Watch the Throne by Kanye West & Jay-Z
The deluxe edition of Watch the Throne, Jay-Z and Kanye West's long-awaited collaboration is an hour and seven minutes of gold-plated social commentary. And I mean that literally: the packaging is made from gold mylar, unfolds into a cross and is embossed with images by Givenchy designer Riccardo Tisci. The opening track likens Kanye to Jesus (again) and includes the chorus, "What's a king to a god? / What's a god to a non-believer." The other 15 songs are replete with similar references to religion, wealth and status. (Kanye, on "Otis": "Last week I was in my other other Benz." Jay-Z on "Ni--as in Paris": "What's 50 grand to a motherf--er like me?"). At first the blatant opulence seems discordant, especially considering Watch the Throne's release coincided with the Dow Jones average's worst single-day performance since December 2008. (I don't even want to know how much it costs to sample Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness.")
But dig deep into Throne, past the bacchanal celebration of the finer things in life, and you'll find the album's heart: two men grappling with what it means to be successful and black in a nation that still thinks of them as second class.
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Anita and the Moment Sexual Harassment Went Mainstream
Twenty-five years ago, a University of Oklahoma Law School professor told the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee about the time her former boss put pubic hair on a Coke can. She talked about the kind of pornography he told her he watched, how he bragged about his penis size, and the 10 or so times he asked her on dates even though he was her boss. At one point, the nickname “Long Dong Silver” came up. For three days in October 1991, all anyone could talk about was Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and which one of them was lying.
Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek
Reign of Terror by Sleigh Bells
Sleigh Bells are very, very popular among a small subset of people. Depending on who you are, where you live, what kind of music you listen to and the types of websites you visit, you either have already read a dozen articles about them or none at all. Ever since Brooklyn duo Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss released their first single “Crown on the Ground,” in 2009, they’ve been the subjects of extensive praise (and scrutiny) on niche websites and music magazines. They’d barely been together for a year before they were courted by M.I.A.; Sleigh Bells released their debut album Treats on her boutique record label in 2010 and were invited to play Coachella before it had even come out. But while such premature adoration often proves unwarranted with bands still wet behind their ears, Sleigh Bells have lived up to expectations, mostly by managing to carve out a rock sound that is fairly unique.
Read more at TIME