January 2012
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Pusha T: Fear of God II: Let Us Pray
Having spent ten years as one-half of Clipse, a hard-as-nails Virginian duo whose tales of drug pushing and dope dealing earned them the first contract on The Neptunes’ record label, Pusha T was a curious addition to Kanye West’s GOOD record label when the pop superstar did serious remodelling work to his all-star crew last year. With stablemates like Common, John Legend and Mr. Hudson,...
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A History of Melody, Myth and Music
Last year I was invited to write a piece for Tourism Ireland on Irish music that would be printed in travel magazines and brochures all over the world. Presumably I got asked because of my work as a music journalist, and presumably they wanted me to make Ireland sound like an appealing place to go on your holidays. This meant having adopt a somewhat ‘softer’ writing style than I...
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The 12 Best Films of 2011
Please Note: These all were released in the UK & Ireland in 2011, which can be sometimes months after their US release date.
01. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, USA)
02. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
03. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, UK)
04. Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Canada)
05. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, USA/Spain)
06. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine, USA)
07....
December 2011
4 posts
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The 42 Best Lil B Songs of 2011
Lil B is a ridiculous man. His discography is so swollen it would take a room of fulltime historians just to index it, let alone listen to every track enough times to fully absorb his complete back catalogue. Surely the Bay Area rapper can’t recall every single track with his name attached, cutting new music almost as regularly as he hits up his fans on Twitter. This is a dude who has set up...
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PopMatters Best Hip-Hop of 2011
Honorable Mention: Tyler, the Creator Goblin
As the leader of controversial teenage rap collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, who’ve spent the past 18 months as darlings of the alt-hip-hop world, Tyler, the Creator’s first major label release Goblin was as much anticipated by his detractors as his fans. Not since Eminem exploded into the mainstream’s consciousness a decade ago has a...
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PopMatters 75 Best Albums of 2011
51: Smith Westerns Dye It Blonde
Super young Chicago threesome Smith Westerns channel the spirit of Marc Bolan into their sophomore effort Dye It Blonde, a bright and beautiful collage of syrupy-sweet guitar riffs, dazzling disco balls and irresistible hooks. Fluttering between dancefloor fillers, acoustic ballads and choir-backed gospels, the album is comparable to T-Rex’s own second...
November 2011
5 posts
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I've Been Writing Music Reviews..
I havn’t written music reviews prolifically since my Wireless Bollinger days, but recently I’ve been taking on heaps of reviews for both AU’s magazine and website. And I’ve really been enjoying it. Here’s some of my recent hits. In order of preference.
Drake - Take Care [Cash Money]
On his breakthrough 2009 mixtape So Far Gone, Canadian child star-turned-rapper...
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The R&B Renaissance
The R&B Renaissance
by Dean Van Nguyen
I.
“Rhythm and blues music” has always been a rather slippery expression. Essentially replacing “race records” as the terminology used by the industry as a catchall idiom for music made by, and for, black America, some would say it has been more of an ideal than a fully functioning genre. At different times soul, funk, blues, and...
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Tandem Felix
Originally Appears in Issue 8 of One More Robot.
The Dublin-based quartet spoke to Dean Van Nguyen about their formation, evolution and plans for the future.
With their affinity for creating music with pretty melodies, soaring instrumentation and haunting vocals, it’s hard to believe that Tandem Felix actually started life as a comedy double act. But when talking to the four young Dubliners it...
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October 2011
6 posts
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Watchjonathanbogart:
Best of 2011 (So Far!) According to Tumblr: An 8Tracks Mix
P.S.
While I was writing this up, I got three more suggestions from Dean, which I’ll have to thumbnail from Youtube listens. But meanwhile, he’s compiling his own similar mix, so go forth and suggest!
32b. Drake ft. Nicki Minaj “Make Me Proud” (here)
Not sure whether my distaste for the condescending “I’m so proud of...
A Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr Mixtape
Putting together a mix of my Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr friends favourite songs of 2011. What’s your song of the year?
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True to the Game: Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate'
Nevermind Nostalgia: The Music of 1991… 20 Years Later
True to the Game: Ice Cube’s ‘Death Certificate’
by Dean Van Nguyen In the early hours of March 3, 1991, George Holliday, a citizen of Los Angeles, California, filmed the arrest of Rodney King. Unbeknown to the four LAPD officers involved, Holliday’s camera captured an apprehension that saw 56 baton blows, six...
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The Stepkids - Boogie Wonderland
The CMJ Festival kicks off this weekend and the latest issue of The Deli is dedicated to it. I talked to a whole bunch of the electronic acts performing on The Deli’s own stage, and wrote the cover story on The Stepkids. That article is below and the whole issue is on PDF here.
The Stepkids
Boogie Wonderland
The Stepkids capture all the glitter and gold of classic seventies funk, R&B...
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Album Review: Justice - Audio, Video, Disco
(Originally Appears in AU Issue 77, October/November 2011)
Justice Audio, Video, Disco [Ed Banger/Because]
Justice were already veterans of the production and remix circuit before they dropped their debut album † in 2007, but the record’s success still took many by surprise. Blending earth-shattering synths, mauling beats and polished grooves, their critically-revered sinister-disco sound...
