In this vein, SXSW offers a great opportunity even for those filmmakers who aren’t attending the conference. Bands playing at the festival typically release a free MP3 in advance of the show for promotional purposes; every year for the past five years, these MP3s have been collected and released as an unofficial torrent. This is a great opportunity to listen to a lot of music, from bands signed and unsigned. Of course, there’s no guarantee that an unsigned band will agree to let you use their music in your film, but the chances are certainly better in the situation where you can ask them directly, rather than deal with a label.

It’s my understanding that, because all of these songs have been publicly released gratis, this torrent is legal. I may be wrong, but either way no one’s going to get mad at your for downloading this compilation of over 1,000 free and current MP3s. If you need a bittorrent client, for the PC try uTorrent and for the Mac try Transmission.

Start that iTunes playlist in preparation for your next project, or just enjoy the tunes!

Link: SXSW Torrents

I went back to check because I was curious as to how many Seen posts I’d made over the past year; the sad answer is a trifling three.

So here is the Danish documentary Good Copy Bad Copy, which was released gratis last year on the internet. Fitting, considering its subject: copyright, specifically laws pertaining to attribution and payment, both in music and film. The doc, directed by Andreas Johnsen, Ralf Chistensen, and Henrik Moltke, moves briskly from music sampling techniques in American hip-hop, to baile funk remixes in Brazil, to movie pirating in Nigeria, to file sharing in Sweden (and plenty more). It features interviews with Girl Talk and Danger Mouse, music by RJD2 and Santogold, and is globetrotting, informative, and entertaining. It’s also an hour long, so I’d recommend clicking the full screen button and kicking back.

I still haven’t written up the story of how I finally got a job and moved to New York, which is kind of the point of this site. Regardless, the project that I’m doing graphic design for, MTV’s digital music service URGE, launches today. URGE is a combination a la carte music store, ala iTunes, and subscription service, ala Napster–but it’s much more editorially-driven. There are a lot of passionate music fans at MTV programming the various channels, feeds, blogs, and playlists in URGE–all of which are ways of helping users explore its very, very deep catalog. iTunes operates under the assumption that you pretty much know what you want when you head to its store; URGE is designed to be a place you can go to discover new music. And I’m not just talking about the teenyboppers screaming outside my office window; whatever your niche may be, it’s likely well-represented in the service (one of the first things I did at MTV was to make a Klezmer playlist image, if that gives you any idea). And while my taste in music was pretty indie by North Carolina standards, I’ve got nothing on the folks I sit next to.

Don’t just take my word for it; initial reviews of the service have been very favorable. Head on over to URGE.com, or download Windows Media Player 11 (also released today) and click on the URGE button. You’ll see my dirty work scattered about.

UPDATE: For everyone who’s complained to me about URGE costing money, I’d like to point out the big “14-Day Free Trial” button on the site (no credit card required). If your trial period runs out and you decide not to subscribe, head on over to Pandora or Last.fm. I actually wrote a review of both services once upon a time (I liked Pandora more), but I forgot to post it–essentially they’re both music recommendation engines similar to URGE’s Auto-Mix feature, without the portability. It’s the new millennium–there are no excuses for not having your musical tastes extend deep into the Long Tail.

Chihuahuas to accessorize
Classic films to bastardize
Moviegoers to galvanize
MP3 libraries to organize
0% APR to advertise
Curling to televise
Muslims to proselytize
Royal Sauds to fraternize
Closeted gays to catholicize
501(c)(3)s to monetize
Selves to aggrandize
Rubber to vulcanize
Penises to desensiti–

I know I’m not the only one that’s filling the void
Creatively hip-hop is being destroyed
A lot of rappers really need to be unemployed
Because the topics that they talk about has got me annoyed
You see I heard it all before, there’s no need to repeat it
The forms I vacated, might as well delete it
Quit your programming and open a new file
You shoulda took your record advance and bought a style
We the only crew that came original
While a lot of other brothers just mimic the power
The power that’s only designed for pop charts
That contradicts thought, thus the reason we brought
It back cause honestly it lacks
Talent and creativity, in fact
These are symptoms to somethin that’s wack
And your system senseless to witness that

Black Eyed Peas – “My Humps” (2005, Monkey Business)

