Category Archives: radio

Mnstrm Song Reviews

Call this a new feature of KLYAM. It probably won’t be something written regularly, but it will show up every now and then. Basically, I’m going to do short reviews of songs that are currently dominating the airwaves of local hip-hop machine JAMN 94.5.


Ludacris Ft. Nicki Minaj – “My Chick Bad” – Grade: B+ – Luda lude drops some sweet lines that deal with shit along the lines of cartoons, hard liquor, and Tiger Woods’ wife. The chorus is weak, yo’. It’s rap chorus writing 101. Minaj, like her boy Luda lude, does no self-censoring of herself. Fuck that. She unleashes some explicitly great lines — most impressive being the first words out of her mouth: “Now all these bitches want to be my bestie, but I leave them hanging like a testy.” That’s just amazing.

Usher Ft. Will-I-Am – “OMG”Grade: C- – What the fuck is this shit? Seriously. A fake audience clapping alone to a shitty song? Repeats of “oh my God” and “oh my gosh”??? A completely average beat. The verses aren’t completely terrible thanks to some decent instruments. Even the hook to the bridge stands well on its own. Other than that, Will-I-Am and autotune kill this song. Kill in a bad way.

Rihanna – “Rude Boy” – Grade: B – This might be my favorite Rihanna song. There are some songs in her catalog that are absolutely terrible, some average, and that’s about it. This one doesn’t really feel like it has been done before. It sounds surprisingly original for a song of its nature. This does make for quite a club bangerrr. It took enough writers (six) to come up with this, but I’ll let that one slide for now.

Drake – “Over” – Grade: C – Simply stated this song is boring. Even the rapping isn’t anything spectacular. It seems like Drake is racing against a clock once he starts dropping lines.

Black Lips Radio

I’ve been listening to the Black Lips station on Pandora Radio for the past 30/40 minutes and what a play-list! Sometimes Pandora can be hit or miss, but today this station has been clutch:

1. Black Lips – “Buried Alive”
2. The Hives – “Hate to Say I Told You So”
3. Kings of Leon – “King of the Rodeo”
4. Deerhunter – “Heatherwood”
5. Black Lips – “Old Man”
6. Babyshambles – “Pipedown”
7. The Ponys – “Harakiri”
8. Deerhunter – “Never Stops
9. The Ramones – “53rd and 3rd”
10. Black Lips – “Stone Cold”
11. The Undertones – “Nine Times out of Ten”
12. Deerhunter – “Cover Me (Slowly)”

NPR Says Goodbye

“As most of you know by now, Jay Reatard has died at the age of 29.

It’s a sad day for music, because we lost a guy who made the kind of songs most of us, in our heart of hearts, really love. We love his music because, before we got all worldly and esoteric in our tastes, all we wanted was for our music to rumble and roar, to give us that teenage feeling forever.

Jay Reatard made great rock music; garage-y, fuzzed-out and pounding. Songs like “My Shadow” were staples on a lot of mixes that I made for friends. And I’m listening to “It Ain’t Gonna Save Me” as I type this.

In L.A. tonight, there is a jam for the late Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton. I hope the folks on that bill give a shoutout to Jay Reatard. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine that Reatard was a fan of Asheton. Both were players who had trust in the singular hypnotic engine that is rock ‘n’ roll.

Finally, I saw this video over at Brooklyn Vegan and wanted to share it here, as well. It’s nice to veer into Jay’s world for a bit. Jay Reatard, you will be missed.”- http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/2010/01/jay_reatard_rip.html

I thought that was “nice.” lol Clearly his music had a great effect on many including myself.

Chris