Sunday Night Selections

I hope everyone had a good Halloween weekend. Mine was OK, even though I spent a considerable amount of it working. No bother though, as I did find a decent amount of time to crawl my way to the bar on Friday and Saturday, so I got in my fun. Couple that with Saturday's Clemson Homecoming victory, a surprising upset by the Panthers over the Cardinals, and a quiet Sunday evening watching movies and the World Series with the lady, and I'm left with no complaints from the weekend -- other than the fact that it's over.

Oh well, there's always next weekend, which has all the makings of "epicness" with this Saturday's Florida State-Clemson game scheduled for 7:45pm. I'm licking my chops already...

Rap
Drake ft Kanye West, Lil Wayne, & Eminem - "Forever"
My jury is still out on Drake. His flow isn't bad, his beats are solid, and he rolls with a legit crew, but I'm having a hard time taking him seriously. Probably because it's hard to believe that someone who spent most of their time in a wheelchair on a teen-soap opera is now trying to go about a starting a rap career. Did I mention that he's from Canada? Moving along, this is probably one of Drake's better tracks, even though there's a lot of "going through the motions" here. Drake gives it a good go, but his verse is lacking and it's obvious that Kanye and Weezy are cameoing only for the paycheck. The only person who sends in a solid performance is Em, who dug into the vault and found his long-lost Slim Shady persona. With Eminem still able to flow like we all thought he could, one has to wonder why his recent "Relapse" album was so bad.
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Reggaton/House
Pitbull ft LMFAO & Fergie - "Back to the Future"
If you didn't like "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas, then this song probably isn't for you. For that matter, if you don't like Fergie, then you also might want to pass on this track. For the three of you guys still left, I suggest that you give this club banger a spin. Pitbull recruited electronica-house DJs LMFAO to produce this track and they didn't disappoint...minus the heavy sampling of Fergie's "I'm so three-thousand and eight" line. Otherwise, the beats are thick and heavy -- a solid compliment to Pitbull's surprisingly decent (for a change) vocals. You won't be listening to this one at 2pm on a Wednesday, but I could see it fitting cleanly into a Friday night playlist.
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Rock/Rap
Weezer ft Lil Wayne - "Can't Stop Partying"
Yes, you read that correctly -- Weezer featuring Lil Wayne. It's an interesting combination that, contrary to what Pitchfork will have you believe, works well. Is it the world's greatest track? No, but it's definitely worth more than the 3 that the Pitchfork guys gave it. While it's not the Run-DMC/Aerosmith mix of rap and rock that you would expect from these two entities (it's more techno than anything), it's a great step in expanding the current state of music. It would be safe to assume that there's not a lot of overlap between the fanbases of these two artists. That needs to change, and hopefully soon...
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R&B/Rock
Rihanna vs. The Killers - "Disturbia/Somebody Told Me" DJ Hero Mash-Up
Speaking of expanding the reach of music, I think that the success of Activision's recently released DJ Hero may have a small hand in helping out. It's common knowledge that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have gone far in introducing an entire generation of people to rock music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, but there hasn't been much done in introducing other genres to the mix. With DJ Hero's release, there's a good chance that acts like Daft Punk, NOISIA, the Jurassic 5, and Eric Prydz will get a little time to shine.
As far as this track goes, it's solid in-house mix of the aforementioned songs by FreeStyle Games. They definitely blended two songs together that would seemingly go together like fire and ice, but damn if it doesn't work. Come on Activision, offer up a soundtrack!
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Bonus: Vanilla Ice vs MC Hammer - "Ice, Ice, Baby/U Can't Touch This" Listen