Photo Credit: MTV

Producer Genius‘ best produced song of 2013 and my best overall song of the year. Yeezy stays winning on all fronts with the Genius crew. Kanye West gets my number one spot (on a Rock list) because he not only broke barriers, he did something that would be likened to suicide in the industry today. Not only did he barely promote his album “Yeezus”, dude didn’t even have it finished until he brought it to Rick Rubin 3 weeks before the release date for the finishing touches. After the grandiose ride that was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy showcasing West’s mastery of his craft, he once again likened himself to a student under Rubin’s mastery of minimalism, and thus we have the dark disgusting hangover that samples a church choir and EDM all in the same song (just not this one) that is Yeezus. Alright, enough of my rant on Yeezus, you need to check yourself if you have yet to realize that this album is an unprecedented masterpiece that people will be talking about for years to come.

Blood On The Leaves is the centerpiece of Yeezus, you can check out Producer Genius' bomb breakdown of the tracks production here, but I want to talk about the song overall. I think it’s the horns, I think it’s just those blaring horns sampled from TNGHT’s “R U Ready” that get me, or maybe the fact that Yeezy took a song about disturbing lynchings and turned it into a banger / ode to a relationship torn apart by infidelity, by God, it’s insanity. The picture painted gets wickedly more vivid with every bar:

Now you sittin' courtside, wifey on the other side
Gotta keep ‘em separated, I call that apartheid
Then she said she impregnated, that’s the night your heart died
Then you gotta go and tell your girl and report that
Main reason cause your pastor said you can’t abort that
Now your driver say that new Benz you can’t afford that
All that cocaine on the table you can’t snort that
That going to that owing money that the court got
All in on that alimony, uh, yeah-yeah, she got you homie
'til death but do your part, unholy matrimony

And that picture ladies and gentlemen is what gives this track my #1 spot. I have nothing to say but bravo Mr. West, there is no ceiling for what you can achieve and you’ve done more than enough to prove that.

Yes, yes you are.

When Spinelli approached me about contributing my Top 10 Songs of 2013 for the Rock Genius year-end list I got so hyped; of course my biggest problem was narrowing down the tracks! I chose from a pool of about 50 total songs. I decided to go half rock / half rap because it wouldn’t really be a “best of” if we made it genre specific, plus, the Genius fam is all about annotating all of… well… everything. Below are a few honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut. Be sure to check them out as well.

#Honorable Mentions

Blood Orange – “You’re Not Good Enough”
Flatbush Zombies – “My Team, SUPREME”
Phoenix – “Oblique City”
Pusha T ft. Future – “Pain”
A$AP Rocky – “Angels”

DCFC’s “The Photo Album” was recorded at Hall of Justice Studios in Seattle, WA (Death Cab for Cutie’s hometown.)

Hall of Justice Studios is actually owned by Death Cab for Cutie’s very own Chris Walla who provided guitars and production for the album.

Construction noise all day long could be referring to the huge construction boom of 2000 that occurred in Seattle. The Fourth and Madison Building (formerly the IDX Tower) was completed in 2002, relatively shortly after the album’s release.

And gutter punks are bumming change

Sadly, as with most large cities, there are often people around bumming change or panhandling in order to make money. As of 2000 there were at least 6,900 people with no sort of home.

Guinevere was the Queen consort of King Arthur. In folklore, Guinevere is said to have had a love affair with Arthur’s chief knight, Sir Lancelot.

The singer will never admit his love for his Guinevere (possibly an alias for a forbidden lover) due to her relationship with someone. Perhaps she has been committing adultery with the songwriter but in order to protect her he will never admit he loves her.

Instead he grows thicker skin that he can show off to the world as a lustrous coat that catches the eye so the world will not catch the truth of the love between the songwriter and Guinevere. It will be their secret forever despite the pain that it causes the songwriter to see his love with the man she’s with, he ultimately grows thicker skin to avoid the pain.

Somehow he’s wronged her in the past and he’s asking for the chance to make it all right. Wrongdoing on both sides of the relationship is a common thing in another one of Ghost Loft’s songs: Slowdowntime

Crawford resorts to cheap shots at RG’s very own Nicole Otero a.k.a. Notero, the person who actually gets artists on board with the whole RG thing.

The actual quote from Zechory (according to the Billboard article):

Rap Genius is so much more than a lyrics site! The lyrics sites the NMPA refers to simply display song lyrics, while Rap Genius has crowdsourced annotations that give context to all the lyrics line by line, and tens of thousands of verified annotations directly from writers and performers. These layers of context and meaning transform a static, flat lyric page into an interactive, vibrant art experience created by a community of volunteer scholars. Furthermore, music is only a small part of what we do. Rap Genius is an interactive encyclopedia for annotation of all texts – anyone can upload and annotate texts relating to music, news, literature, religion, science, their personal lives, or anything else they want.

RG’s very own Ilan Zechory.