Here. We. Go.

Our Adventure Begins...

So I woke up this morning feeling pretty excited. For starters it actually appeared that spring had arrived on Long Island (but in fact this brief bit of morning sun was nothing but a tease) and I was riding a pretty good high from last night. I was more then pumped to know that I would be starting this year long trek today. I usually leave the apartment around 7:30 a.m. or so which sometimes is too early for music (my mind needs to ease into the day). So I listen to Mike and Mike In the Morning on ESPN radio and they usually carry me the half hour or so to work. Now most times I hate it when one of the Mike's isn't in so that's when I generally switch over to my ipod and a playlist or album of my choosing. This morning I was secretly hoping for this because I was anxious to hear the new Foo Fighters album as well as find out what the first song was going to be. As luck would have it both Mikes were out (sorry I think guest hosts are lame most of the time. They lack the flow that the two anchors have and the show comes across jerky and kind of lame. Like they're trying to be who they're subbing for and not themselves) so I plugged in my ipod cracked my window and started listening to Wasting Light. It wasn't even eight o'clock and I was already in mid rock out.

Let me explain something about my car... like most people in the car I am the world's greatest rock star. Hands down. I'm singing every song, I banging my arms around like a drummer, making guitar noises during solos, I am the complete package. I'm almost jealous of rock star car Kevin (I would be jealous if I didn't look like such an ass while I did it, but at the moment I feel cool). While I don't know the songs well enough to sing along I am totally rocking out, and I'm having a blast. When I get to be ten minutes away from work I wait for the last song to play and switch the ipod to Shuffle. Now I'm nervous. This is the start of a year long process and I want the first song to be good. I want it to be solid, I'm hoping for a Stairway To Heaven or Layla or something of that magnitude. I want to come out swinging from the gate. So I hit shuffle and I put my ipod down on the passenger seat and wait to see what's going to come through my speakers. I don't want to look at the screen I just want the sound to find me first. And then this happens:

My gut reaction is it could be worse. Obie Trice's Adrenaline Rush is a pretty good song. Not my favorite Obie track but it's still pretty good. It reminds me of college. Not in a nostalgic way though. You know how some songs spark memories and for a minute you're there. You can see everything so clear, you smell everything, you're back to this moment of your life for a couple of minutes and all it took was a couple of chords to send you there. This doesn't happen with Adrenaline Rush, actually what happens is I think "it's way to early to hear the term "mutha fucka" used this many times" (a total of 34 mf'ers for the entire song for those interested).

Back while I was a senior in college I went through a phase where I was very much into the whole Shady/Aftermath label. For the most part all I was listening to were Eminem, 50 Cent, D12, or Obie Trice records. I found that Obie was my favorite (outside of Eminem). He has this slow, deliberate delivery to him and I thought he stood out more then the crap G-Unit was putting out. I quickly became addicted to his first album (Cheers) and went looking for songs of his that were on mixtapes or other albums. That's how I stumbled across Adrenaline Rush. It's not his best song but I love the energy, I love the beat. This song would be perfect if you were getting ready for a big game. Just put this on you're head phones and you'll be all types of pumped and ready to go. High school me would have loved this song. I would have played this song before every basketball game or track race (along with Mase's Niggas Wanna Act which I always thought was a hidden gem and always got me pumped to play). But I wasn't playing sports in college (unless you count Beer Pong and Quarters? No? Didn't think so) so this song kind of became a background song. I liked it when it came on the ole' winamp (hahahaa remember that) but I wasn't really going out of my way to play it.

It's a shame about Obie Trice. I really felt that he was a great rapper and actually had talent, but he got buried under all of the garbage that was becoming Shady/Aftermath. Crushed by the weight of 50 cent's ego I suppose. When Obie's second album came out it wasn't as crisp and didn't do as well (but in his defense he tried to make a record without Eminem and do it more on his own). That was back in 2006 and since then he's left the record label and hasn't put out an album of new material since. It's a shame really because he was a bright spot to a label that quickly just started pumping out albums for the sack of making money and not keeping artist integrity (looking at Eminem's Encore and 50 cent's The Massacre).

I do have a minor story to tell about this song I suppose. It leads into a bigger belief of mine. First off confession time... I didn't always have an ipod. *GASP* For a long time I was dead set against it. I had a CD collection over eight hundred albums and I just didn't like them (for reasons I can't even remember now). An ex-girlfriend of mine actually bought me a Sony mp3 player and I was stoked. It was my way of sticking it to Apple. But the joke was on me. The mp3 player was compatible with nothing and the songs were some kind of tiny wave things that were only compatible with the Sony mp3 player. D'oh! So when I finally broke down and got an ipod I had to try and transfer all these tracks that weren't compatible with itunes. Needless to stay it was an awful process and a lot of the songs I didn't have on CD and had downloaded from Sony needed to be re-downloaded off of itunes. Well, Adrenaline Rush was one of these songs. So after downloading it I had the urge to play it (which I of course did) but a minute in I realised I had made a mistake. I had downloaded the clean version of the song. No curses. I HATE THAT. (try listening to this song and picture the curses gone, hell find the clean version... insert shiver here *ugh*)

I hate, hate, hate censored music. I know it's for the kids or for people who don't like hearing those words but what's the point. Are you going to honestly tell me you don't know what's missing from the song? Plus it's done so terribly. It's like someone hits the mute button right before the curse word. It's so freakin' lame. The song loses all of it's flow and never gets a chance to be what it should be. If you don't like the language or the message of the song maybe you shouldn't buy it. Just because you remove the curse words doesn't mean that the message of the song has changed. It's the same message just with less cussing now.

(Closing Note: The new Foo Fighters album, Wasting Light, is excellent. It sounds so crisp and reminds me a lot of their first two albums. Very much worth the download.)