“Give Me Your Tired, Poor, And Huddled Masses / You Know They’re Yearning To Be FREE!”

Right now, U2log is offering an mp3 of Bono performing a brand new U2 song, “An American Prayer” with a cd player of the backing music and a tone deaf choir as accompaniment. It’s a thoroughly mediocre and bland song, and the lyrics are full of obnoxious “Gee whiz! Ain’t America great!” cliches. It’s absolutely ridiculous, honestly. It sounds like a blatant grab for post 9-11 jingo dollars, I can’t think of this as anything other than a purely cynical move on their part. To think that they went from Zooropa to this in ten years just breaks my heart. I really hope that this song ends up on the cutting room floor, and not on the next album.

Recommended Songs Without Explanations

I would put up mp3s if I could, folks…

The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping”

James Brown “Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto”

Erma Franklin “I Get The Sweetest Feeling”

Daniel Johnston “I Saw Her Standing There”

Nas “One Love (Large Professor remix)”

Latyrx “Off With Their Heads”

MF Doom “The M.I.C.”

Kool G Rap “Money In The Bank”

Notorious B.I.G. “Unbelievable”

Eddie Fisher “Two By Two”

Billy Butler “The Right”

Judy Freeman “Hold On”

This Ain’t Yr Archetypal Street Sound

I’ve finally come around to liking The Streets’ Original Pirate Material over the weekend. I remember that when I first heard it over the summer, I had thought it was some kind of annoying joke, but perhaps that was because I didn’t listen to it as an album. Maybe it just took me some time to get over how unique it was, I know I’m not alone in this being an acquired taste. I still feel that the sung bits are very lame – is that Mike Skinner singing, or someone else? Whoever it is, they really ought to stop.

I think the thing that made it easier to swallow was that I’ve been listening to Nas’ Illmatic a lot lately, and when I listened to Original Pirate Material late Saturday night I noticed that the tone of those two records were actually quite similar. I don’t think Original Pirate Material is anywhere near as great as Illmatic, but it’s definitely a very good album, and I feel embarassed for not noticing it sooner. In a lot of ways, it’s like the record I’ve been wanting Tricky to make ever since Pre-Millenial Tension; and since it seems unlikely Tricky will embrace hip hop and r+b again, this will have to do.