Dressed Up As Bubblegum

Architecture In Helsinki “That Beep”

“That Beep” is overflowing with immediately enjoyable hooks and melodic turns, but it’s far from overstuffed. The track is clean and spacious, and it moves gracefully from one bit to the next in a way that never seems even remotely fragmented. The connecting thread, and I suppose it is technically the dominant hook, is the “beepbeepbeepbeep” chorus, but to my ears it works more like a mellow refrain bracketing the more expressive moments in the song, particularly the sections that slip into this sort of neo-80s ersatz gospel mode. Kellie Sutherland’s voice is wonderful on this song,

especially in the way she comes off as assertive while shying away from extreme feelings, and leaning more on very nuanced phrasings that subtly shift her meaning and emotional context from line to line, or even from word to word.

Buy it from Architecture In Helsinki.

Lil’ Wayne and The Game “Red Magic”

I don’t really spend a lot of time with hip hop mixtapes, mainly because I just get so totally annoyed by the voice overs and/or audio clips that get mixed all up and through them. In the case of this new Lil’ Wayne mixtape, you have to deal with these stupid, highly aggravating clips of some guy saying stuff like “The Empire!” and “Holy s–t, where’d you get this?” In most cases, it totally ruins the song, and renders them unlistenable. Thankfully, whoever was charged with editing in those announcements in this particular number at least had the sense to slip them in so that they were mostly on the beat, and didn’t get in the way of music so much. It’s lucky, really — “Red Magic” is certainly the best cut on the mixtape, not simply for its abundances of hooks, but for its sharp guest performance from The Game, and it’s definitely good enough that I can deal with this Empire douchebag.

Get it from this Sharebee link.