Minions [movie review]....by dough

In "No Exit", Jean-Paul Sartre's seminal work on the ontological paradox of ascribing to another's

world view in a meaningless universe of indifference, he writes:  "Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this [Minions Movie] that gnaws and fumbles ... and never hurts quite enough."  I might be paraphrasing, but Sartre's inability to reconcile a world that would produce The Minions Movie with a true and living God seems on the face of it, a bit harsh.

Surely The Minions Movie is despicable (see what I did there?) or at the very least indifferent to anything resembling humanity or human interaction, but that doesn't seem to me to be completely incompatible with a benevolent and ever loving creator.  Scripture might say that the Lord of Hosts seeks only love and compassion for his creation and thus he wouldn't subject his children to 104 minutes of mind numbing tedium, tiresome machinations and a glaring lack of whimsy.  But remember that The Minions Movie is not a creation of "I AM WHO I AM". It is a creation of man.  Man.  With all his flaws and shortcomings.  Man.  With all his guilelessness and clumsy plot choices. Man.  And a studio destined to squeeze every last dime from a charming if ultimately limited diversion.

Jehovah imbued in his most precious fruit free will.  And though that will may sometimes be used for wicked or at least terribly boring means, surely those means are not proof of a cold unforgiving universe unconcerned with mankind and his many struggles with mediocrity, banality and insipidity.  I cannot consign humanity to that fate simply because The Minions Movie exists.  Music will still be played.  Poetry will still be written.  Pyramids will still be built.  Sartre be damned.

Most Played of 2013

I always love putting this list together. It's fun to see what my friends are listening to but it is also a cool reminder of how kick-a$$ and different they are. Love my friends. They rock.

Now....on to the list! Following are the songs that we rocked the most this year.

Run the Jewels ~Run the Jewels....big bird
Nothin but Love ~Heavy D and the Boyz.....IMTHATDUDE
Watch Me Work ~Melanie Fiona....thewayoftheid
Get Lucky ~Daft Punk + Pharrell....jayare20k
For The Record ~Torae....Cross Bow
Girlfriend ~NSYNC.....missDTM
Take Me To Church ~Hozier.....dough
Locked Out of Heaven ~Bruno Mars....pemora
Banana Clipper ~Run the Jewels....surnamer
Fine China ~Chris Brown.....paj1
Winter Schemes ~J. Cole + Wale....KevFrumBK
Waiting Game ~Banks.....Thug Hardy
Tapas ~Action Bronson.....savazhe

What did you listen to? Drop us a line here or on twitter!

Letter by dough

You have to read this Letter to my toddlers about women by UR contributor, dough. Go now.

I hate children's music, but are my kids ready for Hip Hop?...by dough

Children's music is universally atrocious.   It is trite and tedious. An endless sea of monotony that crushes ones humanity with unrelenting waves of banal tedium.  At first it laps gently at the shores of your sanity. It is a barely felt current, swathing your new baby in passivity and lulling him to sleep.  Slowly it seeps into diaper changes and car rides, please touch museums and toy stores.  It's suddenly everywhere and you are caught in the swell of its undertow.  You gasp for Nas, Mos Def, Kanye, but it's too late, your lungs are already saturated with Three Blind Mice, Itsy Bitsy Spider and something called "Raffi". Children's music is devious.  It's born of platitudes and gentle hell fire.  It's boring and insidious.  It is the incarnate soul of the devil.

Perhaps I've tipped my toe into hyperbole but while some hazards of parenthood are often discussed: the lack of sleep, the constant worrying, the lack of free time - no one ever talks about the terrible and omnipresent music. Car rides, play time, diaper changes, bath time, museums, stores - all come with the regular and insistent jack hammering of fairy tales and nursery rhymes and dead eyed automatons soullessly numbing your humanity and sapping your will to fight back. But not entirely.

Any music lover thusly assaulted, will, after some time, come to rebel against this aural malaise and ultimately arrive at the same cure:  Either find children's music by artists you can tolerate (in my case nearly impossible) or introduce your children to the music you love.  I wanted my kids to know Hip Hop (and all the music I love) but, for me, there were two key drivers.  On the one hand, Hip Hop is such a looming and significant part of my life that it is important to me to introduce my kids to the culture and the music that I immerse myself in daily (or at least I used to).  On the other hand, I can't listen to "Wheels on the bus" another damn time.  So I made up my mind, but that's where the trouble started.

