Last Summer Pt. 2

So, even though it's bucketing it down here, I continue to post up summery sounding tunes in the hope that the sun will soon return.

Many moons ago there was an English band called The Kinks and they made many a jangly guitar song with happy vibes and entertaining lyrics. One such track is 'Sunny Afternoon', a song with a moral - you can have lost everything you own but with a sunny day you can be content with the loss. This is a childhood favourite, particularly the line that goes "I've got a BIG FAT Mama, tryin' to break me".

OMC were a one-hit wonder. Their hit was 'How Bizarre' and I can remember the summer this reminds me of. We were on holiday and some older boys at the pool had a stack of CD singles and personal CD player with some mini speakers and they were playing this. It had been all over the radio too and it was a big song, it was at number one in a few countries. Its got horns, which makes it summertastic and it's kinda got a pacific feel to it.

'Blackpool Roll' is by the man, the legend; Mr Scruff. It's pure audio cheekiness and is a perfect accompaniment for almost any summertime activity, including going to Blackpool. It's hard to say a lot about this, if you know Mr Scruff you know what to expect, if you don't, expect great beats with personality and instant loveability.

The Insyderz are a Christian Ska-Punk band from the US. They made this track called 'Paradise' which is basically about heaven but it doubles up, yeah you guessed right, as a brilliant summer track...again, it's those horns and happy-time vibes.

What would summer be without 2Pac and 'California Love'? It would be nothing.Nil.Nada. In August, you have got to bump this and pretend that you too are fresh out of jail and that you can hear hoochies screaming. A song about one locality with world wide appeal is hard to achieve but that bald-headed thug from Cali did it with the help of Troutman and a vocoder and a bomb-ass beat from Dre.

OK. That's the next five, hope you're building up your collection, you will NEED this CD this summer.

HHC Top 100 rap singles 50-41

# 49, 47 & 42 - Cypress Hill

Now I’d just like to remind you that this list hasn’t been compiled by me. It was made as a result of a poll that the world’s original rap magazine Hip Hop Connection carried out amongst it’s readers. As it happens, a lot of these tracks would be chosen by me if I had the patience to create such a list of my own. I made it my mission to collect all the tunes together and to bring them to the bloggers of the world. Numbers 50 - 41:

50. Nasty Nas - Halftime (zshare) – 1994 – ‘Illmatic’ (buy here)
If only Nas hadn’t departed from this sound, Hip Hop would possibly be alive and kicking.

49. Cypress Hill - How I Could Just Kill a Man (zshare) – 1991 – ‘Cypress Hill’ (buy here)
The first of three tracks in this post means no-one can accuse Cypress Hill of being inconsistent, well, not during the early 90’s anyway, the early 00’s tell a different story.

48. Dilated Peoples - Work the Angles (zshare) – 1998 – ‘The Platform’ (buy here)
Another inclusion of Dilated is welcome here by me, a great track but I’m still not sure how it gets this high in the top 100 of all time.

47. Cypress Hill - Hand on the Pump (zshare) – 1991 – ‘Cypress Hill’ (buy here or up there)
Cypress show off their ability to create unique blunted funky tracks that involve copious amounts of weed and guns.

46. Run DMC - Walk this Way (zshare) – 1986 – ‘Raising Hell’ (buy here)
Pretty much the forerunner of nu-metal (the sort that have ‘rappers’ and guitar riffs). A classic in many circles particularly Dad circles (also affiliated to air guitar circles), rap circles and student night DJ circles.

45. Eric B & Rakim - Microphone Fiend (zshare) – 1988 – ‘Follow the Leader’ (buy here)

44. 2Pac - California Love (zshare) – 1996 – ‘All Eyez on Me’ (buy here)
Big ‘cruising with windows down in the summer’ tune here courtesy of Dre, Pac and Roger Troutman on the vocoder/talk box. You know what to do; go cruise with your windows down.

43. Hardnoise – Untitled (zshare) – 1990
UK, once again, sounding suspiciously late 80’s American.

42. Cypress Hill – Insane in the Brain (zshare) – 1993 – ‘Black Sunday’ (buy here)
Cer-lassic! A point of much reference in pop culture this track has somehow managed to sneak from hyped up stoner track to one of those songs that everybody just knows.

41. The Crooklyn Dodgers – Crooklyn (zshare) - 1994

Buckshot, Special Ed and Masta Ace come together exclusively for this track produced by Q-Tip. If you like ATCQ or Jurassic 5 then this should really tickle your fancy.

40 tracks left. I'm going away next week so wont get to post for that time, I'll try to do one more installment before I leave y'all.