, this established Prince as one of the greatest guitarists ever. Also, this song firmly established the Prince-Jimi Hendrix parallel forever. Also, from the first note of this song, through the end of the album, everything is perfect. There are no mistakes. There are no bad choices. This is the best album ever. Also, I once sold a copy of this album to a stripper for $50 at the Banana Stand. Her coked-out boyfriend tried to steal my cat.

1. "7" (Love Symbol Album): If you added up the parts of this song, you would get nothing like the masterpiece it is. The story, which seems like a twisted version of Aladdin, with weird demonic laughter, Eastern elements, a random love story, some kind of apocalyptic whatever, and Prince's standard funk and hip hop elements from this period. It's epic and celebratory and WTF. And it may be my favorite song ever.

Check out the full list:

Every Prince Song on Tidal Ranked: 200-101

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In the last week, I listened to every Prince album and single on Tidal. And I ranked them all. Somewhere between a combination of "I like" and "most popular" and "most important" or some other such ranking. Some albums aren't on Tidal, including: The Black Album, The Gold Experience, Chaos and Disorder, Crystal Ball, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, The Rainbow Children, Planet Earth, and 20Ten. This means that great songs are missing from the list (see: Pussy Control, Guitar, The One U Wanna C, Gold, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and others). Here they are in reverse order...

200. "Arboretum" (One Night Alone...)

199. "Tick, Tick, Bang" (Graffiti Bridge): Rumor is there is a punk version of this song, recorded by Prince. That must be much more interesting than yet another glam song.

198. Under the Cherry Moon (Parade)

197. "Life 'o' the Party" (Musicology)

196. "Young and Beautiful" (One Night Alone...)

195. "When Will We B Paid"

194. "The Continental" (Love Symbol Album): I always thought of this one as the name of some kind of dance. It didn't really catch on.

193. "Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother/Wife" (Emancipation)

192. "Arrogance" (Love Symbol Album): The most notable part of this one is the "A-double-A-double-arrogant" chant and "pimp rag, tootsie pop, and a cane" and the feeling that it's channeling Morris Day or Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

191. "The War" (The War): Unlike John Lennon, when Prince got experimental, it's still very listenable.

190. "Xpectation" (Xpectation): Most notable for the use of instruments to make odd sounds, often sounding like an excerpt from a Charlie Brown cartoon.

189. "Xhalation" (Xpectation): Prince gets into big band jazz. This is the best of the unremarkable bunch.

188. "Another Lonely Christmas" (The B-sides): If I were going to listen to a Christmas song, it'd be this one, with its weird lyrics about hating the number 9.

187. "I Love U in Me" (The B-sides): See "Damn U."

186. "Lady Cab Driver" (1999): An otherwise solid song gets crazy towards the end as Prince does the first of what can only be described as rap. While a woman squeals in delight behind him.

185. "Do It All Night" (Dirty Mind): Much like, "I Feel For You," this one has a kind of swinging boogie piano remeniscient of some of the stuff that Billy Joel and Elton John were doing at the time. Impressive in the middle of all this other stuff.

184. "Feel U Up" (The B-sides): Anyone who asked to "Feel U Up" would seem kind of creepy. With Prince, you say "Thank U."

183. "The Rest of My Life" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

182. "Elephants & Flowers" (Graffiti Bridge)

181. "Partyup" (Dirty Mind): Ah, our first introduction to the pre-Bruno Mars that was Morris Day. He's only here as a co-writer, but Morris Day is probably Prince's most important protege.

180. "FunkNRoll" (Plectrumelectrum)

179. "Northside" (The Slaughterhouse)

178. "Bambi" (Prince): There's some pretty metal guitar in here, surprisingly for Prince in 1979.

177. "Irresistible Bitch" (The B-sides): Here, Prince melds Gil Scott Heron and Sly Stone and you're like, yeah, okay.

176. "I Feel For You" (Prince): The Chaka Khan version is better, which is often something that happens with songs Prince writes, but this one is still worth putting on a playlist or two.

175. "Thieves In the Temple" (Graffiti Bridge): The metaphor of this song, the thieves, kinda blew my mind at the time. I was like, literally, nobody other than Prince would have said it that way.

174. "Something In the Water (Does Not Compute)" (1999): Prince's fascination with technology and computers was absolutely an early reason I was attracted to him (I made my career in related areas). He quickly realized that anything, including computers, could be an instrument and maximized what he could do with that. Me, too. I was also really into nerdy things at the time and the idea that you could be a big fat nerd like Prince and still be the sexiest man alive was a goal to aspire to.

173. "Escape" (The B-sides): The hook repeats the phrase "glam slam" and is much better than Prince's song of that same name.

172. "Crazy You" (For You): After the funky sex of Soft and Wet, this next one has a breezy, but sensual, quality. Prince is wasting no time establishing the sex symbol thing.

171. "If Eye Could Get Ur Attention" (If Eye Could Get Ur Attention)

170. "Marz" (Plectrumelectrum)

169. "When We're Dancing Close and Slow" (Prince): One of the most seductive voices I've heard is on this song. This is why straight men often said over the years that if they had to go gay for a day, Prince would be the way to go

168. "Welcome 2 the Dawn" (The Truth): Almost sounds like it could have been on Around the World In A Day, if the instrumentation were a bit more funky and Eastern-influenced.

167. "Papa" (Come)

166. "Slave" (Emancipation)

165. "Illusion, Coma, Pimp & Circumstance" (Musicology)

164. "So Blue": A simple, but beautiful, acoustic ballad.

163. "Solo" (Come)

162. "17 Days" (The B-sides)

161. "Black Muse" (HITnRUN Phase Two)

160. "Sarah" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

159. "S&M Groove" (The Slaughterhouse): A flashback to early NPG sounds (and 70s/80s funk).

158. "In Love" (For You): I forgot that Prince did pretty amazing disco.

157. "Condition of the Heart" (Around the World In A Day): See "International Lover."

156. "Free" (1999): And now one of those recurring moments, where Prince turns in a totally pop direction and just gets sublime. This one is almost a lulabye.

155. "Eye No" (Lovesexy): This is the first time, on an album, I think, that Prince really gets into the big band kind of sound, like he's on a stage with 30 people. It's an amazing thing to see live, regardless of the song content.

154. "Horny Toad" (The B-sides): Prince: "What do you mean I can't make a sexy, funky song about a frog?" The Revolution: "That song's about a toad." Prince: "Shut up and dance."

153. "It" (Sign o' the Times): The song, about sex, is much less notable for its topic or lyrics than it is for the totally experimental musicianship behind it. The song is jagged and jarring like sex can be. It's a thing that should be comforting and fun, but sometimes, it's not. This song captures that sonically.

152. "If I Was Your Girlfriend" (Sign o' the Times): This song was a revelation to me at the time. I never knew it was okay to mess around with gender roles. Prince made me realize that it was totally fine.

151. "The Other Side of the Pillow" (The Truth)

150. "FunknRoll (Remix)" (Art Official Age): This is so much better than the 3RDEYEGIRL version. The other version is good, but the alternate instrumentation here is an improvement.

149. "Don't Play Me" (The Truth): Prince is angry here, but he downplays it, which creates an interesting effect.

148. "Strange Relationship" (Sign o' the Times): After the last song, this is exactly the phrase that every listener was thinking. Good joke, Prince, good job with the sequencing. When this album was out at the time, I lived in a small town called Perry, Fla., living in a house trailer with one end that had been crushed in a storm and the open end allowed cold air to get into the trailer. Needless to say, I was an outcast in the school at the time. I met this guy named Preston. Preston, at 16, dressed exactly like Prince. He wore a long overcoat, the frilly shirts, everything. He wrote like Prince. He used the letter U for "you" and Ur for "you're." He wrote songs with sexy Prince lyrics that were basically rewrites of other songs by other artists, just with new words. Oh, he was the whitest kid in school. We became fast friends. In the tiny redneck town we lived in, I'm shocked he didn't get murdered or something.

147. "The Flow" (Love Symbol Album): Very old school rap vibe, but with Prince.

146. "Big City" (HITnRUN Phase Two)

145. "Right Back Here in My Arms" (Emancipation)

144. "D.M.S.R." (1999): I can see a young Bruno Mars hearing this song on vinyl and deciding exactly what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

143. "All the Critics Love U In New York" (1999): For funsies, Prince turns into Andy Warhol on this one.

142. "Blue Light" (Love Symbol Album): Prince can do light reggae better than you, too.

141. "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" (The B-sides): And on this song, Prince invents Alicia Keys.

140. "The Plan" (Emancipation): Prior to this song, there isn't a lot of instrumental music on Prince's albums. This one makes it clear that was a bad idea, one he fixes later.

139. "The Question of U" (Graffiti Bridge): Apparently this was supposed to be on the Parade album, which sounds much more connected to it, stylistically, than this album does. I think of it as "funky blues."

138. "La, La, La, He, He, Hee" (The B-sides): And on this song, Prince invents Snoop Doggy Dogg.

137. "When She Comes" (HITnRUN Phase Two): There are so many incongruous elements here, this song is hard to describe. Prince has never sounded more like Elvis than on parts of this song.

136. "Joy In Repitition" (Graffiti Bridge): This is Prince getting deeply meta. At this point, having listened to 12 Prince albums in a row, you do see repetition. As prolific as Prince is, there have to start being repeated themes and sounds. This is Prince telling us that he knows that and he doesn't care. Also, this is an album made up largely of outtakes from earlier albums, and necessarily echoes those earlier albums (a fourth soundtrack?), sounds, and themes. But it also reflects his growing disdain with the record industry. And the song sounds repetitious and has no joy, pumping up the irony.

135. "BoyTrouble" (Plectrumelectrum): 3RDEYEGIRL start rapping on this one. It's a good idea.

134. "New Position" (Parade)

133. "The Gold Standard" (Art Official Age)

132. "Thunder" (Diamonds and Pearls): Here's Prince randomly talking about Jesus again. Here's me singing along with him again.

131. "Vicki Waiting" (Batman)

130. "Christopher Tracy's Parade" (Parade)

129. "Breakfast Can Wait" (Art Official Age)

128. "Trust" (Batman)

127. "Groovy Potential" (HITnRUN Phase Two): Pretty accurate title. Very good use of autotune.

126. "Uptown" (Dirty Mind): This isn't the first Prince song I heard, but the mix of funk, new wave, rock, and R&B here, expanded elsewhere, is what attracted me to Prince early on.

125. "Still Would Stand All Time" (Graffiti Bridge)

124. "For You" (For You): There aren't a lot of careers introduced more interestingly than this track. In the album credits, Prince is credited for creating sounds (instruments, vocals, etc.) 29 different ways. On his first album.

123. "Come" (Come)

122. "Do Me, Baby" (Controversy): Prince remade this song a lot. It was never my favorite song on the album, his sexy, funky, extended love ballad, but damn if he didn't do it better than anyone else.

121. "$" (Lotusflow3r)

120. "affirmation I & II" (Art Official Age)

119. "Daddy Pop" (Diamonds and Pearls): Every album or two, Prince almost completely reinvinted his sound. Up to this point. This type of large band, almost sounding live, but impeccably recorded. He played with the sound before, but it kind of settles into the bulk of what he did live from this point forward. This song isn't a major milestone, but it is catchy and is the type of thing that I've seen many, many other bands try to recreate live. In the present.

118. "Girls & Boys" (Parade): A nice funky little number, that he would do a better version of on the Batman soundtrack called "Partyman."

117. "Head" (Dirty Mind): Prince isn't allowed to sing about this stuff, is he?

116. "Xtraloveable" (HITnRUN Phase Two)

115. "June" (HITnRUN Phase One)

114. "Can't Stop This Feeling I Got" (Graffiti Bridge): This is another one of those seemingly casually tossed of Prince songs that sounds like a hit for anyone else, but isn't even one of the better songs on the album it's on.

113. "Play in the Sunshine" (Sign o' the Times): I can't imagine a song title in the entire collection that is more evocative of the sounds that go along with this. This is what playing in the sunshine feels like, in music form.

112. "Letitgo" (Come): It's often the smallest things that make a Prince song work. On this one, for instance, a tiny double tap on what sounds like a wood block makes the song stick in your brain.

111. "Jughead" (Diamonds and Pearls): Prince isn't playing with the record company executives here. His anger translator, Tony M. takes the lead, and Rosie Gaines throws in some impressive rapping, too.

110. "Round and Round" (Graffiti Bridge): Prince said "I'm taking the best song I wrote for the album, and I'm just gonna sing back-up and make Tevin Campbell a star." It worked.

109. "My Medallion" (The Chocolate Invasion)

108. "Shake" (Graffiti Bridge): The instrumentation makes this Time song one of the album's best, and what, the Time's third or fourth best song.

107. "Stare" (HITnRUN Phase Two)

106. "Live 4 Love" (Diamonds and Pearls): In this song, Prince invents all live rap shows in 2015.

105. "Colonized Mind" (Lotusflow3r)

104. "Ain't About 2 Stop" (HITnRUN Phase One): On many songs, what you see is Prince throwing together disparate ideas he has. When he's at his best, they all work, no matter how weird. Just below that is this type of song, where a lot of the ideas work, some are perfect, and a few fail, resulting in a net positive. Without Rita Ora, this might have been a great song, but too much pop added into what was otherwise a really weird, interesting song.

103. "Man in a Uniform" (The Truth): This is a funky, quirky little number that seems unlike anything else I've heard in the Prince catalog up to this point.

102. "Incense and Candles" (3121): This starts off as another sexy jam, but then gets very rhythmic with autotune and hardcore hip hop flows. The diversity makes it strong.

