Santigold

lights out is incredibly good

Top Ranking is pretty choice, huh.

Yeah it's good stuff.

"Get It Up" is fucking awesome. I want to listen to this one song on repeat forever.

i'm late to this one, but i'm enjoying "Lights Out" best - interesting vocal choice there. Yes she sounds like Gwen Stef and MIA, but it's much more informed by early 80s New York than anything else which is never a bad thing. Do prefer the punky stuff better.

I am v. sick of her Moby tactic.

which would be?

how come no one stands up for "I'm a lady" on this thread?

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/pop/393802_musicsellingout29.html

I'm sympathetic to Pareles' gripe, but he doesn't seem to realize it's just that, a gripe.

Unlike non-professional music fans who might immerse themselves in a song or album they love, music licensers want a track that's attractive but not too distracting -- just a tease, not a revelation.

So are Beatles songs "a tease, not a revelation?" Cuz I've heard them in plenty of ads. Lots of canonical songs from previous decades wind up in ads, why should we assume that songs from today in ads can't hold a similar stand-alone weight? And while I'm happy to say Moby's Play is some background pleasant-at-best, it won Pazz'n'Jop that year, so a bunch of people must have thought it was revelation.

It's almost enough to make someone miss those former villains of philistinism, the recording companies. Labels had an interest in music that would hold listeners on its own terms; selling it was their meal ticket. Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.

I wonder if Pareles, in his long-ass career, has ever bitched about record labels ignoring idiosyncratic artists and spending their money promoting faceless schmaltz factories that sound more pleasing on the radio.

Now there's an incentive for a song to have only 30 seconds of good stuff. It's already happening: Chris Brown's hit "Forever" is wrapped around a jingle for chewing gum.

While the incentive was for Chris to incorporate a jingle, if you didn't know the Doublemint tag, you wouldn't know which part of the song was "the good stuff." It's not a good example of a song that's only good for 30 seconds, like say, "Who Let The Dogs Out?"

Put on a song with no commercial attachments. Turn it up. Close your eyes. And listen.

And if you don't watch ads, you won't know which songs have them.

Actually, since he called them "former villains of philistinism," maybe he's suggesting that advertisers are going to bring about a stream of bands worse than Toto.

O noes, we've lost another critic. And Toto had a buch of awesome singles dammit.

Now we'll have to settle for bands that are only as good as Toto...for 30 seconds! For the rest of the song they'll just kinda stand around wondering what to do.

But how soon will it be before musicians, perhaps unconsciously, start conceiving songs as potential television spots, or energy jolts during video games, or ringtones?

Also, Pareles should be old enough to realize that anybody who says "I break the rules!" in a chorus probably isn't much of an "insurgent, quirky rule-breaker" at heart.

I loved the Santogold album until I realized that. Actually it might have been the song where she told Barack Obama to fuck himself first, but yeah, real punks don't wear black so ostentatiously, or vomit gold either.

this seems otm though, and would explain so much popular modern music:

"That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves. "

avant-rockers Battles are heard accompanying an Australian vodka ad.

The question is: What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use?

Yeah I'm pretty sure that their ability to sell vodka in australia is really going to figure in to what battles does in the future. Even if there is a single example of the downstream effect he is describing (where music "recedes") good luck actually finding it.

It's almost enough to make someone miss those former villains of philistinism, the recording companies. Labels had an interest in music that would hold listeners on its own terms; selling it was their meal ticket. Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.

This is just gauzy memory-filter nonsense.

Actually it might have been the song where she told Barack Obama to fuck himself first

hang on which one is this? i have literally paid no attn to santogold's lyrics other than 'l.e.s. artistes' and the line "brooklyn we go hard" - she doesn't enunciate at all - it's amazing that i like her songs as much as i do without a lyrical entry point. the 'l.e.s. artistes' lyrics are really great, though.

this seems otm though, and would explain so much popular modern music:

"That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves. "

yeah, in the future music will be nothing but generalities and repetitive, obvious hooks! OMG POP HOW WILL I RECOGNIZE YOU?

in the sense that artists are prob now thinking of what advertisers will like in the same way they once thought of what radio playlisters would like.

Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.

