Get Fresh Batteries If It Don't Rewind

I'll close out this week in old school hip hop by posting the first big hit for LL Cool J, released way back in 1985. It's a testament to him that someone who started out in the mid 80's is still around releasing records. The Kangol hat-wearing hip hop icon has released fast paced tunes like "Mama Said Knock You Out", the famed ballad "I Need Love", and even as of last year has had songs on the R&B charts. Admittedly, I thought "Headsprung" was terrible, but the late 90's jam "Phenomenon" is some good shit. Plus, he's been in TV shows and movies so he has had one hell of a career. He calls himself the "G.O.A.T." (Greatest Of All Time) after an old Muhammad Ali saying, and it's not so ridiculous.

Here is his first song on the chart, "I Just Can't Live Without My Radio," produced by the great Rick Rubin very early in his career. Here all you have is J's vocal, a constantly ticking high hat, a pounding drumbeat, some scratching in the middle of the song, and short blasts of horns, and it's great as he raps about his big boombox that he loves to carry around with him at all times (yes, for you youngins, this is what some people used to hear music before the days of iPods).

LL Cool J-"I Just Can't Live Without My Radio" (7.50 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/vVsglc233229/LL%20Cool%20J-I%20Just%20Can%27t%20Live%20Without%20My%20Radio.MP3.html

Oh, and to address something that I read on another website, it'd be inaccurate to portray me as someone who enjoys everything that Missy Elliott puts out. I mean, for example, when she bleated like a sheep on "Gossip Folks" or "Pass The Dutch",that was just terrible (thankfully for the former, the song is saved by Ludacris, something you can't say about the latter). But, she's had some kick-ass songs, such as "We Run This", "Get UR Freak On" (the remix with Nelly Furtado was even better, although the downside is that it gave Ms. Furtado the idea to abandon her unique sound and become another random pop chanteuse, which except for "Maneater" has proved to be a TERRIBLE idea), and "Work It".

I'll be back on Thursday with a rather odd video download.

And You Can't Explain Why You Claimed Your Cat

I know, I'm late with this. I was just swamped with things to do today and I didn't have a whole lotta time to write this until now. Funny thing is, this is going to be pretty short and sweet. Hopefully at least some of you are familiar with Kurtis Blow and his famed song "The Breaks", which oddly enough is the only song of his I really cared for ("Basketball" didn't do a lot for me). But, The Breaks is a monster jam. Besides it being very Goddamn funky, you also have Kurtis humorously rapping about how everyone experiences bad breaks in their life (such as dealing with the IRS, people who go to dinner with you but they make you pay the bill, and so on and so forth), but you should just go with the flow, which is a good life lesson overall. Don't be downtrodden by the bad things in life-enjoy all the good shit instead.

It should be noted that with the mainstream popularity Kurtis experienced, he was accused of being a "sell-out", so it's a phenomenon that has existed for years in the hip hop game. The music industry and its fans are quite interesting; as they rise up you feel happy to support something that isn't popular, but if they do become hot like gangbusters, you tend to drop them like a habit. Most of the time I don't get it myself, but alas...

Kurtis Blow-"The Breaks" (10.90 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/cZ9w8W232240/Kurtis%20Blow-The%20Breaks.MP3.html

I'll be back on Tuesday with the last song for this old school week.

And I Got More Rhymes Than A Bank Got Dimes

This selection came when I was reading a random webpage one day and they mentioned Jimmy Spicer, an old hip-hop performer who had a long song known as "The Adventures of Super Rhymes" where he raps for almost 15 minutes straight with a unique sounding voice and delivery. I downloaded the song and what was said about it was true. If you can believe it, he raps about:

Being a rapper from "another planet"

Being Dracula and going to Studio 54 in NYC (!)

Being Aladdin and going to 1980

And more. It sounds odd, sure, but he has some great rhymes, as you can see here. The beat is pretty catchy too.

I know, the songs this week don't talk about "making it rain", or which skeezy bitch he wants to get wit, or tramps and ho's, or his bling and 23 inch rims or pouring out a 40 for his dead homey, but it's always nice to see a guy pimp himself without using constant vulgarities (I think Lil Jon's head would explode if he tried to do that for more than a minute at a time!) and use some unique rhymes too (and being able to understand the rapper is another important thing; sometimes I think there are too many guys out there who either rap way too fast or are total mushmouths). Hopefully you'll agree with me on this.

