I like my Lollipop better.

Dun dun dun dun.....

No one's ever accused Lil' Wayne of poor melodic composition.

Lil' Wayne has poor melodic composition.

/it's a very common chord progression interpreted to an arpeggio
//whoopidy doo

Since nobody yelled "No homo!" at the beginning, this is gay, right?

/the song's much better without the lyrics. I've always thought it was bizarre to have such a melancholy-sounding melody with lyrics about getting some head. Do blowjobs make Lil' Wayne sad?
//to really be a Lil' Wayne song someone needs to run that piano output through a vocoder, too. Make that piano sound like Cher!

Just a 'for instance', La noyée, Yann Tiersen, 2001 (probably released separately much earlier).

Skip to the 1:06 mark if you don't hear it.

Same chord progression with the inclusion of one more cycle.

CtrlAltDelete it's a very common chord progression interpreted to an arpeggio
//whoopidy doo

Yeah, that was my first thought. Sounds like a book 1 etude.

pipco: Yeah, that was my first thought. Sounds like a book 1 etude.

Don't get me wrong, the guy in the video seemed competent enough; I just f*cking hate R&B hacks like M.I.A. and Lil' Wayne and.. well, sh*t, there's a lot of them- who churn a common chord progression into a loop on ProTools, talk about how goddamn awesome they are in the lyrics, and then call themselves musicians.

CtrlAltDelete: pipco: Yeah, that was my first thought. Sounds like a book 1 etude.

Don't get me wrong, the guy in the video seemed competent enough; I just f*cking hate R&B hacks like M.I.A. and Lil' Wayne and.. well, sh*t, there's a lot of them- who churn a common chord progression into a loop on ProTools, talk about how goddamn awesome they are in the lyrics, and then call themselves musicians.

What universe do you live in where MIA is R&B? Songs like Jimmy and Bamboo Banger are most definitely not R&B.

AgentOrangeDrink: What universe do you live in where MIA is R&B? Songs like Jimmy and Bamboo Banger are most definitely not R&B.

A universe where every goddamn radio station plays Paper Planes one thousand goddamn times a goddamn day.

It's a terrifying place.

CtrlAltDelete: A universe where every goddamn radio station plays Paper Planes one thousand goddamn times a goddamn day.

It's a terrifying place.

I can tell. You're denigrating the composition of an R&B song about oral sex. You were expecting maybe Brahms?

/Unrelated note: one of the hottest hip hop tracks I've ever heard sampled the beginning of Beethoven's 9th symphony, movement 2.

Occam's Chainsaw: I can tell. You're denigrating the composition of an R&B song about oral sex. You were expecting maybe Brahms?

Now that's unfair. I'm pretty sure Symphony No. 3 Poco Allegretto was about a handjob in Oberösterreich.

CtrlAltDelete, since when is M.I.A. R&B?!

Great hip hop isn't necessarily the sophistication of the melody, it's the layering of a great beat, interesting lines of melody and hooks, with interesting lyrics and often references to previous artists and themes with samples or quotations. If you're just focused on one line of melody you can easily miss the whole picture.

Case in point, M.I.A.'s Paper Planes, which is a farking genius hip hop song, and I'm not sure why you hate it, unless you just hate rap. It has a brilliant sample of The Clash's Straight to Hell, solid and understated drums/bass, a completely catchy and infectious chorus. But what turns into a killer track is the concept and message: M.I.A. uses the typical bravado of rap to critique how immigrants are perceived, with over-the-top lyrics about having no ambition but to shoot off guns and hustle drugs. It echoes the themes from the sampled track, which if you're unfamiliar, is a brutal castigation of imperialism, the aftermath of the Vietnam war personalized by abandoned Amerasian kids, and the difficulties of immigrants in the US. There's a sense of both historical continuity with the social critique when M.I.A. highlights the "poison in the system", but the "go straight to hell" messages is entirely in the opposite direction from the original, directed at society at large and exposing racist hypocrisy in particular... it's a near-perfect response to the original track. And it works on a number of levels: it can be interpreted at face value, too, as a song about running drugs, that fits in the long tradition of American rap songs about hustling drugs.

