The Middle of Nowhere #19
Part 2 of my 5-Part series, listing my greatest songs of all time. 40-31
Welcome back. This is part 2 of my 5-part series, detailing my top 50 songs ever. To keep this from being a titanic read, I’ll keep the intros from here on incredibly brief. Subscribe to the Middle of Nowhere for updates on the next drop. Feel free to contribute to the paid subscription setup. Still working on the fine tuning of the big yearly option, stay tuned, I’ll have something within the next drop or so.
40. Ice Cube- It Was a Good Day
In the last part, I left off writing about what makes a beat great. In particular, I took aim at Kanye’s use of Aretha Franklin on Slum Village’s “Selfish.” I still feel like the flip is glaringly obvious when putting the two records side by side. To be clear, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s evident that I adore the record to make my list regardless. It’s also important to note that the simplicity of a flip does not inherently disqualify it from being great. The key in an impressive sample flip is in either tweaking the details or in introducing new context.
That’s what makes “It Was a Good Day” interesting to ponder. Obviously, it’s sampling The Isley Brothers’ “Footsteps in the Dark.” My biggest argument against lazy sampling is that it incentivizes me to listen to the original instead. Raps alone aren’t going to keep me away from the beat’s root origins. Ultimately, DJ Pooh doesn’t really change the overall groove. How could you? But he somehow bypasses the sleekness of the original and adds a hazy, disorienting tint to the record.
Overall, it adds to the overall dream motif of the record. Ice Cube interweaves the starkness of reality and how it bypasses tragedy in favor of tranquility instead. For a few moments out of the day, you don’t even consider how miraculous his day sounds. Rather than play up its contrasting elements by leaving its samples bare bones, it indulges the desire for a good day like Cube describes. All we want to do is stay in the dream “It Was a Good Day” conjures up.
39. T.I.- Doin My Job
I was a weird baby. My first memories are in the car, pleading for mom or pops to replay songs from the backseat. As much as I aggressively rock my head to G-Unit, it’s the softer, soulful cuts that make me chirp from the car seat. I would repeatedly chirp, “Play it again!” Think ‘Karma’ by Lloyd Banks or ‘Wanna Get To Know You’ by G-Unit. Perhaps I always had that romantic inclination.
It’s interesting that ‘Doin My Job’ fit into the dynamic. A lot of it comes from the soul Kanye West extrapolates out of the sample and imbues in the record. It feels like sweat on the forehead after a long day of work, chicken grease in the air, dark carpet with stains throughout the house. It’s a very homely record, a distinct warmth I could only ever feel in a Southern home.
T.I. adds a lot of moral complexity to the record that contrasts from the richness in Kanye’s production. In a vacuum, sure, it’s fucked up Tip is slanging drugs out here. But nobody is selling for fun. There’s no inherent benefits to this. Jobs aren’t hiring and if they are, they’re running a cheap operation. America incentivizes these survival tactics. The heartbreaker is knowing it’s all rigged from the jump. He pleads, “We can’t help it ‘cause it is like this, we don’t like it no more that we live like this.”
It’s all deeply cruel and ironic. The warmth of soul paired with the bitter acknowledgement of what T.I. has to do to truly provide for his family. That contrast makes “Doin My Job” and Trap Muzik such a rich listen 20 years later.
38. Brandy- Always On My Mind
Good R&B is all in the chords. The 90’s provides it in spades. “Always on My Mind” leans into its gorgeous chords with the purity of young love. I adore the earnest devotion, no matter how seemingly naive. It’s what we’re supposed to do. Life is too short to skimp out on the love we have for our partners.
The 90s is abundant in the sweetest harmonies you will ever hear. One thing we lose in modern R&B is the inherent professionalism behind it all. It’s too clean, too sterile, too smooth. There’s no layers. The voice alone isn’t gonna cut it. Brandy really thrives here, a divine singer who slices through the coos next to the chords and her backing vocals. If the back track is her feet swinging on the bed, her voice acts as a full swoon. Some of the sweetest R&B of the 90s.
37. Kool & The Gang- Summer Madness
“Summer Madness” is what played when I finally fell in love with Los Angeles. Some of my close friends and devout followers might think it’s because of Baby Boy. That’s not (totally) true.
