2008 Woodie Awards
New Vibrations
Issue date: 11/20/08
ARTIST: Q-Tip
ALBUM: The Renaissance
LABEL: Universal Motown
RELEASED: Nov. 4, 2008
One wonders about the musical growth of an artist when his album contains six years of material. Such is the case of Q-Tip, rapper and de facto leader of renowned hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. His recently released album, The Renaissance, is his first studio album since 1999's Amplified.
The reverberating rock-based rhythms in "Johnny Is Dead" provide an energetic introduction to the album. In this track, Q-Tip comments on the importance of musical integrity while at the same time highlighting the importance of emotions in music.
In "Gettin' Up," Q-Tip finds an agreeable balance between his craft as a lyricist and an entertainer: He addresses the ladies with smooth and catchy lyrics that are mature at the same time. The song includes a stylish chorus that is laced with a combination of piano and woodwind rhythms.
Q-Tip steps up his game in "Move," which was produced by the now-deceased hip-hop producer J Dilla. He captures the essence of being an emcee and delivers boastful and stylish rhymes one after another. Yet, Q-Tip is still able to maintain a constant and dynamic flow of energy with a beat that is nostalgic of the Jackson 5.
His social commentary reappears in "We Fight/ We Love." In the first verse, he narrates from the point of view of a man who is struggling through life. In the second verse he poetically illustrates the clouded path of an American boy fighting for the military in the Middle East while also struggling to understand his identity. The verses are tied together nicely with a mellow chorus assisted byneo-soul singer Raphael Saadiq.
The Renaissance presents itself as one of Q-Tip's best works since his efforts with A Tribe Called Quest on Midnight Marauders. While Q-Tip's last solo album, Amplified, had more of a commercial focus, this album deviates from such. Instead, Q-Tip opts to deliver his audience with a collection of funky beats meshed with quick, witty and socially conscious rhymes.
- Wakil Ahmed
ARTIST: Stars
ALBUM: Sad Robots
LABEL: Arts & Crafts
RELEASED: Nov. 11, 2008
Sad Robots, Stars's latest EP, is not meant to cheer up today's tormented teen. Because of that, this EP does not depart from the Canadian indie band's other works. Five out of the six tracks breathe sedate sadness and even straight-up depression, while keeping in theme with the heartbroken sound for which Stars has been so well known. Each maintains Chris Seligman's steady keyboard pop beat and Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan's gentle vocals that have become Stars's album staples. Each song meshes smooth synthesizers with pulsating drum and electronic beats, creating subtle ocean-like melodies that serve as perfect accompaniments to their lyrics' soft angst.
The three best songs of Sad Robots are "A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife," "Undertow" and "Going, Going, Gone." Each is an exemplary example of the sweet sadness that the members of Stars have always delivered so well.
"A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife," which is the second track on the EP, dishes out starved-for-love-and-life lyrics, like "You had to drink to stay alive/but you were hoping it would kill you too" and "then you fell into oblivion/lying on your bed with your shoes on," which both speak to the non-tragedy of a lost teenager.
The third and most popular track of the EP, "Undertow," washes over the listener with the calm steadiness of a lullaby and a soft synth sound that complements Milan's whispered lyrics. "Going, Going, Gone," the fourth track, is "Undertow"'s ideal successor, with its similarly gentle sound and quiet, painstaking lyrics. "Look good in that red dress/I bet the boyfriend's happy," Campbell bitterly wails, inciting empathy in anyone who has experienced a heartbreak.
Sad Robots lacks a few important components featured in Stars's lengthier earlier works. First, the album is perhaps too coherent, each track bleeding a bit too smoothly into the next. Soft electronic indie-pop is great in small doses, but each track is so indistinguishable from its predecessor that the songs may serve more purpose as children's lullabies than as meaningful music.
Additionally, while creator Campbell has professed to molding Stars after The Smiths and other music made by his artistic hero Morrissey, his attempt to cling to young angst sounds a bit too forced in some of the tracks. For example, in "14 Forever," the name alone should be a clear indicator that Campbell has yet to escape his own teenage years. Campbell should perhaps consider that Stars's listeners are not all troubled and lonely 16-year-olds sobbing over too-wet kisses and half-broken hearts.
All in all, Sad Robots is not quite sophisticated enough to live up to Stars's other masterpieces - chiefly 2004's beyond epic Set Yourself On Fire. However, as an EP, it does more than its fair share of providing the band's most devoted fans with what may be some of their best tracks. "A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife" may serve as one of Stars's top five songs of all time, which is certainly saying something.
- Rebecca Fishbein
ARTIST: T-Pain
ALBUM: Thr33 Ringz
LABEL: Jive
RELEASED: Nov. 11, 2008
Having burst forth from oddity, to novelty to astounding ubiquity, the electro-omnipresent T-Pain now stands trial as a gimmick with the release of his third album, Thr33 Ringz. Pain's career, since his phenomenal 2005 single "I'm Sprung," has been historic, meteoric and aesthetically disappointing. When employed in 2005, T-Pain's voice was beyond being amusing, highly effective - strained, crackling, inorganic - and conveyed angst and ego in a manner unreachable with conventional singing.
