CHRIS NELSON

Flying Nun

CHRIS NELSON — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:38:00 GMT

Still in vogue Down Under
Australia and New Zealand have been indie-rock hotbeds going all the way back to the early ’80s.

Beatfest

CHRIS NELSON — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:02:25 GMT

Let’s twist again
If them old changing-weather blues got you longing to twist again like you did last summer, just download some of these dance-floor alternatives (suitable for headphone listening) and let your toes do the tapping.

Digital creatures

CHRIS NELSON — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:12:13 GMT

Some hairy tracks
You gotta be careful out there, downloaders.

Football soundtrack

CHRIS NELSON — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 21:43:11 GMT

Music to sub in for American World Cup commentary
What do a pair of jazzy Germans, a duo of metalhead Mexicans, and one really tall DJ from Brooklyn have in common?

Various Artists: Galore Riddim

CHRIS NELSON — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:41:13 GMT

Greensleeves
Every year, there’s one dancehall riddim to beat.

Getting updated

CHRIS NELSON — Fri, 05 May 2006 14:06:06 GMT

VH1’s Can’t Get a Date
Somewhere along the line, VH1 became about as frumpy and catty as the office workers who keep the channel locked on their TVs 24/7.

REAL PERSONS: Real dating problems, no reality-TV solutions.

Somewhere along the line, VH1 became about as frumpy and catty as the office workers who keep the channel locked on their TVs 24/7. Could that be due to an inferiority complex caused by its younger, hipper, and better-looking sister, MTV? Or could all those hours of grossly ironic Best Week Ever and I Love the 90s finally have caught up? Either way, the channel best known as the cable equivalent of Dido has been long overdue for a transfusion. Enter Can’t Get a Date, a new “reality” “dating” show that, unlike most reality shows, is realistic. Moreover, it swaps out the superficial speed-dating feel of shows like Elimidate and The 5th Wheel in favor of insightful narration and self-improvement.

Each episode begins with a person — not a model or a struggling actor masquerading as a person but an actual flawed human being. Said person has a problem — sometimes physical, sometimes emotional — that prevents him or her from, well, getting a date. The narrator, who’s known as the “Host” and is voiced by series creator Stefan Springman, introduces this person in typical reality-show fashion, pointing out flaws for all of TV land to see. But then a funny thing happens: the Host, with the immaculate and unaccented voice of a movie-voiceover man, begins interacting with the person, all the while remaining off camera. And as the episode progresses, you realize that he’s having a conversation with the subject, not just giving instructions or coercing the answers that the producers want to hear.

“I think that’s what makes reality shows so unwatchable,” Springman says via e-mail when I catch up with him during an editing session. “You can (metaphorically) hear the director off to the side whispering, ‘Now tell her you love her.’

“The Host is not an expert at dating. He’s merely the honest friend that quietly mentions, ‘You have lipstick on your teeth,’ or ‘Get rid of that moustache,’ or ‘Quit talking about your ex.’ ”

Brit-hop

CHRIS NELSON — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 20:10:41 GMT

An interview with the Streets' Mike Skinner
For all the ink that’s been spilled over him around the world, you’d think Mike Skinner would be a little better known in the US, a country where TomKat’s new bundle of joy trumps suicide bombings on the news and new American idols are minted each and every season, only to be cut down the next.

For all the ink that’s been spilled over him around the world, you’d think Mike Skinner would be a little better known in the US, a country where TomKat’s new bundle of joy trumps suicide bombings on the news and new American idols are minted each and every season, only to be cut down the next. After all, the Englishman professionally known as the Streets possesses so many of the vices that make tabloids go all weak at the knees — alcoholism, drug addiction, a gambling problem — that he seems a shoo-in for a Behind the Music special. Oh, and he spent a good part of last year dating and smoking crack with a pop star whose name he won’t reveal.

Despite all this — and despite making three acclaimed albums of personal, cheeky UK bedroom rap — Skinner remains anonymous to all but the hippest musophiles on our fair continent. Not that he seems terribly concerned about that when I reach him at his Manhattan hotel room. In fact, he rather enjoys it. “There aren’t nearly as many US fans as there are English fans, so to be out and about in New York is a lot more fun for me than being out and about in London.”

But as good as America may be for resting Skinner’s autograph wrist, the Streets’ inability to stick with radio and MTV on this side of the pond remains something of a mystery. The British tabloid headlines notwithstanding, on recordings Skinner’s personality is charming: he’s an ordinary guy whose life has taken extraordinary turns because he knows how to use ProTools and tell a great story. The beats and hooks he crafted for his new The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living (Vice) are as catchy as anything he’s come up with. Can it be that the only thing holding him back from success in America, where hip-hop is the new pop, is the British accent?

He has his own slant. “The way it comes across in England is different from the way it comes across in America. When you bring it to America, you’re selling it to the kind of people who are interested in England, or interested in music anyway, rather than just normal people. It becomes a bit of a hipster thing. Whereas in England it’s just mainstream music that the kids listen to — quite an everyman form of music.”

Edu K

CHRIS NELSON — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 13:22:00 GMT

Frenetiko | Man
Edu K may be among the first of a wave of Brazilian artists to bring the recently popularized style of bass music to the States via domestic release, but don’t call it “baile funk.”

Clipping coupons

CHRIS NELSON — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:17:57 GMT

Collect and save: Editors, Mylo, and Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys
Sometimes labels mess up and give away the best song on a band’s album as a free download.

