ClawFinger [Eponymous]

Trawling through YouTube one day, i came across ClawFinger, and straight away i liked them, they're really 'in yer face', they swear a fair deal, so be prepared if that offends you, but their lyrics have some great meaning, ironic one moment, political another, they can have fun too, i would call them a Metal Rap band, now i certainly have a hang up about Rap music, there's so much bad Rap out there, but this album proves there's good stuff too, if only you search for it.

ClawFinger are a Swedish band, now broken up, supposedly they finished last year, after hearing them on YouTube, i thought 'which album should i go for?', and of course i'm always drawn to the visuals, and this one's a stunner, showing the cylinder of a six shooter gun, and one bullet in the chamber on the front, but none on the back, it represents russian roulette, put one bullet in one of the chamber, 'spin the wheel', and point it at your head and pull the trigger, can be 'played' solo, or as a sort of duel, love the visuals and its meaning, nice black / dark grey on white, the ClawFinger logo is great as well.

This is a two disc set, the main album is disc 1, and then there's a bonus album of remixes, the two tracks i enjoyed the most were, 
Do What I Say, on the remix disc, i just love the intro of the young boy singing in a nursery rhyme voice [0:10-0:19], 

when i grow up, there will be a day

when everybody has to do what i say

and this intro comes back a couple more times [1:55-2:29 & 3:24-4:00], but this time he adds the words,

when i grow up, there will be a day

when everybody has to do it my way

with the words 'my way' screamed!, like some sort of kiddie Frank Sinatra!, loved the way parents unwittingly teach their children to be bossy themselves when they grow up!.

I Can See Them Coming, this was my favourite track on disc 1, a guy who's his own number one fan!, love the intro, and the heavy exploding drum beats, seemingly a hitleresque megalomaniac, but in reality sits in a cell with a straitjacket on, some of the lyrics are a peach

i'm the best sex i've ever had

and,

i'm the atom bomb that i'll blow my world

all the way to my kingdom come

at the end it's wickedly funny, a guy going crazy and losing his mind, and mumbles and drools, with a nutty laugh to finish things off! [3:25-3:39].

Red Hot Chili Peppers [Blood Sugar Sex Magik] 

I haven't listened to this for ages, it's one of those discs that's buried in my collection, that only just scraped in with 'worthiness', and over the years has been on the fringe, but today i realise how very good it is, it uses a creative way with Rap [generally i don't like Rap], but it mixes it with Rock, the whole thing sounds like the RHCP were having fun and made up the whole thing as they went along, but you can also see how cleverly worked out each song is, the whole thing's very funky, and surprisingly it's got a lot of music on the disc [74 minutes], with 17 tracks, lots of albums fail because they have too much music on them, tracks of dubious quality can ruin an excellent album of 40 or 50 minutes of great tracks, but not here, everything's worthy of being on the album. 

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an American Band, they've had different line ups, and i guess this represents their middle period, they formed in 1983, and they made this album in 1991, the front cover shows the four band members with reptile tongues, each shows a head side profile in black & white, there's a lovely symmetry to the whole thing, with one word from their band name, and another from the album name, that creates four singular 'duo' names, hmmm, does it mean something?, the back inlay shows the track listing written out in handwritten pen, it actually works really well, nice and individual.

Well the tracks which really got me going were 4, 13 & 16, and here's a short synopsis of each, with links to YouTube to check out the songs.

4 Funky Monks - As the title suggests, a nice funky track, i love the way the second Vocalist repeats everything that the first one sings, and the chorus has a falsetto singer pronouncing 'you are all alone', very nice, the songs seeps of Funk.
13 Apache Rose Peacock - Another funky tracks, i love the chorus, the lead singer, he switches from a sort of Rap to singing more lyrically, it's fantastic, a toy piano comes in in the background [1:54-2:14], now i like that, it's very subtle, i love the way they use so many verses. 
16 Sir Psycho Sexy - Lovely track dripping in Funk, the Vocalist really lets go, great bubbly bass, and the falsetto backing singers singing 'Sir psycho sexy', the second verse is excellent, explicit lyrics, but it's the delivery that counts, and the way he sings 'automobile' is tremendous [2:07], xylophone comes in in the instrumental interlude [3:18+], a nice use of instruments unusual, the track lasts for over 8 minutes, and there's a long instrumental jam at the end.