But the "T-Pain voice" has since become nothing more than a commodity, catapulting an incredible number of already-forgotten singles to chart success over the past few years with the mere appearance of "feat. T-Pain." Pain has no doubt made excellent appearances riding shotgun for better artists in recent years, but for the most part, he has been relegated to a top hat-wearing human-instrument to fill space between awful verses from bargain bin rappers like Flo Rida and Plies.
He has been objectified, reduced to the personification of a trend.
Thr33 Ringz is not a return to T-Pain as artist but a dull continuation of T-Pain as a disembodied, computerized vocal cord, pre-packaged for drunk girls at cheap bars. If you have turned on a radio since 2005, you have more or less already heard this album in its entirety, as Thr33 Ringz stands as nothing more than a composite of T-Pain's recent digitized quacking. It remains hard to think of any reason why T-Pain is using computerized vocals, other than the obvious answer that he is nothing without them, having mounted his entire career atop a cheap gimmick available to anyone with a microphone and a laptop.
T-Pain intends for the album to serve as a tribute to his own pervasiveness, but on songs like "Digital," he persists in believing that delivering lyrics like "I let the doors up on the Lamborghini, so they can see me, everybody in the club know I got fettucini" is passable in 2008 just because he's doing it in the T-Pain voice.
In this sense, the album is a failure, as what Pain hopes will be a monument to his innovation fails to stand on its own. It is apparent that the style he revitalized for the latter half of our decade has become stale in spite of him. The album has its sort-of-noteworthy moments, such as the gentle, aloof "Can't Believe It," that makes decent use of Pain's robotics in its detachment from an object of desire. Perhaps the album's sole interesting moment occurs with "Karaoke," a hostile track meant as a rebuke to the rest of the Top-40 crowd riding T-Pain's coattails: "So grab your microphone, set your Auto-Tune and Im'a bust a verse on your ass like I oughta do ... This shit'll never work, a one hit wonder bitch, but all this shit that you doin' now make me wonder this, now why it's cool for you, but it's not for me, and why he ain't hop on my song and make it hot for me?"
The question is fair, but T-Pain has only himself to blame for rendering his style obsolete.
- Sam Biddle
ALBUM: The Renaissance
LABEL: Universal Motown
RELEASED: Nov. 4, 2008
One wonders about the musical growth of an artist when his album contains six years of material. Such is the case of Q-Tip, rapper and de facto leader of renowned hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. His recently released album, The Renaissance, is his first studio album since 1999's Amplified.
The reverberating rock-based rhythms in "Johnny Is Dead" provide an energetic introduction to the album. In this track, Q-Tip comments on the importance of musical integrity while at the same time highlighting the importance of emotions in music.
In "Gettin' Up," Q-Tip finds an agreeable balance between his craft as a lyricist and an entertainer: He addresses the ladies with smooth and catchy lyrics that are mature at the same time. The song includes a stylish chorus that is laced with a combination of piano and woodwind rhythms.
Q-Tip steps up his game in "Move," which was produced by the now-deceased hip-hop producer J Dilla. He captures the essence of being an emcee and delivers boastful and stylish rhymes one after another. Yet, Q-Tip is still able to maintain a constant and dynamic flow of energy with a beat that is nostalgic of the Jackson 5.
His social commentary reappears in "We Fight/ We Love." In the first verse, he narrates from the point of view of a man who is struggling through life. In the second verse he poetically illustrates the clouded path of an American boy fighting for the military in the Middle East while also struggling to understand his identity. The verses are tied together nicely with a mellow chorus assisted byneo-soul singer Raphael Saadiq.
The Renaissance presents itself as one of Q-Tip's best works since his efforts with A Tribe Called Quest on Midnight Marauders. While Q-Tip's last solo album, Amplified, had more of a commercial focus, this album deviates from such. Instead, Q-Tip opts to deliver his audience with a collection of funky beats meshed with quick, witty and socially conscious rhymes.
- Wakil Ahmed
ARTIST: Stars
ALBUM: Sad Robots
LABEL: Arts & Crafts
RELEASED: Nov. 11, 2008
Sad Robots, Stars's latest EP, is not meant to cheer up today's tormented teen. Because of that, this EP does not depart from the Canadian indie band's other works. Five out of the six tracks breathe sedate sadness and even straight-up depression, while keeping in theme with the heartbroken sound for which Stars has been so well known. Each maintains Chris Seligman's steady keyboard pop beat and Torquil Campbell and Amy Milan's gentle vocals that have become Stars's album staples. Each song meshes smooth synthesizers with pulsating drum and electronic beats, creating subtle ocean-like melodies that serve as perfect accompaniments to their lyrics' soft angst.
