I spent most of this weekend humming "Popular Demand (Popeyes)," and repeating the elongated "damns" in Cam'ron's verse, so in that respect, "Popular Demand" is a great success; it's the first track from the upcoming Clipse album, Till the Casket Drops, that isn't completely forgettable when it isn't playing from a set of computer speakers in front of you. Some of that probably has to do with the curious things that go on here, like:

1. What does eating Popeyes have to do with being back by popular demand? That hook has to be the weirdest one on a rap song this year.

2. Why does Pusha take an extended dig at Lebron James in the first verse? And is he serious?

3. What the hell is Cam'ron even rapping about? This is some serious free association shit.

And for the fact that this is the best Neptunes beat in ages, even if Pharrell has repeated the fill every empty space with moaned lyrics tic that has sunk roughly 80% of his beats in the last three years.

Over the course of the weekend, I went from being worried that the Clipse album was going to be a huge letdown (and it still might be, if "I'm Good" is any indication) to being cautiously optimistic that the album will be pretty great. Here's hoping for more of the latter.

Till the Casket Drops is due out on Dec. 8. [NahRight]