I don’t know what kind of obscure demographic/psychographic research you have to cross into as a fan of watching YouTube music videos, Rap, Logic, and The Sandlot…but shit thats me. Either way, the song is fire flames, but this music video shouldn’t work. It looks like a drunk MadLib on paper. So we’re going to have a music video that features zero artists performing with Squints from the Sandlot rapping and Eminem being played by Chris D’Elia while he raps in a murder cabin.
That sounds like someone watched Em’s 3 AM video while high and then tried to recreate it for a student film with C list actors, but IT WORKS. Doesn’t hurt that the song bangs and oh ya Squints is a dead fucking ringer for Logic. Like Bobby might want to keep Squints on retainer for mall autograph sessions or to be his fall guy.
Washington Post – The NFL is forming a partnership with music mogul Jay-Z in a deal that allows him to help manage entertainment ventures tied to league events and is closely connected to the league’s community activism efforts.
The partnership will make Jay-Z, whose given name is Shawn Carter, and his Roc Nation agency a co-producer of the Super Bowl halftime show. It does not contain a provision for him to be the halftime performer, he and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said.
“He was very quick to say that he does not want this to be about him performing, that it was broader than that,” Goodell said in an interview. “It quickly went beyond that. Do I hope he’ll perform in the Super Bowl sometime in the next several years? Yes. But I think we’ll all know if that time comes. He’ll know in particular.”
Roc Nation will choose entertainers who will perform in televised NFL promotional spots throughout the season. Carter said he believes Roc Nation will have freedom under the partnership to produce the kind of entertainment that it wants.
The Super Bowl halftime show has been a snoozefest since Janet Jackson threw her titties into Justin Timberlake’s hand all those years ago.
Ever since then the NFL basically overcorrected and trotted out some of the most boring halftime shows ever. In the years post titty-gate we got Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and The Who, which are all good, wholesome bands, just not anyone I want to see headlining the biggest entertainment night of the year. At least in recent years they’ve started to bring back artists that are under 50 years old again.
Last year though was definitely some old white producer trying to appease everyone with Travis Scott, Big Boi, and Maroon 5 while still somehow pleasing no one.
So this morning I hear the news that the NFL has gone back to the big guns (and probably dumped an 18-wheeler full of cash on his front lawn) and partnered up with Jay-Z for this year’s halftime show. While it makes it pretty clear he won’t be performing any time soon, getting S Dot Carter to produce the league’s halftime show and its musical entertainment as a whole is a HUGE win for the NFL. Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint 1/2/3, The Black Album, Kingdom Come, hell even the American Gangster soundtrack still BANGS to this day. Thats not even counting all the collabs he’s done over the years like Collision Course and Watch the Throne, which are all-time albums. Now obviously I left out most of his more recent work…but those albums aren’t without their mega hits. I actually went to the Jay-Z/Timberlake show at Fenway a few years back and the Holy Grail beat drops just as hard today. To be perfectly honest I never heard a ton of 4:44 because I’m not a schill and I’m not paying for Tidal just to get Jay’s album, but The Story of OJ is without a doubt a jam. Long story short, I have high hopes for Jay-Z and Roc Nation leading the entertainment wing for the NFL moving forward.
Although it does sound like HOVA has been paying close attention to the Ginger Hammer’s actions in recent years (i.e. Supreme Court cases for equipment violations, but wife beaters and child abusers getting off scot free) and doesn’t expect completely smooth sailing.
“I anticipate that there will be a lot of — with any big organization, in this building right here we have internal problems. Anything that’s new is going to go through its growing pains. We put what we want to do on the table. The NFL agreed to it. So we’re going to proceed with that as if we have a partnership.”
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt though that he wants to make some real changes by getting inside the NFL, rather than just criticize it on twitter, but at the end of the day Hov isn’t a businessman, he’s a business, man.
I am in a full blown tailspin of nostalgia today after hearing songs I haven’t heard in years. 1999 had some BANGERS from the wildly popular bands like Blink-182 to the groups people don’t like to admit they actually enjoy like Limp Bizkit to the one hit wonders like LIT. It was an awesome year for angsty kids. Lets take a look at SPIN’s 69 best songs of 1999 as I pick out the best songs I liked the most from the list.
1999 was a simpler time and was the absolute height of music videos. Record labels and it’s artists poured a shit ton of time and money into making these 4-minute movies so we’ve got highly produced vids to go with each song. Enjoy wasting the next 20 minutes of your day with me.
