Pattern Interrupt

1. Robin Thicke - Cocaine
2. Rihanna - Rehab
3. Kanye West - Can't Tell Me Nothing
4. Eric Benet - Love Don't Love Me ft. Clipse
5. LL Cool J - Rub My Back
6. Babyface - There She Goes
7. Timbaland - The Way I Are ft. Keri Hilson
8. Kanye West - Stronger
9. Raphael Saadiq - Still Ray
10. Ray J - Formal Invite
11. Robin Thicke - S.O.S. Baby
12. Tank - I Love Them Girls (Part 2)
13. Kelis - Running Mate
14. LL Cool J - Head Sprung (Remix) ft. Justin Timberlake & Keri Hilson
15. M.I.A. - Boyz
16. Rihanna - Umbrella ft. Jay-Z
17. Nelly - Play It Off ft. Pharrell
18. Justin Timberlake - I'm Lovin' It
19. Keystone - The Day The Earth Stood Still

Rant must've been the book I was reading at the time I made this compilation. Passes for white, early to mid-twenties male reads a Chuck Palahniuk novel, how very stereotypical of me. This was the eighth book by the Fight Club author, a figure whose work has become more and more hit and miss over the years and also considered to be more and more problematic. This was 2007, so cut me a break. He still has a fierce and loyal fan base though. He's kinda the modern literature version of Quentin Tarantino, if somewhat more prolific. I still quite enjoy his writing but take him considerably less seriously than when I was a young man.

Growing up is a funny thing. The relationship you have with your past self is an important one as it entirely informs who you are now. I think about myself as the sad lonely boy of my late teens and early twenties, who romanticized his sadness and wallowed in downer music, wondering exactly how Ryan Adams was able to so perfectly articulate my feelings and I find him kind of endearing if a little pathetic. Or there was the Bill Hicks worshiping, Rage Against the Machine and Public Enemy obsessed, angry youth stereotype. Spouting strong but not particularly informed opinions (usually drunkenly) at anyone who would listen. I find him a little embarrassing but recognise that it was an important developmental stage. I wish I'd listened to all of my older friends and workmates when they tried to tell me to chill out, listen more instead of ranting incessantly and realise it was a recipe for looking foolish to be so certain of anything with so little information because if I've learned anything to be certain in the last 15 years or so it is that I don't know shit for sure. 

These versions of me, along with a whole host of other versions have all gone into the gumbo which makes up the current me. Just as the current me is just another ingredient in the future me. The same as with everyone. How you use these ingredients can either add up to a better tasting, more interesting and flavorful gumbo or it can go wrong. A poor chef doesn't develop the dish and it stays more or less the same. Which is almost as bad as a chef who spoils it. 

At the end of his first verse on Can't Tell Me Nothing (which appears early on this disc), the title of which is very much an expression of youthful arrogance and ignorance, Kanye West sarcastically suggests 'I guess I shoulda forgot where I came from'. Noting that staying in touch with your past, remembering it and learning from it is essential to development and becoming an adult. The song is typical for Kanye in that fronted with confidence and braggadocio but underneath there is an insecurity, where he is asking questions of who he is and what he has learned. Aware of his own faults but still not grown enough to correct them. 10 years later and not much has changed with him but this song remains in my top 5 Kanye tracks ever. I hope he never stops making music this good but as a person maybe he needs a pattern interrupt. Sidenote: the Hype Williams video for the single was good, the Micheal Blieden, Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham starring alternative version is incredible.

Anyhow, the reason I remember that I was reading Rant at the time of disc burning is because literally the only thing I remember about the book aside from it having something to do with urban destruction derbies, is the concept of 'pattern interrupt' from which the disc takes its title. The idea is that if you have a bad habit or a personality defect that you'd like to correct then you need to interrupt the pattern of behaviour around it. For example if you always forget people's names after they've introduced themselves to you, in future you should note in your mind the colour of their eyes, a detail to which you can attach the name. Something you wouldn't usually do. Break the usual pattern. David with the blue eyes. Sarah with the hazelnut eyes etc. I have tried to employ this tactic from time to time but I haven't been very good at making it stick.

Ecstasy or MDMA is the only drug that I think back on with any real fondness (I will get into this in another blog). I'm more or less retired from partying, in my heyday I had some fun with cocaine but it is also responsible for some of my most cringeworthy behaviour. The only time I can think of where I ever consciously and deliberately acted like a total asshole to someone was under the Columbian marching powder's influence. The shame makes me shudder. Gross. Still the ode to the white lines by Robin Thicke that opens this compilation is a smooth and funky jam that makes it sound like the good time it could often be. The sound of a party going on in the background is a nice touch.

