Welcome to Mixdown, an ongoing series where Pitchfork staffers and contributors talk about mixtapes and mixes that may not be covered in our reviews section but are worth discussing. Today we're talking about Lil B's Christmas Eve mixtape, Fabolous new Soul Tape installment, and Justin Bieber's adult turn on Journals.
Lil B: 05 Fuck Em
Corban Goble: How to even begin…
Carrie Battan: I was at my dad’s friend’s Christmas Eve party when this dropped. I should have put it on the speakers—festive!
Jordan Sargent: I rode the train into Manhattan to try and go to Trader Joe’s, which was a terrible idea since it was Christmas Eve. This took my mind off of making a colossally stupid decision, which I think is the point of "Thank You Based God."
CG: I'm hoping he makes a video for "Blogger’s Anthem"—it's just us at our respective computers while we do Mixdown.
CB: I haven’t listened to this in its entirety—every time I go to sit down with it I end up just picking out songs with titles I’m most excited about.
CG: You mean like "Hummus or Crack"?
CB: Yes. Also, "1 Night in Flordia". Shoutout Flordia Man. "Rob the Jewler", "Painful Intermission", "Hadouken", "Im Gunna Be a Doctor"—there are so many. That said, the most generic title of the lot, "New York Anthem" is sort of a monster of a song. Definitely the hardest song to ever shout out New York magazine's Vulture blog—"Shout out to New York, Vulture magazine."
JS: There’s definitely a segment of rap fans who have no time for a conversation about what Lil B is "doing," which is valid. But it is interesting to observe a rapper toying around with the medium even if the music is (inherently?) the ephemera. So much of the discussion of rap is about how the music gets to us. Even Drake dropped two free tracks at the end of the year and as much of the chatter I saw was about the fact that he did that as opposed to the songs themselves. I’m not necessarily lamenting this—these conversations are often pretty fun.
But Lil B has always been a rogue in this sense, and with 05 Fuck Em he bends it all the way back to the early days of 100 Myspace pages. What mattered—and what was fascinating—wasn't necessarily the music, but that something like that existed. And even now a 100-track Christmas Eve mixtape is exciting. It’s fun that someone is doing stuff like this.
Also there’s a song called "I’m Gunna Be a Doctor" where he raps over the "Slow Jamz" instrumental. True inspiration.
CB: He's perfected "music as ephemera"—and is probably an influence on others in that respect—but then you go and listen to the music and so much of it so good! If he pared his releases down and put out 12-song collections every six months, they’d be some of the best internet-rap albums every year. But he has some kind of compulsive aversion to doing that, a dedication to that rogueness that is greater than his dedication to making good rap music. Anyway, all that stuff has probably been said before.
CG: I've always liked that Lil B doesn’t care about making a buck at all. Like, I’m Gay (I’m Happy) was ostensibly this for-sale thing and he leaked it on his own Twitter account the moment it went on iTunes. It's almost like he didn't want people to pay for it.
CB: He went on tour more than he ever has in 2013, and I think that's a direct effort to earn an income so that he can ensure his ability to do stuff like that.
In the name of service, let’s each list a couple highlights… Like I said up there, I really like "New York Anthem", the "Ellen Degeneres" remix is pretty good, and the "I Own Swag" remix has nothing to do with the original "I Own Swag", but it’s still good. "So Thirsty" is particularly funny—"Put a punk-rock bitch on the map."
JS: Um, "Bloggers Anthem" is legitimately one of the best tracks on here—at least that I’ve heard, of course. Also, "10k Summa" sounds like the sketch of a Mannie Fresh beat heard in a dream and appropriately Lil B sounds barely awake. Also shoutout to "Kurt Angle" for possibly being the lowest bitrate mp3 in existence.
CG: I like "Lil Bs Layer" and "I Am the Rawest Rapper".
Fabolous:Soul Tape 3
JS: Wait, when I said "Fabo", I meant Fabo from D4L, not Fabolous. His new mixtape is We Amongst U.
CG: I thought we were talking about Fabolous, too, but I listened to the Fabo as well, for what it's worth.
CB: Mixdown? More like...mixup. Real quick: Soul Tape 3 is a decent, efficient tape that's consistently funny from front to back, especially if you enjoy Cam/Kanye-level cracks about women being ridiculous on social media. (#nofilter=#hofilter, etc.) Jordan, tell us about the Fabo tape for a second.
JS: I watched a ton of Home Alone (all three films) over the holidays because it was on loop on AMC and I didn’t go home. Anyway, one of the pop-up facts that I saw was a quote from director Chris Columbus calling Home Alone pure cartoon slapstick comedy like The Three Stooges, which is why he thought it was okay for kids to watch what would otherwise be grotesque violence. Fabo has this exaggerated and amazing "OWWWWWHHH!" ad-lib that would have been perfect for Home Alone and pushes this mixtape far into the realm of the absurd. I mean, he’s screaming on every track. It's great.
CB: And while we're completely off track, I want to take a second to recommend this new video from Bay Area crew HBK, "Never Goin' Broke". H/T HBK Gang scholar Naomi.
Justin Bieber:Journals
CG: I’m a #Belieber so you know I’m biased, but I like the direction he took this. It’s really front-heavy, but I think that’s kind of the idea. These are sketches, not at all fully-done songs buttressed by work from the world’s biggest songwriters and producers. He has the tough task of trying to jump into a more adult phase of his career, which not many preteen stars pull off, but I think Journals shows he’s up to the task, musically speaking.
CB: I almost feel like the sketch nature of these songs, and the fact that they they were released in the way they were released—free and in spurts, in mixtape fashion—is part of the strategy of transitioning him to a more adult phase, or at least landing him in cool-kid territory. Or maybe I’m just brainwashed by reading music blogs all day—"Oh, this is Bieber trying to be an adult by... putting out music in a way that's appealing to blogs!" But I feel like there is some truth to that.
JS: I think it might also be a way of bringing his fanbase along slowly if he’s gonna be going more R&B and less pop with whatever his upcoming material is. One of way of using mixtapes is to just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks—as much of a service for the artist as the fans. As a full album it’s mostly good—but his voice still sounds a bit… young for these songs. You can hear technical talent in his singing but his voice needs to mature into explicit songs about pussy, for instance. But I remain excited about where his music is headed, he seems to have a decent idea of what he wants it to sound like.
My favorite part of this tape is Future’s backing vocals in the chorus of "What’s Hatnin'." He sings in this decayed falsetto, like he’s actually about to cry. I don’t think anyone in music could hit that note in that way—if Future is an astronaut that is him breaking apart as he crashes to Earth.
CB: "What’s Hatnin'" is my favorite part of this, too. Corban, as a #Belieber, do you think this is him at his most anguished? I feel like that component of this collection kind of anchors his unruly behavior over the last six months or so to real pain.
CG: It seems that way. I feel like any attempt to penetrate Bieber’s emotional core has been completely futile, so it’s hard to say where it comes from. I will say that, he seems like he is someone who is "out to show the haters," so the stakes are pretty high for his next studio album.
JS: I wonder if Zedd will be involved.
CG: The Zedd check cleared earlier this week.
CB:Trap Lord, in stores now.