Niggy Tardust
So I've been thinking about organizing my musical opinions into a separate blog and I decided to test drive the format I'm thinking of on the latest album that I have had a chance to hear. Thanks mom for getting this for me!
Artist: Saul Williams & Trent Reznor collaboration
Album: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust
*Genre: Industrial/spoken word/dirtysouth, Political, Profoundly Californian
Two Word Review: Prodigiously soulful
One Paragraph Review:
Saul Williams and Trent Reznor demonstrate the diversity in their artistic pallet by mashing their two music styles and extending the product into territory beyond what either artist has conquered. I look forward to seeing more from this creative relationship in my lifetime. I would recommend this album to any open minded individual seeking to understand culture clash on the most primal of levels, in music. This album isn't melodic, but it is beautiful, and that appeals only to a special kind of person.
My favorite Moments: the use of horns in "scared money" and the old-school public enemy-esque, flava flav-esque samples in "tr(n)igger".
Review (aka rant):
Lets just say that I have been anticipating the moment that I could hear this album for quite some time, and I have not been let down.
This album is way ahead of its time and I hope that people years from now will be able to recognize that. It represents the convergence of rock and rap in terms of core ideals instead of the superficial attempts of the tired 90's "numetal" bands. I say this because of the kind of syncretic trope that it uses. I don't think there is a band that has accomplished this sort of stuff since RATM.
NiggyTardust is full of those sweeping sound scapes and crunching grooves that Trent is famous for in his deep and emotional work with Nine inch nails. From begining to end you really feel that you are experiencing the articulate passion of Saul's political diction. But what's awesome about the way the music is delivered is that there is never a lack of patience. The album has a lot of room to build up and it has it's high and low points.
This collaboration and the quality of the work is a product of producing music for the sake of music and not billboard charts. This is the stuff that our dying music industry has needed for more than ten years now. So I hope people catch on and can find it in themselves to listen to the whole album... before musicians start to get panicky.**
Road blocks to acquiring a taste in this album:
Saul's voice has always been hard to get used to. He goes out of his way to express his lyricism and he's not very melodious or conventional about it. Sometimes his voice really attacks your nerves, but I think it's because he's sonically presenting emotions that aren't necessarily very enjoyable to experience in the first place. Which is an interesting road block for me because of the kinds of bands that I have become obsessed with like Meshuggah or Fushitsusha and in fact all of the work of Keiji Haino.
It's noisy. Life is noisy, get used to it. it's very.... avant-garde.
*I'll blog later on the whole genre or no genre discussion in music, but basically I believe that genres are made up of style, content, and place.
**For the record I will never read a news.com release seriously again. I have seen alot of bullshit come out of them but none more important than this one. But the truth of it is that musicians and record labels alike are getting a little silly about this stuff. In any case, remember teh review is just a test run...
Artist: Saul Williams & Trent Reznor collaboration
Album: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust
*Genre: Industrial/spoken word/dirtysouth, Political, Profoundly Californian
Two Word Review: Prodigiously soulful
One Paragraph Review:
Saul Williams and Trent Reznor demonstrate the diversity in their artistic pallet by mashing their two music styles and extending the product into territory beyond what either artist has conquered. I look forward to seeing more from this creative relationship in my lifetime. I would recommend this album to any open minded individual seeking to understand culture clash on the most primal of levels, in music. This album isn't melodic, but it is beautiful, and that appeals only to a special kind of person.
My favorite Moments: the use of horns in "scared money" and the old-school public enemy-esque, flava flav-esque samples in "tr(n)igger".
Review (aka rant):
Lets just say that I have been anticipating the moment that I could hear this album for quite some time, and I have not been let down.
This album is way ahead of its time and I hope that people years from now will be able to recognize that. It represents the convergence of rock and rap in terms of core ideals instead of the superficial attempts of the tired 90's "numetal" bands. I say this because of the kind of syncretic trope that it uses. I don't think there is a band that has accomplished this sort of stuff since RATM.
NiggyTardust is full of those sweeping sound scapes and crunching grooves that Trent is famous for in his deep and emotional work with Nine inch nails. From begining to end you really feel that you are experiencing the articulate passion of Saul's political diction. But what's awesome about the way the music is delivered is that there is never a lack of patience. The album has a lot of room to build up and it has it's high and low points.
This collaboration and the quality of the work is a product of producing music for the sake of music and not billboard charts. This is the stuff that our dying music industry has needed for more than ten years now. So I hope people catch on and can find it in themselves to listen to the whole album... before musicians start to get panicky.**
Road blocks to acquiring a taste in this album:
Saul's voice has always been hard to get used to. He goes out of his way to express his lyricism and he's not very melodious or conventional about it. Sometimes his voice really attacks your nerves, but I think it's because he's sonically presenting emotions that aren't necessarily very enjoyable to experience in the first place. Which is an interesting road block for me because of the kinds of bands that I have become obsessed with like Meshuggah or Fushitsusha and in fact all of the work of Keiji Haino.
It's noisy. Life is noisy, get used to it. it's very.... avant-garde.
*I'll blog later on the whole genre or no genre discussion in music, but basically I believe that genres are made up of style, content, and place.
**For the record I will never read a news.com release seriously again. I have seen alot of bullshit come out of them but none more important than this one. But the truth of it is that musicians and record labels alike are getting a little silly about this stuff. In any case, remember teh review is just a test run...