Who Needs Actions when You've Got Words LINK
There's a real problem with The Defamation of Strickland Banks. It's not Plan B, I love his voice. It's not the music. It's definitely not the combination of motown sensibilities with all the grittiest Brittiest rapping. The problem is, it's really popular.
Plan B was a singer-songwriter for many years. He wrote nice songs and sung them nicely. Nobody would give him a record deal because everyone said he looked a bit like Justin Timberlake.
Well... sort of... a bit, if you squint and squeeze him in a bit. But this made poor Mr B a bit angry, no one was listening to him because he was too nice. He'd show them, he'd make the least nice album had ever made. He did that indeed. He made Who Needs Actions when You've Got Words, which sounds like The Streets had been beaten up in an alley. It's so, so dark but fully narrative. There's graphic murders, there's sex scenes, there's anger and violence and bile and fists and hair and tracksuit bottoms and it's all played on an acoustic guitar. I like it, I have to say.
But this is not the album I was supposed to be talking about, because after seeing how angry Mr B. had become, I like to think someone gave him a nice big hug and a cup of tea. After he'd calmed down he went back into the studio with his Best of Marvin Gaye CD. And when he came out he had made this:
Which is, as you can hear, fantastic. The subtle interplay of that groove from the soul stuff overlaid with all that grit and grime make for a combination unlike anything else. It's like you've put a tiger and a polar bear in a cage to see which one will win and you accidentally end up with a piger bear. This is music made with the LHC; supercollided EPs. There's a future in it.
What we have here is The Defamation of Strickland Banks, a 6 track EP of this sort of stuff. It's such a joy to listen to, the groove sitting at the back is infectious enough but when that power drops down like a piano on a ostrich farm you wonder how you survived without it.
All of which brings us to the problem. You've probably heard that before, haven't you. It's been all over radio one and stuff. Why is this a problem? Because, my little fans, what sort of service is it I give you if I tell you to listen to music you already listen to?
Because I want you to realise how awesome it is.
If you're like me, then you don't listen to Radio One. You don't watch MTV. You think mainstream music these days is fairly dull and far too commercial. Maybe we're just being snobs. Maybe we're as blinkered as the people that can bare to listen to such twaddle. I mean, of course, most of it is fairly dull and far too commercial but this clearly isn't.
Anyway, it turns out that there's grander things at work. The EP is just a preview of things to come, those things being a short film featuring the music. Then he's going to make a whole album of the sort of stuff he used to do, maybe even more into a hip-hop vein. THEN he's directing a film and will then release the soundtrack. Apparently this is all for 2010.... good to see his got his feet on the ground.
I can't wait to see how much of that he gets done, should be awesome.
I managed to stay fairly on track today, is it a bit weird? Let me knooooowwww.
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