Stereo MC's [Double Bubble]

I played this just over a year ago [25th February 2011], and marvelled then at how 'different' this album sounded, it was new territory for me, and yet at the same time i was really excited that i was opening up a new Pandora's box of strange sounds, that i was sure i would fall in love with, well one year on i can say this album has taken on some new deeper appreciation, some of the tracks which i liked a lot the first time around, i'm now beginning to love, especially the early tracks on disc one, and the music?, well it's hard to pigeonhole, there's certainly a sense of Rap Music in there, but they're very electronically dancey too, who cares about definitions, if it's great music it's great!.

The Stereo MC's are an English Band, formed in 1985, they started out more in the Britpop explosion, but i guess they're more like The Beastie Boys, or The Prodigy, this is like one and a half discs long, the bonus disc is less than 20 minutes, in fact both discs could have fitted on a single disc, so why the double album?, the album came out in 2008, the front cover is truly excellent, a simple set of rings, but subtly coloured to give the impression of 3D, also they have a tendency to feel that they're spinning!, a great simple idea, i like shapes.

Well the tracks i liked the best are 1, 3-4 & 11, last time i felt that track 11 'Human' was the track that caught my attention the most, on this listen i guess it's the opener 'Get On It', nice intro, giving off a nice beat, but it's when the vocals come in [0:16+] that it just blossoms out into something more atmospheric, and the keyboard synths bubble and scream, now that's a lovely slamming vibe!, the chorus goes 'get on it, get off it...', those keyboard synths, now they're infectious, after the third chorus the recording controls are pushed into overdrive [2:17-2:28], with a great big 'wooooo' at the end of it, and then a moment of magic as a real hard slamming echo beat follows [2:28-2:42], with a nice tribal drumming beat, at the end there's a fade-out with 'flarnham calling' [that's what it sounds like], while a jangly telephone bell rings [3:29+], the whole thing is fantastic!, and it's only one of many on the album, i need to check out some more Stereo MC's albums.

Here's the Stereo MC's playing 'Get On It' on YouTube.

Various Artists [Boom Selection 'The Essential Urban Soundtrack']

Now here's something really different from the usual in my Blog, some nice R n B / Hip Hop / Rap, yes i admit that there's a fair bit of these two discs that didn't hit the spot with me, but... i so much believe in delving into every genre of music, that i force myself to listen to even the fringes of my musical loves, there's great music everywhere in every genre of music if you so open your ears and crumble down the walls of prejudice, that's what i'm trying to do, to get away from becoming ever deeper entrenched in Classical music as an entity with the exclusion of all else, music is best listened to with the cross fertilization of all its genres. 

I once referred to Rap music as CRap music!, hahaha, well it's still not really my thing, and yet, someone who's creative, and has good music for the lyrics, can still amazingly make it work, yes there's a lot of crap Rap music out there, but don't discard it all, there's actually some gems lurking, this compilation was released in 2002, the front cover caught my eye [photo by Phil Silcock], a picture of a guy facing away from the camera, headphones over the ears, and that shaved head at the back, all couched in a blue tinge, and the gold lettering over the top, it really is a good visual product. 

Most of the tracks didn't do much for me, but even here i notice that a number have possibilities, and with some more listening they could really catch on, here's where i'm excited by music, the breaking down of hard fixed ideas, and realizing after all this time i've probably been wrong, it's like hating foreign food, but then one day you eat something, and suddenly your exploring Indian and Chinese etc, the three tracks that i really thought were excellent were 5-6 & 25, and here's a short synopsis of each of them,
5 Tweet - Oops Oh My, 
6 Missy Elliott - 4 My People, 
25 Mary J Blige - Family Affair,