album review: 'sonic dopamine' by cousin ayjay

Let's talk about weed albums. 

I was once told by a friend that if I ever started smoking pot, I would inevitably start listening to either trance or hip-hop, and the more I've delved into the latter, the more that statement makes sense. There is a lot of talk about marijuana in rap music, from casual mentions to glorification to the rare anti-drug screed, and some rappers like Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa (hell, most of the G-funk scene) built their entire personas off of association with pot. Now I'm not puritanical when it comes to weed, and I am in favour of legalization and taxation just like cigarettes and alcohol, but I'm also aware of the fact that like any drug, abusing it can have detrimental impacts on your life. As for me, I'm not one to smoke pot and that always leads to an interesting question: do I need marijuana to truly appreciate or understand albums focused around the drug?

Now, the obvious answer is no: if the artist is good enough, they can recreate the feel and emotions of getting high through their production and the delivery and their subject matter. Acts like Gorillaz and the supergroup 213 were fantastic at this, but even then there were some tracks where I had to accept as a critic that they weren't going to make sense. Like with The Beatles' famous 'I Am The Walrus' or The Barenaked Ladies' raps in 'One Week', some songs are intentionally nonsensical. The issue that I've run into, however, is unique to weed albums, where I've called out elements for not making the slightest element of sense and then get criticized for not being 'on the same level, man'- implying that the truths these albums are conveying only become coherent or are relevant under the influence. 

But even with that possibility in mind, I was curious to check out the album from Cousin Ayjay, who approached me back in September to take a look. And while it is later than I'd prefer, I still was curious to take a look at his new record/mixtape Sonic Dopamine, which from the track titles and the few samples I heard definitely had the hallmarks of a weed album. Did it work for me?

video review: 'underground luxury' by b.o.b.

So this is it: my 100th video album review! Shame the album isn't better, though.

Next up... hmm, we'll see. I've got at least two more albums to cover before my year-end lists, so stay tuned!

album review: 'underground luxury' by b.o.b.

One of the first album reviews I ever wrote for my blog was for the sophomore album Strange Clouds by B.o.B., and I've always had a bit of a fondness for the guy. I've liked his inventive production that blends southern hip-hop trends with off-beat folk and futuristic beats, his flair for bombast and killer pop hooks that are striking and memorable, his flow and wordplay calling back to that of Andre 3000, and his lyrical dexterity in constructing an intricate and compelling song. That last album had a loose thematic progression exploring isolation and coming to grips with success, and while I'd argue the record was shaky, inconsistent, and frequently undermined by guest stars who didn't contribute well, it ultimately managed to stick the landing with the career defining thesis statement of 'Where Are You (B.o.B. vs. Bobby Ray)'. The song remains a big favourite of mine for the superb piano hook and the fact that it proved B.o.B. was his own harshest critic. 

And thus, I've always tried to keep my eye on B.o.B. throughout this year. Fortunately, it wasn't all that difficult, given that he had a hit lurking in the Billboard Hot 100 for most of this year. Unfortunately, that song was 'HeadBand' featuring 2 Chainz, which was only really notable for a listless and minimalist presentation in a year where most mainstream rap was listless and minimalist, where 2 Chainz delivered a load of punchlines I could have sworn he already used in one of his other myriad guest appearances this year, and B.o.B. delivered two of the most lazy performances I had ever heard. It was a disconcerting sign of things to come, and thus I wasn't really looking forward to Underground Luxury, which the record label had decided to dump in mid-December (already a bad sign). Granted, he's still a good rapper and producer, but was the energy or intellect going to survive the transition on a record which he called his most 'effortless' to create?

video review: 'aims' by vienna teng

Ah, that was a nice breather. Definitely enjoyed that album - and yeah, you should all get it, definitely.

Next up should be B.o.B. - stay tuned!

album review: 'aims' by vienna teng

Here's a fun fact about my 'job' as a music critic here: people send me music they want me to cover or talk about all the time, which means I'm almost always slammed with more material than I'll ever be able to cover. But believe it or not, I do listen to nearly all of it and I'm always on the lookout for material that deserves more mainstream attention, or at least the attention of record labels hungry for new talent.

