13 shots to the dome

By RICHARD BECK | September 3, 2008

There are no radical departures from anything on Exit 13 — which means that at least something is well and good in the hip-hop universe. The lead single, “Baby (ft. The-Dream),” with its sunny warmth and electronic fuzz, is a second-rate “Good Life.” But it will float happily through the warm evening air at your post–Labor Day barbecues, and isn’t that enough? LL Cool J will always be there, I imagine, just a hair behind the times, knowing better than most that it’s entertaining to be entertaining.

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ARTICLES BY RICHARD BECK

PLUCK AND DETERMINATION | March 09, 2010
People have always thought that Joanna Newsom was indulgent. At first, it was about her voice — the kind of nasal yelp that usually keeps a performer from getting on stage at all. Then, on her second album, it was about her vocabulary and her instrumentation.

SONG OF HERSELF | August 05, 2009
"Listen, I will go on record saying I love Feist, I love Neko Case. I love that music. But that shit's easy listening for the twentysomethings. It fucking is. It's not hard to listen to any of that stuff."

DJ QUIK AND KURUPT | BLAQKOUT | June 15, 2009
LA hip-hop has two threads, and DJ Quik pulls both of them. The first is g-funk, a production style that relies on deep, open grooves and an endless parade of funk samples.

FLIPPER | LOVE | May 26, 2009
Flipper formed in San Francisco in 1979, and they're remembered three decades later because of a song called "Sex Bomb" that's one of the funniest pieces of music I've ever heard.

ST. VINCENT'S ACTOR GETS A RUN-THROUGH | May 26, 2009
There were not one but two clarinets on stage at the Somerville Theatre on Tuesday night, and that gives you some idea of how intricate Annie Clark's chamber-pop compositions can be.