[click to download]

super sweet sixteen of this wait what wednesday series, and this one’s brought to you by waka flocka flame, wale, and roscoe dash espousing their experiences through life when not having hands as bag raiders plays a cheery tune in the background to create a backyard barbeque track, shooting stars without hands.

I liked the combination of these because they were both summer anthems for different situations — they both got people moving when they came on, whether at a club or a daytime gathering. also, lyrically both songs left some up for interpretation, but still managed to be super catchy. if you haven’t heard wale’s album, though it doesn’t actually have no hands, I highly recommend it.

helped out planning a cool conference at stanford last week, headed down to LA for the weekend, and got to have lunch with the founders of YouTube yesterday through a stanford class. also in good news: jeremy lin is still repping for palo alto, and pitchers and catchers reported at giants spring training. another great week in the books — have an excellent upcoming week, see you all back here next week.

“ten, ten, ten, twenties and them fifties chick,”
charlie

[click to download]

fifteen, like the minutes of fame you get, as wait what wednesday gets to celebrate its Quinceañera. here we have trina and weezy f baby giving their brand of dating advice as mackintosh braun croons about the later stages of a relationship, and they combine to bring you don’t trip for us on the day following valentine’s day.

trina and lil wayne have an interesting history, making songs together, dating, and then making songs together about the single life shortly after breaking up. hip-hop, at the root of it, is people sharing their stories, and this one’s been an interesting one to follow. mackintosh braun is the kind of duo that could blow up pretty soon, and I’m surprised this song hasn’t yet — the original is called made for us, and is worth checking out.

this last week, I flew to DC and back, drove the three hours to lexington virginia, and had a great weekend visiting my sister in college. helped plan a conference at stanford, wrote one a paper on maybe my favorite topic, the san francisco giants, and met the CEO of the team along with one of the founders of Twitter. to top it off, had an excellent valentine’s day date in sf last night. until next time, my friends.

“baked a lot of bread but kept it off the books,”
charlie

fourteen deep, like the number of players on a rugby sevens field or days in a fortnight, of the wait what wednesday series. ludacris and nate dogg heard some röyksopp beats at a rooftop party and started espousing their thoughts on women in a variety of geographies to create happy up in these area codes.

hearing this ludacris & nate dogg track takes me back to summer of 2001, after freshman year of high school, and walking to get jamba juice. the video was on mtv a bunch that summer, back when TRL was something that existed. heard this röyksopp track by chance, recently — one of the virtues of having friends big into electronic music.

this week, I had an anniversary dinner, spun at stanford’s white party, watched a super bowl that the 49ers could have won, and posted a radio special. flying out tomorrow morning for virginia; see you all back here next week.

“my chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the dashboard,”
charlie

here’s my hourlong radio special — the rare instance in which my voice appears on a recording, and where I talk about pairs of my favorites of 2011 in a couple categories: new artists, songs to hear when I’m out, mashups, hip hop tracks about love lost, hip hop songs that elicit strong emotional responses, songs that sample the beatles, and a few of my own tracks sprinkled in there. special thanks to my friend anneke for making it happen.

download it, put it on your iPod, take it on a walk/subway/bus ride. let me know what you thought (@wtwht) or spread the word — thanks for checking it out, team.

thirteen, and like that, the wait what wednesday ritual has grown up to become a teenager right before our eyes. j. cole wandered through a cmj show to find mates of state ready to provide him with a backing track to deliver can’t get enough now.

j. cole’s album has gotten some good attention, and rightfully so — he’s got great flow and some really witty metaphors and wordplay. I kind of missed out on mates of state, but was at Sundance this past weekend and this song played at the end of one of the movies and was in my head the rest of the day. the refrain in the hook is a good soundtrack for the urgency in life.

this week, I saw six movies at Sundance, pitched the startup, cooked a meal for 14, and, again, didn’t sleep much. in random notes, I’m on the side that believes blake griffin’s dunk isn’t being overplayed (because it was awesome), and I respect this kid for having the courage to cry when his team falls short. time to catch up on the rest of life; see you guys here next week.

“cause all that hype don’t feel the same next year, boy,”
charlie

twelve here, like the number of people on a jury or the current year (or a number with some significance to the mayans) of the wait what wednesday practice. cam and juelz left the club in the middle of an urban dystopia to reconvene with the weeknd at an after hours gathering with the weeknd surrounded by illicit substances to create hey glass table girls.

people forget about cam and juelz, but if you lived in new york and listened to hip hop in the early 2000s, dipset was everywhere. if you guys saw my top albums of 2011, you already know how highly I hold the weeknd — if you haven’t heard house of balloons yet, stop reading this, download it, and play that front to back right now.

the match came about awhile ago, with both songs sharing a sense of hedonism and the feeling of freedom offered by giving oneself to the pursuit of pleasure in the moment. the cover art comes from a fashion show I played in toronto last year where the designer created this surreal environment of dark lighting, candles, and vacant faces.

this last week featured me not sleeping enough, cooking more food for big groups, djing a house party, recording a radio special, and watching the 49ers collapse at several inopportune moments. all in all, things turned out okay — see you guys back here next week.

