G-Side The One...Cohesive |
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 | Tracklist:
1. Shots Fired (Featuring Codie Global)
2. Came Up (Featuring S.L.A.S.H.)
3. Y U Mad (Featuring P.H. & Kristmas)
4. I'm Sorry :( (Featuring P.H.)
5. Inner Circle (Featuring C.P.)
6. Jones (Featuring P.O.P.E.)
7. Nat Geo (Featuring Chris Lee)
8. I Am (Featuring DJ Cunta)
9. Pictures (Featuring GMane)
10. Never (Featuring Mic Strange)
11. No Radio (Featuring Bentley)
12. How Far (Featuring Victoria Tate & Kaylan Parham)
13. Moneyintheskyii (Featuring Chris Lee)
14. Imagine (Featuring Jhi Ali)
Release Date: 01/01/2011 | |
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On 16 Lists
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2 of 2 thought this review was well written
so one of those Big Ideas of music criticism that’s formulated and evolved and sort of taken on a life of its own is the idea that the best “pop” albums (and most rap that doesn’t define itself by its own diametrical opposition to the “mainstream”, which this album, The One...Cohesive by alabama duo G-Side, certainly does not) effortlessly blur the dichotomy between “smart music” or music that you have to “think about” like, i don’t know, Godspeed You! Black Emperor or something and strictly “pop” music like Britney Spears or whatever. there are about a billion instances of this on sites like Pitchfork.com (check Ian Cohen’s review for Das Racist’s 2010 mixtape Sit Down, Man or Mark Richardson’s for the How to Dress Well album Love Remains for two easy examples) but then this is an idea that even some of my non-music crit-affiliated friends have concocted on their own time and relayed to me; people you know--well, assumedly--like Adam Downer say it: “Sir Lucious Left Foot is a brilliant record according to the classic barometers- the beats are killer, the verses sick, the pacing perfect, and the skits are actually pretty funny (!)- but the thing is that you really don’t have to give a *** about any of that to understand that this is one of, if not the top hip-hop album of 2010.”
pretty much where i’m going with this is that the best albums are supremely enjoyable on that really hard to explain fundamental aesthetic level that connects many of us dedicated music listeners--like a hook or chorus that just makes you sort of stop for a second and think and go “wow”--and then are also strange or exciting or adventurous in a way that’s usually unexpected for music that’s described as “pleasureable”. i’m talking here about Pet Sounds, which still sounds brilliantly eccentric nearly fifty years later; i’m talking about Another Green World and its courageous dips into atmospheric ambient music in between more standard but still excellent new wave pop music; i’m talking The One...Cohesive, which, despite sounding nothing like the two aforementioned albums, still carries on eno, wilson et al.’s long tradition of the balance between the instantly gratifying pleasures of good music and the deeper bliss of more audacious music also jesus christ carey mulligan is cute
anyways the reason i apply G-Side to this classic musical blueprint is perfectly exhibited in the opening track, “Shots Fired”, which opens with a looped soul sample and a two-minute monologue by someone named Codie Global that talks about the process that went behind the making of the album; dodging artistically void scams (“record[s] that taught us how to be a business”) and eventually coming out with the record they wanted to create (which, as it works out, is exactly the one we want to hear)--this will become a recurring theme; G-Side really like rapping about what drives them and the method that led them to this record and why it is that they don’t quit doing what they so clearly love. and then at like 2:40 the soul sample “breaks out” and drums are introduced and the song becomes an all-out jam; perfect for driving and perfect for Officially Appreciating in that pretentious way all us music critics love.
second track “Came Up” keeps the flow while showing the way G-Side utilize unexpected production choices to make more of their ecstatic rap music; this song in particular uses an unusual, vaguely Eastern-sounding string sample that so totally shouldn’t be flow-over-able but then the duo just totally does anyway. the product is not only absolutely enjoyable to listen to (blast this album in your car!) and driving in a way much of my favorite hip-hop is, but also strangely beautiful. not to give a track-by-track but “Y U Mad” is even better; a gorgeous meditation on, among other things, the relationship between the audience and the performer in an era where “making music” simply means torrenting FL Studio 10 Demo Version and even the fucking Nature vs. Nurture argument--best of all, this range never feels heavyhanded; when the chorus of “I keep a magnum for the hoes and a magnum for the jealous” enters the vibe is just completely Hell Yeah.
so i just realized that since my mom has come back from hand surgery due to rheumatoid arthritis i’m not sure i’ll be able to get driven over to my friend and bandmate’s house to practice for a concert we have this coming tuesday at Sullivan Hall, which is really really bad.
but yeah so i know the obviously informal and nonpunctuated manner which i used to write this “review” [maybe i will use the above paragraph's non-sequitur to connect my life to G-Side, e.g. how the first verse of the unbelievably gorgeous "Moneyintheskyii" pretty much talks about how the obstacles of real life seem to constantly get in the way of the dependable escapism of creating your own music] is probably a really lazy quote-unquote postmodern defense mechanism because I’m Not Being Serious but this is by pretty far my most listened to album of 2011 which is impressive in itself because this is also the year of James Blake and Native Speaker, not only excellent albums but also ones that outline that whole “these are really good because they sound really good and are exciting and stuff!” (that didn’t really accurately describe what i was trying to convey in my first two paragraphs, did it) sensation that i was talking about. but nothing beats this rap group sampling Beach House, making of it a big lyrical thematic rap and a beautiful chorus and a Song’s Song with a gorgeous chorus and verse et al. and
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na na na na na, here comes your man
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No ur gay.
Anyways, this review is pretty choppy. It goes here, then to this, and this.
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edit: hoofle doofle
Digging: Mount Eerie - Clear Moon Digging: Mount Eerie - Clear Moon
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classic
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although downer you should super mega download this
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This review isn't cohesive
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doing it now actually ;)
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"This review isn't cohesive"
he knows it not, it's part of his charm
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Chicka chicka
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i know it not, it's part of my charm
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posed cause you got negged first sentence seemed cool from what I read of it
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Well try to improve.
Otherwise your 80+ reviews can be thrown away.
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funny you should say that
jk i like most of alex's stuff but this no punctuation brain vomit is pretty irritating
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Robertsona, your reviews are always all over the place...
And I respect that.
Pos'd.
Digging: Amadee Castenell, Jr. - Sax Dreams Digging: Amadee Castenell, Jr. - Sax Dreams
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i cannot read this
nor could i ever write like this
what the fuuuuuuuu
Digging: Author & Punisher - Ursus Americanus Digging: Author & Punisher - Ursus Americanus
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pretty much where i’m going with this is that the best albums are supremely enjoyable on that really hard to explain fundamental aesthetic level that connects many of us dedicated music listeners
thats why the beatles are the best band ever also agree so hard also lol you ever heard of a period also cool review this band looks cool. was gonna check them out aaaages ago but i forgot
Digging: -
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this is one of the worst reviews i have ever tried to read.
Digging: Marina and The Diamonds - Electra Heart
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... unless this is somehow mocking other reviewers on sputnik
then it's really well done
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:/ and your Goblin review was so great...
Digging: Walknut - Graveforests And Their Shadows Digging: Walknut - Graveforests And Their Shadows
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album's probably my favourite of the year even if i have lots of 2011 5s
Digging: toe - The Book About My Idle Plot on a Vague Anxiety
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