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk
All that junk inside your trunk
I’m gonna get-get-get-get you drunk
Get you love drunk off my hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My hump
My lovely lady lumps
Check it out
I drive these brothers crazy
I do it on the daily
They treat me really nicely
They buy me all these ices
Dolce & Gabbana
Fendi and a Donna
Karan they be sharin
All their money got me wearin
Fly gear that I ain’t asking
They say they love my ass in
Seven Jeans, True Religion

In 2001, two years after Beck’s song came out, the R&B group 112 released their own single, also titled “Peaches and Cream.” The songs shared more than just the same title: Beck’s mocking song was sung from the perspective of a guy bragging about his affinity for a certain activity, while 112′s song boasted about the same thing–minus the mocking part. Here are some lyrics from 112′s version:

Won’t stop girl you know I can’t get enough
Wanna taste it in the morning when I’m waking up
Like peach cobbler in my stomach when I eat it up
Got your legs around my neck so I can’t get up

Oh girl I need it
I gotta have it
It’s always on my mind
Know what I mean?
Peaches and cream
I like it in my car
Or even in my bed
Or baby on the stairs
Know what I mean?
Peaches and cream

Apparently people didn’t know what they meant, to answer their question–and neither did the radio censors. In this way, “peaches and cream” was 2001′s “skeet”–a slang term that artists undoubtedly relished getting past older, probably whiter, censors.

Not that I want to make this site into a repository of dirty lyrics–I just find it interesting that all these songs are played heavily on the radio, including ClearChannel Top 40 stations, which white 13 year-olds listen to the most. But regardless of age, there are a lot of people who hear these songs in a bar, on the radio, or in a club, and “like” the song without having any idea what they’re really about. Not to exclude myself from this–I had to ask a friend what, exactly, Clipse were talking about on their 2002 single “Grindin”:

Clipse: Grinding, and you know what I keep in the lining…
Me: What, exactly, do they keep in the lining? A flask?
Friend: No, a gat. That means gun. You actually thought it was a flask?

I actually did. Anyway–getting back to my original point, which was this: the tone of Beck’s version really nailed the boasting tone of 112′s track of the same name–and Beck’s parody came out first. When I heard 112′s song on the radio, I felt that the genius of Beck was confirmed.

And then, here in 2005, I’m disappointed by Beck’s new album, and find out he’s become a scientologist, which kind of ends his career in my eyes. I hope not.

After a ridiculously long lead-in, we now proceed to another piece of satire that nailed something before it actually happened: The Onion’s article Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades, which was published a year and a half ago, back in The Onion’s heyday. These days The Onion is still funny, but a lot of its writers left a couple of years ago and it hasn’t been nearly as consistent since (many of them reportedly went to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which is not-coincidentally consistently genius now). Here’s an excerpt from the Onion article, narrated by fake Gillette CEO James M. Kilts:

[Then Schick] came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Mach3Turbo. That’s three blades and an aloe strip. For moisture. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I’m telling you what happened–the bastards went to four blades. Now we’re standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling three blades and a strip. Moisture or no, suddenly we’re the chumps. Well, fuck it. We’re going to five blades.

The whole piece is so pinpoint-accurate that I had a hard time picking out a single block quote–in fact, I may venture so far as to call the article genius. “Genius” is a word I normally don’t like to throw around a lot, but I already used it once in this post to refer to a singer who got his career started by singing “Soy un perdedor,” so my genius-proclaiming credibility is shot anyway.

Well here, now, a year and a half after the Onion article was published, Gillette is indeed releasing a five-blade razor (seen above). The New York Times article that covered the product launch is eerily reminiscent of a certain Onion article, in terms of the language used and the boasts made by the real, actual head honchos at Gillette:

[Peter K. Hoffman, president of Gillette's blades and razors unit] promised that come early 2006, when the Fusion products hit stores, Gillette will mount a “blockbuster marketing program, absolutely huge, the biggest launch of a Gillette shaving system in history.” And, yes, that is true even if adjusted for inflation, [James M. Kilts, Gillette's CEO] chimed in.

Note that it’s not called a razor, it’s called a “shaving system.” And it’s the most expensive launch ever, even adjusted for inflation? Wow. That’s big. That’s manly. That has balls. Which you can shave. Or not–after all, it’s not “Gillette: the best a metrosexual can get.”

