video review: 'be more kind' by frank turner

I really do admire how damn hard this record is trying - really, I do - but man, I wish I liked this so much more...

Still, I'll savor what I've got here in comparison to this next episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned...

album review: 'be more kind' by frank turner

At this point, I literally have no idea what to expect from Frank Turner.

Well okay, that's not quite true, but from his departure from post-hardcore towards indie folk and indie rock - and given that I didn't hear any of his singles going in - I literally had no expectations where this was going to go. Granted, there is a certain earnest sonic palette in his music that's familiar - surging guitars, big hooks, generally in the realms of indie folk rock - but beyond that, they were shades of a recognizable formula. So, even while I consider Love, Ire & Song his best work - and one of the best albums of the 2000s - it's not even that far removed from his last record Positive Songs For Negative People, arguably his biggest play for mainstream-adjacent attention courtesy of production from Butch Walker and even rumors of a Taylor Swift collaboration that didn't materialize - and while given what has happened to her in the past few years we'd probably consider that a blessing, there is a part of me that wishes that maybe some of Frank Turner could have rubbed off on her, that could have been really cool.

Instead, I started hearing odd things about this release, with influences spanning from Gang Of Four and Wire to mid-period records from The Cure, maybe even a pivot into 80s pop. This would unquestionably be a departure for him, and this has led to some of the most polarized reviews I've seen surrounding this project, especially when you hear there's a pretty stark political element to it. Now here's the thing: Frank Turner's political writing has always been complicated - go back to the title track of Love, Ire & Song and you'll realize he's never been some hard-line punk or leftist. And while my own tendencies have pushed me more in that direction, I'm up for the nuanced, difficult conversation, especially when you remember that Frank Turner is not American and even if a stylistic departure like this might wind up being an outlier for him long-term. So alright, what did we get on Be More Kind?

video review: 'm a n i a' by fall out boy

Okay, let's be honest, you all expected this. I'm not sure you'll expect my final conclusions or how it's presented, but on a broad level, you could see this coming.

Eh, it happens. Next up, something better, so stay tuned!

album review: 'M A N I A' by fall out boy

We all knew this was coming. Ever since 'Young & Menace' was released failed to notch any real success, we all that sinking feeling of exactly what Fall Out Boy was going to do with this album, and when it was delayed from mid-September of last year to now...

Hell, let's put all of that aside and just consider Fall Out Boy's progression since they reunited. Going back to it Save Rock And Roll is a glorious mess and it definitely pushes its obnoxious middle finger to an audience that abandoned it, but the hooks and tunes were there, even if they threw away many of the pop rock tones that made them in the mid-2000s. But hell, they were doing that in 2008, and despite some truly questionable creative decisions, Fall Out Boy had a project that held together in concept and execution... something I can't say about American Beauty/American Psycho. And again, that's not a bad project either, but as I said when I reviewed it, it had the feel of a 'now what' record, a band successfully regaining their clout in the mainstream only to find no more mountains to climb, which led to even more slapdash production and writing as well as a continued infatuation with hip-hop on that mixtape Make America Psycho Again that doesn't make anyone sound good. Thankfully just enough of the rock edge was still there to keep the music mostly compelling, but just as so many acts have sacrificed that tone to remain relevant, I knew Fall Out Boy's turn would come - hell, they had been on the cusp for multiple projects now!

And with 'Young & Menace', I knew that moment had come: the sellout, where like Maroon 5 and Linkin Park before them their distinctive sound would be sacrificed for a chance of mainstream success... that didn't happen. Yeah, not going to lie, the failure of that song and Fall Out Boy returning to the studio gave me a bit of hope that maybe they had seen the precipice and had swiveled away in time. But I was also being realistic: we weren't going to get another PAX AM Days or even something close to what Andy Hurley is doing with Sect right now, it was going to a pop project with rock elements rather than the other way around. So with that in mind... is this salvageable?

video review: 'attention seeker' by felix hagan & the family

So this was actually pretty enjoyable - probably not going to get a lot of coverage, sure, but it was fun regardless.

