MSTRKRFT’s Fist of God Album Leaked
Article by
Cal
Feb 17, 2009
Genre: Electronic
Category: Album Review, Music Commentary
Artists: MSTRKRFT
So in case you have been living under a rock for the last week, MSTRKRFT’s upcoming album Fist of God was leaked more than a month before its scheduled release.
- Yes, I’ve listened to it
- Yes, it’s awesome
- No, we wont be posting any tracks from it, at least for a little while
I honestly feel really bad for Jesse – we’ve had previous talks with him, and though he told us then that having his music on the internet doesn’t bother him, I can tell that this really disappointed him. It’s my understanding that he gave out his album to a pretty tight inner circle, and it seems that someone has broken his trust. To MSTRKRFT and Dim Mak: we’re thinking of you, and we hope this doesn’t get you guys too down. You guys are our heroes.
As for the track Monarch posted a few days ago, that was a mistake, and I’m sorry. He tells me that the quality of the track lead him to believe that it was a pre-release; the leaks him and I find are always 320, and this was a 128. Dim Mak is by far the best label in genre, and we will always support everything they do.
This incident has got me thinking long and hard about the “new model” of music popularization, and sadly, I’ve come to few practical conclusions. It seems to me that if bloggers worked together to support artists that things like this might not happen. Sadly, the lack of centralization in the blogosphere makes leaks like this inevitable, and from an economic standpoint there is no way that is apparent to me to incentivize ethical practices. Certainly, it is the indiscriminate aggregator (hypemachine, elbows) that, at once, allows for freedom of entry for the indie artist in to the music scene, and meanwhile creates the Hobbesian state of nature within mp3 blog culture, inspiring bloggers to post anything and everything they think will get them traffic.
Yes, it is awesome. Click Click? Fucking sick. He’ll be fine I’m sure — the album is good enough on its own to survive any leak bullshit.
The album sucks. Dim Mak the greatest label? Give me a break. It seems like this leak is detrimental to MSTRKRFT only because the listeners got to it before the blogs did. The result? Mixed at best. Go to the MSTRKRFT forums and see what I mean. Diehard fans are disappointed at the “new direction” that Jesse and Al-P took. The rappers stumble and fall all over the tracks, which themselves are weak and derivative. Vuvuvuvu is clearly the best track, which has been out for a while now. It seems like everyone’s trying to cling to “Click Click” as the killer track, but there’s really nothing new there. Really, it’s all the same as their last album, only this time less forgivable (“The Looks,” after all, came out before Justice’s attack on electro). MSTRKRFT still have no idea how to structure a song and have an even weaker taste in vocals (“Breakaway” is awful vocal-wise).
Normally, I’d be more forgiving, but for the past few months, JFK has been tooting his own horn about his music and how he “knew” that electro would be get big, and how he knows that hip-hop/electro is gonna take off and he’s happy to ride the no-shit-Sherlock wave for a second time. Maybe this whole fiasco will be a chance for him to dislodge his head from his rectum so he can start making some decent music again.
You’re the only one who needs to pull his head out of his ass, John. Do they really not know how to structure a song, or is their problem that they stopped making decent music (contradictory); it takes a person with real musical genious like Jesse’s to make tracks like these. Does the banger really offer nothing new, or is the album too far in a “new direction” (also contradictory). ; Click Click is great (and yes, derivative), but I think it’s pretty clear that 1000 cigarettes is the most club playable. You’re just wrong if you think Breakaway’s vocals are awful – Jamal has a sick voice; I suppose you think you’re an expert because you sing D.A.N.C.E. in the shower while jerking off to your own voice. My advice – stop being such a shitburger, and instead of dickriding every stupid 13 year old’s fanboy MSTRKRFT forum post, give the album a couple listens, think about how YOU really feel, and then come back to us and offer your informed opinion.
Hop off your high horse…
You’re a total hypocrite, it’s sort of embarrassing to listen to you whine. You listened to it and loved it. You benefited directly from the album being leaked and honestly it doesn’t make one bit of difference whether you listened to a month ago or a month from now because you weren’t going to pay for it anyway.
