Lots and lots of fun live performances in this week's top five. Leading the way in that category was Odesza who put together a stunning rendition of Line of Sight. Having recently seen them live, I appreciate how they adapted their amphitheater sound to a more intimate setting. Keeping with the late night vibe, Maroon 5 and SZA delivered a fun rendition of What Lovers Do on Fallon. I'll admit I haven't seen much of SZA, so to see her sing live gave me a better feel for massive ceiling as a vocalist. Rounding out the late night trio was Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) of Stranger Things spitting a fiery summary of season one. Having now plowed through the first two seasons, it was enlightening to see the more authentic, raw side of young Eleven.
Pivoting off late night slightly with The Roots in a slightly different context than usual on Fallon. If you've ever seen them perform classroom style on Fallon, then you won't be surprised at how well they handled the space constraints on Tiny Desk. And last, but always the best is a second episode from Odesza's A Moment Apart Tour. I've said it many times, but if you're a fan of electronic music and wish there was more authentic instrumentation mixed with the synthesizers, then Odesza is your answer...#AMomentApart
Odesza Performs Line of Sight on Kimmel
Maroon 5 feat SZA - What Lovers Do Performance on Fallon
Millie Bobby Brown Raps Stranger Things Season 1 Recap on Fallon
A cheerfully somber tropical sing-along from Maroon 5 and Kendrick Lamar? Sounds good to me! I'll be the first to admit, this isn't at all what I expected when I pressed play, but that's not a bad thing. In hindsight, the cover art and playful font on the cover art should have been a clear sign pointing toward a tropical vibe. It's awesome how far Trop House has come, so maybe this is the first of more Trop Pop to come?
Labels aside, it was hard to really dig in on Kendrick's verse because of the playful vibe of the track. He's is in his zone when he can put his storytelling on full display without having to compete with such jingle-friendly beat. All that being said, hearing Adam Levine and K Dot on a track together was a fun novelty. With this track, Kendrick makes another solid addition to his growing list of collabos. Of his latest cameos, his contribution to Sia's The Greatest has been my favorite. Enjoy this one responsibly before Top 40 takes it behind the woodshed...#DontWannaKnow
Today was the first time I had ever participated in the Bay to Breakersraceshit show event. Armed with a minimal effort bee costumer, I took off with my swarm to conquer the city. The controlled chaos was like eye candy for anyone who enjoys people watching. The path of the race might as well have been declared a war zone because there are things that I saw today that I can't unsee...things that would definitely be considered illegal on any other day. And it all started and ended with a huge population of bros that seemed to come out in full force today.
I mention bros in prefacing Maroon 5's new single because it's the ultimate bro song. It's catchy, repeatable, vulgar and hints at having to deal with the consequences of making bad decisions. That my friends is what I experienced today in a nutshell and had this song been out a week earlier, I'm sure I would have been listening to it for all seven miles of chaos. To put it all in a nutshell, enjoy this one quick because you're going to be forced to listen to it for the majority of the summer. As a result, I'd like to formally congratulate Maroon 5 for yet another #1 single...#ThisSummerIsGonnaHurt
Eclectic week for videos with Fallon and Gwyneth leading the way on Broadway versions of Hip Hop hits. I really don't know how Jimmy keeps doing it, but he has an uncanny ability to get celebrities to play unfamiliar roles in really entertaining ways. Right behind the clear top video is deadmau5's Spirit of Gumball documentary. It's interesting bioptic on featuring the always entertaining deadmau5. Yea, it's a safe bet that you're going to hear some great music mixed throughout the exotic card racing on the sixteen minute documentary.
In other news, Childish Gambino and Run the Jewels were the talk of the town when it came to late night. For those of you keeping score at home, Donald Glover took over Kimmel, while RTJ took over Conan. So many late night options these days it's becoming hard to track. Rounding out the top 5 is the Mikey Posner assisted video for Sugar by Maroon 5. Ever wondered what wedding crashing is really like? Well press play and watch Adam Levine go to work...#Sugar
Jimmy Fallon & Gwyneth Paltrow Sing Broadway Versions of Hip Hip Verses
Wait...a Maroon 5 and Big Boi collaboration? Huh? Yea, that was my initial reaction too as I struggled to wrap my brain around hearing a Daddy Fat Sax verse on Animals.
Unfortunately, the collaboration didn't quite live up to my monumental expectations. Here I was hoping the beat would be transformed to reflect a southern Hip Hop, bass heavy sound, only to find out that Big Boi's verse was cut and pasted into the original version. When I say cut and pasted, the transition to his verse was more than a little rough around the edges. Yes, Big Boi brought the thunder on his verse, but it didn't mesh well with the beat and seemed out of place. If anything this is a testament to how difficult it can be to mesh two different styles without taking into account how everything sounds as a whole. It's surprising because Big Boi and Adam Levine are crazy talented, but not all good things go together when special attention isn't given to blending two things together...#AnimalsRemix
Quite the wide range of videos this week. The top five is filled with everything from interactive crosswalks to festival trailers to actual, new music videos. Whoever designed the crosswalk signal that shows people dancing real time gets five golden stars for experience design of the week. The lights abstract obscenity, which means people can go absolutely nuts without doing anything that would offend anyone. Definitely my favorite video of the week for a lot of reasons.
