So, of course you want to know what I think is hot in the world of hip music, huh? Of course you do. I am starting another new page called the HAWT LIST. It's like rankings.
1. Big Boi - The anticipation for Sir Lucius has been building like a pack of bees on a jar of spilled honey. Starting with "Shutterbug" then "Tightrope" I have neither wanted nor been able to get Big Boi's stuff out of my head. A total sonic separation from dre3 makes the vivid genius more apparent, and thus more addictive. Upon the actual release, all expectations were eclipsed and hopes fulfilled.
2. MIA - For all the grandiose demonstration, I currently could care less about MIA's new music. I wouldn't say it's sagging like a couch on a college house's porch, but the ooh and ahhh factor might have left ol' MIA behind; shock factor still present. **Update: I gave it another long listen in a different state of mind, and holy shit, I will be listening a third time. Like right now.
3. Wavves - Nathan Williams is a classic demonstration of how easy idiotic self promotion and clever genre positioning can carry you a long way. Take a sample chorus: "I'm an idiot/I'd say I'm sorry/But it wouldn't mean shit." This works great as the hook to a Sum 41 song, but that would have deprived them of their priceless One Hit Wonder tag. Look, if he just played as "Nathan Williams" no one would give a shit.
4. Janelle Monae - It's too soon to tell how much growing power she has, but she has the diva quality to sustain a continuous, simmering HAWTNESS from this moment forward. I will have a beer in my hand and a rail spot in the middle of the first balcony before she goes on at the Ogden this fall.
5. Dirty Projectors - This might be late. I think there might have been more words written about the release of Mount Wittenberg, than Mount Wittenberg itself. If you haven't listened yet, let's change that.
6. Best Coast - Yeah, I admit it, next time I am in L.A. I will seek out a surfwave show.
7. Panda Bear - The buzz is just a little more than a trickle now, but that is about to change. Animal Collective may have shaved some of PB's rough edges from his experimentalism letting the Brian Wilson backbone of his sensibility poke through a little more. And Pitchfork is in a week.