“got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist,”
charlie

if you’d like to listen to a select track from each album (in countdown order), hit this player and let it run — otherwise, individual tracks are listed below each:

10. mac miller – blue slide park

[spotify]

for people paying attention to hip-hop this year, at some point, you probably heard mac miller’s name dropped, and didn’t stop hearing about it. I first heard him summer 2010, featured on a mixtape, and after hearing KIDS and seeing some videos, had a good feeling about him.

after getting on XXL’s freshman list, doing tracks with Talib Kweli, Freeway, and UGK, and getting a million twitter followers and the number one album in the country, it’s awesome to see how a 19-year-old kid from Pittsburgh made himself into one of the top up-and-coming hip hop artists. while I prefer KIDS and Best Day Ever to his album, Blue Slide Park, the album is a great intro to him. if you don’t know him, I recommend you start YouTubing his stuff right now — his videos will make you want to run around Pittsburgh with him and his friends. 

recommended track: missed calls

9. jay-z & kanye – watch the throne

[spotify]

one of the most hyped albums in recent memory, Watch the Throne couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. People’s take on the album comes down largely to what they expected — if you thought it’d be the sum of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Blueprint III, you were bound to be disappointed. But if you looked at it with intrigue about what would happen if you locked two of the world’s biggest hip hop artists in a room (or hotel suites in LA and southern France), it’s a good album.

personally, I wish every track featured Frank Ocean, as his appearances on No Church in the Wild and Made in America were two of the highest points on the album. I still don’t know what the deal is with the weird interlude at the end of No Church and Welcome to the Jungle, and I learned about a lot of designers and artists that I had no idea existed (and I get to ask all my friends that get new clothes, “what’s that jacket, margiela?!”). Watch the Throne wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t a dud either — the fact that people are still talking about it and so polarized on it is a pretty good sign that it was one of the year’s most significant releases.

recommended track: no church in the wild 

8. hoodie allen – leap year

[soundcloud]

I’m a fan of Hoodie — he’s managed to stay independent, book a nationwide headlining tour, and it looks like he’s having an awesome time doing it. also, he’s genuinely a cool guy — we overlapped at Google together briefly and played a show together in San Francisco for 826 Valencia, and he’s one of the hardest working people in music that I’ve met, and an all around real dude. I dug his last mixtape, Pep Rally, and this mixtape is a huge step up: tight lyrics, well chosen samples, and you leave the record feeling like you have a good idea of who he is and how the last year has changed his life. Check out the record, and check out a show — he puts on an awesome one every time.

recommended track: song for an actress

7. das racist – relax

[spotify]

these guys are probably the weirdest hip hop artists I’ve ever heard, and they describe themselves as “a white guilt art project/science experiment/ponzi scheme. Our goal is to make a million American dollars.” they had two awesome mixtapes before this album, and I listened to this record every day for the month after it came out.their backgrounds are Wesleyan, by way of Queens and Oakland, and they reference everything from race relations to carmen sandiego to the ernest movies. if it sounds weird, that’s because it is — but in a really awesome way.

recommended track: rainbow in the dark

6. foster the people – torches

[spotify]

my people at stanford were all over this band from really early on, and next thing you know they played coachella with just an EP out, sold a couple hundred thousand records, and were playing on SNL. this record is a lot more than just pumped up kicks, and is one of my favorites of the year — feel-good music to drive or party to, and every hook on this album can get stuck in your head all day after one listen.

recommended track: helena beat

5. drake – take care

[spotify]

admittedly, I was initially down on this album. loved the first single, headlines — four of my favorite opening bars of any track this year — but then I got the album, and he starts off with a solid of 8 minutes of mellowed out r&b. not my cup of tea, but then from track 3 on, this album’s solid, and I even came around to those two tracks. drake’s storytelling ability has definitely stepped up since ‘thank me later,’ and his ability to capture mixed feelings towards fame and relationships kept me listening to this album since its release.

recommended track: underground kings

4. bon iver – bon iver

[spotify]

after moving to the woods of wisconsin, living alone, and penning one of the most introverted, beautiful albums in recent memory with ‘for emma, forever ago,’ the least likely thing for justin vernon to do would probably be becoming a close collaborator with Kanye and smoking buddies with Rick Ross. but, that’s exactly what happened, and somehow through it all, he recorded a spectacular, self-titled follow up at the same wisconsin studio in the woods. it feels like a true album, and it’s hard to take a single track off of it and put it on a mixtape without feeling like losing the context is taking away a big part of the song, and so I recommend a full listen while laying on your bedroom floor to best enjoy this album.

recommended track: perth

3. say hi – um, uh oh

[spotify]

say hi never fails to disappoint, and this album was no exception. I imagine eric elbogen recording these songs in his bedroom with a guitar, keyboard, and LPs and scribbled notes stacked high on a desk and littering the floor. I have no idea if that’s how he actually does it, but it’s a nice image to conjure when listening to his stuff.

