Monday, March 13, 2006

Music was just on the tip of my tongue

Okay, no it wasn't. There was no way I was going to remember this guy's name until I got back home and looked at my stuff.

Lyrics Born, dammit. The only page Google returns that has the snippet of lyrics I was thinking of that isn't some scummy lyrics page is this review of "Same !@#$ Different Day". The track is "Do That There".


Ladies and fellas,
I was hella bored
So I pedaled hella hard
To a seminar
In Zanzibar,
Ben & Jerry, tennis star,
And Pat Benatar
Ridin' on my handlebars

While I swear I saw some off-hand comment comparing Aesop Rock and Lyrics Born on some blog I linked to off of Tucker's site, I think I heard it first on NPR, of all places. It was in one of the Fresh Air reviewers' best of 2005 list.

Not that Ken Tucker (no relation) doesn't do a good job, but hearing him review rap on the radio is pretty damn incongruous to say the least, and the little icon photo on the NPR web site isn't helping: Ken Tucker

As for the music itself, the Aesop Rock comparison isn't completely unfair, but Lyrics Born takes himself and his lyrics much less seriously. I think Aesop Rock is better more consistently — Lyrics Born lets slide a few that shouldn't — but it's nice not having to be as cerebral all the time. There's a sample of "I'm Just Raw" in the review at NPR, if you want to give a listen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh.. Lyric's Born. I agree with the comparison though. I think Aesop is consistently better when it comes to putting the whole track down but Lyric's Born can burn Ace when he is firing on all cylinders.

Howard said...

Do you remember seeing the comment that went something like, "Aesop's for the * crowd, Lyrics Born is for the * crowd, and * is for the * crowd" (for various values of *)?