Jumping off the shoulders of the last post, we’ve got more brand new heat from Rochester’s Kill The Noise in the form of a remix of London-town R&B diva Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ with raps from Chicago’s finest Kanye West.
Chances are you’ve heard the original, seen the video on MTV or YouTube. Well, kill that noise and give this a spin:
This track has been mixed down a dozen times over. Compare that with these and make the call what you wanna throw down. Remixes from L.A. up-and-comers LAZRtag, the collaborative forces of Bmore hero Dave Nada and VA club kid Matt Nordstrom as Nadastorm, and Sydney’s Tenzin, who’s ‘American Boy’ remix made it to the #1 spot on Hype Machine via Hot Biscuits.
The Under The Covers column returns! We’ve slowly been collecting more cover songs that run the gamut from awesome to odd to awful. All varieties are worth hearing! Listen in awe or disdainful laughter.
30 Seconds to Mars covers Kanye West’s ‘Stronger’ live on BBC Radio 1. This falls into the laughable category even though frontman Jared Leto delivers the vocals so earnestly. They saved the Daft Punk vocals, so don’t expect any. I’d be rolling if they tried.
File this under fantastic, I first heard do this Pink Floyd cover at last month’s Vegoose festival and was very impressed. Not many groups can come close to a classic, but the The Shinsdo.
And in that same vein, this Zwan (Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame’s 2001-2003 project) cover of Metal gods Iron Maiden on ‘Mark of the Beast’. Probably one of my favorite covers comes at you from the Spun soundtrack.
Next up, Lightspeed Champion covering The Beatles immortal John Lennon. Lightspeed Champion is Devonte Hynes or just “Dev”, formerly of thrash-rap-punk group Test Icicles. Test Icicles remains one of my favorite things ever. I seriously moaned and writhed while morning the death of the Test Icicles last year. But the musicians live on! Dev maintains a blog at TheWorldForgot.com, there he puts up a great many home recordings—quite different from Test Icicles, but great in a whole new way:
Ladytron getting sexy R’n'B’d out covering Tweet’s slut-anthem ‘Oops (Oh My)’. Y’all remember this original? With the Timbaland beat and Missy Elliot doin’ backup vocals? This cover appeared as a b-side on their ‘Evil’ single:
Party alert for all you NYCer’s out there. This Thursday it’s going down at Death By Audio! Canadian party bringers VNDLSM & Tyler Fedchuk (1/2 Alive) bring a ruckus to town, accompanied by Brooklyn bangers Stab Wounds. If I was in the are I would for sure be in attendance.
Surely you’ve heard all these jams, but hear them again!
This shindig is presented by YOUTH, VIDEODISCO & our friend Chazology of the late great Charlesrequina.com. But a little bird told me that Chazology will be back in full effect soon with a brand new invention. Go and celebrate good beats and the forth-coming re-birth of Chaz.
Whether you like Kanye West or not if you’re a Daft Punk fan you can’t hate too much on Stronger since it samples so heavily on the original. I very much understand how the whole capitalizing on artists you love gets you right ‘here’, but I believe Daft Punk will benefit as much from this as Kanye.
In the Anthem interview that Bumpsdick mentioned in the last post (which hits news stands next week), Thomas Bangalter says he’s happy that they could give back to a community & culture which they have been so influenced by. Mayhaps this will spark a lot more interesting collaborations between usually very segregated genres.
Someone said Stronger “should be renamed “Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Kanye West remix)”. So, here’s a remix (of a remix) by Mano which we borrowed from IHEARTCOMIX. The remix focuses more on Daft Punk and limits Mr. West to one verse.
This is funny only because of Kanye’s previous, and now infamous, tangle with So-Me, Ed Banger Records, and Justice at the last MTV European Music Awards (2006). As you might know, Kanye West had a small on-stage melt-down when he lost the ‘Best Video’ award to Justice vs. Simian’s ‘Never Be Alone’ (a.k.a. ‘We Are Your Friends‘) and discounted the awards’ “credibility” even when he had no idea who Justice, Simian or So-Me was! If you’re not familiar: view Kanye West’s nominated video, ‘Touch the Sky’ on YouTube, then Justice vs. Simian’s winning video, ‘We Are Your Friends’ on YouTube. Now, remember the antics that ensued at the MTV Eurpoe Music Awards as Kanye West calmly insulted So-Me (Ed Banger art director) at the award ceremony. See it (again?) on YouTube! (It really doesn’t get old!)
Stubborn as Kanye West is, I respect him for sucking it up and embracing ‘Electro’, ‘French Touch’, ‘Dance Music’, or whatever you’d like to call it (it has so many names); He probably realized that this music that we love is taking over the world and he ought to jump on board before the world notices he isn’t sitting on the cutting edge! Before supporting So-Me tonight, he made big news by sampling Daft Punk’s 2001 club hit, ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’. This track made his current single—what a nice way to save face and show he is now with us and not against us! We forgive you Kanye! You did a good job (and I wasn’t even going to touch it cause it’s been blogged to death, but now I have to):
…and I still don’t believe him at all when he says that his DJ, A-Trak didn’t totally hip him to what’s going on in the underground in the collaboration with Kid Sister on ‘Pro Nails’. But, whatev, in the end, all that counts is that dude is on the track and it’s bangin’! If you’re not up on what I’m saying, get learned in the Kid Sister archives where you can hear ‘Pro Nails feat. Kanye West’ and more.
…I can’t hate on the dude. Props for making Mike Myers feel so damned uncomfortable while simultaneously making a damn poignant (albeit stuttering) social commentary. WTF am I talking about again!? See it on YouTube!
…and ’cause I really do like Kanye, try this sort-of recent funny mixtape freestyle over Rich Boy’s, ‘Throw Some Ds’ from earlier this year. The original was talking about rims, but Kanye flipped it into a track about plastic tittiez:
P.S. Spoon played in the other room of the same venue and was the main attraction. They’re kind of a big deal—I love Spoon and they need some more blog love too—but soon! Come baaack.
Miss Meliss a.k.a. Kid Sister gets her ‘Pro Nails’ track guestspotted by Kanye West himself. We’re un-sure how this track came to be, Kanye says in the intro of the song that A-trak didnt get him to do it, he just loves this shit. & we do too, kanye!
At this rate we might not be seeing Kid Sister gracing next years SXSW or our little dive bars & clubs. Big props to Iheartcomix and My!Gay!Husband! for dropping musical science.
Kanye West facing off with Ed Banger’s So-Me
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