My Wish List

Stephen King's my fave writer, i'm ecstatic every time there's news of him releasing a book, good reviews or not.

All Madonna's greatest hits on one album?? You have got to be kidding me! Sign me up!

Love Shakira; can't wait to own this.

Currently Getting Into...

Had this one for about 2 years in my room, finally gotten around to reading it. With the big "Booker Prize Finalist" sticker on the front, you can imagine the buzz surrounding it; but really, i'm about 1/4 way through and not liking it one bit. Let's hope I don't throw it out before finishing it.

Another Man Booker-associated work (this one won the award in 1999), Disgrace is the third book i've read from Coetzee, the first from him I actually liked after I was finished. It's an awesome work on post-apartheid relations in South Africa. The motifs and themes fit the story quite well, with some very memorable, heavily loaded sentences. It's a little morose, a little cynical, but it's a masterpiece.

The books follows the plight of Suleiman, a nine-year-old boy living in Tripoli in Libya, after his father is forced to flee the family household by Qaddafi's state police due to his involvement in anti-State activities. Almost through with this one. It's nicely written, but loses much of its power by never giving us the bigger picture of the unrest that Libyan residents experienced at the time of its plot.

Currently Getting Into...

One of my faves from The Blueprint 3, Swizz turns Justice's D.A.N.C.E. sample into something a bit eerie.



Some say it sounds dated, others say she's trying to regain her former glory. I say it's brilliant; one of her finest dance moments in years! Love the choreography of the video and the feel of the song. Won't even mention the fashion and the lead dance guy.



Trying to match the tough-girl stance of the song, Rihanna and team come up with a gloriously over-the-top video glorifying explosions, nipple tape and heavy artillery. Hard, indeed.



Trippy and fun fun fun, Animal Collective release the last song on Merriweather Post Pavilion, my fave album of '09 (more on that later). It's a great song, and the video captures the energy of the song perfectly.



I dunno what it is about this song, but I can't get enough of it. Love the bombast, and the vocals remind me of something from the 80's.

Currently Getting Into...

Jay-Z got a lot of flack for this album, but really, he doesn't care. Swizz Beatz, Alica Keys, Rihanna, Kanye West, Young Jeezy and Pharrell all turn up to pay homage to Jay-Hova, helping to make his finest album since The Black Album.

Di lickle island gyal grow up and mi love har even more! Anyone who thinks Rihanna is devoid or incapable of actual depth needs listen to "Fire Bomb" or "Cold Case Love" and everyone else who just wants to dance, "Te Amo" and "Hard" are there for you too.

It's hard to believe this disc is almost 4 years old with how ahead of the pop curve it is. Popping up on every other list of the best albums of last decade, critics were slow to actually admit that JT had given us one of the best pop/dance albums in a very long time. Ignore the song names (they all have "Sex" or "Love" in their titles), ignore the singing and lyrics if you will. But do yourself a favour and concede to Timbaland's glorious bottom-less, 21st century production.

Lady GaGa has amassed a large following in the one year she's been on the pop scene all thanks in part to this baby right here. Chocked full of dancefloor stompers, weird one-liners like "I'm lyin' with my muffin" and mega-hits like "Bad Romance" and "Poker Face", GaGa proves that The Fame was no one-off thing; she's here to stay.

Currently Getting Into...

One of the greatest war movies ever made, a front-runner for this year's Best Picture Oscar. Even if the film doesn't win that, I certainly hope Bigelow wins Best Director; she'd de the first woman to ever do so.

I didn't like "Titanic", but the rest of the world apparently did (it still stands as one of the all-time highest-grossing films at the box office). The whole world loves "Avatar" too, it seems- unadjusted for inflation, the film has joined "Titanic" on that list too. But whatever your opinion of the two films, director James Cameron is a genius. In ten years time, we will still be talking about this film.

