Music's 3R's 10.12.09: New Lady Gaga, Dre's Detox Update, MTV's Hottest MCs ...

Aaron Titan on 10.12.2009

From Dre's Detox delayed again, Lady Gaga's upcoming reissue and great SNL performance, and MTV's Hottest MCs List to Kanye West's upcoming India sabbatical, Miley Cyrus closing her Twitter, and more, 411's Aaron Titan breaks down the Right, wRong, and Ridiculous from the week in music in this week's Music 3R's!

Greetings

Mr. Titan here. Welcome back to Music 3R's . I trust we're meeting here under dire circumstance given all the long-time (a year or 2 perhaps) Drake fans taking offense to my stance on his newfound superstardom; however, I stick to my original statement that I'd like to see him deserve his accolades by building up a bit more credibility over the long haul. Trust me, I'll be one of the first music fans listening to his album come February 2010 to see just what the hype is all about. I'm not knocking Drake really, but rather, just pointing out my shock at how quickly he has risen. Trust me, I'm not a hater. Just stating opinions as this is an opinion-driven column. If you can't take the heat, get up out the 3R's kitchen. Want to see what all this Drake fuss is all about? Check out my column from last week here.

Also, a retraction for an error on my end. The Massacre

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, howdy there! Happy Columbus Day! I actually got the day off work today, but that only allows me to catch up on a pile of paperwork that's accumulated on my end lately. Oh well! No real music jumped out at me this week, so it's almost as if I had an off week with my iTunes for the last 7 days. The Jaydiohead album (Minty Fresh's mixtape of Jay-Z rhymes set to Radiohead tunes) was pretty fun I guess, as I hadn't played it in a while.

I did however pick up some concert tickets with my girlfriend. We will be attending Girl Talk's New Year's Eve Bash at the Congress in Chicago. I've seen the footage from his 2007 New Years show there and it looks like a ton of fun. We had the opportunity to meet Girl Talk (aka Greg Gillis) last year at Lollapalooza as well as see his set. Very nice guy to chat with. The dude's album Feed the Animals fucking lived in my car stereo for the whole summer.

Essentially, Gillis is the ultimate mash-up artist, pairing beats and instrumentals from various songs with vocal tracks and additional beats from others using only audio files and 2 laptop computers (with some other effects here or there). His shows feel like a giant, fun party and New Years show should be no exception.

The Column

For those unfamiliar with the 3R's concept, here's the breakdown. I will be reporting and commenting on happenings in the music world and categorizing all the hoopla into three sections: the Right, the wRong, and the Ridiculous. The Right will feature news, albums, and announcements music-related that I'm personally stoked about. The wRong will be the bad versions of all three of the aforementioned. The Ridiculous is the worst of it all, that which makes good ol' Mr. Titan shake his head in perplexing amazement.

The Right

Lady Gaga Rocks SNL: Damn! I'm not a big fan of poppy music, but Lady Gaga is the shit. I really dig her stuff and the above video shows just how damn talented she is vocally and musically. Add in the style WOW factor and we've got ourselves an up-and-coming diva in the making. It's like she fits the mold of what we typically see as a sex symbol pop icon, but she's also got enough edge to set herself apart that even a metalhead like me can appreciate what she's doing. I mean, try listening to "Poker Face" just once and not getting it stuck in your head on repeat. I dare you!

Other news on the Lady Gaga front is that she's reissuing her debut album The Fame under the moniker The Fame Monster on November 24th. Says Ms. Gaga:

"On my re-release, 'The Fame Monster,' I wrote about everything I didn't write on 'The Fame,' While traveling the world for two years, I've encountered several monsters, each represented by a different song on my new record: my 'Fear of Sex Monster,' my 'Fear of Alcohol Monster,' my 'Fear of Love Monster,' my 'Fear of Death Monster,' my 'Fear of Loneliness Monster,' etc."
You can't blame her or her record company for wanting to cash in on her mega-popularity with a reissue. That's just the way it works. What I like is that she's making this reissue take on a life of it's own and essentially, tacking on a new 8-song album with it for what will hopefully be a reasonable price. Sounds like fun to me. Good thing I hadn't purchased the album yet, as I can certainly wait until November to get the whole kitchen sink.

