Razor's Edge
This week’s Razor’s edge is a little behind schedule because I wanted to get the Time Warp post out but anyways here we go. This week I latched onto the album Believers by ¡Mayday!. Supposedly this band has been around since 2006 but only over the past two years or so they added another rapper Wreckonize. ¡Mayday! is an American hip hop group from Miami, Florida The group consists of rapper Bernbiz, rapper Ben Miller (aka Wrekonize), producer, keyboard player and guitarist Aaron Eckhart (aka Plex Luthor), percussionist Andrews Mujica (aka NonMS), drummer Terrel (aka L T Hopkins), and bassist Gianni Perocapi (aka Gianni Cash). The band is currently signed to Tech N9ne's Strange Music label. The only reason I found out about them is because of their connection to Tech N9ne and being on his label. When I listen to a new album especially a more mainstream one I can’t help but shuffle tracks into three categories. One “Is this hit/radio quality track”, two “this is a gem on the album but not radio worthy” and Three “this is just plain awful and filler for the album”. My first impression listen to this album lead me to believe that it was filled with fillers. They would have one good track then the next right after felt like a filler and this would go on for 18 tracks or so. I picked up the deluxe edition so it has 3 bonus tracks at the end totaling 18 tracks on this album.
The first track that really stood out to me was one called “Unplug” they were talking about unplugging from society and even drug culture of not taking substances and also not being connected all the time to everyone through new technology. I related to this song so much because I ended up “unplugging” for a little under a year last year. I wanted to get a grasp on all the free flowing information that I was constantly feeding into my head and at times made me feel like I was ADD or had ADHD. I felt like it was extremely hard for me to concentrate and focus on certain things.
Two tracks later “High Ride” begins and when it gets to the chorus they start to mention flashing lights. Just having the words flashing lights makes this radio quality because of the association that it makes with other songs that have flashing lights in its chorus but this is a catchy little ditty. Two more tracks later we come across “My Life” any song that tends to have the word life in it usually catches my attention and is introspective. This song is no different and follows that formula. This song is a little lighter fare though but yes it’s catchy and it is telling its listeners that he’s “just living his life” which talks about his carefree life and how he came from nothing and now he’s just living it the way he wants all extravagantly. There is also the message of live your life the way you want and don’t worry about how someone else is living their life.
After repeated listenings I ended up liking 13 tracks out of 18 which is really good imo.