The word I’ve seen used prevalently when describing The Weeknd is hedonist, and when listening to his stellar debut mixtape, House of Balloons, it’s hard to deny the accuracy of that assessment. The Weeknd has been a rather mysterious figure since this tape hit the internet in March, doing no interviews and only taking to Twitter to hype his next project, Thursday set to hit sometime this summer. We don’t know much about him other than he’s from Toronto and friends with Drake, but I can’t help but assume there’s a massive void in this guy’s life. Disturbingly, on House of Balloons he fills that void with every substance imaginable. This tape is rife with pills, cocaine, and girls he seems to have no substantive feelings for. He doesn’t have much shame in it all either. I legitimately worry for him when I hear him reveling in his addictions and chasing every high imaginable. Guess I should have seen it coming when two minutes into this tape he’s telling us we, “wanna be high for this.” What’s most troubling is this dude is only 20 years old. Listening to this I thank god I wasn’t the deranged, coked out, hedonist The Weeknd is, when I was his age.
While I’ve never touched most of the drugs he mentions on this tape, I also can’t make music like he can. I’m still undecided whether or not I’d live his lifestyle in exchange for his song-making ability, but one thing I’m sure of is those things come hand in hand on House of Balloons. For his sake, you’d hope he could separate the two before the drugs derail his career, but for now the world he’s created is terrifying and alluring at once.
All of this is summed up perfectly when The Weeknd sings the hook to the title track.
This is a happy house
We're happy here
In a happy house
Oh this is fun
This is far from an assured declaration, instead it’s a hopeless plea. His voice sounds strained and paranoid, desperately trying to convince listeners (and himself) that he is content with this lifestyle. It’s no wonder before this particular track ends it garbles into the murderous Glass Table Girls, in which he gives his first true admission of rampant drug use, “I heard he do drugs now, you heard wrong I been on ‘em for a minute.” After his failed plea comes the indulgence, a troubling sign.
There’s also the issue of his relationship with woman. Unlike his pal Drake’s music there aren’t many tales of lost love on here. On The After Party he’s begging a girl for a chance to prove the “feeling I could give to you.” Everything is concerned with feelings and pleasure here. Whereas Drake will literally name his past woman and make you feel for his heartbreak, I don’t think The Weeknd has ever known a girl past the next morning. Closing track The Knowing seems to hint at a prolonged relationship, but when his counterpart cheats he’s apathetic to it all, pleased even, as it gives him the chance to sleep around some more. He doesn’t seem to have any investment in actual connections. His euphoria is rooted in the temporary.
It’s no wonder this tape is titled House of Balloons. Balloons are clear indication of celebration and parties, no lack of those here, yet they’re empty, filled with nothing but air before they inevitably pop. They cannot be sustained. Neither can The Weeknd if he continues to live like this, but what makes this all so tragic is his music can.
Mmm Word Download
House of Balloons - Sickest Thing Ever
Friday, June 3, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Atlantic Record's Slippery Slope of Creative Control
Much has been made of the drawn out grudge match between Lupe Fiasco and Atlantic Records that caused Lasers to sit on the shelves for year(s?) before it was given a release date. It’s a tough story to tell, and no one will ever know the entire reason as to why it took so long, but I’ve had my finger on the pulse of the album’s plight ever since Lupe began to promote it in March of 09 and feel I can vaguely piece together the puzzle that is the release of Lasers.
