video review: 'joyride' by tinashe

Well, this was... actually better than I expected. A few really choice cuts keeps this in interesting territory, definitely worth the listen if you're curious.

Next up, let's go with this Bazzi project - stay tuned!

album review: 'joyride' by tinashe

At this point it's hard not to feel like Tinashe should be bigger.

And believe it or not, this has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion on her music - I didn't really like Aquarius, and while I found Nightride a modest improvement, there was R&B I liked more that year - hell, more R&B I liked both years. And in a sense it's hard to escape the feeling that Tinashe might have fallen victim to a peculiar phenomenon I've observed with rising R&B starlets: they get one big mainstream-crossover hit, their breakthrough album gets critical acclaim and hits a bunch of year-end lists... and then if they don't have the guaranteed follow-up smash on the next project, the interest dries up in record time, even if it might turn out those later projects are better or more interesting. But even then, Tinashe is on a major label, you would think there'd be more of a marketing push to break her into the spotlight... but her sales have not been great, and it would be a damn tragedy if she releases her strongest project to the weakest public response yet. Granted, I did have concerns given how much Joyride was delayed and that it had the guest stars that she hadn't needed on Nightride, and it's not like Offset, Future, Ty Dolla $ign and French Montana are known for consistent quality, but given the years of development time, there had to be something potent here, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 10, 2016 (VIDEO)

So this video was longer than usual... and actually really great, I dug the hell out of this! Two good weeks in a row... man, if only I had any hope we could keep this up, 2017 has some real potential to be a damn good year.

In the mean time, let's take care of old business next, shall we? Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - december 10, 2016

So this week was a little weird. Not just because we started getting tracks from The Weeknd earlier than expected - I'm imagining next week to be just overloaded - but we got some big surprises all over the place, including a few artists I have not thought about or talked about in years. That, at the very least promised to make things interesting - note that I didn't precisely say good, although there really was some promise here.

video review: 'nightride' by tinashe

Well, this was a nice surprise. In a day where we somehow lost Leonard Cohen, I needed something more positive all the more... my god, FUCK this year.

In the mean time, Czarface is coming up - stay tuned!

album review: 'nightride' by tinashe

The last time I covered Tinashe in 2014, it didn't go well.

And there are a number of factors to consider as of why that is. Part of it was overexposure: the competition for debuting female R&B acts in 2014 was pretty fierce, between Jhene Aiko, FKA Twigs, Kehlani, Teyana Taylor and SZA, and that's before you add in Banks, Ariana Grande, or the long-awaited but tepid return from Mariah Carey. Tinashe's lane was catering to more towards commercial R&B and hip-hop, but even then it was a record spread thin, with more ideas than it could conceivably execute, more breadth than depth, not helped by some frustratingly inconsistent production. And when you combine all of that with it not being one of my better reviews from a writing standpoint, I can definitely understand why people got mad.

But from there, Tinashe didn't seem to have the staying power and momentum that you'd expect coming from '2 On'. Sure, she was touring heavily in 2015, but her self-released mixtape didn't cross over to the mainstream outside of her fanbase, albeit with some intriguing visuals. And while I've never really been wild about her singing, I did think she did a solid job on her collaboration with Snakehips and Chance The Rapper much earlier this year - that song really should have been a bigger hit, let me tell you. So I figured I'd give Tinashe another chance... and then without much warning, she released Nightride as a digital album, the first part of a two part project with Joyride in 2017, similar to what reportedly Tove Lo did with Lady Wood earlier this year. Now I've got mixed opinions on this: I get the appeal, as the digital visual project Endless did drive the anticipation for Frank Ocean's Blonde not days later... but on the other hand you risk flooding the market, or delivering half a project that might not hold as well on its own without the second piece - and since Tinashe doesn't really make succinct projects, creating a two-part project that could have been trimmed down. But regardless, I figured I'd give NIghtride a chance - how was it?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 30, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a fun week. Always nice to find a world hit I like, too, I've been struggling for that the past while. In any case, hope to have that Randy Rogers Band video up some time later today, and then Brothers Osborne, Savages, and Ty Segall - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 30, 2016

So yeah, Billboard BREAKDOWN is late again, and while it might have been late regardless thanks to a blown lightbulb that I couldn't replace last night at the right wattage and luminescence, in this case the charts were delayed because of Martin Luther King Day, which is a holiday in the United States. And that's fine, the holiday is very relevant, but the fact that this happened and will continue to happen throughout the upcoming months - the delays of charts because Billboard shifted their timelines last year - is just another example of how Billboard doesn't think before they make changes. Remember when they added YouTube streams in the middle of the Harlem Shake, or the absolute disaster that were the charts in the late 90s? In comparison with that this is a minor inconvenience, mostly for folks like myself, but it's still exasperating.

video review: 'aquarius' by tinashe

Man, this was an underwhelming record. Really should have been better, I have to say.

Okay, hopefully I can get the Jessie J video up tonight, so stay tuned!

album review: 'aquarius' by tinashe

If any of you remember my reviews from 2013, particularly any where I talked about R&B, I may have mentioned that I didn't tend to be a huge fan of the genre, mostly tied to underwritten lyrics, songwriting topics that didn't really evolve, and - particularly in modern years - a brand of synthetic production that was really bleaker than the subject matter could support. 

Well, this year seems to have been doing its best to crush my predilections towards the genre into rubble, because not only is R&B bigger than ever this year, there have been some genuinely great records in this vein. I've only warmed more to the FKA Twigs debut since I reviewed it, and Jhene Aiko's Souled Out is still one of my favourite albums of the year, mostly for proving all my preconceptions surrounding R&B nearly completely wrong in terms of songwriting, themes, and instrumentation. And considering that R&B - particularly female-fronted R&B, and especially the stuff drawing inspiration from the indie scene - has only gotten bigger this year, I figured that keeping my eye on the artists who actually land chart success could prove very interesting.

And sure enough, I started getting requests to cover Tinashe, a California-based R&B singer who I most recognized from - and I can't believe I'm going to mention this - Two And A Half Men, where she played Jake's girlfriend Celeste. Originally a member of the girl group The Stunners, she began making mixtapes from her home studio, which eventually caught the serious attention of RCA Records who signed her and overloaded her with the biggest producers in mainstream R&B and hip-hop. And with an album full of interludes and guest appearances, it looked to have a fair bit of ambition behind it too, so I gave it a couple listens - what did I find?