Cut Out Bin

In 1999, Sisqo (ne Mark Althavean Andrews) broke free from the confines of his smooth R&B group Dru Hill and burst onto the scene with this retardedly catchy little ditty about women’s underwear. Ugh. Jesus, this song is just so stupid I’m not even sure how it became a hit. Like most novelty songs, the joke finally wore off, and cut out bins were flooded with multiple copies of Unleash the Dragon. Luckily, Sisqo’s sophomore album, Return of Dragon, was a massive failure (perhaps due to a lack of songs about skivvies), and quickly joined Unleash the Dragon in the clearance racks. 

Fun fact: I was manager of a huge record store in Vegas when Return of Dragon was released. The label literally sent me a box lot of promo copies of the album on vinyl, and I couldn’t give the fucking things away.

Also, was I the only one who thought the dude from The Real World: Hawaii (who also went on to star in a handful of mediocre films) was Sisqo?

Damn, yo.  We just got took to school.  Well done, sir.  (more comments of mine at the bottom down below)

andrewtsks:

cutoutbin:

Dude.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE.

I will never get sick of making fun of 90s Top 40 hip-hop.  Err…”New Jack Swing”, I should say.  I seriously could do a whole blog devoted to just this shit.

Go ahead…hit play.  I’ll wait.

Let that timeless intro wash over you, with it’s whistle-squeal thing that like EVERY 90s Top 40 hip-hop song had to use.

Then…bathe in their classic fashion decisions.  It’s like a North Face catalog vomited on Boyz II Men.  Seriously.

And for all of their display of bass playing and guitar playing, I can’t hear a single bit of it.  Oh wait…that porn-like “wah” every once in a while.  I take it back.

Oh!!  And did you see what they did right there!?  As they sing “before your bridge is burned”, they’re actually ON A BRIDGE.

AND THEN…the “rap” breakdown?  Dude…how awesome is that?  We get the whistle-squeal back, AND a seriously hardcore “This is from the J, the O, and the E.”  And yes…he then also manages to work in a rhyme using “the ultimate flim-flam.”

So weird we never heard more from these guys…

I recall back in 1992, being in junior high, and one of our school counselors used to have really bad body odor.  So we used to call him BO Public. 

Yep…

 All right, hate me if you must, but I did then and still do now find this song kind of fascinating. That “whistle-squeal thing,” which you are committing a crime against music by not recognizing as the main hook from Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without A Pause,” is strange enough on its own—probably the first time I heard a New Jack Swing group sample an actual hardcore hip-hop track and turn it into a more melodically-based bit in an R&B song. Then there’s the keyboard line nicked from Steely Dan’s “Peg,” plus the strange fusion of boom-bap drums with totally 80s top-40 synths. In fact, everything about the genre of New Jack Swing, which seemed pretty normal to me when I was 13 and it started showing up everywhere, seems crazy in retrospect. I guess what I’m really fascinated with is the way that producers of the time figured out how to synthesize many of the more aggressive and threatening elements of hip-hop that were popular at the time into an R&B sound that simultaneously made hip-hop cute, cuddly, and sellable to teenage girls, and made the smoother, slower R&B of the late 80s look weak and boring. And it wasn’t just a new sound, it was a good new sound, one that filled a gap in the popular music scene at the time that no one had noticed was there.

By the way, I love the rapping breakdowns on all those old New Jack Swing songs. None of them will ever top Michael Bivins’s breakdown on Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison”—which is pretty much the best NJS single ever, for the record. That echoing/repeating snare thing alone puts that song on another level entirely—but my point is that anytime a band like this did the rap verse, it always sounded totally tough based on what it was surrounded by (even if it would sound weak in an actual hip-hop setting). Plus, it set you up for the final melodic chorus by going as far from that melody as the song had gotten, emphasizing the transition back into it and really making it stand out. I know for a lot of people, this style of music will always be wack and lame, and that’s fine, but if you can appreciate R&B at all, you have to give it up for the NJS era, which was a triumph of songcraft and gave us some excellent dance singles.

Interestingly enough, this was all happening on the east coast at the same time that west coast gangster rap producers (most prominently Dr. Dre) were doing the same sort of fusion in reverse, adding funk and R&B elements into the hip-hop foundation of their music. The resulting “G-Funk” sound, as represented by Dre, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and others, was harder-hitting but just as popular—and just as good. And by 1996, the G-Funk and New Jack Swing movements had grown close enough that they were able to merge completely on Blackstreet’s immortal “No Diggity,” a fucking monster of a track no matter how you look at it.