I’m posted outside Buffalo Spot at golden hour, taking in the traffic jam on Normandie and Sepulveda. Earbuds plugged in, Kool & The Gang comes on. Every color intensifies outside, the breeze blows a little harder, and the soda I’m nursing hits just a little harder. For a moment, the sun doesn’t terrorize my mind, the synthesis and plasticity of the city subsides. The city comes alive as the synth stings awaken. I think about all my close friends, those that kept me pushing amidst all my woes. As much as the city takes, there’s beauty in it all the same. I replay the record for another 30 minutes, cruising down Western all the way home. A stunning record that silences the deafening noise around us.
36. Nas- The World is Yours
I remember being a kid and not really getting the Nas thing. For context, I’m a southern baby, my first musical memories at 3-4 years old. G-Unit and T.I. kid with R&B sensibilities. Pops isn’t a fan like that and momma rocked a healthy diet of Mary J Blige. By that point, Esco was running on Street’s Disciple. Respectfully, the kids wasn’t fuckin’ playing Street’s Disciple. Illmatic will never have this problem.
Illmatic was always what I imagine New York sounds like. A country boy like myself knows the inner city but the buildings in the Big Apple are something else entirely. They stand tall as monuments to human ingenuity, high enough to block the scorching sun at certain angles. Certain stereotypes are proudly embraced by New Yorkers, their Timbs, the Yankee fitted hats in bulk, the lingo. A faded contrast lays gently atop any piece of NY photography in my mind. The city that never sleeps is but a dream to me. “The World is Yours” comes the closest to actualizing the city’s totality.
It’s a lot more than the Ahmad Jamal sample and the DJ scratches Pete Rock weaves into the song’s fabric. As much as I give Nas strife over his mostly tepid catalog, he’s one of hip-hop’s greatest writers. It’s never the heady concepts that impress me about him either. I love the detail he brings to every mundane interaction, the sign of a truly engaging writer. It’s never just a taxi or a car, It’s “sikh’s cab or Montero Jeep.” Life isn’t just hard, you’re getting “caught by the devil’s lasso.” The blues don’t just plague Nas, he begs for dark clouds to find someone new so he can convince himself of a better tomorrow. The name of the game is in the fine print and Nas never skimps out on the details. It’s these things that capture the imagination all over Illmatic. But “The World is Yours” gives the most familiarity for the uninitiated.
35. Gil Scott-Heron- I Think I’ll Call It Morning
Summer of 2021 to the end of 2022, I’m fighting a war within myself. Frequently angry, depressed, grieving, in and out of mania. I’m outside but I’m halfhearted. I know it’s a temporary fix. I’m deeply unhappy and I don’t know what else to be.
Around this time, I also discover Gil Scott-Heron’s Pieces of a Man. As much as it is an analysis of the state of the world, it’s largely a rumination of how this world takes from us. Perseverance seems needlessly and increasingly difficult, designed to beat and submit you. They take your sense of self and you’re a slave to its brutal whims. I was there.
The most poignant record “I Think I’ll Call It Morning” sees Gil Scott-Heron fighting regardless of how fruitless it seems. He grabs a small piece of the sun, he takes a piece of the bird’s song, all the good that could be had, he treasures ’til the end. Why? There’s no sense in wallowing in the misery. He questions the blues and makes it seem outright trivial. “Why should I survive on sadness and tell myself I’ve got to be alone? Why should I subscribe to this world’s madness knowing that I’ve got to live on?”
They don’t tell you that you can fight back. It’s so easy to let the tide take us. I didn’t know and I didn’t see the point in fighting just to be back in the same position. Sure, It’s an inevitability, a promise to bring you back in the mud. But the good is worth fighting for. I was tired of being tired. Weary of being depressed, always feeling low. The greatest fight I can have is to fight for a piece of myself in a world destined to fall. Enjoy what’s here because there isn’t a guarantee to have it forever.
34. Beach Boys- God Only Knows
I fell in love at the top of the year. For the sake of preventing backtracking on a random song list, I’ll say that it’s the greatest love I’ve ever felt. Her effect on me actively makes me a better man, a more confident person. I love her with every part of me.
It also didn’t work. We still deeply love each other. But it just cannot be for now. Call it bad timing, call it a higher power’s intervention, whatever. The aftermath of this left me in shambles, mostly because it didn’t crash and burn the way relationships tend to die. Some stupid miscommunication, two people having a bad day, nope. If the cards were different, we’d still be together. But it didn’t.
