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Jan. 30

A$AP Rocky Shocks and Surprises on Debut Album

Alex Fredkin
Arts Editor
rise to fame is his keen awareness of what is current and new, and who to collaborate with to create the best songs. He reinvents the wheel on Wild for the Night, a surprising but fitting collaboration with ultra-famous dubstep artist Skrillex. This track perfectly combines the best elements of hip-hop and dubstep. It maintains the frantic party elements of EDM, and A$AP weaves his words deliberately around the fluctuations in the beat. Always a trendsetter, expect many more iterations of dub-hop in response to this release. A$AP continues his penchant for the unexpected on 1 Train. It is a posse cut track, featuring a ridiculous amount of featured rapperssix in total. The guests are a laundry list of whose next in the rap game, not who is the most famous now, but who will be dominating the charts in 2013. A$AP starts off the epic, followed by Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, Yelawolf, Action Bronson, Danny Brown and Big K.R.I.T. Each rapper submits his own flavor over a dreary and steady beat, which labors on tirelessly as each vocalist does his best to destroy the track. image courtesy of ticketmaster.com The album does have its standouts, but they are interspersed between others that do not help the cause. The atmospheric landscape does not work as well on tracks Pain and Hell, which seem to tie together appropriately, but fail with boring strings and no lyrical flare. The end of the album is no better; it doesnt wrap up effectively and unenthusiastically flounders towards the finish line. Long.Live.A$AP is a welcome experiment. A$AP is new and refreshing , posessing sharp musical instincts. The album has enough successes that it is worth a listen, and definitely is a noteworthy addition to the hip-hop catalog. Although it does not lay the proper groundwork to become a classic, as it aspires to be, A$AP is still a newcomer and has the ability to improve with future releases.

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Music

It has been less than a year since A$AP Rocky released his first mixtape Live.Love.A$AP. In just this short amount of time he has firmly positioned himself amongst the most talked about rappers around today. A$APs persona is a perfect storm of fashion sensibility, infectious swagger and unabashed confidence that fans gravitate towards. For better or worse, his debut full length Long. Live.A$AP will ensure thatat least for the time beinghe will remain a conversation piece. Whether this album will win a Grammy or cement him as one of the best around today is much less of a certainty. A$APs popularity is due in large part to his catering of the much-abused rap cliches, mainly the fact that he loves smoking weed, gets a lot of bitches, and spends way too much money on designer clothes. While his lyrical content is limited, he has other strengths which support his popularity. The production on his songs is unique and mystifying. Many of the tracks are painted with spacey and ominous beats. The opener Long Live A$AP foregoes the usual lets hit the club vibe and instead soothes the listener with ephemeral melodies and a galactic underwater feeling. Following is Goldie, the best and most recognizable song on the album. Goldie is much more standard fare, being produced by Hit-Boy, the musical wizard behind Niggas in Paris. It features a catchy hook with pitched-down vocals and some nice synth work. A$APs braggadocio is in full force on this one, opening by exclaiming Lets take it to the basis, you in the midst of greatness. One of A$APs greatest skills and the reason for his speedy

Ra Ra Riot Reinvents Themselves with Beta Love

Music Richie Feathers
Staff Writer
With their previous two albums, the Syracusebred Ra Ra Riot created a niche for themselves amongst the crowded indie rock scene. Standing out amongst the rest, what they had to offer was a strong string section in cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller. Add to it lead singer Wes Miless boyish soprano and 2008s The Rhumb Line became a solid, well-received debut. While their 2010 followup The Orchard wasnt as well acclaimed, it still showed that they had a knack for writing catchy chamber pop. In the three years since, however, Lawn left the band and the nowfour-piece were left without part of their trademark sound. With this, its no surprise that 2013s Beta Love finds Ra Ra Riot going in a radically different direction than before. Having been inspired by the works of futurist author Ray Kurzweil and cyberpunk novelist William Gibson, the bands third album is an electro-pop sugar rush that clocks in at just over thirty minutes. But the brevity of it might not have worked had each track not been so damn catchy and fun. It was produced by Dennis Herring (Modest Mouse, Elvis Costello) who gives each track its individual hook by dialing back Zellers usually essential violin and introducing Issue 1 T h e

image courtesy of filtermagazine.com

synths and a drum machine to the mix. Yet its Miles falsetto that becomes the most crucial instrument in the success of the record. Coming off as a love letter to the future age, Beta Love carries with it many references to robotic bodies and continued on page 11 T i m e s Pg. 9

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