video review: 'peach panther' by riff raff

Well, this album sucked. I know, should have expected it, but still, this was a miserable listen.

Next up, though... case/lang/veirs and then the midyear review, so stay tuned!

album review: 'peach panther' by riff raff

Okay, originally I was expecting this weekend to be a lot worse in terms of releases. I think I mentioned it on Billboard BREAKDOWN that there were also new albums from Rae Sremmurd and Iggy Azalea, which promised to be two records of continuous migraine, but since their lead-off singles have flopped, they've both delayed into later in the summer. And this leaves us with only the most courageous hip-hop artist to drop a record this past weekend... and I can't even finish that sentence.

Hell, I don't even know why I'm reviewing this. In the pantheon of joke rappers, I don't tend to have a lot of respect for Riff Raff, who basically has one joke in being an over-the-top caricature/parody of modern hip-hop, which becomes less of a joke when you realize that most of modern hip-hop is already there! And let's be honest, thanks to the Internet we've got no short supply of rappers who have better bars, production, and jokes than Riff Raff does, from The Lonely Island to Epic Rap Battles. That is unless you're taking Riff Raff seriously in a Lil B vein, but if we're going by 'so weird/bad it's good', Riff Raff isn't that far away from conventional hip-hop that I can use that excuse. As to whether Riff Raff takes himself seriously... well, there's a part of me that thinks he does with zero self-awareness and that's more sad than anything, but at the end of the day the music has to deliver, and it rarely does.

So why talk about this? Well, call it morbid curiosity more than anything. Somehow Riff Raff keeps getting guest stars that you wouldn't expect a rapper of his status to bring on, and I do hold that when it comes to stupid-as-hell bangers 'Kokayne' is ridiculously fun. In other words, even if he's on the edge of pop culture, he keeps popping up. So I figured what the hell and I checked out Peach Panther - was it any good?

video review: 'neon icon' by riff raff

As much as I'd argue I didn't waste my time with this video, it still was a chore to listen through that album, especially when there's Jack White, Say Anything, and Sage Francis to listen to instead.

So yeah, one of those before the 200th episode special, so stay tuned!

album review: 'neon icon' by riff raff

I don't even know where to start with this.

Okay, if you're not familiar with certain subsections of hip-hop, you might not be familiar with Riff Raff - and after I describe him, you might start wishing that that remained the case. Riff Raff is a white rapper from Houston and who started his career in show business on reality TV before becoming affiliated with Soulja Boy. Eventually the two of them parted ways, with Soulja Boy leaving the passing shot of calling him a 'cokehead', but Riff Raff was somehow able to garner enough attention through his mixtapes and self-released album to get signed to Diplo record label Mad Descent and release his many-times delayed album Neon Icon.

And from what I had heard from him before going into this album, I had no idea how seriously I was supposed to take this. On the one hand if it's self-aware comedy... well, I didn't exactly find him funny or clever or witty, at least on previous releases. But on the other hand if I'm supposed to take him seriously, as some people clearly do, or say that he's the 'white Lil B'... look, as much as I don't like the based god, it's clear something was knocked loose in Lil B's brain that causes him to spew the inveterate pop culture free association that he calls lyrics. Where Lil B could reasonably be called an outsider artist, Riff Raff feels a bit like a poser, or at least someone attempting the same style of gaudy bargain-barrel luxury rap. As much as Riff Raff claims James Franco's character Alien from Spring Breakers was based on him, I don't see it because there was an air of menace and sleaze to that character that was undercut by a honest naivete. And while it's debatable how 'honest' Rifff Raff's portrayal is, it's so silly that I can't feel the slightest element of menace from his rap persona.

But putting that aside, I was curious about this album, and at the very least I could look forward to guest verses from Mac Miller and Childish Gambino, so how's Neon Icon?