But here's one of the unfortunate things about working in the era of the internet: thanks to iTunes and the relative ease of distribution, it exposes a ton of talent who might otherwise get ignored. But at the same time it floods the market and makes finding true superstars a real challenge - separating the wheat from the chaff takes time, and when I still have a full-time job and have to cover hundreds of professional acts, it makes hunting through the independent or underground scenes incredibly difficult. And as much vitriol as I spew at the record industry, they simply have more resources in sweeping through the talent pool and finding marketable stars (managing them, however, is an entirely different issue).

But even on that note, I'm floored that none of the major labels have swooped in to grab up Taiwanese-American singer-songwriter Vienna Teng yet, because it's been a long time since I've seen an act as professional and talented as this. She's been around for over ten years on the fringes of the indie folk and pop scenes, and has always gotten rave reviews for her albums when they've bothered to pay attention, but maybe it was an issue of marketing or promotion from her label or not having that killer single, because she seemed to fly entirely under the radar. So she did what indie acts have had some success with in 2013 - she founded her own record label to release her newest album Aims, all the while finishing grad school. So, from a recommendation, I took a listen to that album: how was it?

video review: 'feels like carolina' by parmalee

Well, this one went nowhere. Can't be surprised, though, the album did nothing for me.

Next up... well, B.o.B. is dropping an album later this week, but let's see if I can handle the new Vienna Teng album tomorrow. Stay tuned!

album review: 'feels like carolina' by parmalee

I'm starting to think that bro country might be beginning to recede a bit.

Yes, if you go looking at the country charts right now, you'll find Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan at the top, but their songs aren't in the meatheaded checklist variety that were inescapable and insufferable through the summer and fall of this year. Hell, Keith Urban (fresh off of his inexplicable inclusion on Rolling Stone's 'Best Albums of 2013' to the surprise of, well, everyone) and Miranda Lambert managed to have their lukewarm ballad 'We Were Us' wrestle control of the top spot for about three weeks on the country charts.

But then again, maybe I'm just being optimistic, because there's plenty of bro-country still on the charts as we speak, which takes us to the somewhat mixed blessing that comes with trends - the chance for new acts or even older struggling acts to break through by jumping onto them. This takes us to the band we're talking about this week, Parmalee. This band has been around since the early 2000s, but they've had a lot of difficulty breaking into the mainstream until this year, where they were signed to Stoney Creek records, which I know as the label backing Jason Aldean. This group seems to have a lighter, more upbeat vibe to them than their more successful labelmate, though, which meant I was cautiously optimistic stepping into their new album Feels Like Carolina. Did it turn out okay?

video review: 'beyonce' by beyonce

Thought you'd pull a fast one on me, eh, Beyonce? Not to worry, I've got this.

Okay, next up will be Parmalee, I promise.

album review: 'beyonce' by beyonce

Imagine you're a music critic for a major publication. Imagine that you've reviewed well over a hundred albums throughout the course of the year and you've collaborated with your colleagues to post your list of the best albums of the year. Imagine your sighs of relief when the list goes live in early December and the irritated scoffs you make when the comments light up with complaints that you discounted some album or another. You think in the back of your mind, 'Hey, what do they know - I do this for a living, goddamn it, this list was hard to make, and we can't put everything on it!' You put the list in the back of your mind - because, hell, it's not like anyone's going to release any albums worth caring about in December, right?

Then imagine you get a call from your boss in the middle of the night just over a week later, screaming bloody murder because a press leak just revealed that a major pop star had decided to, without warning or promotion or even a lead single, drop an entire album onto iTunes. And this isn't just your run-of-the-mill major pop star, but one who is married to an all-star rapper and high-powered businessman who has enlisted some of the best producers worldwide for the album and who obviously is taking a big interest in his wife's success - and with no promotion, the only way the album will sell the numbers this pop star is used to is through the critical press. And considering this artist's last album was a critically acclaimed smash hit two years earlier, suddenly that year-end list of the top albums of the year looks a lot more shaky, doesn't it?

