One of the many consequences stemming from the death of hip hop is the complete fucking absence of a summer jam in 2009. Luckily, tons of other genres, musical and otherwise, happen to be alive, breathing, and flourishing.

[header image credit: flickr user karynsig]

The Funeral

Alright, so even the expression “hip hop is dead” is dead.  At the time of its most overuse, which feels to me like 3-4 years ago, good to great albums were still coming out at the rate of one or two per month (depending primarily on MF Doom’s release schedule).  However, while I hated the phrase, hated the concept, hated its ubiquity…I now have no choice but to concede that hip hop is fucking dead.  I should state that I feel this death is temporary, and I will give hip hop’s corpse the equivalent of safety bells in the casket, in the sense that I’m willing to listen to anything anyone recommends that suggests otherwise, and genuinely feel that at some point the genre will regain its former relevance.

But for right now, Hip Hop: go peacefully into that great night.

[SIDE NOTE: If these current rap doldrums are the death of hip hop, if you asked me to pinpoint when hip hop got fatally wounded, I’d probably have to say “the moment Kanye West decided having Jon Brion co-produce his second album would be a good decision”.  Yes, what hip hop fans were REALLY looking for was glockenspiels and meandering-ass eight minute songs with no hooks.]

There are many consequences stemming from the death of hip hop.  Counseling sessions for Reggaeton (he’s just a kid!).  Mainstream pop inheriting hip hop’s surviving entourage.  But, perhaps most devastatingly, the complete fucking absence of a summer jam in 2009.  Here we are, in the middle of the year’s best season, and there’s no rap song we can press the repeat button on and just zone out on until we get so sick of it that the words lose all meaning and even the intro beat is enough to make us collectively groan and turn off our stereos completely.

Luckily, tons of other genres, musical and otherwise, happen to be alive, breathing, flourishing right now.  While few of these have the immediacy of a summer jam, I currently seem to be discovering good and great works of pop culture at an unusually high rate, and want to share with you some ways I’m getting through hip hop’s wake during this glorious summer.  Yes, some of these are years old; but by the same token, you can always throw on “Heart Of The City” and it remains the perfect summer jam.

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Books: The <Blank> Of The Wind

My new favorite genre this summer seems to be books that are about the <arbitrary noun> of the wind.  The two I’m thinking of specifically are The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.  Neither of these is a new release, with Shadow first translated in English and published in 2004 and Name originally published in 2007.  Regardless, despite being miles apart genre-wise and stylistically, the similarity of their titles is a good enough hook for me to talk about two of the most “reading that reminds you of the sheer pleasure of reading” books I’ve enjoyed in a long time.

The Name of the Wind is a fantasy novel in the mold of Robin Hobb or George R.R. Martin.  By citing those influences, I’m trying to get across that it’s plot-dense, and while very self-aware of fantasy conventions and archetypes, it actively employs them while providing new explanations for the logic of the world the characters inhabit.  Is it nerdy?  Yes.  Is it accessible to people who might not otherwise usually head to the fantasy section of the bookstore?  Absolutely.

The Shadow of the Wind is a Gothic throwback that takes place in Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War.  The Matryoshka doll structure of the novel features the protagonist, Daniel, discovering a brilliantly written but commercially unsuccessful novel entitled “The Shadow of the Wind” within the city’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books, prompting him to find out everything he can about the mysterious author, Julian Carax.  As the Wuthering Heights reminiscent plot unfolds, with Daniel’s life mirroring and paralleling elements of Julian Carax’s, decades-old animosities between Carax and a policeman within the Franco dictatorship begin to come to a violent conclusion.  What makes the book addictively readable beyond the hilarious dialogue, skilled handling of exposition, and astute plotting is the sheer love of and enthusiasm for reading that emanates from every page.  It sounds absolutely cheesy when I say it, but the big ideas usually do.

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Music:  Coalesce - Ox

With their jarring time-signatures, lumbering riffs supplemented with chromatic noodling, and the harshest, scratchiest, nastiest screams ever recorded, I see no reason why I can’t truthfully state that Coalesce is the best extreme metal band ever (sorry, Emperor).  Their latest release, Ox, which I’ve plugged twice on our podcast, only confirms this.  Recorded after a 10 year hiatus due to the ever-present dysfunction within the relationships between the band members, Ox is Coalesce’s strongest album, with a level of consistency that is, quite frankly, almost unbelievable.

Ox is a triumphant display of mastery; it’s original but also aggregates, evolves, and then improves upon everything the band’s already innovated through their prior work.  And in the end, that’s why Ox should be one of your summer jams.  Watching people perform extreme music for the sheer love of being able to create the sounds that they’re somehow managing to leads to an infectious, almost tangible joy for the listener.  Brutal, punishing, brilliant.

