video review: 'thank u, next' by ariana grande

...sigh, I really wish I didn't feel like I was going out on a ledge with calling out the issues of this project, but whatever.

Anyway, next up is something a LOT more indie, so stay tuned!

album review: 'thank u, next' by ariana grande

So as some of you know, I'm currently working on an extended video essay surrounding the separation of art and artist and how especially in the modern social media/tabloid landscape it's a theory that's increasingly unfeasible. Of course, my larger point will be that it was never that feasible to begin with, but you'll have to wait until I release that project in... I'd like to say a month or so before I explain further - just something to think about.

But really, if you're looking for a project that might as well prove my point in block capitals across every fiber of its being, it was the rushed creation and release of the album thank u, next by Ariana Grande, and yes, before even getting into the album directly I'm calling this a rushed job. Not only was sweetener released midway through last year, singles were still in charting circulation. And this was not a case like Taylor Swift's reputation where the album was tanking upon arrival - the singles had staying power and top 10 presence, and the reviews were solid. But like reputation, it was hard to avoid the feeling that thank u, next was being presented as a slice of spin control in the tumult of Ariana Grande's public life, with both the collapse of her engagement to Pete Davidson - which in going back to sweetener and especially the song she titled after him it was so easy to predict - and the tragic passing of Mac Miller, where in both cases Ariana Grande faced the sort of toxic social media backlash that would be hell for anyone. 

Now as I said last year when the song 'thank u, next' was first released, Ariana Grande had a few advantages over Taylor Swift in that she didn't have the insane weight of cultural expectations placed upon her, and that allowed the song and response to be so breezy and magnanimous, a moment of well-timed spin control that seemed to work in her favor. But that is what it was, especially with the inclusion of names which gives the song additional emotional impact and intensity - pull back from that, separate the art from the artist, and the entire track seems flighty and disposable, an underweight fusion of pop, R&B and trap that for an outside observer would make no sense to sit on the top of the Hot 100 for weeks, only made to feel more because Republic is throwing more money than they probably should to make it stick. And if 'imagine' increased those suspicions, '7 rings' confirmed it, along with the cheap, controversy-laden rollout that for an artist and her team so measured and big-budget over the past three albums that felt alarmingly slapdash. Combined with such a quick turnaround time - she's bragged that this album was written in a week and recorded in not much longer - that is actively cannibalizing singles from the previous project... yeah, I'll freely admit I was worried this would be a rush job and not nearly reflect the potential shown on sweetener for the sort of experimentation and emotional maturity that gave that project such promise - was I wrong?

video review: 'future hndrxx presents: the WIZRD' by future

Honestly, I probably should have known better than to cover this... but eh, live and learn, right?

Okay, next up... see, I took a poll on Twitter and folks selected KONGOS... but that album is leaving me in a weird spot and I'm not sure how viable it'll be for a full review, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'future hndrxx presents: the WIZRD' by future

So I skipped reviewing Future's twin album release in 2017. 

In fact, I've skipped covering a lot of Future's albums and mixtapes since I reviewed Dirty Sprite 2 in 2015 - three albums and five mixtapes, as a matter of fact - mostly because I know that a significant chunk of them will wind up on Billboard BREAKDOWN, but the principle remains. Think about that for a second: Future has put out eight projects that have had charting presence on the Hot 100 in three years - even by Drake standards, that's the sort of flood of content that runs the very real risk of flooding the market, especially if they don't have moments that really stand out or feel distinctive, and how often has that really happened?

And I'm deadly serious about this, because you can burn out an audience by giving them too much material too quickly - flooding the market only can work if you can wring out enough hits or distinctive moments to stand out. And more than ever I'm getting the impression that Future is hitting diminishing returns with every project he's pushed out - you can only take so much empty flexing, dead-eyed nihilism, and swamped out trap beats with Future's half-formed croon-rapping before you ask for something more, especially when they don't play to the pitch-black darkness and rage that gave Future his strongest cuts.

So why cover this now? Well, from the extensive round of interviews Future has put out, it seems like not only is he the most clear-headed he's been in a long time, he's also showing a surprising amount of introspection. He's seen the depressant-soaked landscape of modern trap and was afraid to admit he quit lean a while ago in fears of losing an audience who is accustomed to it, and while I can't speak to how well the possible album bomb will hit, underwhelming lead-off singles from a quick rollout for another long album give me the impression even Future's diehard fans are starting to move on - bad news for a rapper who has coasted on a limited skillset and dimensionality. So might as well get ground-level seats for what Future manages to extract from this, whether we get a late-game shot of quality and maturity or whether disaster is eminent, so what did we get from The WIZRD?

video review: 'astroworld' by travis scott

Well, this was underwhelming, but thanks for sticking with me for a thousand video reviews! :D hope you enjoy the challenge, it's a bit of a nightmare - good luck!

Next up... well, I've got my own endurance trial ahead, so stay tuned!

album review: 'astroworld' by travis scott

I've got conflicted feelings about Travis Scott. I liked him as a producer for his ability to deliver some forward-thinking, massive production, but then Rodeo happened and while many celebrated it for the wide range of collaborators and his uncanny ability to deliver terrific hooks, many of the tones and heft I liked about his production had evaporated, especially around Travis Scott as an MC who could assemble a decent flow but was far from lyrical or all that interesting. Then Birds In The Trap Sing McKnight happened... and contrary to pretty much everyone, I actually liked that more than Rodeo - I don't know what to tell you, the production and hooks clicked more strongly, the collaborations were more consistent, and while the content was borderline nonsensical, it at least felt more cohesive. Less experimental or challenging, sure - and that Huncho Jack collab project with Quavo didn't help matters - but for the first time the appeal started to click.

