Darian

My Favorite Albums: Incognito’s Positivity

Spring 1995 : I was a senior in high school, preparing for graduation, submitting college applications… and getting ready for my senior prom. My senior year had turned out to be pretty good, and I was aiming for Senior Prom to be my magnum opus. I wanted to be the best dressed, smoothest, most sophisticated cat in the building.

By April, I had just about everything in order: Date confirmed. The ride on lock (my mom’s brand new Buick LeSabre). A black, single breasted tux with a midnight blue vest¹. A day-of appointment to get a fresh cut.² All that remained was completing my mixtape. Continue reading “My Favorite Albums: Incognito’s Positivity”

My Favorite Albums: Midnight Marauders

My love of A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders¹ starts, like most stories, with a girl.

I was a junior in high school and was on campus late one Saturday evening for an anti-drug rally. There were some girls from a neighboring town in attendance and I had taken a liking to one of them. The rally ended at 10PM, but their ride was late… so I chivalrously (and maybe selfishly) volunteered to wait with them. It was cold, but that’s ok: I let lil’ shorty wear my Starter jacket² (and didn’t wash it for a month afterward because it smelled like her) while we passed the time by trying guess the hard-to-decipher lyrics to the chorus of “Electric Relaxation”.

“Electric Relaxation” was to 1993 as “I Need Love” was to 1987. Q-Tip was the smooth operator; Phife Dawg was the realist (I love the line: ‘I like ‘em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican, or Haitian’). The beat³ (a masterfully reworked sample of Ronnie Foster’s “Mystic Brew”) was an instant classic⁴.
Continue reading “My Favorite Albums: Midnight Marauders”

My Favorite Scores: Batman (1989)

While I loved what Christopher Nolan has done with Batman series, I still hold a special place in my heart for the 1989 Tim Burton movie. His Batman kicked off a new re-interest in comic-book inspired movies and television shows – some great (Batman: The Animated Series), some good (The Flash, 1990’s version) and some bad (the 1990 Captain America movie).

My favorite parts of Burton’s movie are when we get to see Batman without the mask; in other words, when we can see Bruce Wayne in his true persona, without the airs he puts on to fool the general public. There are three scenes that really capture those moments:

Bruce checking the tapes [watch here] – A great back-to-back view of the duality of Bruce Wayne
Bruce hanging upside down [here, at the 16:45 min mark]– Ok, so maybe he’s taking the bat thing a little too seriously
Bruce in Crime Alley – I’ll be the first to admit that this scene has one gigantic flaw: Batman, the worlds greatest detective, doesn’t realize that Vicky Vale is following him. However, if you can ignore that, then this is a great scene. There’s no talking, but plenty of emoting, as Bruce Wayne (played by Michael Keaton) looks tortured over this parents death, and the life that he’s adopted as a result. As stated on sputnukmusic.com:

Continue reading “My Favorite Scores: Batman (1989)”

My Favorite Scores: Carlito’s Way

Last week, I blogged on the Rocky Original Motion Picture Score. That post got me thinking about how the most iconic scenes from my favorite movies are bolstered by their musical scores. Over the next few months, I’ll share a few thoughts on some of my favorite scores. First up: Carlito’s Way.

Carlito’s Way is a 1993 crime drama directed by Brian DePalma and starting Al Pacino. The three sentence summary: Carlito Brigante is an incarcerated drug dealer just freed on a technicality. Vowing to go straight, Carlito finds himself in situations where his sense of honor and loyalty pull him into law-breaking activities. Those decisions play out with dire consequences – with him ultimately losing his life, though not before he can get Gail, and his unborn child, off to safety.

Continue reading “My Favorite Scores: Carlito’s Way”

My Favorite Albums: Rocky Original Motion Picture Score

I’m a big fan of the original compositions that color movies. Of the thirty-plus score albums I own, none is as special to me as Bill Conti’s Rocky Original Motion Picture Score.

I listened to this album non-stop during the summer of 1998. I was living in Columbus, OH, working as a college intern at a technology company. Though a series of mistakes and mis-steps, I was facing cross-roads in my college career. Nothing as serious as dropping out (never that)… but I was struggling with my grades (too much Alpha and not enough studying).

So I took 7 months off (the summer, plus the fall 1998 semester) and I worked as an engineering intern. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I got focused and afterwards, went back to school and pulled my GPA up to respectable numbers.

It wasn’t always easy. My Mercury Topaz died on me, so I walked to and from work every day. I was trying to save as much as I could, so I lived in a crappy studio apartment – which wasn’t too bad, except that the apartment sat on top of a dive bar, so my place always smelled like stale beer.
Continue reading “My Favorite Albums: Rocky Original Motion Picture Score”