The albums first two official singles, The Show Goes On and Words I Never Said, provide a lot of insight on what probably had to happen in order for this album to see the light of day. For his first two albums Lupe mainly used in house producers to craft his albums’ sound, only reaching out to superproducer friends Kanye West and The Neptunes for two beats on his debut Food and Liquor, so it was certainly peculiar to see Lupe hopping on beats from the flavor of the week producers, Kane Beatz (Bottoms Up, Right Above It) and Alex Da Kid(Airplanes, Love the Way You Lie, I’m Coming Home) for his first two singles on Lasers. That is where Atlantic Records comes into the picture. None of this can be said for sure and is all speculation, because all of this stuff takes place behind the scenes, but it is of common belief that these beats were somewhat forced upon Lupe by his record label. It has been reported on here that Lupe passed on Airplanes and Nothing On You as singles because he wouldn’t have owned the majority of the publishing rights and royalties for those songs since the hooks were already written. Alrighty then, fast forward 7-8 months and Lupe has two singles out in which, I’d bet my dog, that he did not write the hooks. Does that make him somewhat hypocritical? Sure it does. What I think happened was Lupe hit a breaking point. Atlantic wasn’t going to release his album unless he rapped his verses over the beats and hooks that they had chose for him. Lupe turned the first draft of this album into Atlantic in January of last year, so it is not unreasonable to believe the verses for these first two singles once existed over beats of his choice. Atlantic didn’t like the commercial potential of their sound and the album sat around for a year as they chose what beats and hooks they wanted. Perhaps Lupe fought them for a while, but eventually realized an album with a few Atlantic Records imposed songs was better than no album.
And quite frankly that imposition is a terrifying prospect. Record companies should not have any input in the artist’s creative process. Louis perfectly articulated the importance of an organic/collaborative process and relationship between rappers and producers in his J. Cole post from last year. When Lupe was allowed that freedom he came up with classic, refreshing singles like Kick Push. Now the entire presentation and sound of The Show Goes On and Words I Never Said is formulaic and rote. It should be noted that I like both of these songs, especially The Show Goes On and I stand by my initial review. The only real redeeming qualities of Words I Never Said are Lupe’s verses, whether or not you agree with all of his somewhat controversial opinions, this song will undoubtedly shed light on issues the majority of it’s listeners know nothing about. The production however is still manufactured, and this slow piano with some huge drums Alex Da Kid sound will be dated in a few months, and that’s what record companies don’t seem to care about: creating lasting music that people can listen to for years to come. Go listen to He Say She Say, the music is so lush and most importantly timeless. Put the Words I Never Said verses over the Streets On Fire beat and its classic Lupe.
(Here’s the song if you care for a listen)
B.O.B. was another victim of Atlantics wrath. Here he was an exciting up and comer who crafted a brilliant song with huge commercial appeal, I’ll Be In The Sky, yet Atlantic gave that single no push and sat on their asses for years as they sapped all of B.O.B.’s creativity out of the project, and raped the album entirely. In the end Louis had to take B.O.B. off his favorite artists on Facebook and now hates his guts. Putting artists onto the hot sound of the moment for a top ten single comes at the cost of alienating their core fanbase. Sure the artist and record company profit off its success but the artistic product continues to decline and consolidate.
What irks me about this all is how abrupt this change occurred. Perhaps Atlantic Records is the only culprit. Kanye obviously still has 100% creative control over his music. Lupe and B.O.B. certainly aren’t as popular as Kanye, but as far as I know Lupe never had any problems with releasing the type of music he wanted to on his first two albums. The Cool was a commercial success with a top ten hit in Superstar that was written, produced, and performed entirely by FNF artists. Why all of a sudden does Atlantic feel the need to have it’s fingerprints all over Lasers? Maybe it’s somewhat of a payback for Lupe refusing to sign a 360 deal, which was another factor in the hold up of the album, or maybe it’s because they only care about singles these days. The iTunes digital music culture is based around people buying $.99 singles, another direct result of the internet decreasing our attention spans at an alarming rate, but quite frankly that’s a topic for a different day and medium. I think that is the main problem. Record Labels are so intent on having the biggest singles ever they feel the need to force their artists on to the beats and songs of their choice, the rest of the album they could give two fucks about. Unfortunately, in most cases, their intrusion on the process of creating singles negates any chance of the album being a complete, cohesive, classic product of art before it even sees the light of day.