It probably helps that all of these songs came out in my most formative years, but a ton of them were also featured in the video games I played endlessly so these songs are burned into my brain. Featured at No. 34 on this list, remember Powerman 5000’s “When Worlds Collide”? No? How about now?
No. 65 – Smashmouth – “All Star”
Smashmouth really is peak 90s as they were poppy and bubbly, but still sang/rap about getting blackout drunk. All Star was a mega hit before becoming a legitimate meme after being featured on the Shrek soundtrack. Also, shoutout to Dane Cook making an apperance in the All Star video as he was the King of the early 2000s when he was a comedy god.
No. 30 – Sugar Ray – “Someday”
I’m still beyond jealous that Papa Giorgio has seen Sugar Ray in concert not once, but multiple times and has even received a high five from Mark McGrath.
No. 29 – Kid Rock – “Cowboy”
Before Lil Nas X made rapping about cowboys and country cool again, Kid Rock invented the entire style. Never forget the pioneer that Robert Richie was in the 90s.
No. 26 – Creed – “Higher”
Surprise of the century is that Scott Stapp is still touring. I saw he
No. 25 – Limp Bizkit – “Nookie”
I vividly remember how big of a deal it was when “Nookie” beat out the Backstreet Boys for the No. 1 spot on TRL. Holy shit do I feel old having just written that sentence.
No. 24 – The Offspring – “The Kids Aren’t Alright”
These guys vanished into thin air, but not after dominating MTV and becoming the soundtrack for basically every movie made in the late 90s/early 2000s like American Pie 2, Orange County, The New Guy, Tomcats, Idle Hands, Varsity Blues, and The Faculty. I challenge you to show me a better run from that era because you can’t.
No. 20 – Santana feat. Rob Thomas – “Smooth”
20 years later and this song still fucks.
No 18. – Beastie Boys – “Alive”
I feel like this will wind up being one of those groups that I opine about the older I get and the more I start to despise the popular music of today because the Beastie Boys changed the damn game.
“While it’s not as flashy or seminal as singles like “Intergalactic” or “Sabotage,” the understated majesty of “Alive,” from their two-CD anthology, showcases the consistent brilliance of the crew as talented MCs, feeding off each other like they share one brain.”
No. 16 – Sugar Ray – “Every Morning”
Absolute kings of 1999.
No. 15 – Blink-182 – “What’s My Age Again?”
So Papa Giorgio and I actually saw Blink twice in the span of a week back in senior year of college and its one of the few bands that I would ever do that. These guys have 20+ years of hits to pull from and I mean this in the best way, but it feels like you’re back in high school any time you throw them on. Unlike just about every artist on this list Blink has found their stride with excellent new music to ride out the second act of their career. They even remade the same goddamn video with a slight twist.
No. 14 – Korn – “Freak on a Leash”
Korn was a clear line of demarcation between kids in high school. Freak on a Leash was a banger, but it was definitely the single that crossed over because I was never a huge Korn guy until I heard this single. Even better though is the Korn rap crossover with Dem Franchise Boyz on “Coming Undone With It” because the early 2000s were a breeding ground for mashups that in theory sound like an abomination, yet somehow work.
No. 12 – Kid Rock – “Bawitdaba”
If you had the Kid Rock CD in middle school you were definitely already rolling blunts before you could drive. Dope song though.
No. 9 – Foo Fighters – “Learn to Fly”
Full disclosure, Foo Fighters is my favorite band of all time so I stan for Dave Grohl. Hell I had them on the Must Play List at my wedding. So I’m glad to see this song so high up on the list. If you haven’t seen the video of them playing this live alongside a thousand people simultaneously, stop whatever you’re doing and watch it right now. Incredible.
No. 8 – Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Scar Tissue”
I don’t know why, but the SPIN description of this song hit the nail right on the head.
“As with many great Chi Peps tunes, Frusciante provides a cover for all of the band’s worst instincts here: His guitar and background vocals manage to make Anthony Kiedis’ lyrical gibberish ring true and forlorn, transforming the track into a classic of late ’90s rock ballads.”
No. 7 – Lit – “My Own Worst Enemy”
I vividly remember the teenage, probably drunk, camp counselors blaring this on the bus every goddamn day at Summer Camp when I was a kid, which is probably why its worked its way into my brain and never left.
No. 5 – Fatboy Slim – “Praise You”
Not my favorite song to be honest, but you’re lying if you don’t *taste* 1999 when you hear this song.