101. "The Arms of Orion" (Batman): This is a deeply sappy duet that with Sheena Easton at this time sounds like her "Somewhere Out There" duet with Kenny Loggins, but with better lyrics and imagery.

Check out the full list:

Every Prince Song on Tidal Ranked: 300-201

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In the last week, I listened to every Prince album and single on Tidal. And I ranked them all. Somewhere between a combination of "I like" and "most popular" and "most important" or some other such ranking. Some albums aren't on Tidal, including: The Black Album, The Gold Experience, Chaos and Disorder, Crystal Ball, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, The Rainbow Children, Planet Earth, and 20Ten. This means that great songs are missing from the list (see: Pussy Control, Guitar, The One U Wanna C, Gold, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and others). Here they are in reverse order...

300. "The Word" (3121)

299. "Love Machine" (Graffiti Bridge): It's almost as if the joke of the Time was starting to wear thin pretty quickly.

298. "The Marrying Kind" (Musicology)

297. "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" (Sign o' the Times)

296. "Here" (MPLSound)

295. "affirmation III" (Art Official Age)

294. "The Sacrifice of Victor" (Love Symbol Album): If there is supposed to be some kind of story about Victor that I'm supposed to care about, I never got it.

293. "When 2 R in Love" (Lovesexy)

292. "Courtin' Time" (Emancipation): Prince does New Orleans jazz.

291. "Love" (3121)

290. "AintTurninRound" (Plectrumelectrum)

289. "Curious Child" (Emancipation)

288. "Saviour" (Emancipation)

287. "...Back 2 the Lotus" (Lotusflow3r)

286. "Look at Me, Look at U" (HITnRUN Phase Two)

285. "If Eye Was the Man in Ur Life" (Musicology)

284. "No More Candy 4 U" (MPLSound)

283. "Revelation" (HITnRUN Phase Two): Smooth jazz, if you like that.

282. "Space" (Come)

281. "Dance 4 Me" (MPLSound)

280. "Te Amo Corazón" (3121)

279. "Nagoya" (C Note)

278. "Dreamer" (Lotusflow3r)

277. "2045: Radical Man" (The Slaughterhouse)

276. "Copenhagen" (C Note)

275. "Get On the Boat" (3121)

274. "Melody Cool" (Graffiti Bridge): An often under-rated thing about Prince is how cool the names he comes up with are.

273. "1000 X's & O's" (HITnRUN Phase One)

272. "Mr. Happy" (Emancipation): This one has a hint of the old weirdness of Prince, but doesn't quite elevate itself enough to be noticed.

271. "Ol' Skool Company" (MPLSound)

270. "Chocolate Box" (MPLSound)

269. "Venus De Milo" (Parade)

268. "3 Chains o' Gold" (Love Symbol Album): I guess this is the centerpiece of the movie story on the album? Not sure it makes sense as part of the album. Especially 16 songs in.

267. "And God Created Woman" (Love Symbol Album): Prince somehow always seems to be putting women on some kind of pedestal while also recognizing them as unique individuals. Weird.

266. "Art Official Cage" (Art Official Age)

265. "Gamillah" (The Chocolate Invasion)

264. "Boom" (Lotusflow3r)

263. "Call My Name" (Musicology)

262. "Baby" (For You): Is this Mariah Carey? How is he hitting some of these notes?

261. "Loose!" (Come)

260. "New World" (Emancipation)

259. "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" (MPLSound)

258. "Positivity" (Lovesexy)

257. "Have a Heart" (One Night Alone...)

256. "U Know" (Art Official Age)

255. "Dear Mr. Man" (Musicology)

254. "Adore" (Sign o' the Times): See "Slow Love."

253. "Anna Stesia" (Lovesexy)

252. "Release It" (Graffiti Bridge): Standard number by the Time.

251. "Love Like Jazz" (Lotusflow3r)

250. "Hello" (The B-sides)

249. "Fascination" (The Truth)

248. "From the Lotus..." (Lotusflow3r)

247. "I'm Yours" (For You)

246. "Groove On" (Emancipation)

245. "I Wish U Heaven" (Lovesexy)

244. "Scarlet Pussy" (The B-sides): Prince is the only dude who can say "pussy" and it doesn't make me feel icky.

243. "Da, Da, Da" (Emancipation): Scrap D. isn't terrible at rapping on this one, but he's not a standout, either. Not a shocker we don't hear much from him elsewhere.

242. "Race" (Come)

241. "Power Fantastic" (The B-sides)

240. "Let's Work" (Controversy)

239. "PlectrumElectrum" (Plectrumelectrum)

238. "Time" (Art Official Age)

237. "Xpand" (Xpectation)

236. "Xpedition" (Xpectation)

235. "Xcogitate" (Xpectation)

234. "Xemplify" (Xpectation)

233. "Xogenous" (Xpectation)

232. "Xotica" (Xpectation)

231. "Way Back Home" (Art Official Age)

230. "Wow" (Plectrumelectrum)

229. "Sexuality" (Controversy): Might be the first recorded example of the signature Prince squeal. As iconic as Michael Jackson's "jum on," he would do it better on other songs, but this is the first time I think it was on record.

228. "Glam Slam" (Lovesexy)

227. "Soul Sanctuary" (Emancipation): As with most of Emancipation, this one almost is a good song, but not quite.

226. "Just As Long As We're Together" (For You): Prince released a lot of filler music, he was so prolific (and you'll probably still be hearing new Prince music for the rest of your life), but he establishes with this early filler song a pattern that would always be there: even his filler songs are listenable, if not memorable, and better than much of what is on the radio during their time.

225. "One of Us" (Emancipation): That this is the best cover on Emancipation isn't a compliment.

224. "Damn U" (Love Symbol Album): See "Insatiable."

223. "International Lover" (1999): See "Do Me, Baby."

222. "Slow Love" (Sign o' the Times): See "Condition of the Heart."

221. "It's About That Walk" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale): Sort of like a Harry Connick Jr. song.

220. "What It Feels Like" (Art Official Age)

219. "Jam of the Year" (Emancipation)

218. "Reflection" (Musicology)

217. "Grafitti Bridge" (Graffiti Bridge): It tries to be "Purple Rain" or "The Ladder," but fails.

216. "God" (The B-sides): The beginning of this song has what I think is the highest note Prince ever released on an album. Worth hearing that, otherwise a standard Prince gospel song (meaning one that no one else could sing well).

215. "New Power Generation" (Graffiti Bridge): A weird combo of introduction of his new band and a kind of philosophy, it contains the oddly compelling entreaty to "lay down your funky weapons." I don't know that that means, but I'm doing it.

214. "In This Bed I Scream" (Emancipation): Interesting musical ideas, but the lyrics are redundant.

213. "When Eye Lay My Hands on U" (The Chocolate Invasion): Very edgy instrumentation. Not a standout song otherwise.

212. "Insatiable" (Diamonds and Pearls): See "Scandalous."

211. "Scandalous" (Batman): See "Adore."

210. "Dreamin' About U" (Emancipation): There is some interesting acoustic guitar work here, but that's about it.

209. "Do U Lie?" (Parade)

208. "This Could Be Us" (Art Official Age)

207. "I Wanna Melt with U" (Love Symbol Album): The best part of this is what I call the Ghostbusters part, when the cats and dogs start living together.

206. "200 Balloons" (The B-sides): An rightful deletion from the Batman soundtrack. The elements here work better elsewhere.

205. "Anotherloverholenyohead" (Parade)

204. "Peace" (The Slaughterhouse): The end of this is really entertaining. Not so much before that.

203. "We Can Funk" (Graffiti Bridge): When two of the funkiest musicians ever, Prince and George Clinton get together and have a song with this title, you wish it were funkier, but this one hits its peak during Prince's whispered rap.

202. "White Mansion" (Emancipation): This one almost feels like a fully developed song. Almost.

201. "We Gets Up" (Emancipation): Prince does his James Brown impression.

Check out the full list:

Every Prince Song on Tidal Ranked: 391-301

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In the last week, I listened to every Prince album and single on Tidal. And I ranked them all. Somewhere between a combination of "I like" and "most popular" and "most important" or some other such ranking. Some albums aren't on Tidal, including: The Black Album, The Gold Experience, Chaos and Disorder, Crystal Ball, Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic, The Rainbow Children, Planet Earth, and 20Ten. This means that great songs are missing from the list (see: Pussy Control, Guitar, The One U Wanna C, Gold, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and others). Here they are in reverse order...

391. "Orgasm" (Come): Pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

390. "Segue #2" (Love Symbol Album): Yay, Kirstie Alley is back for some reason?

389. "Hypnoparadise" (The Slaughterhouse)

388. "One of Your Tears" (The Truth): And on this song, Prince invents Kanye West's inappropriate lyrics fascination.

387. "Animal Kingdom" (The Truth): This is a weird vegetarian advocacy song that doesn't inspire me towards vegetarianism. At one point, Prince does an impression of Beaker from the Muppets, it seems.

386. "Lolita" (3121)

385. "La, La, La Means I Love U" (Emancipation): Prince chose poorly as to what songs to cover on Emancipation. He doesn't do a bad job with them, they just aren't great songs.

384. "Sexmesexmenot" (The Chocolate Invasion)

383. "Let's Have a Baby" (Emancipation)

382. "Objects in the Mirror" (One Night Alone...)

381. "The Dance" (3121)

380. "Underneath the Cream" (The Chocolate Invasion)

379. "Golden Parachute" (The Slaughterhouse)

378. "Better with Time" (MPLSound)

377. "A Million Days" (Musicology)

376. "One Kiss at a Time" (Emancipation)

375. "A Case of U" (One Night Alone...)

374. "Breakdown" (Art Official Age)

373. "Pearls B4 the Swine" (One Night Alone...): Some things just aren't things you should sing about, like bagels and cream cheese.

372. "Joint 2 Joint" (Emancipation)

371. "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (Emancipation): Doesn't add much to the original, which I didn't like that much anyway.

370. "U Make My Sun Shine" (The Chocolate Invasion): Not a bad song, but when you've written this song 50 times already...

369. "Emale" (Emancipation): The name of this song, like a lot of the album, is a bit stretched and tortured. The rest of the song isn't much better.

368. "The Human Body" (Emancipation)

367. "Osaka" (C Note)

366. "Y Should Eye Do That When Eye Can Do This?" (The Slaughterhouse): Prince was much harder earlier, on Diamonds and Pearls, this rapping seems kinda silly.

365. "Empty Room" (C Note)

364. "Tokyo" (C Note)

363. "Sleep Around" (Emancipation)

362. "Beautiful, Loved and Blessed" (3121)

361. "Sex in the Summer" (Emancipation)

360. "Circle of Amour" (The Truth)

359. "I Can't Make U Love Me" (Emancipation): Prince improves upon the original, which I never liked.

358. "Dark" (Come)

357. "The Daisy Chain" (The Slaughterhouse)

356. "Emancipation" (Emancipation)

355. "Dionne" (The Truth)

354. "Lemon Crush" (Batman)

353. "Segue #1" (Love Symbol Album): The story on the album now contains Kirstie Alley. Okay.

352. "It's Gonna Be Lonely" (Prince)

351. "Gotta Broken Heart Again" (Dirty Mind)

350. "My Love Is Forever" (For You)

349. "The Latest Fashion" (Graffiti Bridge)

348. "Xosphere" (Xpectation)

347. "New Power Generation (Pt. II)" (Graffiti Bridge)

346. "With You" (Prince)

345. "The Holy River" (Emancipation)

344. "Valentina" (MPLSound)

343. "AnotherLove" (Plectrumelectrum)

342. "Private Joy" (Controversy)

341. "Avalanche" (One Night Alone...): The most interesting part of this song is the line "Abraham Lincoln was a racist," the rest puts me to sleep.

340. "Sweet Baby" (Love Symbol Album): Sickeningly sweet.

339. "Old Friends 4 Sale" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

338. "West" (N.E.W.S.)

337. "What Do U Want Me 2 Do?" (Musicology)

336. "East" (N.E.W.S.)

335. "Clouds" (Art Official Age)

334. "On the Couch" (Musicology)

333. "Props 'n' Pounds" (The Slaughterhouse)

332. "North" (N.E.W.S.)

331. "Still Waiting" (Prince): This one's a little bit country, a little bit R&B.

330. "Pheromone" (Come)

329. "TicTacToe" (Plectrumelectrum)

328. "Silicon" (The Slaughterhouse)

327. "She Spoke 2 Me" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

326. "Fury" (3121)

325. "Sister" (Dirty Mind): Prince really isn't allowed to sing about this stuff, is he? And that demo-quality and discordant guitair is just as effective as the insane lyrics.

324. "Sexy Dancer" (Prince): Is the part when he starts breathing heavy about halfway through the song supposed to make me feel tingly?

323. "Satisfied" (3121)

322. "Style" (Emancipation)

321. "South" (N.E.W.S.)

320. "Supercute" (The Chocolate Invasion)

319. "The Love We Make" (Emancipation)

318. "My Computer" (Emancipation)

317. "Somebody's Somebody" (Emancipation)

316. "WhiteCaps" (Plectrumelectrum)

315. "U're Gonna C Me" (One Night Alone...)/(MPLSound)

314. "Judas Smile" (The Chocolate Invasion)

313. "Here on Earth" (One Night Alone...)

312. "One Nite Alone..." (One Night Alone...)

311. "StopThisTrain" (Plectrumelectrum)

310. "5 Women" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

309. "When the Lights Go Down" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

308. "High" (The Chocolate Invasion)

307. "There Is Lonely" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

306. "Vavoom" (The Chocolate Invasion)

305. "Extraordinary" (The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale)

304. "3rd I" (The Truth)

303. "Damned if I Do" (Emancipation)

302. "FixUrLifeUp" (Plectrumelectrum)

301. "Dance On" (Lovesexy)

Check out the full list:

The Brilliance of Paul Smith's Run on Uncanny X-Men

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(Click on any of the images to see larger versions. These are scans from hard copies of the comics.)