The albums first two official singles, The Show Goes On and Words I Never Said, provide a lot of insight on what probably had to happen in order for this album to see the light of day. For his first two albums Lupe mainly used in house producers to craft his albums’ sound, only reaching out to superproducer friends Kanye West and The Neptunes for two beats on his debut Food and Liquor, so it was certainly peculiar to see Lupe hopping on beats from the flavor of the week producers, Kane Beatz (Bottoms Up, Right Above It) and Alex Da Kid(Airplanes, Love the Way You Lie, I’m Coming Home) for his first two singles on Lasers. That is where Atlantic Records comes into the picture. None of this can be said for sure and is all speculation, because all of this stuff takes place behind the scenes, but it is of common belief that these beats were somewhat forced upon Lupe by his record label. It has been reported on here that Lupe passed on Airplanes and Nothing On You as singles because he wouldn’t have owned the majority of the publishing rights and royalties for those songs since the hooks were already written. Alrighty then, fast forward 7-8 months and Lupe has two singles out in which, I’d bet my dog, that he did not write the hooks. Does that make him somewhat hypocritical? Sure it does. What I think happened was Lupe hit a breaking point. Atlantic wasn’t going to release his album unless he rapped his verses over the beats and hooks that they had chose for him. Lupe turned the first draft of this album into Atlantic in January of last year, so it is not unreasonable to believe the verses for these first two singles once existed over beats of his choice. Atlantic didn’t like the commercial potential of their sound and the album sat around for a year as they chose what beats and hooks they wanted. Perhaps Lupe fought them for a while, but eventually realized an album with a few Atlantic Records imposed songs was better than no album.
And quite frankly that imposition is a terrifying prospect. Record companies should not have any input in the artist’s creative process. Louis perfectly articulated the importance of an organic/collaborative process and relationship between rappers and producers in his J. Cole post from last year. When Lupe was allowed that freedom he came up with classic, refreshing singles like Kick Push. Now the entire presentation and sound of The Show Goes On and Words I Never Said is formulaic and rote. It should be noted that I like both of these songs, especially The Show Goes On and I stand by my initial review. The only real redeeming qualities of Words I Never Said are Lupe’s verses, whether or not you agree with all of his somewhat controversial opinions, this song will undoubtedly shed light on issues the majority of it’s listeners know nothing about. The production however is still manufactured, and this slow piano with some huge drums Alex Da Kid sound will be dated in a few months, and that’s what record companies don’t seem to care about: creating lasting music that people can listen to for years to come. Go listen to He Say She Say, the music is so lush and most importantly timeless. Put the Words I Never Said verses over the Streets On Fire beat and its classic Lupe.
(Here’s the song if you care for a listen)
B.O.B. was another victim of Atlantics wrath. Here he was an exciting up and comer who crafted a brilliant song with huge commercial appeal, I’ll Be In The Sky, yet Atlantic gave that single no push and sat on their asses for years as they sapped all of B.O.B.’s creativity out of the project, and raped the album entirely. In the end Louis had to take B.O.B. off his favorite artists on Facebook and now hates his guts. Putting artists onto the hot sound of the moment for a top ten single comes at the cost of alienating their core fanbase. Sure the artist and record company profit off its success but the artistic product continues to decline and consolidate.
What irks me about this all is how abrupt this change occurred. Perhaps Atlantic Records is the only culprit. Kanye obviously still has 100% creative control over his music. Lupe and B.O.B. certainly aren’t as popular as Kanye, but as far as I know Lupe never had any problems with releasing the type of music he wanted to on his first two albums. The Cool was a commercial success with a top ten hit in Superstar that was written, produced, and performed entirely by FNF artists. Why all of a sudden does Atlantic feel the need to have it’s fingerprints all over Lasers? Maybe it’s somewhat of a payback for Lupe refusing to sign a 360 deal, which was another factor in the hold up of the album, or maybe it’s because they only care about singles these days. The iTunes digital music culture is based around people buying $.99 singles, another direct result of the internet decreasing our attention spans at an alarming rate, but quite frankly that’s a topic for a different day and medium. I think that is the main problem. Record Labels are so intent on having the biggest singles ever they feel the need to force their artists on to the beats and songs of their choice, the rest of the album they could give two fucks about. Unfortunately, in most cases, their intrusion on the process of creating singles negates any chance of the album being a complete, cohesive, classic product of art before it even sees the light of day.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
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