Until I just pulled his name from the NY Times article, I didn’t realize that The Onion had used Gillette CEO James M. Kilts’ real name atop their own piece–which is completely legal under parody law, since he’s a public figure–which makes their article seem even that much more prescient.

I think that covers it–how Gillette, Beck, 112, Clipse, peaches and cream, and The Onion (kinda cheated by saying “onions” in the title) connect. That is, not at all, except for the fact that I wrote about all of them here, in a meandering, unfocused, and largely pointless post.

Here, then, a final quote from Mr. Kilts. At this point, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a real quote or not; if it’s fake, it might as well be real, and if it’s real, it might as well be parody:

“Put another aloe strip on that fucker, too. That’s right. Five blades, two strips, and make the second one lather. You heard me–the second strip lathers.”

David Banner‘s new album Certified was released today. It contains the single “Play,” which would qualify as a Dechievement, except for the fact that it is essentially the same song as The Ying Yang Twins’ “Wait (the Whisper Song),” which I included in my original definition of the Dechievement.

Certainly the uncensored lyrics (caution, they’re quite dirty) would qualify “Play” as a “dechievement.” The fact that it has received considerable airplay (albeit in a censored form) both on the radio and MTV (and, presumably, in strip clubs nationwide) only furthers the song’s strong case to be a bonafide New Low.

But does piggybacking on another New Low really qualify as a New Low? Let’s examine part of the original definition:

[New Lows] became popular not by really doing anything entirely new, but by being more violent, more explicit, more misogynistic, or just plain dirtier than what had come before.

By this definition, ripping off another recent New Low (that is still being played on the radio) qualifies as “not really doing anything entirely new.” In fact you’d think that this would therefore make “Play” even more of a New Low because it’s even less original than most New Lows strive to be. And as dirty as “Wait” was, “Play” does successfully lower the bar.

But I think a heretofore unmentioned aspect of achieving New Lows is that, in order to do so, there has to have been a certain amount of time since the last New Low, so that pop culture’s fast-acting amnesia can set in. In order for something to really be a New Low, it must actually seem “new” to the average consumer. Six months may be too little time, but a year is certainly plenty. Either way, “Play” is a) too similar to “Wait,” and b) came out too soon after “Wait,” to garner any real shock value. It therefore fails to qualify as a New Low, and just ends up being low.

Another reason for Banner’s failure to achieve New Lows is the fact that he may actually be too outwardly intelligent for people to really believe that “Play” represents his honest take on the world. According to Allmusic, his album is full of “protest songs” wherein he “fearlessly and descriptively expresses the rage he feels for the way his people have been treated throughout history.” Armed with this knowledge, Banner’s attempt to stoop to the level of the dechievement seems like an obvious attempt at mainstream commercial success, and therefore lacks authenticity (note that I know nothing about Banner himself, nor have I heard any other songs off Certified). A pizza delivered to your door by Bill Gates may taste the same as any other pizza, but you know that it wasn’t a genuine delivery–he must have been doing it for a TV appearance, or a promotion of some sort. He didn’t mean it, or need the tip. And that’s “Play”: it seems like a New Low because its more sexually explicit than any other recent mainstream release, but Banners pragmatism is too transparent. Not to say that delivering pizza is anything like writing a song. Except that both people may be high.

In other related news, I’m thinking that perhaps the “New Low” term itself should be re-christened the “Dechievement.” Which one is more descriptive? Which is catchier? Let me know.

Yes, it’s a rip-off MPC, the popularity of which I honestly did not understand until I was at a Guitar Center recently and realized why they’re so ubiquitous: you just mash on the damn thing. It’s like drumming on your desk with your fingers, except instead of sounding like wood, it sounds like… whatever you want it to. Welcome to the wonderful world of sampling! Also, it takes no special talent or knowledge whatsoever because, and excuse my non-PC-ness, it’s fucking retarded.

I love it.

