![]() ![]() Safi Bugel Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell! (2019)Īs someone occasionally drawn to melancholy and tragedy, friends thought I would love Lana Del Rey. Twenty years later, I’ve still not exactly 180’d on In Da Club, but as for the rest of it, consider me a convert. ![]() “Could you love me on a bus?” remains one of my all-time favourite corny lyrics. I soon grew to love the record’s steely keys and skulking percussion, the blockbuster bad-boy persona and the softer moments scattered throughout, like the surprisingly melodic account of his shooting in Many Men (Wish Death), or the pleas for commitment from a lover in 21 Questions, propped up by an achingly good Barry White riff. This time, I heard his forays into new styles and moods that had been overshadowed by the hits, and the unfamiliar interludes that tied the songs together. As co-producer Sha Money XL once noted, In Da Club became “the birthday record”: “You play Stevie Wonder and then you play In Da Club.” It did indeed become ubiquitous at parties, but the novelty value quickly wore off and I began to find it intensely annoying.Īfter subconsciously writing 50 Cent off based on that track alone, hearing Get Rich or Die Tryin’ played in full almost two decades later surprised me. The track stayed in the UK charts for 32 weeks but it lingered for much longer, its quickly renowned refrain about partying like it’s your birthday reverberating from music channels and school playgrounds. Like many who were born in the late 90s, 50 Cent’s In Da Club featured heavily in my childhood. Tayyab Amin 50 Cent – Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003) Regardless, I’ve found an unlikely refuge in his mythological account of the day the US was born and the day it died. Maybe it’s the slapstick brutality of the lyrics that run the JFK tape back and forth like a sports action replay, or the way the he embarks on an entire litany of Americana unprompted, winking as he places his ramblings on top like some cherry. ![]() Not only did I warm to his lackadaisical drawls and those woozy wanderings of piano and violin, I became obsessed. I listened with intent to poke fun but soon found Dylan repeating himself – first as farce, then as tragedy. Still, my contrarian self couldn’t resist giving Murder Most Foul a listen arriving at the advent of Covid with its amateur artwork and 17-minute runtime, the meditation on JFK’s assassination appeared curiously, hilariously out of touch with the present to the point of becoming a meme. As far as I could tell, his best song was bettered by Hendrix and his blues and folk forebears seemed much more deserving of this frankly obscene surplus of renown. It’s not just that I wasn’t into Bob Dylan, it’s that I didn’t want to be into him. ![]()
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