Hmm...

I wish I hadn't done as much research for this post as I ended up doing. Because until about an hour ago I was developing into a big 3oh!3 fan. One of the guys is an ultimate player - a good one too. Like Zack Dorner good. Like friends with Smelly Nate Raines good. Forrest Hanson '06, a hipster if I've ever met one, likes them. All signs point to yes.

And so I check out Don't Trust Me.

3oh!3 - Don't Trust Me

It's pretty damn good. Nice production, very electronic, as befits TSRE. Describing some hipster chick (black dress with the tights underneath), and then talking to her these Boulder dudes drop a pretty sick (if white as hell) line: "Tell your boyfriend, if he says he's got beef, that I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him."

Nice.

Still, a lot of this song is about "Don't trust a ho, never trust a ho." And there is some anger here towards women, some serious disdain. I don't really get it, I don't really like it, it's not clever or insightful, just kind of sneering.

The rest of their stuff is a big fat meh. A lot of preening, a lot of ridiculous rap lines that aren't delivered with enough finesse - they just come off like jackasses a bunch, talking about how hype it is when they come up in the club, how if you fuck with they city, you fuckin with they kin, how hot girls look in daisy dukes. They even have a not quite ironic enough gang sign to throw up, displayed on the album cover and in the videos they shoot in local elementary schools.

I think it really comes down to their main guy's delivery. His voice sounds just the way mine does when I'm drunk, Freeway come on, and I forget that I can't rap. Where is the playfulness in any of this? Plus, listen to this next track and tell me that there aren't some desperate parallels to Panic At the Disco at 1:30-1:50.


3oh!3 - I'm Not Your Boyfriend Baby

It's not all bad. I like some of it. I may even come around to them. But I dunno, there's something running under this music that doesn't do it for me. I think that even the parts that I like, as in this final example, I wouldn't like as much live with them there. This music doesn't make me comfortable, and what is better about the music moment we're going through than how comfortably weird it is? You can flail around to Girltalk, Passion Pit (check them out if you haven't yet, see below), Ratatat, Black Kids, etc. and nobody minds. I feel like these dudes are pointing and laughing.

3oh!3 - I Can't Do It Alone

Maybe not. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood. Maybe it is fucking weird that I expect my white artists to only approach rap-style lyrics with a carefully maintained distance but still love songs like Lollipop with few reservations. Who the fuck am I to criticize? I'll be loving these guys in a few days.

Look at this sweet picture of me. Lamar out.