Shaking Up the Musical Landscape – I Believe In Santogold
SANTOGOLD performing L.E.S. Artistes at the Transmusicales Festival, Rennes, France on 8th December 2007, courtesy of Fact Magazine. I don’t believe there’s a question in many people’s minds that Santogold aka Santi White is about to arrive, in full force, and shake up the musical landscape. This week Santi was put on rotation on New York’s FM station WXRP, “The New York Rock Experience”. In my opinion, I believe that Santogold herself , is in fact the new experience. I hope this lovely and talented songstress is wearing her seatbelt!
Last week, Jazz station, FM CD101.9 changed their musical format. The new format, per their description – “WXRP, a new Adult Rock station in the New York Tri-state market which merges New Music, Classic Rock, Alternative & Local Rock into a new adult blend called “The New York Rock Experience”.
“I quickly flipped the new station on to see if the new format was indeed a new “experience”, or just another robot-formatted junk merchant.
I was a bit disappointed in how unexciting my immediate impression was, and the fact that the first song I heard was “Rockstar” by Nickelback was a complete kick in the groin. I guess I was hoping for some Vampire Weekend or Earl Greyhound to welcome me to this new NYC-centric sound. I hung in for a bit, and eventually was treated to a track by White Rabbits, and despite the occasional stinker (see Nickelback above), I found that the playlist didn’t really hurt my feelings that badly. It’s not as blatantly nu-metal-crappy as K-Rock, not as old-fogeyish as Q-104, but something that you could probably play in the car without someone yelling “turn this junk off!”.
“As far as WRXP’s promise of local action, although the (tracklisting) is only an hour’s sampling, I did hear Ramones, Talking Heads, and amazingly, Santogold! The jock played Santi’s “L.E.S. Artistes”, and though it looks out of place in the context of the playlist above nestled in along with Jeff Beck and DMB, it sounded great and fit in much like the way Thin Lizzy, Kylie, and Radiohead all sound great together on BBC One.”
WRXP 2/9/08 Noon-1pm
Paul McCartney & Wings – Live & Let Die
R.E.M. -Supernatural Superserious
Talking Heads -Once In A Lifetime
Incubus -Stellar
Jeff Beck -Freeway Jam
Spoon -The Underdog
Ramones -I Wanna Be Sedated
Coldplay -Yellow
Derek and the Dominoes -Layla
Foo Fighters -The Pretender
Dave Matthews Band -Jimi Thing
Peter Gabriel -Sledgehammer
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Fluxblog review of Santogold – L.E.S. Artistes
Santogold “L.E.S. Artistes” – The Lower East Side was once an area mainly reserved for the immigrant population, but has since become a super-gentrified playground for the city’s hipster population. That said, it still thrives on a well-heeled variation of the immigration narrative — artsy people from around the world come to it (and other similar neighborhoods) in the hope of reinventing themselves and achieving some form of success and upward mobility. The character in “L.E.S. Artistes” is one of those people. Her ambition . . . MORE
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