The three best songs of Sad Robots are "A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife," "Undertow" and "Going, Going, Gone." Each is an exemplary example of the sweet sadness that the members of Stars have always delivered so well.
"A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife," which is the second track on the EP, dishes out starved-for-love-and-life lyrics, like "You had to drink to stay alive/but you were hoping it would kill you too" and "then you fell into oblivion/lying on your bed with your shoes on," which both speak to the non-tragedy of a lost teenager.
The third and most popular track of the EP, "Undertow," washes over the listener with the calm steadiness of a lullaby and a soft synth sound that complements Milan's whispered lyrics. "Going, Going, Gone," the fourth track, is "Undertow"'s ideal successor, with its similarly gentle sound and quiet, painstaking lyrics. "Look good in that red dress/I bet the boyfriend's happy," Campbell bitterly wails, inciting empathy in anyone who has experienced a heartbreak.
Sad Robots lacks a few important components featured in Stars's lengthier earlier works. First, the album is perhaps too coherent, each track bleeding a bit too smoothly into the next. Soft electronic indie-pop is great in small doses, but each track is so indistinguishable from its predecessor that the songs may serve more purpose as children's lullabies than as meaningful music.
Additionally, while creator Campbell has professed to molding Stars after The Smiths and other music made by his artistic hero Morrissey, his attempt to cling to young angst sounds a bit too forced in some of the tracks. For example, in "14 Forever," the name alone should be a clear indicator that Campbell has yet to escape his own teenage years. Campbell should perhaps consider that Stars's listeners are not all troubled and lonely 16-year-olds sobbing over too-wet kisses and half-broken hearts.
All in all, Sad Robots is not quite sophisticated enough to live up to Stars's other masterpieces - chiefly 2004's beyond epic Set Yourself On Fire. However, as an EP, it does more than its fair share of providing the band's most devoted fans with what may be some of their best tracks. "A Thread Cut With A Carving Knife" may serve as one of Stars's top five songs of all time, which is certainly saying something.
- Rebecca Fishbein
ARTIST: T-Pain
ALBUM: Thr33 Ringz
LABEL: Jive
RELEASED: Nov. 11, 2008
Having burst forth from oddity, to novelty to astounding ubiquity, the electro-omnipresent T-Pain now stands trial as a gimmick with the release of his third album, Thr33 Ringz. Pain's career, since his phenomenal 2005 single "I'm Sprung," has been historic, meteoric and aesthetically disappointing. When employed in 2005, T-Pain's voice was beyond being amusing, highly effective - strained, crackling, inorganic - and conveyed angst and ego in a manner unreachable with conventional singing.
But the "T-Pain voice" has since become nothing more than a commodity, catapulting an incredible number of already-forgotten singles to chart success over the past few years with the mere appearance of "feat. T-Pain." Pain has no doubt made excellent appearances riding shotgun for better artists in recent years, but for the most part, he has been relegated to a top hat-wearing human-instrument to fill space between awful verses from bargain bin rappers like Flo Rida and Plies.
He has been objectified, reduced to the personification of a trend.
Thr33 Ringz is not a return to T-Pain as artist but a dull continuation of T-Pain as a disembodied, computerized vocal cord, pre-packaged for drunk girls at cheap bars. If you have turned on a radio since 2005, you have more or less already heard this album in its entirety, as Thr33 Ringz stands as nothing more than a composite of T-Pain's recent digitized quacking. It remains hard to think of any reason why T-Pain is using computerized vocals, other than the obvious answer that he is nothing without them, having mounted his entire career atop a cheap gimmick available to anyone with a microphone and a laptop.
T-Pain intends for the album to serve as a tribute to his own pervasiveness, but on songs like "Digital," he persists in believing that delivering lyrics like "I let the doors up on the Lamborghini, so they can see me, everybody in the club know I got fettucini" is passable in 2008 just because he's doing it in the T-Pain voice.
In this sense, the album is a failure, as what Pain hopes will be a monument to his innovation fails to stand on its own. It is apparent that the style he revitalized for the latter half of our decade has become stale in spite of him. The album has its sort-of-noteworthy moments, such as the gentle, aloof "Can't Believe It," that makes decent use of Pain's robotics in its detachment from an object of desire. Perhaps the album's sole interesting moment occurs with "Karaoke," a hostile track meant as a rebuke to the rest of the Top-40 crowd riding T-Pain's coattails: "So grab your microphone, set your Auto-Tune and Im'a bust a verse on your ass like I oughta do ... This shit'll never work, a one hit wonder bitch, but all this shit that you doin' now make me wonder this, now why it's cool for you, but it's not for me, and why he ain't hop on my song and make it hot for me?"
The question is fair, but T-Pain has only himself to blame for rendering his style obsolete.
- Sam Biddle
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