Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he notes that rock radio has actually started playing songs sung by women after a long drought. (No, really!)
The effortlessly breezy “Lights Out” is one of my favorite tracks on Santogold’s self-titled debut, and I haven’t gotten sick of it yet even though its presence in the commercial breaks of baseball games is near-constant. More »
The Diplo/Santogold mixtape Top Ranking is news nearly everywhere in blogland these days–it’s a sequel of sorts to all the fun we had with Piracy Funds Terrorism, after all! The hype is somewhat merited; the disc is an entertaining listen, with most of the disparate influences that influence Santogold’s debut appearing in one form or another. While the dancehall tracks and remixes appeal to someone like me who enjoys listening to the genre’s hits while preferring to not consider the larger social implications of that particular cultural crossover, the mix’s classic rap tributes nearly brought a nostalgic tear to my eye.
Did you guys know that Santogold–billed under her pre-metallurgy name Santi White–was on GZA’s 2002 album Legend Of The Liquid Sword? More »
Did you guys know that Santogold–billed under her pre-metallurgy name Santi White–was on GZA’s 2002 album Legend Of The Liquid Sword? More »
ARTISTS: Julian Casablancas, Pharrell, and Santogold
TITLE: “My Drive-Thru”
WEB DEBUT: June 9, 2008
Santogold has ruffled some feathers with her thoughts on the idea of a musician “selling out,” which she expressed to New York in an interview that ran this week. “Everybody wants you to sell a lot of records,” the former Epic A & R exec told NY‘s Sara Cardace, “but it’s not considered a failure if you don’t. The record labels know that most of the money nowadays is made in licensing…. So where before it might have been, ‘Oh, you’re gonna sell out?,’ now it’s how we make our money.” This quote inspired outrage from some of the more purist quarters out there, but does Santi have a point?
Santi “Santogold” White is ruffling a few feathers by saying that people tagging her music as hip-hop and/or R & B are engaging in racist behavior, i.e. placing a genre on her music without really listening to it. Dropping the “r” word is always going to cause people to take up arms, and indeed, there are some fans of hip-hop who see this quote as Santogold turning her back on the genre. But is she dissing hip-hop and R & B, or is she fed up with lazy music categorizers who feel compelled to put every piece of music they hear into an iTunes-approved genre, and who sometimes rely on superficial characteristics like, say, the color of an artist’s skin in order to get to that end?
Once again, artists have come together to promote a common cause, and this time it’s a sneaker. Santogold, the refreshing new artist who sounds like Gwen Stefani reacting to M.I.A., has joined Strokes leader Julian Casablancas and renaissance man Pharrell Williams to record a new song/video/Converse ad campaign. Santogold says the final product is “such a Pharrell track,” which either means that it’s the R&B smash of the summer or an embarrassing trainwreck with noxious jazz keyboards. I would think the presence of Mr. Casablancas would edge things towards the latter possibility, but maybe I just don’t have enough faith in Converse.
Madonna’s Hard Candy was last week’s top-selling album, shifting 280,000 copies in its first week of release and leaving every other commercially available offering in the dust. Candy was the only album on this week’s chart to break the six-figures-sold mark; Mariah Carey’s E=MC2, the runner-up to Hard Candy, sold 95,000 copies.