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The Irish Underground
Originally Appears in Issue 8 of One More Robot.
We may have built our cities on rock’n’roll, but underground a small clutch of rappers, DJs and producers are path-finding for a new breed of musicians. Dean Van Nguyen met some of Ireland’s hip-hop artists.
Last month the Irish music blogging community were all unified in their praise for emerging Dublin-based rapper Lecs Luther. The teenager –...
September 2011
8 posts
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Mitten
It’s been fun working on the electronic section of The Deli’s special CMJ Festival issue since it’s given me a chance to get acquainted with bands I most likely would have bypassed otherwise. Right now I’m all over Mitten and their first EP See You Bye, a masterful six track piece that does what all the best debut releases do: highlight everything that’s good about...
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One Week // One Band: Coming up: Curtis Mayfield →
oneweekoneband:
Next week will be all about soul legend and funk pioneer Curtis Mayfield and you’ll be left in the capable hands of Dublin-based writer Dean Van Nguyen.
Dean’s on Tumblr and Twitter and also runs a pop culture magazine called One More Robot.
Dean previously wrote a great piece on the making of Curtis Mayfield’s last LP ‘New World Order’ for PopMatters, so follow this link if...
August 2011
3 posts
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My appearance on Dublin City FM, Aug 24th 2011,...
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Rap Videos Set on Trains
Most of these were pulled from the memory banks of @rlydoe.
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Tom Vek - Leisure Seizure
Tom Vek Leisure Seizure (Island) 2/5 Originally Appears in Issue 7 of One More Robot
The relief was obvious the moment Tom Vek opened his mouth to introduce the video to ‘A Chore’. His first new track in what he describes as “five long years”, it was a punishing wait for artist and fans alike, as Vek spent the intervening period toiling well off the public radar. Logging on to his website year...
July 2011
7 posts
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Them's The Vagaries: #13 - Piano Lessons Can Be... →
themsthevagaries:
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This week the Vagarians talk to journalist and editor Dean Van Nguyen in Ireland’s windiest park. They cover music criticism, weird race shit and Romeo doing that song with Christina…
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“More Bounce for Your Ounce” - The Legacy of Roger...
Originally Appears in Issue 7 of One More Robot
Dean Van Nguyen examines Roger Troutman’s often overlooked influence on 30 years of pop music.
Turn on any mainstream pop radio station and listen for a couple of hours. Chances are that a good percentage of the songs you’ll hear bear the handprint of Roger Troutman. If the name seems only vaguely familiar, you probably recognise it from being...
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The Golden Age of Wireless
How A Belfast Theatre Company is Keeping The Radio Play Alive
Originally Appears in Issue 75 of AU
Before the 1960s, when television became the focal point of most families’ ‘quality time’ in the Western world, it was the wireless that was king. As well as blasting out swing, jazz and pre-Beatles pop music, plays were broadcast as a way of bringing theatrical performances into the...
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ONE MORE ROBOT
jacksonindetail:
Summer 2011. One More Robot Magazine featuring “Black Polaroids on Planet Pop” written by Michael A. Gonzales; Art by Fred Brathwaite, Cey Adams, Jackson Brown and Asia Minor. On stands in Dublin, Ireland. Availiable online at http://item.ly/320727699652
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Generation Next?
This article originally appears in Issue #1 of The Social, which is available to pick up next week or online here.
Something rather strange happened while the great and the good of Irish politics, sports and showbiz waited on a windswept College Green for President Barack Obama to address the nation of his ancestors. It’s one thing to be upstaged by ‘the most powerful man in the...
June 2011
3 posts
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superparade:
A Whole Summer of Great Songs...
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May 2011
13 posts
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Gil Scott-Heron 1949-2011
Gil Scott-Heron is one of my all-time favourite artists. Expressions like that can get batted around all too frequently after someone of note dies, but Gil really meant a lot to me. A poet, musician, author and soul man, he created some of the most intelligent and important American music of the nineteen-seventies. That he was lesser known than some of his contemporaries was indicative of his...
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The Deli #26
New issue of the The Deli is out in NYC and available as a PDF. I wrote a short summary on the Indie Rock scene.
Best of NYC: Indie Rock
It takes a couple of years for the characteristics that will define a new decade to become apparent. The opening rounds of the twenty-tens have seen a gold rush of new artists determined to stake a claim in this new musical “era”. NYC, as ever, has been a hive...
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Album Review: Blitz The Ambassador - Native Sun
(Originally Appears in AU Issue 73, May 2011)
Blitz The Ambassador Native Sun [Jakarta]
Native Sun sees classic African highlife and golden age hip-hop awkwardly bumping pelvises, with Ghanaian-born, New York-based musician Blitz The Ambassador unsuccessfully attempting to join the dots between his two home countries. Rather than cutting and chopping up beats, Blitz for the most part simply...
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Ready, Cassette, GO!
Following the recent flurry of Irish music being released on cassette tape, AU wonders: what is behind the resurgence of a once-dead format?
(Originally Appears in AU Issue 73, May 2011)
Last January, independent Dublin record label Quarter Inch Collective released their Quompilation, a 13 track collection of local bands that included Hipster Youth, Cloud Castle Lake and Spies performing a...