Best Album Cover

In my opinion, the best album cover of all time never actually made it to print. It was for The Coup's album, Party Music, released in 2001. On Sept. 13, 2001, recording label, 75 Ark, announced that it would be changing the cover--shown to the right--for obvious reasons.

Of course, The Coup front-man, "Boots" Riley, argued with label management, saying that the cover is "supposed to be a metaphor for the capitalist state being destroyed through the music."

You're goddamn right, Boots.

A self-described Communist, Boots has long been defined by provocative, anti-establishment lyrics. And DJ Pam the Funktress brings the funk.

The cover is self-explainatory, but there are a few things that I love and want to point out. First, Pam the Funktress is dancing around with the conductor batons. You can tell she had been practicing her hard-face; the batons accentuate it. Plus, she has not one, but two batons. Extra badass. Not guns, not a bomb vest, no knives, swords or ninja stars. Just some muthafuckin' conductor batons.

Second, Boots is detonating the bomb with a detachable head unit. This is totally awesome, and if you don't know why, you don't understand hip-hop. To compete with Pam the Funktress's hard-face, Boots is making duck-face. Also totally badass.

Third, I obviously love the tactlessness of the picture, but also the clairvoyance that Boots used. Is he psychic? Did he know this was going to happen? Is he al Qaeda? Did anyone even look into this? Perhaps he was John Doe Number 2. Witnesses say Number 2 was Arab, and I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility for a few Oklahoma City residents to not know the difference between a black man and an Arab. Hell, Boots is light-skinded, that's gotta confuse some Oklahomians.

All jokes aside though, how the fuck did this happen? I mean, if you listen to The Coup, then you know it's not surprising that they designed this album cover. But the image is eerily similar to the real thing and the timing is too perfect to not leave you scratching your head. But, I suppose it's possible that if the towers falling was an unintentional success (from al Qaeda's perspective), then this album cover was a similar success.

The one disappointing thing is the cover they used instead. It's a picture of a bar, with a gasoline can on the bar, in the background. In the foreground is an arm--looks like either Boots' or John Doe Number 2, assuming they are not the same person--and the hand is clutching a martini glass filled with a flaming brown liquid, presumably gasoline. It's just not that cool, especially with the martini glass. Anytime I see a martini glass, I immediately think of Sex and the City. And that's not cool. When I listen to The Coup, I don't want to think about Sex and the City. Plus, besides Sex and the City, who really drinks martinis? Only pussies and the French.

Anyways, the album includes such The Coup classics as: Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO, Ghetto Manifesto and Ride the Fence. If you haven't heard it, or have never heard The Coup, you should check it out. But don't be surprised if you get flagged and added to a government watch list.

MLK Day

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, I thought that for the first post in a few years I would remind the world of one of the best hip-hop songs ever made: "By the time I get to Arizona," by Public Enemy.

If you're young, you probably don't know this, but PE was one of the best. They proved you could have party songs with a message. They sounded better really loud. They made it possible for white people to like afro-centric music. Listening to PE gave me the street cred that I desperately wanted. Fear of a Black Planet was my favorite tape for years until Strictly 4 My N----- came out. They were amazing.

"By the time I get to Arizona" is about the racist policy of Arizona Governor Evan Mecham to remove MLK day as a paid holiday for state workers. I am sure that anyone reading this is utterly shocked that Arizona had a racist state law, but it's true. (Oh wait, didn't John McCain and the gang pass a racist immigration law in the past few years?) Anyway, in response to local Black community leaders, Mecham said "You folks don't need another holiday. What you folks need are jobs."

Well, PE didn't appreciate those remarks. They weren't there of course, but upon found out, they were pissed. (This is a good time to mention that this was before Flavor Flav was a crackhead, or at least before anyone knew that Flavor Flav was a crackhead. Actually, looking back on it now, I don't know how we were so blind.). In response to Mecham, PE made arguably the greatest example of freedom of speech in "By the time I get to Arizona."

The song doesn't plead. It doesn't complain. It just talks about going to Arizona and assassinating Mecham. Seriously, that's what the song is about. It may seem distasteful now, with the Loughner/Giffords shooting, but this was long before then. (Come to think of it, what the fuck is going on in Arizona?)

Some of the best lines: "Neither party is mine, not that jackass or the elephant," "What's a smiling face, when the whole states racist?" and my favorite "I ain't drinking no 40, thinking time with a 9, until we get some land, call me the trigger man."

Seriously, are you getting this? He is flat out saying that he is going to assassinate the Governor of Arizona. Now, I don't advocate violence, but it's a pretty badass thing to say, not to mention extremely bold. Can you imagine if this happened today? (It actually did happen recently, when Toki Wright remade the song about the aforementioned immigration policy) Can you imagine a modern, popular rapper giving this much of a shit about anything? Well, I guess Kanye did say "Bush hates black people." And, see how much trouble he got in for that. Now, just imagine if he said "Bush hates black people and I'm coming to DC..."

