The GLORIOUS gatefold vinyl version of RemarkableUnremakrable only made possible by a successful Kickstarter www.kickstarter.com/projects/exporben/exp-remarkableunremarkable-album-on-vinyl with full colour print and vinyl insert including all lyrics and track info - now re-pressed in green vinyl and with some spelling mistakes in the info/lyrics corrected thank GOD. Vinyl comes with a limited edition ExP "shiny" sticker as modelled by Herbie in the pic
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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
CD with 32 page booklet, proper physical product here, artwork by Martin Lovegrove throughout, a labour of love to create the whole piece. Lyrics and explanations of each track
Includes unlimited streaming of RemarkableUnremarkable (better price on ExP.uk)
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about
This beat isn’t as old as some of the others, I think I had the bare bones of an album concept in 2015/2016 and was going to call it “Hip-
Hop Is Depressing Enough” (ie. “HIDE”) so the idea was always there to make something upbeat that contradicts where I was in my
head (and arguably where hip-hop is...where has the good time, fun stuff gone?) and this was going to be the title track. I chopped up
the drum break (not for the first time on this album) from Bill Withers’ “Use Me” and had been digging around looking for good Marian
McPartland samples having become infatuated with her “Melancholy Mood” track which was used to great effect for Miilkbone’s
“Keep It Real”. I still don’t know where I found this track, a collaboration with Norah Jones: “Beautiful Friendship” but it had a happy
vibe and I wanted to use it. It is fully cheating to make a beat with a strong note or sample on the first beat of the bar and then just
repeating that (see track 6, 7, 9, 13...) but it does allow for a LOT of space for rapping, and I get frustrated at a track which is too busy for
lyrics, what’s the point me writing anything?
The horns at the start were actually one of the last additions to the entire album, I spent the end of 2016 and 2017 working through
a PILE of awful vinyl records that I’d inherited some way or another, that I’d already picked through once or twice, so these were not
ones I was massively looking forward to playing. I’ve been playing them at the same time as Cubase recording them while cracking
on with other things and if something catches my ear I save it and then ditch the album, if it’s dreadful otherwise, which it almost
always is. The horns were from a compilation called “Especial Vacaciones España” with a scantily clad lass on the front...
“I stay hidden cos my hidey hole holds my whole hope” was harking back
to that “HIDE” concept that the album originally had, but when I wrote
“who needs enemies with inner monologues like we have?” as a question
to end the verse, I found myself writing a chorus which answered that
question, and “Unremarkable” was born. Incidentally I do find The Who/
My Generation reference a bit cringey, but it’s a bit of fun, what are you
gonna do. The struggle to write the second verse is a real thing and
genuinely that was the only way I could get one written, the main extent
of my writing work has been in Flame Griller (and a bit of Tough Crowd)
since 2011 or so and they only require a single verse and maybe a chorus
concept, so it had been a LONG while since I’d structured something like a full solo track. The struggle is real.
lyrics
I stay hidden cos my hidey hole holds my whole hope/
... Everything under one roof, I don’t go/
Out, poking my nose in a globe I can’t control/
I’m never satisfied when I’m too far from home/
But, if you don’t challenge your boundaries then you’re bound to be/
Floundering round ‘till you drown in the ground you seem/
So attached to defend/
No good asking if Ben/
Will make a lasting attempt/
To write a rap without friends/
Cos I need the support, if I’m conceiving a thought/
Need people to agree with it before I even record/
I got noooooo self esteem anymore/
And as I withdraw from society, it’s weakening more/
Cos basically I’m an ego maniac who thrives on feedback/
Forget that, but remember every time someone called me crap/
A tree sap of a 6ft3 chap/
Who needs enemies with inner monologues like we have?//
CHORUS x2
Nobody, that’s who, I’m unremarkable/
My generation, that’s Who, I’m unremarkable/
Got a few tattoos, I’m unremarkable/
Did ok at school, I’m unremarkable//
(Gotta do a second verse)... I forgot how to write ‘em/
So used to doing one verse and hoping to God it’s inspiring/
And nine times out of ten it’s probably not/
Even this might end up deleted from my desktop/
I hate being in the same place when people play my music/
Make sense of that, I know I was born to do this/
But you play my new ish with me in the room/
And I’ll either cringe, turn it off, or leave ‘till you do/
Happy for people to play it though, fill your boots/
I’m proud enough of the sound of it, I mainly cringe at you/
Cos I’m expecting you to take it in but know that you can’t/
For example I wrote this track at 1 AM in the dark/
And changed this word and that word and made sure it fitted/
And the first time you play it, all that work’s done in minutes/
And you can judge it like a piece of art/
Up to you if it leaves a mark/
And that’s why I love it when people start/
With that whole “rap is too fast for me” malarkey/
“I don’t mind the music but only partly/
The guy saying words kinda ruined the party”/
And we turn up to headline they say, “who are we?”//
CHORUS x2
... Well, kinda did and didn’t/
In middle school my folks thought not enough shits were given/
So I’d do work set for me to up my level/
It gave the impression I was more intelligent than the rebels/
But a little home schooling only takes you so far/
And I paid attention less cos I thought I was smart/
...And people caught up while I slowed right down/
Thought I’d regret it but I don’t right now/
A degree gets you nothing but debt/
Debt gets you nothing but vexed/
Being vexed gets you nothing but stressed/
Being stressed gets you nothing but death/
And I love living: it’s the best, there’s not enough of it left/
But I’ve bin wallowing a few years with family issues/
Coulda done an album tryna make you grab your tissues/
But I’d rather stay upbeat, with my usual grin/
And make people say, “ExP!... I don’t know who that is”//
Contains samples from:
“El Bimbo” on The Original Bimbo Star’s “Bimbo” - 1975
“Beautiful Friendship” on Marian McPartland & Norah Jones’ “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz with Norah Jones” - 2003
“Use Me” on Bill Withers’ “Still Bill” - 1972
