Check out the video for young Texas rapper Milli Mars‘ song “The Alarm” here before you prolly see it mad other places. After seeing what happened to the A$AP crew, if I was a young fashionable internet-savvy rapper I would be ten kinds of on my grind, and I think Milli Mars got that same idea.

Oddly enough, whereas Rocky tries to be trill (and tends to succeed weirdly enough) the Texan Milli sorta has a NYC sound to him. Just sayin’… Anyway, he even enlisted the director of the superlative “Peso” for this video. It sorta reminds me of that, except this walking tour of San Antonio makes it look like an occult hell full of rascals (the motorized kind), meat lockers, and trapped poultry. Rappers, everyone!

“The Alarm” is off of Milli Mars most recent mixtape, YMID, which you can download for free below

The Weeknd - House of Balloons (2011)

Vs.

Drake - Take Care (2011)

A battle of best friends! At least I think they’re best friends or something like that not? Being that we gave House of Balloons #2 on our Top 50 and Take Care #4 on our Top 10 Disappointments of 2011, I think my leaning is pretty clear. But that hasn’t stopped people from swooning all over Take Care. But what if you had to choose between it and The Weeknd’s debut to exist and possibly keep you warm at night… which would it be? Choice Is Yours…

Another year down and it’s time to sift through the mire of releases and bring you the Bloglin’s top movies of 2011. It was a weird year for movies and if you pay attention to box office grosses, kinda pathetic. More sequels were released in 2011 than any other year in history and seven of those sequels were the highest grossing films of the year. This wasn’t a big shock – Hollywood ran out of original ideas years ago. Not to knock all of the well-funded money makers – Deathly Hallows was fantastic and Fast Five brought the fun back to summer action movies that have been gunning too hard lately to be “gritty” and “intelligent.” But where’s the originality?

It’s all across the ocean, apparently. Four foreign language films made our cut and 11 directors on the list come from overseas. A few of the films on our list that actually were made by U.S. citizens came from directors making their first feature length or scrappy indie kids taking big leaps with their art. Step up your game, America! Smaller distributors kicked major ass this year too. Distributors IFC and Magnet both scored hat tricks below, while the bigger dogs like Sony and Fox have a weaker presence as they continue to hoard their precious money, refusing to drop their nuts and take some goddamn risks.

It’s noteworthy to mention that three of our favorite comedians each appear twice on the list: John C. Reilly, Rainn Wilson, and Tim Heidecker! We know, Tim only had blink-and-you-miss-him roles in both films, but it still counts!

One last thing before we jump into this. I want to say that it was a huge year for the Bloglin’s movie coverage. We got more screener invitations, festival press badges, and DVD/Blu-ray review copies than ever. There are a million other blogs you could waste your time on everyday, so thanks for hanging out with us dorks. It means a lot. Okay enough yammering. Here’s the Bloglin’s favorite films of 2011 with a few honorable mentions for fun. Feel free to tell us how absolutely right we are in the comments.

Honarble Mentions: Werner Herzog showed us some of the cave drawings he did as a child in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Steven Soderbergh scared the shit out of us with Contagion, we wanted to drink really bad with Brendan Gleeson in The Guard, the second best movie about the discovery of a planet near ours was Another Earth, and Jonathan Levine showed us the funny side of cancer with 50/50.

So join us after the jump as we countdown the Bloglin’s favorite films of 2011.

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That would actually be pretty sick, huh? I used to do a lot of field recordings, but I never got the chance to record a burning wave. I’m sure it would sound nothing like DJ Burn One though. You know, the sound of Yelawolf, ASAP Rocky, Pill, Starlito, and countless other notable hip hop releases of recent memory. Earlier this year Burn One dropped the much-slept on The Ashtray, which is just one amongst a slew of releases, but it also served as the singular marker for a very clear transition point. The Ashtray is Burn One’s first instrumental release, and after talking with him it’s clear that it’s a very calculated release that has involved much more than the music on it might suggest.