Call it a throwback film if you will,  but "An Education" is one of those films that will have you going down memory lane if you were alive during the time period (the 60's) and location (London) it is set. If like me, you aren't, you'll appreciate how detailed the sets are. Everyone here is in fine order, especially Carey Mulligan who I hope will walk away with the Best Actress Oscar come March.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

Being one of music's biggest artistes is certainly not easy; even your worst, most personal moments are played out in front of millions like a summer blockbuster with everyone watching having an opinion. Michael Jackson knows this. So too Whitney Houston and more recently, R. Kelly. This past February, Rihanna, the Barbadian beauty, got first-hand knowledge of this, as shortly after a domestic altercation with then-boyfriend, fellow R&B superstar, Chris Brown, a photo of her all bloodied and bruised leaked to the world. It was a shocking moment, and in recent interviews Rihanna herself has stated it was an embarrassing one for her. The relationship itself ended, Brown pleaded guilty to felony assault in July, whereas Rihanna decided to make music as a form of therapy to deal with all that time she was hiding from the flashes of the paparazzi.
The results of the sessions have morphed into her fourth album, Rated R. On the cover, she poses like a 21st century version of danceclub maverick (and obvious fashion icon influence) Grace Jones; she's not to be messed with even as it seems she's nursing a wound to her right eye.
Beginning with the monologue, "The Mad House", intoned by a sinister-sounding voice a la Michael Jackson's "Thriller", the listener is asked to come in, come in if they're not easily frightened. It sounds a little ridiculous, almost camp; an introduction to a haunted house ride. The subject matter that follows though, is no joke.
"Wait Your Turn" sets the dark, violent tone of the album with its opening line "I pitch with a grenade/Swing away if you're feeling brave." Produced by London dub step duo Chase and Status, the song is all tough talk with Rihanna's eyes set firmly on those dying for their 15 minutes of fame - "It's just the way the game is played, it's best that you just wait your turn" she nastily taunts repeatedly.
"G4L" has Rihanna again being defensive with lines like "Guns in the air, guns in the air/Can't hurt us again when you come around here," but it's the opening salvo that should have eyebrows arched- "I lick the gun when i'm done cuz I know that revenge is sweet." It's not a threat so much as a tough-girl stance, a role Rihanna has employed to tell a story. Produced also by Chase and Status, the song is stark and eerie, and at turns heart-breaking not in Rihanna's transparency as gangster, but in her need to protect herself from future attacks.
Rihanna's voice is a delicate instrument, (in most live performances, it's obvious she hasn't learned to master it just yet) leading some to the conclusion that she isn't a remarkable singer. And while this may be true, current single "Russian Roulette", co-written by go-to-man Ne-Yo, proves that with concentration on pitch and control, her voice is at least capable of conveying emotion. As the first single from the disc, it was a gutsy move on the part of Rihanna's team; comparing a relationship to a potentially fatal game of chance, the song is haunting and epic, with the singer placed squarely in the middle of some sparse guitar, some hesitant gasps, what sounds like her heartbeat and the spinning cylinder of a gun. Her reading of the story is dramatic and expertly controlled, and when the song ends with an audible shiver and a gunshot, the listener feels like something irrevocable has happened.
The narrator of these songs refuses to to play the victim. Rihanna is wary of men even when she openly flirts with them. In "Rude Boy" co-written by Ester Dean, one of the only female collaborators on the album, (who ironically features Chris Brown on her recent single "Drop It Low") Rihanna taunts "Come here rude boy, can you give it up? Come here rude boy, is you big enough?" The song hearkens back to her Good Girl Gone Bad days in its danceability, and admittedly, it's one of the lighter moments on the disc, filler if you must, on an album with such powerful emotional heft. There are a few of these detached moments on Rated R that seek to add diversity to the album's sound.
