No, I still haven't heard Fleet Foxes. Or the TV On The Radio.

Adele - 19

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Jamie Lidell - Jim

Jazzanova - Of All The Things

Little Joy - Little Joy

Metallica - Death Magnetic

Q-Tip - The Renaissance

Quiet Village - Silent Movie

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Singles:

Beyonce - Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)

Flying Lotus/Lil Wayne - Robo Tussin

Thank you Jim Jones?

Got the heads up about some of the Okayplayer holiday jammy guests, so hustled over to B.B. Kings late enough for a shut door and a lot of cops dealing with the aftermath of Jim Jones being kicked out.  Which was enough distraction for me to slide in.  This is like the inverse of the time years ago in Chicago when I was using a bad fake ID for a Prince aftershow.  Malcom Jamal-Warner was in front of me in line trying to bring about twenty people in with him, causing enough confusion to slide me right through.  Later he got up on stage to rap while Prince played the drums, and the crowd chanted, "Go Theo!  Go Theo!"  Alas, I digress...

Missed the Roots opening set, and thought Alicia Keys had put on weight and a track suit to hype the crowd on the mic with a lot of talk about Staten Island, but I guess that was Amanda Diva.  Talib Kweli and his new group Idle Warship came on and did a few songs.  Um, Res is in the group.  That's good, I guess.  They seemed to be jacking a beat from the first Daft Punk record on one track.  Make of that what you will.

The Roots back out next, bringing out Estelle for a rocking soca-style take on You Got Me.  Fire.  Very well done, lots of simultaneous rapping/singing between her and Black Thought.  And she looked good too - new haircut ala Lauryn Hill somewhere before the Fugees reunion went wrong for the second time.  Anyway, she stuck around to do Come Over, and the she went away.  Too bad.

Fela-inspired jam session next.  Roots members plus Robert Glasper and James Poyser on keys, and Gary Bartz out on sax.  Gary Bartz!  GARY BARTZ.  That's pretty heavy.  No time for links today, but do some netsearch.  Music is his sanctuary, yo.

Bilal and 88-Keys stepped up next.  I knew Q-Tip was on later (and hence I missed the big MC throwdown with Black Thought and Pharaoh Monche, and Verses From the Abstract, damn), but I was late to another gathering, and Bilal was doing straight crazy from note one.  "DWEEEEEEE!  BWAAAAAAAA!  SHUUUUUUUU!"  Doesn't that come at the end (thinking the Radiohead cover here - High and Dry, not Everything In Its Right Place, which I guess did come at the end)?  Anyway, it did for me.  I was out.  Early, but caught some nice music.  Thanks Frank 151 and OKP!

P.S.  What would Jim Jones have done with the Roots?

Moredele

Further down the Adele remix road, Mick Boogie has done an '88-themed mixtape of a handful of tracks.  So if you ever wondered what your favorite Adele song sounded like with a Slick Rick loop under it, well, now you can listen to see how long it takes you to decide that it doesn't make a lot of sense.

I'm digging the Green Lantern mix of Melt My Heart To Stone a little more, if only for the organic little groove on the second verse.  Can I just get a whole track of that?

Chased Pavements

Adele - Chasing Pavements (Various Remix) -

After hearing this remix on Gilles Peterson's show, I spent the majority of my last trip to London searching the shops for this song to no avail. Seems a hard look, but happily I have found this link (for the moment). It's such a dope mix. It needs to be out there! Enjoy.

Robots After All

Electroma, Daft Punk's stab at your typical art/silent/road/midnight/stoner movie is streaming until 8 pm tonight at Pitchfork.tv.  It comes on like a mix between the beginning of The Shining and lost footage from a bionic buddy cop series.  And then not a lot happens.  But it's still pretty cool.

Be warned, this might not translate to the pc screen at all.  I saw it in a theater in Shibuya and had to contend with the inane chatter of two girls directly behind me.  Like I said, audio-wise, there's not a lot going on.  Anyway, I liked it.  See if you have the patience, or just click around to see if you can find one of the more bizarre moments.  

Kanyegenic.

The overall vibe of most of the 808s & Heartbreak reviews I've come across is this: It's kind of a mess, but isn't it great that Kanye is experimenting?  We need to support that.  Interesting.  While music journalism often runs pithy to downright vicious, what is it about Kanye that inspires such admiration cum generosity (or is that vice versa)?  The threat of being called out by a loud-mouth who's much cooler than you?  Solidarity amongst those of artistic leanings?  Maybe he's just done a good job selling the whole "heartbreak/art" angle.

I've warmed to the record a bit, though aside from "Paranoid" and "Street Lights," there aren't any tracks that I care to listen to individually, or on rewind.  Rather, I let it play out in the background while I clean the house.  And maybe that's half the idea - the play out, not the cleaning, though a  visit to his blog demonstrates Kanye's interest with music to be played in environments both residential and retail.  I guess 808s & Heartbreak is what happens when industrial design aficionados bring their obsessions into the studio.  Less bangin' and more Bang & Olufsen.

My more immediate impression, as tracks leaked over the last few months: Man, Kanye is really going for that '97 Bjork drum programming sound.  Which caused me to revisit Homegenic the other day.  I don't know if it's any longer relevant to say that an album from ___ still sounds fresh in ___, but Bjork and collaborators were on fire with this one.  A cold, quiet fire, but still.  So, anyway, maybe I'll have a greater appreciation for 808s & Heartbreak around 2019.  Maybe it'll help if I have a much nicer apartment.

In the meantime, I'm favoring this recently dropped and officially sanctioned Kanye (re)mixtape.  A little heavy on rattly B-more vibe, but worth it for the "Get 'Em High" and "Throw Some D's" mixes.  All 909s & Sunshine.

New York Renaissance

Man, Jay-Z can tell his life stories “a milli” times and it still sounds interesting! He deserves his crown. It’s lovely to see some internet love in this video. I came across Evan Roth’s animated illustration technique some time ago, but it works really well in this Low Budget video. (props to GBH.tv)

“My billionaire mayor has declared himself king.”

The quickest way to my heart is to put Kermit in anything! And the vocalist in this song comes the closest to Jim Henson’s voice than anyone who has tried it since. A beautiful song. And it’s somehow fitting that The Frog (a new york transplant himself) give eulogy to New York’s slow demise.