Major Lazer - Houstatlantavegas Pains

Major Lazer is the collaboration between DJ's Diplo and Switch and they released a mixtape called Lazerproof which features mashups/remixes of the songs off La Roux's self-titled debut album. I put the whole thing on my Ipod and three quarters of the time when a song from Lazerproof comes on I scramble to get it out of my pocket in order to change the song, fortunately the whole thing isn't bad, just a little hit or miss with my musical tastes. One song that never fails to get my attention (in a good way), is a combination of Drake's Houstatlantavegas and La Roux's Growing Pains. The two songs seem to go together perfectly, judge it for yourself.

PS. wordcheck is telling me I spelled Houstatlantavegas wrong... wtf

Major Lazer - Houstatlantavegas Pains

Servin up some Fresh Cudi

As you may know, Kid Cudi is currently working on his second studio album Man On The Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager. He Recently released the first single off the album titled REVOFEV (Cudi-speak for Revolution of Evolution) and its so good. The beat marches along and is a perfect background for his signature style of rapping/singing, sometimes I'm not even sure which one he's doing sometimes but I like it. Cudi promises to bring you into his life on MOTM 2 the same way that he brought listeners into his dreams on MOTM 1 and says that the album is dark in nature. Usually I tend to stray away from anything 'dark in nature,' not Cudi though, its too damn good.

Kid Cudi - REVOFEV

Mixtape: Symmetry & Ryan Lewis

This one probably takes the award for most delayed blog in Straight Goods Music’s lengthy history (that’s right, all 7 months of our existence). I was first introduced to Ryan Lewis through his collaboration with Macklemore on The Vs. EP where he completely blew my mind. Beats like Kings, Crew Cuts and Life Is a Cinema were like a game for me as I tried to figure out the samples that Lewis used. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m almost jealous of you for getting to find The Vs. EP for the first time. You can grab it on his myspace here. Earlier this year Ryan Lewis released another vs. style mixtape, this time featuring Rhode Island MC Symmetry. The EP is simply titled Symmetry and Ryan Lewis and its described on their myspace like this:

The duo has somehow managed to evoke just about every decade of popular music, coating each audible memory into a hyper-real representation of an era that never existed, a pastiche of allusions to the roaring 30s, the rock of the 60s and 70s, and the alternative revolution of the early 90s, all accomplished while remaining firmly rooted in the sonics of modern hip hop

. I’m not going to google pastiche and pretend like I have any idea what that word means but what I thought when I read that was “sounds f*ckin awesome.’ Not surprisingly it is, at least in my opinion. Before you listen to the EP make sure you remind yourself that this is NOT The Vs. EP and Symmetry is not Macklemore. This mixtape has a different feel from what RL did with Macklemore since Symmetry doesn’t cover the weighty topics that Macklemore does. It is a bit more experimental and upbeat but still features the Ryan Lewis bangers that I’ve come to expect. Listen to the songs below, download the mixtape from their myspace here and put it on your Ipod/computer. Let it grow on you, it took me a couple listens.

Symmetry & Ryan Lewis - Pardon Me

Symmetry & Ryan Lewis - Make Me Yours

Album Review: The Roots - How I Got Over

It’s been a pretty rough few months for Straight Goods ever since school ended for the year. Apparently having a job takes up a lot more of your time than not going to class or reading. It feels nice to actually have money going into the bank account instead of the steady outflow of cash that goes on during the school year though so no complaints here. Anyways, I’ve been sitting on a whole bunch of stuff that every time it plays on my Ipod I make a mental note to write a blog on it and never get around to it. I’m hopefully going to post it all over the next few days. It might not be brand new but this site isn’t exactly CNN breaking news. Anyways… the review:

The Roots’s 9th studio album How I Got Over was released on June 22nd on Def Jam Records and was sixth in US record sales after the first week with 49,320 albums sold. The album features The Roots’ signature live-ish sound which is a breath of fresh air. Its nice to here a beat that actually sounds like it was played on a real drum set, which gives it a way more natural feel. In typical Roots form, the album reaches into Jazz, Funk, Soul and Rock for influences and comes out with some unreal production. In terms of lyrical content, How I Got Over is pretty heavy. Politics, religion society and other topics are all covered and society’s shortcomings are criticized however that doesn’t mean that the album has a brooding feel to it. The album has slower, down to earth songs alongside funk-flavoured, upbeat songs which keeps you interested from track 1 to 14 (including bonus songs). Anyways, my favourite songs so far are The Day, The Fire, and Dear God 2.0 which are below for your listening/downloading pleasure. I’m not going to give the album a rating because I hate those things so all I’m going to say is if you like real hip hop, get this album, It’ll for sure be one of the top albums of 2010.