In the same way the music has lost much of its ingratiating, if innocuous airiness, she has added more pronounced and spiky rock guitars referencing both goth rock and new wave at turns. "Rockstar 101" featuring guitar hero Slash of Guns N' Roses has Rihanna posing touch again, this time more convincingly, daring all to gape and gawk as she holds her "middle finger up." Smartly written by The-Dream, the song has the singer reveling, rather brashly, in her status as a "six-inch walker, big sh*t talker." It's deliciously catty, and who can blame her; she has some of the most exclusive designers and fashion houses the world over at her every beck and call.
The bragging continues on second single "Hard" featuring rapper Young Jeezy, "I live where the sky ends... my runway never looked so clear" she sings in her most deadpan delivery. She offhandedly lists her accomplishments "...brilliant, resilient, fan mail from 27 million" calling herself the "hottest bitch in heels right here." Over The-Dream and Tricky Stewart's clanking, surging beat, she sounds bigger and more ferocious than ever before warning whoever that she's not willing to just throw away all she's worked hard for.
It's rarely discussed that the Bajan native is perhaps the biggest thing this region has produced in recent years surpassing Ricky Martin, Shaggy and even Sean Paul. With 12 top ten hits so far, (the second highest amount by any artiste this decade) Rihanna has been openly welcomed in any field she's ventured into. For a female artiste to represent a Caribbean aesthetic on a worldwide level is curious, especially when Caribbean music has always been so male-dominated. It's even more curious when said artiste has never been the purveyor of salsa, meringue, dancehall or any of the music we are used to here. "Te Amo", the only song that comes closest to an island-flavour, recounts, quite smartly, a tryst on the dancefloor with another woman. In her thickest accent, Rihanna sings, "Then she said 'te amo' then she put her hand around me waist." It's a desire she understands but never reciprocates. Both recalling "La Isla Bonita"-era Madonna and European techno, Stargate's production makes the song absolutely enchanting.
The album is most haunting when vulnerability on the part of Rihanna is allowed to peak through the tougher exterior, like on Ne-Yo's second contribution to the album, the devastating "Stupid in Love", a rueful R&B number with an undulating piano line where the narrator berates herself for being duped by a suitor with blood on his hands. Produced by Brian Kennedy who also helmed her "Disturbia", "Fire Bomb" is violent in its metaphors- "Can't wait to see your face when your front windows break and I come crashing through," but seems apt in the telling of a relationship going down the drain; "The lovers need to clear the road, cuz this thing is ready to blow/I just wanna set you on fire so I won't have to burn alone..." Likewise on the penultimate track, the elegiac "Cold Case Love", produced and written by Justin Timberlake, the song may be the only one that out rightly addresses the events that dissolved the relationship with Brown- "What you did to me was a crime, cold case love/And I let you reach me one more time, but that's enough." It's the most emotional moment of the opus with Rihanna contemplating "prints, pictures and white outlines" all "left on the scene of the crime." Timberlake has the good sense to keep his vocal print off the record, it's Rihanna's story to tell after all, but provides everything else- haunting strings, Timbaland-esque beatbox, pounding drums... At over 6 minutes, the song is slow-boiling, but what a glorious release.
Rihanna has largely been touted as a singles artiste, which seems to be fine in today's ringtone generation. But there comes a time when an artiste needs to grow up. Having worked with the same slew of hitmakers as she did for Good Girl Gone Bad, Rihanna could have easily thwacked out another album full of chart-toppers, but one gets the sense that that wasn't the route Ms. Fenty was willing to take. At turns tough, brash, violent, vulnerable and brave, Rihanna's Rated R not only stands as her personal best album, but also one of mainstream music's best records this year; a look into the soul of a girl having had to evaluate her life after being battered, when all she wanted was to be loved. The world wanted hits, but we got so much more- a look at the living, breathing person behind the grand machine.

