Fort Minor

I'm going through yet another new music phase. This one is pretty obsessive. I've always been a pretty big fan of Linkin Park, but only recetly just started really getting back into them. I'm really excited about their new live CD coming out next week, actually. So, maybe two weeks ago, I downloaded the album they put out last year, and while I was screwing around on iTunes, I came across the fact that Mike Shinoda, the rapper for Linkin Park, had done this hip hop side project, Fort Minor, a couple of years ago. I figured out that I knew the song Where'd You Go from the radio, but I had never been all that impressed by that song, so I didn't pay too much attention at first. Then I read some of Mike Shinoda's blog posts on his website and I was totally impressed by him. I guess he's always had a hip hop bend in him, and took the time to pursue it with Fort Minor during a break from Linkin Park. Some of what he had to say in his blog was really interesting to me, and I've always ben impressed by his Linkin Park lyrics, and after reading some of the stories behind some of the Fort Minor songs, I decided I needed to listen to them and not just write off the whole CD as being just like that radio song that I knew.

Wow. I'm really glad I did. Where'd You Go is probably my least favorite song on the album. His lyrics are really intelligent (mostly, there's a few just fun, hip hop anthem type songs, too), and the music is really interesting. I like music that makes me want to pay attention to the lyrics and the music, especially hip hop, because so much rap and hip hop is just about beats and bitches and all that, but Mike is really good. His music, like Linkin Park's, is really interesting and complex, and his rhymes are smart and thoughtful, with meaning. The music is not artificial, keyboard sound effects stuff, it's real music, and it's real good, and I've heard that Mike played most of the instruments on the album too. I'm just so impressed by this guy. So, then the mildly addictive phase that I'm now into is that once I downloaded the Fort Minor CD, I started checking out some of the acts that Mike collaborated with on it, and then some of the acts that they had collaborated with, and now I have this whole sort-of underground hip hop thing going on, and it's all I want to listen to, and I'm craving more and more new stuff.

The funny thing is that a lot of what I'm listening to right now is not new stuff, it's just new to me. I love discovering new music, and I love introducing other people to it, and I think some of my friends are getting a little tired of the hip hop I'm constantly trying to get them to listen to lately. For real though, check it out! The link to Fort Minor's website and MySpace are at the right.