No. 4 – Len – “Steal My Sunshine”
Another cringeworthy level of 90s nostalgia, this song was a massive hit in 1999, but probably wouldn’t get played anywhere other than Soundcloud if released today. Also, this video always creeped me out because the Canadian brother-sister duo just seemed a little too close. Even the front man didn’t love the album, but this song popped.“Some of it’s terrible. A lot of it’s terrible,” Marc said about Bum Rush, but hit single “Steal My Sunshine” was huge with fans and critics alike.
No. 3 – Eminem – “My Name Is”
Hi kids, do you like violence?
Massive Eminem fan here so shoutout to Marshall for making No. 3 on the ALT ROCK list as a rapper from Detroit. That my friends is what they call crossing over and I’m not talking about that shitty TV show where John Edward conned grieving people into believing he was talking to their dead relatives. But I digress, this along with The Real Slim Shady is when Eminem exploded onto the scene as the angry yet funny white guy who could rap better than anyone I’d ever heard. The Real Slim Shady video that doesn’t even try to hide the fact that its ripping on Tom Green, another MTV darling in 1999, probably didn’t hurt either.
No. 2 – Blink-182 – “All the Small Things”
I’ve already said my piece on Blink, but aside from the actual music these guys just knew how to make a video that would get played all day on TRL. This looks incredibly dated now, but it was massive at the time because it poked fun at the way too serious slo-mo boy band videos of the era.
No. 1 – Fiona Apple – “Fast As You Can”
Fiona Apple is the soundtrack for any movie scene where the main characters are strung out doing heroine, not the No. 1 alt-rock song of 1999. I reject this.
Anyways, you’re welcome for this trip down memory lane now excuse me while I go grab my chain wallet and slip into my JNCO jeans.
Common has released 11 albums, sold nearly 3 million copies, won 3 Grammys, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award all while acting in some awesome movies during his spare time. Even with that mountain of accolades Common is still one of the realest dudes out there.
Walking down the street in New Orleans the other day he stumbled across a young, hungry rapper spitting freestyles on the sidewalk. It would have been more than reasonable for Common to do what most of us do; just blow right past that guy and continue on with your day. Except he actually stops and listens to encourage the young man before actually jumping in and giving the guy a few tips. Common legitimately looks excited about the whole encounter, which is so cool to see from someone as mega-famous as him. Not to mention he just put this guy on the map with a shoutout and a viral video for the ages.
Boston.com – Back in March, Boston Calling Musical Festival announced that hip-hop duo Black Star was no longer able to perform at the festival due to “unforeseen circumstances.”……“It’s simple. Black Star asks for 50% deposit in order to guarantee a show,” Kweli tweeted. “Boston Calling refused to pay that. So we had to cancel. They replaced us with Lil Nas X. Enjoy!” That prompted the festival’s official Twitter account to call Kweli’s tweet “factually incorrect,” though it did not specify which part of Kweli’s multi-sentence tweet was inaccurate……Boston Calling has had to replace several artists on its three-day lineup since announcing the festival slate back in January. Along with Black Star, previously announced acts Janelle Monae, Sasha Sloan, and Young Fathers will no longer be performing.
I believe it was Harvey Dent in “The Dark Knight” but could have just as possibly been Alfafa in “Little Rascals” who said “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” In the case of music festivals and the general cynicism of the Boston public, Boston Calling may need quite the hail mary to not become the villain. More to the point, my admittedly limited but still cursory knowledge of promotion/events tells me that absolute disasters like this one could financially spell the end to the once promising endeavor.
Which would suck.
Boston Calling is one of those things we didn’t realize we needed until we had it. It makes too much sense. Boston is a major, albeit small, city. It has a booming sports fanbase, a noted nightlife and, most of all for these purposes, historically it has been revered for its music scene. Yet until a few years ago we didn’t have our own festival. Way back in the day we had River Rave for alt-rock, where some of the more mainstreams bands could bleed into. There’s still Summer Jam for hip hop (see: soundcloud rap) and Kiss Concert for top 40. But there really hasn’t been an all-in-one celebration of the best music has to offer the way New Orleans has Voodoo Fest or New York has Governor’s Ball. Then Boston Calling came out of nowhere and we were like, o ya, this is actually kind of sick. It took a little bit to get used to the prices and ya the crowds were insane to us small city folk who had never experienced Manhattan at rush hour, but over the last few years I think it has stuck the landing well.
Then this year happened. I just cannot fathom what went through the promoters of Boston Calling’s heads. In 2017 the festival was headlined by BLOWING UP rapper and actual cultural spearhead and phenomenon Chance The Rapper. Last year, one of the most revered and successful artists of the past three decades as well as one of the most famous people period on earth, Eminem, made his first trip to Boston in 20 years with Boston Calling as his conduit.