If you think I'm reading too much into the track, read an interview or two with M.I.A. and more importantly, listen to the rest of Kala.

bobbette: Words


"RAP" IS JUST CRAP MISSING A C

bobbette: CtrlAltDelete, since when is M.I.A. R&B?!

Great hip hop isn't necessarily the sophistication of the melody, it's the layering of a great beat, interesting lines of melody and hooks, with interesting lyrics and often references to previous artists and themes with samples or quotations. If you're just focused on one line of melody you can easily miss the whole picture.

Case in point, M.I.A.'s Paper Planes, which is a farking genius hip hop song, and I'm not sure why you hate it, unless you just hate rap. It has a brilliant sample of The Clash's Straight to Hell, solid and understated drums/bass, a completely catchy and infectious chorus. But what turns into a killer track is the concept and message: M.I.A. uses the typical bravado of rap to critique how immigrants are perceived, with over-the-top lyrics about having no ambition but to shoot off guns and hustle drugs. It echoes the themes from the sampled track, which if you're unfamiliar, is a brutal castigation of imperialism, the aftermath of the Vietnam war personalized by abandoned Amerasian kids, and the difficulties of immigrants in the US. There's a sense of both historical continuity with the social critique when M.I.A. highlights the "poison in the system", but the "go straight to hell" messages is entirely in the opposite direction from the original, directed at society at large and exposing racist hypocrisy in particular... it's a near-perfect response to the original track. And it works on a number of levels: it can be interpreted at face value, too, as a song about running drugs, that fits in the long tradition of American rap songs about hustling drugs.

If you think I'm reading too much into the track, read an interview or two with M.I.A. and more importantly, listen to the rest of Kala.


That´s great. The song sucks.

All American Rejects version of "Womanizer" is already weirding me out.

Bathia_Mapes: I like my Lollipop better.

That is just plain creepy.

best version of lollipop in my opinion (new window)

Framing Hanley really polishes up that turd of a song and makes it somewhat listenable. Makes the song powerful and adds some emotion instead of the typical rap bravado.

CtrlAltDelete: Just a 'for instance', La noyée, Yann Tiersen, 2001 (probably released separately much earlier).

Skip to the 1:06 mark if you don't hear it.

Same chord progression with the inclusion of one more cycle.

Oh you magnificent son of a...still listening to the piano version, can't say I've heard the lil wayne version (yet, but will listen for posterity later)...and bam, after reading this, I heard echoes of the Amelie soundtrack. Hah! Good show.

But yeah, I like the piano version for the legacy nuances. Of course, I also find instrumentals often more appealing than compisitions with sub-par vocals either phrasing, content, or general language use...personal preferences and all that. But I'm truly a sucker for symmetrical-feeling active melodies and bass line movement. So I hear this version and recording, which is a fine public-worthy performance I think, and think about how I would like to add in strings, solid and distorted rhythm guitar and an occasional on-melody lead guitar snippet, maybe some electric string bass accents, and then a pretty primitive electronica-reminiscent drum section. Kick, snare, go from there...

Thank the deities for internet radio like soma.fm and last.fm; what I described does sort of exist here and there, and it's what I find my favorite form. I still have guilty pleasures like Buckcherry (quite good to put on in background and 'look at me' guitar solo over for 3 minutes) but admire Segovia. One of his Bach sessions in Italy or wherever with the birds in the background totally ruined my ability to embrace the modern American working world. I mean, I want to be sitting on a patio playing guitar as my form of living! Talk about a dream job...he deserved it. Me, still attempting to earn it.

Music is great, but it's such a large business. Lil Wayne is a commodity created on the cheap (cough lifting public domain melodies cough). People buy it.

Pirate Satellite: All American Rejects version of "Womanizer" is already weirding me out.

Haven't heard that one, those guys are pretty cool. When they are in Atlanta they frequent the bar I used to work at. The same bar hosted a Fark party.

