I don’t know who made it hip to think so, but: Major Lazer‘s Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do  matter of factly got declared album of the year by everybody thinking he’s supposed to make such a selection. You can stream the whole album here legally:

Major Lazer - Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do pre listening

Why do people love it? Guess half of it is the “praising this makes me look like an expert” thing. Second thing is that the album has helluva concept by giving dancehall a facelift. Plus: the album works. Switch and Diplo use baby cries as an instrument, surf guitars (whatever this is I just copied that from somebody), use effects on the toasting and stuff. They worked with dope artists, blabla. Everything on point.

The concept aint new though. Its what you do in this online mash up scene. Its what Buraka Som Sistema did with Kuduro, taking a genre and tuning it with all the sounds and genres that are hot right now. Like Radioclit did with Funana in the mix I just posted (Radioclit Funanan Mix).

I just read an interview for a german mag where Diplo stated wursting dancehall wouldnt be cool at the moment what makes his work revolutonary. Hm. I come across stuff like that daily man. Might be Diplo started the trend (??) but Ghislain Poirier is doing it, Modeselektor, Terry Lynn and Phred do it. Dubstep and Grime have this influence like every second new british genre. So it aint that revolutionary and its definitely cool at the moment.

That aside, the album aint disappointing. Dont know if it’ll make my personal album of the year, but yeah. I dont really find stuff on it that tops Hold The Line, but Anything Goes is fire, Pon de Floor is porn, When You hear the bassline, Jump Up, Bruk Out,… 90% dopeness.  Only Keep It Goin Louder sucks big time due to being a commercial chart fighter with autotune under the wings. I defffnitly like hands in the air techno crap, but they fucked it up. Businesswise it makes good sense of course.