The Meat-Packing district (high-end boutique/clubbing district for out-of-New Yorkers/non-'Sex and the City' fans) was the place to be - at least at that time. Cutting a long story short, we decided on club 'PM' and end up by a table next to this (image up North ^).
The Menahan Street Band - MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING
If ever, there was a more apt specimen of a facelift gone wrong, it would HAVE to be New York millionaire socialite, Jocelyn Wildenstein a.k.a Cat Woman. I would not want to be in the only person in a house in Lagos, Nigeria with Jocelyn as neighbour. She might come round one night to borrow sugar and knowing my luck there would be a power outage while she's standing at my opened door... NO!!! Infact, if this woman lived on my block, I would go door to door getting everyone to sign a petition insisting she wears a big ass cow-bell round her neck. That way we know when this train wreck is rounding the corner... FROM FAR!!!! Jeezzzz!!! I remember the DJ started playing the song 'Real Love' and that got me to my feet with a shriek. She turned to me and smiled... I almost wet myself. To be honest I really cant say JW is a good example of a 'facelift gone wrong' as she WANTED to look like this. Yes Folks!! Jocelyn actually went to her plastic surgeon and asked him to give her more feline features 'cos her millionaire husband was having an affair with some Russion model and she wanted to win him back by making herself look like a cat... why? Wait for it . . . because he loved animals especially Lions and tigers, and they actually kept them as pets. All i can say is, "Don't judge 'cos God loves all his little children" *Kemi sighs*
Anyway, moving away from the long preamble; Since this is a music blog we have to find a way to tie bad facelifts to... well.. MUSIC :-/
While I was on the radio, I used to have this particular theme once a month on my show called Face-Lift Sunday. I'd pull out Top 40 singles on the charts at the moment and get people to guess what song was sampled on it. For instance; Kanye West's 'Touch the Sky' with Curtis Mayfield's 'Move On Up'. Or James Brown's 'The Big Payback' with Total's 'Cant You See' (Facelift Sunday... Get It?). Anyway, it was such a hit on the waves and I looked forward to it as well. It was a lot of research and my knowledge of 'petty music' (refer to first blog) helped immensely. I'll be putting up 'Music Face-Lift' blogs every once in a while, starting today. However, todays offering is with a bit of a twist. Today's offerings are both from the same artist and both involve the 'King of Samples'. Its the hit making teaam of jay-Z and Kanye West. Kanye (the king of samples) and Jay-Z's (kind of receiving samples) collaborations have spun numerous hits, and I think Kanye's interpretation of old school samples is simple put, INGENIOUS!!! However, the two samples im going to put up today on this post should have been left alone. I personally think anyway. Not that the samples versions weren't any good... actually they spurned HITS, but the originals were just GORGEOUS pieces of instruments laced together and should not have been touched. The remakes went nowhere near the feeling the originals give me.
First up on the block is Jay-Z's ENCORE. Yes! Yes! This was a major hit and the song plus video makes me (and im sure everyone else) want to 'take over the world', but John Holt's voice meandering through the strings and dub beat on the original "I Will" just makes you want to dance to it barefoot by the edge of the sea, with your significant other, flowers in your hair holding a cut open coconut with straw and a paper umbrella in it. It vomits sunshine, love, promise of commitment and 'who cares if countries are at war' feelings in just 3:36mins
"Love you forever, aaaand Forever
Love You with aaaallll my heart
Love you Wheneeeeever, we're togeeeether
Love yo when we're apart..."
Ahhhhhhhh.. THATS the way music should make you feel. It hard to trap that kind of emotion on vinyl these days. Ofcourse it REALLY was originally written and sung by Paul McCartney for is late wife (it's the first song he wrote for her) but Kanye sampled John Holt's version, and i like his version better anyway.
The second is a fairly recent hit off Jay-Z last album "American Gangster". First single, "Roc Boys". Hmmm... where do i start witht his one. I STRONGLY believe they simply lifted the ENTIRE song "Make the Road by Walking" by the Menahan Street Band added simple drum loops and gave it to Jay to spit on, who prolly was like "Ooh, Thats the sh*t!". At first, i thought it was produced by Kanye as his voice was appears on the hook, so i think, "Why didn't Kanyizzle add his characteristic flavour to this?" His enhanced flavour has always been my defence when people go after him for 'always' sampling. I go, "but he bring his own sh*t to it and it comes out AMAZING". Kanye gets off on this one though, as it was Diddy and his slew of 'Hit-Men' responsible for this. I'm not surprised! Diddy went out after the year '97 and has been living off the credit he had accumulated leading up to then. Anyway, he definitely got lazy with this one... or maybe you just can't add to perfection.
p.s. The horns on this track are INSANE... Actually, now i understand Diddy... how could you DARE tamper with that?!!
Would love to hear your opinions... ENJOY!!
John Holt - I WILL
The Menahan Street Band - MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING
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