Next up, though, some old business that I reckon might not be as fun, so stay tuned!

album review: 'attention seeker' by felix hagan & the family

Okay, I've talked earlier this year about acts embracing certain gothic or theatrical elements in music - which has happened a surprising amount in 2017 - and obviously there's a sliding scale for this. On the one hand, you have artists like John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats looking for a nuanced and sincere discussion of gothic music, and on the other hand you get acts like many of the Soundcloud shock rappers and Hollywood Undead who grab up the superficial scare tactics to make themselves seem more edgy, imposing and interesting than they really are. And somewhere in the middle you get an act like Creeper, a pop rock band drawing on the baroque, pseudo-gothic melodrama of bands like Panic! At The Disco, that play with all of the intensity and sincerity but are willing to also have a little more fun with the trappings and image - there's a limit to how seriously you can really take them, and that can be just fine.

So into all of that comes Felix Hagan & The Family, a London rock group who in the grand tradition of camp draws upon pop rock, hair metal, vaudeville and musical theater for their sound - not quite as bombastic or epic as Meat Loaf, not quite as textured as Kyle Craft, but playing in a similar ballpark. They've been around throughout most of the 2010s putting out EPs that range from remarkably catchy to a little too ridiculous for their own good - all the theatricality is fun but it does strain credulity when they try to call anyone 'posers' - but there's a part of me that has a soft spot for this material, so when the votes came up on Patreon for me to cover this... well, it's near the end of the year, there aren't many new releases coming this week that I care about, so why the hell not? So I dug into Attention Seeker - what did I find here?

video review: 'pacific daydream' by weezer

Well, this was disappointing... eh, it happens.

And on the topic of disappointments... well, stay tuned!

album review: 'pacific daydream' by weezer

So as many of you probably know, I didn't like the last Weezer record, another self-titled release otherwise known as the 'white album'. To me I found the lyrical arc undercooked and occasionally very questionable, the delivery underwhelming, and the production to be all over the place, not helped by bringing in producer Jake Sinclair who didn't seem to grasp the melodic subtleties in the groove that have always been Weezer's greatest strength on records like the Blue Album and Pinkerton and Everything Will Be All Right In The End. But I'll also be the first to admit that I was in the minority with that opinion - a lot of folks found something in the white album they liked and for diehard Weezer fans... hey, given what they've gone through over the past twenty years, all the power to them.

So it got me worried when I started hearing the buzz for Pacific Daydream - not just that it had resulted in the shelving of darker material for the rumoured 'black album', but also that it was a more sedate, pop-leaning record, which is about the last direction I think most Weezer fans want them to go. And to get there, they changed producers again to bring in J.R. Rotem and mega-producer Butch Walker, who actually has worked with Weezer before - on Raditude. And when it didn't look like even the critics were on-board this time, I was genuinely worried - and look, I'll never say I'm the biggest Weezer fan, but Rivers Cuomo knows his way around a really good hook. But considering the last time I heard Rivers Cuomo collaborate with a pop band in 2017 it was AJR's The Click, I had very little faith that his pop instincts right now. But okay, what did I find with Pacific Daydream?

album review: 'to the bone' by steven wilson / 'feed the machine' by nickelback / 'vista' by hell or highwater / 'poison the parish' by seether (VACATION SERIES!)

Four in one, and it won't be the only it happens. Stay tuned for more!

video review: 'rainbow' by kesha

Well, this was pretty great. Yeah, like most people I wish this was a tad better overall, but still, pretty terrific all the same.

Can't really say the same about the next record up here... stay tuned!

album review: 'rainbow' by kesha

Man, it's nice to talk about the music for once, isn't it? Hell, it's nice that there actually is music this time, right? And indeed, there was a part of me that deep down was convinced this record would never happen, that the horrendous legal nightmare and label drama would prevent us from ever getting a third record from Kesha, but now that it has actually been released, I think there's some housecleaning that's in order, especially surrounding how so many would love to say they've been on Kesha's side since the beginning and have always loved her work, that Animal was underappreciated for its time and that Cannibal was even better and that Warrior never got the chance it deserved...

And it's at this point where I have to drop the hard stop on music critic historical revisionism, because while the mainstream public might not have been paying close attention, I sure as hell was - mostly because of my own more complicated relationship with Kesha's music. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't like the singles from Animal back in 2010 and I found her entire persona kind of obnoxious, and it wasn't until a year later when I went into that album and Cannibal in-depth - and while I will say both are more uneven than you remember, there were the hints of satirical depth, lyrical nuance and genuine pipes that for some reason Kesha's handlers didn't think the mainstream public wanted to hear. That takes us to Warrior in 2012, a record with a notoriously troubled production and was arguably crippled out of the gate thanks to sloppy promotion and horrible single choices - watch the Special Comments, I've touched on this before - but it was also the sign that Kesha was bucking against her producers and label more than ever, and that Warrior still wound up as one of my favourite records of 2012 is a testament to its craftsmanship and personality. But the public and the majority of critics didn't see that, instead focusing on the one-dimensional party girl treading water who needed a horrible guest verse from will.i.am to seem relevant. And to see a lot of folks now retroactively getting onboard given the legal ordeal and a desire to be seen on the right side of music history without knowing the artistic variety and depths and incredible live show that were in plain sight all along if they had bothered to look - it reeked of cheap revisionist cynicism, especially when it seemed like, again, the music was getting pushed out of the picture.

