Tracking 2012's Best Songs #12 
Festival Preview: Primavera Sound 2012 
Review: Japandroids - Celebration Rock 
PMA Guide to Sasquatch! 2012 
The xx: Hear 5 New Songs! 
Click on the turntable on the left to listen to a continuous stream of music featured on Pretty Much Amazing - updated every day. For more, you can check out the Best Songs of 2012.
Here is an interesting article Confusion posted up on Pigeons and Planes grading Hip Hop’s “Freshman Class.” Big names on the list include: Wale, Kid Cudi, Drake, and Mickey Factz. Confusion, a bit more au courant in the Freshman Class than I am, also grades J.Cole, Frank Ramz (contributor to his blog), Charles Hamilton (chicks can kick his ass, I hear), B.o.B. (or Bobby Ray now? He just sounds like he’s Hannah Montana’s Dad now…), Fuze the MC, and Izza Kizza.
Good article all around, but I do feel some talent (or whatever) is missing from this list. Maybe Asher Roth, Wiz Khalifa among others. Maybe there’s room for some aggressive expansion.
Read the Article Here
by on July 6, 2009 ‡ 0 reactions
Best Songs of 2012: Winter 
Rock The Bells 2012: Lineup, Dates and Ticket Information 
New Yeasayer: "Henrietta" 
New Childish Gambino: "Unnecessary" f/ ScHoolboy Q 
Check Out: Icona Pop - "I Love It" (written by Charli XCX) 
New Azealia Banks: "JUMANJI" MP3 
Wild Pitch: disco naïveté 
Rec'd MP3: Purity Ring - "Obedear" 
MP3: Major Lazer & Amber of Dirty Projectors - "Get Free" 
MP3: Theophilus London & A$AP Rocky - "Big Spender" 
Amazing: Florence + The Machine & Dev Hynes - "Never Let Me Go" 
Check Out: Kirin J Callinan: "WIIW (Way to War)" 
Check Out: MS MR - "Hurricane" 
Sleep Over - "Romantic Streams" (CFCF Remix) 
Download: Meek Mill - Dreamchasers 2 Mixtape 
Review: El-P - Cancer For Cure 
Download: Nicolas Jaar's Essential Mix 
Review: Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe 
Review: Lower Dens - Nootropics 
Review: Toro y Moi - June 2009 
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d never heard of Izza Kizza before this, but that track on the site was sick! Downloading both of his mixtapes right now.
http://smokingsection.uproxx.com/TSS/2009/06/midterm-grades-xxl-class-of-2009
midterm grades : XXL Class of 2009 Emcees
Good reviews overall but I do have to say the scoring seems a bit generous. I have enjoyed keeping up with the “new class” of MC’s coming up but I feel like they may be slightly over-hyped (at least some of them anyway.)
I feel like B.o.B has potential to be great, especially after seeing his live performance of “Yesterday” which sounds like it will be a great song. I’m also a big Kid Cudi and Wale fan, although im not sure what Wale’s move from mixtapes to a major album will be like. I feel like his style is not to be tampered with and im hoping a major release wont take away from the goodness we’ve heard from Wale thus far. In my opinion that is exactly what happened with Asher, loved his mixtape can’t even listen to his album (aside from the bonus track he did with Slick Rick on the UK version.)
Also I don’t see the huge hype behind Drake. I think he is nice, and has some good songs, but overall he doesn’t command my attention as a listener like B.o.B, Cudi, Wale, or even Charles Hamilton (even though he comes off as pretty corny overall I dig a lot of his songs) do. I am Canadian so it’s nice to see a Canadian MC getting so much love but does he deserve it?