Just for fun, here is Toki Wright's version. Apparently, they (white people, I'm sure) removed the video, but here is the best I could find.

We Can't Be Stopped

Damn, the gauntlet has been thrown down. When I started to think about the best album covers, this was the 1st to come to mind. Annie Leibovitz doesn't take photos this good in her dreams.

For the uninitiated (you really should know this but whatever) this picture was taken after Bushwick Bill's girlfriend refused to shoot him so he did the logical thing which was to shoot himself in the eye. Even if he did this strictly for the album cover, it does not lessen my awe of the greatest dwarf MC of all time (Fuck that dead little white dude that was down with Kid Rock). And he's on the Zack Morris, early 90's cellie! While Scarface and Willie D are wheeling him down the hallway! Holding his cane! And you know he left AMA.

The two of us could surely write pages about Bushwick Bill, but that's not what this is about. We Can't Be Fucking Stopped! You think Marshall would ever have the balls to ask Kim to shoot him in his hot topic - dyed dome? You think 50 would ever shoot himself in the fucking eye?! No, because they don't understand art like the Houston trio. Who in their right mind would even dare to step in the way of the Geto Boys of 1991? As real as it gets.

The Greatest Album Cover in the History of Life Itself

There you go, Brendan. Let it soak in for a moment.

If I was Max in 'Collateral', that's the shit I'd have on the back of my visor. Diamond Dave at the apex of his existence.

Now, I could have gone for something easier, like London Calling, or Sgt. Pepper's, or kept it a little more up to date, like Fear of a Black Planet or Nevermind or something to that effect, but a few months ago I figured out that this IS the greatest bit of album art I will ever see, and it will never be topped. The thing is, whether artistic or in the moment, no picture will ever perfectly sum up 'being-on-the-top-of-the-whole-fucking-world' like this. Think about it - this is Roth, still in Van Halen at the time, releasing an EP of covers for godsake, and he was arguably the biggest rock frontman smack in the middle of the decade of BIG. He probably didn't even remember this point in time until someone asked him to approve it for the cover art. That's probably not even a beach to the left, just a big pile of coke someone trucked over there to try and get on his good side.

But really, LOOK AT IT. We will NEVER stand in water so green and pure. If we even came close to it, there'd probably be about 200+ other tourists ruining it with their boogie boards, bootleg Crocs and un-Speedo worthy bodies, with some asshole's iPod repeating Sublime's greatest hits ad nauseum while a bunch of fratboys were trying to talk some high school girls to meet up with them at Hard Bodies later for Jell-O shooters "'Cause your spring break SUCKS if you don't do some body shots with me & my bros!" But for one shining moment, David proves that one man can be an island - he is alone, under a perfect sky, standing in virgin waters, as if the universe conjured all of it up just to say, "Hey Dave, this is what being the greatest human on the face of planet deserves. No need to thank me. You EARNED it." There's probably an army of ridiculous swimwear models and runners-up to that year's Miss Universe pageant waiting on the beach for him, but even they knew that this moment in time was for one person, and one person only.

The way I see it, most peoples' greatest life moment is something like when their child is born, or their wedding day, or the time they got to tell their boss to fuck off once and for all. That's all good, and I'm setting my sights on something in that range. But let's not kid ourselves, there are millions of births and weddings every year, and most people who quit the job they loathe can't muster up anything ballsy to say on their way out the door. But David trumps all of those stacked together ten miles high. One fraction of a second captured perfectly on film. He is alone, on top of the world. As he blows a kiss to that day's unseen muse (or muses), and a photographer who figured this was the greatest assignment he'd ever have closed the shutter, a small voice in the back of David Lee Roth's brain must've said, "Wow, today I am a fucking GOD."

Let me sum this up in the most nerdly of ways. In "The Resturant at the End of the Universe", Zaphod Beeblebrox finds himself stranded on Frogstar World B, being informed by Gargravarr that he must step into the Total Perspective Vortex. It's basically a closet-sized torture device that destroys one's mind by showing them how infinitally small they are compared to the actual size of the universe itself. Zaphod steps in, comes back out alive, and tells Gargravarr that it showed him that he was the single most important thing in the universe. In the end it winds up he was in a virtual universe where he WAS the most important thing, and that's the only reason he didn't die. But I digress.

That was in a book. And sure, the Diamond Dave crest rode strong for some years after he went solo, but this is his T.P.V. moment. He looked into the abyss, and the abyss stared back for a few moments before it said, "Alright Dave, you win."

Top that shit.