This is especially LOL, as in the '80s the bitch would be that labels were nurturing stars instead of supporting artists. Now no one's going to mind the factory! They'll just take your jingle and leave you to your own devices! Gasp!

in the sense that artists are prob now thinking of what advertisers will like in the same way they once thought of what radio playlisters would like.

which is the latest fashions, obvious hooks and unchallenging lyrical sentiments in both cases.

xpost to Lex: Maybe I (willfully) misinterpreted the chorus "We think you're a joke / Shove your hope where it don't shine" but it seemed pretty pointed to me.

hmm i've just looked at the lyrics to 'shove it' for the first time and the entire song makes literally not a jot of sense - obama doesn't own the word "hope", and nothing else in the song suggests that she's referring to him, or to anything much. she's never expressed any political views as such, has she? i suspect she's a bit of a div so i've never paid attention to what she says too much.

Brooklyn we go hard
We on the look for the advantage, we work hard
And if we seem to rough it up a bit
We broke but we rich at heart
Pull ourselves up now we won't choke
It's our time, put the lights on us

War tactics they make me sick
reel your heart in run away with it
Smile in your face, undermine your back
got guns for the strength they lack
So if you know another way
you can't look the other way
if you know another way,
tell them so right to their face

We think you're a joke
Shove your hope where it don't shine (4x)

I pay for what's called
eccentricity and my will to evolve
I hear them all say
that I got heart
but not everything that it takes

Taint my mind but not my soul
Tell you I got fire
I wont sell it for no payroll
Let 'em hold me down
I know if I know another way
I can't look the other way
I know another way
I'll tell them so right to their face

We think you're a joke
Shove your hope where it don't shine (4x)

This reads like a generic "fight the system" song; the only link to Obama is the word "hope".

if anything the nameless "they" of the song seems to be the same "they" of 'l.e.s. artistes' and half the album, ie the people santogold would have encountered as an a&r in the entertainment industry around her every day.

I thought "a&r" was "they"

love the album but her borough repping is on some http://www.defendbrooklyn.com/new_store/bk_black_t_drunkgirl.jpg level shit

yeah but didn't "hope" didn't signify "obama" this year? that's only my take, after all.

might have liked it anyway if it wasn't for all the other stuff i didn't like.

Album came out in late April. No idea when it was actually completed though, but not hard to believe the reference had little to do with Obama.

This interview from February indicates she was an Obama supporter btw.

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/02/super-tuesday-s.html

yeah okay doesn't matter though

that line struck me as weird this year too & i couldnt parse it but im willing to believe it was just a coincidence

she's been writing songs her whole adult life - id caution against the idea that this song was written in reaction to or even around the rise of obama

what does that line about 'her whole adult life' have to do with it jordan? i'm older, i've been listening to music my whole adult and child life, she decided to get tough using the year's main signifier and it happened to clang harshly off my ears. it's actually WORSE if she is just singing another song about her poor artistic struggles, does she not have any other topics?

enough. my points are like this: 1. that's how i heard it so that's how i hear it; 2. my not-liking of that song is PART of why i don't like the album; 3. i might be wrong about this BUT WHO CARES. certainly not her, she's from brooklyn, SHE GOES HARD.

also it kind of pissed me off when she said that anyone who thinks she's r&b is just racist and lumping her in with r&b because she's black. what, is she a music critic too? ew, gross.

o_0

relax man - just like you're throwing out the possibility that it's a song about obama im throwing out the possibility that she wrote the song before obama/hope was really a thing

jordan i just wanted to understand your point. i guess now i do. but don't worry, i'm really really relaxed right now. thanks for the advice though!

thank you for not transcribing spank rock's verse on shove it

also it kind of pissed me off when she said that anyone who thinks she's r&b is just racist and lumping her in with r&b because she's black. what, is she a music critic too? ew, gross.

lol

whos said shes R&B? but to be fair, you could see how someone might hear some of the beat-driven tracks on the album and make the link.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3zzumkz2joj

santogold + project pat 2gether at last

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=Santogold&rh=n%3A39%2Ck%3ASantogold&page=1

lolololololol good job, Amazon

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"Mark Ronson In Studio" is still fucking hilarious btw.

lawsuit from Santo Gold (jeweler) -> she's now called santigold -> http://www.myspace.com/SANTiGOLD

should've gone with Santos L. Halper

santis partyhouse