:: Closing Time ::

:: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ::

I have seen the end of the age of good music, and it has come. It scares the hell out of me. But I fundamentally believe that something THIS HORRIBLE has to signify the coming of the musical judgement day.

So I finally listened through Nelly's "Air Force Ones" which features his St. Lunatics

And I finally figured out that the song... which, for some fucked up reason, somehow hit #1 on the charts for a week... is about a fucking pair of Nike Sneakers. The most expensive pair of Nikes ever, all customized and marketed to up scale hip-hop celebrities. But get this straight.

A number one hit. About a specific type. OF SNEAKERS.

There's a line where onf of the lunatics says he shot the last person to touch his shoes. He says you couldn't get his color if you had a genie. THIS IS SOMETHING TO RAP ABOUT?!? It literally says that you can't talk to him if you don't have at least one pair of AF1s. It gets even better though, and another lunatic goes on to talk about how he chromes up his shoes like his -cars-. When Nelly finally he comes in and actually says "the only problem they only good for one night, cause once you scuff em you fucked up your whole night."

You know. As much as I love Lose Yourself, I'm even MORE happy Eminem put it out - because it's the track that knocked this shit out of #1.

That a song like this even made a major record release, a grammy nominated release, shows that the age of good music is over. From now on basically all we'll have is the closest we can. Worse still, rumors have it Eminem is going to drop one more studio album.... and then retire, so he can spend more time with his daughter.

This would be a disaster. As much as I guess it makes sense to rise to the top, hostily take over the whole damn thing, then retire the king, the man is the biggest and in my opinion most talented rapper since Run DMC - he's easily the most influential. The only man who matched his talent was 2Pac, and unfortunately we never got to see where Pac's career could have gone. But I swear... just when you think Eminem can't get bigger, somehow he manages to. Look at his fucking track record - started out with the Slim Shady LP, riding basically "My Name Is" and people realized he could rap - but he was an undercard on tours until The Real Slim Shady dropped and suddenly people realized that not only could he rap, but he could push every limit you'd even considered on popular music - and then when the album itself dropped, not only did it break sales records, it broke all concepts of cultural limits. Overnight he became the poster child for censorship, and free speech all at the same time. I'll never forget a heated debate I had with Rachel Criswell, the only time I've ever seen her really mad about something, because she seemed to fundamentally believe that her brother should not be able to buy an Eminem record that had on it, among other things, "Kim." And she said her parents let him buy it without realizing what it was. Well... I hate to sound like a broken record but I told her straight out, it was her parents' responsibility to listen to what he was listening to if they weren't confident in his ability to separate fiction from reality. One of the best suggestions I've seen for parents monitoring kids' musical tastes is never to buy them headphones - buy a compact stereo system for the kid's room. As much as it may be annoying, or distracting, you'll actually be able to hear what your child is listening to, and take some stock in it. Hell. Maybe if Rachel's parents had been listening she would have seen her little brother do exactly what I do - skip over 3 different tracks on Marshall Mathers EVERY time I listened through it because, well... those tracks fucking scared me, and I thought they were sick, but that didn't make the rest of the cd less brilliant and driving. I even went so far as to burn a copy of the CD that didn't have those tracks on it.

The lesson here is that our popular culture is currently inherantly dependant on the man known as Slim Shady, as Eminem. He is as big as any rapper has ever been - I mean for god's sake, the man's movie made almost $150M and only cost like $15M to make. And it was actually pretty good - I hope they make a sequel. To see his future without making records you need only turn on the radio - and what you're going to hear is the current #1 single in the country, the man with the number two album (just bumped by a new release from #1) - 50 Cent, In Da Club. Signed to Shady records, courted by Eminem through the street mixtape culture, a man who signed to Shady records for a million dollars less than offered by other labels because he was confident that at Shady Records he would not be censored, or told which direction to take his music in. We have Eminem to thank for 50 cent, who people are loving. And will continue to love, and G-Unit's coming, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a good album from a member or two of D12 at some point. Shady records is critical to the music industry right now.

And hopefully, a new release from Eminem will be their next big thing.
:: Peter 4:30 AM [+] ::
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