Seriously, this pious bullshit has to go.
So sorry to cause you embarrassment Titanium – I recognize that not everyone who uses the internet wants to be blindsided by a reasoned, intellectual analysis of an important subject like music piracy. While I support every idiots right to think that my analysis is incorrect (or as you termed it, bullshit) I would like to point out that describing this as pious is an obvious mischaracterization of the point I was trying to make about incentivization and decentralization – at no point was I proscriptive; in actual fact, I specifically mentioned that I have come to “few practical conclusions” (this means I can’t think of a way to fix the system). Crucially, we weren’t talking about the effects of the album leak on me. The album leaking early absolutely DOES matter, and it matters to the people who my article was directed at – the employees at Dim Mak who make a living from album sales. The only bullshit that needs to go is your knee-jerk attitude – just because I’m a music blogger doesn’t mean I’m the Captain Jack Sparrow of the internet. If you want real piety, we’d have to talk about my as yet unexpressed opinion that I can make a difference (in aggregate, with other bloggers) in how people value music.
Got to break away from our every day and forget our problems. Want to get away and find a place where we feel good. Got to break away from our every day and forget our problems. Want to get away and find a place where we feel good. YEAH. GOT TO ESCAPE. WE NEED A BREAK. SURF THIS REALITY. IT’S A FANTASY.
LOL.
Also, the “new direction” I was talking about was referring to JFK’s take on the album: It’s made to gain mainstream appeal and isn’t meant for people who are already into electro. So yeah, their approach is different. That doesn’t mean their music is also different. No contradiction there. Furthermore, MSTRKRFT has never known how to structure a song, but they at least had the benefit of decent hooks (ex. “Work On You”). So again, no contradiction.
And, for the record, the only track that even qualifies for banger status is “Vuvuvu,” and, again, it’s been out for a while. There’s just no variety within the tracks themselves so it just sounds repetitive and boring. Take “1000 Cigarettes,” for example. There’s no drop, no build up, no breakdown. No sonic variety. Just the same shit over and over. There’s a 20 second block where there’s no kick drum, but every other instrument is still blaring away. Boring.
yeah, i downloaded it.
and yeah, i’ll be buying it when it’s actually available.
i don’t see why people get so butthurt(more directed at john than you) about this shit.
it’s music, guy.
if you like it, take it
if you don’t like it, don’t take it, and stop trying to force everyone else to hop aboard your hate train.
John, the only thing you’ve even close to being right about is that the album is meant to catch people who weren’t already in to the GENRE of electro.. you can actually quote JFK (I forget where from) saying he wanted to trick people in to liking an electro track.
I don’t disagree that Vuvuvu is a fine track, but this album is a leaked version of JFK’s FIRST STUDIO MASTER of the album – this isn’t even the final release version, and none of these are ‘DJ friendly’ in the way you’d have them, aside from Vuvuvu which as you say is much older than the album (FYI, Bounce is too, and is equally droppable as Vuvuvu).
I think both of you guys are right and wrong…so an arguement here is pointless. If its going to be something that stands the test of time instead of just getting a quick buck, its got to appeal to the mainstream and appeal to the underground. Jay-z, kanye west, and all of those fine mainstream rappers know this (whether it was themselves who realized it or some pr-agent). That’s why i think this album overall is a failure but a somewhat decent attempt. Its more of something to learn from then anything. Its got to be genre defying and genre creating at the same time and be marketable at the same time (animal collective, mgmt, etc etc). Good examples of this in electronica are daft punk and the prodigy. They both have so much cross-over appeal. The reason I think this album fails overall is that what it is trying to bring to the surface (vocal based electronica) fails. The vocals are half assed–and some of them come from half-assed fallout rappers (e40? n.o.r.e.?). The only track that acheives this is hearbreaker. It’s about pleasing everyone (or at least a good majority). You may ask, is this really possible? I think so.
Therefore both of you guys need to get your heads out of your asses. You’re taking this too seriously. I expect the next cd from them to be gold.