Well of course this thing, which I didn’t think was going to arrive at my place for another few days (“this thing” being the M-Audio Trigger Finger, which is approximately 1/10th the cost of a real, sampling MPC) shows up the day before the grant application deadline. No human being in this world possesses the superpowers necessary to resist a shiny new toy when there is important work to be done. So there it is, sitting in a box next to me, as I sit there trying to explain to a committee of people why they should give me money. For a short while I managed to avoid it, not unlike the Bush administration manages to avoid accountability, but as soon as writer’s block set in… Out the thing came, like a replacement FEMA head.

And of course it didn’t work. After a half hour of messing with the shiny, slightly-too-plasticky device, I finally got it working with the computer (for non-Asians, it’d probably take at least an hour). And when I finally did? There’s a delay between when you hit the pad and when the drum sounds! Useless! Like an Arabian Horse Association commissioner put in charge of a life-and-death federal agency responsible for managing national emergencies!

Further investigation has revealed that I have to actually buy a sound card in order to avoid this delay.

Maybe I should ask for more money.

Whatever. Onward and upward. Thanks to everyone that listened; I hope it was good for a laugh.

Because websites are sophisticated beasts, I was actually able to see where many of the visitors were coming from. So I went to some forums to see what people were saying. Here are some quotes I found:

1) WTF this shit is crazy!!! The Part 2 is very…………..wow… Hopefully he doesn’t release a video for this…

2) This is some of the funniest shit I’ve heard in a while. I like the effort he made to dramatize it this extreme. And the climax with the UUUUUuuuuuu OOOoooOo variations,,…. GENIOUS!

3) Hahahahahah that’s so fucking hilarious. My brother, his 2 friends and I were all laughing so hard. I was in tears. It’s so badly put together at some parts but it still hilarious.

4) Whoever edited that is crazy.

5) the song is too damn predictable

6) probably some fat, unpopular kid with no girlfriend and obviously no left hand (you know what i mean) put this together…

I love it. Since it’s my site, I get to respond:

1) A video would have been difficult, although someone made a Sims version of the original (which even made MTV, briefly), and they could probably have some fun making a Sims video of this version.

2) Do I have to say it? There is something funny about misspelling “genius.”

3) “So badly put together.” Well, see, when you’re working with the vocal and backing all on one track, you don’t really have the luxury of… nevermind. I’m glad you found it funny.

4) Apparently I am not only “crazy,” but also simultaneously…

5) “Too predictable.” Wait–the song is called “Out of the Closet”–what did you think was going to happen? A sartorial exorcism?

6) This last comment was priceless. Except I can’t actually figure out what he meant by “no left hand (you know what i mean).” Presumably he was making some sort of masturbation joke, but really, how does only having one hand motivate me to remix an R. Kelly song?

In addition to masturbatory accusations, there were also a lot of “this guy has too much time on his hands” comments. Which I expected. But in general, I don’t understand people who say that. Is it more admirable to be giving most of your waking hours to a corporation in exchange for an ephemeral amount of money, as most of our population does, instead of doing whatever it is that warrants said pseudo-criticism? This type of comment is especially vexing when it is made by someone who has 19,476 posts on a Magic: The Gathering message board.

It’s been fun. No “special lowbrow edition” banner anymore. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming. Which is not at all regularly-scheduled.

Oh, and if you see Mr. Kelly, send him this way.

A dechievement is also sometimes referred to as a New Low.

Let’s use a mountain as an analogy for quality here. In this case your average artist starts off as middle-of-the-road, or in this case, middle-of-the-mountain. Now to achieve greatness through quality you’d have to get to the top of the mountain and plant your flag. This would require complicated planning of unprecedented routes up the North face, and tenacious navigation of the steepest slopes. It’d be much easier for you to get down the mountain via established and well-traveled routes, and then leave your mark there. But you can’t just stop at base camp and hang out with all the other hopefuls; no, to separate yourself from the pack you’d have to go lower, and plant your flag in a riverbed down in the valley, where there are no other flags. At this low altitude, your flag might actually be noticed. Every year only a few flags get planted at the summit, and only a few get planted deep in the canyon; the rest are all in the middle of the mountain, and no one remembers those.

The key to dechieving is to drastically undercut existing works to the point where what you’ve done is clearly intentional, so there can be no mistaking you as merely mediocre. Reaching New Lows is also an effective way of avoiding people’s instinctual ability to separate the wheat from the chaff; works that achieve New Lows separate themselves from the average and below-average by either being so bad they’re good, or by being so bad that they deserve their own category of bad. If you can manage to successfully lower the bar in this respect, you have achieved New Lows.

