The January Playlist

I’ve come to a conclusion that by far, the most annoying emails in the entire universe are party promotions for some event taking place next week featuring Club Massive and their cousins DJing at once with live rap performances from every unsigned MC in the Tri-State area. Now I’m surely exaggerating (Though my Facebook inbox is filled with about 200 of those messages so I can’t be that far off base), but it does say something about promoting music in today’s day and age. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, any kid with a microphone and a DSL modem can go from a complete nobody one moment to the next Tay Zonday or Jay Electronica with a few blog posts.

Despite how equal of a playing field the internet creates for those aspiring to be musicians, it just as much makes exposing “good” music incredibly difficult. When the life of a blog post on any popular blog is about a day at the very most, most artists get one chance to make jaws drop, if they miss that opportunity, with the pace of the web their shot for a little taste of internet glory is more or less lost. Anyway, enough about my opinion on the game online, there’s a reason I’m writing this post. Since I seem to have stumbled into a position where I can expose some of what I consider “good music” to the folks, I’ve got some NEW and OLD music to set off your stormy san diego days in a proper manner.

Erick Arc Elliott "NOIR." mixtape///download here!!!
I wont even bother giving you a track list because i want you to find out for yourself how good this mixtape is. TRUST ME.

Craig Mack- Flavor in ya ear
The year is 2010 and you have stepped freshly out of your front door laced in your favorite pair of J's, a sparkling clean white tee shirt and a brand new Hundreds snapback. You are as clean as the day your mother birthed you and your proverbial “steez” (I will never use the word again.) is at an all time high. Well Craig Mack is the soundtrack to that moment. When you hop step off of your front step and saunter down the block to buy a dollar arizona ice tea, this is the song playing in the background. This is the song you make a statement to, the song playing when people snap their necks and take notice of you. That 1-2 dropping beat will never fall out of favor.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock (them jeans remix) & Heads Will Roll (A Trak remix)
I am definitely not a big listener when it comes to the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs something about the name just always turned me away. I couldn’t imagining writing that every time I wanted to tell someone about them. It would be awkward like having a really long name that would never fit in the spaces given to you on standardized tests. Anyway, I diverge from my path. These are great original tracks and the remixs are even better. Really great breakdowns, I find myself getting a lot of work done to these tracks.

Passion Pit - Swimming in the Flood
What happens when one of these so called “hipster” bands comes along and produces something that is really actually quite good and easy on the ears? Do you back track on everything you said and admit that some of their music is actually pretty good? Or do you just sit by and continue to argue that only American Apparel/Fedora wearing kids listen to that band and that “they still suck dude.” Well luckily enough for me, I try to avoid calling any music “hipster” music. I am not a huge fan of Passion Pit’s other work, but this song right here is just about as good as it gets. Cool progression, what I consider some pretty cool vocals and all around very cool vibe surrounding the track. When it starts raining throw this on. Check out the rest of their music as well, craft your own opinion.

Raekwon - Heaven and Hell
Raekwon and the Wu-Tang clan are just too classic for words. When you hear those soft strings and some haunting vocals over top of a dusty basement set of snares than you immediately know what you are in for. The next thing you know The Chef is lacing cocaine lyrics over a beat that is just the definition of a slow Summer night. If I had this instrumental following me around playing softly all day I could probably sit on my porch and watch the sun go down and be completely satisfied. I guess this is still mood music to some extent, but at the same time, I feel like I could throw on Timbs and Wu-Wear like it was 1996 and walk out of my house with no problem when this is the soundtrack to the day.