100 Albums That Make Me Love Music - 33. Pharcyde: Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

33. The Pharcyde: Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde

Kanye West calls this the best rap album of all time. He might not be too far from the truth. Personally I’m surprised he didn’t name one of his own albums the greatest of all time but whatever I’ll just be happy that I agree with the man on at least one thing.

While East Coast groups like De La Soul where creating upbeat and happy hip-hop most of the west coast was filled with a much more gangsta rap style of hip-hop. Then came Pharcyde. These 4 MCs (and the incredible production of J-Swift) helped to create a style of alternative hip hop that allowed groups like Jurassic 5 or Del the Funkee Homo-Sapian to exploded. It blended jazzy beats and good humored satirical lyrics to create an album that’s hilarious, strange and also very sincere.

You have songs like “Oh Shit” (my personal favorite song) or “On the DL” where members SlimKid 3, Imani, Fatlip and Bootie Brown rap about the embarressing drunken hook-ups and events in their life they want to kept from their friends. Then you have a song like Ya Mama which literally involves the group swapping your mama jokes. The strangest moment on the album comes in For Better, For Worse in which rapper Fatlip’s verse is in the style of a harassing prank phone call. The only person besides Fatlip that could have ever pulled off a verse like this and come off funny and awesome would be the late great Ol Dirty Bastard.

The album received mixed reviews when it was first released but has since become a classic appearing in The Source Magazines 100 greatest rap albums list and the list of 1001 albums to hear before you die. Despite the praise the album only sold moderately and all their subsequential albums didn’t receive nearly the same level of praise.

The album still managed to go gold based on the single Passin’ Me By which is one of the most sincere and honest loves songs in hip-hop history. On the track each MC tells a story of their failure to get the girl of the dreams, containing lines like ‘Sometimes a twinkle in her eye is just a twinkle in her eye’ and ‘My Dear, My Dear, My Dear, you do not know me by I know you very well’. The group shamelessly discusses their failures at love, a topic most other rappers would never discuss.

Self Observational Sunday: Pop Goes the Music!

So two weeks ago I had to DJ two parties. I had to DJ a sweet sixteen party and a high school graduation. For a few years I've really crapped on how awful music is now, but I have a confession... there were a lot of songs I ended up enjoying finally hearing them and seeing them fill a dance floor.

Here's the thing, I'm not saying that these are incredible ground breaking songs. I just think that I've been really scrutinizing kids for listening to music not of the quality of what I grew up with. While today's modern music isn't better than the 90's music (because despite what people will have you to believe 90's radio was the best time of radio).

What I've noticed is that in the 90's we had these completely upbeat songs. The 5 most popular songs from 1999 are songs like Mambo #5, Baby One More Time and Blue

In the 2000's we suddenly had more music like Staind, Nickelback and Creed in the top 10. There was still pop songs that did well but angry and dark music really started to blow up on the radio. I genuinely believe that this drastic shift all occurred because of September 11th. You can seen the difference in music video imagery. Before that point almost all the music videos were bright colors and clean images.  Even bands like Limp Bizkit and KoRn's videos from the 90's have an overwhelming glow to them. From 2001 until roughly the end of MTV videos took a darker and minimalistic appearance.

Here's what I discovered I loved that weekend. Artists like Ke$ha (We R Who We R) and Owl City (Good Time) or even LMFAO (Party Rock Anthem) are not amazing musicians, songwriters or even singers ... but what they do provide is a very positive and optimistic style of song. I didn't want to like these songs, I fought against their charms with all my might but I can't deny their infectious upbeat vibes when I hear the songs!

I'm ashamed to admit liking these songs, but I'll never deny that I do enjoy them.

100 Movies That Make Me Love Film: 34. Rushmore

34. Rushmore

I will never totally understand why my parents EVER rented this movie. It’s definitely not their type of movie at all. All I can assume is that they saw Bill Murray was in it and figured why not. Either way I remember they watched it, hated it and recommended it to me. I was confused by it.

You see when I saw Rushmore I was in Junior High. The film didn’t make me laugh, but I didn’t hate it... I just couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t until I was in High School and I watched Royal Tenenbaums that I started to understand the movie. Still I didn’t revisit Rushmore throughout my high school career, nor most my college career. In fact it was during my last semester of college when I was working at a video store when I finally rewatched it, almost 10 years after it’s release.

I suddenly loved it and it immediately became my favorite Wes Anderson film. I understand why this is one of his most praised films (if not his best). This is where you truly see what we’ve come to know as ‘Wes Anderson’s Style’. While Bottle Rocket contained elements of his style it mostly felt like a typical indie film, Rushmore began his ‘Movies that feel like Plays’ style of filmmaking. 

In that year of rediscovery I must have watched this film damn near 50 times. I can quote it by memory at this point and frequently reference in my day to day life. It’s a must see for the Indie Film Kid.

100 Albums That Make Me Love Music: 34. The Ergs - dorkrockcorkrod

34. The Ergs: Dorkrockcorkrod

I remember going through a break-up in late 2008 when a friend told me that this was his favorite break-up album. He offered to send me the whole album but I requested he just send me a track or two that would convince me to buy it from the band (I don’t like getting free albums weird I know). So he sent me Pray For Rain and Everything Falls Apart ... And More. I really dug both songs and decided I did want to pick up the record.

The Ergs made their full length debut with this fun pop punk concept album. The album follows the process of a relationship. The album kicks off (First Song, Side One & A Very Pretty Song For A Very Special Young Lady) with lead singer Mikey Erg confessing his love to an unnamed girl. However the album reaches Pray For Rain where Mikey explains that since falling in love his songwriting has suffered. He begins hoping for the eventual break-up so he can write an incredible break up album.

