"EPIC" FAILURE: RAP METAL APPENDIX

"Yo, Lars, I'm feelin' a little silly, my magistrate."

"Wherefore, sondula?"

"I was bumpin Faith No More's "Epic" not one month ago without realizing it was sampled on Koopsta Knicca's 'Stash Pot' remix."

"'IT'S CRYIN / BLEEDIN / LYIN ON THE FLOOR'?"

"Nah, DJ Paul looped the piano passage on the outro."

"That shit sound hainted.  Like, zoinks."

"Couldn't quite place it.  Thought it was some of that spooky Reznor shit.  He so crazy.  I saw a video once where he and David Blaine cut off their hands and went to a taxidermist and threw their stuffed hands in a fish tank.  It was très Brooklyn."

"Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson recorded an album with Jay-Z and R Kelly called Best Of Both Worlds Within One Universe On A Collision Course With The Best Of Both Worlds Within A Separate Universe (Wherein Either Universe Is Intelligible To The Other).  It is locked in a vault next to the print for The Day The Clown Cried."

"..."

"You know, Paul & Koopsta sampled my band, Metallica, on 'Torture Chamber.'  They sampled the sitar intro from 'Wherever I May Roam,' which appeared on The Black Album, our 1991 album produced by Bob Rock.  Paul called me up and asked for sample clearance.  I says to Paul, 'Of course, brah. You know I'm bout this open content shit.'  That's word to Lessig."

"'Mystical styles of the ancient mutilations / Torture chambers filled with corpses in my basement.'"

"Sometimes I think being in Metallica is my torture chamber." :/

RAP-METAL APOLOGIA

Rap-metal (and all its permutations) has always been met with opprobrium, generally deserved, in a consensus so complete that the possibility of reconsideration is close to nil.  It is a music so illicit it's ostracized by even the most kneejerk contrarians.  Still, catch a millenial by the toe, and they'll probably be able to recite the lyrics to at least one Limp Bizkit song with alarming accuracy.  The breakdown of "Break Stuff" can send otherwise mild-mannered souls into mad Dionysian fits. GIVE ME SOMETHING TO BREAK, they cry. HOW BOUT YOUR FUCKIN FACE? they propose.  America, these are your sons and daughters.

The era of rap-metal, for all its popularity, will be stricken from historical record and written off as a collective mistake.  It was all of our fault.  But I remember.  I remember hearing Faith No More in the back of my mother's Subaru, when 92.3 was WXRK and the polished head of Matt Pinfield hosted The Buzz.  The Faith No More revival brought me back to two of rap-metal's finest moments: "Epic" and "We Care A Lot."  I'll give "We Care A Lot" a slight edge for the way Chuck Mosley's delivery matches the lyrics, affecting the boneheaded sincerity that "Institutionalized" and "TV Party" used to great effect.  This will always be better than Death Grips.

Keep on rap-rocking in the free world,
Rap Music Hysteria