I'm afraid that I've got to agree--this and the grown and sexy tracks are the only cuts on the album that I skip.
However, if the song--which I do think was a genuine attempt at something ambitious--is successful in introducing Wayne to a new audience, then I guess I'm not too mad.
but he's too dark to tan!
i am not ashamed to admit that that song is at least top 5 of the year for me...
DUDE
seriously that is a guilty pleasure. That beat man....
Not to mention the conceptual arc of Thicke's bank robbery narrative...
I wasn't talking about the Thicke song, but the Bobby Valentino song from whence the "too dark to tan" line came; indeed, the thick song.
Now the conceptual arc on that one - a work of serious focus and dedication!
Oops... sonned by dudes with a superior knowledge of the Bobby Valentino catalog.
I don't think I've even heard that.
Get your "coming out of every passing car this past summer" game up, son!
I'm afraid that I've got to agree--this and the grown and sexy tracks are the only cuts on the album that I skip.
However, if the song--which I do think was a genuine attempt at something ambitious--is successful in introducing Wayne to a new audience, then I guess I'm not too mad.
but he's too dark to tan!
i am not ashamed to admit that that song is at least top 5 of the year for me...
DUDE
seriously that is a guilty pleasure. That beat man....
Not to mention the conceptual arc of Thicke's bank robbery narrative...
I wasn't talking about the Thicke song, but the Bobby Valentino song from whence the "too dark to tan" line came; indeed, the thick song.
Now the conceptual arc on that one - a work of serious focus and dedication!
Oops... sonned by dudes with a superior knowledge of the Bobby Valentino catalog.
I don't think I've even heard that.
Get your "coming out of every passing car this past summer" game up, son!
Hmmm... thanks to the internets, I now know what you're talking about, but I still don't think I've ever heard the version with Weezie.
It appears my umbilical cord-like connection to the streets has been severed.
Didn't read all the posts here but I see this dude had a make over and a new set of producers. Andre Harrell thried to bring this dude out like 4 years ago and it didn't work, now Pharrell got his hands on em'. Alan Thicke's son if y'all didn't know from Growing Pains.
The higher synthy bloopy bleepy melody line sounds really familiar... anyone know where that's from?? I believe it sounds like something that the Dust Bros used on Beck's last album. Maybe it's just the actual synth sound, and not a sample at all...
I like the song. Production is clean, but I don't think it's in a bad way. I like all the subtle turntable cuts, and how the song changes up a lot.
i really dont get the hype behind Lil Wayne. dudes not that good. dudes jump on his dick, then shit on someone like Cassidy.
lol at your continued love for cassidy.
Wayne is hot right now, his new album is crack if you dont have it yet. Hes at the top of his game lyrically too. I used to think he was one of the worst in the hot boyz, but these days hes stepped it up.
The higher synthy bloopy bleepy melody line sounds really familiar... anyone know where that's from?? I believe it sounds like something that the Dust Bros used on Beck's last album. Maybe it's just the actual synth sound, and not a sample at all...
the company i work at manages robin and his wife paula patton. robin's a very talented musician and singer, and a cool guy. his wife is the don't know if you guys knew this, but "shooter" was a song on robin's first album from a couple years ago that weezyfbaby apparently really liked, and so did some verses over. i celebrate his entire catalogue, so i was very happy at this collabo. robin has another song with wayne coming out on his album in two months, but i don't think its anywhere close to touching shooter.
There's another song on Tha Carter II which could become a monstrously huge crossover jam, which could catapult Wayne to major stardom and introduce him to, like, Black Crowes fans and white frat-kids and people who work in dentists' offices, people who would never listen to a Southern rapper talk about killing people and saying fuck the radio under virtually any circumstances. The song is called "Shooter." It's produced by a white soul singer named Robin Thicke (Alan's son, yeah), a guy who dropped an album a couple of years ago. I consciously avoided the album because he made a soda commercial that I hated, but apparently "Shooter" is based on a song from the record, so I need to hear it. It starts out with Thicke singing in a resigned, bluesy gurgle over a simple walking bassline, talking in shorthand about a bank robbery: "I turned around, I was staring at chrome / Shotgun watches door, got security good." Slowly, instruments come in: a shivering southern-rock guitar line, DJ scratches, the descending sonar-blips from Gang Starr's "Mass Appeal," a sweaty organ. Wayne doesn't start rapping until almost a minute and a half into the song, and he all but abandons Thicke's bank-robbery premise: "So many doubt cuz I come from the South / But when I open up my mouth, all bullets come out." He's got an easy drawl on this song, not the playful rasp from the rest of the album but a laid-back, unforced stream-of-consciousness, and it matches up perfectly with the track's back-porch sunny-Alabama-afternoon lope. After a great little drum break, Thicke sings again while Wayne murmurs under him, and the track continues to swell. All of a sudden, everything but a heavily processed guitar and a couple of congas drops out, and Wayne talks serious: "And to the radio stations, I'm tired of being patient / Stop being rapper-racist / Region haters." (He also calls them "behind-door dick-takers, which is problematic, but let's let it slide.) Then the mission-statement: "This is Southern, face it / If we too simple, then y'all don't get the basics." Boom. There's a swaggering piano, Thicke singing ecstatically, everything coming back. And then more: sirens, horn-stabs, machine-guns drum-fills, almost-gospel backing vocals. And then it's over, four and a half minutes of classic-rock blissout; it's like Wayne had wandered into "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and suddenly, improbably figured out a way to make it twice as good. If it wasn't for all the cussing, my mom would like this.
