I have a girlfriend now. It’s weird. Well not weird, just different. After being alone for so long, you forget what it means to really get to know someone of the opposite sex. Sure you have the casual conversations with women in your day-to-day life, but that’s just surface level talk but nothing like that of when realize you could see yourself spending a good portion of your future with a person.
I’m now at the point in the relationship when you really start to notice differences. Differences that get glossed over initially but then come to light once the initial excitement settles. The most glaring difference is our musical taste. While mine skews more toward blues, folk, and 90’s gangster rap, the lady generally finds herself swimming in the sugary sweet sounds of modern pop. All day. Every day. If I come home and she’s having a one woman dance party belting Beyoncé at the top of her lungs, I’m not surprised at all. I like it though. She has a brilliant happiness within her that I will never be able to match. It’s just modern pop is just not a genre I’m interested in. It’s been that way for a long time. I think I jumped ship after they decided to remove all real instruments from the songs. I felt that was a good time to tune out.
Despite my abhorrent feelings towards the genre she loves, she seems determined to find music that we will both like. So far it hasn’t worked out that well. She sends artists and I listen and then feel like a dick when I have to tell her that I’m not exactly a huge fan. It’s no fault of hers’. It’s not like she has bad taste, she’s sending things that are quite popular, but I just can’t seem to wrap my head around them. I’m just a picky bastard though. That’s what it boils down to.
Recently she sent me St. Vincent’s new album. And it’s fine. it just lacks a certain umph that I look for. It’s well crafted and cleanly polished; it just doesn’t do it for me. Then this morning I woke up and saw one of my favorite artists had gone and remixed the St. Vincent track Digital Witness. Digital Witness on it’s own is a fine pop track. But it was now enhanced with the lyrics of Humpty and the Digital Underground’s classic Humpty Dance…that’s next level shit right there.
Who would have thought that these two things would go together oh so very well? The Hood Internet, that’s who. It just so happens that they are this week’s ARTIST OF THE WEEK.
The Hood Internet is comprised of Aaron (ABX) and Steve Reidell (STV SLV). The two settled in Chicago and began collaborating on music in 2007. As they began crafting songs constructed from popular indie tracks and hip-hop, they realized they needed a platform to launch them. To do so they started the blog The Hood Internet. Soon thousands were downloading their tracks.
They also started the blog Album Tacos featuring iconic album covers with tacos photoshopped into them. That has nothing to do with their music, but is hilarious.
The first track I ever heard from them was their mash up Two Weeks of Hip Hop (Dead Prez & Grizzly Bear) in 2009. Really it’s just a straight forward mix of Grizzly Bear’s instrumentals with Dead Prez doing their hit Hip-Hop. It’s an interesting blend. Dead Prez’s original version of Hip Hop has the heavy bass blasting underneath their politically charged lyrics, where as the mashup featured the indie back drop, dulls the edge. It’s not any worse off. It just opens the words up to appeal to a completely different audience.
They did the exact same thing with their track Good Ol’ Fashion Rump Shaker blending the wildn’ out Beastie Boys with the painfully cute Matt & Kim. I think it works. Matt & Kim finally become tolerable.
It just dawned on me here and now that I can’t stand Matt & Kim’s actual songs but when they get sampled for him hop tracks it’s always pretty sweet. See here
Speaking of making weak shit cool, their track Genesis Squared made Phil Collins relevant for the first time since South Park trashed him in 2000 with their episode Timmy 2000.
Since 2007 The Hood Internet has been a tour de force. 10 mixtapes, a Studio record titled FEAT, a remix of that record, consistently releasing tracks on their blog, all while touring the globe. Busy guys.
Sure, maybe the new lady and I will never see eye to eye on music. There are few artists we can agree on, but for the most part she will blast the electro dance and pop, and I’ll remember way too many numetal lyrics while pontificating about delta blues. But I’m okay with that. It’s not all about music guys. There’s more to people than what type of media they consume. Plus, there is always the hope that The Hood Internet will come together and make a Katy Perry vs. NWA mash that we can really come together on.
Big Hugs,
Kelly
 LINKS
http://www.thehoodinternet.