Now, I'm likely wrong here, but I can imagine the editorial teams for major outlets who already dropped their 'Best of...' lists panicking when they heard Beyonce had done exactly what I described, releasing a self-titled record to iTunes with no promotion or even a leading single. Fortunately, not having finalized my list yet, I did what any music critic does on a surprise release: put the album on repeat and work to take it in. Believe it or not, I actually was pleasantly surprised about this album - I'm no big fan of Beyonce, but her last album 4 was extremely strong, and she's working with some of the best names in the industry. So, how did Beyonce's BEYONCE turn out?

video review: 'whiskey & lace' by krystal keith

Okay, so I covered Krystal Keith first. Next up is Parmalee, I promise. Stay tuned!

album review: 'whiskey & lace' by krystal keith

It's a healthy response to feel wary whenever you approach music from the children of major artists. Not automatically denigrate it because of its lineage - good music can spring from anywhere - but some skepticism can be expected. After all, I haven't exactly forgotten the 'legacies' that acts like Hot Chelle Rae and LMFAO have landed courtesy of their family connections, when in any sane world neither of those groups would been signed or gotten airplay in the first place. And I've got the same issues with nepotism that everyone does - more qualified, experienced, or just plain better artists getting turned away in favour of a famous son or daughter.

That being said, I was actually anticipating the debut album from Krystal Keith more than I initially expected. She's the second daughter of Toby Keith, a favourite country singer of mine and one who I reviewed earlier this year. It's interesting to note that Toby Keith hasn't exactly had a great 2013, especially when it comes the tumultuous year country music had as a whole, and while I did mostly like his album Drinks After Work, it hasn't really stuck with me. Indeed, Toby Keith seemed almost amused that critics took his album as well as they did (another sign that some elements of the country critical press are too soft on big name artists). 

But if there's one thing about Toby Keith I've respected, it's that he has a fairly good head for business, and if he was more focused on helping his daughter get started over his own solo record, it'd make some sense to why Drinks After Work felt a bit light-weight. And considering she's signed to his label Show Dog-Universal Music, he produced this album, and he contributed a few songs, it'd be wrong to ignore Toby Keith's watchful eye on his daughter Krystal's debut album Whiskey & Lace. But putting that aside, how did the record turn out?

video review; 'black panties' by r. kelly

Damn, I wanted this to be better. Ah well.

Next up is Parmalee. Stay tuned!

album review: 'black panties' by r. kelly

Here's a part of my musical philosophy that ends up being more complicated than it sounds: when it comes to music, I need to buy into the romance projected by the artist. I can look past a lot of corny lines and ridiculous lyrics if I can buy into the persona of the performer, and when that persona fractures, it's incredibly difficult to repair. It's one of the reasons why I, like so many critics, find it hard to buy into the romantic sentiments of Chris Brown (or in my case, John Mayer). 

And I can imagine that many fans of modern R&B legend R. Kelly probably felt the same way around the mid-2000s. Sure, his first three albums were damn near untouchable, but in the early 2000s, something went wrong. Maybe it was the criminal allegations, maybe it was the substandard material (although Ignition (Remix) is untouchable), or maybe it was because something got knocked loose in R. Kelly's brain (see his albums with Jay-Z, the disastrous subsequent tour, and all of Trapped In The Closet), but suddenly it got a lot harder to buy into any romance R. Kelly was proposing, especially considering the heavy sexual content in his lyrics. 

And yet things changed for the better in late 2010 when R. Kelly released Love Letter. It was a richly orchestrated homage to early soul and R&B with enough of a modern touch not to feel like a throwback, and it was excellent, mostly because it traded explicit sexuality for sensuality, and it proved to be a great fit for R. Kelly's jawdropping vocals. He followed it up in 2012 with Write Me Back, which moved forward in time to reference the disco era of the mid-to-late 70s, but it also lost a lot of unique flavour in the transition - the album might have been good, but it wasn't great.

But it was worrying when R. Kelly announced a return to his modern R&B roots with his new album Black Panties - mostly because the worst songs on Write Me Back were those that went in a modern direction. And while there isn't anything wrong with going back to your roots, R. Kelly has tread this ground so many times I honestly didn't think there was anything new or interesting he could bring to the table. Was I wrong?

video review: 'wish bone' by oh land

This came out surprisingly easily, and better than I expected. Almost makes me wish I covered her when this album came out in September... ah well.