from the opening track, where he discusses the first tour they went one, playing their first record from start to finish, and a woman in his band asking ‘is this all it’s going to be?’ and him not knowing, you feel a sense of empathy for him then and pride for him now, as he’s on his seventh album and continuing to tour. really great lo-fi pop songs that are the perfect soundtrack for a california drive.

recommended track: the trees are a swayin’

2. the weeknd – house of balloons

[soundcloud]

the weeknd literally came out of nowhere. near the beginning of the year, a couple songs showed up online with little attribution and no bio, name, or story behind them. as blogs started posting them and the mystery gained more attention, hype began building and the 9-track house of balloons, and before long it got linked to the 21-year-old toronto-native.

it’s hard to describe the album’s style, but it’s clearly dripping with introspection, sex, and drugs. the feel of the album is so intimate that you almost feel voyeuristic listening to it, as if you intercepted an album intended as a private communication with someone else. great late night music, the album is one that I’ll still be listening to in five years.

recommended track: wicked games

1. childish gambino – camp

[spotify]

ever since I first heard donald glover’s EP, I’ve been raving about childish gambino to anyone that will listen. great punchlines, inventive beats, and creative lyrical themes made camp my favorite release of 2011. he takes the listener on a journey that covers what it was like growing up, feeling like an outsider, and self-discovery in spite of what people expect from him. he’s able to project confidence while still engendering empathy as he describes life growing up and defining himself in a world where he was never really accepted by either side, and even still, outlining his flaws and personal failings on record.

he strikes a balance between serious topics and being funny, and from front to back, this record is awesome. have been listening to it non-stop since its release, and I recommend you do the same — it’s my top album of 2011. 

recommended track: sunrise

honorable mentions:

adele – 21

m83 – hurry up, we’re dreaming

blink-182 – neighborhoods

astronautalis – this is our science

lil wayne – tha carter IV

frank ocean – nostalgia:ultra

asap rocky – live.love.asap

tyler, the creator – goblin

j cole – cole world

oh land – oh land

capital cities – ep

kendrick lamar – section.80

pusha t – fear of god II

“everyone hated on me; I’m more hip hop than you’ll ever be,”

charlie

eleven, like my best friend’s favorite number or the number of players on a soccer field, of this wait what wednesday tradition. here we have wiz khalifa hopping on stage at a local theatre in the midst of two door cinema club’s opening track to create black cigarettes in the yellow theatre.

wiz has gotten a lot of prominent placement in mashups, but two door cinema club, surprisingly less so. I really dig both their albums, and the energy match and back and forth of “tell me about your favorite things…black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow” pushed me to make this track. listen to this one in headphones or your car to hear some nice left and right panning.

the cover art is a photo a friend took at a hotel in long beach over the summer — he took a series of awesome shots, and this one of the fallen lamp, rose on the ground, and girl on the move was a cool piece that felt like it fit with this track.

good week: got sponsored by a cool clothing company and rocking new gear. 49ers are playing for the super bowl on sunday; it’s like I’m in middle school again. have a great week, everyone, and see you next week — same spot, same time.


“you don’t got the pasta, you don’t get the pesto,”
charlie

finally hitting double digits here at number 10 — look how fast this little wait what wednesday ritual has grown up. gorillaz started playing a ditty on a casio keyboard when little dragon walked in, shared some melodic heartfelt sentiments, and next thing you know, jay-z was up in the spot dropping that american gangster knowledge to details their dreams of an american ant empire.

I’m a big fan of jay-z’s american gangster album — I think it ranks up there with his best albums (should probably have it higher than it is there, but he’s got a pretty spectacular catalogue), and little dragon has been on the playlist for a bit. no ritual union here, but instead someone I follow on twitter linked to this gorillaz/little dragon song awhile back, and so decided to try it out.

the cover art is of a run to the pier I go to in san francisco with alcatraz in the background. if there were any people on alcatraz (like nic cage or sean connery), they’d probably look like ants in the distance.

returned to stanford this week, am in the midst of figuring out classes, and cooked a meal for a bunch of people. did yoga in a massive cathedral, spent a bunch of time with my parents, and worked on some music and meditation practices, and received a couple intriguing music offers. feeling good about 2012.

“hundred dollars a sock, two ankles — you do the math,”
charlie

here’s nine, like the number of stories salinger combined or the number of the district where they made all the aliens live in that movie a few years ago, in the wait what wednesday saga. phantogram started playing mood music about diamonds and kanye heard it in the distance, ran up, and started rapping to craft mouthful of diamonds in sierra leone.

people often ask how I decide to put two songs together, and it’s usually because two songs share some feeling or one brings out a more subtle element in the other. in this case, the thematic match is pretty obvious, but had been wanting to mash up something with phantogram, and liked how kanye’s voice sounded after the drop.

this week featured a good new year’s eve in sf followed by a 13 hour roadtrip to arizona with three friends and a crushing fiesta bowl (american college football for those unfamiliar). the photo in the art comes from masai mara, in kenya, last year — not exactly sierra leone, but it’s the closest I’ve gotten. I also didn’t have any good shots of all the diamonds I rock on the reg, so went for the african plains shot instead.

shouts to all my lost boys (we rowdy),
charlie