Does anyone love SoundCloud as much as I do?
Without being too much of a brown-noser, this really is a great way for artists to share music in lightning speed. Heart real-time entertainment. Gone are the days when artists took a year or two to drop music. (Now that I think about it, wasn’t that always ridiculous?) Now they can just upload and share to their followers i.e. me. This of course is all new territory.
As a kid, I grew up under the reign of Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna. They all took at least 2 years+ to release music. But it wasn’t until the early Jay-Z years (90s) that I truly understood all the lyrics and innuendos. Enter 1 year artists. This was quicker, but a wait was still involved in getting new music. Then the millennium brought in a whole different beast. I went through – or should I say music went through a phase that I hated. It was horrible and I d*mn near turned my radio off. Luckily I held on long enough for this new wave of artists. They’re all literally kids but it’s so exciting (because I AM a huge music geek) to see them gettin it – year long music releases, platinum albums, sold-out tours, clubs, clothing lines, endorsements. One of the things that helps them is accessibility. Of course Twitter and Instagram run neck-and-neck in making this happen, but so does SoundCloud.
As we speak, there’s some new music on the Cloud that I’m loving.
Love all the new Beyonce. I know many of her stans hate it – they’re somewhere locked in a room crying – but I can’t get enough of this ratchet sound. She’s released two new tracks – “Bow Down” and “I Been On Remix” – both feature a chopped and screwed sound. (High-level, this describes a music significantly slowed down to the point of altering the performer’s voice.) It originated and is still popular in Texas so it’s definitely not a sound that’s widely loved or understood. Luckily, I get it.
We all know Drake has teased everyone with two new cuts from his upcoming album. I’m trying my best not to buy it on iTunes. I’m patiently waiting for the whole album to drop.
But it’s not all great music.
Rihanna’s “Pour it Up (Remix)” … In the voice of Keenen Ivory Wayans and David Alan Grier from In Living Color, “Hated It.” I was so excited to see the link come across my Twitter account. Unfortunately, with the exception of T.I.’s contribution, this was a huge let down. None of the artists’ lyrics flowed. Content wise and technically, it was disjointed. Seriously, when is the original better than the remix? Never – which is why this is baffling. In theory, the remix is an opportunity to make the original song even better than what it was. Everything in hindsight should be better… agreed. But in this case, I never want to hear that version again. Original only – which by the way I could listen to all day.
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