Wiley – what could be

How many blogs go from early 70’s folk to up-to-date 2010 grime-pop? Not that many, that’s what!

More up to date I’ve been slowly wading through the gigabytes of tunes that Wiley released via Twitter in July – 11 zip files full of new Wiley music, variable (even demos and just beats in there) but The Elusive tracks are brilliant, as are quite a few other – as with Wiley’s career it’s a mix of pop and underground grime, a real mixture. The track below – Could Be featuring Jake Gosling (with a Chew Fu beat) is as good as anything B.o.B. and the like are doing…and has become a bit of an anthem for me.

Wiley – Could Be (Cought Up In Here)

I like Wiley’s more downbeat/serious songs, it’s obvious that he’s got a love/hate relationship with pop, wanting to keep it real, keep that depth but when everyone is bopping up and down to David Guetta’s latest it’s rather hard to do both (it is possible – see Shutterbugg by Big Boi for example). And I like the honesty in this, especially the line ‘No matter what he says I can’t go against Dylan’ – a reference to his former Roll Deep colleague Dizzee Rascal.

Other tracks I like:

Value for Money, a funny song about posh restaurants – only one of the Roll Deep crew could make a club banger about haute cuisine, over a rave-house backing!

Mz Bratt – Lose Your Love (Ft. Wiley) – a pop grime gem, could see this chart like ‘Could Be’ easily.

Wiley – Days Are Long
Wiley – What They Want – something about these two and subject of some of the lyrics suggest to me that Wiley has all this planned out, it’s not the random releasing of 100s of tracks, it’s intentional, and a message to the fans – going direct to them, and involving them in the ups and downs like some grime soap opera. I think he’s going to come back bigger and better…

Wiley – Still Gonna Miss – quite an odd interesting production on this, eastern grime? Maybe it was inspired by Chase & Status’s Eastern Jam.

Wiley – Stickin’ With You (?) – a banger in the same realm as Bonkers, I could see people going mad fer it in the clubs, if not already.

And a song included but from a previous LP is Music I Like – pointing out the eclectic music he listens to isn’t the music he makes.

It sounds like The Elusive would’ve been a good if not great album, and I hope he gets it together as ‘Never Be Your Woman’ was genius – he’s working on yet again a new album. And I think it’s a great tactic – his music is going far and wide, and will be shared…so the next album will have a larger audience I reckon – I’ll certainly check it out.

You can download the Wiley zip files from here.