I've been rereading old X-Men comics of late and a couple of different posts have been percolating in my head, but the first one isn't my usual style of analysis, this one is more about the art. To say that I'm an X-Men fanboy or that the comics had a massive impact on my life would be an understatement. As I'm rereading these comics, I'm learning that these really were some of the key texts in my life. With family largely abdicating moral education of me and my brother, and pop culture being a mixed bag, at best, especially during the 1970s and 80s, the progressivism that filled the pages of the Chris Claremont run on Uncanny X-Men was a massive influence on who I am. There will be a lot more about that later, this post is about someone else who played a role in those comics—Paul Smith.

It's very easy to forget Smith. His name is too common to remember. He only worked on the comic for about a year. And when you're proceeded by Dave Cockrum and John Byrne and followed by John Romita Jr., three of Marvel's greatest artists of the period, it's easy to get lost. Smith only drew 12 issues at the time, but there is so much great art in them that I couldn't even begin to include it all here. And this is not to say that Smith was perfect, many issues have bad panels, especially in the first few issues, but there are so many iconic images in these few issues that it's breathtaking.

Smith had a tough job jumping right into the middle of the Brood Saga, an X-Men classic, after Cockrum left. His first issue beings with this cover:



Uncanny X-Men 165, from 1983, is a superb example of something that Smith was brilliant at, saying a lot with very little. If you hadn't been reading the issues and don't know about the Brood Saga (shame on you), it's hard to fathom everything in this image. But here is Storm, probably the most important black woman in comics history going through the agonizing transformation into one of the most evil species in the universe, the Brood, which means not only the end of her life as she knows it, but probably the death of many of her family and friends, possibly the entire earth, where she plays a significant role. Her agony is just as obvious from this picture as the Brood's evil was. As a writer, Claremont was superbly good at picking up on other pop culture trends and seamlessly incorporating them into his writing in ways that never felt stolen or stale--in this case, the Brood are clearly in the spirit of James Cameron's Aliens, but they stand alone because only the surface details are similar. Artists of lesser quality than Smith and Dave Cockrum (who started the storyline) could have messed that up and not made them distinct. The continuity of inker Bob Wiacek certainly helped.

In that issue, there is a ton of great art about the world and the combined organic/technology approach the Brood take to their conquests, most notably their enslaved living starships, the Acanti, which Smith draws this way:




I haven't read enough of the backstory on this saga to know whose idea the Acanti were (probably Claremont/Cockrum), but this is a wonderous creature and a great take on what flying through a nebular might be like. The next issue looks like this:




The number of massive action sequences both on covers and internally that Smith had to put massive amount of time into in order to reach the level of detail you see here had to be intense. A key thing to note here, is that all of these characters have ridiculously distinct appearances, something that many X-Men artists later on couldn't say.

From the interior of the issue, we get this classic image that encapsulates so much of the modern history of the X-Men--the divide between Cyclops and Wolverine, with the other X-Men and their allies caught in the middle. This is seriously maybe the second biggest on-going X-Men storyline after the Xavier/Magneto civil rights conflict.



Issue 167 provides another classic cover, with one of the first "deaths" of Professor Xavier and the emotions of the X-Men in response. Note how Wolverine's shoulders are slumped and he looks defeated. Subtle but powerful. Also, note the ridiculousness of Kitty Pryde's costume. There is a running gag with the character in the early years that she's a young teenager who keeps experimenting with costumes and names until she figures out what fits. These were often comic relief, but Smith works it into this scene flawlessly, I think, helping keep the characters unique and consistent.



The cover of the next issue is even better to me. Here is Kitty Pryde, then 13, who is not sexualized and while she's clearly in danger, she's no damsel in distress, she's smart, tough, and determined to win. The story inside matches that, as, once again, the youngest X-Man takes on killer monsters well beyond her power set and proves herself a valuable member of the team after Xavier tried to shift her to the junior team, the New Mutants.



And you turn the page and get one of the most classic splash pages in Marvel history, directly part the storyline I mentioned above:



The next story arc is one of my all-time favorites, both writing- and art-wise. The Morlocks, a group of ugly, outcast mutants who have taken up residence in the tunnels underneath Manhattan under the leadership of Callisto. But she wants someone pretty to be her husband, so she kidnaps Angel in an attempt to force a marriage. It isn't going to be a happy one, as Angel is crucified, Christ-like. the reactions of the other X-Men are pretty well-drawn, too, I think.



This next sequence is where Storm went from being a character that I sort of liked, to being one of my all-time favorites. Before this, Storm (in a very uncommon pop culture leadership role for a black woman in the early 80s) replaces Cyclops as leader of the X-Men. Historically she has a very strong compunction against killing, but as she struggles with self-doubt in replacing the lifelong leader of the X-Men, of being forced to kill to survive, and the struggles her powers have encountered since she went into space (she'll soon lose them temporarily), she is crippled at times with inability to make the right decisions and is in constant conflict with Cyclops and Professor X. Then this happens:


There are so many amazing things that Smith has done in this sequence: The look of determination on Storm's face (she's no longer playing ANY games), the depiction of the action of her catching the knife is beautiful, the look on Callisto's face when she realizes that Storm is tougher than she tought, the look on Callisto's face when Storm stabs her in the heart in order to save her friends and take control of the Morlocks. Just insane quality here. And the look on Storm's face in this next panel is just plain unforgettable:



But Smith was just getting started. Here's the next issue:



Wolverine, in the height of his (the character's not the writer's) cultural appropriation phase, is getting married to a powerful Japanese woman who inherited her father's criminal empire. This image conveys so much: that Wolverine is finally going to have a love interest that isn't someone else's girlfriend or wife, that Wolverine has an obsession with Japanese culture, that Lady Mariko is powerful enough to warrant an invitation sent out by the emperor, that Wolverine loves his alcohol and his friendship with Nightcrawler, and that somebody, somebody dangerous, wants Wolverine dead.

From the interior, you get this amazing shot of Rogue:



The backstory here is that Rogue has just joined the X-Men (in the previous issue, not drawn by Smith), but she comes to them from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants where she not only previously tried to kill the X-Men, her powers ruined the life (by stealing the powers, memories, and personality of Ms. Marvel permanently) of one of the X-Men's closest friends. They hate her. And yet she travels with the team to Wolverine's wedding. In the shot above, Rogue, probably only second in power to Storm at this point among this group of X-Men, is shown here too look very, very meek in the face of what she knows is deserved hatred.

But this shot is even better, because it not only conveys everything I just described about Rogue, even more clearly, but so much more:



The divide between Rogue and the rest of the X-Men is so apparent, but not mentioned in the dialog or in Wolverine's inner monologue. And it's clear that all of the above turmoil related to Storm is being carried over into this pic, too. You also get a ton of other character-related info from this one shot: Nightcrawler is playful, agile, flexible; Kitty Pryde and Colossus have a burgeoning romance that is chaste and age-appropriate; Wolverine thinks of himself as a sexy beast, and if you had read the previous pages, you'd know that the woman in yellow kneeling and pretending to be a house servant is actually the deadly assassin Viper. Here she has sneakily inserted herself into the X-Men's safe abode (in the visual metaphor, she's literally right in the middle of the mix) where she's about to poison the X-Men and take most of them out of action. This is not only part of a great sequence, both art-wise and in the issue's plot, but it sets up what, at the time, was one of the biggest character changes in Marvel history, Rogue's transformation from a horribly evil person to one of Marvel's most iconic female heroes. That is literally set up by this sequence and couldn't happen without it. The next issue looks like this:



Again, there is so much conveyed with very little there. With only Wolverine and Rogue still standing, Rogue knows she both has to prove herself, but also follow Wolverine's lead, not just because she's knew enough to not really know everything that's going on, but because she knows she hasn't earned anyone's trust yet, and following orders and kicking a little ass will certainly help. Later she goes on to make several sacrifices that win her admiration from her teammates, but it starts here. And Wolverine looks really fierce here. He's used to being the last man standing and fighting his way through things, but now he's in charge and is fighting for the lives of his friend and for the love of his life. Then a few pages later:



Smith effectively recreating the cover on an inside panel, but notice how much more savage and animalistic Wolverine looks. Things have gotten more serious and he fears for his bride-to-be's life. And he's the best at what he does and what he does isn't nice. The transition here, from the cover to this interior panel, is amazing.

Smith is also good at action sequences. There's so much coolness in this brief sequence that helps establish how bad-ass Viper and her ninjas are:



Even better is this epic and brutal battle, presented without sounds or dialog, that goes a long way towards establishing Wolverine as the most rough-and-tumble fighter in the Marvel Universe. And it doesn't paint Silver Samurai as any slouch, either. This is just a beautiful sequence, as far as I'm concerned:




Even that last panel is amazing, as Wolverine shows emotion through the mask, with no visible eyeballs. He looks shocked to me that he was both pulled out of his beserker rage and that it was Mariko that did it.

The comes one of my favorite things from the period, Storm's new look:



Not sure whose idea it was, but Smith nailed the look that to me still says Storm, when she was written her best, is a unique and powerful character that isn't just another member of the X-Men, she's the leader.

Smith also does good at comedic sequences like this one, where Madelyne Pryor's face is perfectly still after discovering Kitty's pet dragon.




Most of Smith's covers involve action, not surprisingly, but this one goes in a different direction. So much of recent X-Men history is shown in this cover, particularly once you realize that isn't Jean Grey, but Pryor, on the cover. And that the storyline that led to her death was instigated by the character in the background, Mastermind. And this point in the plot, there was a lot of confusion as to who Pryor really is and Scott Summers falling in love and proposing to a woman who looks exactly like his dead girlfriend. And this cover gets at the big questions: Is Mastermind going to do it again? Is Pryor real or a Mastermind creation? Is Phoenix back? How will Cyclops deal with Mastermind trying to bring back, in one way or another, the worst moments of the hero's adult life? That and the colors are just as amazing as the composition of the cover.



Another one of those awesome busy Smith covers. He's drawing a team with seven unique members and a huge cast of supporting characters, and he never fails to make them each distinct and part of the action:



Several issues in this run have a strong Phoenix presence and Smith drew some of the iconic images of the character during the X-Men's rise to superstardom. This is one of my favorites, not just because of how Jean looks, but because of the way that Cyclops looks in defeat as Phoenix rises from his "ashes."



One last one to add here, since it's at the end of Smith's run, but here is a shot of the X-men reacting in shock where Smith and his collaborators took out most of the color. The image does a great job of conveying the shocking death the X-Men watch on TV.




Okay, that's all I'm going to share on this one, even though there are many other beautiful shots. You should definitely check out this run of issues, as well as the rest of the Claremont run, as it is, without a doubt, a classic of popular literature that is very, very well crafted. (More to come on Claremont...)


The Great American Rock 'n' Roll Revival: One Million Pieces of Perfect Pop Culture #1

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Note: You can listen to our Spotify playlist that recreates this album.

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Thank God for the Columbia House Record Club.

Probably the first cassettes, of what would one day grow to be a collection of 10,000+, that I ever obtained were from one of these type of ads that came in the Sunday paper or in a magazine or something like that. For those too young to know about this deal, here's what it was: You basically signed a contract saying that if Columbia House (or one of the many imitators) sent you X number of albums for a penny, you had to by X number of other albums at inflated prices with ridiculously high shipping. They often offered a bonus, that if you bought another album at full price, right now, you could get 1-4 extra free albums. Then you would proceed to never fulfill your part of the bargain, and then go ahead and do the whole thing over again with a different name or from your new address or whatever. In other words, this was one of the main ways how poor people grew their album collections for many decades before the Internet.

The first time I did it was probably in 1985, and while it wasn't one of the full 12-for-a-penny orders like in the pic above, it soon sent me the first few cassettes I owned.  I can't remember everything that I got, but I want to say that it included Foreigner "Records," Duran Duran's "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" (now immortalized in a tattoo on my neck), something or another with Phil Collins (probably Genesis?), and, most importantly for this post, the Great American Rock 'n' Roll Revival.

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That's a vinyl version, but mine was cassette, naturally. It was this new thing, a double-length cassette, that put two vinyl records onto one cassette. This was literally my first real world understanding (that I can remember) of why math was important, it helped me understand that different medium had different storage sizes and various other mathematical things that are obvious now that weren't when I was like 11 or 12.

I was relatively new to listening to music and hadn't taken it seriously before that. And along with the Duran Duran album (which I've now listened to in at least five different formats), this album changed my life. Here's the full track list.

The name is a bit misleading, as it was a pretty narrow scope of 60s rock n roll that was represented on the album, but man, what a selection. Certain artists are over-represented (Dion and/or the Belmonts appear nine times, for instance), but nothing here sucks. And this album is loaded with classic songs, and for almost all of them, this is the first time I heard them. At that point in my life, my musical interests came from three places: 1. MTV and video shows. 2. Top 40 radio shows such as Casey Kasem and Rick Dees, 3. What my parents listened to around the house, which had a relatively focused scope (Beatles, Elvis, Doors).  So a lot of the music from the 60s that wasn't made by the biggest superstars was new to me. This album not only introduced me to these particular great songs and numerous artists that would become among my all-time favorites (the Beach Boys, Dion, Del Shannon), it also helped me discover entire genres (doo-wop, surf rock, girl groups, Motown, 60s rock crooners), which I would then go and listen to in depth, but it would also introduce me into the concept of listening to an album without any prior knowledge of what was on it, a tactic I still use extensively today and one that has added great diversity and depth to my music knowledge.