Burn One isn’t just a guy making beats. He’s a tireless hustler who’s first instrumental album is just one small piece of a very involved puzzle that has grown out of the space where his life and hip hop meet. Like many of us who grew up in the South, hip hop connected with him as much as he connected with it. And Burn One’s story highlights the difficulty in finding a distinction between how hip hop sounds as music, and what hip hop does as music:

“I think I had a unique experience growing up. I was raised in a city just south of downtown atlanta called Hapeville until I was 10. my family was one of a handful of white families in the area. after that we moved to the suburbs where there were just a handful of black families. it was pretty crazy because you would have these die hard rednecks with rebel flags hanging off their jacked up trucks banging pac to the fullest extent. it made no sense to me at the time but I realize now that music is one of the few things that translates to everybody, regardless of race or beliefs.”

And it would seem that the eponymous characteristics of hip hop not only informed, but also defined Burn One’s experience with this music, this culture, this vernacular of our nation. He got his start—you ready for this?—burning mix CDs in high school. He was THAT dude. The one who knew how to use a computer before everyone was rocking iTunes. But apparently he was one of the #Rarest versions of that dude type, because he also had great taste in music. And of course that led to working at a mom and pop, which lead to releasing his own proper mixtapes, which then led to making all kinds of connections, which then lead to projects of his own with various folks, which then lead to doin his own tunes and starting BLVD ST, which eventually blossomed into his label Five Points:

“I started my label Five Points Music Group about a year ago after I got together with my current team. Walt Live, Ricky Fontaine & The Professor play most of the live music you hear on my beats now. With them I can pretty much get out any sounds that I hear in my head. We work a lot of placement records and side projects with artists I believe have a chance to make it like Scotty & P. Watts. Ricky & Walt are also the first act I’m putting out on the label. they produce, write, sing, rap, record and mix all their own stuff. We just dropped a record with them and LE$ as the first single off the Cowbell Gang tape I’m doing with Taylor Gang producer Cardo. That’s going to be a double disc and hopefully it’ll be out by February. I’m also working on the soundtrack to an independent film that was shot here in ATL called Snow On Tha Bluff. We created the theme music for the trailer and have a few other songs in the actual movie as well.”

And running his label is exactly what he’s doing. From the top to the bottom Five Points is a brand under the care of a man with impeccable taste, a meticulous ear, and a connection to hip hop that is so intertwined with his life that you cannot separate the two. Burn One is in that unique transition point that comes between being part of the Wave, and being a self-sustaining enterprise. He exhibits everything that the Wave cultivates (honesty, humility, dedication to the craft, wisdom, tough tunes…), but he has outgrown the Wave. He has started his own sequel to the Wave, he’s a cloud, and he’s about to rain down an excellent example:

“at this point I’m the only one handling the administrative side of things on the daily. I have a very distinct vision with what I want to accomplish and until I find the right people to bring in that see my vision I’d rather just handle it all myself.”

And so, through Five Points DJ Burn One is not onyl able to release music, but also realize his relationship with hip hop on an even grander scheme. At this point he is undoubtedly a regional force, and unarguably an internet staple, but he has never released music as we commonly think of it. Burn One’s role in contemporary hip hop has led to the release of a lot of music, but all he’s ever done is live and breathe everything that this art stands for. He’s an artist in the purest form to quote Squadda B, and you can believe he is not only a name that we’ll be watching next year, but also a potent mind that we’ll be paying close attention to, and most likely looking to for inspiration.

The Weeknd – Echoes of Silence (2011) [Self-Released] // Grade: B-

The Weeknd’s House of Balloons was hands down one of the best albums of the year. It worked because it combined r&b hooks with a musical atmosphere of sex and bad life choices. On top of that Abel Tesfaye painted lyrical pictures of regret, infatuation and drug fueled after, after parties. It was a Drake album minus the Cosby sweaters and ego boosting platitudes — unrepentant r&b for douchebags and the women who love them. The album sounded like the soundtrack to an unreleased Darren Aronofsky movie about a pill popping, broke down ballet dancer turned stripper—that’s to say it was equally sexy and depressive. Musically there were subtle hints at dub, screw and shoegaze liberally sprinkled throughout the mix for maximum atmosphere, but the key to whole thing was Tesfaye’s pleading and hypnotic vocal hooks. The music took you back to whatever was the strangest, most depraved or drugged out sex you ever had and Tesfaye’s vocals made it sound like a good idea all over again. House of Ball0ons wasn’t baby making music; it was music to cultivate new STDs to.