Next up is R. Kelly. Brace yourself, folks, I don't suspect this will go well.

album review: 'wish bone' by oh land (RETRO REVIEW)

Several months back, in my review of Tegan & Sara's album Heartthrob, I made mention of my distaste for the 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' trope, one that has grown increasingly popular with the rise of 'indie/hipster' culture in recent years. For those unfamiliar, those defined by the Manic Pixie Dream Girl character and image are off-beat, quirky, and decidedly lodged in girlish adolescence. What's key is that these character traits must lack an inherent root cause: these characters are quirky and eccentric just for its own sake, a shallow idealized fantasy and not, you know, an actual human being. And I'll be blunt: it's alarmingly sexist, considering female characters who fall into this trope are often treated as 'precious' or 'cute' by the male characters and any potential nuggets of real insight are solely marginalized to observational quirk - treated as girls instead of as women. And it really says a lot about guys who are drawn to this, because they aren't looking for a relationship of equals or for a partner who might be able to match their own eccentricities  - they want a girl with just enough randomness and quirk so they can delude themselves into thinking they're deep.

Now let me make this clear: it's not the aesthetic of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl that's the issue, which is ultimately why I came down mostly positive on Tegan & Sara's pop-flavoured appropriation of the image which paid big dividends for them. After all, Heartthrob was only trying to be a shallow pop album, and the aesthetic worked. But there are a lot of indie acts who have realized this image and style sells very well to the hipster set... which can be unfortunate for acts with occasional insight, like Regina Spektor. And as a music critic, it can be frustrating to peel away the artifice and see if there's anything real underneath when so many indie acts are leaping aboard this trope. 

And all of this comes back to Oh Land, a Danish artist who released her new album Wish Bone three months ago and who seemed to be playing close to this trope. I didn't cover the record because the critical buzz had been lukewarm and September was incredibly busy for me, but enough of you recommended I check it out, so I gave it a look and hoped for the best. What did I find?

video review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age

Well, that should take care of the last of my major retrospectives, and it's a great one to end off on, I think.

This is the last big week for album releases, so I'll endeavor to knock back some of the big ones and a few last retrospectives before my year end lists, so stay tuned!

album review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age (RETRO REVIEW)

For the longest time this year, I ignored Queens of the Stone Age and their newest album entirely.

And really, that was a big mistake, mostly linked to the fact that I had a few major misconceptions about the band that I only really knew from the few singles I heard from Era Vulgaris six years ago. As I've said a number of times, I skipped over most rock throughout the 2000s and jumped straight into metal, and Queens of the Stone Age were one of those bands I just ignored because I assumed they were just another post-grunge or hard rock band that somehow managed to get rave reviews. 

As I said, big mistake, and I've spent the past three weeks listening through the band's discography and realizing the major errors in my thinking. For one, Queens of the Stone Age are one of those acts that really defies genre classification: they've done hard rock, they've flirted with psychedelia and alternative metal, and while they've worked with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, I wouldn't call them a post-grunge act by any stretch. Also, they're awesome, as in one of the best rock/metal acts of the decade. I stand by my opinion that Era Vulgaris is their worst album, but it's by no means bad (it mostly suffers from the same listlessness that Tonight... Franz Ferdinand had when they made a 'nightlife' album). As to my favourite Queens of the Stone Age record, I'm honestly going to go with Lullabies To Paralyze, simply because the nightmarish fairy tales that Josh Homme wrote about added a lot of twisted flavour to the songwriting, and the album had simply phenomenal grooves and melodies that I really loved.

And thus, having completed my heel-face turn on Queens of the Stone Age, I was psyched to listen through their newest album ...Like Clockwork - albeit six months too late. And I'd be remiss not to mention the importance of this record, or the troubled production process that preceded it. Long-time Queens of the Stone Age drummer Joey Castillo was fired about a third of the way into the recording and replaced by Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme recruited singers like Trent Reznor, Alex Turner, Jake Shears, Elton John, and even former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri for backing vocals. And this was their first album in six years - did ...Like Clockwork manage to work?

video review: 'because the internet' by childish gambino

Well, this went okay. Probably one of the odder albums I've covered, and I think the review does reflect that to some extent.