There were subtle influences of this album on my politics, too. What I saw on this album, at a young and impressionable age, was that it didn't matter who you were if you made great music--the singers here are young and old, white and black, female and male, diverse.  It's not perfect, and there are some subtle hints of older values which I would reject here and there (particularly in terms of gender: the world 'girl' is tossed around a bit casually), but for the most part, this album is basically a 60s dance night where nearly everybody is welcome and I took that message to heart. In retrospect, it's obvious that there are some exceptions, but this album was pretty forward-thinking in terms of the time period of the music (which makes sense, since the compilation was released in 1980).

The album also introduced my ears to a bunch of different ways to make musical sounds that were interesting. Doo wop, in particular, was all about people making sounds with their voice that imitated instruments in various ways. There was a lot of what would be considered revolutionary by the standards of the late 70s/early 80s, much the way that punk songs often were throwbacks to garage rock song structures/styles. This music, at my age, my lack of experience, and intellectual development at the time was nothing short of revolutionary in its affect on me. I literally listened to this album hundreds of times. And I learned a ton from the experience.

Check out the full series.

Recording

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So in my attempts to be an actual musician, I have to create and record music, not just perform it live. When I started the process of becoming a musician, I literally had no idea how to record and create music. I had hosted podcasts and such before that, but those were using dummy-proof software that made it so easy a state legislator could figure it out (if you don't get that joke, trust me that most state legislators are pretty ignorant people when it comes to technology).

In my earliest days, I was part of a group called the Cap City Mob (starting in approximately 2007), led by an old friend. I won't rehash what happened there, but let's just say he was difficult to work with. But starting the group and including me in it was his idea (as was my stage name). Once I was invited to participate, he handled all the composition of the music and all of the entire recording process. He was talented and creative, but he didn't want to create original sounds (everything was created from copywritten material), he didn't want to work often enough (which is fine, because he had a life), and he refused to share any of his knowledge. These things bothered me enough that they added to an environment where other interpersonal issues led to me leaving the group and we haven't talked since.

After that, I really wanted to ramp things up, but didn't know how. So I did what any responsible person would do, I bought a microphone, grabbed my laptop and started figuring things out on my own. That was in early 2012 or so. By the time I had left Tallahassee permanently later that year, I had created a handful of beats, done some well-received solo live shows, and had recorded songs for each of those beats. None of those early recordings still exists, because as I improved at what I was doing, I rerecorded songs over and over again until they were better and better. So it isn't song ideas or concepts that was deleted, just early takes that weren't as good.

Since then, I've spent more than 150 hours recording songs and while I have figured out quite a bit of stuff, a lot of it is just from repetition and there almost certainly things that I'm doing the hard way that I could do easier. But, most of the time, I am happy with the way my voice sounds after recording, so I'm sufficiently happy with my skillset for now. I don't really have much interest in being an engineer or mixer or any of those things, I'm more a writer/vocalist, and I've only taken on these other roles out of necessity.

So my goals with recording are a bit varied. First and foremost is to create good music that will entertain or educate others. That is always at the top of my mind. My musical tastes are varied, but start with hip hop, punk, post-punk, new wave, indie, alternative, and the like. I want to create music that derives from those genres, even if I have some pop sensibilities that might also make their way into the songs. And, in no uncertain terms, my music always has some kind of message. A lefty political/social message. Even the party songs have something in that realm. And all of the songs are meant to be entertaining on some level, too. So creating music that fits that general concept is first.

I have two other related goals with recording. The first is to learn the technical stuff more, so that I can create the sounds I have in my head more easily. The other is to learn what my voice is, what it can do, and learn how to improve and expand upon it. That becomes a lot easier when you record the same lines over and over again, trying to perfect the line readings and try different approaches, enunciation, voices, etc. This is one of the reasons I post raw demos pretty frequently, it not only leads to feedback, it provides a strong incentive to continually improve and rework things. If I make a shitty recording and it's out there, someone could hear it unless I work on it and make it better.

I am a prolific songwriter. I have written more than 100 songs in the last three years and I have many, many more ideas that are in various stages of writing. But it can become an echo chamber when I write and record by myself and don't have to interact with the ideas and artistry of others. So I have made it a goal to not just record my own material, but that of others, too. I really like the idea of the artist, such as Prince or 2Pac, that spends massive amounts of time in the studio recording their voice, their songs, their inspirations, and leaves a lot behind for the world to listen to. The idea came from an article I read once where some semi-famous rapper started recording himself doing a bunch of other people's songs and posting the videos on YouTube. For some reason, I haven't been able to find that article again and I'm not sure who it was. I want to say Action Bronson, but I can't say that for sure since I can't find it. But it really made me think a few things. One was that doing a bunch of different rappers, with a bunch of different styles, in recorded fashion, would make my ability to perform and vocalize much better. And that has certainly been true as I've done it. The other was that if I had interesting takes or good performances of songs that already had fans, I would, in the great cover song tradition, obtain more fans. That has also been true, too, although to a lesser extent.

So in addition to recording more than 70 original tracks, I also started recording various cover songs. The first goal was to record 200 different rappers. Not just different songs, but 200 songs each by a different artist (I'm well past 50 on that goal now). But after recording a few songs by artists I really like, I quickly found that I wanted to record more songs by those artists, so I expanded my recordings to allow for that. A third approach I took on was to take songs that weren't strictly hip hop songs, but contained relevant elements. Songs that might not be rap, but sounded pretty close. For this series of "Almost Hip Hop" songs, I decided to take those tracks, and make them more hip hop, more in my own voice. It quickly became an idea that I didn't just want to copy the songs, doing all the exact same words and exact same line deliveries. Some songs I did relatively straightforward takes on, others I made some pretty significant changes to. My version of "Parents Just Don't Understand" is a pretty faithful Fresh Prince imitation, while my cover of Nirvana's "Downer" is so radically different than the original, it's a post-punk hip hop poetry reading kind of think, almost like a Butthole Surfers song.

A few guidelines I have for these variant takes:

  • I never, ever use the N-word. No matter what. I'm a guest in hip hop and I understand the history from where it comes, so regardless of the original, I change the word to something else. I've even been given permission to use the word by numerous African American performers and fans and I will never use it.

  • I rarely use words like "bitch" or other slurs that denigrate women or homosexuals. I don't fully eliminate them because at times they are being used by a character in the song. Robert DeNiro doesn't refuse to play sexist or homophobic characters because he can say something important through those characters and it isn't necessarily an endorsement of a character that you play them. I refuse to record lines, though, that are explicitly me using those slurs to denigrate anyone, unless the point is ironic (such as a recording of a 2 Live Crew song). Yes, I get the inconsistency between #1 on this list and #2. The reason for that is that the artform I'm using, hip hop, is an African American form, so I'm showing my respect for that by not insulting the innovators of the form I'm using. I try not to insult anyone based on such characteristics, so it's safe to assume that if you hear a word like "bitch," it isn't meant as a literal, unironic use of the word to denigrate women. I understand some will still reject my take on the topic, but that's the path I've chosen.

  • I do my best to remain true to the spirit of the original track. I may change things around a bit, but the goal is homage and respect, not just the repeating of words that I like.

  • As with most hip hop cover songs I've ever heard, when I choose to, I change references to the original artist's name to some variation of my own. Think Snoop Dogg's cover of "Lodi Dodi," which is true to the original, but has many Snoop-ified changes in the lyrics.

  • I literally want to record at least one track by every hip hop artist for whom I can find an instrumental. Since none of these songs is meant for commercial release, I have no problem using other people's music and lyrics to make interesting sounds of my own. And since my goals involve diversity and technical skill, I will record versions of songs from artists I don't like, although I will note that when I have done that, it has increased my appreciation of those artists at times. At some point, I'd like to be able to say that I've recorded cover versions of more rappers than any other person on the planet. I assume that I'm already well on the way to that goal, considering I've now done 57 different rappers by my latest count.

  • I want to add new things to songs. I like adding subtext, making cultural references, and tying different forms of art together. When I have an idea that serves that purpose, I pursue it.

  • I want to make the songs work for my voice. I have a pretty good ability to mimic other voices, I always have. But in my efforts to perfect my own voice, it's important not to bite anyone else's style for the purpose of a recording. So while some of my recordings are pretty imitative of the original, others make pretty significant changes to line deliveries, particularly with rappers like Jay-Z or Kanye who, at times, eschew traditional melodies or pronounce or say words in ways that I wouldn't. I'm absolutely not interested in doing a Iggy Azalea and adopting speech patterns and slang that aren't authentic to who I am. I grew up in the Deep South, lived in mostly black neighborhoods much of my life, and from an early age was deeply immersed in hip hop and basketball culture. And you likely wouldn't know any of that from my recorded voice, since I'm not trying to adopt the patterns and culture of others, I'm trying to forge new ground in my own voice. On those rare occasions where you hear me use black slang, it's black slang I use all the time as part of my daily life, it's not an affect taken on for the purpose of a recording.

  • (I may think of more of those that I have used later and will add them to the list if I do.)

So, to give you all an example of these principles in action, I present to you, my most recent recording, an interpretation of Beck's song "Loser."

Here are the above principles in action for this song:

  • Beck doesn't use the N-word, so not relevant.

  • Similar to #1, not a concern here.

  • I certainly change the vocals quite a bit here. Beck's original is laid back and almost indifferent to what is going on in the song. I use my more natural rapping voice, which is a bit of a hybrid of Beastie Boys and Chuck D. The original is just Beck singing, too, while I felt that my version was better served by having backing vocals for emphasis on certain parts. I also changed some line deliveries by adding a little delay here and there and having the rest of the line in question be rapped in double time. I think it creates some really interesting moments. I also radically reworked the chorus, going for a specific Rage Against the Machine feel and reference which I think add an layer to the song that, while not in the original, are in line with the original's mood, if not tone.

  • I didn't do this a lot on this one, although I added a "motherfucker" to a spot where I couldn't get a good read on one of Beck's deliveries.

  • Beck's not a rapper, of course, so this one fits the "Almost Hip Hop" approach, but he is an artist I have never covered before (and rarely sing in public), so it is in line with the spirit of trying different voices.

  • There isn't much new subtext here (although there is some in the reworking of the chorus and the change in the vocal style from apathetic to aggressive), but the tie in to other cultural points is pretty extensive. In addition to the Rage-style chorus, the end of the song includes an explicit Rage line that is added, much of the vocal presentation ties in to artists like the Beastie Boys, and the added backing vocals have a wide range of influences from Beasties to Afroman to Eminem and others. There are also some attempts at sophomoric humor (emphasizing the word "balls," a Cartman reference on the word "beef") and to the sing-songy nursery rhyme styles of early rap songs (which is done on the actual nursery rhyme that Beck included in the lyrics). And these are just the conscious references I made during the recording, there are certainly likely to be subconscious references or things I forgot.

  • I've already addressed this one, but needless to say, there are very few points in this song where I sound anything like Beck, either in my voice or in my line deliveries.

One last thing on recording. I have literally no patience or skill for rearranging and editing and punching things in. My process begins with the beginning of the song, I hit record, and I go forward from there. I generally record the song chronologically and do my best to do entire verses without a break. I've not always done that in the past, but I think discerning listeners can tell when the songs are edited, so if a song has a 16 bar verse, I try to record that interrupted before moving to the next part, and will try the same part over and over again until I am happy with every word (or nearly every word) in the segment, only breaking things up when it is naturally part of the song. The first verse of the Beck song above is one take, although it was far from the first take. I particularly have to pay close attention to improper breathing, which often shows up, sound levels (although those can be adjusted after the recording, it's better not to have to adjust them, it just sounds better), contact with anything else in the studio, etc. Ambient sounds usually aren't picked up by my mic, so that's fine, but if I bump the mic during a recording session, that take is a wash. I have a screen in front of the mic, so I don't get too many "P" sound problems, although there are still some other sounds (like "S" at the beginning of a word) that can be very problematic in recording. For a song like this with backing vocals and such, I will record the main versus and chorus first and come back in on a separate track and add those. I don't generally rehearse a lot before the song, unless it's new, although I'm generally recording songs I've heard many times, and usually songs I've performed at karaoke, so they have been practiced. Mass transit in a big city also gives ample opportunity to run through songs in your head before a recording session, so it's not exactly like I go in unprepared. Part of this is that I don't want to overdo a bad line and get it stuck in my head, so I like to be able to listen to what I've rapped to see if I'm doing it in a way that I'm happy with. I can only do that when recording and listening to the playback.

Okay, that's probably way more than enough for this post, although I'm sure that I'll talk more about recording when introducing other songs in the future. My next post will be about karaoke and why that's important to what I'm doing.

Goals

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So for this first post of the new direction, I wanted to briefly talk about my goals as a musician, to provide a bigger context for what I'm doing and what I'm writing and creating. It won't be the most in-depth examination ever, but will give you a basic idea for what's to come...

So, my ultimate goal as a musician would be to become a worldwide superstar who performs for millions of people while retaining complete integrity in my music and voice, making people dance and sing along to my radical politics. Basically to be at the level that Kanye and Jay-Z are, where they can kind of do and say whatever they want and people are along for the ride in big numbers.

I realize that goal is totally unlikely to happen for any number of reasons.

A secondary goal, and a much more realistic one, would be to forge a career that lasts a few decades where I get to make whatever music I want and I build a fanbase that wants to hear what I want to make, wants to see me live, and where I can be a respected musician among other musicians for creating art that is true to my vision and values. In this scenario, I would get to tour, get to perform at festivals, collaborate with other great musicians, maybe even get on the radio or TV a bit as a feature on other people's work, and get to create art that people like and learn from.