Echoes of Silence, on a cursory listen, is a perfect accompaniment to House of Balloons. It has the same sleazy atmosphere hanging off of it like a fog (although this go round the music verges more towards a cinematic dread) and the lyrics still deal with addiction, obsession and entirely unhealthy romantic relationships. What’s missing are the giant hooks that get stuck in your head for days and the musical shifts that take good songs to great. The title track “Echoes Of Silence” is a piano and vocal only track that’s both pretty and pained. The Weeknd sings in a register that reminds you of Michael Jackson ballads in the same way Justin Timberlake’s falsetto reminded you of MJ’s dancefloor burners. But, it never goes anywhere. The song never develops or explodes or drops. It simply exists in a straight line. Compare this to “Loft Music” from HoB, which is relatively static, but manages to take you places through minor inflections (the “what you doin in the bathroom” delivery in particular). “Montreal” is a cool intro track (after the exceptional karaoke performance of MJ’s “Dirty Diana”) but it’s not very dynamic for a song that runs a little over four minutes. As far as “Same Old Song” goes, let’s just say it’s title is very apt.

The highlights on the album come in the tracks that vary the slow and drugged/dragged out template The Weeknd works from by default. “XO/The Host” bumps a little bit and moves the track forward through creative percussive arrangement. It’s the longest track on the album, but because it actually layers on plucking strings, electric guitars and Tron synths throughout its seven-minute run time, it feels more like an epic song than a dragged out affair.  For the first time ever, we get a track that you could imagine would warrant Weeknd backup dancers with “Initiation.” It sounds like something that would appear on a dark period Ciara album, when she got real depressed but still wanted to dance sexy. “The Fall” (produced by Clams Casino) is another stand out track pairing a sample of a detuned guitar and fluttering synth with The Weeknd’s distant voice to make a ghostly and disorienting effect. It’s the kind of thing that you expect and want from The Weeknd, it’s an r&b track no one else could make.

The tracks taken individually are cool — they all evoke the 5 am, loft coke party feel that The Weeknd does so well — but the hooks that brought you back to the loft party aren’t as prevalent. Whereas previous Weeknd material took you out of your reality and forced you to go to his never ending dirtbag rendezvous, a lot of the tracks on this album simply exist as background music. The music is never bad, at worst it sounds “edgy”, but doesn’t actually make you feel sexy, or dirty for listening to it.  Those songs are the perfect soundtrack for buying jeans in a cool boutique, but not the type of jams that help convince a girl who’s last name you don’t know to blow you on camera — and really that’s what The Weeknd’s music is really for.

Download The Weeknd’s Echoes of Silence (Click Here)

Album TV commercials you say? Why don’t they still do these? Oh right, maybe because they’re kinda terrible. But in the best way. Flavorwire put together this list of their ten favorites, and I gotta say I kinda forgot these ever existed.

My personal fave is the one for In Utero featuring the boys in plaid in terrible plastic labor while being berated by a nurse played by Bobcat Goldthwait before he became an alright director and was just a guy who yelled like an idiot and got payed a bunch for it. Just kidding B-Cat, I got love for you, I see you.

What exactly are you supposed to do in this strange little week between Christmas and New Years. It’s not quite 2012, though it doesn’t really seem like 2011 either. I think the best bet is to keep yourself in a consistent state of calmness, tranquility, and most likely inebriation.

And we have the perfect thing for ya! At least those of you lucky enough to live in Chicago. CULT will be happening this Thursday at Berlin, and it’s final appearance in 2011 should prove to be very punk. #Seapunk that is. Learn about it.

Coral Records, the agreed upon arbiter of all things teal and PLUR is bringing out their best, brightest, and most aquatic to make this CULT one to remember. Get ready to get wet with Ultrademon and the seafoam chanteuse herself Zombelle.

As always, house DJs Teen Witch  and Baby Bamboo will also be there, along with a dude from the Real World apparently? Cool! See ya out there.

Thursday December 29th, 10PM
Berlin
954 Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL
(773) 348-4975

There is no modern horror franchise more inextricably linked to its creator than Hostel and Eli Roth. Like it or not (and I know for many it’s “not”) but Roth, as well as James Wan and Oren Peli are the Carpenter, Craven, and Hooper of our generation. Out of the three, Roth is also probably the best.

Though it’s often overshadowed by the era of torture porn it ended up inspiring, Hostel is a very good and very effective horror movie (as is Cabin Fever, to a lesser extent). It also has that mark of being produced by an auteur, a singular and unique vision that doesn’t really care what you think about it.