Being able to dabble in drugs is a luxury I have been afforded by the fact that I don't have an addictive personality. I'm that annoying guy who can stop and start smoking at will and has always been able to maintain control of his vices. I could always go hard when I wanted but knew when (and was able to) to stop, when the party was over. Of course if things go really wrong for me in the future I will regret saying this and tempting fate but I highly doubt that I will ever end up having to go to rehab. In her Timberlake/Timbaland/Lane written single, Rihanna describes having to go to a metaphorical Rehab to recover from her addiction to a scornful lover. When the song came out in '08 I was massively into it, now I like it but I think it got played out a bit. Rihanna appears again later on in the mix alongside Jay-Z for the peerless Umbrella. Terius 'The-Dream' Nash really set out his stall early as one of the worlds best songwriters with that global smash hit. And even after 10 years ubiquity somehow it still isn't played out for me. I even love Terius' leaked demo version of it.

I'll get the obligatory Neptunes section of this disc out of the way. There are six Pharrell and Chad productions on this one. First their superior remix of a decent Eric Benet single, Love Don't Love Me. The new beat and Pharrell's ad-libs along with sterling verses by the brothers Clipse really lift the original into being an all time Neptunes classic. A similar sound is visited for the next track on here, the smooth RnB of Babyface's There She Goes is too silky for words. Next is one of 3 excellent tracks they produced for the otherwise unremarkable second album by professional 'L'-taker and Brandy's brother Ray J. The track here is the single Formal Invite but the album version with the great Pharrell verse. Next is Play It Off, a duet between Pharrell and recently accused sex pest Nelly from his largely terrible sister albums Sweat and Suit. It's an underrated Neps joint, in my opinion, featuring Nelly singing as he and P trade bars. I like that they performed it at the EMA's in Rome that year. It is followed by the much maligned McDonalds jingle I'm Lovin' It performed by Justin Timberlake, which, truth be told, I still kinda like. The story of that particular ad campaign and jingle is an interesting one covered recently in a short video on min documentary channel Hodges U, although it doesn't include the part about the original Cardan song the single came from. And the last track both by them and on the mix is the Keystone track The Day The Earth Stood still which I have covered elsewhere.

Also on the CD is a track listed as being by Robin Thicke called S.O.S. Baby. This has become known as probably the best 'fake Neptunes' beat ever made. And is in fact not by Robin Thicke at all. For years it had many of us Neptunes fans fooled though, that's how good an impression of their signature sound it is. There is still something of a mystery around where the track came from and it may be something I get into more detail at another time, but whoever it may be by, it is a brilliant song.

On the compilation the other Virginia native genius producer of the time, Timbaland, almost matches the Neptunes for showings. He has 5 of the songs on it. Two tracks from LL Cool J's 2004 album The DEFinition, first the excellent Rub My Back with face-scrunching percussion, a strummed guitar sound and a some synth flourishes and later the remix to the lead single from the album, Headsprung. The original is a club banger and the remix doesn't change that, it just adds a showstopping verse from Justin Timberlake and a one from Keri Hilson. Also included is the second single from Timbaland's patchy solo album Shock Value, the Keri Hilson and D.O.E. assisted The Way I Are remains a bright spot with its electro beat. The video version features an M.V.P. appearance from Timbaland's brother Sebastian who jokes to his paramore 'you'r body ain't Pamela Anderson/It's a struggle just to get you in the caravan' before letting her know that he loves her the way she is. Then there is Tank's ballad to strippers named Ecstasy and Fantasy and the like called I Love Them Girls Part 2, an empty facemelter. Lastly from Timbo is the unreleased but fantastic Kelis track Running Mate. I would have liked to have heard from this pairing.

The final three tracks to mention are a second Kanye track in Stronger, the massive hit single which actually Timbaland helped Kanye with the drums on, the really great Raphael Saadiq neo-soul single Still Ray and the perfectly fine M.I.A. single Boyz.

Music is all about looking to both the past and to the future. The best stuff uses what it has learned from the history of recorded sound as it seeks to find new territory and push boundaries into the future. This is what all great artists do and this is also what all good people do. You think about who you were, who you are and who you want to be and you go through the different stages of yourself in order to get to the best possible version of yourself. When I made this mix I was a lazy bartender in an Edinburgh bar who partied too much. Now, writing this, I'm a lazy English teacher living in Barcelona who never goes out at all. In the future who knows who I'll be but I'll still be a little bit both those guys and a bunch of others I've spent time with and loads I have yet to get to know.