I am not afraid to admit it, I grew up in the 80’s. I love arena rock. I can’t help it, like it or not it was gonna play a major factor in the soundtrack of my life…much like Jimmy Buffet. So I chose to like it. Just the same, I was in my formative years during disco’s reign, so it also has it’s own place in the weirdly nostalgic places of my mind. Now on the heels of one another come new albums from the kings of ‘nu:glamsco’ (i made that up…call it glam-disco-rock if you like your genres hyphenated), Electric Six and the queens of the nu:arena-rock, The Donnas.

Electric Six - I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master

Well, first off…it wins the award for Most Obnoxiously Long Album Title of 2007, so I am just gonna call it Exterminate from here on out. I first found E6 the same way a lot of Americans did, via those stupid fucking animated cats doing the E6 track, “Gay Bar”. A couple of weeks after seeing that flash animation for the nineteen hundredth time, I got a free sampler of their album, Fire, and fell in love as soon as I heard “Danger! High Voltage”, and while Fire seemed (and was) really gimmicky, the band followed it up with the album Senor Smoke. In my opinion this was (and still is) their strongest effort. If you are curious but haven’t ever heard E6, I would suggest you start there. They followed Senor with the mostly ignored album Switzerland. By the time the band got to Switzerland, Dick Valentine (vocals) was the sole surviving member of the band, and now they are preparing to release their fourth album, Exterminate. A much stronger effort than Switzerland, it’s an E6 album to the core. The electro nu:glamdisco sound in perfect tune with the “disaffected, angry, ironic, lustful tongue-in-cheek pomposity” you would expect from E6.

Electric Six - White Train
Electric Six - Down at McDonnelzz
Electric Six - It’s Showtime

Electric Six’s Official Site, Electric Six on myspace, Buy Exterminate

The Donnas - Bitchin’

Yes, I fucking like The Donnas and I don’t care if y’all know it! The Donnas ARE what Avril Lavigne’s handlers are trying to make her appear to be. Contrary to smug belief, The Donnas are not an assembled band. Just like any other band, they played garages together while they were kids in high school…or at least, that’s what we are told, and I have no reason not to believe it, since their core audience (I’d assume jr high/high school girls leaving their Fergie/Gwen stage and heading to their pop-punk smoke my first joint stage) don’t really care about such things. They have returned, fresh off thier divorce from Atlantic Records, with a album that conjures up the ghosts of the arena rock of the 80’s and proceeds to strike rock guitar poses with them. This album bleeds Joan Jett and would beat Gwen up when she got uppity about it, smoking in the school bathroom. If I had a daughter, she’d like The Donnas….and I’d be proud.

The Donnas - Girl Talk
The Donnas - Don’t Wait Up For Me
The Donnas - Like an Animal

The Donnas’ Official Site, The Donnas on myspace, Buy Bitchin’

In closing, I’d like to say that, yes, both of these albums are completely disposable. They’ll probably both go from heavy rotation to cd holder dust collectors in a matter of a month, but who cares? Not every album has to be important or groundbreaking or even personal. Sometimes a rock album can just be fun…yes, indie kids, rock and roll is allowed to just be vapid and cliche’ and fun sometimes. Rock and roll collapses under its own weight if you don’t let it go out, get drunk and have meaningless sex with a stranger sometimes. Both of these albums embody that spirit, and with the short days of winter crawling up on us, maybe some meaningless fun is exactly what you need.

We are sitting around the dining room table. The wife and her friend are gossiping and I am listening to the iPod. Suddenly, this song starts. I had totally forgotten it was on the iPod. I know Staind sucks and I know the radio played it into the dirt. They may still be playing it for all I know but I gotta admit….I like the song.

Staind - It’s Been a While

If a person is going to dis hip-hop, inevitably they will mention sampling. “Fucker’s can not even write their own songs! Take someone else’s music and talk over it….where is the talent in that?” blah blah blah…. While there are a multitude of angles from which to attack this argument, I am not here to convince people of the legitimacy of hip-hop as an art. If you can not recognize it on your own then you are probably an asshole. The other day I was listening to the new Swollen Members cd, Black Magic, while I ran some errands on my lunch break. Something in the song Torture reminded me of a long-ago cover of Natural Born Killaz by the band Christ Analogue. The cover was from a 1996 release titled Operation Beatbox put out on the now defunct Re-Constriction Records. Operation Beatbox was a compilation of industrial bands covering hip-hop songs. While it was largely forgettable it did contain some real gems such as the Christ Analogue cover. This chain of thought quickly lead to how much I like The Gourds version of Gin and Juice. Somewhere amidst my stack of cds I have a Drive-by Trucker bootleg where they do a quick cover of Outkast’s song Roses in the middle of one of their shows. I guess that as the high-school and college kids of today grow and their bands start to gain recognition you’ll see a lot more covers of hip-hop jams. They were raised with hip-hop and see it for what it is. See, Puffy is to hip-hop as Hinder is to metal. Lloyd Banks is to hip-hop as Kenny Chesney is to country. What I am saying is none of those mentioned artists are really representing their claimed genre. They are just pop music in the correct and carefully selected/marketed uniform. That, at the core, is the most annoying aspect of trying to defend hip-hop to people who do not care for the genre. They only see hip-hop as MTV. All of this bled over into the afternoon where I sat in my cubicle downloading hip-hop covers I suddenly wanted to hear. I figured I would share some of them with you today. I am gonna post the cover and the original. See who did it better.

Original: Natual Born Killaz - Dr. Dre and Ice Cube
Cover: Natual Born Killaz - Christ Analogue

Original: Gangstas Paradise - Coolio
Cover: Gangstas Paradise - Battery

Original: Gin and Juice - Snoop Doggy Dog
Cover: Gin and Juice - The Gourds

Original: Renegades of Funk - Afrikka Bambatta
Cover: Renegades of Funk - Rage Against the Machine

I made mention of these covers on a message board I frequent and a friend of mine sent me a link to a cover of Natural Born Killaz that his band rec|use did. Personally, I think they did a phenomenal job. Check it out:

rec|use - Natual Born Killaz

While I was doing all of this I ran across an ooooolldddd school hip-hop jam that I loved back in the day and since I have no idea if or where I would be able to post it again I am gonna drop it on y’all now:

Man Parrish - Boogie Down Bronx

lemme guess….I say Ying Yang Twins and you think Whisper Song or BOOTYBOOTYBOOTYBOOTY ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE!  I know, I know but trust me…1/2 the time these guys are really freaking good…I am unashamed to admit that I am a Ying Yang Twins fan….

Hi, I am Autopsy IV and I am a Ying Yang Twins fan.

see…well, today their new single got it’s “official” release.  It features Wyclef (yeah, i like him as well) and..well, it pretty much rocks. I love Clef’s voice and the “Black Betty” break at the end of the song just sets the damn thing off. Check it out:

Ying Yang Twins (feat. Wyclef) - Dangerous

and while we are on the topic  here is my favorite YYT track:

Ying Yang Twins (feat. Adam Levine) - Live Again