Something for the Dirty South...

A lot of brilliant music has originated from the south of the US over the years. From Blues thru Tamla Motown then in more recent years modern exports include massive acts who tap into this source such as awesome the Black Keys and the White Stripes. The later was the birth of the genius that is Jack White who went on to work on other projects such as the Raconteurs and the brilliant Dead Weather with Alison Mosshart from the Kills...


Something Old...

The Dirty South is these days a term given to describe the modern drudge of awefully bad hip hop from comes from that region of the world that has spawned one of the worst music to ever be made Crunk...somewere between EuroPop and Trance on the crap list.
However, it must be noted the reason the genre took off was on the back of one the last great hip hop acts. By the late 90s Atlanta had become a controlling city in the hip hop movement spawning the utterly brilliant OutKast. The duo of Big Boi and Andre 3000 became the first southerners to record album sales like the powerhouse rappers on the East and West Coasts winning six Grammies for their album 'Speakerboxx/Love Below' and they will forever be credited/ blamed with playing an enormous part in bringing Southern hip hop to the popularity level it has reached today.
The group's original musical style was a mixture of funk, soul, rock, blues and spoken word elements of the musical palette. For me their best work came in the form of the pair's fourth album, 2000's 'Stankonia'; spawning the brilliant tracks 'Ms. Jackson' that combined a pop hook with lyrics about divorce and relationship breakups, particularly André's breakup with singer Erykah Badu, the title "Ms. Jackson" character being a doppelganger for her mother. Their finest track has got to be track  'B.O.B (Bombs Over Baghdad)', a high-tempo jungle-influenced with brilliant anti-war undertones...

Something New...

As suggested by 'finger on the pulse' DJ mate of mine @yourlastrolo this weeks 'Something New' comes from P Money. Touted by many as the next Dizzee Rascal he is a grime MC from the 'Dirty South' London, well known on the dubstep scene for his style of MCing which is centered around reload bars. Anyway, I'm not really not that cool and I'd be lying if I said I understood this scene but I when I heard him in Rolo's car his fresh vocals over a raw industrial grime beat got me. This is 'Originator' and I'm assured "its gonna go off", whatever that means... 

Something Borrowed...

As suggested by regular contributor to the 'Something Borrowed' feature, my mate and resident remix DJ @N_C_R; this weeks brilliant cover is by The Civil Wars. The singer songwriter duo otherwise known as Joy Williams and John Paul White are not only beautiful to eyes but also to the ears. Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee their debut album 'Barton Hollow' is a fantastic listen, selling 25,000 copies in its first week. The album debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard Digital Album Chart and No. 12 on the h'actual top 100 chart, definitely worth a purchase. Taken from Later this is a truely beautiful and raw version of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean'....

Something Blue...

Now the British weather has seemingly begun to take its evil grip on the nation its officially time to cuddle up with your loved one in front of a log fire (or in my case a radiator and a duvet) to enjoy a DVD or a boxset. With Halloween only a week away we see the return of the epic The Walking Dead. The graphic novel inspired drama’s second season aired last Sunday in the US.

Me and the other half have taken the most of the wait and finally got round to watching True Blood for the 1^st time. Originally we had it put off as it sounded like another terrible Twilight clone (not that I can even stand that anyway...real vampires should be more like Blade) but its actually brilliant; filled with sex, murder and adult content...yea I know this is a music blog not a DVD box set review but its cold outside ok and I’m rambling!

Tedious a link as ever; as heavily featured in the 1^st series of the brilliant True Blood southern rocks finest Lynyrd Skynyrd. Originating from Florida in 64 the band became prominent in the south US by 73 and rose to worldwide recognition with a back catalogue that now included ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Free Bird’.

The track of choice, however, is ‘That Smell’ taken from the album ‘Street Survivors’. At the time the song was written, the band had been drinking and doing many different drugs. Front man, Van Zant had said that he started drinking heavily to relieve the pressure of performing in front of large audiences and he said, "I had a creepy feeling things were going against us, so I thought I'd write a morbid song (as a warning).” The lyrics cautioned that "tomorrow might not be here for you", and that "the smell of death surrounds you". Three days after the album was released, the band was devastated by a plane crash killing several members including Van Zant...