Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Music Video: Cro - Einmal um die Welt

One of the reasons I have always loved doing this blog, albeit in fits and starts, is because there are some awesome tunes out there that simply never cross over into the English speaking world.  Last fall, "raop" (a self-named cross between rap and pop) star Cro hit it very big in the German speaking world, with his second album "Raop" hitting Number 1 in the German and Austrian charts and Number 7 in the Swiss charts.  Yet here in America. . . nothing. 

Well, that's why I'm here.  Today I bring you one of Cro's big hits from this mega-hit album, Einmal um die Welt.  This song perfectly puts on display exactly what Cro means by raop.  It has the lyrical drive and density of rap, while having an uptempo beat that makes it hard to sit still.  Having had the chance to listen to Cro's other music, this theme carries through well, and makes him an artist worth following moving forward.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Music Video: Sucker - Remain Pain

Back in what seems to be a former life, I was a serious Rude Boy.  Sure, not in the traditional Jamaican sense of the term.  But I was a suburban white Rude Boy.  If it was ska, or even ska-like, I would buy it.  If there was a ska band in town - even if they weren't very good - I had to drop everything and go to the show.  I have fallen out of love with the genre over the years though for a number of reasons.  Primarily I fell out of love with ska mainly because most bands just followed the musical formula by rote, without ever really doing anything new or interesting with it.  As long as there was a bouncy beat, songcraft became almost irrelevant.

For better or for worse, ska has spread around the world, and along with it it's offshoot "skacore".  This is probably my least favorite sub-genre of ska because the less talented practitioners simply write a hardcore punk tune, and then half way through, they patch in a ska tune.  Very seldom do the two mesh together with any kind of sensible cohesion.  Today, Open World Music brings you a skacore band from Xi'an China that almost gets it right.  As demonstrated by their song Remain Pain, they have the energy, they have the attitude, and they almost manage to write a catchy tune.  Almost.

I really shouldn't be too hard on Sucker.  My attitude toward them is largely colored by my previous biases against skacore.  Within the severe limitations of the genre, I actually think they are pretty decent.  And bonus points go to them for singing in Chinese.  But I hope for their sake that they move beyond the restrictive confines of skacore.  There's so much more out there!