[HH3os] The Run the Doris the Same trio

(1st round match-up 18 of 27)

Holla at ya boy the Dirtgod, writing dumbass shit inside the digital cypher (aka cyber-square) ever since about 1420 AH. Got my psychic kufi woven with comet trails capping my dome right now, hitting the temple of boom baptistry one more time. I apologize for all of this, plus anything else. PEACE!

Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels

(released June 26, 2013; #28 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

The first Run the Jewels before Run the Jewels became internet phenomenon Run the Jewels was so great, because it was a cultural study in the Power of Lounge. Here was Killer Mike, big ol’ Chinese buffet bellied pure kudzu and honeysuckle vine hearted lounger, teaming up with El-P, straight up hyper-speed NY asshole unlounger. In the old conflict between lounge and unlounge, the Power of Lounge prevailed, and somehow the little fucker from NYC didn’t seem so aggro and annoying. That was a great moment for the both of them, and for hip hop gentrifiers everywhere. “If annoying ass nasal know-it-all El-P could be accepted by a pure lounger, then why can’t I?” thought settler-colonialists everywhere.

Obviously as the Run the Jewels story went further, it changed, but I will save that for later, as the first run was simple enough, though yes complicated. They came through the local shithole music promotional place near where I live, which generally markets exclusively to Shinefaces, and that is not to say Run the Jewels is not Shineface-friendly music (because it is), but that Run the Jewels was as fringe non-Shineface as that place will get, so I took my oldest kid, who I think was 16 but not yet driving, and she was down front with her teenage friends (including a dude I did an EP with two years back), and it was weird to be an old guy at the show. Then again I’m more Killer Mike and El-P’s peer demo than they were, but music is not about dudes you are like; it is about making kids give you money. Run the Jewels was able to do that well in a tricky non-corporate but still corporate way. That’s how late capitalism works – all the devils convince how they never existed at all. FOUR STARS (****)!

Earl Sweatshirt – Doris

(released August 20, 2013; #19 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

My oldest daughter really loves this Earl Sweatshirt album, and I can’t remember why but one time recently I had to ride into work with her, and the passenger window in her car is kinda fucked so it’s always cracked, and when I took the door apart to fix it, I found out the whole mechanism inside is totally fucked and bent, so I’ve been meaning to cut a piece of wood to hold the window up, but have not yet. I had it pinched into the fucked metal mechanism but then somebody took my daughter’s ride for a quick trip to the store, and we only put blaze orange duct tape over the passenger side window roll trigger, not driver’s side, so the dude fucked up my Red Green fix. So I need to put wood in there. But anyways, I was riding with her, and she had her stereo bumping hard in the way teenagers do, playing Earl Sweatshirt, and the drizzle mist was blowing in on me in the passenger seat due to fucked window, and to be honest I found Earl Sweatshirt problematic still, with all the goofy Odd Future style pseudo-horrorcore, which is essentially white guy on a message board rap personified. Sweatshirt’s dad is a Nigerian poet, and his mom sent him off to some sort of mystical boot camp in Polynesia, so I guess I would’ve expected more growth from Earl Sweatshirt, which doesn’t mean I expected him to be rhyming about geopolitics so much as I figured if he was still gonna be doing senseless shit with Tyler the Creator, he’d be more clever about it now.

Still though, I am 44, thus not the target demographic of youthful frivolity about petty crimes committed without emotion. And when Earl really is dialed in, he’s another level from any of those other Odd Future Golfwang fuckers (most of whom I don’t consider “fucker” in negative sense except for Tyler, who seems like spoiled kid to be honest). I personally would love it if Earl skewed more towards the Vince Staples end of his spectrum and less towards the Tyler portion, but old loyalties die hard I guess. I know I’ve got a bunch of shitty people I keep up with through social media, just out of the pure idiocy of “well, I’ve known them for a long time.” THREE STARS (***) mostly because it got good side view mirror rattle going on in my daughter’s shitty car.

Drake – Nothing Was the Same

(released September 24, 2013; #25 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)

Drake is trash, pure trash, but if you take him as pure trash in its entirety, I have to admit that this album, of all the ones I’ve been exposed to in the course of this stupid fucking project, is the one I’ve hated the least. There was a moment or two where I actually almost convinced myself I liked it, but then he’d say something idiotic, or cosplay gangsta, or cosplay porn star, or cosplay anything other than fucking Drake, and I’d come back to reality and realize I’m not an 11-year-old girl from 2012, so there’s no reason to even pretend to like Drake. (Please note: grown men who actually say they not only tolerate but actually like Drake are to never be trusted, on anything. They have no blood in their bodies and are actually composed of copper holograms.) TWO STARS (**) just to show scientifically according to my star rating scale that it’s better than all this other trash.

THE WINNER: Naturally, if you know me, this was down to Earl Sweatshirt and Run the Jewels. And I am an expert whiteboy with internet since before Y2K, so obviously Run the Jewels wins. Adult Swim Wu-Tang Forever Sriracha Beard, (bernie)brvhs!