I realize that is a lot of hard work and that most people who attempt to go down this path don't stick with it. But that's one of the great things about having asperger's, I'm obsessive enough about the concept that I'll stick with it as long as it takes, regardless of what other people think. I've been doing it long enough already to know that there will always be haters, including people that are friends or people that, by any logical though process, should enjoy what I do. But art, and people's reactions to it, is not logical and I understand that doesn't always happen.

The old saying about it taking 10,000 hours to become a master of a particular skill may not be particularly accurate, but you have to learn a lot by putting in those hours. I haven't done that yet, but I am closing in on 1,000 hours of activity related to becoming the best writer and performer I can be. I still have a long way to go, but I'm really happy with the progress I've made.

And while I know that a lot of artists like to only present the polished, fully-developed product to their fans, I've always thought a little differently about that and prefer to open up the door and show people what I'm doing, even if I make mistakes, even if I fail. I can handle the feedback and it all helps me develop my knowledge and skill towards being better, so I'll keep doing it.

One Million Pieces of Perfect Pop Culture

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I came up with a new theory this morning that there are at least one million pieces of perfect pop culture. If you're saying to yourself "that can't be true," then 1. you shouldn't be talking to yourself while reading a blog and 2. you're probably defining "perfect" in a different way than I am.

The way I'm using "perfect" here is NOT in the dictionary usage. I know you're saying to yourself "but that's the correct way to use words," but at this point, I'm getting a little annoyed with your little internal self-conversation thing and I'm moving on. By perfect, what I mean is that, at the right moment, if you're in the right mood, these things can be perfect. Songs, albums, movies, items of clothing, food, TV episodes, comic books, or other pop culture artifacts. And I'm just talking about things that are in English or can appeal to someone who only speaks English (and isn't a douchebag. Non-douchebag English speakers can appreciate things that aren't in English).

Yes, I truly believe that there are at least a million of them. Whatever it is you like, there is so much more of it out there (and a lot of it is probably better than the things you DO like). I don't at all mean that in a judgmental way, I mean that in a "if you like X, you'll love Y" kind of way. There are millions of people (over the years) who have created millions of awesome things. And most of us don't know about most of them.

So I think I'm going to work on changing that part about most of us not knowing about most of them. Over the next million days or so, I'm going to post a series of those things, some well-known, others so obscure the people who made them don't even remember them. I'll post them here at the RevEx blog with some kind of explanation as to why I think they are perfect. Those explanations will be totally inconsistent and some of them will piss off some people. Who gives a fuck? This is about things that people might like. This is about saying "Hello, cynicism about the world and art and music, you're a douchebag who should go back to the Kappa House and talk about tits or something like that while the rest of us get happy and enjoy life outside of your dumbass mindset." Or something similar that can be said in fewer words. I don't do fewer words. I like words.

If YOU are interested in adding to the list of one million pieces of perfect pop culture, message me on Facebook or at quinnelk@gmail.com and I'll add you to this blog and you can post whatever you like that adds to the list. No filters, no judgment, no censorship (well, unless you're a douchebag, but then I probably won't let you post anyway, so whatevs).

Whattup?

Entries in the series:

"My Name Is My Name," by Pusha T (HHES Album Review)

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Here's my review of the Pusha T album "My Name Is My Name," using the Hip Hop Evaluation System (HHES).

"King Push" is a solid song and starts the album off well. The lyrics are really dense and it definitely helps to bust out the Rap Genius annotations here. Pusha's delivery in this song is menacing and always compelling.

"Numbers on the Board" is one of the outstanding tracks on this album and of the year. The production is sparse, purposefully putting the focus on lyrics and delivery. That's a good idea. The beat is good, but the words are superb. The song barely has a hook, but it comes in at just the right time to tie things together and cement what's being said in the rest of the song.

I originally didn't pay much attention to "Street Serenade," mainly because I don't particularly like the hook. But after hearing it live, I really got into Push's verses, particularly the repeated Rick Flair "woo!" in verse 2, which kills live and seems to really stand out upon further listen on the album, too.

"Hold On" is one of the more introspective songs on the album and it benefits from some backing vocals from Kanye and, surprisingly, a Rick Ross verse I don't hate. If Ross was always like this, I might like him.

"Suicide" has another simple but powerful beat and some great wordplay from Push, but guest Ab-Liva just isn't on Push's level, bringing the song down a bit.

"40 Acres" shows that when it comes to lyrics, Push doesn't play and he is kind of light years ahead of most other rappers in the game. More sparse production leaves the power of the song all in the hands of Push (and the hook by The Dream) and he delivers.

"No Regrets" shows the one weakness this album has--vocalists other than Pusha T. Every time Push gets going good on a verse, a subpar hook comes in or a guest (in this case Jeezy) comes in and the contrast is strong enough that you're like "alright, let's get past this so we can get back to Push." This is far from the only song that happens on. In this song, when Push does return, he leads in with a triple metaphor "Presidential I came back," which refers to Obama's re-election, Push's return to recording after the end of his Clipse days, and the fact that he's back on the track after Jeezy's weaker (my word) verse. More of that would be better than more of the guests.

"Let Me Love You" contains the first great sung hook, this one by Kelly Rowland. The song is more upbeat, less gangsta, and more Clipse-like than any other track here. Those are compliments. The rest of the album is so hardcore this is a nice break that helps add weight to the other tracks. Push also varies his flow more here than in other songs and it works very well.

"Who I Am" takes it right back to the hardcore and brings back both Pusha rapping the short hook and the Rick Flair "woo" sound that appears on several earlier songs to very good effect. The 2 Chains comes in and puts me to sleep. He has 14 bars and 4 of them include "I got a bad bitch in my swimming pool." Big Sean is a bit better on his verse, but still doesn't hold rise to the level of Push.

"Nosetalgia" is not only the best song on the album, it's one of the two best songs released in 2013 (along with Schoolboy Q & Kendrick Lamar's "Collard Greens"). Here's why: 1. Push hits harder than anywhere else in his career. 2. Kendrick destroys the guest verse. 3. Awesome KRS-One samples. 4. Vivid storytelling and imagery. 5. Diverse flows. 6. A spare but perfect beat that, as with the rest of the album, gives the vocalists the spotlight and enhances what they do. 7. Probably the best wordplay on the album. If you don't know this song, you aren't listening to the best rap coming out these days.

"Pain" can't possibly follow "Nosetalgia" that well, no song could, but it tries by providing a more interesting and layered beat that might be the best on the album. One of the better (but still not great) sung hooks follows and then Pusha comes in with more top-notch rhyming that both provides some new references we haven't heard yet and ties the song to other tracks on the album.

"S.N.I.T.C.H." features Pharrell, but not at his best. The production is pretty simple for a Pharrell track, in trying to keep with the mood of the rest of the album, but Pharrell just isn't as good at it as Kanye. Pharrell's hook is worse, going down to the level of the album's other hooks by the likes of Future. Push delivers here much like he does on the rest of the album, but seems like he might have run out of things to say by this point.

Overall Analysis

Flow: 10. Pusha has a great flow. He rarely fails to deliver fully.

Lyrics: 9. The lyrics here are a bit heavily focused on the same few subjects, but they are very dense, interesting, and entertaining.

Message: 8. Most of the messages here are personal and historical, but you definitely get a pretty good insight into who Pusha T is or was.

Technical: 8. Pusha doesn't go in for too much speed rapping, but his flows always sound melodic and powerful.

Production: 9. Kanye knocks every track out of the park, the other producers don't suck either.

Versatility: 8. For the most part, Push stays in his lane, but when he ventures outside of it, it works well.

Collaborators: 6. There are a few really great collabs here (Kanye, Kendrick, Kelly) a few that are solid (Ross, Pharrell) and a bunch that are wek.

History: 10. This album is steeped in both gangsta rap history and broader history.

References: 10. You can't fully understand this album without Rap Genius, it's so packed with references.

Originality: 9. It goes down some well-worn content and lyrical paths, but it does it in ways that few others have done, making it a very strong take on an old genre.

Total Score: 87. This is one of the best hip hop albums of 2013 no question. This one made me a full-on Pusha T fan. Seeing him perform these songs live makes them even better.

"My Band Should Be Your Life" (With Footnotes)

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Here is the latest in my series of lyrical examinations of the songs of my albums, EPs, and mixtapes. As I say in the song Liquid Thunder, "My rhymes are so dense you're gonna need footnotes." Here they are...

This time, for the album "My Band Should Be Your Life." The album is very short and the lyrics aren't super plentiful, so I figured I could take on this whole album in one post. It's 17 songs and 13 minutes long and has several very strong influences. The first and most obvious is the book "Our Band Could Be Your Life," by Michael Azzerad. The book chronicles a variety of underground bands from the late 70s through the early 90s. I was reading the book when the idea for this album came to me (the title of the album is a direct reference). And, in particular several of the profiles in the book inspired what I was doing: Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Minutemen, and Big Black in particular. These influences are seen in three specific ways: 1. The songs are short and don't generally follow typical pop song structures. 2. The sounds are often jarring and harsh, at times purposely offensive to the ear of most listeners. 3. The lyrics are, generally speaking, very straight forward, simple and made to be sung along with. They're meant to inspire emotion in the moment and not necessarily meant to be thought about in-depth. Some other influences seep in, and they are mostly NOT in the lyrics as originally written, but were either part of the process of composing the beats (EDM, Moby) or recording the vocals (hip hop and, in one case, 60s garage rock).

In total, the whole album from idea to lyrics to beats to recording took about six hours. The idea was not to spend too much time on it, but to capture the ideas as quickly as possible and with as little overthinking as possible. Take the words, couple them with a beat and don't mess around with them too much. About half of the songs are first takes and all of them are single takes. Unlike previous songs and albums, on much of this album, the focus isn't just on the lyrics. The specific sounds used have meanings too, which hasn't always been the case with previous songwriting from me. Something else you might notice is that many of these beats are very, very fast, with quite a few of them topping 170 bmp and maybe only one below 100 bpm. The process of creating the album began with me basically thinking of a list of about 20 titles for punk-sounding songs and then picking the best 16 ideas (Downer is a cover that was already recorded). Then I sat and wrote all the lyrics in one day. The composing was split up between two different days, but took about two hours. I lost my microphone during the process and while I recorded two songs in Tallahassee, Florida, the rest were recorded with my laptop's internal mic in Alexandria, Virginia, in one session that took about two hours.

Now it's time to take a specific look at each song.

"Fuck Yeah"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck yeah
Time to blow up, fuck yeah
Shut this shit down, fuck yeah
Go home no way, fuck yeah
Rock me rock you, fuck yeah
Rock everywhere, fuck yeah
Fast times fast days, fuck yeah
Come on come on, fuck yeah
Now now now now, fuck yeah
Live fast die old, fuck yeah
Fuck that stay bold, fuck yeah
Don't sleep not dead, fuck yeah
Win win win win, fuck yeah
Go go go go, fuck yeah
Never grow up, fuck yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck yeah
So a lot of the punk songs that influenced this album are very straight forward lyrically. They aren't exactly simplistic, but they aren't deep thoughts either. They're more meant to be chanted along with and danced to. That's what I was going for here. "Fuck yeah" is a kind of universal underground positive exclamation and I thought it worked well as an exclamation point at the end of each line in the song.

"Executive Action"

We're gonna rock the world
We're gonna rock the world
Executive action, executive action
Gonna take what we want
Gonna take what we want
Executive action, executive action
Get the fuck out our way
Get the fuck out our way
Executive action, executive action
Gonna change the world
Gonna change the world
Executive action, executive action
Gonna fuck shit up
Gonna fuck shit up
Executive action, executive action
You can't stop us now
You can't stop us now
Executive action, executive action
We can't be denied
We can't be denied
Executive action, executive action
Gonna rock the world
Gonna rock the world
Executive action, executive action

"Executive Action" was also meant to evoke a punk song. There is this strain of punk songs that have random ass titles that you sing along with and they don't exactly make that much sense independently and this was an allusion to that type of song. Executive action has no real meaning here, but it sounded really good with this beat.

"Didactic"

You can call me didactic
My style high spastic
My lyrics fly caustic
Punk rap shit I cracked it
While you slept I acted
Sound gets you ecstatic
This music be frantic
I came and I rocked it
You'd better not jack it
My heroes intergalactic
Never quit my antics
Words that will be classic
Ideas keep you captive
The changes will be drastic
Leave your life of plastic
Or your doom will be tragic

So a year or so ago, someone told me they didn't like reading my writing because I was too "didactic." To be honest, I didn't even know what the word meant and had to look it up. I came up with "intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive" and I was like "fuck yeah I do that on purpose." I was a professor for 11 years and the whole reason I write, both music and nonmusic, is to pass along information and moral instruction. So while she meant it in a negative light, I took it as a badge of honor. That led to the first line of the song and I wanted to make the song a little more complex than the rest of the album and I tried to include as many multisyllable and multi-word rhymes that fit the initial rhyme scheme. They don't all fit that pattern, but a lot do.

"Bombs Over Gaza"

The dead kid lying in the rubble
Covered in blood
No more school
No more laughter
No more birthdays
No more songs
His family, if they survived, which is far from certain, never to see him again
That dead kid, he doesn't care that you blew him up because you thought his uncle was a terrorist
Even if he was a terrorist
That kid doesn't care about your re-election campaign
He doesn't care about AIPAC
He doesn't care how Fox News is going to spin his death
He doesn't care how much you can fundraise off of his death
He doesn't care about any thing
Any more

I've been really torn on the latest conflict in the Middle East. I respect the right to exist of both Israel and of Palestine and other disputed territories. And I recognize that there are good and bad people on both sides of the conflict and some, on both sides, have done horrible things for what they think are good reasons. This song was meant as a specific rant against collateral damage and the idea that war is always a bad thing, no matter how honorable or correct your reasons for it are. And it was a direct attack on right-wing reactions to the conflict, all of which are basically immoral. The sound on this one is particularly unique for me. The samples used for the song are all bomb sounds. When I recorded the vocal, I didn't want it to sound like my straight up voice, so I hit the "vocoder" effect button, but it accidentally transformed both the vocals and the instrumental and the new sound was so awesome that I decided to leave it that way. The instrumental goes on well beyond the vocal, unlike the rest of the album, and that was on purpose to express that people still keep dying even after Americans quit talking about the topic. The sounds here were also purposefully jarring and meant to annoy the listener's ear, because dead kids should cause you some discomfort. I will note that my roommate's dog found the sound so offensive it barked and growled at the song when I played it. That is a perfect reaction.