CtrlAltDelete: AgentOrangeDrink: What universe do you live in where MIA is R&B? Songs like Jimmy and Bamboo Banger are most definitely not R&B.

A universe where every goddamn radio station plays Paper Planes one thousand goddamn times a goddamn day.

It's a terrifying place.

A universe where Chris Cornell could shiat on a microphone and most radio stations would put it into heavy rotation.

Wentzbag: Pirate Satellite: All American Rejects version of "Womanizer" is already weirding me out.

Haven't heard that one, those guys are pretty cool. When they are in Atlanta they frequent the bar I used to work at. The same bar hosted a Fark party.


Aha. Found a better link than the one I first had.

All American Rejects - "Womanizer" (new window)

Lil' Wayne has good melodic composition.

/me like the piano version better

CtrlAltDelete: pipco: Yeah, that was my first thought. Sounds like a book 1 etude.

Don't get me wrong, the guy in the video seemed competent enough; I just f*cking hate R&B hacks like M.I.A. and Lil' Wayne and.. well, sh*t, there's a lot of them- who churn a common chord progression into a loop on ProTools, talk about how goddamn awesome they are in the lyrics, and then call themselves musicians.

uhhh.. they write the songs, they don't do the production. You have a gripe with anyone, it should be with the person who produced the songs.

But you seem like a smart guy, you probably knew that already.

Pirate Satellite: Wentzbag: Pirate Satellite: All American Rejects version of "Womanizer" is already weirding me out.

Haven't heard that one, those guys are pretty cool. When they are in Atlanta they frequent the bar I used to work at. The same bar hosted a Fark party.

Aha. Found a better link than the one I first had.

All American Rejects - "Womanizer" (new window)


That was pretty good.

Fark seems to have lost my comment about a friend who was sitting on a table on campus tripping and playing "Hit me Baby One More Time" acoustic at about 3am.

He swears some guy walked by, stopped and said "You know that's supposed to be capoed at the third fret right?"

dkny: uhhh.. they write the songs, they don't do the production. You have a gripe with anyone, it should be with the person who produced the songs.

Well then I apologize, retract my statement, and now clarify to say that I hate everyone involved.

bobbette: Case in point, M.I.A.'s Paper Planes, which is a farking genius hip hop song

I think it has a good hook, but that's about it. The vocals are pretty bad. I couldn't care less about the lyrics. If you want a story to go along with your music, read a damn book.

CtrlAltDelete: dkny: uhhh.. they write the songs, they don't do the production. You have a gripe with anyone, it should be with the person who produced the songs.

Well then I apologize, retract my statement, and now clarify to say that I hate everyone involved.

Perhaps if you actually knew a little bit about the music which you so clearly hate, people might actually take you seriously.

dkny: Perhaps if you actually knew a little bit about the music which you so clearly hate, people might actually take you seriously.

Well to be honest, who wants to learn about music they hate? I have no idea what Celene Dion's full catalog includes, but I do hate what I've heard.

Wentzbag: dkny: Perhaps if you actually knew a little bit about the music which you so clearly hate, people might actually take you seriously.

Well to be honest, who wants to learn about music they hate? I have no idea what Celene Dion's full catalog includes, but I do hate what I've heard.

If you're going to open your mouth in public about it, though, you'd do well to atleast be a little bit informed, unless he likes looking like an idiot.

I don't know, maybe it's what he does in his spare time. I can't really say.

dkny: Perhaps if you actually knew a little bit about the music which you so clearly hate, people might actually take you seriously.

Dude, what are you even talking about now?

I hate the music.

I hate Lil' Wayne's bullsh*t song about blowjobs.

I couldn't give a sh*t less about his inspiration for the song; the audio engineers who mixed it; the source of the samples; the production; the marketing.. I don't want to see his first draft. I am not curious about how he changed and revised the song to meet whatever artistic objective he was hoping to achieve.

I don't care.

So I'm not going to study that sh*t.

Because.. why would I?

Do you think that if I had a better idea of all the hard work that went in to making that particular piece, I would somehow enjoy it?

Because dude: it's a f*cking bullsh*t song about blowjobs.

