The self-approved tag team champs Icebloc are all about the club bangers with heavy-lean beats, sway dynamic and icy flow. The duo of J.Keys and Vito really came together on their latest album, Krankmusik, a bang-to-banger which features the slumpin “Put It In The Air,” track that makes you raise your drink in the air and grind. “Bout Dat Guap” makes me just want to fuuuuck everything around me, fuck it up it’s so bomb. Bomb fuck bomb mane! But the real deal is “Drop Roll” with its dark and sinister beat.

Dolla signs, game recogize game right here. But that shit, make them riches bitches. I could totally hang with these guys, Icebloc and Giraffebutt up in the house, sipping crystal in a custom pimp my ride lincoln, gertting HJs from booty-hos, flashing bling like What, stunna-nunnas at night,club yto club, backdoor entrance, VIP access knowwhaddImean?

Like what you hear? You can check out the tag team inaction in their YouTube EPK right here. Holla at yr boi! That’s real talk. No it’s not. That’s paid talk. There’s a difference. It takes a certain amount of turning your brain off for paid talk. But hell, people go dumb in the club, I go dumb in the blog. uuuuuuuuggggkkkkh Nuh-NUH. I am on so much cocaine right now, it’s all making too much sense. Goin off with Icebloc.

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Interesting piece on Slate today about YouTube, the supposed grand-champion of user-generated content, which is of course the basis of the Web 2.0 revolution. According to analysts best guesses, the site loses around half-a-billion dollars a year:

YouTube’s troubles are surprisingly similar to those faced by newspapers. Just like your local daily, the company is struggling to sell enough in advertising to cover the enormous costs of storing and distributing its content. Newspapers have to pay to publish and deliver dead trees; YouTube has to pay for a gargantuan Internet connection to send videos to your computer and the millions of others who are demanding the most recent Dramatic Chipmunk mash-up. Google doesn’t break out YouTube’s profits and losses on its earnings statements, and of course it’s possible that Credit Suisse’s estimates are off. But if the analysts are at all close, YouTube, which Google bought in 2006, is in big trouble. As Benjamin Wayne, the CEO of the rival video-streaming company Fliqz, pointed out in a recent article for Silicon Alley Insider, not even Google can long sustain a company that’s losing close to half a billion dollars a year.

Of course, the implication of YouTube titanic failure to capitalize on it’s massive traffic have repercussions for the rest of the new Web 2.0 superstars, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, et al, who have yet to figure out how to make money beyond having people give it to them to own a piece:

YouTube’s problems point to a larger difficulty for many Web startups: “User-generated content” is proving to be a financial albatross. Two years ago, Time magazine named “you” its Person of the Year for doing your small part in fueling the Web 2.0 revolution. The magazine argued that by collecting and distributing the creations of millions of individuals, the Web is upending the way we learn about what’s going on in the world around us. There’s no doubt this is true; you experienced the presidential inauguration through millions of pictures captured by ordinary people, and a lot of what you learn these days comes from articles put together by the anonymous hordes who power Wikipedia. Yet even though they’ve changed the way we live, sites that collect and share content produced by all of us haven’t done the one thing many tech evangelists said they’d do—make a ton of money. Or, in many cases, any money.

It appears that multi-platinum shock rapper Eminem has busted out of the woodwork after about a 3 year hiatus.  Mr. Mathers is set to drop his next album, Relapse, sometime in may, with a follow-up record Relapse 2 which is due to come out later this year.

His single off the new record, ‘We Made You’, hit teh internetz today along with a video produced by Dre. In short, Slim has started to regress as an artist, relying on a weak song, a very uninviting chorus and the same senseless celebrity ripping that he’s always had. The fact that he has (had?) so much talent and now is dependent on a slew of horrible puns set to some really awkward singing choices makes me question why he’s putting out the album.  The video itsself is just a rehash of every other video he’s done, sans any creativity.   I  wouldn’t go as far to say this is his worst track, but it’s down there.

YouTube currently has embedding disabled for this video (smart bastards…), so check it out HERE and let us know what you think.

Our friends Emery have released the first single from their forthcoming full length In Shallow Seas We Sail on iTunes today, but you can also check out a stream of it on YouTube above. The album itself will hit stores June 2nd, and will probably be fucking badass.

There are a few writers here at Synthesis who swear by Omaha noisy indie-rockers Cursive. Personally, I’m on the fence about them, having seen some hit-or-miss shows. But they’re at least worthy of a listen, and with their new album dropping this April, I plan on letting them have another shot at winning my heart.

Cursive - Mama, I’s Swollen - CD/Digital March 10, 2009, LP April 21, 2009

…Mama, I’m Swollen is an album brimming with the universal, questioning the human condition, social morality, and the ”Peter Pan Syndrome” of grown men. From the charging bass lines of album opener ”In The Now” to the quiet first chords of confessional closer ”What Have I Done?,” Mama, I’m Swollen is a natural progression that remains distinctively Cursive: a fluid amalgamation of the band’s sound past, present, and future – a band that both your punk kid sister and English lit grad student best friend can call their own.

They’re on tour this March, with a stop at SXSW. You can peep Cursive’s last tour video diary HERE. There’s a lot more Saddle Creek news. Sure, you can find all this info and more at http://www.saddle-creek.com/…but you could also just check out more after the jump…which is far more badass.

(more…)

1. Take your Seven Year Old to the Dentist

2. Film him afterwards while still under the effects of narcotics

3. Post to YouTube

4.???

5. PROFIT