May Cause Drowsiness, Do Not Listen While Operating Heavy Machinery...

Having sold near 200 million records the world-over, Mariah Carey is one of the most popular pop-stars of this or the last decade. Her many records won't be re-hashed here, but suffice it to say, near the start of the new millennium, Carey came crashing down off her high horse, beginning with the flop of her first movie-feature, Glitter, culminating in a string of tepid album sales and even a nervous breakdown. Maybe it was with the keys of pop taken by the likes of Britney, Christina and Beyoncé, the world was tired of the old divas of the 90's; after all, Celine Dion, Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston and even Madonna for a while were all dogged by lacklustre sales. But in 2005, something very strange happened- at they end of the year Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi was the world-wide highest-selling album of the year selling over 5 million copies in the US alone. Carey celebrated a string of #1 singles, 8 Grammy award nominations including Album of the Year, and three wins. Without a doubt, Mariah was back and it seemed that the world was ready. While that kind of momentum hasn't carried over for any of her albums released since then (the singer received not one Grammy nod for her E=MC2 album), she has remained firmly within the spotlight.
Like many big-budget albums of the last years of the 2000s, Mariah Carey's Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel faced shifting release dates, all as the final product was tweaked in light of disappointing reactions to early singles, particularly the Eminem-baiting "Obsessed." Unlike many of those big-budget albums, including several made by Mariah herself, Memoirs isn't the product of a stable of producers and collaborators; it is almost entirely the work of The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, the team best known for writing and producing Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Beyoncé's "Single Ladies", two of this decade's most ubiquitous (and best) singles. Masters of compensation, helping elevate mediocre singers- like The-Dream himself or Rihanna- to something sublime, the two seem like an odd choice to work with Carey; after all, her multi-octave voice doesn't seem suited for sonic under-statements at all. This is somewhat true, as on the album, Carey seems to have thinned her voice to a hush, mumbling here or talk-singing there. Still, it has to be said that the first half of the disc consists of some of Carey's best work this decade.
Beginning with the "ey-ey-ey" laden "Betcha Gon' Know (The Prologue)", where we are welcomed into a day in the life of the singer, Carey plays catty with lines like "Oprah Winfrey whole segment, for real... 60 Minutes, for real." The album then shifts gears into first single "Obsessed". As latter-day Mariah Carey singles go, it is one of her most talked about. Remarkably, it's her highest-charting debut on Billboard charts since 1998, peaking at the #7 spot. However, the single has largely stayed outside of the top 10, causing some insiders to call it a flop. It's her 27th top ten hit (her over-all 40th entry on the chart), a remarkable achievement for any artiste regardless of genre; but as the only artiste alive who has surpassed Elvis Presley for having the most #1 songs of all performing artistes, it's almost as if everything Carey releases is expected by fans and industry alike to top the charts. These are unfair expectations, undoubtedly, but more on the song itself. It's a glossy mid-tempo affair, with the singer cooing confidently, riding the laid-back beat, probably holding back the laughs as she insults again- "All up in the blogs saying we met at the bar, when I don't even know who you are." It's a feistier Carey than we are used to, but what is problematic about the song may be problematic of the singer's entire career this decade- every time she re-emerges on the music scene, she is molded to fit whatever template her hot producers see fit. Whether it's the Neptunes, Jermaine Dupri, or of late Tricky and The-Dream, Mariah is always posited as this sexy thang who unrealistically never seems to age, never seems to evolve, never seems to show any sort of genuine emotion or maturity.
Next up is "H.A.T.E.U", supposedly an acronym for "Having a Typical Emotional Upset". It starts off all fluttery, but about a minute in, a back-beat kicks in, and Carey starts singing "I can't wait to hate you." As the song progresses, more and more unique sound elements are added to the song, and by the time the song ends, it's much more interesting than how it started out, Carey's famous whistle-register and all. Such is the talent of producer C. "Tricky" Stewart. Give him a dull song and he will make it interesting, sonically, at least.
The lyrics of next song "Candy Bling" is why Carey will never be taken seriously in some circles- "anklets, nameplates/that you gave to me/sweet tarts, ring pops, and that candy bling/and you were my world." This is a woman who is 40 years of age. Why is she singing about "tag, chess, spin the bottle" like some love-struck teenage girl? The title alone makes one cringe. The chopped and screwed crunk intro of next track "Ribbon" helps one to forget the awfulness of the track preceding it. It's one of the more inspired moments on the entire disc, but Carey gets right back to the insipidities on next song "Inseperable"- "got photos of us on my refrigerator/videos on my phone, boy I just cant erase them.../the first text I ever got from you still saved in my inbox/and I read it like time after time." Thankfully, "Standing O'" comes right after to wash the bad after-taste away- "I gave you all of me/parts of affection you couldn't see" Carey sings sultrily in what may be the entire album's most honest line.
