Good Weather For Airstrikes

The first time we mentioned Plan B in this space was in reference to Paul Epworth’s (aka Phones) foray in to hip-hop under the moniker Epic Man. Epic Man’s first release was as, er, epic as expected, a blistering track called “More Is Enough” that featured Plan B on vocals and cracked the top half of our Top Tracks of 2006 list. The track was more a showcase for Epworth’s production than it was a fair introduction to Plan B, so despite his performance on such a phenomenal single and a critically acclaimed debut album that was released in June of last year, he remains criminally underrated.

Plan B has, however, created his fair share of controversy in the UK, seeing one of his songs (”Kidz”) banned from the radio for violent lyrics that dealt with real-life issues that the radio-listening public was unprepared to face, such as abortion and the unchecked behavior of the youth in Plan B’s native London. Plan B, née Ben Drew, addresses the reaction to the ban through a skit on his new tour-only bootleg album, Paint It Blacker. The skit, entitled “Dave From Leicester”, features a female DJ asking for people to call in with responses to the lyrics in “Kidz”. Dave from Leicester calls in and rants about the poor, unoriginal light Plan B puts young African-Americans in London. The track features no mention of race whatsoever, and Plan B, who is white, gives a one-line response that completely turns the tables, asking Dave, “what color do you think I am?”

The aforementioned mixtape has many similar moments, with Plan B struggling with his identity and ranting against people who, like Dave from Leicester, dismiss him out of hand. The CD features Plan B rapping over tracks from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Jose Gonzalez, Coldplay, and many more, bringing Plan B’s memorable lyrics to the forefront. More than half of the tracks on Paint It Blacker are new, with a handful of them are reworks of tracks from his 2006 album Who Needs Action When You Got Words.

Of the new tracks, the two featuring the Rolling Stones are definite highlights. The first track on the CD, “Paint It Blacker”, shows Plan B first telling the story of a man who is sickened by the colors he sees around him, so he goes around either burning things to a blackened crisp or painting them. Plan B does not avoid poignancy on the track, however, finding time to humanize his villain, who first cries over the sight of a dead bird and then ceases his actions when confronted with a particular tombstone in a cemetery. The whole story is told over the memorable guitar lick and chorus from the Rolling Stones “Paint It Black”. The other Rolling Stones song, “Wild Horses”, features Plan B’s ruminations about someone he used to see as a father figure over the Rolling Stones song of the same name. Perhaps the most emotionally affecting track on the CD, “Wild Horses” is a compelling narrative that tells a tale of alcoholism and womanizing for the poor man as Plan B tries to set his life on the right track. Plan B urges him to track down his children and quit drinking, until the last verse when even Plan B can’t stand by him any longer. Disappointed that the man is unable to change and that his “true colors are shown”, Plan B drops the last line before “Wild Horses” chorus comes in, “Keep your fucking drink, you’ll need it now, you’re all on your own.”

Of the tracks that have simply been reworked from Plan B’s album, “Missing Links” is the standout. Outfitted with a looping sample of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song”, the song takes on a whole new heaviness that serves the hard-hitting lyrics about the drug scene Plan B has witnessed growing up. Plan B takes a strong anti-drug stance that seems far more real than most due to his honesty. He says “I ain’t no stranger to drugs, I’ve had my fair share,” but addresses the problems that come with drugs with lines like “I’ve seen my best friends die” and his rhetorical question posed to a hypothetical drug user: “What happened to your dreams and aspirations, blood, now the highlight of your day is masturbation, blood.” “Missing Links” highlights an important aspect of Plan B; he is not afraid to take a strong stand for what he believes and doesn’t try to water down his feelings to be more consumer-friendly. One of the most honest rappers out there, Plan B deserves all the attention he’s gotten and far, far more.

MP3s:
“Paint It Blacker” (with The Rolling Stones) - Plan B
“Wild Horses” (with The Rolling Stones) - Plan B
“Missing Links” (with Radiohead) - Plan B

BUT EVERETT, WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE WORLD OF MAINSTREAM R&B/HIP-HOP?
Well, I’m glad you asked that, because what’s going on in the world of mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop is that Timbaland decided why the hell shouldn’t he take that over too? If he can give street cred to a former Mickey Mouse Club member and Ms. “I’m Like A Bird”, why can’t he resuscitate the floundering career of You Got Served star Omarion? Well, he can, and he does it via a beat that’s “My Love”-lite for the chorus and “Say It Right”-atmospheric for the verses. Yeah, the combination works even better in music than it sounds on paper and like, somehow Omarion is catchy too. I blame Timbaland, whose official motto should read something like “Timabland: Making You Love Songs By Artists You Hate Since ‘96″. Seriously, everything dude touches turns to gold.

