Lyrically Speaking: Jay-Z – “Beach Chair” ft. Chris Martin & “Glory” ft. Blue Ivy

Good music speaks volumes… rather than impose analysis, step back and expose linguistic artistry… why critique that which has achieved perfection at its own masterful conception… listen, look, and linger in fantastic rhythmic reality: lyrically speaking

Life is but a dream to me, I don’t wanna wake up
Thirty odd years without having my cake up
So I’m about my paper: 24/7, 365,366 in a leap year
I don’t know why we here, since we gotta be here
Life is but a beach chair
Went from having shabby clothes, crossing over Abbey Roads
Hear my angels singing to me: “Are you happy HOV?”
I just hope I’m hearing right, Karma’s got me fearing life
Colleek are you praying for me

See I got demons in my past, so I got daughters on the way
If the prophecy’s correct, then the child should have to pay
for the sins of a father; so I barter my tomorrows against my yesterdays
In hopes that she’ll be OK
And when I’m no longer here, to shade her face from the glare
I’ll give her my share of Carol’s Daughter and a new beach chair…

A Few of My Favorite Things… 2011: Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty

“You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.” – Alexander McQueen

A Few of My Favorite Things… 2011: The Parisian Throne

As much the Four Evangelists as they are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Britney, Jay-Z, Kanye, and GaGa – our proud and prestigious pillars of Pop – stood tall and held rapturous court this year as the cause and cure for our ailing culture…

A Few of My Favorite Things… 2011: Boots

Boots are made for stunting and that’s just what they’ll do… and one of these years these boots are gonna stunt all over you… Little Boots were made for shaking and heartbreaks…

Swipe’s were made for trekking the transatlantic scape… Doc’s were made for leaving a footprint on the place… Politicians, happy-until-a-week-later marriages, Hauskeepers, one-percenters, tea-sippers, common sense and decency got a boot straight to the face… This year the bottom fell out in a most beautiful way, how do you destroy angels? Close your eyes… and just listen to the sounds… of these big, black, boots

A Few of My Favorite Things… 2011: New York

Nothing’s too cool, to take me from you…

A Few of My Favorite Things… 2011: London

From Amy and Adele, to Riots and Rupert, with William somewhere in the Middleton, London was the City that kept it trill in 2011… the rhyme and reason for the subtly subwoofed season at the beacon of fringe culture and on the brink of collapse… London Bridge is falling down, and because of that it wears the crown… Prince William ain’t do it right if you ask thee, if I was him I woulda sprayed the town with Banksy…

TrapperKeeper – Best of 2011: Born This Way

Oh, hai “that time of year again,” didn’t hear you come in – well, have a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’m not spectacular at year-end reviews… I prefer life like I prefer my albums: gapless. That said, I hat-tipped five artists, songs, and albums that made me pause and take time to jot the time and place – year included – over the last 300-someodd days; and five creations that embodied and encapsulated sonic aesthetic for 2011. To the five I take, to have and to hold; forever like a TrapperKeeper, Pop safe in the fold. #enjoi

“Edge of Glory,” “Judas” - Born This Way - Lady GaGa

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TrapperKeeper – Best of 2011: Watch The Throne

Oh, hai “that time of year again,” didn’t hear you come in – well, have a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’m not spectacular at year-end reviews… I prefer life like I prefer my albums: gapless. That said, I hat-tipped five artists, songs, and albums that made me pause and take time to jot the time and place – year included – over the last 300-someodd days; and five creations that embodied and encapsulated sonic aesthetic for 2011. To the five I take, to have and to hold; forever like a TrapperKeeper, Pop safe in the fold. #enjoi

“No Church in the Wild” ft. Frank Ocean and The-Dream – Watch the Throne - Jay-Z & Kanye West

We formed a new religion: no sins as long as there’s permission, and deception is the only felony…

The Throne… Black Jesus walks in the wild… Where there is no church, just a primal society of spectacular sinners in the magnificent monde a la mode… Amen fashion… London is looting, Paris is burning, New York is occupied, victors are vilified, and the beasts are the beautiful beacons of a new world… Postcolonial cultural institutions, Neo-capitalism beneath the civilly disobedient liberated lady, soundtracks run through the veins and veneer of a blind Justice Judy… Mitochondiral thieves, sons of Reagan’s mythological Welfare Queens, tears on the mausoleum floor, lies on the lips of a priest… Faustus grants voices, viles of victorious libations, and a hand to grasp to the thug’s prayers reached…. Human beings to a mob, what’s a mob to a king, what’s a king to a god, what’s a god to a non-believer who don’t believe in anything… When pop is the pre-eminent place of worship and The Throne makes room for Jo Calderone… what’s Queen Bee to Minaj, what’s Minaj to a Bey, what’s Britney to GaGa, what’s GaGa to the tot Belieber who don’t believe in anything… #preach

TrapperKeeper – Best of 2011: Audio, Video, Disco.

Oh, hai “that time of year again,” didn’t hear you come in – well, have a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’m not spectacular at year-end reviews… I prefer life like I prefer my albums: gapless. That said, I hat-tipped five artists, songs, and albums that made me pause and take time to jot the time and place – year included – over the last 300-someodd days; and five creations that embodied and encapsulated sonic aesthetic for 2011. To the five I take, to have and to hold; forever like a TrapperKeeper, Pop safe in the fold. #enjoi

“Civilization” - Audio, Video, Disco. - Justice

From Brazil’s Christ Redeemer to B.o.B, Stonehenge to the endless Sk8er Boi party, Madonna Litta eclipsed by the Purrs of California’s Kitty Lolita, Easter Island, Themis, The Sphinx, man-made structures bordering on the divine – resurrected here if only to remind us of what we left behind… All Day I Dream About Significance, Society, Substance, Something – anything more… Mount Rushmore cashed out, Noah’s Ark now nothing more than a two-by-tomb, while the ruins of civilization go all in, stumble, and settle in the Mediated Mesopotamian womb… From behind the veil of the ever present bottom line, sights of the American celebrity to drown out the French artisan’s sound… when culture is dependent upon commerce, justice remains forever blind: Anything less would be uncivilized #allin

TrapperKeeper – Best of 2011: Underneath the Pine

Oh, hai “that time of year again,” didn’t hear you come in – well, have a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’m not spectacular at year-end reviews… I prefer life like I prefer my albums: gapless. That said, I hat-tipped five artists, songs, and albums that made me pause and take time to jot the time and place – year included – over the last 300-someodd days; and five creations that embodied and encapsulated sonic aesthetic for 2011. To the five I take, to have and to hold; forever like a TrapperKeeper, Pop safe in the fold. #enjoi

“Go With You” – Underneath the Pine - Toro Y Moi

I don’t know how, how we’re gonna get out; but I’m not scared, of getting point to point

Whimsical, yet weathered… a post-suicidal virgin’s rhytmically respiratory ambient air… subtle psychedelic melodies wafting along  the breeze… Bundick hums beneath the fragile funk’s pine, coasting along the roots of Seventies soundtracks… xylophonic keys echo in the distance, just beyond the hushed vocals… looping and laying a fresh foundation for tomorrow’s sonic dawn, or tonight’s dusked nightcap… speak easy, synth soundly, step lightly, but strut nonetheless along the harmonic chillwave hymnal of Toro Y Moi…