Jimmy Spicer-"The Adventure of Super Rhymes" (13.17 MB, 128 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/7cOXo230773/Jimmy%20Spicer%20-%20The%20Adventures%20Of%20Super%20Rhymes%20(1).mp3.html

I'll be back on Sunday with another tune.

Don't Push Me, 'Cause I'm Close To The Edge

One of the most important artists in the rap genre all time (let alone old school hip hop) is Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, who in a few weeks will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside such people as R.E.M. and Van Halen. This album is a cursory but still important glance at explaining why they're renowned. Even though they were only together for a few years the Furious Five left an indelible mark on the genre. If you're familiar with them, it's probably due to "The Message", the first ever rap where social issues are discussed and mentioned in a serious manner. Before that, though, their records either showed off Flash's scratching skills or were party records featuring kazoos (really).

The first song I'm putting up is known as "The Birthday Song". While it's not the best of their party joints, I have to put it up today, as February 22nd happens to be my birthday. That's right, I turned 26 today even though I still look like I'm a teenager! You'll get to hear that, indeed, they used kazoos as an instrument for everyone to get down to.

The second song is a similar song to "The Message" in that they talk about serious social issues. This is "New York New York", where you get to hear about a person jumping off the ledge due to problems in his life, someone having to eat dog food as he can't afford real food, prostitution, and most heartbreaking, a young mother putting her newborn child in a trashcan as she can't afford to feed both. It shows the darker side of inner city life and its importance is showing how too many people have to live in that environment. Don't worry, though, the song is very catchy too.

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five-"The Birthday Song" (7.93 MB, 192
Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/uCEnmz230124/Grandmaster%20Flash%20_%20The%20Furious%20Five-The%20Birthday%20Song.MP3.html

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five-"New York New York" (9.94 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/JDS8CA0230127/Grandmaster%20Flash%20_%20The%20Furious%20Five-New%20York%20New%20York.MP3.html

Friday afternoon I'll post a more upbeat tune.

Hey, it's still Tuesday night over on the West Coast…

It's appropriate for me to start off this old school hip hop week by uploading what was the first ever successful hip hop song, even though The Sugarhill Gang weren't exactly a well-respected "crew" by any means. That's right, it's the classic "Rapper's Delight". Everyone is familiar with it, but I don't know how many have heard the full album version, all 14 and a half minutes of it. As it's such a historic song, it pays to hear the full version rather than any edited version of it, right?

In my opinion, even better than "Rapper's Delight" is their song "Apache", which samples a song from the 70's with the same title. I'll always remember the song and attach it to the memory of some pro wrestlers at a Hooters after a show (don't ask).

Some of you may be familiar with "Apache" due to it being sampled by Missy Elliott in her song "We Run It", which was a song I liked, meaning that you only heard it for about one week on the radio stations (you can't get in the way of such genius songs as "Fergalicious" now, can we?). I'll upload that too, for a nice threesome.

I'll be back sometime Thursday afternoon (I promise!)

Sugarhill Gang-"Rapper's Delight" (19.87 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/P23On2q229194/Rapper%27s%20Delight-The%20Sugarhill%20Gang.MP3.html

Sugarhill Gang-"Apache" (8.57 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/ZyGJvtT229195/Sugarhill_Gang_-_Apache.MP3.html

Missy Elliott-"We Run This" (4.70 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/gsLPR229196/Missy%20Elliott%20-%20We%20Run%20This.MP3.html

Happy President's Day

It would be the ironic thing for me to pick a political song where countries such as the US are bashed in honor of President's Day. I don't mean to be a hipster here but that's exactly what I am going to do. This song is a meeting between punk and hip-hop (or even funk). It is a record from Time Zone, a group put together by Afrika Bambattaa. A guest vocalist on this record, known as "World Destruction", is John Lydon, best known as Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols and Public Image LTD. It's a totally bizarre idea for a duet, and yet, it ends up working as the music behind the lyrics is awesome and funky and both guys do a great job of singing their political manifesto about how things (according to many people) got fucked up in the Reagan-era 80's. This isn't really a place to talk about politics, but even if you don't agree with what they said, you should still enjoy what's a damn good song from the 80's.

