Man Of The Year 2006 - Li'l Wayne

I'm sure that any of you who dabble in hip-hop press are long since tired of hearing about how much of a terrible year it's been for hip-hop in general. Whilst Clipse, Ghostface, Trae, Suga Free and maybe even Murs were there for the number of us who actually look in to the critically acclaimed but not very high-selling rap albums, the big names didn't fair as well and you all know who they are so listing them seems pretty redundant. Plus there was that god-awful skateboard rap album by Lupe Fiasco that everyone except me seems to see something in.

However there was one rapper who was consistently on the ball and if the huge picture and his name being in this entries title didn't give it all away, that man was Li'l Wayne. He has spent the entire year flexing his vocal chords almost constantly and has in the process come out with two fantastic mixtapes as well as an official album with his "adopted father" Birdman. To add to that, despite "Idlewild" easily being Outkast's worst album to date, Li'l Wayne turned up on one of the albums decent tracks and completely stole the show right out from under Boi and Andre. He constantly kept the critics happy whilst being one of few artists this year to be throwing some decent hip-hop in to the mainstream.

However where Wayne has really brought himself to the front this year is through his constant Hurricane Katrina commentary. Being a New Orleans native, last years hurricane would obviously be a strong issue to the man. You could even say he sounded like a man who's childhood home had been destroyed and many old friends left homeless. Whilst Wayne did go for the obvious target of G.W (whilst probably justified), the real heart of this chain of music came from his clearly genuine, bleak and almost upsetting portrayal of the event and aftermath:

"We're from a town where everybody drowned"
"The hurricane took my Louisiana home/and all I got in return was a darn country song"

Obviously the written lyrics aren't as compelling without the delivery so grab the tracks below.

Birdman & Li'l Wayne - Stuntin' Like My Daddy
Outkast ft Li'l Wayne - Hollywood Divorce
Li'l Wayne - Georgia... Bush

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms

Well since 'tis the season and such, you can take this as my official Christmas post. I'm sure anyone who reads a large number of mp3 blogs is more than sick of hearing a bunch of well known indy favorites cover "Jingle Bells" or whatever. So for the Christmas post, instead of a song that actually has anything to do with Christmas, I thought I'd go with one of my all time favorite love songs. When he's not beating journalists shitless for declaring him "lord of the goths" or writing sick songs about cowboys, Nick Cave is known for using his deep and harsh voice to give us all that warm dash of loving sentiment that we all enjoy so much. "Into My Arms" is the opener from his album "The Boatman's Call" and it's a lovely tale about his feelings for a religious woman of some variety.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms

X - Under The Big Black Sun

It must be said, I absolutely adore X in their early 80s more country driven form and "Under The Big Black Sun" is the all singing all dancing transformation record. Their previous output sounded exactly like what it was, enjoyable LA punk made by a group of people with previous musical experience and thus finding the punk limitations something they could easily dominate but would become tired with over time. The year prior to "Under The Big Black Sun" being released, The Gun Club had released their seminal "The Fire Of Love" and had shown that punk bands could happily incorporate blues and country elements in to their sound and not have to deal with hundreds of prats with mohawks calling them all manner of unpleasant things (actually, chances are some of them still did). What came from the transition was the best anyone could have hoped for, "cow-punk" at it's very finest. Enjoyably melodic and tuneful whilst being fast and pissed off enough to stop the whole thing from becoming a really lame punk band playing Robert Johnson styled affair. My favorite two songs from the album you can find below. Still yousendit, I'm afraid.

X - Under The Big Black Sun
X - Blue Spark

A lovely bonus
It surprised me when I realized that I've never used this blog as grounds for declaring how fantastic The Starvations were before they split last year. So, in keeping with this posts punk-meets-country topic, here's a track from last years "Gravity's A Bitch."

The Starvations - Lost At Sea

First of all: I'm very sorry about the fact that every mp3 Kieran, Alice or I ever posted is now not working. I won't bore you with technical details so lets just say that our file host decided it didn't really want to be a file host anymore. Thus why all the files below are yousendit. Now, whilst it does piss me off that all the tracks I spent hours uploading suddenly disappeared, I'll thank you kindly to stop e-mailing me about putting mp3s back up. I'm sorry, I just don't have the time.

Speaking of which, I guess I should apologize for my absence, or at least I would if I thought anyone besides about five people cared about this blog updating. I want to tell you about what's been going on in my life recently about as much as you want to hear about it, but to put it simply, I just haven't had the time to mingle with the dynamic world of music blogging. As far as I can tell, neither have any of this blogs former writers. Anyway, here are some records I really like. Usual drill, if you like the song, buy the album etc.

KMD - Black Bastards

KMD - What A Nigga Know










Sparklehorse - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

Sparklehorse - Homecoming Queen


Ciccone Youth - The Whitey Album

Ciccone Youth - Macbeth








Fog - 10th Avenue Freakout

Fog - We're Winning








I'll be back before the year is out for the expected "best of 2006" post, unless I decide to post something before then.