Prompted By Populate

[unlixes]

I've done that thing that selects some of your interests and makes you write about them. Dunno why since that's all this journal is but I guess it kinda forces you to talk about someone you might otherwise not bother with. Hi there Shystie, Phi-Life. Long time no appear on these pages.

1. blur:
   Who doesn't like Blur. Lots of people, and understandably. They're shit these days and they were a relatively acquired taste even back then. They remain on my interests list, though, because Blur, the album, got me into music I think. It was my first indie album, probably a year after it was first released and while I bought it for Song 2 I loved it for Death Of A Party. That's what I wanted. Songs that softly but surely decayed from the inside. That's what I wanted all along but I never knew it.
2. data panik:
   Data Panik are what everyone always says Bis were. Sculptors of music that is fine and well crafted, imaginative and intricate but ultimately just top-volume dancefloorparty crazytime. I'm sure there are subtleties to the two Data Panik songs I own (two of four that seem to exist) and if I sit and listen to them I can hear it but. The genius, really, is that when you listen to them you don't really want to sit at all.
3. fujiya & miyagi:
   I'm glad these guys got chosen because they're probably my most longstanding un-underlined band and they are one of my all-time favourites. I don't really need to talk any more about them because they've already had numerous column inches here but needles to say, yes yes yes. Please release a new album.
4. kano:
   K to the izzay, N to the izzo. Everyone's favourite Grime pretty bwoy himself, beholden of some of the finest, most comprehensively complete anthems the scene's produced. None of this stupid eight bar nonsense wherein some two bit MC who's only ever written sixteen bars in his life anyway rhymes the same word four times then "run again"s it. These were songs. Admittedly the album's a bit less street than I'd like in places but the street is still there.
5. mobb deep:
   I only own three Mobb Deep songs but they're three of the best I own. Quiet Storm, Burn (The Learning) and Got It Twisted. These songs spit venom on every line and even if they're not the best MCs in the business with those beats and that menace they're possibly the closest US Hip Hop gets to geniunely creeping up on your innocence and taking that shit.
6. phi-life cypher:
   Phi Life Phi Life, still on here because it's hard to take them off, really. Although I will pretty soon. Their album, the one that I own, Millenium Metaphors, is a showcase of lyrical dexteritory. ABC and BBC are two fantastic tunes but the boys are just a little off beat and a little too hypocritical for my liking. They talk about drugs being bad then talk about the problems with not being allowed to smoke weed. Conscious hip hop that's good but, still, a bit pious.
7. shystie:
   Wow. Who knew my list was so heavy on the urrrban, mate, urrrbaan. Shystie's okay. Frankly, she's in this list cuz I like her voice and because Armshouse is one of my all time favourite Grime tunes. The rest of her album fits and starts and only really gets off the ground in places. Again, a bit too sentimental. Ron E Red Eyes is the real star of it. Maybe I'll put him on the list instead.
8. the boxer rebellion:
   I like The Boxer Rebellion. Even if they are on Poptones and have had a mp3 only single, their music is good. From the single In Pursuit, my first encounter with them, I was expecting a little more searing music from the album but The New Heavy and Watermelon, from their debut and two tracks that did make it onto the album, they also show a more direct, brutal side. Both work well. Good band. Not one you'd pin the hopes of the human race on but not one I'm gonna criticise here.
9. the streets:
   The Streets. The oft pluralised Mike Skinner and occasionally his mates Leo The Lion or Kevin Mark Trail, but The Streets is Mike Skinner, the Brixton born, Birmingham raised, Brixton based wideboy of Blinded By The Lights fame. Not the most talented MC, not the most consistently good producer but someone who can take risks and when he comes up trumps can really, really give up the goods.
10. ¡forward, russia!:
    Aaah. Excellent. ¡Forward, Russia!. I've supposed to be singing their praises. I got their single, Thirteen/Fourteen, and my word it's an absolute belter. Exactly why Leeds is back on the map. It's edgy and barely compromised, it's entirely unalienating without being a pop song and it's caustic and it's interesting and different without forgetting the audience. Roll on an album.

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