MP3: “Ice Box” - Omarion

Also, everybody’s favorite Akon knockoff, T-Pain, is no longer smitten with a stripper and has moved on to an easier target: every other girl! With the help of Yung Joc (of “It’s Goin’ Down” fame something), T-Pain will approach girls, try to get them drunk, and then persuade them to come home with him. In this sense he’s pretty much the same as every other guy, except every other guy doesn’t sound like Akon got the computer from “Fitter Happier” stuck in his voicebox. Yung Joc’s guest spot showcases lyrics as meaningless as sex with an ex-girlfriend (as in, you tell all your friends it’s totally meaningless but deep down you still like her so you try, in vain, to find some sort of meaning) and the chorus doesn’t exactly reach new lyrical stratospheres (”Lemme buy you a drink, ooh-ooh-ooh”), and I’ve certainly painted a pretty negative picture of the track, but the catch is that the whole is about seventy billion times greater than the sum of it’s parts. So, y’know, it’s a good song.

MP3: “Buy You A Drink” (ft. Yung Joc) - T-Pain

Studio B, how I love you. Seriously, I’m yet to leave you feeling anything less than 1000% awesome when I emerge from your doors; your track record is flawless. Justice? RIDICULOUS. Girl Talk? RIDICULOUS. Shit, even the Throne of Blood party was an excellent time, and that was just a bunch of random DJ’s. Thus, it’s gotten to the point where I’ll go to Studio B for pretty much anything, and “Cobrastyle” was a good enough excuse in itself for me to make the trek out to Greene Point last night for Teddybears headlining gig at the venue, even though I wasn’t terribly familiar with anything else by them aside from “Yours To Keep” and “Punkrocker”. But man am I glad I did - shit was awesome.

We showed up at doors to make sure we could get tickets and then headed to The Palace, the pre-gaming spot for Studio B as far as I’m concerned about 10-15 blocks away at Nassau and Russell. This place is awesome. Why is it awesome? Because you can buy a round of three drinks for 4-fucking-50, incredible considering you can’t even buy one drink for that price anywhere in Manhattan. Furthermore, it’s populated exclusively by Pols and you can smoke cigarettes inside, but that’s really just icing on the cake. $4.50. Ridiculous. Anyway, we did some serious damage there before rolling out just in time to make it to Studio B as Radio 4 (who were opening I guess) were going off, and slid into the very front row thanks to the ease of navigation provided by the always-moving dancefloor driven by Studio B’s incredible resident DJ’s. I grabbed two more rounds and made my way back to the stage just as the ‘Bears took the stage wearing, yes, those awesome plastic bear heads. I love those things.

The next hour is more or less a blur of pure bliss and hot jams, with the two touring MC’s (some Sean Paul-lookin’ dude and a girl who I’m pretty sure looked exactly like M.I.A. if I remember correctly) doing a surprisingly excellent job of recreating the parts of their big name album counterparts. Three songs in they dropped “Cobrastyle” and it was easily one of the single most fun concert moments of my life, as the male MC owned the chorus and the ‘Bear directly in front of us rocked out hard in a power stance inches from our faces. Next came “Yours To Keep” and the introduction of the female MC, who did a serviceable job tackling Neneh Cherry’s impeccable vocals and kept the crowd into it. But it was the finale, “Punkrocker”, where she and the band both shined, throwing themselves into the crowd and going out on a brilliant ending note. All in all, an incredibly, incredibly fun night. Studio B just might be the greatest place on earth.

MP3s:
“Cobrastyle” - Teddybears ((highly recommended))
“Yours To Keep” (Annie Mix) - Teddybears
“Punkrocker” (Squeak E Clean Remix) - Teddybears

A new year, a new look for the single reviews; here we go.

It’s well documented that Bloc Party were considerably displeased after finding themselves firmly pigeonholed into the dance rock category when the dust had settled around their sterling debut, Silent Alarm, in 2005. Frontman Kele Okereke even expressed a regret for having named the band Bloc Party due to the implications one takes away from the “Party” aspect of the name and made it clear in nearly every interview from that time to the release of their new album that A Weekend In The City would see the band exploring a new sound and redefining themselves in a whole new way. Thus, we have “The Prayer”, a track set to knock you off your feet and reevaluate your entire stance on the band.

