Busy P, "To Protect and Entertain (feat. Murs)"
Ed Banger Records got too big, too fast. In a flurry of hype, I-was-there-first banter, and musical inbreeding, the Parisian collective represented an alternative cool one minute, a trendy frat boy favorite the next, and an utterly passe aesthetic the next. Instead of turning it down a notch, though, and hiding out for a while (wouldn't some woodsheding help with the creative process?), the crew's insistent on touring forever and releasing something new every couple of weeks. While Justice has been laying lower than their labelmates, their embarrassing remix of MGMT certainly isn't helping restore their once strong image.
Busy P (who's on tour through late-August, by the way) keeps pumping out the jams, too: June 23 marks the release of Pedrophilia, an EP featuring two original songs and four remixes. (At least it's not as bad as Justice's "DVNO" release which had what, three hundred remixes of the title track on it?) "To Protect and Entertain (feat. Murs)" is the title song on the record, and boy does it suck. Busy P sets up a snake-charmer-esque, gritty electronic hip-hop beat for Murs to flow over and that's pretty much the extent of the thing instrumentally. I guess the dynamic duo thought it'd be quaint or silly to write a song about how hard they kick it overseas ... "To Protect and Entertain" is a horrendous cut that revolves around name-dropping ("Hit up LAX and got in no hassle/We left there and hit up Cinespace," "Tomorrow morning I'm gonna be on Cobra Snake making out with a chick my girlfriend hates"), astoundingly stale metaphors ("I've got a dick as big as Texas"), and in-your-face flaunting of "coolness," "hipness," and globe-trotting finesse ("DJ AM, Steve Aoki, got the dance floor packed/And it's mostly girls, girls, every day/From Paris to L.A./I snatch one up and we dance for hours.")
"To Protect and Entertain," in short, is one of the most sophomoric and egotistical songs imaginable. Here's the Ed Banger et. al. finally kicking the bucket. Jerks.
Busy P - To Protect and Entertain (feat. Murs)
Comments
I've never quite understood why blogs are sort of expected to write about only things that the authors like. That happens in no other media industry ... you don't only see good movie review in the New Yorker; you don't only read about the best art shows or theatre performances in the New York Times. Why should I be expected to only point out the good!? Let me have some fun, man ...
Thanks, NIJERK, by the way (grin).
thank you.
Thumbs up for negative reviews in the blogosphere. Start a trend.
I think people forget, though, that Ed Banger has always been very hit or miss (see, e.g., the two compilations). That said, when they hit, it's fucking BIG.
don't get me wrong, i probably like/d them as much as the rest, but let's not forget that it was us ,the gig-going, cd buying, itunes using crowd that funded their rise. let's not hate them for making a go of it .
Wow, you criticize a song on the grounds of it not containing original lyrical content?! fuck off, nothing distinguishes this song from 90% of the other music that gets posted on here except for the fact that it refers directly to real things, and therefore is apparently cliche and outdated.
name dropping and mentioning of hipness is pretty much a constant in yr bibabidi bullshit, don't pretend this is any fucking different.
I must say though, I like the Mr. Oizo remix of the song in question... I love L.A., what can I say...
gave me a right laugh.
keep it coming!