Flung'd

After a few months of speculation, the mystery third act for Spring Fling 2008 has finally been announced. For a recap, the performers this year are:

GZA
The Cool Kids
The Hold Steady
The Hood Internet

As many of you readers know, music is my lifeblood. So I figured I'd share some thoughts on all these acts.

GZA
Also known as "The Genius", GZA is perhaps the most talented member of legendary Staten Island-based hip hop crew, the Wu-Tang Clan. One of the older members of the Clan, and the only one to have a vital solo career before the first Wu-Tand album, GZA will be performing the entirety of his masterpiece, 1995's Liquid Swords. Considered by many critics to be one of, if not the, best Wu-Tang solo albums, it's a bonafied classic. RZA brings forth some of his most inspired production, while GZA's mindgame rhymes (and some inspired cameos from the rest of the Clan) make for some dynamite cuts. Even better, it's not weighed down; there's barely any filler to be found here. For me personally, Liquid Swords comes at a very close second to Ghostface Killah's Supreme Clientele as my favorite Wu-Tang album. Looking forward to this one!

The Cool Kids
I don't really know much about these guys. I've heard them labeled as "the black Beastie Boys," whatever the hell that means. I've heard a few clips on their myspace, and, honestly, nothing really jumps at me just yet. I'll reserve judgment until I see them in action.

The Hold Steady
This band's material ranges from decent faux-Replacement songs of youthful longing, to messy bar band crap. I still can't figure out just exactly what so many snobby indie tastemakers see that's so great about this band. Not particularly jazzed about this act, but I'm sure their show will be enjoyable enough.

The Hood Internet
What the hell, Social Committee? First off, mashup DJs are basically like quirky, independent t-shirt makers at this point: it was kind of cool and novel in the beginning, but now it's just getting annoying and the market is way too flooded. Unfortunately, the example set forth by acts like Girl Talk is that a DJ can work just fine by playing a set of songs that the audience is already intimately familiar with. The more blatantly popular, the more ironic, and thus, the better. The function of a DJ as a crate-digger is all-but dried up on most mashup-mongers. There's no longer an imperative to expose the audience to anything new, and why should there be, when you can throw something together in 5 minutes in Ableton, and be the 2,000th kid on the block to have a Rich Boy freestyle going over "Robot Rock". Success!

Really though, there are four DJs on this campus (Max, Harrison, Khalif, and Ian) that I can think of off the top of my head, who could play just as good a mashup set as the bearded hipsters in The Hood Internet. And they'd probably charge a lot less (read: nothing), too.

So, there's my $0.02. We'll be back with the new update on the 63 A Home goddesses soon enough.