Next up will be the long-awaited retrospective of the Queens of the Stone Age album, then we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'because the internet' by childish gambino

Let's ask an uncomfortable question, one I don't think there's an easy answer to and one I certainly I can't answer: how much does race matter in music, especially in rap music? On the one hand, music spans skin colour and culture, and one would like to think that it shouldn't matter when talking about artists or personal tastes. We live in a generation where Jason Aldean can collaborate with Ludacris and Brad Paisley with LL Cool J, and we should be able to judge the music regardless of racial connotations. And yet, when you have acts like Eminem or Cage or Macklemore or Yelawolf or The Beastie Boys, the prefix 'white' is always added to their titles as 'rappers'. But it runs deeper than that, to a bigger cultural question: whether hip-hop or rap hold central roles to black culture, and the distinguishing factors that make that genre unique to that audience. Now of course this can reach cartoonish extremes, such as those twits calling Lorde racist for attacking shallow luxury rap for its materialism and emptiness (which holds a much uglier connotation, implying that it's inherently black to revel in superficial displays of wealth), but one can't exactly deny that there's a distinctive difference between the place of hip-hop in black culture, particularly in the United States, in comparison with some other genres, like country or metal. And let me assure you, this isn't just confined to the hip-hop genre: many would rightfully argue jazz, soul, funk, disco, R&B, and even the very origins of rock 'n roll itself could be considered having deep roots in black culture.

And nowhere is this difference more apparent than in the subgenre of 'nerd culture' topics like sci-fi and fantasy, which has tended to trend overwhelmingly white or Asian. Now there have been acts that have bucked this trend - the Afrofuturist movement, for instance, with its most recognizable figure in modern music being Janelle Monae and all the awesome work she's done. These works suggest a synthesis, a fusion of stereotypically 'white' sci-fi precepts with discussions and critiques of real world black culture and history. From my point of view, Janelle Monae is doing something truly great by stripping away any needless racial connotations associated with subgenre conventions like sci-fi or fantasy, and adapting them to her own unique viewpoint.

So let's ask another question: what do you get when you have a black rapper who is a nerd and is somewhat enamoured with 'white culture', to the point where he feels he has lost something of his black cultural roots? Well, in that case you get Childish Gambino, well-known as Donald Glover, comedian and actor from NBC's excellent show Community. When he released his major label debut Camp, it polarized critics, mostly because it was an album that spent much of its running time discussing Gambino's unique insecurity: feeling like an outcast because he was 'too black for the white kids and too white for the black kids'. His skin was black, and yet he liked comic books and sci-fi and was defiantly not the stereotypical tough guy gangsta rapper, to the point where his attempts at playing one to win over girls were completely unconvincing. Coupled with the baroque pop-infused production, the near-constant stream of pop culture references, and his cartoonish and exaggerated flow, it made for an interesting listen, if not an unequivocally great or even wholly good one. Despite Pitchfork's scathing line, 'If you buy only one hip-hop album this year, I'm guessing it'll be Camp', a line denigrating presumably ignorant (read: white) audiences who followed Glover from Community (fun fact: the reviewer who wrote that review was white - make of that what you will), there is a grain of truth in the observation. 

And as a white guy who listens to a fair amount of hip-hop and who is clearly the audience for that album (having listened to Camp after watching Glover on Community), what did I think? Well... look, it was okay. I liked the instrumentation and production drawing from baroque pop with Kanye's influences, but Gambino's flow was jerky, the hashtag rap got old fast, the references were well-structured but dated themselves quickly, and Gambino's very real insecurity (supported by a bizarre myopic and backwards-looking view of hip-hop) often lacked coherency or depth. That being said, I can accept that it might have greater resonance with other audiences who might more closely resemble Gambino's situation, and all of the real positives on the album were enough for me to give his newest album Because The Internet a listen. Did it manage to work better than its predecessor?

video review: 'days of gold' by jake owen

Well, this was a nice surprise. Can't say I was expecting Jake Owen to deliver anything worth listening, after all.

Next up will probably be Childish Gambino's new album, so stay tuned!