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Card Game: Monopoly Deal

I’ve personally always loved the generally-regarded-as-tedious board game classic Monopoly, so when I saw a television ad for yet another spinoff, I thought, “What the hell,” and casually picked up a copy with low expectations.  Instead, what I’ve found is that Monopoly Deal is its own unique game utilizing some of the themes from the original Monopoly while providing an entirely different experience.  The Mille Bornes-style play means that Monopoly Deal is fast where old-school Monopoly is slow, exciting where the original is monotonous, and volatile where the original is a somewhat steady drone.

The learning curve is about one round, which would probably take 5-10 minutes for two players, or 10-20 for four.  The gameplay really achieves the difficult balancing of skill (knowing which cards to keep and how to use them) and luck (which cards you and your opponents draw) required to make it the perfect summer pastime: a card game that remains fun to put your brain on autopilot to, accompanying or inspiring conversation.  This isn’t going to be the next Apples to Apples or Cranium or whatever other recent board game has graduated to the canon of classics, but for card aficionados looking for a quick fix, this is going to have some staying power.

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Book: Roberto Bolaño - 2666

2666 is a slap-you-in-the-face masterpiece, and probably the best novel that will come out for years.  Deceased Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño’s final work, the facility with which 2666 switches from Nabakovian academic satire to police procedural and murder mystery to World War II saga is staggering.

Despite the ubiquitous glowing reviews, the most surprising thing about the novel is, if anything, that they probably undersell it.  It’s unflinchingly brutal, sociologically and psychologically insightful, and, most importantly, compulsively readable.  No immediate further discussion required: rush out, buy it now, thank me later.

[However, if you STILL aren’t convinced and want a more in-depth review, check out Adam Kirsch’s write-up for Slate.]

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Music: Jeremy Jay - Slow Dance

Summer in California is way, way too hot.  The key is to beat it psychologically, by telling yourself that you’re cold.  A good way to do that is to put on the indie pop of Slow Dance, the new CD by Jeremy Jay.  It’s frivolous, affected, and has lots of songs about winter and ice that will get you in a beat-the-heat mindset.  Other things that are great about the CD are that, while there are definite highlights (“In This Lonely Town”, “Canter Canter”), no track is a must-skip, and he’s really successful at carving out his unique tone/style and writing good songs within that niche.  I would love to hear a more thoughtful, structured CD from Jeremy Jay, but in the meantime, Slow Dance is a pleasant and mild diversion.

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Airplane/Beach Book: Lee Child - Gone Tomorrow

The twelfth entry in author Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series, Nothing to Lose, received a lot of pans from longtime fans due to its caustic anti-religious commentary, meandering and repetitive plot, and escalation of the stakes to the point of hyperbole.  While I personally thought it was still entertaining, I know that the thirteenth and most recent addition to the series, Gone Tomorrow, will go a long way towards bringing disgruntled fans back into the fold.

In this “episode”, our hobo adventurer protagonist causes a suicide on the New York subway system in an attempt to prevent a bombing.  When it turns out the woman who killed herself has connections to a US Senator eyeing a presidential run, the widow of a criminal Russian billionaire, and the Pentagon, the plot rapidly picks up steam.  There seems to me little question that Gone Tomorrow ends the already debatable one book Lee Child slump; in fact, it’s probably his best novel since the eighth entry, One Shot.  The plot twists are unpredictable but coherent, the villains are ice cold, and the finale enters bold new ground for the series (hint: it’s a knife fight instead of Reacher winning a shootout or Reacher beating someone to death with his bare hands).

Most importantly, the two characteristics that distinguish Reacher novels from the other Stephen-King-dubbed “manfiction” on the market are on display at full power: 1) the didactic elements where Child teaches you the mechanics behind how something works and 2) the shit-talking Reacher spits at the villain on the way to the conclusion, in which he will certainly triumph and kill whoever has gotten in his way.  If you haven’t read any of the series, start with Killing Floor or Without Fail; but if you’ve read any of them, you know the drill, you know they’re fairly interchangeable, and you know you can pick this one up and have a nice day at the beach.

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Music: Telekinesis! - Telekinesis!

The secret to the success of Telekinesis!’s eponymous debut is that, while it’s difficult to actively listen to, it wins you over instantly.  The first time you hear any of the songs, you’ll feel like you’ve known it for years.  It’s the sort of winning indie pop-rock that indicates a particularly talented singer-songwriter is sandbagging, hiding some real genuine talent behind the lo-fi production.  While, similar to Jeremy Jay above, it’s a far cry from a masterpiece, this is definitely a great CD for the summer.