Cover: The Blueprint 3

Via: Jay-Z’s official website.

Lewis Corson

Leaked Jay-Z/Kanye/Rihanna Record is Mediocre

While it’s probably old news now, we want to share our opinion on “Run This Town” with our faithful readers. “Run This Town” leaked three days ago, on July 24th on a couple of blogs and was promptly covered by Pitchfork a few hours later (sorry, [cardboard living] doesn’t have a weekend staff yet). Staff writer, Tom Breihan gives the track a glowing review, claiming that the song ‘bangs’ and talking about Jay-Z, on a pop record, rapping like ‘he cares‘. Sorry, Tom, but we’re not with you.

The hook, that Rihanna sings, can’t help but evoke the same squirming feeling that we got whenever “Rehab” or “Disturbia” used to come on the radio. The real problem with the track is the huge difference between Rihanna’s voice, which is now pop-proven and the grinding guitar riff that drives the track. The same guitar riff loop was used in “Death of Autotune (D.O.A.)” to great effect because of its inherent hardness, but Rihanna wasn’t on that track. Hopefully, Kanye wasn’t talking about “Run This Town” when he said this in February:

I just did one beat the other day in Hawaii — probably one of the best hip-hop beats of all time, if I do say so myself.

Jay-Z’s verses sound determined and aggressive and Kanye, as he’s known to do, has a couple good one-liners on the track but hopefully we’ll hear a better track with the next leak, which we’re betting will hit the web within a week.

According to reports, “Run This Town” is set to be the single to follow “D.O.A.” instead of a track that Jay did with Drake entitled “Off That.”

Jay-Z – Run This Town feat. Kanye West and Rihanna

6.4/10. A great beat is soiled by Rihanna’s pop-proven pipes. Maybe it’s because Rihanna evokes visions of drunk college girls dancing to “Umbrella” or because The Blueprint 3 is over-hyped. There is, however, promise for the album as we keep seeing some solid beats being rolled out.

Lewis Corson

With the Beasties Out, What Will Happen to Summer Festivals?

Since Adam Yauch was diagnosed with cancer and it was released to the press a couple days ago, there has been much speculation as to how promoters would fill the spot that the Beastie Boys would leave vacant as Yauch would undergo treatment. Aside from the fact that the group postponed tour dates indefinitely, [cl] was wondering what would happen to the festival lineups that the Beasties were supposed to headline. There is undoubtedly a group of music lovers out there that bought tickets for the specific day of a festival or for the entire weekend just to see these three white Jewish dudes from Brooklyn and now feel as if they’re going to have to make a decision. There are four festivals that the Beasties agreed to headline and here’s the news on what might happen and what will happen next.

All Points West

July 31 – August 2; Liberty State Park, NJ

Jay-Z has agreed to step into the gaping hole left by the Beasties at the Liberty State Park event in New Jersey. This is Jay’s first festival performance in the US, though he has performed in a handful of festivals overseas. July 31, when Jay-Z is performing, also features Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ra Ra Riot, Vampire Weekend, MSTRKFT, The National and Fleet Foxes.

Osheaga Music and Arts Festival

August 1-2; Montreal, Canada

The Beasties were supposed to close out the Canadian festival on Sunday evening and cancelled once Yauch’s news was released. The festival promoters and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs agreed the following day that they would fill in for the Beasties.

Lollapalooza

August 7-9; Chicago, IL

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs fill in for the Brooklyn-ites again; a move which must have been a tic-for-tac deal between the two native New York groups.

Outside Lands

August 28-30; San Francisco, CA

No word yet on who will headline on Sunday evening in place of the Beastie Boys (so far no agreement has been reached with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for our friends in San Francisco.

Austin City Limits

October 2-4; Austin, TX

The Beastie Boys have been pulled from the bill on Friday evening from 8:15-9:30. Again, there has been no announcement as to whom will take Friday’s headlining act but the word around town is that Kings of Leon and ACL’s promoters are talking.

