rae sremmurd – Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com

I told you yesterday to listen to a song. Scroll down and do that right now. Or just click; that gets me more hits.

Kurt would have turned 50 this week, by the way. This post isn’t about Nirvana’s music but it’s not unrelated, as you’ll soon figure out.

Anyway: a few months ago I wrote a post about Rae Sremmurd where I talked about my utter inability to actually pay attention (or, honestly, understand) any of the lyrics to their songs. I continue to listen to Sremmlife 2 more or less weekly and other than Black Beatles I can’t actually name any of the songs or quote any of the lyrics. This is in stark opposition to the way I used to enjoy music, which was to memorize every syllable of entire albums. I don’t know what the hell Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi are talking about in the majority of the thing, and I had to look up their names just now.

But I love the hell out of Sremmlife 2 anyway.

The other day I downloaded Future’s self-titled new release on the strength of the cover art. I do that sometimes; I like discovering new music and occasionally I just buy something for the sheer hell of it.

(Sidenote: upon finding that link, I discover that dude has a second new album, meaning he has two new releases within two weeks. I buy it instantly.)

(Are we still calling these “albums”? I can’t use CD anymore, but “album” still seems to work. Anyway.)

So here’s the thing: I was listening to Future on the way home from work last night, and if anything to my old-ass ears the lyrics are even harder to decipher than Sremmurd. This seems to be a Southern hiphop thing; Sremmurd is from Tupelo and Future is from Atlanta. I put the YouTube “video” of POA on the post yesterday because that’s the song that was playing when I realized I wasn’t really in the car anymore, and upon checking the track realized I had not the slightest idea what POA might stand for. (“Power of Attorney,” according to the Google.) And this leads me to my question, and the reason I’m writing this post in the first place:

How important are lyrics to you to be able to enjoy a piece of music? Do you ever listen to music in a foreign language where there’s literally no chance of you understanding the words? Is it possible for a “good song” to be about a subject or topic you hate? I once tossed a brand-new CD out the window of my car on the first listen because it turned out to be laced with homophobia, but it was also clear and understandable. And I can’t stand a couple of very popular songs because of what they’re about.

These last couple of albums could be about goddamn anything and I don’t care at the moment because I can’t stop zoning out when I’m listening to them. Which isn’t a bad thing; I can’t complain. I’m just wondering how weird it is.

PS: I got home last night and went to check the mail, and stopped dead in my driveway because I could hear Rae Sremmurd playing and thought my phone had unpaused itself or something. It took a moment to realize that one of the two teenagers next door had their bedroom window open and was listening to Sremmlife 2 at perhaps an unhealthy volume level. So there’s that.

I’ve been at work for 41 hours in the last four days. I may not legally be conscious right now, and I’m not sure how I got home.

Watch this: I don’t know if you’ve heard of Rae Sremmurd (“Ear Drummers,” backwards), and whether you have or not probably shows whether you’re my age or older or younger than me, or whether the words “mannequin challenge” mean anything to you. One way or another, I encountered these guys for the first time… yesterday? Two days ago? and I think I’ve listened to their album SremmLife 2 a thousand times since then. There hasn’t been enough hours in that time to listen to the album a thousand times but I’ve done it anyway, because time actually stops while you’re listening to Rae Sremmurd.

This is hiphop inflected, but hell if I know what genre it is. I’d call it trance music, but that’s already a thing and I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. Like… I’ve been high twice in my life, right, or at least I’ve been high twice when the high-inducing agents weren’t prescribed by a doctor and administered in a hospital. At any rate, the first time barely even counted, so maybe I’ve only been high once. So maybe I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, but:

I’m pretty sure this music is what it’s like to be high just transformed into music.

That’s a recommendation.

Like, there are lyrics, I suppose? I barely know what any of them are. I can’t pay attention to the words. They’re probably gross in some way; my experience with Southern hiphop in general hasn’t been great, and these guys are from Tupelo, Mississippi, which is probably on the slightly dirtier side of the Dirty South. But hell if I know or care what they’re talking about on any of their songs, because the music starts and the groove kicks in and all the sudden it’s fifteen minutes later and the car is on the other side of town and I don’t remember the drive in between at all but I went somewhere magical and wonderful while it was happening.

I love the fact that they’re playing guitar in the video the whole way through and there appear to be no guitars featured in Black Beatles at all. That’s, like, a metaphor, man.

Go download this. I’m going to bed.