This year? This year will be headlined by Twenty One Pilots.
::Crickets::
Look I know I am one to have the occasional haterade cocktail but I don’t hate Twenty One Pilots. I actually don’t really have an opinion of them either way. If there’s nothing else on the radio I might listen to them or I might throw in a CD or something. Fair enough? (Blogger’s Note: Twenty One Pilots indeed cucked Papa G out of stardom but that is a different story for a different time and I’m not holding it against them). But I don’t think it is a burning hot take to say going from Chance and Marshall Goddam Mathers in consecutive years to rolling out Twenty One Pilots as if they are what’s hot in the streets is kind of nuts, possibly bordering on batshit. I’ll admit this could be another example of the “Logic Fallacy,” where I as someone who casually enjoys Logic but did not think he had built up a gigantic fanbase, went to his show to find 15,000 screaming kids. However, given the amount of emails and tweets I’ve seen from festival promoters that have begun imply “please God please come to this” I don’t think that’s that case.
And much like promoting a fight card or even a backyard barbecue, if the main event doesn’t feature the pound for pound elites that people want to see, you better play some money ball and aggregate that fanfare somewhere else. No title fight? Have a slew of fun stand up brawls and famous names to make your money up. No brats with stadium sauce? Make sure those dogs are the best Kayems money can buy? No actual headliner because Twenty One Pilots was the best you could come up with? Ok, but make sure fanbases like hardcore hip hop heads are appeased by having acts like Black Star actually show up and play. To do that though, you indeed may have to pay them.
So now Boston Calling has a headlining act that I can’t be sure people give a shit about. They have genre-centric acts such as Black Star and Janelle Monae cancelling because of things like, uh, not getting paid. The promoters’ heads are falling off. Just an overall disaster which again, to be completely pessimistic, could lead to the downfall of what has become a cool feather in the cap of Boston in the summer. There’s a thousand things that go into promoting and booking an event of this magnitude and I’m sure my basic brain just doesn’t get it, but a lot of this looks clumsy, foolhardy. Or maybe they just asked the wrong cross section of BU students living in Allston who they should have play the show.
I just hope this isn’t it. As my friends and I have one by one crossed the threshold of our third decade, I could see myself getting to maybe one or two more Boston Callings depending on the acts. But the accounting and the booking is not my responsibility. Showing up, getting hammered and resisting paying for a $300.00 Lyft home because of surge, is. So get it together, promoter people. Our city has come to depend on you.
AllHipHop – Rapper Machine Gun Kelly had to halt a concert in Florida over the weekend after suffering chest pains onstage….. “I got punched in the chest 65 times,” he told fans when the gig resumed with Kelly still in pain, according to TMZ.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would say this but I have some empathy for Machine Gun Kelly, known to his JNCO-wearing fans as MGK, here. We’ve all been there. Something happens to you that is either humiliating or where you need to find another explanation for your behavior/appearance. So you go off the dome, you think, act, and drop excuses on the fly. It’s a 50/50 game, for most people.
I happen to be an expert in this area. For instance, when I was 23 a friend of mine got into a scuffle outside of a bar. I tried to subdue his assailant and in turn was bit right on the jawline. I indeed had a big boy, real-life job by then and now had to explain come Monday why I had a Goddam bitemark on my face. Solution? Known to hoop on the occasional weekend I spun the tale of catching an errant fingernail from a less than courteous opponent in a pick up game. Appropriate sympathy was rendered and received.
So back to our friend Em Gee Kay. He very clearly got the shit kicked out of him. I’m very aware that for whatever batshit reason he is being cast in a movie or two nowadays, but no record label/agent is allowing their bird-chested cash cow to get the snot beat out of him on a movie set, it is not permissible. On the other hand, said cash cow is one of the most obnoxious personalities in music today so what totally makes sense is someone simply kicking the shit out of him without permission. Consider the following: whether or not you like Machine Gun Kelly’s music, would it reaaaally shock you if an unsavory character saw him out somewhere and made a quick assessment of, “mmm, nah, fuck that guy,” thus proceeding to engage in fisticuffs? Wouldn’t shock me one bit, no sir.
However I’m not ending this blog with a “that’s what you get,” because I am if nothing else a lover of music, particularly when consuming it live. So this assaulter of Machine Gun Kelly owes approximately 5,000 13 year olds about 40 bucks each. Not cool man. That’s $200,000.00 worth of fights with step dads to get to go to a show only to have the headliner cancel due to an ass kicking. Not a way any young man/woman should have to meet his/her hero.