Yes, it’s still technically rock music and yes, you can certainly dance to it, but to call it dance rock? Well that would just be all wrong, now wouldn’t it? You see, whereas Bloc Party defined their sound on Silent Alarm with disco-ready anthems like “Banquet” and “She’s Hearing Voices”, with their searing, angular guitar riffs and rapidfire percussion sections, “The Prayer” finds the band at their darkest, most ominous and - thanks to production from Jacknife Lee - most supermassive yet. Gone are the razor-sharp licks of guitarist Russel Lissack - completely, it would seem, until that “unplayable” guitar solo rears its head and bursts forth from the mix in the song’s final minute. And Matt Tong’s superhuman drumming? Well, it’s decidedly more human here, all martial stomps and handclaps that seem almost insultingly straightforward considering the unrivaled abilities he displayed on the band’s debut. But that’s not to say any of this is a regression; nay, it’s actually quite a huge step in the band’s new, more electronic direction.

Formerly titled “A Prayer To The Lord” and described as “Bloc Party crunk” by Okereke, the track opens with those huge drums before Kele begins his prayer that he might summon all the wit and confidence needed to survive a night on the town amongst the tropes of cooler-than-thou hipsters in the East London party scene. Ominous, almost monk-like chants set the dark atmosphere of the song at the back of the mix just as your starting to wonder where this is all going, but then that massive chorus, easily Bloc’s biggest yet, hits and that ice cold synth line takes off for the ether and it all comes into focus. Harder, bigger and stronger than their previous offerings to date, “The Prayer” is Bloc Party’s new statement of intent: it keeps the kids moving and appeals to all (the single’s #4 debut on the charts serves as a pretty loud exhibit A), yet provides no category within which to pigeonhole the band. Brilliant.

What’s more, it doesn’t stop there. Bloc Party have always had one of the finest pedigrees of B-sides of any band in the indie-rock scene, but they’ve outdone themselves here. Of the 11 incredible B-sides to surface on the day of the album’s release, The Prayer single boasts two of the absolute best in “England” and “We Were Lovers”. “England” first saw life as “Blue Moon” and provided fans a first taste of Bloc’s new sound when it was premiered on tours throughout 2006. However, while the original was a song of longing for lost love and the fight to keep hope alive, its new incarnation is an examination of life as a rebellious young person in Great Britain. “I will not listen and I won’t be told”, Okereke sings over a steady drum beat and fractured guitar riffs that echo off the walls of the mix, illustrating the cruelty and lawlessness of British youth through tales of “happy slappings” and random acts of violence. Despite it’s subject matter, the song is beautiful and would have provided a worthy addition to A Weekend In The City, but it’s “We Were Lovers” that really steals the show here. Formerly called “Cells Shaped Like Stars”, the original version of the track saw limited circulation on the internet when the studio version leaked to a lucky few last year and then larger exposure when a decent live version surfaced later. All who heard it immediately fell in love with the song’s brilliant “In our bodies! In our bodies! There are cells, shaped like stars” chorus, one of Bloc’s best and most exciting to that point, so it was a bit of a crushing blow to find that the song’s lyrics and chorus saw a complete overhaul in the final version. That said, “We Were Lovers” is still an amazing track as good as anything off A Weekend In The City, and the chorus still hits as hard as anything Bloc’s put out to date, nearly making one forget the brilliance of its predecessor.

MP3s:
“The Prayer” - Bloc Party ((highly recommended))
“We Were Lovers” - Bloc Party ((highly recommended))

Finally, as if all that weren’t enough already, the single produced a slew of great remixes as well. However, despite excellent efforts by Phones and newcomers Does It Offend You, Yeah?, it’s an unofficial “indie grime” remix from the crazy kids of Hadouken! that owns them all. Pick up a few of the tracks below, but The Prayer single is really one of the most complete singles ever to be released, with brilliant new content spread over more than five different formats, and is wholly deserving of your purchase. And why not, especially when you can cop this Limited Collector’s Edition Box Set(!!!) at RecordStore UK containing all the formats for only £2.50. Deal of the century? Just maybe.

Bonus MP3s:
“The Prayer” (Hadouken! Remix) - Bloc Party
“The Wamp Wamp Prayer” (Bloc Party vs. Clipse) - team9

And ALSO, this just in: Bloc Party will be releasing their next UK single, “I Still Remember”, on April 9th complete with even more B-side goodness… INCLUDING A REMIX BY MOTHERFUCKING SEBASTIAN! I really don’t think I could possibly be more excited, I’ve seriously been praying for a Bloc Party remix by SebastiAn or Justice every night before I go to bed, and my dream (or at least half of it) has finally been realized. So pumped. Check out the complete details of the single and pre-order all three formats of it (in another box set deal) here.