Videos of the Week June 5th

The top 5 this week featured a large dose of EDM, an interesting cover and a whole lot of silliness. Leading the way was Ed Sheeran's cover of Fetty Wap's Trap Queen that completely came out of left field. Who would have known such a bouncy track could hold up acoustically? On the EDM tip Eric Prydz came through with some crazy visuals with the help of Tron producer GMUNK and his 3D LED sugar cube. Crookers and Jeremih also concocted an interesting story to their latest single I Just Can't.

As fas as shenanigans, the Late Night hosts were all over that. Led by Fallon and Jason Statham's game of slap jack and the always funny mean tweets from Kimmel, there was plenty to laugh at. Some of those mean tweets took the gloves off man! The tweets are funny and all, but the reactions are why you keep watching...#NBAMeanTweets
Ed Sheeran - Trap Queen (Cover)

Jason Statham Plays Slap Jack with Jimmy Fallon

Crookers feat Jeremih - I Just Can't (Video)

Eric Prydz - Generate (Video)

NBA Players Read Mean Tweets on Kimmel
Photo Credit: YouTube

"Miss PYT Be Stuck on My Mind"

Feel free to get openly excited at the collaboration below because it finally came to fruition. Featuring a repeatable and catchy hook by Jeremih and bouncy bass, I Just Can't was tailor made for the club. I posted an "unofficial version" of the track back in September, so hearing the final version is long overdue.

I'll maintain that Crookers will always be a mainstay on any party mix I create because of how much energy their music packs. Their music offers the gift that keeps on giving, the invitation to dance. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to hearing their new album, Sixteen Chapel, when it drops in a few weeks. Until then, I'd suggest streaming what tracks they have released from the album already to satisfy your Crookers craving...#IJustCant

Crookers feat Jeremih - I Just Can't

Just Can't Lose With Crookers & Jeremih

Do you like booty shaking club bass? Does it make your day when R&B and EDM are mixed together in a way that makes you like them both more? If either of those are true, then you'll enjoy this brand spankin' new heat rock by Crookers and Jeremih.

In case you missed it, Crookers let loose an official single last week in Picture This. Whereas Picture This was rigid, phrenetic, and haunting, I Just Can't features Jeremih's soothing vocals that sound awesome when mixed with the high pitched synths. If you press play, just know, the song is meant to be played with volume...#Crookers

Stream removed due to DMCA request

Crookers Are Not Afraid to Make You Blush

Boy have I missed the crisp, loud production of Crookers. Yes, I almost jumped out my seat when his new track Heavy became visible from my neighborhood of the internet and no it did not disappoint. It may have taken about a minute and 32 sec to hit it's stride, but when it did, my neighbors had to have been pretty upset about it. When I say it, I mean that deep, rhythmic groove of the bassline.

If you're wondering what kind of vibe they're trying to inspire, you'll get the picture around the 2 min and 54 sec mark. Needless to say, the sounds of a woman being pleasured will surely get a lot of folks attention and raise a few eyebrows. My critique of that is, are sexual noises grounds for the parental advisory tag? There is no explicit language in the song and although the sounds coming from the woman are associated with an adult, parental act, is it harmful for kids to hear? My opinion on the matter is mixed because when I first heard it, my inclination was to turn it down because hearing a women loudly experience pleasure is not normally a socially accepted sound. Maybe the uptempo, heart-pounding build up leading to the climactic release contributes to the feeling of explicitness. I really don't know the answer, but I get why the censor police would err on the side of caution by giving it the ominous black and white parental advisory sticker. It made me hesitate, so I'm curious what others' think about the social normality of blatantly sexual noises and how it relates to parental advisory.

Critique aside, the bass on the track will peel back your eyelids a bit, which elevates it to dope status in my book...#Heavy

Crookers - Heavy

"If I Could Write You a Song To Make You...Fall In Love"

Truth be told, I've been jammin' out to this new Mikey Posner joint for a couple months now, only to find out it's spreading like a wildfire on radio stations everywhere. When I have people who I don't usually provide music for coming up to me saying, "hey do you have that new Cooler Than Me song by I dunno who, but do you know what I'm talking about?", you know it's officially permeated the pop culture barrier.

Did I see that one coming? Not one bit, I mean I really like the song and Mike Posner is a really talented artist, who has been under the radar for a while and has received beaming endorsements from my Chi-town friends who are quick to point out how good of a performer he is. In fact, I remember hyping an artist named Na Palm who was opening for Mike Posner about a month ago. For all of you in the Chicago area who missed that concert you're probably kicking yourself because similarly, 2AM Club's Worry About You has blown up all over radio stations and Posner, Napalm and 2AM Club were all on the ticket.