Snowglobe just might be the festival I've been looking for both lineup and distance wise. Never been to Tahoe, but there's something about people wilding out in wintertime to EDM that just sounds fun. Real music video wise, Pharrell's new one for It Girl is a fun mash up of cartoon and real life. Oh and Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo are not afraid to get a little bloody in Maroon 5's new one Animals. Rounding out the top five is one of my favorite cross genre collaborations with Mayer Hawthorne and Kendrick Lamar teaming up for some visuals of their latest collabo...#MayerHawthorne
While I wouldn't necessary call Big Sean collaborating with Maroon 5 mind blowing, it deserved an eyebrow raise. My initial fear was that it would be a peanut butter ketchup scenario...great when individually mixed with other things, but pretty difficult to palate when mixed together. Surprisingly, the two blended pretty well together. Thanks to a bit of Hip Hop flavor added to the original version of Maps, Big Sean was able to drop a solid verse before getting out of the way as Adam Levine's original vocals fit in nicely with the ebb and flow of the new beat. It may not knock your socks off, but my bet is you'll find a way to vibe to the new take on a current radio favorite...#Maps
Decent mix of funny, entertaining and inspirational this week with The Lonely Island setting the humor bar high this week with Diaper Money. On the flip side, I got goosebumps watching third grader Asean Johnson of Chicago blast Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for threatening to close his school. The little dude might just be the rose that grew from concrete in a city that has become synonymous with Irag.
Sandwiched in between are some entertaining videos from a few usual suspects like Fat Joe, T.I. and Maroon 5. Although it was tempting to post all clips of Kanye's new videos being projected onto walls, I'm going to refrain from that business. Enjoy your long weekend y'all, see some of you at the Indy 500...#MemorialDay
The Lonely Island - Diaper Money (Video)
Fat Joe feat Wiz Khalifa & Teyana Taylor - Ballin' (Video)
T.I. feat Cee-lo - Hello (Video)
Maroon 5 - Love Somebody (Video)
Third Grader Asean Johnson Argues for Chicago Mayor to Not Close His School
Taking more of an entertainment and novelty angle on this week's video rendition. In other words, it's not everyday you get to see a parrot performing Dubstep or a rapping animated stomach telling you to eat healthy. The most interesting video may actually be the Pirate Bay Documentary, which has just over 2 million views in the week that it's been up. If you're not familiar with the story, it's an interestin internet piracy company that keeps chugging despite the increased emphasis by the federalies.
Novelty aside, the coolest video of the week award without question goes to @maroon5's Playing for Change inspired video for Daylight. There really isn't much cooler than getting people around the world to come together to make music together...#WorldwideAwesome
Maroon 5 - Daylight (Playing for Change) Video
Wale to Drop The Album About Nothing With Jerry Seinfeld
A few noteworthy videos flew across the radar this week both on the music and film front. First and foremost, the preview for The Campaign came out this week and looked ridiculously funny. Picture a plot based on brutal opposition similar to Step Brothers with Will Ferrell and @galifianakisz, except written by the writers of Eastbound and Down and directed by Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents, Dinner for Schmucks). I'm envisioning a really funny plot that is going to be borderline inappropriate with the Eastbound influence, but at the same time maintain an underlying message like the more classier comedies that Jay Roach has been attached to.
Cinema previews aside, the @maroon5 and @realwizkhalifa Payphone video was a fun watch. I'm not sure I'm a fan of @kanyewest and @s_c_'s choice of Made in America for their third single off Watch the Throne. On a positive note, the @tiesto and @wolfganggartner collabo is a perfect get the weekend started track. Cheers to the weekend y'all!...#ItsFriday
The Campaign Trailer (Will Ferrell & Zach Galafianakis)
Maroon 5 feat Wiz Khalifa - Payphone (Video)
Tiesto feat Wolfgang Gartner & Luciana - We Own the Night (Video)
Nicki Minaj Performs Right By My Side & Starships on Ellen
Tonight viewers of NBC's The Voice got a treat in the form of @maroon5's new single Payphone featuring @realwizkhalifa. Shoot Wiz even appeared out of thin air around the 2:34 mark to deliver his cameo verse on the track. Check the video hot off the press...
It's good to see @ADAMLEVINE leveraging his position as a judge on the show to get the new single some exposure. You'd be kidding yourself if you thought Maroon's lead single off their upcoming album Overexposed would be anything short of ridiculously catchy. I'd assess the track as an upbeat, uplifting track that steadily marches to the ebb and flow of excitement brought to a crescendo at the chorus. Credit is in order for the producers Shellback and @itsbennyblanco for seamlessly weaving in Hip Hop a sounding beatbox for Wiz to go in on toward the end of the track.