"PMRC"

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck
Jizz, jizz, jizz, jizz
Clit, clit, clit, clit
Cum, cum, cum, cum
Twat, twat, twat, twat
Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt
Piss, piss, piss, piss
Prick, prick, prick, prick
Tits, tits, tits, tits
Dick, dick, dick, dick
Cock, cock, cock, cock
Nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts
Shit, shit, shit, shit
Ass, ass, ass, ass
Balls, balls, balls, balls
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck

Punk and rap music both share a fascination with profanity and this touches on that. But the title is PMRC, or the Parents Music Resource Council, with this being a specific rejection of that group's ridiculous worries about bad words as opposed to real problems. This isn't an original concept for a song, as performers as varied as Jello Biafra and Warrant have approached it on albums before, but it's still a problem that people get punished for words like "fuck" and not for things like fucking over entire demographic groups.

"Taxachusetts"

The things you say are dumb
You don't know shit
You lie, lie, lie
And others die, die, die
Your motives are suspect
Your life is a train wreck
Your ideas defective
You will be rejected
You can't win with truth
You brainwash the youth
You lie, lie, lie
And mothers cry, cry, cry
You select your own facts
Your values are cracked
You are fucking whack
You need to get smacked
Your theories are stupid
You don't act human
You lie, lie, lie
Our rights say bye, bye, bye
It sucks when we do it
It's okay when you do it
You suck and you know it
You suck and we know it
The postmodern man
You need to be banned
You lie, lie, lie
And kids fry, fry, fry
You don't wanna help us
You're so fucking selfish
Damn your whole clan
Fuck your game plan
Lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie
Bye, bye, bye

The first step in this song was the title, which is a common political phrase used by right-wing trolls. It's nonsensical in several ways (including the simple fact that Massachusetts doesn't have particularly high taxes and that it's one of the more successful states in terms of serving its citizens). In effect, it's a lie used by right wingers, but a simple "catchy" lie that is easy to remember and repeat. Then it became a simple matter of calling out the people who use the lie. The other interesting aspect of this one is that while it has no chorus, there is a hook that comes in the triple rhymes in the second couplet of each 8-bar verse, which I really liked conceptually.

"Madame President"

Don't want no corporate shill
Of that shit I've had my fill
Don't want another white man
Don't want a Limbaugh fan
Tired of the same old same old
Want someone brash, someone bold
Time for a new approach
With values above reproach
I want my leader to have no cock
To come from a different stock
We can have men again some day
After we've tried another way
A woman's place is in the White House
Don't report on the color of her blouse
Let's talk some substance
Not about her fucking pants
It's time to say goodbye
We don't see eye to eye
With you we have discontent
It's time for Madame President

This may be the most straightforward rap song and Professor Rex track on the album. No real metaphor or deeper message, straight to the point. The lyrics are a bit challenging, but mild for my political songs.

"God Hates Flags"

Love
Marriage
Rights
Nights
Parades
Sex
Fashion
Passion
Family
Art
Needs
Freedom
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
Conformity
Fake unity
Jingoism
Xenophobia
The poor
A war
Bombs
Guns
Death
Hatred
Death
Corpses
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
We like fags, we hate flags
God hates flags!

This one has maybe the punkiest chorus in terms of both lyrics and delivery. A lot of punk songs use challenging words, often with irony or subtext that many listeners don't get. I wanted to do that here with the use of the word "fag" in a celebratory sense. There is the obvious reference to the Fred Phelps clan which protests funerals and other things with signs that say "God hates fags." The first verse is a series of things that are popularly associated with gay people, while the second verse is things associated with nationalism and imperialism. The message is simple, gay people are good, nationalism and imperialism are bad.

"Who You Wanna"

Who you wanna be
Who you wanna fuck
Where you wanna go
What you wanna know

Quite a few punk songs have very sparse lyrics that are repeated and don't have particularly deep meanings, despite being profound in their simplicity. That was what I was going for here. The triple-layered vocals were meant to make it more of a crowd-led chant feel and one of the takes had a few mistakes in it and I left those in on purpose to give it variety and a little bit of humor.

"Losing My Head"

Don't know what I'm gonna do
Don't know what I'm supposed to say
Don't know what I'm gonna do
Don't know what to do today
Walls are closing in on me
Doors are always closed to me
Migraines are crushing me
Society is failing me
Why won't someone help me
Why can't I meet my needs
Why am I such a creep
Why am I so fucking weak
I'm losing my head
I'm losing my head
I'm losing my head
I'm losing my head

Self-loathing and anger at society are frequently topics for punk songs, so that was the idea here. There is also a direct reference to Minor Threat's "Straight Edge" in the delivery of the hook. There is some truth to the lyrics here, even if they're a bit melodramatic.

"True American"

1, 2, 3, 4. JFK! FDR!
So it's 50% drinking game, 50% life size Candy Land
By the way, the floor is molten lava
These are the pawns, they're the soldiers of the Secret Order
Remember everything that you hear in True American is a lie
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
All trash belongs...in the junk yard!
Howard Dean scream! Yea
When in the course of human events, you must surrender your shirt
Your butt just violated the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act
Welcome to Ellis Island folks
My name is Eli Whitney and I created the cotton gin
King of the Castle, baby
He's got the plague, scatter!

This one is one I really like. So it takes really hardcore-sounding, grating sounds and couples them with silly lines from an imaginary game from an often somewhat surreal sitcom, "New Girl" and it throws in a devil laugh. It should literally make no sense on the surface. But beneath that, it's a commentary on popular culture that is meant to be a bit muddled. I leave the deeper meaning to the listener to figure out.

"Can't Get Into Heaven"

I thought I'd died
And gone to Heaven
Not early, fucking late
Walked up to the Pearly Gates
What the fuck
A gated community
What the fuck
You trying to do to me
Can't get in your heaven
They don't want me there
And I don't care
And I don't care
Who are you trying
To keep out
If we're all dying
Got my fucking doubts
Your false paradise
What is it worth
Same fucking shit
As your Earth
Can't get in your heaven
They don't want me there
And I don't care
And I don't care
Take your exclusive
Life after death
Keep your sermons
Save your breath
I'd rather be
With common people
Than at your church
Or at your steeple
Can't get in your heaven
They don't want me there
And I don't care
And I don't care

Religion and religious dogma are often topics of punk songs and that's what this alludes to. This one has the most references in it, starting with the title and hook, which are a direct reference to the Opiate for the Masses song "Heaven." The first couplet in the song is an ironic reference to Bryan Adams "Thought I'd Died And Gone to Heaven," which is a sappy pop ballad that I try to turn on its head here. Next the "gated community" reference is an allusion to Jim Gaffigan's stand-up album "Beyond the Pale" where he asks: "Am I the only one that finds it odd heaven has gates? What kind of neighborhood is heaven in?" There's also a Pulp reference ("common people") towards the end. I love the hook on this one and it grew directly out of the beat, although I'm still not fully happy with the verses, which are a little choppier than I'd like.

"You Are Not What You Wear"

You are not your ironic t-shirt
You are not your facial hair
You are not your expensive shoes
You are not your 3-piece suit
You are not your hipster glasses
You are not your lapel flag pin
You are not your trucker hat
You are not your fucking wool cap
You are not your 6-inch heels
You are not your puffy down vest
You are not your barbwire tattoo
You are not your shirt from J Crew
You are not your rubber wrist band
You are not your skinny jeans
You are not the celebrity trend
You are not some fucking dead end
You are not some fucking dead end
You are not some fucking dead end
You are not some fucking dead end
You are not some fucking dead end

This song has one of my favorite beats on the album. If I heard these sounds come on in a club, I would rush to the dance floor, even if it's not a supremely danceable beat. I love to hear this sound over a loud speaker. It makes me happy. This was also one of my favorite ones to write and perform. I long wanted to do a song along the lines of "Take It Off" by De La Soul, but I didn't want it to be just a copy with different fashion choices. This one is different in that it's got a much harder edge and none of the De La Soul playfulness, despite being a silly subject. I like that contrast, particularly with the aggressive sounds in the background.

"Spin Cycle"

We're born
We grow
We learn
We know
We think
We eat
We drink
We meet
We wonder
We talk
We ponder
We walk
We go
We quit
We grow
We shit
We fight
We sleep
We spite
We reap
We need
We want
We bleed
We flaunt
We give
We take
We live
We hate
We laugh
We cry
We live
We die

My other favorite beat on the album, this one has a menacing aliveness to it, like an insect. But not a regular insect--a giant, scary, scaly insect with many legs. That the lyrics are about the "circle of life" ties into that sound in a really interesting contrast and connection for me.

"No"

No no no no

The idea here was to just do a call and response where the only words in the song were "no." Then I had the idea to expand that to various combinations of how I said "no," which were ad-libbed, some from memory (such as the initial one, which is derivative of "Nobody But Me," by the Human Beinz. I was in Tallahassee with the kids and had the idea to have them do the response. I had to record each of them separately and I decided to leave mistakes in, to make it more like it was a live show where drunken audience members wouldn't get them all correct.

"No Means No"

No means no
If she doesn't wanna go
No means no
That's all you need to know
No means no
It's not a TV show
No means no
American status quo
No means no
She's not your fucking hoe
No means no
Not a quid pro quo
No means no
What's your problem, I don't know
No means no
You're juvenile, gotta grow
No means no
Misogyny must go
No means no
You've gotta let it go
No means no
There is nothing you are owed
No means no
You seem kind of slow
No means no
You gotta go, go, go
No means no
Meet my taekwondo
No means no
We hate you head to toe
No means no
If she doesn't wanna go

The first idea here was that I wanted the track listing of the album to include a song called "No," later followed by a song that reiterated the point with "No Means No." I like to add more subtle messages like that to things I do. The specific track is dealing with an issue that is harsh, so I started with a nice sounding drum track and threw a discordant bass over it that overwhelmed what the original track was trying to say. That sonic metaphor works on two levels. The first is on the individual level, with the drum being the woman saying "no" and the bass being the rapist drowning out what she is saying. Then, on a higher level, the drum is the voices of women (and men) who have been raped and the bass is the societal chorus that drowns out the voices of women who have been assaulted and their allies. The vocal is supposed to sound more and more frantic over the course of the short song to alternately represent fear and/or frustration with the inadequacy of the common responses to someone reporting that they have been raped.

"Downer"

Portray sincerity act out of loyalty
Defend your free country wish away pain
Hand out lobotomys to save little familys
Surrealistic fantasy bland boring plain
Holy now in restitution
Living out our date with fusion
In our whole fleece, shun in bastard
Don't feel guilty master writing
Somebody says that their not much like I am
I know I can
Make up the words as you go along
I sing then some
Sickening pesimist hypocrite master
Conservative Communist apocalyptic bastard
Thank you dear God for putting me on this Earth
I feel very priviledged in debt for my thirst

While this beat is mine, the lyrics are Kurt Cobain. The lyrics are transcribed in the form they appeared in his diary. The idea to do the song as a chant came spontaneously, as did the decision to use all of the percussion beats on one note per bar and only ride the bass line for the rest of the song. I loved the way that sounded and I think it fits very well with the chant.

On the Importance of Robin Williams

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I could write a book about how Robin Williams influenced me. I was an obsessive fan from the Mork & Mindy days— it was my first favorite television show that I can remember--and his stand-up comedy. My "A Night at the Met" cassette got so many plays that I could probably do the whole thing from memory. I could easily go movie-by-movie and bit-by-bit explaining how each thing influenced my thinking. I won't do that, though, because I'm likely the only one that would find it particularly interesting. I will instead focus on a few of the most important things he did that affected me and talk about the overall connection I had with him, NOT including "The Survivors," which to this day remains the only movie I know of where a character shares my last name.

"Good Morning, Vietnam" wasn't the first of Robin's movies I saw, but it was the first one to change my life (but not the last). I didn't know you could make movies like this. I didn't know you could make movies that made you nearly piss yourself with laughter (and it's impossible to not think about Robert Wuhl and Forrest Whittaker, very talented and funny men, who were in the movie, laughing along like audience members). I had seen Robin do stand-up by this point, so I knew what he did here could be done, I just didn't have a clue he could create so many historical stand-up comedy bits. This is what he would've sounded like if he had been a comic during the Vietnam War. This movie made me want to entertain people. It made me want to make people laugh. It also made me want to make them think and cry, too. I wanted to be the one to make people feel that range of emotions. It was also a big influence on my politics, particularly when it came to war and foreign policy. I grew up in a time when playing with toy guns and pretending to be soldiers was not only widely acceptable, it was encouraged. And this movie, in very stark terms that I hadn't seen at that age, made it clear that war was not only hell, that it meant that people, and kids, died. Frequently for no good reason. Or worse, for bad reasons. When I protested the Iraq War in 2003, I can trace that opposition to this movie.