Yahoo – Rapper Bun B shot an armed man who broke into his Houston home, pointed a gun at his wife and tried to steal his car, according to police.
My knee-jerk, shooting from the hip (PUNS!) reaction to this story is that this is like the diner scene in “Pulp Fiction” if Jules Winnfield had decided existentialism could fuck itself and just blown Ringo’s head clear off. The would be car thief in this story, much-like Ringo in the aforementioned Tarantino classic, had no idea that he was about to take up arms against, as they say, a real one. In that sense, both low-grade scamps can almost be seen as sympathetic figures.
However like most stories your favorite blogger of the random and obscure indites these days, this one has layers, like an onion.
The first layer is the largest, and is called “this is fucking Texas”. The very second I land in Texas I assume everyone from the guy behind the counter at Whataburger to the little girl selling lemonade is strapped. The fact that this Albert McGlone-wannabe thought he was going to shove his way into a random house in Texas and steal a car unscathed is completely batshit. Robbing a home in Texas, in short, is no saner than robbing a gun store.
Secondly, you kind of have to assume he knew this was Bun B’s house. Why else would he go straight to the garage, where an Audi was parked? And assuming he knew this was Bun B, don’t you think that maybe kind of sort of he should have thought twice before trying to steal his car? I mean look, not all rappers have guns and Bun isn’t a “I got guns” kind of rapper for the most part, but in the LEAST you gotta figure a guy with his kind of money has a sick security system? I mean my MAN what the fuck was going through your head?
Lastly, and this is more about professional pride, but I feel like as a criminal if you are engaged in a shootout it’s your duty to hit your target. I WOULD NEVER want Bun B injured. But if you choose a life of crime as a career and proceed to break into a man’s home, run into his garage, hop into his car, and then engage in a a gunfight, it is in the job description you at least hit a kneecap. Is it too much to ask for competent armed robberies?
To restate the title of this #2019NFLDraft night blog: Please do not try and rob Bun B or you will be shot. Furthermore, The 300s does not condone any kind of armed robbery, even when done correctly.
OK. Very rarely will you see me writing a piece about the music industry; that’s typically Red or Joey Ballgame territory. But if you haven’t seen the new video that Lil Dicky (in conjunction with a ton of other big-name artists) dropped last night, you need to. Like right now. Even if you have no idea who Lil Dicky is (and to be honest, I barely do myself), I promise you will not be disappointed.
The song is called “Earth,” and it’s all about how awful and dangerous climate change is. Now, the message itself is nothing profound. And to be honest, if you disagree with any of what they’re saying at this point then I doubt you even possess the ability to be reading this article anyway.
But to see this many big names get together to create a song with such an important purpose is really refreshing. Not only that, but the theme of the video (where basically each artist is represented as an animal or small non-human being in animated form) is also really fun – and outright hysterical at certain moments (e.g. Snoop as a giant pot plant or hearing Lil Jon’s voice screaming “WHAT THE FUCK? I’M A CLAM??!!”).
Again, I doubt that this will be the cure-all for the worldwide epidemic that is climate change. But there are people out there who might actually be influenced by some of their favorite celebrities voicing their support for the cause. And if that gets at least some out there to pay even a little more attention, then well done, David Andrew Burd (that’s Lil Dicky’s real name apparently). Either way, I can think of worse ways to spend seven minutes of my time.
Without further ado, here it is for your Friday afternoon viewing pleasure:
I have absolutely zero idea what is going on here, but I am all about it. Kanye has been recording his upcoming album Yandhi, which was supposed to be released at the end of 2018 but got pushed back.
It felt so good being on the stage last night with my brother Cudi. After performing again, I realize the new album I’ve been working on isn’t ready yet. I’ll announce the release date once it’s done. Thank you for understanding.
Now Kanye had a lot of bad press last year with his Trump tirade and received mixed reviews on his two projects Kids See Ghosts and Ye. I enjoyed both, but they each felt like a mixtape more than individual completed albums. So maybe he’s doubling down his efforts to put together something special. The guy is no stranger to tweaking his work until the last second, most notably when he essentially crowdsourced Life of Pablo and changed some songs on the albums AFTER it had already been released.
So while I have no idea what in the hell is going on in that above Kanye video, it looks like it JAMS. If Yandhi is anything like his previous christ-like self titled album, Yeezus, then we are in for a trip. Yeezus was yet another example of Kanye releasing music that was ahead of its time that seemed to be bizarre, out there, and borderline manic, but quickly implanted itself in your brain and became unforgettable.
The 300s 