EXAMPLES OF DECHIEVEMENTS

For recent examples you can look to rap music for the (least) shining examples of this trend: at the time of this writing (July 2005), the dechievement championship belt is currently held by the Ying Yang Twins, with their song “Wait (the Whisper Song).” A couple years ago Khia held the title, with her song “My Neck, My Back.” Before that it went to Eminem for any number of his early tracks. Although Eminem was also a talented lyricist (and white, which also helped his popularity), he decided to use his abilities to achieve New Lows.

Here are some examples from the aforementioned songs. Remember that the above became popular not by really doing anything entirely new, but by being more violent, more explicit, more misogynistic, or just plain dirtier than anything that had come before. Caution, uncensored:

Eminem – Just Don’t Give a Fuck / Still Don’t Give a Fuck
The Slim Shady LP, 1999

Impulsive thinker, compulsive drinker, addict
Half animal, half man
Dumpin your dead body inside of a fuckin trash can
With more holes than an Afghan

I walked into a gunfight with a knife to kill you
And cut you so fast when your blood spilled it was still blue
I’ll hang you til you dangle and chain you at both ankles
And pull you apart from both angles
I wanna crush your skull til your brains leak out of your veins
And bust open like broken water mains (psscchhhh)

Khia – My Neck, My Back (Lick it)
Thug Misses, 2002

Lick it good, suck this pussy just like you should
Right now, lick it good
Suck this pussy just like you should
My neck, my back
Lick my pussy AND my crack

Then, you roll your tongue
From the, crack back to the front
Then ya, suck it all ’til I shake and cum nigga
Make sure I keep bustin nuts nigga
All over yo face and stuff

Ying Yang Twins – Wait (The Whisper Song)
United State of Atlanta, 2005

We need to make our way to the bed
You can start usin’ ya head
Ya like to fuck, have ya legs open all in the buck
Do it up, slappin’ ass, girl the sex get rough

Hey bitch
Wait ’til you see my dick
Wait ’til you see my dick
Hey bitch
Wait ’til you see my dick
Imma beat that pussy up
Beat the pussy up, beat the pussy up
Beat the pussy up, beat the pussy up
Beat the pussy up, beat the pussy up
Beat the pussy up, beat the pussy up

That was educational.

Thanks to the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive for these transcriptions.

THE POINTLESS CENSORING OF NEW LOWS

I chose the latter two songs because, with a little bit of censoring, they both got significant radio airplay. Much like the censoring of another New Lows candidate–Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 hit “Closer”–the censorship employed on these songs wasn’t going to fool anyone. The chorus to the album version of “Closer” was “I wanna fuck you like an animal,” wheras the censored version was changed to “I wanna f_ck you like an animal.” What could f_ck possibly mean?! I don’t know, and neither do the kids. It’s a complete f_cking mystery.

The problem with changing a couple words in a song is that it does nothing to change the meaning of what is being said. And if we’re really worried about corrupting our youth (which I can’t say I am, although these are some rather egregious offenses), what a song is saying should be more important than the number of bad words it uses. For the radio version of the Whisper Song, “Wait ’til you see my dick” was changed to “Wait ’til I show you this,” which I’m fairly certain invokes the same imagery. But I do have a solution here. Instead of using the music video as a piece of promotion for the artist and album, you could use it to change the meaning of the song itself:

Wait ’til I show you this (the Ying Yang Twins present their collection of impressionist paintings)

Wait ’til I show you this (they show off a chalkboard full of advanced calculus theorems)

Wait ’til I show you this (in their backyard, they reveal a bocce court)

HOW BAD IS SUPERBAD?

Now I’m not categorically decrying the achievement of New Lows, because what most people do not admit is that achieving such depths of badness often requires a certain amount of intelligence. It is often a pragmatic decision made by the artist–or some controlling party behind the artist–to essentially not go for it. So this is not a declaration of the dechievement as a crime against the art form, or a lamentation of particular dechievements for corrupting our youth. Indeed, reaching New Lows is a sometimes-successful career move, and no one can blame someone for wanting to be successful.