But again, the album is finally here, and if I'm going to be very honest, I was optimistic but cautious about this record. I was all for Kesha taking a greater lead in writing and production, pushing her sound into even weirder and rougher territory leaning on rock and country, but I was worried the 'redemptive comeback' story would overwhelm the weirder elements in composition and songwriting that I've always found to be one of Kesha's best weapons. But then again, if anyone has earned the right to make a record focused on that redemptive arc it's Kesha, and she's a smart enough songwriter to challenge conventions and expectations, so at the end of the day what did we find on Rainbow?

video review: 'last young renegade' by all time low

About time I got this off my plate - and to think it took Billboard being stupid to get this out! 

So yeah, probably Billboard BREAKDOWN next, but who can tell... stay tuned!

album review: 'last young renegade' by all time low

So maybe I'm not seeing the arguments anymore, but I remember back in the early-to-mid 2000s - hell, probably earlier than that - the debate surrounding pop punk. And make no mistake, as the genre ebbed and flowed in popularity, the split became pronounced: the old guard who preferred the rougher, more aggressive punk side, and the more mainstream-accessible crowd who didn't care. And while I don't really see this debate much anymore, from what I can see... look, on average I'm going to gravitate to where the rougher, the better, but I'm also the first to admit that it's not the best fit for all bands. There's a spectrum when it comes to pop punk, and for every punk band that 'sold out' when they went pop, there are a few more pop-friendly acts that courted rougher audiences and didn't always stick the landing.

So take a band like All Time Low, and right from the very beginning I knew these guys would likely wind up closer to radio-friendly pop rock than anything super aggressive or political. And that was fine: they wrote fun, catchy hooks and when they got signed with Interscope, it seemed like a logical step. But maybe it was just poor timing - Dirty Work came out in the middle of the club boom in 2011, where if you weren't in Canada pop rock wasn't getting airplay - but it wasn't long before All Time Low was back on their indie label Hopeless and churning out more reasonably well-received pop punk records records. And to be completely honest, more often than not there wasn't much of a difference in their production or writing - I've listened to every All Time Low album and I found a lot of their material really runs together - but I knew it wasn't long before they'd be back on a major label, and so I wasn't surprised when they signed back with Fueled By Ramen. And since it's almost an unspoken law that Fueled By Ramen records tend to share musical tropes year after year, when buzz was suggesting All Time Low was featuring more 80s-inspired synthpop and new wave elements - hell, they brought in Tegan And Sara - I felt like I knew exactly what to expect from Last Young Renegade. Did I get it?

video review: 'EVOLVE' by imagine dragons

And now I'm finally caught up on all of my promotion posts. WHEW, that took way too long.

Next up, something a bit more current, so stay tuned!

album review: 'evolve' by imagine dragons

Here's the question you never want to ask yourself after confronting a mediocre run for a band: were they ever that good to begin with? It's a terrible thing to ask, because you're now questioning old opinions and old reviews placed in hindsight where history can definitely color how you see them and the art now? Maybe not entirely - it's not like I can't revisit the first album by The Strokes knowing the downward slide they were going to face - but you get this faint pang of regret and a sense of that there could have been so much more...

And no band has ever epitomized that for me in the mainstream more than Imagine Dragons. Let me make this clear, while their debut Night Visions had issues, the great songs on that album were amazingly good, and it reflected a sound and direction for a modern rock band that had potential, blending in elements of folk with some indie rock smolder and electronic rock punch, it was enough for me to bypass how the production could feel a little monochromatic and the lyrics could feel a tad flimsy or overwrought - but hey, it fit, right, given Dan Reynolds as a frontman? Well, fast forward to 2015 and Smoke + Mirrors, a record that reflected nothing more than a band cycling through ideas and trying to ram them through their established framework. Many people - including myself - called it a sophomore slump, and considering how badly it did on the charts, with no real sustainable crossover single, I thought Imagine Dragons may have been out for the count.