Time Zone-"World Destruction" (7.68 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bestsharing.com/files/nMCfx3228466/World%20Destruction-Time%20Zone.MP3.html

I'm trying out a new service where you just click on the link and it sends you to a page where you can click on another link and it will download the MP3 right onto your computer without having to unzip it by WinZip or another similar service. I'm sure everyone thinks that's a better and easier way to d/l songs.

Starting tomorrow is my Old School Hip Hop week.

I'm Pushing Things Back A Day

I've been swamped the past few days, so instead of posting a tune today and starting the old school hip hop thing on Monday, I'm just pushing things back a day, so the hip hop week will start on Tuesday, and on Monday I'll post a song that isn't related to the week but is still quite good.

Qu'est-ce que c'est

Here is a song that is a cover of a well-known tune by The Talking Heads. While I'm not a fan of all of their songs, some of them are quite awesome. The live version of "Life During Wartime" especially kicks ass in several different shades.

The song I'm talking about here, though, is "Psycho Killer", originally recorded by The Talking Heads but this version I'm putting up is from a live concert from a band known as The Faint. Yeah, not the best song for Valentine's Day, but alas... I found it one day while randomly searching for songs. It was a tremendous discovery. As I can't find any site that has a working download of it, that's why I am going to put it up myself.

I don't know if it's this concert, but here's a link anyway. While I think the original version from the Heads is pretty damn good (hey, they made a catchy song about a *serial killer*, after all, and it wasn't a total bomb or failure), what The Faint did with it was great. They made it very catchy (and funky too), the sound quality is quite good, and overall, it was a cover that did nothing to insult the original song, which is what seems to happen way too often these days (Rascal Flatt's version of "Life Is A Highway", anyone?)

The Faint-"Psycho Killer" (Live) (6.44 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=AEEF3DB0

I will post my next song sometime later in the week. I will announce now, though, that next week will be devoted to old school hip hop uploads and I might have a new uploading service that is better than Bigupload too; you know, one that's devoted to hosting music files. Maybe that would get more people to download these little buggers...

No Update Today

I apologize but I got swamped with things to do today, but I know I'll do some posts later in the week so stay tuned!

Limp Bizkit? More Like Shit Biscuit To Me!

I was never a fan of Limp Bizkit or the crappy brand of "nu metal" they introduced onto the world. They only served to propogate that god-awful version of rock music and almost all of their songs were totally worthless. So of course they became massively popular in the late 90's with that desecration of the George Michael classic "Faith" and in 1999, "Nookie" was everywhere. Having to hear the album "Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavored Water" (worst name for an album in history? Yes) constantly during my freshman year in college on my dorm room floor was pretty annoying. Yet, they seemed to shoot themselves in the foot with Fred Durst's constant dickheadedness and feuds with bands and musicians that were much better than he and his crappy little band. I'd have to say that guitarist Wes Borland's departure from the group really ruined them, as it took them 3 years to record another album, and by then most people didn't seem to give a crap about them anymore. I don't know if they moved on to other trends, or they finally recognized that the idols they briefly worshipped weren't all that, or what else it could've been, but when there used to be a horde of Bizkit fans, now you'd be hard pressed to find even one. And thank Jesus for that, as the music scene is better without them being one of the major acts in the industry. I mean, that song "Hot Dog", where they bash Nine Inch Nails (guys, Trent Reznor would murder all of you guys at the same time) and having the song contain over 50 usages of the term "fuck", and even brag about how often they drop the f-bomb… that was the nadir of their career. As Marilyn Manson once said of them, ""Limp Bizkit is a band made up of illiterate apes that beat your ass in high school for being a 'fag' now sell you tuneless testosterone anthems of misogyny and pretend to be outsiders..."