Lewis Corson

The Beez

Tons of new music today for everyone. “We Be Steady Mobbin’” is killer and some of the best material we’ve heard from Weezy F. in a while. I’m not even going to get started on the Limp Bizkit-esque rap-rock phase that he’s going through. Lupe’s got a new track that sounds oddly familiar to “Superstar” but his snippets have some promise to them. Wale has come out with a mixtape entitled BACK TO THE FEATURE (“New Soul” is on it) and it’s pretty tight. Spoon’s “Got Nuffin” is the crunchiest thing they’ve put out in years while Air France’s “CBG Belongs to Us” is the complete opposite. Michael Jackson Top 10 cover tracks and tributes to come soon…

Spoon – Got Nuffin

8.9/10. The edgier version of Spoon that infringes on a Queens of the Stoneage sound. Did they meet up with Dave Grohl before going into the studio? Look out for the upcoming EP.

Air France – CBG Belongs to Us

6.7/10. A new move for Air France with someone singing on the track. We’re not sure where this is coming from…

La Roux – Quicksand (Mad Decent Remix)

8.4/10. Who doesn’t love Mad Decent? The label has one of the best artist rosters in the indie world. It seems that Diplo can’t be stopped.

Lil Wayne & Gucci Mane – We Be Steady Mobbin’

9.6/10. Tightest lyrics that we’ve heard from Wayne since “Yes”. You won’t hear autotone, just raw content and rawer lyrics.

KiD CuDi – Heaven at Nite

6.2/10. Seeing as there’s already a video for the track, we assume that this is the second single off of his upcoming LP, to our disdain.

Wale – New Soul feat. Yael Naim

8.2/10. Producer BKS creates a banging slow jam with a Lilly Allen spin on the track. Wale might finally get is 15 minutes.

Wale – Wonder Why feat. Big Sean, Ken Starr & Mike Posner

7.8/10. Not as good as “New Soul” but Kanye’s protegé Big Sean is on the track with Mike Posner (hoarse voice), his buddy from Duke, who is up-and-coming. Story is that Big Sean rapped on the spot for Kanye outside of a radio station and was signed shortly afterwards.

Lupe Fiasco – Shining Down feat. Matthew Santos

5.9/10. Doesn’t Lupe understand that he can’t release the same song on two different albums? There’s no formula here, Lupe. Hopefully Jay-Z will agree to mentor him.

Here are a couple snippets that we found for Lupe’s upcoming album Laser:

Lupe Fiasco – Two Ways (Sample Snippet)

Lupe Fiasco – Ladies and Gentlemen (Sample Snippet)

Lewis Corson

“Death of Autotune” Video

Jay’s performance on the BET Awards last night was about the only thing (besides Jamie Foxx) that was going right. If you were wondering why shit was exploding behind him on the screen, it’s because that’s what goes down in the video for the single, which was released yesterday.

This back-to-basics hip-hop feels like a short flick as it features Jigga rockin’ a throwback haircut while playing a card game in a restaurant Harvey Keitel.  Oh yeah, he also pops a J on his fellow ‘king’ Lebron James, gets his head shaved and performs with an actual band. God, we love Chicago for this beat.

Great direction with the video… we hope to see more artists follow suit.

Here’s the performance from last night’s BET Awards 2009:

Once again, The Blueprint 3 will be release on September 11, 2009.

Lewis Corson

Exclusive: Death Of Autotune (D.O.A.)

This is the first track that we’re going to hear from Jay-Z’s upcoming album The Blueprint 3 and let’s just say that Jigga has definitely re-upped his swagger somehow.  Maybe stepping down as CEO of Def Jam after some weak results has resulted in his street cred rising… or something, I’m no expert on that.

The hype on the upcoming Blueprint rose to an extremity after Kanye came back from Hawaii proclaiming that he had made “one of the best hip hop beats of all time” for his mentor. He said the same about 808′s, but we won’t hold that against him.

No I.D., who runs in the same crew as Rhymefest, Kanye and Common produced the track and it is reminiscent of Jay-Z’s American Gangster score. The call for the end of the autotune has been lacking for some time now and [cl] is happy to see a hip hop legend lead the charge.

Jay-Z – Death of Autotune (D.O.A.)

7.8/10. Tight verses and a killer guitar loop kill the comp on this new new.

The Blueprint 3 is scheduled for a 2009 release on September 11.

Lewis Corson