What Andy Listened To – Issue #2

It’s been a heavy hip hop week for me this week with a large portion of alternative/party rock, featuring a long overdue listen of a band that continues to make waves.

Ghetto Pop Life

Danger Mouse and Jemini The Gifted One – 2003 | hip hop, rap

This album consumed a lot of my late-teen/early adulthood life and this week, I managed to land an original 2003 vinyl copy. Danger Mouse is beyond talented and is responsible for some of my favourite albums of all time: namely “The Mouse And The Mask” and “The Grey album”. This album firmly sits up there with those two classics.

What I love the most about this album is Jemini’s flow and lyrics. It’s a masterpiece which is perfectly decorated with Danger Mouse’s stunning production work. My track pick is “The Only One”—it’s super funky.

Fear Of A Black Tangent

Busdriver – 2005 | hip hop, rap

If you like Blackalicious, you will love Busdriver. He sits so far behind the beat (a bit like Jay-Z) that a lot of the time, he feels out of time, but I love that. The beats on this album are supremely good too.

My track pick is “Unemployed Black Astronaut”. It’s actually one of my favourite hip hop tracks of all time.  

Technology

Don Broco – 2018 | alternative rock, party rock

For the longest time, I’ve been aware of the hype surrounding Don Broco—people fuckin’ love them—but I’ve never actually listened to them. I saw some footage of them absolutely owning it at Leeds/Reading and decided to finally get into them and holy shit, I’ve been missing out.

Like, this stuff isn’t super special by any stretch, but it’s just really enjoyable to listen too. Music doesn’t have to be critically acclaimed to be good: as long as you enjoy it and this album is exactly that for me. The guitar tone on this album is bloody outrageous too.

Other albums worth a mention

I also managed to land a copy of The Vertigo Of Bliss by Biffy Clyro on vinyl which is a must-listen because that album and Infinity Land are in my opinion, were when Biffy were at their best. You should give Curious Electric (extended EP) by Proceed a go too. That’s some lovely, melodic rock stuff right there.