Random album review #4

If you don't mind, I'm gonna kick off this post with a short review of The Event: How Racist Are You?, which I've just watched on 4OD. For a programme that primarily announces itself as "the event", I'd struggle to think of a bigger non-event that I've ever seen in my life. What could've been a thoroughly interesting and potentially harrowing piece of television was in fact an hour of volunteer douchebags arguing with each other and the experimental teacher Jane Elliott, and completely scuppering the whole experiment through their own obnoxious pig-headedness. The show was designed, through a micro-recreation of apartheid which divided people with brown eyes and people with blue eyes, to demonstrate how all of us can be perceptible to racism while not realising that we're actually engaged in discrimination. However, this was pissed upon by the cloth-brained middle-class twerps who were determined to turn the programme in to an opportunity to get up on their high horses (or remain on them, having probably rode in to the studio from their Surrey country homes) and assert that they weren't racist in the first place, and had clearly reached the limit of human learning capacity as there was nothing new anyone could teach them that was of any value. These people are a prime example of what the experiment was trying to teach - that you aren't always aware of racism until you're the victim of it yourself - but these wealthy white pillocks couldn't even stop downing pints of their own sexual ejaculate long enough to GET THE FUCKING POINT, and the programme leaves you feeling very depressed at the end as you know that the volunteers weren't going to be put through another experience of apartheid - lynching. Two women in particular really grinded my gears: some chick called Wanda (seemingly named after a fish, and needs to be battered like one too) who completely sabotaged and screwed up the final part of the experiment that was shaping up to be the most interesting section. And the bitch to end all bitches - Terry Taylor. I really fucking hate Terry Taylor. I hate her so much that I felt compelled to add another section to the side of this blog (on the right-hand side somewhere) of people I hate, just so that if she ever googles herself (which she probably will, the stuck-up cow) then hopefully this blog will appear in the results and she'll know how much I want to shove a nail bomb up her arse. She will of course have to filter through the results for Terry Taylor the ex-pro wrestler, who I'm sure is a decent bloke and whose back-side shall hopefully remain nail-free for ever more. I'm not gonna waste much more precious blogging time on this vile hag by detailing every fucking annoying thing she does (I recommend watching the programme yourself, if you want a thoroughly unrewarding hour's telly), but probably her worst part is where she tries to belittle one of the mixed race volunteer's account of how he feels ashamed to pick his daughter up from school in a white middle-class area because he fears his daughter's friends will judge the way he looks, by comparing it to how her rugby playing husband has to wear a suit to work each day instead of his rugby tracksuit. DEAR TERRY TAYLOR, PLEASE USE THE TIP OF ONE OF YOUR HUSBAND'S RUGBY BALLS TO GOUGE OUT YOUR EYES SO THAT NEVER AGAIN CAN YOU DO YOUR OBNOXIOUS AND PATRONISING EYE-ROLLING, THEN KINDLY THROW YOURSELF OFF A CLIFF. I HATE YOU. THANKS, BYE.

Stupid cow. Anyway, on with the random album review.

Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo

If you're unaware of the delightfully filthy and smut-filled world of Spank Rock, then a brief skim of their MySpace will soon give you a good idea of what to expect. At the time of writing, the songs in their music player are called 'Loose', 'Shake That', 'B-O-O-T-A-Y', 'Pu$$y' and 'Bitch!', while they describe themselves as sounding like:

"Fat girls in a hot tub, popping bubbly, after a long night of playing slots at Caesar's Palace. We sound like the X rated Motorcycle Diaries meets Kweli on crystal meth"

Apart from a love of crystal meth, there are other things that Spank Rock and Andre Agassi have in common. Namely, they're both fucking good. YoYoYoYoYo is both an absolute pain to type on a keyboard (try it) and an absolute banger of a Bmore hip-hop album. In my experience rap/hip-hop albums are notorious for being very hit and miss, with a lot of miss. Often filled with skits and filler tracks where they've clearly come up with a half decent beat, thrown some half-arsed vocals on top and said "yep, that'll do to pad out our album alongside our one or two genuine hit tunes", several of the hip-hop albums in my iTunes tend to have play counts of "0, 22, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0" - and usually those '1's are the result of library shuffling. Spank Rock's debut (and to date only) LP, however, is packed full of good tunes. Part of what sets them apart from other hip-hop groups is the electro-club element to their tracks, which may be becoming increasingly non-unique through the growth of the likes of Mad Decent and the Bmore and UK Funky scenes in recent times, but when it was released back in 2006 YoYoYoYoYo was, and probably still is, one of the finest examples of a 'hip-hop meets electro house' album.

It's audio porn in two senses. The rapping is pure smut from start to finish, with the emphasis very much on sex, drugs and fillin' holes, but the album successfully sidesteps turning in to a gimmicky all-sex-no-substance record and delivers some quality beats and samples to truly arouse your ears. For me the finest moments of the album come from the second halves of the two songs in the middle, Bump - Amanda Blank takes over with a groin-shuddering flow of deliciously dirty bars ("my rhymes are painful and fresh, my pussy's tasting the best") - and Sweet Talk, which drops the beat completely with about a minute left and the tune morphs in to an euphoric chorus sung by sugary sweet female vocalists, as well as anyone else who happens to be listening to this infectious breakdown. My other top tracks on the album are Touch Me, which heralds it's arrival with a fanfare of trumpets, and Rick Rubin, which must surely sample some '80s 8-bit video game for it's primary tune. As I said though, none of this album disappoints, and if you don't already have it then I'd highly recommend adding it your music library. I'd also highly recommend shooting Terry Taylor on sight, so you can tell that I can be trusted as a man of impeccable taste.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Do you ever get that feeling that your precursory rant about an annoying volunteer on a Channel 4 TV experiment is actually longer than the album review that was meant to be the main body of the post? I'm getting that feeling now, not sure why...

Anyway - Postmen nationwide are striking for it. Somali pirates are demanding it in return for the safe release of a couple of British hostages. There has been fervid debate over it by the members of the EU for the past week or so. "What is it they all want?!" ...I hear you ask. Oh you jokers, as if you haven't been eagerly anticipating it yourselves: It's time to discover which random album we'll be reviewing next!!

Reet, here we goo... shuffle shuffle shuffle...

THE JAPANESE POPSTARS - WE JUST ARE

This group aren't actually pop singers from Eastern Asia (unlike this little fella), they are in fact electro producers from Northern Ireland. So there. Here's a track to wet your appetite for the next post:

The Japanese Popstars - Face Melter

I feel obliged to add that despite what previous random album reviews might suggest, I do actually have non-dance music albums in my iTunes. The good ones just seem to be rather shuffle shy. Yeah, you heard me 'Astral Weeks' - the GOOD ones. Fuck you Van Morrison, fuck you.

Songs I'm Currently Loving:

• Joy Orbison - BRKLN CLLN
• Terror Danjah - Green Street
• The Juan MacLean - One Day
• Brackles - Rawkus
• Fauna - Zombie - perfect tune for if your Halloween party has a tropical funk theme
• Ms. Dynamite - Bad Gyal - she's still "the same little girl that grew up next door to you", but just a bit more, er, ragga sounding

Some of you are probably asking: "Jack, are the next two songs two of your favourite songs of the year so far?"

Why, yes! They are! How did you know??

• Clark - Growls Garden
• Few Nolder - Chika - we always like to promote both excellent songs and excellent artist names on The Hardcore and The Gentle