Eventually he writes his songs but misses his lady.

The concept is a weird and straight but is also an insightful look at the world of Pop Punk and songwriting in general. If you’re a fan of quick old school pop punk like MxPx this album is a necessary record to have in your collection.

Self Observational Sunday: ReSTARTed

So this is going to be a short one and has less to do with myself and more to be a rant about me calling bullshit on a band.

So with Describing the Moon being complete and moving into pre-production I've been doing some research on Kickstarter to see if this is a decent way to fund the movie or not. I discovered there is a page of the top funded projects. So I went to music in order to see where Five Iron Frenzy (my all time favorite band) fell as I knew they went well above their requested funds. That's when I saw this:

I don't care that Mindless Self Indulgence raised about 15k more than Five Iron Frenzy. What bothers me is the difference in percentage. MSI's $225,045 funding was only 150% over their goal ($150,000) while Five Iron's $207,980 is 693% over (only requesting $30,000).  

I can't wrap my head around that. How does it cost $30,000 for an 8 piece band that lives scattered across the US to record a full length (who haven't been active for 9 years mind you) but a band that's still together with just 4 bands (and mostly just recorded by 1 dude) cause Five Times that? 

The worst part is while Five Iron's page gives you a detailed explanation of what the money will be used for, the Mindless Self Indulgence page basically is just 2 minutes of people saying "I want my Mindless Self Indulgence album" and lead singer Jimmy Urine saying "Well then you gotta pay us to do it." And idiots threw money at them. I almost guarantee that $20,000 went to record the album and Jimmy Urine walked off with $130,000 in pocket.

Kickstarter Research Conclusion: People are idiots and there's no correct way to get people to give you money.

100 Movies That Make Me Love Film: 35. Star Wars

35. Star Wars: A New Hope

Before I say anything about this movie I will state that I full acknowledge Empire to be the best of the trilogy. That being said, I love A New Hope. There’s something charming about the low-budget film that no one knew what to expect from. The effects don’t hold up sometimes (but still look better than any addition CGI bullshit) and as you grow up you realize Luke is SUPER whiny it doesn’t make the movie any less impressive or important.

However more than any other reason I love this movie for nostalgia sake. The film reminds me of spending time with my dad. This was one of the few films that we both equally loved. Being that my dad was quite the athlete while I was not we rarely had things to bond over. But I remember the day he showed me Star Wars.

When I was very young (about 4) we were at my aunt and uncle’s house. Everyone was watching Spaceballs. I wandered upstairs and started watching it, suddenly there was an alien exploding out of a guys stomach. Yes this was a PG-13 comedy making fun of the infamous and gory sequence from Alien, but to 4 year old me it was some of the scariest shit I’d ever seen. I immediately ran from the room crying.

A few months later my dad decided he wanted to show me Star Wars, at first I wanted nothing to do with the movie. The second I saw Darth Vader I thought I was going to see an alien explode out of someone’s stomach. He promised me that doesn’t happen and I sat and watched it.

The next week, we watched it again. And the following week, again. Every Friday night my dad and I would cook some burgers, make a milkshake and watch Star Wars. Eventually I watched the whole series and he’d tell me the stories of ‘how Vader got burnt up’ and lots of other backstories. To this day I don’t know how he knew these things because my dad isn’t the kind of person to read or do research, however he would have been 18 when A New Hope came out... I’d love to hear his story of seeing it for the first time. 

It’s these moments of childhood nostalgia, the fairy tale quality of the film, the charm, the moral and overwhelming good triumphs over evil aspect that makes me love this film. Future films got darker, with better dialogue and more elaborate special effects and creatures but A New Hope will always hold a special place in my heart.

100 Albums That Make Me Love Music: 35. Five Iron Frenzy - Our Newest Album Ever!

35. Five Iron Frenzy: Our Newest Album Ever

Five Iron Frenzy is my absolute favorite band ever. Since the first time I saw them live I knew I was experiencing a very different band. I saw them at my first concert. I was there to see the Supertones (who at the time I only knew 1 song by). It was the SkaMania 98 tour featuring Insyderz and Five Iron Frenzy. While Insyderz and Supertones took the stage as very serious christian bands who while having fun definitely had a message to send Five Iron took the stage in Star Trek costumes and had a lot of fun making pop culture references.

I hate that I didn’t know who they were at the time so I was unable to sing along with their songs but the performance always stuck with me. Later that same year I heard One Girl Army, These Are Not My Pants and Dandelions (all from Quantity is Job 1) and picked up that album. It was okay, but nothing to write up about.

It wasn’t until I picked up Our Newest Album Ever a few months later that I saw what made this band so special. This album in 13 tracks perfectly covered both the silly to the beautifully poetic. While their career has always been filled with interesting moments ONAE was/is/will always be their masterpiece and the fan favorite. The album is so well loved by the band and fans that both of their live albums contain more songs off of it than any other FIF album.

Their silly songs are at their silliest (Suckerpunch, Oh Canada), their satirical songs are at their must lyrically intelligent (Litmus, Handbook for the Sellout) and of course it contains their Free Bird, Every New Day. 

Even in the documentary The Rise & Fall of Five Iron Frenzy the band talks about how it’s undisputedly the most popular song in their history (by both the fans and the band). They talk about how every performance has a magical effect on audiences where they all sing as one. Having seen Five Iron live multiple times I can speak of the immense power this song has when heard/seen live.

This is simply a great record. Regardless of christian or not there’s plenty to love on this album.