Yet, I'm going to post a remix of one of their tunes. It's from their "New Old Songs" remix album. I downloaded it in my dorm room during my sophomore year, as I heard online it was pretty good. And it was. I can't tell you much about DJ Monk or The Track Mack, both of whom worked on the track, but they created what I remembered being described then as an "industrial new surf music sound", and that's the best description I can come up with. It's very catchy and not like the original version of "Rollin'". I downloaded some other tracks off the album and they certainly vary in quality. There's another song or two I could post, but maybe I'll do it on a later date. For now here is a song you may want to say "Surf's Up!" to.

"Rollin' (DJ Monk-vs-The Track Mack Remix)" (9.10 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=B2DA3D28

I'll be back on Monday with a new song to post.

My Best Friend Told Me You're The Best Lick In Town

"Once Bitten Twice Shy" is arguably Great White's most famous song (their most famous moment is, unfortunately, that nightclub fire in Rhode Island from almost 4 years ago, which made them the target of ridicule, mainly by lonely and pathetic radio DJ's, a job that if you don't have to speak, a monkey could do just about as well in! My favorite song of theirs is "Rock Me"; eventually I'll post one of their works) and most people think that the band very similar to Led Zeppelin wrote it themselves, but those people are wrong. Instead it was a song written and first performed by Ian Hunter, the former lead singer of the British rock band Mott the Hoople. "Once Bitten Twice Shy" was put on a solo album after he left that band. As much as I like Great White's version, I think the original is better. It's quite catchy and has a nice piano part too. It's yet another treasure of a song I discovered on the Rockin' 70's album.

Ian Hunter, "Once Bitten Twice Shy", (5.33 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=2073DEDF

Friday afternoon I'll post a remix of a song that actually makes me like what me and others find to be a complete joke of a band, a fact that most people figured out only after a few years of them being popular.

Push It To The Limit

I can't really encapsulate why I feel this way but ever since I've first heard the song "Hustlin'" and seen what Rick Ross looks like, I think he's one cool motherfucker. Pardon my cursing, but he is. He's a big guy who has a great beard and just looks like a pimp to me, not to mention he's a pretty good rapper that is from the state of Florida. Now, there's a remix of "Hustin'" I love even more than the original that I will upload one of these days, but today I'm going to put up a remix of his song Push It (the song that samples Paul Engemann's "Scarface (Push It To The Limit)" from the classic 80's film.)

I think the remix is even better than the original, something that you can not always say about rap remixes. Here, the beat and theme they use is better than the album version, the guest rappers (Jadakiss, Styles P, Bun B, and The Game) do a nice job with their verses, and the theme of the song, which is about the drug industry and becoming successful, certainly goes along with the movie the song is sampled from. I don't know why The Game acts like I-10 is in Miami when in actuality it runs through the northern part of the state (did he mean I-95?), but you can excuse that and enjoy the tune.

Rick Ross, Featuring Jadakiss, Styles P, Bun B, and The Game, "Push It (Remix)", (6 MB, 192 Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=FDB03908

Tomorrow I'll post a song from the 70's you'll know more from it's 80's hair metal cover version, but now you can hear the original version.

I Hate The Indianapolis Colts

Even though the Bears looked terrible and lost 29-17 to the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI in a game that wasn't as close as the score suggests, I am still happy I got to see them have a fun season and as I barely remember their 1985 season, it was nice to see them play in a Super Bowl. To commemorate this season, I am putting up two songs related to the Bears.

The first one is the famed Super Bowl Shuffle, sung by the players on the 1985 Chicago Bears team. Technically it's a laughable song but because it's the Bears you have to love it. The video is nice too. Besides, it was nominated for a Grammy. No, really, it was. Don't even get me started on my hatred of that awards ceremony and how it's in essence a useless paperweight rather than anything I find meaningful.

Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew, "Super Bowl Shuffle" (7.90 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=8AC0B1AA

The second is a band (whose name or members I do not know) covering the team's theme song, "Bear Down, Chicago Bears". It sounds like a cross between polka and country, but don't let that turn you off.

"Bear Down, Chicago Bears" (3.08 MB, 192Kbits/second)

http://www.bigupload.com/d=2B3E69A7

Sometime on Tuesday I will put up a remix of a rap song.

An Apology

I apologize for no updates in the past few days but I've been more swamped with things to do than even I expected. But, win or lose the Super Bowl I will post two Chicago Bears-related songs late this night, and this week I should be back to my usual deal of about one song a day.