Hi! Thanks for visiting Unreality Music! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed for regular updates.
It was well over a decade ago that I first heard 99 Problems by Ice-T. It was in my A Level Art class at school, and one of the guys let me have a listen.It was from Ice’s Home Invasion album, and he was suddenly popular with the metal crew in school because of his Body Count album. That’s what led a lot of us to rap music.
Anyway, fast forward a few years, and 99 Problems hits my stereo again, courtesy of Mr Jay-Z (the similarities in their rap names aren’t lost on me!). Where Ice-T had a real old-school vibe, Jay-Z’s version employs big drums and crunchy, distorted guitar goodness.
Jay-Z’s is also much safer than Ice-T’s. For my money, Ice’s version takes the gold medal for lewdness and sheer brilliance. Whose version do you prefer?
I’ve been hearing Apologize all week on the radio, and it’s got to be the best track off Timbaland’s Shock Value album.
Apologize is the first slow song to be released from the album. It’s a remix of OneRepublic’s original version, retaining Ryan Tedder’s vocal. And in keeping with anything Timbaland does, it’s completely genre-busting, avoiding any hint of cliche at all.
In this one, Timbaland is giving a bit of a leg up to one of the singers on his Mosley Music record label, Keri Hilson. Can’t blame the guy either, if the rumors that he’s retiring are true, he’s going to want to push his artists pretty hard to keep the dough rolling in.
The Way I Are just screams out Timbaland: you can hear that strong synth running through the track alongside throbbing beats and bass. The addition of Hilson on vocals is a departure from Ms Furtado, and you come away with the feeling that either singer could have delivered the goods on this track.
Wow, it finally happened. Rap has sunk to such an all-time low that the artists themeselves admit to being crap and that people will buy their ’shit’ regardless….
Mims - a rapper I’d never heard of before today - sets this out quite clearly at the beginning of his single, This Is Why I’m Hot: Read & comment »
I’m not afraid to admit that I was an early fan of Destiny’s Child. There was always something aluring about their ‘independent woman’ attitude, infectious tunes and skimpy clothes. Beyonce could kick my ass to the curb any day of the week…
That all changed when Beyonce seemed to become a parody of her sexy self and turned into a loathsome clothes horse as displayed on the pages of Heat magazine every week. Then came the gangsta’s moll phase, when she hooked up with Jay-Z. The girlie Beyonce was replaced by a horrible soft porn version. Not nice.
With the release of Irreplacable, Beyonce seems to have gone back to her roots. And a welcome return it is.
The instrumentation is stripped right back: basically just guitar and a simple drumbeat carrying the tune. A very simple verse/chorus arrangement is enhanced by Beyonce’s most honest vocal performance in recent memory. Beautiful melody in the verses and a chorus so catchy it’ll take a lobotomy to stop you singing it.
Subject matter is a return to Independent Women and Bills, Bills, Bills territory - very much woman on top type of thing.
The video for Irreplaceable carries on the ’stripped down’ theme - Beyonce looking her most natural in ages. The storyline reminds me slightly of the Emotion single Destiny’s Child release a couple of years ago. There’s a little bit of posturing by Ms Knowles, enough to keep the lads happy without being as OTT as her other recent singles.
You mus’ not know ’bout a-me, you mus’ not know ’bout a-me….(contributed by Levee)
In this one, Timbaland is giving a bit of a leg up to one of the singers on his Mosley Music record label, Keri Hilson. Can’t blame the guy either, if the rumors that he’s retiring are true, he’s going to want to push his artists pretty hard to keep the dough rolling in.