Carey has always had a way with words; right around the time she dived out of Tommy Mottola's mansion and into the deep end (of the pool) in her music video for "Honey," Mariah's increasingly multisyllabic language started to feel like compensation for her progressively regressive image. She's been know to use words like "reverie" and "rhapsodize" in her songs, and with "It's a Wrap" she adds to that by using "composure", "denominator" and "acquiescent". In fact, the entire lyrics read like something Erykah Badu would have written circa "Tyrone". It's that witty. As soon as she does that, though, she achieves a whole new level of lyrical ridiculousness on "Up Out My Face," involving Lego blocks, the entire Harvard University graduating class of 2010, a nail technician, and an allusion to Humpty Dumpty. "The Repise" that follows next isn't bad, but it's a bit pointless with its marching-band arrangement.
After this point, things get very bad, very fast. Starting with "More Than Just Friends", the succeeding tracks increase in skipability, right down to the loud, over-blown and unbelievably-awful remake of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is", and four (yes, four!) remixes of "Obsessed". A gospel choir and half-step key change is not how you spell soul, Mariah.
It's evident what the main problem of the album is- Nash and Stewart have settled into their own groove as producers; their unctuous, Caribbean-inflected, R. Kelly-inspired tracks work well song by song, but there becomes a point where a trademark sound starts to be a cage, not a calling card; somthing needed to have come along and shifted the dripping sonics and cooing vocals. Still, the album's breathiness comes across as sexy. Heavy on slow jams, quiet confessions and kiss-offs closer to the work of the rappers she admires than to Carey's soul sisters (Toni Braxton, Mary J. Blige), Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel capitalizes on an underrated aspect of the singer's voice. Even the more aggressive songs here proceed with a laid-back nod instead of a disco spin. Carey compulsively shares details about her runny mascara and her appetite for Duncan Hines yellow cake, but what Nash and Tricky do here is to help Carey realize that her vocal style also communicates a sort of accessibility. Even at its most extravagant, Carey's singing has a warmth, a sensuality and openness to it that sets her apart from peers like Celine Dion and younger pretenders like Leona Lewis. When she tones down her singing, those qualities dominate.
After a while, though, the approach is too much of a mildly interesting thing, and Carey's restraint works against her, ultimately losing the listener's interest.
If E=MC2 was her most commercial album in years, with each song carefully constructed to become a potential radio hit, Memoirs is ostensibly for the longtime fans, her first album in 14 years not to feature any rappers and one that dips into her back catalogue to depths we haven't heard since 2002's Charmbracelet. In fact, Mariah even compared the album to Butterfly on her Twitter account. Having The-Dream and Tricky Stewart on the boards for all 17 tracks makes the album one of her most sonically consistent- but it also makes it one of her most boring. If this is Mariah's attempt at making a soul album, it's shockingly soulless: despite some cool tricks, the production sounds same-y, lacking the fullness of her best work, and is there really any acceptable explanation for drenching her vocals in Auto-Tune? Not to mention, these "memoirs" don't really reveal much about the singer other than that she's capable of harboring a grudge.
She's in fine voice throughout the album, and there are a few inspired moments to be found, which makes it all the more disappointing that the album's final stretch devolves into a mess of old-school Mariah rehashes that should have been left in the past. All Memoirs needed to push it over the edge is a great pair of singles, and their absence hurts the album as there is nothing to interrupt its sleepy mood.
It's interesting to note that the album, upon its release barely sold over 100,000 copies, debuting at #3 on the charts. What is even more remarkable is that she was beat to the #1 spot by Paramore, an up-and-coming band and believe it or not, Barbara Streisand, not with a record of new material, but covers of jazz standards. But if that was shocking enough, Whitney Houston, who released her first album of new material in over 5 years a month before Carey debuted at #1, selling almost three times as much as Carey did. Is it to be believed that music fans are more interested in listening to Barbara Streisand and Whitney Houston? Or did Carey's album leak work against her? Jay-Z's new album leaked, too; it sold almost 500,000 copies in its first week. Whatever the reason or the cause, these facts are very telling of Mariah Carey's position in popular music- we're very much interested in her wedding news, but not so much her music. And if she keeps releasing albums like Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, it seems it will be like that for a while.