Category Archives: Music

#1140: OutKast – Roses

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I don’t know if anyone else has felt this, but I don’t see OutKast’s ‘Roses’ pop up in a topic of conversation anywhere these days. ‘Hey Ya!’… well, everyone knows it. And I’ll see ‘The Way You Move’ or ‘Prototype’ on TikToks and Instagram posts. Never ‘Roses’ though. Can’t understand it myself, ’cause I remember when it was being played everywhere. In the UK at least, once ‘Hey Ya!’ seemed to be fading away from airplay, ‘Roses’ came right in and got the roof raising again. The video was a mainstay on MTV Base. I’d be singing the chorus with friends during my years in primary school. It was funny stuff. I’ve got a lotta love for it still, never heard it to the point where it fell out of favour like I did with the other big OutKast hit of that time.

I guess, possibly like many, many people, the big appeal for my initial interest in the song came from its entertaining music video. Featuring cameos from Katt Williams, Paula Abdul and a bunch of recgonisable faces, it shows André 3000 performing the song onstage in a school auditorium with his “Love Below” troupe, while the ‘Caroline’ character in the song’s lyrics watches on among the other students. Big Boi and his Speakerboxxx crew crash the proceedings and a hilariously chaotic fight ensues. Katt Williams whisks Caroline away with his charming ways, leaving 3 Stacks screaming after her as he’s carried out of the building. When it was played on the TV, the video’s intro was usually cut out, which left out the reason why Big Boi’s gang goes to the school in the first place. It’s ’cause Caroline gives a “Maybe” response when Big Boi asks if she’ll be his valentine. Nice to have that plot hole sorted out.

The song is essentially a roast of this girl called Caroline, who’s not based on a real person but is rather a representation of all those beautiful women who possess ugly personalities. 3000 pulls off a majorly expressive vocal take, stretching out his syllables, wailing and adlibbing in the background (particularly in the background during the final chorus), providing his own ooh-ooh backing vocals at points. Might even come off as unhinged at times, the way he changes his delivery so much. Must be symbolic of how these Caroline-types make the guy feel. Big Boi joins in and reinforces the song’s theme with the only appearance he makes on the Love Below half of the duo’s 2003 double album. He makes his mark in the time he has. Though the ‘crazy bitch’ outro he delivers might be pushing it a bit. I can take it, though.

#1139: Anderson .Paak ft. The Game & Sonyae Elise – Room in Here

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Well, here’s another artist you won’t see any more of from this point. Quite a shame, to be honest. Ever since I heard Anderson .Paak’s Malibu in early 2016, I’ve been a follower of the work he’s done ever since. It’s been a good few years since his last solo projects of Oxnard and Ventura, both of which I thought were merely okay. They just didn’t match the brilliance of Malibu in my view. There would be a lot more songs to talk about on here had that album came out earlier. I have a run-through of those contenders in the other post I did for a song from the LP. As it is though, you get two tracks from there and two tracks only. But I’d implore you to listen to that record in any spare time you possess.

Unbeknownst to me, by the time I was listening to Malibu the first time, its tenth song ‘Room in Here’ had been out as a single and available to the public for a couple months or so. And just listening through it, you can probably tell why it was chosen to be a representative to get people excited for the album that was to come. The jazzy piano loop lures you in, the chorus begins it all with a call-and-response dynamic going between Paak and singer Sonyae Elise who provides the harmonising responses. Paak gets all soulful during the verses, singing the first halves of them before sort of sing-talking for the other. It’s an interesting method of delivery. Very engaging though as his words bounce off the charging kick drum patterns. And capping it off comes a strong verse from The Game to give his streetwise take on the subject matter. To sum things up, it’s got something for everyone in regards to the choice as a single.

Like a lot of other songs in any genre, this song’s about wanting to get close to a lady. Paak makes it clear that he intends to go the gentlemanly route, wants to know what’s on their mind rather than fantasizing about her body and to make things as comfortable for them as possible in the large amount of space available in the room they’re occupying. The Game follows suit, recognising that the lady in his respective situation is clearly in a higher class than those he’s usually used to being with. He states he has to put in the work if there’s any chance at anything more, starting with a simple walk to her Uber cab. Yeah, this song’s a jam. It’s those like this that were missing on the albums that followed. With Oxnard he went in a more hip-hop direction, with Ventura leaning to R&B. They never caught that good balance of Malibu. Plus, the songs didn’t hit me as hard. But whatever .Paak does I’ll be there for it. That magic will come back one day.

#1138: Danny Brown ft. Petite Noir – Rolling Stone

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Thinking about it now, Danny Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition was the hip-hop album I’d been waiting for my entire life up until its release in September 2016. I remember the time well. I’d just started what was to be my final year of university, and Brown surprise-released it three days earlier than what it was officially announced to be. Set up Spotify, ‘Downward Spiral’ started, and when the song’s first chorus hit, I knew I was in for something very, very special. Unfortunately, there’s only one more song from Atrocity… that I’ll be able to speak about on here. But if the album had been released four years sooner, you’d see a larger representation of it on the site.

The album is one grim, disturbing look into Brown’s hedonistic lifestyle, one that he repeatedly states to the listener could lead to the end of him and leaves him feeling numb inside despite the pleasures of sex and drugs that come along with it. ‘Rolling Stone’, the third track, is one of the gems that provides another window into the rapper’s thought on the matter. Brown knows that he’s going down this road of self-destruction and only indulges in more excess to aim in easing the pain, which only makes things worse. It’s a lonely life to live, is what the song is trying to tell you. Alongside Danny Brown is Petite Noir on the choruses and the outro, who also produced the track having contacted Brown on Twitter and initiated a back-and-forth of ideas between the two.