And yet going into Evolve it seems like Imagine Dragons has actually regained some momentum, pushing their frustrating producer Alex da Kid to the sidelines for the majority of the project and instead churning out a tight set of eleven tracks. And while I had no real expectations that this would be great - critics if anything have been even harder on this project than Smoke + Mirrors - you all still wanted me to cover it, so what came from Evolve?

video review: 'something to tell you' by haim

Believe me, folks, I wanted to like this as much as anyone. Not precisely bad, but I'm going to forget this exists in a week, I'd put money on it.

Now to cover something I should have covered a few weeks ago... stay tuned!

album review: 'something to tell you' by haim

I'll be the first to admit I was really hard on HAIM the first time I covered them. Again, I can make the excuse that I was very early in my reviewing career on YouTube, and that I probably could have afforded to be a little more deft in my commentary - but I'm also not going to deny that for all of the hype thrown behind this group, I've consistently been underwhelmed by the actual music and songwriting on display.

Which of course is awkward for me to say because on some level, HAIM is the modern mainstream music critic's dream project to review: independent and underground enough to earn hipster points, but not too weird or unconventional to lose the mainstream public - hell they're friends of Taylor Swift, which is an easy namedrop for clicks! They're indebted to folk and indie acts of the past but with a very modern style of songwriting that would win over the poptimist. They had an image that seemed a little more weighty than your average girl group, they all played their own instruments, they were quirky, it's very easy to see why a lot of critics were taken in... and I wasn't one of them. And I'm not saying that to brag, I wish I could have found more to like in the songwriting behind HAIM to really appreciate and get onboard the bandwagon, but outside of specific songs like 'The Wire' - which is awesome and made my year-end lists of the best songs of 2013 - I was just underwhelmed and a little unsettled by some of the implications in that writing.

But again, your average music critic's dream band, so with all the acclaim you'd expect them to have a follow-up ready fairly quickly... and now it's four years later. I'll give them points for two years of touring, but apparently initial studio sessions were unfruitful and it took a lot longer for the band to pull things together - which struck me as odd, given that I never found their arrangements or writing to be incredibly complex or challenging to assemble. But hey, there's an art in blending styles and nailing the formula well, so now that we finally have Something To Tell You, what did we get?

video review: 'one more light' by linkin park

So this happened... eh, from the looks of the early response most people are coming down even harder, but that doesn't quite surprise me, given the change in sound.

But next up... ooh, this'll be fun, so stay tuned!

album review: 'one more light' by linkin park

So recently Linkin Park made some headlines in probably the worst way possible: telling their fans to 'move the fuck on' from their debut album Hybrid Theory. 

And I want to unpack why this was possibly the last thing you want to say going into the release cycle and promotion of a new record - because on some level I get it. Credit where it is due, Linkin Park have shown themselves willing to evolve and push their sound - not exactly in a way that's revolutionary, but it takes a band with some stones to follow Minutes to Midnight with A Thousand Suns - which, for the record, I'm still on the record liking probably a lot more than many Linkin Park fans. Fans that probably discovered you thanks to Hybrid Theory selling millions of copies and being a permanent staple in many people's collections. And even though I think that album has aged pretty badly, I get why people love it, and it does have its moments.

So while I get that Linkin Park wants to move on and I completely understand their frustration with entitled fans who want them to make another version of it, maybe it's not the best marketing decision to call that out right before you want them to slap down money and buy your newest record! And this is not Linkin Park at their strongest either: rock radio has changed dramatically and downsized considerably, hip-hop and electronic music has moved into wildly different territory, and their lead-off single hoping to cross over to pop radio 'Heavy' with Kiiara has not exactly been well-received, especially by those Hybrid Theory-era fans that will be your most guaranteed source of income! Worse still it comes across less like Linkin Park are pushing into new territory sonically and more just trying to keep up with the mainstream, even if it's not an intentional artistic choice - which to some extent I get after their 2014 album The Hunting Party failed to cross over to the Hot 100, but they're at the point where they could easily headline festivals for the next thirty years and not give a damn about mainstream radio! Either way, it was not a good sign going into the new album One More Light, and despite only being a casual Linkin Park fan, I was nervous. So how did it turn out?

video review: 'after laughter' by paramore

Look, maybe the group just isn't for me at this point... but still, I had hopes for this and am a little dispirited they didn't materialize.

But on the topic of failed hopes... well, after Billboard BREAKDOWN, stay tuned!