Dear God 2.0 ft. Monsters of Folk


The Fire ft. John Legend


The Day ft. Blu, Phonte & Patty Crash

We're Goin Down With QuESt

A couple months ago I wrote about a rapper named QuESt, the guy seemed heavily influenced by rap like A Tribe Called Quest and Nas but also threw in some new school influences… which intrigued the shit out of me. With new school samples from Jay Electronica to Lykke Li to Lupe the man obviously has sick taste in music. I’ve recently spent the last 2 months trapped in a work van with fellow Straight Goods blogger Stevie D, through this time I’ve come accustomed to the popular tunes that rip up the air waves. One of the tracks that I turn up the volume knob for is that catchy ass One Republic song "All The Right Moves". With QuEst’s nasty flow on the track along with adding some dirty Hip-Hop drum beats he absolutely murder’s the song. More and more rappers have been spittin’ over popular radio tunes which I’m not gonna lie… I enjoy thoroughly, so put “We’re Goin Down” on the party mix and let the broads and bros enjoy.

We’re Goin Down- QuESt

Pushing Indie Hip Hop - Hoodie Allen

Lately in the world of hiphop there have been a bunch of newcomers who have been workin' hard to push the boundries, breaking away from classic hiphop. Hoodie Allen is the latest duo I have come across to do this successfully, with indie samples and electronic beats, they cross genres of music with no issues at all. Made up of Steve Witz on words and Obey City on beats they create that fresh sound everyone has been looking for. They just leaked a track from their upcoming July 2010 mixtape entitled "The Diamond Cuts" which features all Marina & The Diamonds samples from her last album "The Family Jewels". Listen to that track, plus an old banger by Hoodie below.
Put this on at the next party you go to, cause this is summertime musics.

You Are Not A Robot - Hoodie Allen (Marina and the Diamonds Sample)

Turn The City Around - Hoodie Allen

Easy Cali Listenin with The Freshmen

As I continue my search through blog’s and myspace I have come to the realization that the WWW world has made it much easier for up and coming artists to start up and test the waters of the music industry. I recently stumbled upon California Rap group “The Freshmen” and was instantly hooked on their sound. With the ability to distribute music to vast amounts of people for free groups like The Freshmen have begun to utilize the fact that they don’t need to release full CD’s to get a following. The group only has two songs released right now but seem to have a bright future ahead of them. Composed of rappers A Wolf and Kristo along with composer/producer THX the groups freshmen (no pun intended) tracks “Dreamin California” and “Hello There” let us know that The Freshmen are to legit to quit. There is an abundance of white rappers coming out now a’days but as a fellow suburban gangster you can’t hate on the white boys with nasty flow.

The Tracks are available on the group’s site http://www.gofreshmen.com/index.html for FREE… check em’ out

Hello There- The Freshmen

Dreamin California- The Freshmen

The Black Keys - Throwing me back to the middle school days

I'm doing exterior painting as my summer job this year so I basically spend the entire work day with headphones on, going through my ipod. I put the new Black Keys album, Brothers on my ipod last week and planned on listening to it from start to end to decide whether I should write a blog on it. I ended up listening to it on repeat for the entire morning. Back in middle school (grades 7 and 8 for you small town kids who didn't have middle school) I listened to a whole lot of classic rock, but I started to get away from that whole genre of music in high school and pretty much haven't listened to it since, or much rock at all really. The Black Keys were formed in 2001 so they clearly are not classic rock but their blues-rock style definitely reminds me of it. The songs on Brothers feature some great blues-style guitar riffs that show the influence of great classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin, The Doors, etc. I'm always trying to find variety in the music that I listen to and Brothers definitely fills a void for me. Next Girl, She's Long Gone and Tighten Up are probably my 3 favourite songs on the album but they were pretty hard to choose as I like pretty much every song from it. Also, check out the video for Next Girl, its a pretty good time.