After a few stoned nights trying to freestyle with friends it occurs to me that Doom is showing off here. As he crafts a vague picture of the king of gangsters his rhyme scheme slips in and out of wild complexity in a way that only the most virtuosic could do with any style, and it's presented such a laid back ease as if he saying "this ain't even shit for me, I write this in my sleep." He starts by rhyming "ticks faster" with "sick blaster" leaning back on a half rhyme, mid line "Dick Dasterdly" (a 1960's cartoon reference) and right onto "sick laughter" and "mix master" before finally handing off to another sound. From there it's "E cold" to "be old" rhymed with "three fold" to another mid line half rhyme "he sold scrolls" straight into "behold" and then "story told". At this point he puts in third mid line rhyme "glory gold" but the end of the line starts the next sound, as if the "be old" rhyme was tagging off in boxing match. He meanders in off beat rhymes, twisting them around like they're toys, even pulling self-indulgent winks like rhyming "Freudian" with "accordion" while dropping his act and slipping into playful couplets. It reminds me of old painters needing to craft a masterful self portrait to show their skills for entry into a guild. But Doom needs no such acceptance because he's well aware that he's in a league all his own.
Belle and Sebastian - Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying
The first stanza was always a counter to arguments that this band was just empty sentimentality, when they are, in fact, harsh bitterness cloaked in sardonic catchiness. This song spews tails about the young scottish hipsters, how they seem so alive and happy and good looking and how the world is going to hit the like a fucking truck. "Think of it this way you could either be successful or be us". A take on the young beautiful/doomed theme, sure, but you start to get the sense that he doesn't even think him and his peers are all that beautiful, that he hates everyone, that his catchiness and good looks, that his smile is purely to mock you.
Evian Christ - Fuck It None of Y'all Rap
Taking hip-hop out of context and making it feel lost, alone. Floating in an empty space of loneliness and letting it flail. But of course, still with a heavy hitting beat pounding on your head, perfect for the car stereos late at night, to creep out the hoodlums roaming the streets of your neighborhood. They should know better.
Drive Like Jehu - Here Come The Rome Plows
Sometimes, as young kids in america, we forget how angry we should be. Especially now, as everything is telling us to be complacent, to not mosh as concerts because it's vulgar and our friends will get kicked and annoyed, when every raging liberal we know is more concerned with the nomenclature for various sexual identities than they are concerned with actually helping curb the oppression. We forget that people are being killed and crushed economically. We forget that our forests are being leveled and our concert venues are being raided by police. We forget that we are no longer allowed to sleep in the woods when we want to, to sit on our sidewalks or go to our public parks past 11. We forget that it takes the first one hundred hours of work at our minimum wage jobs just to pay rent on our tiny sublets, and we don't get sick days. And even at that we are the lucky ones, so many have it so much worse. That we just live our lives everyday with this knowledge. We forget that we are angry, angry, angry, angry, raging.
Burial - Kindred
Today there were thunderstorms in new york city and we live mixed them with this track.
-stuart
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