This year has thrown up some horrifying musical collaborations. Chris Parkin despairs at some of them, and then finds some hope…
This year has seen musicians getting into bed with each other at an alarming rate, displaying the sort of intense musical promiscuity we’ve not seen since the mind-blasted late-60s. The trouble with most of this communal music making is that it has been dire. Dinosaurs trying desperately to inject new impetus into things, proper talents who should know better making bad decisions…
We were reminded just how dire this week by Darren Aronofsky’s brand new video for The View, taken from the grotesque album by Lou Reed and Metallica, aka The Grumpy Farts. It’s as wincingly awful as it is smelly and wrinkled.
But however implausible that collaboration seems, how about this: Insane Clown Posse with Jack White. The once unassailable White Stripes guitarist has had a strange 2011. He ended the famous duo – presumably to pump out more rap-rock stodge with Dead Weather – and then teamed up with face-painted, orange pop-spraying rap wallies ICP, the duo who think ignorance is good, magnets are amazing and whose obsessive fans, the Juggalos, have been listed as a gang organization by the FBI. What was Jack White thinking?
Insane Clown Posse - Leck Mich Im Arsch by Third Man Records
In other jaw-dropping confabs, who didn’t feel sorry for Tricky when he took to the stage with Beyoncé at Glastonbury and looked like a mouse in the headlights? Why did Alex James spear so many happy memories by forming a union with Jeremy Clarkson? Must Thom Yorke continue his side project with Flea? Honestly, just because they’re you’re fellow famouses doesn’t mean it’ll work out. Think, people.
There were better examples of musical cooperation, of course. There had to be. Here’s a handful of 2011’s best, or at least fist-gnawingly rubbish, ones…
Pusha T & Tyler, The Creator – Trouble On My Mind (single)
With so few people interested in his vastly underrated Clipse duo with Malice, Pusha T struck out alone this year, picking a series of guests to join him in a surreal, shadowy world sound-tracked by minimal but dizzying bangers – the perfect setting for young, NSFW hoodlum Tyler, The Creator to do his thing to.
Ford & Lopatin – Channel Pressure (album)
Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin (get an idea what he’s about here) and collaborator Joel Ford are men with a hard-on for synths and 80s pop. Here they take all this passion for aerated synth-pop and wreath it wonderfully with ambience and touches of austere, spooky techno.
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Thuggin’ (EP)
Freddie Gibbs is the rising rapper with a tuff gangster style whose recent Cold Day in Hell mix-tape broke all sorts of download records. Madlib is a weirder, more conscious-seeming rapper/producer who’s worked with J Dilla, MF Doom and Ghostface Killah. Together they make a fine team.
Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Thuggin' by Rappcats
Joe Goddard & Valentina – Gabriel (single)
In a parallel universe, where everything is as it should be and Flo Rida is an office worker rather than massive pop star, this would have been at Number One for longer than Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Joe Goddard is a member of Hot Chip and sidekick Valentina is a soul singer on the rise. Together they made sweet, sweet house music with a bucketful of charm.
Nick Cave & The Flaming Lips
We haven’t actually heard anything from this pairing yet but just the idea of it is enough to make us forget about Loutallica. Apparently Wayne Coyne and co are working on an album with the Bad Seeds man, and given both Coyne and Cave’s obsession with death, mortality and sex, it should be a right old (strange) hoot. The Flaming Lips initiated other fine collaborations in 2011 with Neon Indian, Prefuse 73 and Lightning Bolt.
Been sickened or delighted by any musical tag-teams this year? Let us know about them….
Want more?
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