Written by an asshole.

So what the f*ck.

CtrlAltDelete: Because.. why would I?

I believe the answer to that question is the text you copied to reply to.

it's retarded when people go to great lengths to describe why their favorite prog band is great because it writes in 13/8 time and uses exotic scales, but it's really much worse going to the same extreme trying to make excuses for why "Lollipop" is great.

If you like it, good for you. Personally, the only good thing I can say about mainstream hip hop is that as bad as it is, it seems to be damn near impossible now to have a career in that field for longer than 5 years. And even that amount of time is being generous.

destitute college kid: I believe the answer to that question is the text you copied to reply to.

Okay...

FeedTheCollapse: it's really much worse going to the same extreme trying to make excuses for why "Lollipop" is great.

Well, they could always take the easy way out and just say you don't know enough about it.

The problem with everyone who criticizes lil wayne is that the first lil wayne song they heard was probably lollipop. A song like Lollipop is more like Lil Waynes award to himself, not the embodiment of why he deserves it. The volume of his work between 2005-2007, the fact that he rescued hip-hop from being a completely polished/money genre, the way he opened up the mixtape game to anybody and how to best use it...plus the sheer entertainment value of his rhymes demonstrates that he really is the best rapper alive....Jay Z is stale (Sorry)

cr3am: I've never liked Jay-Z (except for the song Big Pimpin' and the mashup album with Linkin Park). I really don't understand what the big deal was over him.... it always sounded to me like he was almost off the beat in every song

Did you hear The Grey Album (new window)?

VictoryRed: The problem with everyone who criticizes lil wayne is that the first lil wayne song they heard was probably lollipop. A song like Lollipop is more like Lil Waynes award to himself, not the embodiment of why he deserves it. The volume of his work between 2005-2007, the fact that he rescued hip-hop from being a completely polished/money genre, the way he opened up the mixtape game to anybody and how to best use it...plus the sheer entertainment value of his rhymes demonstrates that he really is the best rapper alive....Jay Z is stale (Sorry)

Rakim is not dead.

CtrlAltDelete: dkny: Perhaps if you actually knew a little bit about the music which you so clearly hate, people might actually take you seriously.

Dude, what are you even talking about now?

I hate the music.

I hate Lil' Wayne's bullsh*t song about blowjobs.

I couldn't give a sh*t less about his inspiration for the song; the audio engineers who mixed it; the source of the samples; the production; the marketing.. I don't want to see his first draft. I am not curious about how he changed and revised the song to meet whatever artistic objective he was hoping to achieve.

I don't care.

So I'm not going to study that sh*t.

Because.. why would I?

Do you think that if I had a better idea of all the hard work that went in to making that particular piece, I would somehow enjoy it?

Because dude: it's a f*cking bullsh*t song about blowjobs.

Written by an asshole.

So what the f*ck.

Damn Francis, did I strike a nerve?

all I'm saying is, if you want to sound ignorant and stupid, go right ahead, but don't expect people to take you seriously unless you know just a little bit (and i'm talking the basics here) about what and why you hate it.

There's no need to study the music, you can pick up the basics anywhere.

But hey, like I said, maybe being ignorant is something you like to do in your spare time. Who am I to judge? You seem pretty good at it, if it is something you like to do, though.

So, congratulations.

dkny: Damn Francis, did I strike a nerve?

all I'm saying is, if you want to sound ignorant and stupid, go right ahead, but don't expect people to take you seriously unless you know just a little bit (and i'm talking the basics here) about what and why you hate it.

There's no need to study the music, you can pick up the basics anywhere.

But hey, like I said, maybe being ignorant is something you like to do in your spare time. Who am I to judge? You seem pretty good at it, if it is something you like to do, though.

So, congratulations.

