I find La Roux to be really boring. True story. All their electro-pop ditties sound exactly the same to me. However like another big name indie group (The Gossip), they coast by because they have a female lead singer with an amazing set of pipes on her and as a result can sing the house down.
Enter the Major Lazer boys, Switch and Diplo. Hated on (mostly Diplo here, Switch seems to not to have received the same treatment) for cultural appropriation, apparent douchebaggery and seemingly just having too much fun, they defied the haters and created one of the most strikingly different and charismatic dance music albums of 2009, Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do. The debate on Diplo and the rest of his Mad Decent crew can wait for another time, but lets cut to the chase and say in my eyes they keep club music fresh and fun by promoting and using elements of dance music from around the world and in this case the focus was on dancehall and reggae.
Love or hate it, their diverse production and selections for the remix tape Lazerproof, they show just how striking a singer Elly Jackson really is. With a constantly shifting sonic background that ranges from reggae to dancehall, dubstep, top 40 rap and beyond, the songs come into their own, no two sounding quite alike, yet all intrinsically linked. Switch and Diplo’s pop experience also play a roll, with catchy samples that will get stuck in your head for days. (Seriously, there was a two-week period where I couldn’t get their dubplated “Mad Decent big up all di fallen soldiers” hook out of my head.)
The end product is a fun, catchy, not super serious mixtape that’s displays the full talents of both Major Lazer and La Roux. It’s not a slap dash cash grab, but rather something that defies the expectations of the listener for how good said collaboration would be on paper. And I’m willing to bet like other Diplo tapes Piracy Funds Terrorism and Top Ranking, it will still be getting many spins long after the blog hype is gone.
Major Lazer & La Roux - Lazerproof
BONUS
Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx Glass Bottom Dub Mix)
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