That keyboard(?) melody the song starts with (and appears throughout) is too catchy. There are a lot of times when I’m just nodding to the groove and singing along to it rather than listening to the lyrics. There’s that moment where a ghostly vocal comes in singing the melody during Brown’s second verse, almost drowning his voice out in the process, which makes me think it’s meant to symbolise much more darker than its appealing tone would suggest. Danny Brown has the beat in his pocket, spitting out his lines with the trademark barking yelp of his. Funny to think that this song might not have happened at all had Brown not been awake at four in the morning and been checking his DMs.

#1137: The Beatles – Rocky Raccoon

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When I first heard ‘Rocky Raccoon’ by the Beatles for the first time, I want to say I had a reaction that was very similar to this YouTuber’s. Coming up as the third round in that animal “trilogy” on the White Album after ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Piggies’, it had me thinking this song was going to be a song about a raccoon. Interesting to say the least, but we’ll see how it goes. Then Paul McCartney comes in with the exaggerated Southern drawl in the introduction. I thought it sounded too silly. I made fun of it a bit, was ready to dismiss the whole thing entirely. But then, McCartney starts singing for real, and I was sort of spellbound. I don’t think I realised that I liked the song that much until I started singing it spontaneously a period of time afterwards. Goes to show, you’ve got to give every song a chance.

‘Rocky Raccoon’ isn’t about an actual raccoon, by the way. Doesn’t stop me from imagining these anthropomorphic creatures acting out the song’s storyline. Set in the Wild West with those cowboy hats and everything, very clear imagery. Anyway, that’s what the song is importantly, a story. It’s pretty much spelled out in the lyrics. The titular character checks into a hotel to get revenge on a man (who calls himself Dan) who’s ‘stolen’ his girlfriend. The girl’s name is Lil McGill, but everyone knows her as Nancy. Rocky Raccoon challenges Dan to a showdown. Dan shoots him quick on the draw and Rocky loses. Rocky recovers miraculously fast and goes back to the hotel to lick his wounds. And at points of this storytelling come some jumpy, upbeat honky-tonk piano breaks (provided by George Martin) to really tie the pieces together.

I don’t know how Paul McCartney does it. The melody used throughout his so simple, but so memorable. Almost like a lullaby. Shouldn’t be surprised as the guy’s pretty much a master of melody, so much so it left a lot of his peers and bandmates stumped. But a song with a name like ‘Rocky Raccoon’ could go badly so easily. Good thing it was McCartney who wrote it. Also without it, we wouldn’t have Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s a movie series I’m not very keen on myself. But what I’m getting at is that its influence and legacy goes out farther than just music. The track is very Paul, but you’ve got to hand it to the other bandmembers for their contribution the song’s sound. George Martin’s aforementioned piano performance livens up proceedings, and to reinforce the country-western vibe, John Lennon provides a harmonica part for what would be the final time on a Beatles recording.

#1136: The Rolling Stones – Rocks Off

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Only the second Rolling Stones song I’ve talked about on here. A lot of people love Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, all the other members associated and the albums too. I can take them in small amounts. I feel like a lot of the songs they do are indebted to the old-time blues rock of the US, which I’ve never had much feeling for anyway. There are however some songs by the Stones that I can’t deny must be regarded as ahem… ‘stone’-cold classics. And not the obvious ones like ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘Gimme Shelter’. Even I think those are both just all right. ‘Rocks Off’ though has to be one that almost every Stones fan appreciates. Not just because it opens what’s considered to be the band’s best album, but because of its general feel-good energy and the tight performance by the group as a whole. I got ’round to listening to Exile on Main St. around the same time I was going through a Best Ever Albums list on a website of the same name. At the time the website listed the album as the band’s best piece fo work, the best of its year, and one of the greatest of the ’70s as a decade. Gotta admit, I was excited for what I was about to hear.

It all begins with ‘Rocks Off’, a track that I could hear being played in those dirty, seedy underground nightclubs that I imagine were the places to be during the ’70s. Jagger’s confident “Oh, yeeeah” that he comes out with makes me screw my face up every time, just ’cause I think I know how he’s feeling hearing the guitar work of Richards and Mick Taylor and the rhythm section bring themselves into the mix and establish the groove. This song oozes coolness in all aspects. Jagger doesn’t ham up his vocals to a large extent, taking a sort of laidback approach for the verses and saving the more unrestrained approaches for the choruses. Richards joins in on harmonies. And a big round of applause has to go to those rousing horns that take the track to a higher level entirely. This a real good album opener. Probably one of the best of all time, I’d say the best in the Stones’ discography straight up.

I said the song has a feel-good energy in the first paragraph, which it does, but accompanying the uplifting music are the musings of a narrator who’s feeling disillusioned with life. They’re sort of losing themselves in places, they’re not able to absorb and take things in like they once did. Days are coming and going, they give in to their vices. They’ve lived a life of excess to the brim that they’ve become numb to it, and the only way they’re able to get any true relief and excitement is in their sleep. Sort of goes against the whole idea of getting rocks off. But that’s the way things are going for this person. The song’s about being as jaded as you could possibly get, but man, it’s delivered in such a celebratory manner that you can be forgiven for completely missing the cynicism. I know I did.