And that's the thing. I could be listening with blinders on, but right now I can't imagine a single person I've ever met not loving this song. Sean Fennessey did a great write-up of this song on Pitchfork, and it's a good look; not even the snobbiest Deerhoof heads could deny something this magical. This song could be Wayne's "Hard Knock Life," the track that finally introduces him to the world at large. "Grown Man" is fake crossover, a bald attempt to cater to certain demographics. "Shooter" is the real thing, a song that careens over genre lines and brings everyone along with it. The world needs the song, and here's hoping it's single number three. It's Christmastime. We've been good. We deserve it.
There's another song on Tha Carter II which could become a monstrously huge crossover jam, which could catapult Wayne to major stardom and introduce him to, like, Black Crowes fans and white frat-kids and people who work in dentists' offices, people who would never listen to a Southern rapper talk about killing people and saying fuck the radio under virtually any circumstances. The song is called "Shooter." It's produced by a white soul singer named Robin Thicke (Alan's son, yeah), a guy who dropped an album a couple of years ago. I consciously avoided the album because he made a soda commercial that I hated, but apparently "Shooter" is based on a song from the record, so I need to hear it. It starts out with Thicke singing in a resigned, bluesy gurgle over a simple walking bassline, talking in shorthand about a bank robbery: "I turned around, I was staring at chrome / Shotgun watches door, got security good." Slowly, instruments come in: a shivering southern-rock guitar line, DJ scratches, the descending sonar-blips from Gang Starr's "Mass Appeal," a sweaty organ. Wayne doesn't start rapping until almost a minute and a half into the song, and he all but abandons Thicke's bank-robbery premise: "So many doubt cuz I come from the South / But when I open up my mouth, all bullets come out." He's got an easy drawl on this song, not the playful rasp from the rest of the album but a laid-back, unforced stream-of-consciousness, and it matches up perfectly with the track's back-porch sunny-Alabama-afternoon lope. After a great little drum break, Thicke sings again while Wayne murmurs under him, and the track continues to swell. All of a sudden, everything but a heavily processed guitar and a couple of congas drops out, and Wayne talks serious: "And to the radio stations, I'm tired of being patient / Stop being rapper-racist / Region haters." (He also calls them "behind-door dick-takers, which is problematic, but let's let it slide.) Then the mission-statement: "This is Southern, face it / If we too simple, then y'all don't get the basics." Boom. There's a swaggering piano, Thicke singing ecstatically, everything coming back. And then more: sirens, horn-stabs, machine-guns drum-fills, almost-gospel backing vocals. And then it's over, four and a half minutes of classic-rock blissout; it's like Wayne had wandered into "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and suddenly, improbably figured out a way to make it twice as good. If it wasn't for all the cussing, my mom would like this.
And that's the thing. I could be listening with blinders on, but right now I can't imagine a single person I've ever met not loving this song. Sean Fennessey did a great write-up of this song on Pitchfork, and it's a good look; not even the snobbiest Deerhoof heads could deny something this magical. This song could be Wayne's "Hard Knock Life," the track that finally introduces him to the world at large. "Grown Man" is fake crossover, a bald attempt to cater to certain demographics. "Shooter" is the real thing, a song that careens over genre lines and brings everyone along with it. The world needs the song, and here's hoping it's single number three. It's Christmastime. We've been good. We deserve it.
Comments
Get your "coming out of every passing car this past summer" game up, son!
http://s29.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=35AMDJB9KLFZB1W6MB5MC5LEZN
Hmmm... thanks to the internets, I now know what you're talking about, but I still don't think I've ever heard the version with Weezie.
It appears my umbilical cord-like connection to the streets has been severed.
("...and please say the motherfucking baby")
head to the sky feet on the ground fingers to the judge
faux, is hustler muzik one of the "grown man" tracks you skip?
Dudes at my barbershop are old school--they'd prefer the Weezie-less version.
No
"got Nina in my palm and i'm masterbatin'"
Perhaps you're not too familiar with "rap music"
Seperated at birth?
MAINEY?
I believe it sounds like something that the Dust Bros used on Beck's last album. Maybe it's just the actual synth sound, and not a sample at all...
I like the song. Production is clean, but I don't think it's in a bad way. I like all the subtle turntable cuts, and how the song changes up a lot.
lol at your continued love for cassidy.
Wayne is hot right now, his new album is crack if you dont have it yet. Hes at the top of his game lyrically too. I used to think he was one of the worst in the hot boyz, but these days hes stepped it up.
We need a "popcorn" graemlin for posts like this that portend highly entertaining future replies.
- spidey
You are not real
Why thank you for that insightful post alteration, "spidey"!
100%
70%. Cool that is. 95% not for me.
You're more bout that Cassidy?
No, I avoid artists who have a name more fitting for the alienated middle daughter of a suburban development-occupying SUV-driving family.
I much prefer the ones named after Shakespearian plays.
That's what I'm here for.
- spidey
Say... this song isn't bad....
EDIT: It would be better if either of these guys could stay on beat. But the music is good.