But it certainly doesn’t take nearly as much intelligence to achieve New Lows as it does to try to create something new. New Lows can be a pragmatic decision, yes; but daring, no. As the author Mary McCarty was recently quoted as saying, “If someone tells you he is going to make ‘a realistic decision,’ you immediately understand that he is going to do something bad.” Or, in this case, superbad. Decomplishing New Lows is “realistic” simply because it is a career-oriented decision, and not at all risky. And this is the larger problem in our arts today: lack of risk-taking.

THE ARTIST’S DILEMMA

So here’s the conundrum. If you decide to try to create something new, you run the risk of no one understanding it. If no one understands it then you might have a deluge of negative reviews (if you get reviewed at all), and you might be written off as a failure. If you decide to go for New Lows and fail, however, you weren’t really trying anyway, so it’s no skin off your back; you wanted to create something bad, and you did (just not bad enough). And while you may not have made your mark, you’ll probably succeed in achieving New Lows the next time around, since it’s not particularly difficult (just lower the bar further). More importantly, you didn’t have to stick your neck out and risk having your head cut off like the guy who tried something new. So despite all the bad language, striving for New Lows is not at all dangerous–in fact you could call it a “pussy” move, artistically.

While dechievement in music often entails talking about genitalia, striving to do something that hasn’t been done before is what really takes balls. New Lows never last, because someone will always come along and achieve Lower Lows. But having balls? That’s worth remembering.

In August 2005 I had an idea to boost traffic to my site. It was a really bad idea: I thought, since R. Kelly’s Advanced series Trapped in the Closet is essentially a 20-minute song that uses the same beat throughout, could you take his tale of sexual infidelity and re-cut it to tell an entirely different story? With judicious editing one could rearrange all of his words — while sticking to the beat — and come up with a new, even more ridiculous narrative. Naturally, having nothing better to do — and based on a friend’s opinion that I couldn’t pull it off — I decided to try. The result was a five chapter story in which R. Kelly confesses to a number of sexual infidelities, including several episodes with men.

It worked: the parody received something like 75,000 views in a week (I’m on a different stats system now so I can’t go back that far), and a bunch of comments running the gamut from “this is the funniest thing ever” to “you must be the most pathetic human being in the world.” They’re all preserved here for posterity’s sake (they’re split onto pages, so only the latest are displayed unless you click on the previous page numbers at the bottom).

I knew it was a terrible idea, but since I couldn’t think of anyone else having done this before (that is, mocking a song by using the original singer’s own voice, and taking his words completely out of context), I had to see it through. Also, it goes without saying, although I’m saying it anyway, that the same guy who does ridiculous things like naming an album 12 Play–”because it’s three times better than foreplay”–should have the tables turned on him, sexually. Including the kitchen table. (That was a reference to another song of his, In the Kitchen, which does not touch on any culinary topics, although it may include references to cunnilingus). Because R. Kelly never released an a cappella version of the song, the audio editing took longer than I expected and took some fairly advanced maneuvering to pull off. And yes, I wanted to take the story in a different, preferably more original, direction, but I had to work with what I had–and the lyrics to Trapped in the Closet didn’t really lend themselves to anything else.

Anyway, I still think the resulting song is impressive from an audio editing standpoint, but I’ve taken it down — sorry I couldn’t “keep it on the download.”

Damn. With the all-capitals formatting of the title you can’t tell that “Advanced” is capitalized. It’s supposed to look like this:

Is R. Kelly Advanced?

This clarification is necessary because the uppercase version of Advanced means something different than the lowercase version. Well, what is this difference? What does “Advanced” mean? I’m glad I asked! Chuck Klosterman introduced the masses to this theory with his Esquire article Real Genius: An introduction to the highly advanced theory of Advancement, an entirely new way to appreciate Sting, Val Kilmer, C-Murder, and other profound artists. It is highly recommended reading, but if you’re short on time (why are you visiting this utterly nonessential website?), here are some quotes:

Advancement is a cultural condition in which an Advanced individual—i.e., a true genius—creates a piece of art that 99 percent of the population perceives to be bad. However, this is not because the work itself is flawed; this is because most consumers are not Advanced. Now, don’t assume this means that everything terrible is awesome, or vice versa… The key to Advancement is that Advanced artists a) do not do what is expected of them but also b) do not do the opposite of what is expected of them.