"Dead Poets Society" was an even bigger influence. It would take an entire separate essay to talk about everything in this movie that influenced me. I will say that I was part of a group of young boys at the time who were very, very similar to the boys in the movie. To the point where we watched it over and over and we adopted "carpe diem" as a life motto and whoever was our leader at the time got a group "O Captain, My Captain." The rebelliousness, questioning of authority and dogma, fascination with language and its power, and the basic premise that even though fighting misplaced authority might be a quixotic battle, it's a battle that has to be fought because, dammit, it's the right thing to do. Even if it kills us.

I could go on and on about the movie, but instead I'll just throw in a few quotes here that have been part of my personal philosophy since the first time I saw the movie. These things are still part of my life. Every day.

  • No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

  • That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

  • There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

  • Carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

  • I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.

  • I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.

Or, my favorite then (and probably now):

"Dead Poets Society" made me want to be a teacher. And I became one. And I taught students how to use words just as much as I taught them politics. And while I never told them to rip out the pages of their textbooks (no buyback, I didn't want to steal their money), I absolutely told them never to bring those dusty tomes to class, we weren't going to need them. We weren't going to be reading, we were going to be thinking.

There are few movies and characters I've ever identified with more than Robin's portrayal of Parry in Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King." Like the previous two movies, it made me laugh, think, and cry every time I watched it. It still does. The way to talk about this one is to show it:

That scene is so powerful to me, not only in the context of the movie, but even by itself. Don't we all know what it's like to love someone not despite their weirdness and eccentricities, but because of them? Don't we all know what it's like to want to do anything to impress that one person that we think will make us happy just by knowing them and getting to talk to them and spend time with them? Don't we all have times where we made fools of ourselves for love? That scene is so packed with a full range of human emotion it's the most romantic scene I've ever scene and it still punches me in the gut every time I see it. When Robin begins to sing at the end, I always lose it. No one but one of our greatest actors ever could have pulled that scene off. And, of course, the movie is directly related to Williams' passing. It's almost as if the mental illness and vulnerability and desire for happiness that defines the character of Parry was continued in Robin's real life as if Williams was Parry and while the movie ended at a happy point, the demons that haunted Parry came back and won in the end.

As alluded to above, I have many of the same types of mental struggles that Robin had, the struggles that no one seems to understand. One of the most common reactions was "he's rich and famous and has a great family, how could he kill himself." I didn't ask that question. I know the answer. People despair that if someone as universally loved as Robin couldn't find happiness, there's nothing that could lead to happiness for the depressed, since none of us will ever accomplish what Robin did. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what happened. If Robin Williams hadn't been "Robin Williams," he would have been dead a long time ago, instead of at 63 after a long and distinguished career. Depression isn't a single battle that can be won. It's a series of small battles that can be daily or hourly or weeks can go by between incidents. And winning each of those battles is hard as fuck. It's hard to describe to people who haven't dealt with it. You can go from being completely happy to being suicidal in minutes or seconds, based on the tiniest of things. And while success and the adoration of fans and critics and wealth can help you win some of those battles, what happens when they start to go away? What happens when you no longer get the plum movie roles? What happens when you have to take jobs that you hate and that compromise your artistic integrity because no one else will hire you? What happens when money problems start to rise up as your bank account dips? What happens when your kids grow up and leave the home? What happens when the fans leave you for younger and fresher stars?

As much is everybody is talking about how much they love Robin Williams in the past few days, how much were we talking about him in the days, weeks, months, years before that? And while the previous adoration and success and money he earned might last many people a lifetime, that's not how the depressed mind works. There's a telling moment in this interview with Marc Maron from 2010, where Williams describes his Oscar victory for "Good Will Hunting." If you saw him win the Oscar, it's pretty clear that it was one of the happiest moments of his life. He told Maron that the elation of winning the award lasted about 10 minutes. Then it was back to the battle.

And I'm not just speculating from my own personal experience and observation about what happened to Robin. It was something that he talked about a lot.

And I didn't even begin to go into so many other of his movies that either heavily entertained me or heavily affected me emotionally. From critically acclaimed stuff like "Good Will Hunting," "The World According to Garp," "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," "The Birdcage," "Awakenings," and "One Hour Photo," to popular family movies of high quality like "Hook," "Aladdin," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Jumanji," "Robots," and "Night at the Museum," to the string of movies that critics hated, but I, and many other fans watched over and over, like "Popeye," "Moscow on the Hudson," "The Best of Times," "Cadillac Man," "Toys," "What Dreams May Come," "Bicentennial Man," "Jakob the Liar," "Death to Smoochy," "Patch Adams," and "Man of the Year." Not to mention the many other things he did, hilarious stand-up, Comic Relief and other hosting duties, and his well-deserved status as best talk show guest ever. Man, I got so many hours of entertainment and thinking and laughing and crying out of these movies (and others).

So the only thing I can say at this point is that I totally understand, Robin. I get it and I wish there were more people around you that got it and could've given you the love and acceptance you needed. I know there were some and this is not disrespect aimed at them in any way, this is just to say that when you suffer like Robin did, you can never get too much support, too much love, too much acceptance. It's a need that rivals sleep and water and air.

I lied, I'll say one more thing: Thanks, Robin. You might not have made it to the finish line, but a lot of us are still running because of you. We'll do what we can to make our lives worthy of what you gave to us.

Upsetter (With Footnotes)

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Here is the last in my series of lyrical examinations of the songs of my debut mixtape, "Core Nerd!"

As I say in the song Liquid Thunder, "My rhymes are so dense you're gonna need footnotes." Here they are...

This time, for the song "Upsetter."

The last song on my first mixtape was also the last one written. I was listening to a Lee "Scratch" Perry compilation one day, and an instrumental dub of "War in Babylon" by Max Romeo & the Upsetters came on. I loved the beat with a passion. I had been thinking that it was pretty common for rappers to compose songs to existing beats and put them on mixtapes or online releases. I had been wanting to do something like that, since all my previous songs had been using original beats that I made. So I decided to try this one.

Because this beat was a reggae beat, I decided to make a song that was in the spirit of that music, with themes of empowerment, unity, and revolution. Since it was a cross-genre song, I also wanted it to embrace that, and get to the heart of the idea that there are more of us than there are the people in power and that together, united, we can defeat them.

(War ina) Yes Yes

(War ina) People get ready

Feel the pressure drop

Make your body pop

(War ina) Yes Yes

(War ina) People get ready

Feel the pressure drop

Make your body pop

I love the snippets of dialog that made it into the dub from the original and I decided to work with them on these lyrics. There were also the specific references to other reggae songs here in the hook, "One Love/People Get Ready," from Bob Marley & the Wailers, and "Pressure Drop," by Toots & the Maytals. Make your body pop was a reference to the danceworthiness of most reggae and the obvious rhyme.

There's a war on the streets

A war for these beats

A war for some food

A war for some crude

The powers that be

Try to divide us

But they won't stop us

They can't deny us

The war theme here came out of two things, "War in Babylon" and the snippets from the original song, and the overall theme of this song about how we have to unify in the face of those who are trying to divide us.

Get up off your couch

And just do something

The power is within you

You'll be stopped by nothing

Do it yourself

DIY

Then we get together

And we're all gonna fly

It's very common for people to get discouraged in the face of big challenges and obstacles, the idea here was to turn that around and tell the individual that if they get up and do something, particularly if they team up with like-minded others, a lot can be accomplished.

No matter how hard they try

They can't stop us now

There's too many of us

They can't make us all bow

The harder they come

The harder they'll fall

A storm is coming

It's much bigger than a squall

Nothing particularly complicated in continuing the empowerment metaphors here. A lot of the revolutionary reggae I've heard had very simple empowering lyrics, so I went with that.

The thunder is coming

And so is the rain

Keep oppressing us

We're gonna bring the pain

We're gonna stand up

And shout out our names

The time has ended

For playing your games

Much of that revolutionary reggae also has simple metaphors, like those about thunder and rain and storms. There's also a Public Enemy "Bring the Pain" reference here. Lots and lots of PE references in my songs.

(Welcome)

I wanna welcome all the people

From all around the world

From the old men and women

To the little boys and girls

We're gonna have a party

And it's never gonna stop

We're gonna rise up

And we're never gonna drop

This verse owes its inspiration to Bob Marley and to the PE again, specifically the title of the song "Party for Your Right to Fight" and the concept that we need to celebrate and have fun, not just fight, or we'll lose our determination.

Spreading knowledge and facts

While having a good time

This time is yours

This time is mine

From street to street

And block to block

Punk, reggae, indie

And hip hop

I've long been convinced that spreading knowledge is one of the most important revolutionary acts one can engage in. I also think that the root impulses of punk, reggae, indie rock, and hip hop are all revolutionary and opposed to a system that oppresses people.

They control the TV

And the radio

Tell us what to think

Tell us what to know

Tell us who to love

Tell us who to hate

But we won't listen

Tearin down that gate

This section simply enumerates the forms of control the system tries to use on us.

I hate you for your dollars

You hate me for my color

I hate you for your splendor

You hate me for my gender

I hate you for your country

You hate me cuz you're hungry

I hate where you're from

You hate that we're numb

I hate that you're unbridled

You hate that I'm entitled

I hate who you love

You hate all of the above

We're gonna stop this hate

Before it gets too late

And this one lays out the specific things they use to divide us.

Rump barump barumpbabump

Rump barump barumpbabump

(It's sipple out deh) Be careful

(We slide out deh) Get a grip

(Oh yeah)

This section was in the original song and I like the idea of me copying the nonsensical sound and tying into the hook of the original. "Sipple" is Jamaican slang for slippery or slimy, so with that and the language about sliding, I thought that warning to be careful and get a grip would work well here.

When come pride

Then cometh shame

Honour shall uphold

The humble in name

This is the one passage that is from the Max Romeo version of the song. It fit well with the rest of the ideas I had been working with here and I wanted to give a shout-out to Romeo's lyrics, so I grabbed these four bars.

It's not about me

It's not about you

Lift us all up

Is what we gotta do

An explicit call for unity.

I'll never get tired

Of fighting your lies

We won't quit

Till we grasp the prize

Day after day

I spread the word

My speech is always clear

And never slurred

This section is about leading by example. I'm not just telling you what you should do, I'm telling you that I'm in the fight, too, and I won't ever get tired of fighting it.

(War ina) Yes Yes

(War ina) People get ready

Feel the pressure drop

Make your body pop

The hook returns.

There's a war on the streets

A war for these beats

A war for some food

A war for some crude

The powers that be

Try to divide us

But they won't stop us

They can't deny us

(A, oh yeah)

No matter how hard they try

They can't stop us now

There's too many of us

They can't make us all bow

The harder they come

The harder they'll fall

A storm is coming

It's much bigger than a squall

The thunder is coming

And so is the rain

Keep oppressing us

We're gonna bring the pain

We're gonna stand up

And shout out our names

The time has ended

For playing your games

I wanna welcome all the people

From all around the world

From the old men and women

To the little boys and girls

We're gonna have a party

And it's never gonna stop

We're gonna rise up

And we're never gonna drop

Spreading knowledge and facts

While having a good time

This time is yours

This time is mine

From street to street

And block to block

Punk, reggae, indie

And hip hop

This was a tactic I haven't used in other songs, the repetition of already sung verses. A lot of songs throughout history have used it and since the beat was so long compared to my usual songs, I decided this was the way to go.

Rump barump barumpbabump

Rump barump barumpbabump

(It's sipple out deh) Be careful

(We slide out deh) Get a grip

(Oh yeah)

Rump barump barumpbabump

Rump barump barumpbabump

(It's sipple out deh) Be careful

(We slide out deh) Get a grip

(Oh yeah)

I still love the snippets of the original dialog that made it into this beat.

"Knock That Shit Down" (With Footnotes)

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Here is the first in my series of lyrical examinations of the songs of my latest mixtape, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The 41-Year-Old Version."

As I say in the song Liquid Thunder, "My rhymes are so dense you're gonna need footnotes." Here they are...

This time, for the song "Knock That Shit Down." This song didn't really have an overall theme beyond being a typical "I'm a good rapper, you're a bad rapper" type of thing. My approach with these songs is to try to do them in ways that bring in references that aren't usually in such songs AND to avoid actual appeals to violence.

Drivin through the mall like I'ma Blues Brother

I frequently do exercises where I pick a theme and write a set number of metaphors/similies/rhymes related to that theme. This one came from such an exercise about my favorite movies. One of the best scenes in "The Blues Brothers" involves the titular characters driving inside a mall.

I'ma drop a hit for your brother and your mother

Grab the mic and become your sister's lover

Not doing that shit for revenge

These lines were specifically set up to flip around a common rap trope, "I'll take your woman," suggesting that my music alone can make women fall in love with me, BUT in a different vein than these references usually take, I wasn't doing it as a way to get back at the theoretical opponent in the song, but because I was interested in the woman. The lines inherently contradict each other, which was done on purpose, leading into...

Stackin up blocks like I was Stonehenge

This line, which has nothing to do with anything. It would be a good metaphor if "stacking up blocks" had any meaning outside of the literal. It sounds like it should, but it doesn't as far as I know. The idea was to continue the nonsense of the previous line, leading into...

I know that shit doesn't make sense

What you think I'm the fuckin Fresh Prince?

This part establishes that I'm different from a clean, straight-forward rapper like Fresh Prince. I love his work, but I don't write like he does.

This shit ain't literal, you ain't literate

From that it was natural to combine "literal" and "literate" and bring it to the main thrust of the song, the attack on the fictional whack rapper.

The crowd is indifferent, you are ignorant

In you I got no interest, like recipes on Pinterest

I really liked the repetition of the initial "I" sound here. Pinterest is a visual social network and people share a lot of recipes on the site, which is dominated by women. I like it for other reasons, but I have no interest, whatsoever, in recipes.