In all seriousness…excellent commentary. Glad people are reading.

Expect future posts covering the collected talents of Monie Love, Das EFX, Onyx, Redhead Kingpin, Kwame, Special Ed, MC Breed, Skee-Lo, etc etc…my love/hate/shame of early 90s crossover r&b/NJS/pop-rap etc knows no bounds.  I’m going to go “clean myself” now by listening to Urban Dance Squad.  Oh god damn it!!  I’m doin’ it wrong…

Dude.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE.

I will never get sick of making fun of 90s Top 40 hip-hop.  Err…”New Jack Swing”, I should say.  I seriously could do a whole blog devoted to just this shit.

Go ahead…hit play.  I’ll wait.

Let that timeless intro wash over you, with it’s whistle-squeal thing that like EVERY 90s Top 40 hip-hop song had to use.

Then…bathe in their classic fashion decisions.  It’s like a North Face catalog vomited on Boyz II Men.  Seriously.

And for all of their display of bass playing and guitar playing, I can’t hear a single bit of it.  Oh wait…that porn-like “wah” every once in a while.  I take it back.

Oh!!  And did you see what they did right there!?  As they sing “before your bridge is burned”, they’re actually ON A BRIDGE.

AND THEN…the “rap” breakdown?  Dude…how awesome is that?  We get the whistle-squeal back, AND a seriously hardcore “This is from the J, the O, and the E.”  And yes…he then also manages to work in a rhyme using “the ultimate flim-flam.”

So weird we never heard more from these guys…

I recall back in 1992, being in junior high, and one of our school counselors used to have really bad body odor.  So we used to call him BO Public. 

Yep…

Ahh, Eve 6. So young, so bland. I was a Music Director and DJ at a college station when this record came out, and boy did RCA Records push this pile of shit on us. As much as they begged me to add this record, I just couldn’t do it. This boring, watered down alternarock just wasn’t what my station was about. This became an issue for a couple of reasons. 1. I had a great working relationship with RCA. 2. Hum’s new record was getting ready to come out, and I wanted it so badly, but RCA wouldn’t hand it over. We finally reached a compromise: I would add the Eve 6 record, but only if RCA would send me an advanced copy of the Hum record. Worked out great, huh?

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what is called payola.

Luckily, Eve 6 briefly blew up at commercial radio not too long after this deal was struck, so I didn’t have to actually play the album on the air. Even luckier, Eve 6’s popularity faded quickly and they were relegated to the cut out bin.

For the record, the college station I worked at no longer exists, the employees I dealt with at RCA back then are no longer employed by RCA, and both Hum and Eve 6 have long since been dropped from the label.

Ugghh….”Banditos”

I have a little extra hatred for the Refreshments because I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up one of their albums mistaking it for some rare Replacements bootleg i don’t have. For that alone I hate them….but there’s also this:

I went to a “party” at my Wife’s co-worker’s house. Inevitably, the co-worker’s dad finds out I’m “into music” and begins to chat me up. He’s one of those guys that still thinks he’s as cool as he ever was, and wears his one oversized black short-sleeve button up shirt with flames on the bottom to every blues rock show he attends. The conversation went something like this:

   Flame Shirt: “So…you ever heard of the Refreshments? They’re my favorite band of all time!”                                                                                         

   Me: “The Refresh….. oh you mean the Replacements?!”

   Flame Shirt: “No…the Refreshments!”

   Me: “Really? Them?”

I believe we may have had a “jam sesh” later that day. Needless to say, It’s a day I’d like to forget.

This one goes out to you Flame Shirt! You and your “Banditos” can find your favorite band right where it belongs, in the cut out bin.

EDIT: Just remember these guys also penned the “King of the Hill” theme song. The hatred grows.

When this song came out everyone and their mother came into my record store to buy the album. Being a strictly used CD store, we didn’t have any copies at first. But when this song blew up, everyone bought it wherever they could. Not surprisingly, “Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe” was the only decent track on the record, so my store was quickly inundated with multiple copies of the full length. We sold a ton at $7.99 (which, at the time, was roughly half the price of a new CD). Also not surprisingly, most of those were quickly returned, and our cut-out bin became packed.

For part 2 of our “this Cd is way too close to the Replacements section” series (for Part 1 see The Rembrandts post below) we bring you the turd that is Republica.

Unfortunately, there was way too much of this style going around in the 90’s. Pseudo-Electronica beats? yep. Faux-Angsty female lead singer? mmhmm. Singing through a megaphone? You get the idea.

Looks like they were “Ready to Go” straight to the cut-out bin.