The Genius of Tupac

tupacAfter waking up and seeing this article on the front page of Digg, I was instantly in a Tupac mood. The article does a good job of narrowing down his music to 22 of his best tracks (I’d disagree with some of them there) and it made me start thinking about his true place in history as an artist.

A lot of people dismiss Tupac as a typical thug. In fact, one of the comments on the Digg page stated:

People should forget about this thug and spend more time remembering real men like Dr. King, the Tuskegee airmen and Bernie Mac. Question, how long do you think it would take Dr. King to listen to a Tupac album before he hung his head in shame and walked away? Do you think Dr. King would be proud of the whole thug gangsta mentality? I doubt it. I want to see any man become more like Dr. King, not more like Tupac.

I can see his point to an extent, however, this commenter is limited by what the media saw of Tupac most of the time. They never saw the good things he did, they rarely played the deeper songs on the radio, only the party and gangster tracks, they never showcased his poetry. At least his acting ability garnered positive praise (though, he usually portrayed a thug in the movies, but that’s an issue with Hollywood and typecasting of African Americans and not of Tupac himself). Read more

Changing Musical Tastes

I’ve always been a fan of all music. In fact, if you look at my last.fm profile, you’ll notice the diversity in music listed there. I have Miles Davis, Tupac Shakur, Frank Sinatra, Incubus, and CunninLynguists listed. My primary musical love has always been hip hop though, especially underground hip hop. When I got XM Satellite Radio, I listened to mostly the hip hop stations. The Rhyme was the channel I listened to the most, as they were an old school hip hop channel. Then I started listening to Ethel. Ethel is the Alternative Hits station. That’s all I’ve listened to in the past month or so. Now I rarely listen to rap. I find myself listening to bands such as Black Kids, The Ting Tings, The Kooks, The Shins, Peter Bjorn and John, M.I.A, Death Cab for Cutie, The Killers, Ludo, MGMT, Phantom Planet and The Raconteurs more than my favorite hip hop artists. One reason this could be is that my favorite hip hop artists haven’t come out with anything in a while. Or maybe it could be that there is some really good and catchy alternative music coming out lately. It could also be that because I’m listening to music a lot more now due to the nature of my job I’m constantly looking for something new. I wonder what other music I’ve missed out on in the past.

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Last.fm Makeover

In case you haven’t noticed, Last.fm has received a makeover. The new site looks fantastic compared to the old one. It probably has to be one of the best site redesigns by a popular website that I’ve ever seen. The best part about the redesign is the user profile page. If you look at mine, you can see how clean the new design looks. I love how it has thumbnails of the artists (or album covers) next to the recently played songs. The images for the artists in the user’s library are excellent as well.

Last.fm displaying artists I\'ve played (click to enlarge)

Last.fm displaying artists I've played (click to enlarge)

Notice how nice and clean they look. They charts are now ajax-ified and are quite nice. The color scheme of the site is much easier on the eyes. They managed to create a new site that totally changes the look but still feels familiar. It goes to show you can have a complete redesign without losing your identity. Overall, it is a really successful redesign. Maybe MySpace and Facebook should take note. Much props to the design team at Last.fm.

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My Ten Favorite Music Videos

Last night I was thinking about my favorite music videos of all time after looking at Michael Gondry’s list of his favorite 25.  Since I am a huge fan of hip hop, it’s no surprise that many of them are from hip hop artists.  So, here they are (links go to YouTube since some of them can’t be embedded):

The Roots- The Next Movement

Not only is this such a good song, but it’s a very creative video.  The video shows the band performing in various positions and brings humor and simplicity to the video.  Just the look of Amir “?uestlove” Thompson when he has his bandmates sitting on his shoulders makes the video well worth it.

2pac- Changes

This has to be the best posthumous Tupac video.  It is a great tribute to a brilliant rapper, poet, and actor.  With scenes from his other music videos, his movie roles, and interviews he gave early in life, it is a powerful piece of work.  The icing on the cake is when the camera zooms out on all these images and TV screens to show a mosaic of Tupac.  Great video.

Michael Jackson- Thriller

Did you really think I wouldn’t include this one?  Basically a mini-movie, this defined the epic music video.  Great story, great song, great choreography.  What else can be said?

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers – Mary Jane’s Last Dance

I remember seeing this video while I was in 7th grade.  It is a very creepy video.  The house on the cliff in the moonlight is very Tim Burton-ish.  The ending scene of the video when the body floats to the surface… Sends chills up my spine every time.

Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up

This video wouldn’t be that great if it weren’t for the ending.  I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say much about this one.  Just watch it.  All the way through.  Very good video.

Pearl Jam- Do the Evolution

This Tod McFarlane animated video is very powerful.  It goes along well the song and show that even though we may become more and more advanced we’re still really just the same.

Common – Come Close

This is a really great video by Chicago rapper Common.  The song is about love and features Common driving over to his girlfriend’s house and rapping to her from her lawn.  He has large cue cards showing what he is saying because his girlfriend in the video is deaf.  It’s a really good song and video.

Pearl Jam- Jeremy

This video is simply amazing.  This video was banned from the music channels because of its violence.  The video shows a kid being picked on and made fun of so much that he loses it and at the end of the video he shoots himself at school in the middle of class.  The imagery, the colors, the stop motion of the direction makes it a very powerful video.

Talib Kweli- Get By

This video came out after 9/11 and is a great look at New York City.  When I look at it my mind thinks Spike Lee.  One thing that stand out about Spike Lee is how authentic his films look.  That’s how this video looks.  Authentic.  Talib raps in various places in New York and the camera delivers great panoramic shots of the city.  It truly is a beautiful video.

Bone Thugs N Harmony – Crossroads

This video came out when I was in 7th grade and it has been stuck with me ever since.  It is a very powerful and moving video and helped propel this Cleveland, OH rap group to superstardom and a Grammy award.  If you ask anyone who listens to rap what their favorite rap songs of all time are, this is sure to be on their list.

There you have it.  There are many videos that I really like that aren’t on the list and it was hard to come up with my top 10, but as I think about it, these have to be them.  At least for now.

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Hope for Songbird

I recently downloaded and installed Songbird .6. Songbird is the open source music player that is based on Mozilla code. With each release Songbird gets better and better. With this release comes support for larger media libraries, smoother scrolling, improved memory management, faster search, and a bunch of new add-ons. I have a feeling that Songbird will eventually replace Winamp for me. Since AOL took over Winamp it seems to on a steady downhill spiral. The plugins for Winamp are pretty crappy and if you use a skin that isn’t one of the defaults, most of the time the plugins (if they require their own pane) look out of place. This is not so for Songbird. The add-ons are just like the add-ons in Firefox and seamlessly integrate into the program. I have a feeling that there will be a huge community to support Songbird, just as their is with Firefox, that will create great add-ons and themes, or feathers. It’s not going to replace Winamp just yet on my system. While the memory management is better, it still takes up quite a bit of process power. The search often freezes the application as well. The guys behind Songbird are on the right track though. I can’t wait until I’m able to use it full time without any problems.