Which makes it all the weirder that there now exists a Hostel III that has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Roth. How in the hell, I thought, could this franchise exist without him? The answer is, very mediocrely. Which is actually much better than I thought it would fare.

Shifting the action from Eastern Europe to, in an obvious but not uninteresting choice, Las Vegas, Hostel III follows a group of dudes on a bachelor party who end up in the hands of Elite Hunting. Hilarity ensues. Not really though. This straight to DVD sequel was actually a little confusing to me in its intent.

A lot of times in situations like this, you’ll find the producers just make the further iterations more ridiculous, more hopelessly bloody, or even much more comedic, just because there’s not usually a lot of room for nuance on the b-horror circuit. But, for the most part, Hostel III tries to be relatively straight up (at least considering the world of the franchise) and is the least gory of the three.

It also stars Kip Pardue as the sorta nefarious friend, which just had me laughing all the way through. I guess perhaps they were trying to capture a The Hangover vibe, but not even that is really committed to. It’s not terrible, not really, but with the noted absence of Roth it’s just missing that bloody, dangly-eyeballed spark. Hostel III is available on DVD tomorrow.

Fresh on the heels of the release of Squadda B’s new Back Sellin’ Crack mixtape is this swank as fuck video for the Main Attrakionz 808s & Dark Grapes II standout leadoff “Bossalinis and Fooliyones Pt. 2″. It’s a great song, perhaps my fave on the album, and the video is def up to snuff.

The was done by 10 Out 10 and It’s got gorillas and MS paint art and 3D animated grillz. The usual stuff. Squadda and Mondre make pretty dope animated characters, especially Mondre in his little hand drawn Мишка Keep Watch fitted.

Purling Hiss – Dizzy Polizzy (2011) [Self-Released] // Grade: B

Christmas is finally over (hallelujah!) and truth be told there’s nothing better to decompress to, clearing the air of all that phony-baloney holiday cheer, than a spoonful of Purling Hiss. Not only did the lo-fi, or shall I say no-fi, songster release some new material, its recorded on a cassette tape to boot. That means twice the basement-quality bang for your buck or half the production value, however you look at it. Dizzy Polizzy is a tide pool of heavy freak folk and weathered psych-rock to fade in and out to on your shag carpet.

The album plays more like an unlabeled relic you’re gated neighborhood pot dealer had sitting in his dual-tape deck for 15 some-odd years, assuming the guy you pick up from calls his product things like “Panama Red” and “Acapulco Gold”, sports a ponytail and Hawaiian print button-down (a Мишка one may be just on the horizon), and repeats the same anecdotes of following around some jam band that “just never caught on”. So much for stereotyping, let’s keep this thing a’ rolling.

Produced god-knows-where the music swirls with fever and lethargy, simultaneously. Sluggish riffs turn garbled transmissions with no defining sender and receiver. Staggering songs with coordinates unknown. However, amidst the obvious obscuration, hypnotic lyrics, sometimes translating to a mere patchwork of primal yells, permeate the thick-skinned bubble of reverb enclosing each track. Dizzy Polizzy is much like everything Mike Polizze’s done before, if you’ve made acquaintance to it, with the exception of some subtleties. For one, the dude seems to be experimenting with other styles such as alt rock and blues n’roll as can be heard in the smoky interior of latter tracks “Drag On” and “Headlights”

“Squeaky Fromme”, an ode to one of the foxiest babes the Manson Family had to offer, is another standout, mostly in part because I like the title so much and also because it’s just old fashioned unkempt, unlearned, and unrestrained garage rock. This release will grow on you like Athlete’s foot after multiple listens and you’ll soon forget you only liked a fourth of the tracks initially. I’ll be honest I was ready to write this stuff off as some of the dude’s worst to date, having been into his self-titled LP and Public Service Announcement, but after a couple…OK…a bunch of repeat plays I, admittedly, came around to digging on all of it.

And here’s the bad news. Chances are slim you’ll be able to track down a physical copy of this ultra limited tour-only, self-released cassette. That is, unless you were one of the fortunate few to snag one of the 100 tapes made at one of his recent gigs. Don’t sweat it though, you can use this very device you’re on to your advantage. By golly, isn’t stealing music why man created the internet after all?