I also read that Teddy Riley produced a song on this album. I'm a big fan of the man's work in the studio and would like to take this time to enjoy some of it. Please feel free to do the same below:

New Mudvayne:

The new album is finally on its way! Mudvayne told the press that they had recorded two albums worth of material in the sessions that yielded 2008's The New Game , an album I really enjoyed and got signed by frontman Chad Gray last fall at their hometown show in Peoria, IL. The album is self-titled, and comes out three days before Christmas for all you last minute shoppers. Early reports indicate it's extremely heavy while remaining melodic.

I honestly think the album will be pretty decent, though I've only heard the radio single "Beautiful and Strange" (see above video) so far. Mudvayne always have one or two extremely accessible songs on each album that fit into the work as a whole but certainly aren't that indicative of the quality of the whole record. "Do What You Do" is extremely radio friendly and is a great song, being catchy and all; however, I dug on tunes from The New Game

The album art for this is the first to use black light reactive ink. Special editions of the album will actually come packages with a blacklight. That's pretty fun I suppose. Pretty creative, but Tool's 10,000 Days

Having seen Mudvayne live thrice, I'd probably go see them if they tour on this album; however, Vinnie Paul Abbott has been saying they've already got half of the next Hellyeah album finished, so that makes me think that Chad Gray and Greg Tribbett from Mudvayne will be present for that whole deal. Hellyeah is a fun band too though, so either way, we'll get some good heavy music on the road in the not-too-distant future.

Slayer's Araya Rocks Through It:

So yeah, basically, Slayer was playing a gig in Melbourne, Austrailia, last Friday. Singer/bassist Tom Araya blew his voice out before the gig, but the group soldiered on and played the show. Araya apparently did a little vocal work but the band played some songs as instrumentals and had other band's singers come out to lend their vocal talents to Slayer tunes.

If you were in the crowd, you'd probably feel a little bummed out I suppose; however, you've gotta' give credit to Slayer, especially Araya, for playing for the fans with whatever it took. It would definitely be hard for the band to go out knowing their show wasn't going to be up to snuff for their standards, but Slayer's a band that respects the fans and wants to make the people who paid money happy. And hey, the crowd got to see Megadeth that night too, so how bad could it really have been, right? I'll let you interpret that however you want, but I do enjoy some Megadeth from time to time. Mustaine's an awesome guitar player.

In other news, Slayer did end up opting out of their Adelaide show last night. Oh well... Megadeth did a full set for the fans.

MCA Healthy: It appears that Beastie Boys member MCA (aka Adam Yauch) is on the mend from his recent bout with cancer and may in fact be cancer-free. Yauch updated fans recently:

"I'm feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that I've beaten this thing, but of course time will tell. I'm taking Tibetan medicine and at the recommendation of the Tibetan doctors I've been eating a vegan/organic diet, which surprisingly enough was harder to do in India than it is now that I'm back home. here I can just shop for the right food and cook... a lot easier than depending on restaurants."

This is great news. I've been a Beastie Boys fan my entire life and am glad he's going to be OK. The Beastie Boys have always stuck to their guns and maintained their own unique sound. I think they are a group that can just go on forever and keep putting out great music. As for the new album, MCA said it's going to come out when he gets the go-ahead from the doctors and the group is able to focus on putting it out with integrity (and hopefully a tour). We should see Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 sometime within the first half of 2010. God speed MCA! We're all pulling for you!

The wRong

Where's the Detox!?: Dr. Dre said in an interview last week that his long-awaited Detox album won't be released until 2010 at the least. It was strongly rumored to be coming out in the 2009 calendar year, but there'd been some unanticipated delays, lack of motivation being one of them. He's still cooking up some beats in the lab and we won't be hearing them anytime soon.