Ourspace

CHRIS NELSON — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:46:02 GMT

A place for friends . . . to discover good bands
Navigating MySpace can be a bit dangerous if, say, you’re on deadline. But with a little push in the right direction, there are treasures to be found from Brooklyn to Baltimore to the Bay Area.

The big diss

CHRIS NELSON — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 18:21:39 GMT

Killa Cam takes aim at Jay-Z, plus new tracks from Jeff Merchant and Hard-Fi
Even if most artists are all about getting their paper, there are always a few out there — Hard-Fi, Cam’ron, and Jeff Merchant, to name three — willing to toss us a morsel or two for free.

Ludacris

CHRIS NELSON — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:14:23 GMT

LUDACRIS PRESENTS . . . DISTURBING THA PEACE | Def Jam
Even the most discerning Southern-rap connoisseur would be hard pressed to tell the minor players apart

Lost on the Web

CHRIS NELSON — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:43:14 GMT

A tour of fansites
When, somewhere between the first and second seasons of Lost , a couple of writer friends and I decided to start a Web page called 815 , we envisioned it as a place where we could spout our in(s)ane theories and have something to justify the obscene number of hours we already spent thinking about the show.
When, somewhere between the first and second seasons of Lost, a couple of writer friends and I decided to start a Web page called815, we envisioned it as a place where we could spout our in(s)ane theories and have something to justify the obscene number of hours we already spent thinking about the show. A blog about a TV show — and a sci-fi show at that! — must surely be the last bastion of dorkery, we thought. But we were so, so wrong.

Maybe it’s the long-promised-but-still-unseen island monster, or perhaps Evangeline Lilly’s Kate (geek bait both, in their own ways) but Lost fans are some of the most rabid and, um, creative viewers around. And while it’s bad for their social lives (trust me), the profusion of Web sites created in tribute to the show are a boon for casual fans looking to sink their teeth in a little deeper. Take, for example, theLost Numbers Reference Guide, a site which contains an exhaustive listing of every single occurrence of the mysterious sequence since the show began.Lost-Media contains hundreds of still images, sounds and videos from the show, perfect for going back and checking whether you really saw what you thought you saw. Even the creative forces behind the show have gotten in on the action, posting regularly and intermingling with fans on the message board at the Fuselage.

But Lost also knows viral marketing, and a number of sites (both official and homespun) have popped up purporting to represent various companies in the world of our castaway friends. Appropriately enough, the first site to come along was Oceanic Air, airline of choice for doomed passengers who end up on crazy electromagnetic islands with polar bears. Also apparently legitimate is the Hanso Foundation’s website, which, in typical Lost fashion, provides us with some miniscule slivers of insight to the secrets on said island.

Meanwhile, Bigspaceship1 offers frequently-changing animated .gif’s which seem to provide some cryptic clue with each update. It’s not until your now-trained eye scans the page and fails to find a Disney/ABC copyright notice that you realize it’s all for naught. Alas: there’s always a few crazies in the crowd.

Grave diggin’

Chris Nelson — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 20:41:17 GMT

Biggie Smalls’s Final Chapter
By the time most rappers drop their fourth album, either everybody’s paying attention or nobody is. In Biggie's case, the truth may lie somewhere in between.

By the time most rappers drop their fourth album, either everybody’s paying attention or nobody is. In the case of Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace (a/k/a Biggie Smalls) — gunned down in LA in 1997 — and the new album, Duets: The Final Chapter (Bad Boy), the truth may be somewhere in between.

Lukewarm responses to Biggie’s posthumous work can be traced back to his nemesis in life, Tupac Shakur. After Shakur’s passing, labels began sifting through his apparently endless collection of unreleased recordings and have subsequently released nearly 10 albums of half-baked, mediocre material. Though Shakur is still widely considered one of the greatest rappers of his time, most rap fans wouldn’t give a "new" 2Pac release a second glance at this point.

But the people closest to the Notorious B.I.G. (namely, his mother, Voletta Wallace, and longtime friend and producer, Sean "Diddy" Combs) have done a much better job of protecting Biggie’s reputation. Since his death, only one Notorious B.I.G. album — 1999’s Born Again (Bad Boy) — has been released, and a handful of vocals have been rented out as samples for other artists. (The previously unknown artist Smitty struck gold with said formula this year when he sampled Biggie on "Diamonds on My Neck.") Now, after years of speculation and rescheduled release dates, Bad Boy has revealed the so-called "final chapter" in the saga of Biggie — Duets.

On the new disc, some of Biggie’s previously heard vocals are reformatted and placed alongside freshly recorded tracks from today’s most popular artists and producers, most of whom never had the opportunity to work with him in life. Naturally, with an album boasting performances by everyone from Eminem to Jagged Edge to Korn (seriously), the results are scattershot. But on the whole, Duets is remarkably listenable and well thought out.

Some of the most exhilarating moments come when those who worked with Biggie in life join up with him again. Diddy and Wallace’s wife, Faith Evans, are both featured on a number of songs, but none of them feel as monumental as "Whatchu Want," where Biggie and Jay-Z form "the Commission." For as many times as Jay has namechecked his deceased friend over the years, the connection has never seemed more vital than right now. Jay’s Def Jam empire has a choke-hold on the rap game at the moment, and this track feels like two giants at the peak of their powers. It also highlights the difference between the two: whereas Biggie is untamed, flying off the handle with outrageous threats ("I’m stickin’ ice picks on the tip of your dick/Give your testicles a swift kick — ain’t that some shit?"), Jay is ever the cool and composed businessman.