I didn’t know what to do with our space from each other. I struggle to fill the time without them. To this day, I often spend time trying to fill a void without a bottom. Craving attention but a part of me reserves myself from most other people. I still often struggle to see what this all looks like without her. All I know is that I’m in love.
“God Only Knows” comes the closest to understanding the depths of love amidst uncertainty. No matter what the hell happens in this life, what’s certain is the feeling is forever preserved. I remember everything. No matter the past, the present, or the future, that part of me always has a place for them. Brian Wilson puts it so eloquently, “If you should ever leave me, though life would still go on, believe me, the world could show nothing to me. So what good would living do me?”
That’s the power of yearning right there. Even if it ends in a tragic twist of fate, there’s no telling what you’re gonna look like without them. All we know is that life unfortunately persists the same, our love in tact and all. Everything else? The Beach Boys keeps telling us. God only knows.
33. Mazzy Star- Fade Into You
This acts as an inverse of God Only Knows. Rather than find comfort in the prospect of love and whether or not it ends, Mazzy Star watches the sand slip through their fingers. As romantic as I might be, my cynicism bleeds through more than I care to admit. I adore this song for how it ruminates on the lost tangibility of unrequited love. The light you see in their eyes doesn’t leave. The rosiness just dissipates. Then you’re just left with the memory, the idea of them. At some point, that stops being enough. It’s strangely comforting despite the horror of it all. Even the ghost of love left behind still lies in spirit.
32. Playboi Carti- Yah Mean
In another reality, Playboi Carti makes Perfect™ songs forever. He racks up what makes his self-titled so addictive and Die Lit so exhilarating into hits we hear dozens of times on the radio.
Carti challenged many of my perceptions of what rap could sound like in 2017. Gone are the notions of hip-hop prestige, he doesn’t indulge as much in being ‘the best rapper in the game.’ Rather, ad-libs pierce sugary synths and hop scotches through hi-hats. Less rapping in the traditional and more new age mantras about money and pussy. He seems self aware in how he creates. There’s no room to be very literary in his style. Moreover, he’s not at the moment where tapping into Future, Gucci Mane, and Young Thug-isms makes sense in his music. Instead, he plays an entirely different set of rules.
“Yah Mean” reflects this best. Pi’erre Bourne does exceptional work here, chords rising forever and ever, past heaven and amidst the stars. It plays like a synthesized organ, inching closer to gospel than anything. Carti cuts through the sweet and refreshing with some distinct sourness. Sitting in God’s waiting room eating Sour Punch. Carti skids and chants all over the mix, necessary texture to prevent from being overly indulgent.
It’s a foreign form of rap evolution I could hardly wrap my mind around in 2017. It bridges closer to poptimism than the rap hits I devoured on 2000s BET. But what makes hip-hop such a riveting genre is its malleability. It can be dusty and sturdy, it can be bombastic and regional, but artists like Playboi Carti open up the bounds of understanding our environments. Rather than leaning on what’s familiar, we present new colors into our worldviews. Avoiding complicity is how we evolve hip-hop’s rich history.
31. The Flamingos- I Only Have Eyes For You
The way artists used to sing about love, it’s so unabashed. There’s no reservation, no fear. The only thing they know for sure is the love they feel. The Flamingos really nail the poetry in it all,“My love must be a kind of blind love… I can’t see anyone but you.”
To be in love is such a disorienting feeling. All of your conventions, the values you use to protect yourself, it fizzles out when love sweeps you off your feet. It doesn’t matter. In a cynical sort of way, I’m sure you can withhold yourself from the rapture of love. Call me a naive fool, I don’t think that’s how we’re meant to live this confusing life. Love is a leap of faith. As godless as I might be, I take that free fall every time. Scared money don’t make none, baby. I know the promise of a true love is one that I wish to never live without. I refuse to miss what could be real because I’m scared to be hurt. That is an inevitable fixture of life. Instead, I’ll indulge in the slow dance of love “I Only Have Eyes for You” depicts. An idealistic landscape where the eyes of a lover is paradise and the sways of your partner is the tide ushering you ashore. Keep me in love’s warm embrace.