Can I get a witness, I got lyrical fitness

You ain't nothing but lyrically witless

The first line is a Marvin Gaye shout-out followed by a rhyme I really like "lyrical fitness" with "lyrically witless."

You wanna-be AK strappers, Paduan rappers

Followed by one of my favorite rhymes ever. I'm really clearly separating myself here as a nerdcore rapper who doesn't like the guns and violence of gangsta rap. Paduans are the apprentice jedis from Star Wars and I'm saying here that if all a rapper can talk about is guns and violence, they're not that advanced.

Little big men, weak old lady slappers

Another condemnation of violence and the fact that the guys who revel in it think they are big men, when, in reality, they're more likely to be filled with enough weakness they might even strike a relatively defenseless person.

You are not a rapper, more like a present wrapper

You ain't lookin dapper, your career's in the crapper (shitty)

There are two things I really like in this couplet. The contrast of "rapper" and "present wrapper," and the SHITTY that comes in after I say "crapper." The recording isn't altered, I was just able to do a really deep voice there and it worked on the first take.

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, take that shit down

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, knock that shit down

The hook came quickly and easily and was the first part I wrote to this song. It instantly gave me the title, too.

Never had a crowd not love me on stage

A little bit of exaggeration, but not a lot. Of all the times I've done original songs on stage, people have been really into them except for one or two. Even those two times were more indifferent than dislike.

Out of my book you need to take a page

Have something to say, say it well

Conjure an image, cast a spell

My theory on that crowd response phenomenon is that my lyrics are much more interesting than many performers, so I'm suggesting that others could do the same if they wrote better lyrics, with a message of some sort (ironic since this song doesn't have a message) and came up with better imagery.

Who only gets just one shot?

If I flop, you know I won't stop

This is an Eminem reference, to the song "Lose Yourself" and the movie "8 Mile." It's not at all a diss, though, it's just a rejection of the concept that someone with talent only gets one shot. I don't think it mattered how many times Eminem failed, he was still going to succeed. I'm suggesting I have the same future (of success despite failure, NOT of being as successful or as good at rap as Eminem).

There's a lyrical technician who came to flex

Number one b-boy, Professor Rex

I loved this line when I wrote it long before this song. I used to cover LL Cool J's "My Rhyme Ain't Done," but there were a couple of lines I felt I had to change when I did it live. This one was because I didn't want to call myself LL on stage. The original lines went: "There's a lyrical technician who came to play/Number one b-boy LL Cool J." "Flex" and "Rex" fit very well.

Man outta time, man outta place

Feel like I'm from fuckin outer space

There are two references here. The first is from "Edison's Medicine," by Tesla. I can't remember the second one, but there is a song, rap I think, where the artist talks about feeling like he's from outer space.

Crab rappers don't feel the words I'm sayin

They can't understand the jams I'm playin

Crab rapper was always my favorite old-school hip hop insult.

Y'all can't break me, you cant fake me

Y'all motherfuckers can't take me

Y'all better thank me, you better bank me

Y'all motherfuckers better rank me (number one)

This is one of my favorite passages in the song, I love this type of rapid-fire spitting.

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, take that shit down

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, knock that shit down

The hook comes back.

I come in like a lion

Go out like a bigger lion

The second I wrote this I was super happy about it. "I come in like a lion" came to me and then I took the standard rap construction "in like a bad thing, out like a bigger badder thing," and asked myself what's bigger and badder than a lion? A bigger lion.

You come across my path, I'ma leave your girl crying

I'ma leave your mama crying, gonna leave your kids crying

All of whom will be crying from embarrassment, NOT violence.

Sneakin in my lab and you're always spyin

The stuff of your dreams, you know I'm supplyin

You keep tryin and tryin, and dyin and dyin

Your universal lameness, is the fact underlyin

This one is a shout-out to rappers who have really strong references to their success on their FIRST song or album. It's a optimistic concept and I've always liked it, so I used it here and elsewhere.

Faster than a pussycat, kill, kill

A reference to the Russ Meyer film, the title of which I always loved, by way of a shoutout to the B-52's song "Funplex."

Don't touch my drink, no spill, spill

Stormin the club like it's the Bastille

This one only works if I mispronounce the word Bastille, which I do on purpose. Another ironic comment about bad rappers who have no worldly knowledge.

Invading the stage like Bunker Hill

A reference to the Revolutionary War battle. Not sure if that technically counts as an "invasion," but I liked the image.

You're a mouse, I can walk out my door

Protest the White House

This is true. My work office is a block or two away from the White House and I have walked out of my office to join in protests over there, most recently after Sandy Hook, making it a subtle call back to the anti-violence portion at the beginning of the song.

I make shit happen, my name was on wikipedia before you started rapping

This is also another true reference. I've been writing online since 1998, and early on I was cited in several articles. Since then, several jobs I've had and activities I've engaged in have gotten me minor references on the online encyclopedia.

I was the shit before you started crapping (oh no!!!)

The shit/crap reference worked so well in verse one, I brought it back, with an additional immaturity reference. That works on two levels since making shit references is ironic as an immaturity reference.

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, take that shit down

Shut the fuck up, get the fuck out

Turn that shit off, knock that shit down

One more hook for the road.

Why I Hated the Final Episode of How I Met Your Mother (All the Spoilers Contained Within)

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So I watched the finale of "How I Met Your Mother" today. And while I love the show, and count it among my favorite sitcoms of all time, I'm going to explain why I think it's the worst finale of a show that I've ever seen. I'm not usually one to go in for the typical "finale hate" that you see from so many people and much-maligned series finales that others hate, I liked and think were true to the spirit of the show (such as "Seinfeld," "Lost," and "The Sopranos," all of the final episodes of which I personally thought were great). Not so with "How I Met Your Mother."

To set this up, I'll say that I actually liked all of the rest of season 9, it's only the last episode that I hate. And, to be clear, I haven't read any of the other criticism of the finale. Literally none of it. This is all based solely on my own viewing of the series and the last episode.

So the basic reason I hated it was that I think that the last episode betrayed basically everything that the show had built up to that point. Here, in detail, is how I think they did that.

Ted

As the show's lead, Ted is who the show is really about. In the end, he loses the love of his life, skipped out on the job of his life, and any growth he had experienced during the show's nine years is eliminated when he goes back to being the same person he was at the end. The show is supposed to be a comedy, but for Ted is one long series of tragedies that, in the end, don't lead him to something better, other than to hold it and have it taken away.

Robin

Robin shows no growth, either, and is not portrayed as particularly rewarded for her life choices. By the end, while her career worked out great, she was shown as not being able to handle a marriage when a guy who fit with her perfectly fine, giving up on that after three years, and she's left with the final choice of becoming the old woman with all the pets, or get back together with a guy who she's not particularly compatible with, who she tried relationships with more than once and they didn't work out, and who, it's obvious isn't much different than the guy she turned down in the beginning of the series and more than once after that. Despite being a beautiful, intelligent, and successful woman, the only man she can attract at the end of the series is her old boyfriend. And she's happy about it, despite knowing that she'll never be the love of Ted's life. He's already had that and she'll never be able to live up to Ted's memory of his deceased wife, who he very clearly loved more than anyone he ever dated. The show is saying that her best option is to be with the guy with whom she'll always be second best. Or maybe even third best, if his children are included. Nothing about this ending is good for Robin or says anything positive about women in general (particularly combined with the Barney betrayal).

Ted & Robin as a couple

There's little to no chance their relationship will last very long. If Robin couldn't make it with Barney, a guy perfectly suited for her and who changed his person to become a better man to make her happy, how's she going to make it with Ted, whom she has little in common with and with whom, after a while, she grows more annoyed with based on his inherent personality (and who already had the love of his life, to whom she can never live up to). They were great as friends, but they lacked the spark to go beyond that. How is it going to now appear after she married and divorced his best friend and he lost the love of his life. They haven't changed, really much at all, since they previously dated, except that both are a little more unhappy and dissatisfied with life. It's hard to see how they work things out in the long run.

Barney

Barney is another character whose growth over the years, which was one of the key subplots of the series, is erased. In his case, after he can't make a marriage work with the one woman he loved enough, and he searched high and low to find, to change his very being for, he reverts back to being as bad or worse than he was before, hoping to capitalize on young women's "daddy issues" because he now is as old as their daddies. Supposedly he changes again because of his daughter, but is that really a sign of growth, or is that him just trying to possess and control yet another woman? Has he grown or has he just transferred his feelings that women are only props for him from his dates to his daughter. The kicker is when he slut-shames two young women in a bar for dressing the way the women he exploited for years dressed. Women aren't people to him, they're only valid if they live up to his standards of what a woman should be. Barney, in fact, regresses in the finale. Notably, we don't learn who the mother of Barney's daughter is, because she means nothing to Barney.

Robin & Barney as a couple

After investing the viewer in this couple, which shouldn't have happened, for years, the show throws them away in mere seconds over what appears to be no significant issue. For years, we are made to believe they should be together, and we eventually sign on and we're happy to see their wedding day finally come. Then we are given no real reason why they end up apart and given no real time to understand or mourn their relationship, which the entire last season was about in one way or another. They told us that this couple grew in recent years so they could be a mature couple that can love each other, and then it's all gone in a meaningless poof.

Barney & Ted's friendship & the Bro Code

We're taught to like Barney early on, despite his misogyny, by being shown that he is a good guy at heart and by knowing that he'll never go too far because he lives his life by a strict "moral code," the Bro Code. But most assuredly, one of the key components of any bro code is "don't date your bro's ex-girlfriend." Barney breaks this one in a big, dishonest way. But we're taught by the show that it's okay, and Ted learns to accept it, because Barney has grown up and because he and Robin are made for each other in a way that Ted and Robin weren't. It's the only way that such a code violation could possibly be okay. But Barney and Robin end their marriage after three years over minor problems, and they never try again, effectively meaning that Barney screwed Ted over for no particular reason. And in the later parts of the episode, in the future, it is clear that Barney and Ted drift apart and don't really talk much. If don't date your friend's ex-girlfriend is part of the Bro Code, which it has to be, don't date your friend's ex-wife has to be an even bigger rule. And Ted jumps right back in there, either not caring about Barney or with an intention of getting back at Barney for Barney's violation of the code.

Lily and Marshall

The one couple that is sane and healthy and grows into happiness is kind of tossed aside towards the end of the episode, which suggests that the show wasn't about them much at all, it was about the love triangle. Lily and Marshall, despite being integral to the series, aren't integral to its finale.

The mother

Rarely has a show's titular character been given such short shrift. She doesn't even appear for the vast bulk of the series, so we're left wondering about her for years. Then they finally introduce us to her and she actually lives up to the 8 years of hype. She is Ted's perfect woman. And she's realistic. She's not a stereotype. And then she's dead, before we even really get to know her. And it turns out that she's nothing more than a prop for the male lead. She's his Holy Grail for 9 years, he gets her and she's all that he wants, then she's haphazardly tossed aside and Ted goes back to his ex-girlfriend who never really made sense for him anyway. At best, they're saying "she allowed Ted to grow enough that he could finally be right for Robin," making her a prop. At worst, they're saying she's meaningless.

Basic story structure

The show was very explicitly, for years, structurally focused on the end point being, you know, "How I Met Your Mother." From the flashback story structure with the future narration, to the final season spacing out how each character met the mother, the inevitable conclusion, structure-wise, would be to end the show on the meeting of Ted and the mother. And they did that. And tacked on another ending that undercut that previous structure. This is not a good story structure and it diffuses whatever you're trying to do with the narrative. Beyond that, the show is clearly an absurdist fantasy comedy. Such a show demands a happy ending. That's why we watch such shows. We got that happy ending, and then it was casually erased.

The idea of human growth

To sum up, the show is about the growth of the three main characters for nine seasons, then all that growth is erased in the last half hour. And the only couple shown to actually grow is tossed aside to focus on the people whose growth is erased.

Happiness

Barney and Robin have it, but they throw it away. Ted has it, but it's taken from him. Lily and Marshall have it, but they are incidental in the end. Happiness isn't allowed in the finale.

Bob Saget

For years, Bob Saget did the future narration with no screen time. And it turns out to be the best, most respectable work he's ever done. In the one chance he would have to show his face on the screen, they show Josh Radnour in make-up. If they were going to do that, why have Saget do the voice-over in the first place. Saget loses a shot to be a real person in the HIMYM universe, despite deserving the screen time.

Hope and perseverance

If there were two themes that were inherent to the show and to Ted's life, they were hope and perseverance. Ted goes through a lot of trials and tribulations in his search for love. And he loses. A lot. But we're kept interested because we're promised that the search will eventually pay off. It's right there in the title, he will meet the mother and so he should remain hopeful and persevere. And so should we, because the viewers are Ted. Our lives, even if they don't have the insane number of bumps that Ted's do, will be okay. Eventually, if we keep at it, we will win, so we should never give up hope. The finale says "screw that, life sucks, and Ted loses and you probably will, too."

Me, personally

And I take that last one personally. I started watching the show during a period when those kind of roadbumps had pushed me to the edge and I was on the verge of giving up. But I quickly realized that Ted was me (in some way, each of the characters represented a part of me or a phase I went through), and the show helped me regain hope that I could grow into a more mature person and I would find the person who I could find happiness with. If Ted could do it, with all the obstacles he faced, so could I. And what the finale says is that Ted might get a glimpse of that happiness, but it's going to be taken away because he can't have it (or doesn't deserve it) and there is a pretty good chance the same is true for me, the surrogate Ted. Sure, the writers weren't writing specifically to me, but they were writing to the many Teds in the world, and this ending says, that hope and perseverance are myths and we should just probably settle for something less than we want or deserve, because we can't have it. That's not why us Teds of the world watch shows like HIMYM.