Are You Serious?: OJ Da Juiceman's "Culinary Art School"

Man, you know you're running out cocaine metaphors when you're stealing ideas from those culinary arts commercials that run on local TV in most cities. Here's the one that runs in Portland:

Got to love the phrase "hospitality professional." That means waiter.

Now let's talk OJ Da Juiceman. Following the Young Jeezy rapper model (slow, measured flow, purposely dopey coke metaphors, heavy on ad-libs--in the Juiceman's case "Ay ay ay!"), OJ has built quite the following, enough to convince Cam'Ron to jump on his "Make Em Say Aye" remix with Gucci Mane.

Like Jeezy, it's hard not be charmed on the first listen. The superhero charisma and the goofy bragging are an entertaining combination, plus the beats are usually the kind of low-budget trance rap I love. But unlike Jeezy, the Juiceman does not reward multiple listens. First and foremost, hearing "ay" after every line (every f'n line!) starts to get on your nerves, and if you listen to two or three Juiceman songs in a row, you might just want scream "Nay!" and punch something. As Jim "My Jewish Lawyer" Jones would probably tell you, the key to ad-libs is to sell a kind of shitty rhyme with a silly shout out, like if you were bragging about a purple Benz, you'd yell out "My Barney car!" Just yelling "ay" is not going to cut it.

Secondly, Juiceman's voice is unremarkable. Back when rap bloggers couldn't stop ragging on Jeezy because he's not Rakim, a crucial point was left out: rap is music. There are plenty of singers I love whose lyrics are mediocre to terrible, but it doesn't matter because I like their voices. The same applies to rap to a larger degree than a lot of rap fans are willing to admit. It's what people are talking about when they compare Lil Wayne's nasal whine to Dylan, or talk about how Ghostface raps like he's singing.

Thirdly, and finally, he's not making his silly punchlines work for him. On "Benjamin Franklin," he raps, referring to his money, "like best friends, you can call else Burt and Ernie," but he raps it like he's still just talking about drugs and clothes. For something so completely the opposite of rapper tough talk, the beat should have cut out so that you couldn't miss the line.

Anyway, despite my misgivings, I eagerly await OJ Da Juiceman's " Free Credit Consolidation."

Are You Serious?: Ponytail at the Laundromat

The above is 100% not cool. A handful of Queens residents just trying to do some laundry have to be aurally assaulted by the preschoolers-with-fingerpaint indie rock of Ponytail. On Pitchfork, the blurb to the right describes the poor folks at the laundromat as "Clorox pushers." Nice, Pitchfork--it was about time someone stuck it to people who have to go the laundromat.

Besides laziness, crap like this is the reason I don't go to very many live shows. It's just painful when the performers are having more fun than the audience, completely oblivious to how obnoxious they are. But at least when you go to a show, you've chosen to subject yourself to self-indulgent idiots.

I find the shots of the people confused by the band to be hilarious, as if we're supposed to laugh at them for not getting the band. Newsflash: There is nothing to get. This is bad music, pure and simple. That confused look is the look Ponytail should be seeing everywhere.

Since I rarely have good things to say about Pitchfork, I should point out that the review of the N.A.S.A. record by Tom Breihan was hilarious and dead on.

Are You Serious?: Pitchfork Finds Out About Music From Kanye

First Raekwon's "Back from the Slums," now some new song by some random girl produced by Dave Sitek (which is predictably boring--sorry TV On the Radio fans, I'm just not hearing the genius). What's the deal? Why is a music site with its finger on the pulse getting scooped by a guy with a busier schedule than Obama?

Are You Serious?: Pitchfork 500's Entry on T.I.'s "What You Know"

In Mark Pytlik's entry on T.I.'s "What You Know," he shows off his amazing ignorance of Southern rap music. Check it out:

"Before the emergence of Atlanta's T.I., the South was, for better or worse largely constrained to a specific blueprint: Its production was minimal and cavernous, with coarse accents on the high and low ends, leavings lots of empty space for the vocals."

Yeah, right. So before T.I. came on the scene, no Southern rap producers used synthesizers. In two sentences, this idiot has managed to erase the production achievements of Mannie Fresh, Three Six Mafia, Beats By a Pound, and about a million other producers from the South who were making the kind of "regal synth patterns" Pytlik is referring to. Where does he think DJ Toomp came from: A vacuum? Did it occur to him one day in 2007 that "hey, holy crap, I bet rap music would sound great with some keyboards?"

Did no other Pitchfork writer proof-read this entry? I'm sure Tom Breihan knows this is totally false. I mean, nitpicking is one thing, but when a writer makes a mistake this blatant in a supposed "guide" to music, it just defies common sense.