Are We In The Past Or Present?

Jay-Z and Nas “Success” – Jay-Z is only really happy when he’s working, and it shows in his music — virtually all of his best material is about work in one form or another. Sometimes it’s about the work itself, as in the case of “U Don’t Know,” a piece of music so diabolically self-assured that simply listening to it can make even the most luckless loser feel Jay’s burning ambition in themselves for three minutes. More often, it’s about the aftermath of relentless grinding — the way a fabulous lifestyle becomes less about pleasure and more about jockeying for social position, and the constant threat of personal and professional rivalries. “Success” is bitter, blunt, and hopelessly ambivalent. Jay-Z lays out exactly what he despises about his lifestyle, but shrugs it off because he can’t possibly conceive of a life without his alpha dog status, or without working towards some new plateau of success. It’s not about the wealth accrued, it’s about a fundamental need to prove oneself over and over again. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Imperial Teen “21st Century” – Even the rockers on Imperial Teen’s deeply underrated fourth album are sort of mellow and tranquil, as though they’ve been doped up on meds, or naturally sort of buffered by contentment and/or a nagging sense of displacement. All of the anxiety in the record is dialed way down, but it’s still there, and its faint presence becomes impossible to ignore as the record progresses. It’s a record of small, but important feelings — most of the songs find the singers responding to some form of mundane happiness and comfort, and cycling through elation, distrust, confusion, glib distance, and benign indifference. In other words, their name is now totally ironic: The nuanced, mature emotions on display on The Hair, The TV, The Baby, and The Band have nothing to do with the hormonal extremes of adolescence, and the gentle, low key approach of the record is hardly interested in conquering much of anything. (Click here to buy it from Merge.)