It's pretty rare that the full tracklist is already posted for Overexposed since the album is due out in two months on June 26th. Hey, more power to them if they can sell that many copies in advance, besides it's not a Hip Hop album, so the likelihood of it leaking already decreases by at least 50%. My guess is you have a solid week or two before this becomes all your friends favorite track. Don't sleep on it, be the opinion leader this time around...#LeadersDontFollow
This post is going to be borderline difficult to pull off without cringing a little bit for me. There are very few things I hate sharing in the world...and I'm not just talking music wise, that's in life, I'm always asking friends to share in the same wanderlust for trying new things. Whether it be food related, vocabulary oriented (y'all know I like to find new ways to say the same shit, regardless of how corny it sounds), social scene related (hate goin' to the same place over and over) or even a new route to the same place you always go to that you never tried before because it would deviate from the comfort of the usual, that's my steez (please don't tell me you let Cha Cha tell you what's up). (Speaking of which, sad news with Guru of Gang Starr...get well soon goes out to one of the more inspirational MCs in Hip Hop history)
Taking what you now know from the paragraph above, you may be surprised why it would pain me to provide for y'all some of my Go-To remixes. When I say Go-To remixes, I mean those tracks that you know the audience (the club) will be familiar with, but they've been remixed so incredibly well that it you know even the wallflower in the corner is like "oh shit that's my jam, I gotta stop bein' myself for hot minute and cut a rug even though I look as coordinated as a grizzly bear on the dance floor". Every DJ has these remixes and most, like me, hold them sacred and only bring them out when you know you've got the audiences attention because these are the types of tracks the audience from the night before are searching limewire all day for to no avail after they heard it the night before and lost it.
Which brings me to Cory Bold, the 21 year old producer who is mainly a producer but also prides himself as being an aspiring songwriter and fitness advocate. His myspace clearly states that with his influence, "The Lines Between Music and Fitness Have Now Been Blurred". Having listened to a few of his remixes, his style comes predominantly from taking slower R&B and even Contemporary (see Maroon 5) tracks and making them into attention grabbing, synthesizer and bass driven anthems. The key phrase to pick out in that last sentence was attention grabbing, I don't know how else to eloquently describe his beats. They come off so crisp and contrast with the emotion laden tracks so well, it's like listening to a track in it's element or the way it was supposed to sound.
He truly is a magician when it comes to looping creative synth driven beats with heavy bass...he is to the digital keyboard as Timbaland is to digital percussion. Get what I'm sayin? As a taste, check out his hit with Letoya Luckett titled She Ain't Got Shit On Me...
The first time I heard that track it stuck to me like peanut butter on the roof of your mouth. Funny thing is, I never knew it was Cory Bold who produced it until about a year later when it all added up. I still regard this beat as his most noteworthy original creation with an artist to date, i.e. not counting the remixes.
...aaaahh yes the remixes, aka what plastered Cory all over my radar as one of the top young producers in the game. When I sit back and think about it, it has to be a challenge to try and tackle tracks that have become so entrenched into the contemporary radio audience because most people get so enamored with the way a track should sound because they are so used to it sounding that way. After my two paragraph long diatribe preaching individuality, you can see why I'd be one to support the latter and always be looking for more or a better sound to come from an already well done track. Usually I save the best for last, but I'll jump right in with my favorite remix done by Cory of Alicia Key's No One...
The subtle but high pitched sparkling synthesizers augment the dramatic nature of the track and blend like rum and coke with the rolling percussion. Maybe I'm partial to the nostalgic feel of the track and craved a slightly more intense version...maybe I just love anything that involves Alicia Keys singing...either way this is one of my favorite remixes.
Coming in a very close second is a melodic, strings driven remix to Beyonce's If I Were a Boy. This one comes off as a little softer, harmonic and less in your face as the A Keys track. It's really hard to mess with crescendo of Beyonce's chorus combined with the ascending intensity of the beat. No doubt a good look...
Finally, I would have been remiss if I didn't throw a 3-1 curveball at you with CB's attempt at one of Maroon 5's most well known singles Makes Me Wonder. This one comes off as more interesting considering the lack of proximity to Hip Hop/R&B. That's why I think it's one of his better efforts because it has to be hard to put a beat to a Pop track...and still make it sound good. He does that with his characteristically out of this universe sounding, high pitched synth throughout the track. Farthest from vanilla you can get on this post and very worthy of a listen...
To finish you knew I'd drop a new one on ya...and I'll admit when I first saw the studio video of Cory Bold creating this track with the Jackie Boyz I about fell out of my chair...then, after climbing back into my chair began a quest for the track as determined to get it as Tiger does waitresses Canada's hockey team was to winning gold. (How bout that by the way...it's never quite as fun when you're expected to win...you could just see the look of relief rather than joy on those guys' faces...shame how expectations can be detrimental sometimes). Anyways, I was able to find the track and it's without a doubt worth a listen since you don't get much underrated as the talented singer/songwriters the Jackie Boyz and Cory Bold producing.
As a bonus, here's the in the studio look I was alluding to earlier where you can see the track being developed and brainstormed before it came to life.
Moral of the story - keep an ear out for Cory Bold since after listening to these samples, you should be able to pick out his sound in a crowd.