My first thought was: "Just turn on the radio, dummy! The radio has good music and it's censored. It's a win-win". Actually, it's a lose-lose as I was wrong on both accounts.  Here are the top five most played songs on Hot 97 (the local Hip-Hop & R&B station) for the week of December 27th 2011:

1.     Dance (Ass) - Big Sean featuring Nicki Minaj

o    This track must have the record for the most times "Ass" is said in a single song.  

2.     Ni**as in Paris - Jay-Z & Kanye West

o    This song is awesome but it seems like they're actively trying to do the worst censoring job they can.

3.     She Will - Lil Wayne featuring Drake

o    There is nothing redeeming about this song.

4.     Work Out - J. Cole

o    Same old "shake that ass girl" garbage that reminded me why I don't listen to the radio any more.

5.     Make me proud  - Drake featuring Nicki Minaj

o    This passes for positive. *sigh*

One good song in the top 5?  And none I want my kids to hear?  Radio is not the move.  For the record, the Pop and Rock stations are just as unacceptable.  That said, I don't want to begrudge any adult from listening to whatever they want.  Even on the radio.  I don't even care if they play uncensored screaming on the radio.  Just have a way to warn me and let me shield my kids from it.  And you can make judgments about what's appropriate for your kids. That said, I still want to listen to *my* songs and while I want to expose my kids to the music that I love, I'm wary of them getting over-exposed.  So it occurred to me that maybe I should think through exactly what my criteria are for songs I want my kids to hear.  I came up with what I thought were two reasonable rules:

1.     No words I didn't want to hear repeated at Grandma's house

2.     No phrases or concepts I didn't want to explain

At first blush these seem reasonable and should leave me with a huge selection.  I think of myself as a *real* Hip Hop fan.  I love the golden age, backpack, underground, modern classics etc.  I hate "Bitches & Bling", "Da Club" and all the crap that goes with that (with some exceptions).  Surely it should be easy to find some tracks that meet my criteria.  In truth, it's possible but it requires some serious leg work.  Here are some classics I thought would obviously work until I re-listened to them with an ear to the above rules.  Note that my kids are 2.5 and 6 months so my criteria might ease up in a few years:

• Don't Curse - Various Artists
• How could this possibly offend? Kool G Rap: "Even made a record on how I'm doing on my B-I-T-C-H-es"
• I can - Nas
• Great message but lots of drug and other references
• Definition - Black Star
• "Mos Def & Kweli just, make a pussy freeze up, thinking of it, ease up"
• They Reminisce Over You - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth
• "We laughed all night about the hookers at the party"
• Me, Myself & I - De La Soul
• Cool message until problems are resolved with violence: "I'll calmly punch them in the 4th day of July"
• Jesus Walks - Kanye West
• Hell no
• My Philosophy - Boogie Down Productions
• Great until: "How many MCs must get dissed, before somebody says 'Don't fuck with Kris'"
• Woo-Ha!! I got you all in check - Busta Rhymes
• The chorus is: "I got that head nod shit to make you break your neck"
• Cha Cha Cha - MC Lyte
• "Well Well Well, I'll be damned"
• It Takes Two - Rob Base & DJ Easy Rock
• "I like the whopper, fuck the big mac"
• Public Enemy #1 - Public Enemy
• "I'll show you my gun; my Uzi weighs a ton"
• Case of the P.T.A. - Leaders of the New School
• "What the Hell's going on"

Even a song called "Don't Curse" fails the criteria? Wow.  In all honesty though, some of these are not really that bad.  The censoring in "It Takes Two" is pretty blatant but I don't think that's really a deal breaker and "Case of the P.T.A." and "Cha Cha Cha" are even more of a stretch.  That kind of stuff I think I can probably let slide.  What hurts more is songs like "I Can" which I think have a good message but too much other content that I'm not ready for my kids to start grappling with. 

I think what it comes down to is that I was hoping for an easy solution.  Unfortunately, like everything else with kids,  I needed to step up and be a parent first.  It's not easy to vet a ton of songs from my library but if I want to listen to them with my kids then it's something I've got to do.  Of course, once I put in that initial work it's not so bad.  I ended up making a playlist of songs that I thought were appropriate.  It started out small (mostly instrumentals) and when I found time I added a song here and a song there.  At this point it's well over 2000 songs of both children's music and songs I like.  It fits on my phone, so I can bring the list on car rides or play it during dinner time and I don't have to worry about what might come up next or hearing the same awful tune over and over.  Much like the children it's intended for, the process was a huge pain in the ass but ultimately I think it's worth it.