This whole Hip Hop/Electro movement that mainstream radio has deemed "in" right now is a trend I hope continues for quite a while. Between this, the influence of David Guetta, Crookers, LCD Soundsystem (see newest Kid Cudi sample), MGMT, Ratatat, even DJ Class who is injecting techno/dance into Hip Hop...it's coming from all angles geared toward upbeat dance music.

For all of you who aren't very familiar with Mike Posner, go ahead and check out both of his mixtapes he released, One Foot Out the Door and A Matter of Time. In the video below Mike speaks about his upcoming album 35 Minutes to Takeoff due out second week of August, which coincidentally is 35 minutes long and "at the end of the 35 minutes he's going to be at a different spot (career wise)".

Real soft spoken, animated dude who has that subtle confidence in the video above that makes me believe he's going to make a splash with this new album. Guess we'll see once August comes around, enjoy the remix...

Mike Posner - Cooler Than Me (Gigamesh Remix)
| Download

BONUS: Already done a New Artist Spotlight on Napalm, so I'd be remiss if I didn't include the official remix that he donated a verse on. Give it a listen...

Mike Posner feat Napalm - Cooler Than Me (Remix)
| Download

Weekend Party Track: Will I Am - Fly Away (prod by Crookers)

You wanna talk about a good look...Will I Am and Crookers getting together on a dance track...now thats a GOOD LOOK! With the multitude of Black Eyed Peas dance tracks that Will has been a part of, it's a logical progression of quality and a step up from what you'd usually hear from the Black Eyed Peas in my opinion...who for the record, were an awesome, organic, true Hip Hop group before Fergie eff'ditallup came into the picture.

Lyrically it's your typical dance track with a very repeatable chorus "Fly Away, Fly Away, Fly Away" and it even has a little autotune mixed in, just too make it that much more processed for general consumption. Just another example of how Hip Hop/R&B mixed with House/Techno can be a match made in heaven. It's about time we had an injection of quality European house/techno into Hip Hop from producers like David Guetta and Crookers.

Will I Am - Fly Away (prod by Crookers) HOT CLUB Track!!!

Italian Beat Murders...Crookers feat Mike Snow - Remedy

I hear this in the club I'm goin' HAM! No denyin', no beatin' around that bush, I'm losin' it because this beat is disgusting. From the rolling techno beat to the high pitched synthesizer, everything meshes to create a bangin' symphony. I've already posted a few Crookers remixes in the past and they've found their way on my radar being that they were Cudi tracks.

If you haven't heard Crooker's (Italian Production Duo - Bot and Phra)debut album titled Tons of Friends then you're missin' out. I've only begun to enjoy the entire sound of that album and on first listen I'd put it up there with recent great dance/techno/Hip Hop albums like David Guetta, Basshunter, and Tiesto.

If you're curious my favorite tracks off the album so far are We Love Animals, Have Mercy feat Carrie Wilds and No Security feat Kelis. Needless to say, when you think of Crookers think in your face loud, electro Hip Hop inspired Dance music. The energy of these tracks are awe inspiring, do them some justice and play them at the next rowdy house party you're at and watch the results.

The beats may be sick, but Bot and Phra have the Remedy...

Crookers feat Mike Snow - Remedy HHHooottttt!!!!

Lady Gaga feat Beyonce - Telephone (Crookers Remix)

Picture above is from their upcoming video for their recent collaboration for the song Telephone, off Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster Album.

Now I know you've all heard the original version of Telephone and every girl I've spoken too raves about this as being one of their favorite tracks off on The Fame Monster. Seems the Italian production duo known as Crookers decided to take the track to another level with an uptempo, electro, Hip House version of the track. Some people don't like it when an original song is remixed or re-done, but generally speaking, anytime a slower or mid-tempo song is remixed into a faster beat, I end up liking it.

Maybe it's the DJ in me and I enjoy getting a chance to play a song that wasn't previously dance-able or club-ready. This is one of those instances and I would gladly rock this track while DJ-ing. The duality of people in the club not only being familiar and knowing the lyrics to a song, but also dancing to it is as close as you're gonna get to a sure thing when it comes to entertaining a dance floor. Can't beat that when you're DJ-ing and to this day I've never had someone with the balls to voice their displeasure about a song when the whole club is singing the song word for word while dancing.

Give it a listen...

Lady Gaga feat Beyonce - Telephone (Crookers remix)


Aaaand just in case you liked that one so much, check out two more Crookers' remixes of two of my favorite Cudi tracks...really like the end result of these two mixes and they're a big reason why I'm now always on the look out for their remixes...

Kid Cudi - Day n Nite (Crookers remix)



Kid Cudi - Embrace the Martian (Crookers remix)