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sp4cetiger
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- #1
- Posted: 02/03/2015 14:54
- Post subject: BEA's Year-End List #8: Perfect Hair
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Perfect Hair by Busdriver
While BEA had mixed feelings about Busdriver's releases leading up to Perfect Hair, there seemed to be near universal approval for this abstract hip-hop romp. Here's some of what the regulars had to say:
| dividesbyzero wrote: | | ...watching Busdriver return to a thoughtful package of cohesive psychosis was one of the best treats of 2014. Driver's sense of self-deprecating humor feels neither forced nor "oh hey look how clever I am", and his increasingly dynamic flow highlights his vocal talents without boasting his inherent weirdness to any uncomfortable extent. Busdriver is way off to the hip-hop leftfield but Perfect Hair is really surprisingly accessible, (partly for the excellent guest spots. e.g. You have Danny Brown's unique nuttiness balancing out the hyper-literate quirks of Driver and Aesop Rock on "Ego Death" such that the whole thing feels almost endearing (in some really weird way), which is pretty remarkable for a song that begins with Aesop asking if it is "sexier than torture".) Oh yeah and yes you did just hear Danny Brown refer to himself as the "rap Marylin Manson". Glorious. |
| Gowienczyk wrote: | | After Jhelli Beam you could say Busdriver fell in a sort of a rut as nothing the typical abstract rapper could do could save the sub-par end result in Computer Cooties and Beaus$Eros, which despite their misgivings I still sort of enjoyed at a base level. Going into Perfect Hair I was not entirely optimistic and it even took me a few listens to really appreciate the work put into the record. I still think Busdriver works best when he’s more solitary and away from guests which I understand is not a particularly popular opinion. That said, the guests (Aesop Rock, Danny Brown, Open Mike Eagle, and VerBS) do their part well and they don’t distract from the record, which is really good. Not my favorite Busdriver but this one is no slouch and worth its weight. |
| Skinny wrote: | | I've never been able to get fully behind Busdriver's music - in the past, it's definitely been more a case of appreciation than adoration, able to admit that Busdriver is incredibly clever (and probably pretty fucking vital, especially in the history of alternative West Coast hip-hop), but without ever being able to tolerate him for long periods, let alone love him - but that all changed with Perfect Hair, on which he curbed his weirder aspects and tendency towards messy sprawl in order to fashion a statement much more compact and concise than anything else in his discography, and at which point I'd finally become attuned enough to weirder rap music to really learn to love his music (I have no doubt that it's definitely both of these things combined, and probably in fairly equal measure). Built on a canvas of wonky, glitchy beats (that sound something like Joker through a Brainfeeder lens), Driver basically has the most beautiful neurotic crisis hip-hop's ever seen, questioning the genre, his place in it, his relationships, and the world around him, and he emerges as a tragicomic hero to rival Yuri Nikulin, treading that same fine line between slapstick absurdity and staggering intelligence, whilst never forgetting that the most powerful weapon in any artist's armoury is sincere human emotion. And so we're treated to almost impossibly well-articulated heartbreak ("knowing that my capricious lover is a migrant bird, your absence caused quiet stirs that progressed into a violent dirge"), artistic insecurity ("I'm a decent liar, and that's a lie in itself but you knew that"), anger at the world ("the fact that this pony show's racist stirs the colloquial cake mix, and charges the homeostasis"), and a whole host of other sincere human emotions that actually make the occasionally impenetrable web of words (and believe me when I say that it's a web) far easier to approach. I know that Busdriver has managed this in the past, but it's also been tempered by some late-era-Prince-esque desire to go in as many different directions as possible on his records, often leaving me dizzy and cold, whereas here it feels like he had things to say and he said them in the best and most efficient way possible. If somebody had told me last New Year's Eve that Busdriver would make one of my favourite albums of the year, I'd have laughed in their face, but it's extremely pleasant surprises like this one that truly make music worth listening to. |
| Norman Bates wrote: | | While a first listen left me regretting the most cringeworthy moments, the repeats do the record a lot of favours. Rich & dense. |
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goeie-oko
Gender: Male
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- #2
- Posted: 02/03/2015 15:08
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hmm, I haven't heard this one yet.
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RepoMan
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- #3
- Posted: 02/03/2015 15:12
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Cool. Didn't see this one coming. Nice to have an album I know will b good to explore.
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sp4cetiger
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- #4
- Posted: 02/03/2015 15:28
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I only just heard this for the first time recently, but I loved it. It might even be overall chart material. Looking forward to exploring it more.
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Skinny
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- #5
- Posted: 02/03/2015 15:56
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Landed slightly outside my final top ten, but what an extremely pleasant surprise.
_________________
2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
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Hayden
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babyBlueSedan
Used to be sort of blind, now can sort of see
Gender: Male
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- #7
- Posted: 02/03/2015 16:59
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Really enjoy this, easily in my top 10 for the year. I love the cleverness but also the variety in terms of his rapping style. Ego Death is one of my favorite songs of 2014 and was what introduced me to Danny Brown, so I like it for that reason too.
_________________
And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.
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undefined
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- #8
- Posted: 02/03/2015 17:11
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Oh wow didn't think I'd see this anywhere near the top 10. Wonderful surprise 
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Skinny
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- #9
- Posted: 02/03/2015 17:17
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Oh, and anybody who likes this should definitely check out Open Mike Eagle's Dark Comedy, which is just as good as this, the same mixture of self-deprecation and wonderfully absurd wordplay. Basically two sides of the same coin.
_________________
2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
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MrIrrelevant
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- #10
- Posted: 02/03/2015 17:21
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Big year for hip-hop.
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