Recovery [review]......by dough

Recovery [review]
by dough

The genius of Eminem’s early major label releases was so potent, it was impossible for a fan not to be disheartened by the abomination of his last two releases.  His winding word play, intricate rhymes and self-conscious cartoon violence showed genuine growth and insight between The Slim Shady LP and The Eminem Show.  This made it all the more dispiriting when they devolved into the sludging labor of Encore and the bizarrely unfettered horror-porn of Relapse.  Luckily for the millions of us who want him back, Eminem is keenly aware of his descent and is trying to do something about it. To that end he has made explicit in both the press and the lyrics in the new album, that Recovery is his apology and step forward into a new and re-solidified future.

Well, maybe not a step forward as much as an about face.  This album is not filled with the rape fantasies and drug fueled vengeance that contributed to Relapse’s sad one-listen status.  It is however, heavy laden with many of the same minor chord, slow-roll beats that made its predecessor feel achingly melancholy and depressing.  Eminem is at his best when he’s high energy and full blast.  His top tracks let the intensity build like when his rocket rhymes crescendo through songs like “Kill You” or slyly wind and slide through tracks like “Brain Damage”.  Unfortunately, the melancholy downer that started with Encore and reached full force in Relapse is still present in Recovery.  This slow tempo ties the hands of a kinetic artist like Eminem, whose power comes from slippery lyrics with intertwining pacing.

That’s not to say that Eminem’s lyrics aren’t in top shape. If one thing stands out in Recovery it’s his solid affirmation that those labyrinthine lyrics are back at dizzying (if not previously unachieved) heights.  The intricacy of his inner rhymes, double entandres and punchlines stand tall as perhaps the best argument for the stupefying effect that drugs can have on an able and agile mind.  Perhaps more poignantly, those lyrics testify to the fact that sobriety can bring such a mind back into sharper and more potent relief.

And yet, the topics of those winding and swooping lyrics have not changed much from his earlier concerns.  I was frustrated by the popular success  of “Lose Yourself” as I could never take a positive irony-free Eminem spitting plaitudinal drivel seriously. It seems as though he’s tried to replicate that formula on every album since 8 Mile.  Recovery is no exception with several tracks falling into this trap including the first single “Not Afraid” as well as “Talkin’ 2 Myself” and “Going Through Changes”.  I get it: “drugs are bad”, “handle your biz”, “time to straighten up”.  These are lovely messages but coming from Eminem it always feels forced and shameless.  There’s probably a lot of honest heartbreak and lessons learned in there, but after you’ve ass raped and murdered your mom on a track it’s hard to hear you preach “be yourself and persevere”.

The other pitfall that Eminem repeats is regurgitating slow jam psuedo-love songs like “Superman.”  I realize that “Superman” was about not being there for someone but this trend of slowing it down for the ladies is not his strong suit.  He re-attempts this with “Seduction” and “Love the way you lie” which I fear may be equally popular to “Superman” and certainly equally painful to me.  Slow jams are great, have a wide audience and serve a useful purpose but I don’t ever need to hear Eminem say “oh girl”.

There are few tracks with hot beats on Recovery but Eminem catches fire on every single one of them.   My favorite, the Untitled hidden track, is a Kanye style bass & soul beat by Havoc (of Mobb Deep fame).  Given his access and resources, you’d expect a number of head boppers but this was one of only a few that actually got my head nodding. Nevertheless, Eminem assaults this track with such abandon that it made me wish the whole album had this sound. Another tight track is the sole Dr. Dre entry, “So Bad”. The beat could have been ripped from Chronic outtakes and it provides a smooth horn heavy loop that Eminem rides like a ‘Lolo.  The least traditional track, “Won’t back down”, uses a solid guitar lick and hook by P!nk.  This combination provides the right bounce for Em to let his lyrics explode and attack the listener with a rawer energy than is found on most of the other songs.

Recovery is by no means Eminem’s strongest release but it serves as an ample separation from his previous missteps and promises a new if unclear direction.  He is no longer the pop party pooper nor is he the druggy drop out.  He’s moved on from both but is still trying to find his way. Eminem’s lyricism, however, is as sharp as ever and when he finds the right track and topic, he makes a powerful case for best in the game.