He dressed up like Robert Smith for Halloween one year. We were at the same party, which got violently broken up by the cops, with like 20 people getting arrested. (I didn't get arrested, but a bunch of my friends did. Dunno if Cass got arrested.)
Trap music, as it's understood today, has become an aesthetic catchall for a rap style that's emerged in Atlanta in the past 15 years or so: busy hi-hats, dinky synth melodies, stop-start flows. It's not necessarily music about dealing drugs.
But if your personal definition of "trap" is "rap songs about dealing drugs," then Ice-T, Schooly D, NWA, and 8Ball & MJG all made trap music. And so did Biggie, Rae & Ghost, Nas, and Jay-Z.
I got to work with Christgau (tho never really directly) for the better part of a year. I did a music blog there (Status Ain't Hood) for about 3 years, and for the longest time I just kind of stayed quiet and kept my head down. First time I ever talked to Bob was in the elevator, when he asked me what I thought of the Damian Marley album. (He liked it more than I did.) Before that, I figured he had no idea who I was.
Bob had a real messy cubicle
The whole Voice situation was SO FUCKED UP, but I got to work with amazing people while I was there: Chuck Eddy, Rob Harvilla, Nick Sylvester, Zach Baron, Pete L'Official, Camille Dodero, David Marchese, Nick Catucci, D. Shawn Bosler, Dennis Lim, Ed Park, a shitload of other people. (Met Greg Tate once but was mostly scared to talk to him.) Got that job when I was like 25, and it's amazing that I got to share space with all these fuckin giants of the field.
Also my cubicle was right next to Michael Musto's cubicle, and he for sure hated me because I was loud and because my ringtone was the Shop Boyz' "Party Like A Rockstar." Also I got to be there at the first editorial meeting after Lacey bought the paper, where Lacey and Nat Hentoff were just screaming at each other the whole time and I had no idea what was going on.
No. I don't rank these by comparing artists' work to their own catalogs. "Penny Lane" is a 6 compared to every other successful pop song ever. So is "One Bad Apple."
You gotta understand: I honestly don't care how historically important or formally innovative these songs were. I mean, I care; that stuff is fun to talk and think about. But that's not how I rate them. I rate them based on how much I enjoy hearing them. And honestly, at any given moment, if you gave me the choice between "One Bad Apple" and "Penny Lane," there's a good chance I'd pick "One Bad Apple."
There is no objectivity in music criticism. Objectivity is a lie.
...yes. fuck. I keep forgetting about the ROH/Sinclair thing.
I would be shocked if ROH was making Sinclair any money, but yeah, that shit still ain't cool.
Sometimes Whosampled. Sometimes Wikipedia or Songfacts. Sometimes I just click through YouTube results until I find something I like. And sometimes, I dredge it up from the recesses of my own memory, which is what I did with today's.
This is all in a Beatles context. Cena is Elton John because he arrived afterward, used some of what he saw, and made a silly circus out of it. (But also sometimes he was good.)
Yeah I couldn't figure out what to do with Shawn Michaels. He's... Frankie Valli? That can't be right.
Also thought about saying Goldberg was Mick Jagger or Brian Wilson but that seemed kinda off too.
I watch NXT and sometimes the pay-per-views but never Raw or Smackdown. And I'll watch the big non-WWE shows like Wrestle Kingdom or All In, but I don't keep up with indie stuff as much as I'd like to. And I watch Lucha Underground when it's on; I love that show.
An incredibly dorky thing that I thought about putting in the column but didn't:
Chris Jericho likes to say that he was the George Harrison of the WWF's Attitude Era, the guy who got overshadowed by Stone Cold Steve Austin the Rock. (He didn't specify which was which, but obviously Stone Cold was John and the Rock was Paul.) But the real George of the Attitude Era was Mick Foley. Jericho was more like the Billy Preston. Also, Triple H was Ringo, Vince McMahon was George Martin, Bret Hart was Pete Best, and Brian Pillman was Stu Sutcliffe. Hulk Hogan was Elvis. John Cena was Elton John. CM Punk was punk.
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