Honestly, music fans can bitch as much as they want, but Dre's a fuckin' legend (N.W.A., The Chronic , 2001 , Eminem, etc...) and can take as much time as he needs in order to make The Detox as awesome as he feels he can. The guy's probably still not quite straight given he lost his son a little over a year ago. I hear that outliving your children is quite painful.

He's done it all and really, this is probably just something he wants to do for the fun and love of the music. Why rush that? Let's just wait for hip-hop's Comptonese Democracy , because we know it's going to be dope.

MTV's Hottest MCs: MTV's Hip-Hop Brain Trust released their Hottest MCs of 2009 list recently. I've included the list below as well as some comments:

1. Jay-Z: Say what you will about Jay-Z's Blueprint III but I really like it. I listened to it again on a short road trip yesterday. He's popular, has yet another #1 album, and is widely respected. I don't really feel like commenting on who should be #1, but I personally have no problem with Jay-Z being on the list or being at the top of it.

2. Lil' Wayne: The guy's always interesting. Even if he's putting out a hard rock auto-tune album in November (supposedly; it's been pushed back countless times), I appreciate Weezy being included. He's incredibly creative and equally hardworking, recording and touring his ass off.

3. Drake: We all know my thoughts on Drake, but given how quickly the guy got over with music fans, he deserves a spot on the list. After all, it's a snapshot of work and popularity.

4. Kanye West: Out of all the MCs on the list, he's easily the most talked-about. He's done a fair amount of producing and guest spots this year too. I look forward to Kanye's next album - seriously - as I hear he's going back to rapping (finally) and he will hopefully have his head on straight. He should just make a super dark album. That'd be fun. More on this later in the column

5. Rick Ross: The guy looks like an angry pimp and raps about money and flossin' an awful lot. I literally have heard one or two Rick Ross songs, and it just wasn't my cup of tea. If he's as popular as it sounds like he is, then cool.

6. Gucci Mane

7 Young Jeezy: I need to get more of this guy's music. I really haven't heard much and I feel like I probably should. I like "Real As It Gets," the song Jeezy is featuring on with Jay-Z on Blueprint III . I listen to a decent smattering of every genre, so there's some stuff I don't get around to listening to until a bit later than others. Young Jeezy will be on deck soon for me I think.

8. Fabolous

9. 50 Cent

10. Raekwon: Wu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' to fuck wit'!

Now again, this yearly list is generally a bunch of hullabaloo, but it's fun to debate and get people talking. I'm sure it's this very reason Sway and everyone at MTV does it to begin with. It was certainly fun to do so here. Not sure where the fuck Eminem was in all of this. MTV polled their readers about a month or so before they released this official list and Eminem received the most votes. He won a VMA too, so like, why not include him? Relapse was an amazing album overall and the sequel is supposed to be even crazier. Oh well, can't win em' all I suppose! At least we can agree that Eminem's cameo in Funny People puts him on top of the Hottest MCs to Have a Cameo list.

The Ridiculous

Now I ain't saying she's a Maharishi Kanye's going to India to clear his head. Yes, India. Rather than just chill in Chicago and attract no stress-inducing publicity or get more paparazzi to follow you around, here's a good idea: let's go to India. West is going to be spending a month in Pondicherry, India, at an ashram. I guess it's good to get away sometimes, but this just seems like an incredibly clich d way of addressing a month of terrible press. I guess 'to each his own,' but let me just say this: if Kanye or any Kanye fans start comparing him to The Beatles, I'll be somewhat annoyed. For those unaware, The Beatles studied under TM guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 67' and 68,' even traveling to stay with him in early 1968. George and John were much more into it that Paul and Ringo, but still, they wrote most of The White Album while there. Will Kanye experience similar creative influence? Eh

Breaking News!!!!!!!!!!!!:

Well hey Miley, thanks for the update. We were all super broken-hearted over your departure from Twitter. In fact, I know I'll always miss reading what you're doing right now . She does have a point in her "rap" about how people should just go live their lives and stop Twittering about what they're doing or seeing what other people are out doing whilst living their lives