Whatever you say, kid :)

VictoryRed: The problem with everyone who criticizes lil wayne is that the first lil wayne song they heard was probably lollipop. A song like Lollipop is more like Lil Waynes award to himself, not the embodiment of why he deserves it. The volume of his work between 2005-2007, the fact that he rescued hip-hop from being a completely polished/money genre, the way he opened up the mixtape game to anybody and how to best use it...plus the sheer entertainment value of his rhymes demonstrates that he really is the best rapper alive....Jay Z is stale (Sorry)

This better be a big troll because either you don't have your head on straight or you don't know jack when it comes to hip hop. Lil wayne did not save anything except crappy poppy hip hop from being used as a giant profit maker. Hip Hop is alive and well, the problem is that people like you think there needs to be some huge money maker player pushing records in order to prove that it is. Which is false and just wrong. People like Lil Wayne have damaged and made a mockery of true artists and in fact made himself a big joke.

Occam's Chainsaw: No one's ever accused Lil' Wayne of poor melodic composition.

Just of making shiat music.

CtrlAltDelete: FeedTheCollapse: it's really much worse going to the same extreme trying to make excuses for why "Lollipop" is great.

Well, they could always take the easy way out and just say you don't know enough about it.

Sorry music is subjective and his just sucks, you dont have to know music to know lil wayne sucks ass

steamingpile: Sorry music is subjective and his just sucks, you dont have to know music to know lil wayne sucks ass

I agree.

But to be fair, his music sucks from an objective viewpoint too.

CtrlAltDelete: Occam's Chainsaw: I can tell. You're denigrating the composition of an R&B song about oral sex. You were expecting maybe Brahms?

Now that's unfair. I'm pretty sure Symphony No. 3 Poco Allegretto was about a handjob in Oberösterreich.

Hot damn that's funny. "Largo... larghetto... andante... presto... presto... bravo!!! Decrescendo, diminuendo. Now clean yourself up."

CtrlAltDelete: A universe where every goddamn radio station plays Paper Planes one thousand goddamn times a goddamn day.

It's a terrifying place

i listened to that new album [kala] by her, and the vast majority of it was incredibly/super annoying crap songs. except for the "paper planes" one, which IMHO, was the only "good" one.

going thru track after track i thought "OMG WTF IS THIS SH*T?!?!?"

Sounded like elevator muzak.

syrynxx: Hot damn that's funny. "Largo... larghetto... andante... presto... presto... bravo!!! Decrescendo, diminuendo. Now clean yourself up."

Encore!

cr3am: VictoryRed: Jay Z is stale (Sorry)

I've never liked Jay-Z (except for the song Big Pimpin' and the mashup album with Linkin Park). I really don't understand what the big deal was over him.... it always sounded to me like he was almost off the beat in every song

Off the beat? You don't understand rap at all, do you? Even a little bit? Obviously, or you wouldn't like that Linkin Park abortion. Paper Planes and Lollipop are pop music for this millenium, I'd suggest all you grandpas get back to filling your Depends with the content of your posts here, because the things you like will never be back in style and are gone. Deal with it.

CtrlAltDelete: Occam's Chainsaw: I can tell. You're denigrating the composition of an R&B song about oral sex. You were expecting maybe Brahms?

Now that's unfair. I'm pretty sure Symphony No. 3 Poco Allegretto was about a handjob in Oberösterreich.

Owe, keyboard, etc. etc.

/Damn near spit orange juice on my just-arrived-today laptop

Bathia_Mapes: I like my Lollipop better.

Oh yeah, i forgot about that...

dkny: CtrlAltDelete: pipco: Yeah, that was my first thought. Sounds like a book 1 etude.

Don't get me wrong, the guy in the video seemed competent enough; I just f*cking hate R&B hacks like M.I.A. and Lil' Wayne and.. well, sh*t, there's a lot of them- who churn a common chord progression into a loop on ProTools, talk about how goddamn awesome they are in the lyrics, and then call themselves musicians.

uhhh.. they write the songs, they don't do the production. You have a gripe with anyone, it should be with the person who produced the songs.

But you seem like a smart guy, you probably knew that already.

You probably shouldn't act so superior until you learn reading comprehension. He was clearly griping about everything that went in to making that garbage. You're clearly a fan of that shiat and were offended, but the "you're glib" argument doesn't really cut it.