Top Bay Area albums - early 2012 edition
The last 2 months have been filled with incredible releases from the Bay Area indie music scene. The Bay Area's indie and underground scenes have historically been engines of innovation, creating new musical styles and language.
What's happening on the ground today in the Bay may take months or even years to reach "mainstream." Read at the bottom for more about this. Here are my favorite recent releases:
Dave Smallen - Happiness
Read my review.
Daveed Diggs - Small Things to a Giant.
Provocative freshman album. My review is forthcoming.
K.Flay - Eyes Shut.
Read my post.
George Watsky - Watsky & Mody.
This genre-bending album featuring bluegrass meets Bay Area hip hop is perhaps Watsky’s most experimental piece to date. Have you also seen Watsky’s Robot poem? S for Lisp? He's also a Wikipedia power user and can rap fast.
Rafael Casal releases Mean Ones on Feb. 2nd.
Read my review of the music video for Whoville from the album Mean Ones.
Another rising star in the Bay Area scene:
A-1 - The Book of Adam (released August 2011)
A-1's prior release, After School Special, featured a remix of the Reading Rainbow song titled LeVar Burton. Also check out his Pokémon and Black and Mello remixes.
A-1’s remix of The Motto includes interesting commentary on how the Bay is so innovative that Drake and Lil Wayne came here to film The Motto. At the end of of A-1’s track, he says, “Feels like I’m steppin’ into a Bay Area time machine. Feels like I’m back in ‘05. ‘Yall just now catching on. Better late than never.”
What A-1 means is that Drake and Wayne’s The Motto video, released in December 2011, celebrates elements of Bay Area culture popular during the height of the Hyphy Movement some years back. Drake and Lil Wayne coming to the Bay years later to film a hyphy-themed video makes them seem like they stepped out of a time machine.
William Gibson said “The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.” In the Bay Area, the future in music and language is already here. I invite you to check these artists out. Each is innovating in his or her own way. You can listen to the future of music through these artists.
What's happening on the ground today in the Bay may take months or even years to reach "mainstream." Read at the bottom for more about this. Here are my favorite recent releases:
Dave Smallen - Happiness
Read my review.
Daveed Diggs - Small Things to a Giant.
Provocative freshman album. My review is forthcoming.
K.Flay - Eyes Shut.
Read my post.
George Watsky - Watsky & Mody.
This genre-bending album featuring bluegrass meets Bay Area hip hop is perhaps Watsky’s most experimental piece to date. Have you also seen Watsky’s Robot poem? S for Lisp? He's also a Wikipedia power user and can rap fast.
Rafael Casal releases Mean Ones on Feb. 2nd.
Read my review of the music video for Whoville from the album Mean Ones.
Another rising star in the Bay Area scene:
A-1 - The Book of Adam (released August 2011)
A-1's prior release, After School Special, featured a remix of the Reading Rainbow song titled LeVar Burton. Also check out his Pokémon and Black and Mello remixes.
A-1’s remix of The Motto includes interesting commentary on how the Bay is so innovative that Drake and Lil Wayne came here to film The Motto. At the end of of A-1’s track, he says, “Feels like I’m steppin’ into a Bay Area time machine. Feels like I’m back in ‘05. ‘Yall just now catching on. Better late than never.”
What A-1 means is that Drake and Wayne’s The Motto video, released in December 2011, celebrates elements of Bay Area culture popular during the height of the Hyphy Movement some years back. Drake and Lil Wayne coming to the Bay years later to film a hyphy-themed video makes them seem like they stepped out of a time machine.
William Gibson said “The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.” In the Bay Area, the future in music and language is already here. I invite you to check these artists out. Each is innovating in his or her own way. You can listen to the future of music through these artists.