The most Advanced hard-rock album ever was Music from "The Elder," by Kiss, the soundtrack for a movie that does not exist. Last year, rapper C-Murder was charged with murder. If you name yourself C-Murder and then you actually murder someone, consider yourself Advanced.

The bottom line is this: When a genius does something that appears idiotic, it does not necessarily mean he suddenly sucks. What it might mean is that he’s doing something you cannot understand, because he has Advanced beyond you.

It is my opinion that R. Kelly’s recent and bombastic 5-part saga, “Trapped in the Closet,” is undeniably and fantastically Advanced. The first time I heard Chapter 1 on the radio I had to stay in my car in the parking lot to finish listening to the song, in slack-jawed awe. The DJ then put the icing on the cake afterwards by stating, “Say what you will about R. Kelly, but the man is a musical genius.”

For clarification on this matter I e-mailed the co-founder of Advancement Theory, Jason Hartley (who runs the Advanced Theory Blog, which documents the transgressions of various Advanced artists), and he told me that if I felt I had a case for R’s Advancement, then I should put it forth. Well here it is: the Pied-Piper of R&B is not only Advanced, he may one day be inducted into the Advanced hall-of-fame.

Now I was going to engage in a long and academic discourse on this topic (that’s redundant–how many academic discourses are “short”?), but then I was hit by a different and unfortunate R. Kelly idea, which will be coming soon. If you have not heard “Trapped in the Closet,” or seen the accompanying long-form music video, I strongly suggest you visit R-Kelly.com and watch (and listen). Prepare to have your mind blown by Advancement in action.

UPDATE: If you have difficulty following the labyrinthian plot, please refer to these excellent cliff notes, which were posted the day after I wrote this. The plot is not actually complex, besides the parts that make no sense, but these cliff notes are very funny.

Critic: With the release of Monkey Business, The Black Eyed Peas have finished what they began with Elephunk: transforming into a completely substance-free, modern-day hip-hop version of the Village People, donning completely unreasonable outfits and designing every track for heavy rotation on ClearChannel. The criticism that everyone will levy at them, validly, is that they’ve sold out. But the problem with selling out is that it also exposes your earlier work’s shortcomings. Pre-Fergie, the BEPs were never short on potential, but their weaknesses were primarily the fact that 1) they were (at best) merely serviceable lyricists, and 2) they didn’t have much to say besides calling out mainstream rap for being mediocre. Well, as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. Monkey Business may very well top the list of 2005’s mediocre, radio-friendly, vacuous hip-hop records.

Clubhead: I was once rolling in my car with a girl. BEP’s Bridging the Gaps was on the stereo, the joint was “Weekends” featuring Esthero. The girl in my passenger seat–you know how I do–said to me, “Oh, I like it when the girl sings.” This girl was white. Esthero was white. BEP went on to add Fergie to the group, who is white. Suddenly the Peas had found their audience: party girls and the guys who get with them. I am one of these guys. I am also white.

Critic: I agree with you–it was a savvy business decision for the Peas. But the way I see it, the real reason we go “clubbing” is because our day jobs are boring, and we spend every weekday knee-deep in it, with pleated slacks, a tucked-in shirt, and possibly even shoes with tassels. So after 40 or more hours of shuffling papers and engaging in brain-hurting activities like thinking, the weekend comes around and people want to forget about it and move their hips to something stupid. And BEP provides that stupidity.

Clubhead: Did you get a degree just so you could figure out stuff like this? They have a track titled “Let’s Get Retarded.” And you’re saying they provide stupidity? You think?

Critic: What I’m trying to say is, in an ideal world, there would be no need for the Black Eyed Peas, because people wouldn’t have terrible day jobs that make them want to “get retarded” in the first place.

Clubhead: That’s true. But in an ideal world… you would also get laid. What did you say? If you can’t beat them, join them.

Critic: Yes, but I stand for something in my life.

Clubhead: Do you see that blonde girl right there in the abercrombie jean skirt? Notice that I said “Abercrombie” with a little “A.” She’s grown, but she buys her skirts at abercrombie kids, dude. You can ALMOST see her ass. Where do you stand on that?

Critic: …