And then I saw Travis Scott live, opening for Kendrick Lamar, and what might have clicked before really connected there, but left me with more questions. Travis Scott could be such a force of personality on stage, a consummate hype man and real personality, so why he's tried to dampen it with so many slurred-over layers and effects or muffle it with overloaded lists of guest stars is utterly beyond me. And when I started seeing the critical acclaim piled onto Astroworld... look, I wasn't sure what to expect at this point, but I did see he got Pharrell, The Weeknd, and Tame Impala all on the same song, so the spectacle might be worth the price of admission. So what the hell, how is Astroworld?

video review: 'encore' by dj snake

Always forget to cross-post these videos more than I should... even if the album is completely mediocre.

Anyway, next up is Tarja, Arkells, and Dinosaur Jr. as I work my way through Lori McKenna's back catalog and gear up for some awful hip-hop coming sooner than I'd like. Stay tuned!

album review: 'encore' by dj snake

I've never been completely sure how I feel about DJ Snake. 

And if you've been following his seemingly meteoric rise to fame over the past three years, you'd understand why. As a producer, his synth tones and beats have the sort of aggression that can match the firepower of someone like Lil Jon but also have enough restraint to intensify the tension for more low-key singers. And while it can definitely take a while to get on-board with some of his more off-kilter melodic progressions, he does have a distinctive sound - probably one of the big reasons Lady Gaga tapped him around the turn of the decade to produce for Born This Way and ARTPOP. And considering how many bonafide hits he's had, I'm surprised it's taken him this long to make a full-length debut, even as an producer.

But on the other hand, there's a part of me that's not that surprised - DJ Snake has probably been making enough bank off of singles to not need to worry about albums, and when you combine that with the fact that his unique selection of tones can seem a tad limited when you explore his material at length, maybe he was concerned about wearing out his welcome. Hell, he's even calling his debut album Encore, maybe he's aware of his possible longevity. But that doesn't mean I wasn't curious, so I checked out Encore - how did it go?

video review: 'old' by danny brown

Man, I'm happy I got a chance to get this out. Think it's one of my better ones (despite the terrible screencap).

Next will be Pusha T and probably that'll be it until Sunday (going to visit extended family for Canadian Thanksgiving), where I'll probably cover Joe Nichols. Think I'm going to skip on Of Montreal, though - I just don't have the time to get through their discography right now to deliver a review with the right context.

Stay tuned!

album review: 'old' by danny brown

Let's talk about artistic dichotomies.

This is a bit of an odd topic, but it's one that does require an examination, particularly considering its rise within music, particularly hip-hop and rap. The principle is simple: holding two exclusive thoughts in your music simultaneously. Or, in simpler terms, the whole concept of the 'thug lover' or the 'gangsta with a sensitive side'. It doesn't really seem to make sense when you start thinking about it, but I'm not surprised at all why so many rappers try it out, because you're nailing two very different markets.

The issue becomes whether or not that separation of exclusive ideas can actually be believable, which is the biggest problem I find with most of these acts. For instance, Ja Rule very much wanted to emulate 2Pac, but he also appeared on duets with female singers and tried to come across as a sensitive dude, and it completely backfired on him because the image didn't hold up under deeper scrutiny. For a more recent example, take a look at Drake - it's clear he's much more comfortable in the sensitive R&B vein, but he still plays the thug and it's rarely believable. It requires an extremely talented artist who can hold multiple personas successfully, and it takes an even better one to make them come across as remotely cohesive on the same album.

Enter Danny Brown, a rapper from the underground who made major waves in 2011 with XXX, a album where Danny Brown pushed that dichotomy between thug and conscientious rapper to the absolute limit, splitting his album into two segments: the sleazy, often grossly explicit thug; and the more street-wise, down-to-earth rapper who was able to provide context for such behaviour. It helped matters that Danny Brown seems smarter than the average girl/riches/car-obsessed rapper, and his meta-commentary strewn throughout both sides of the album did wonders for bringing it all together. Plus, from an instrumentation/production/technical rapping standpoint, the majority of the album was damn near flawless. Going into XXX, I was expecting just another mixtape, and I left with my mind blown because this guy was legit, both as an extremely convincing gangsta presence and as a rapper who could intelligently speak to the grimier, more depressing lifestyles that cultivated that gangsta image. 

So with that in mind, I was intrigued by the fact that Danny Brown's newest album Old would be exploring that dichotomy yet again, but I was also a bit worried - the album was clearly being marketed as 'bigger' and more aimed at the mainstream hip-hop community, and with more writers on board every track, I was worried that some of the more incisive commentary or risky subject matter would get sanded down. Was I right?

video review: 'b.o.a.t.s. ii: me time' by 2 chainz

Yeah, here's the review that I'm sure will get me all manner of hatred. Eh, I'm honest, and I won't apologize for that.

Next up is Sean Kingston, stay tuned!

album review: 'b.o.a.t.s ii: me time' by 2 chainz

You know, for the most part, this whole reviewing gig is pretty sweet. It's not nearly at the point where it's going to pay my bills or anything, but for the most part, I really enjoy it. I like having the opportunity to discuss material that is on the front edge of pop culture, the stuff that is currently engaging people and sparking discussion, and the fact that I might be able to contribute something to that discussion, if only a fleeting observation, can be a real treat at points.

But there is a downside to this job: reviewing albums you know you're probably going to despise, and then expecting the maelstrom of hate to hit you like a goddamn tsunami. This doesn't even have the thrill of clinical dissection or shooting fish in the barrel that tackling the real catastrophic albums tend to bring - no, this is the workman's duty of covering mediocrity because for some reason it has captured the attention of pop culture and even though you have a sinking feeling that it'll fail to even meet your low expectations, you've got to talk about it anyway. 

But let's be optimistic. Even though going into 2 Chainz's follow-up album Based On A True Story II: Me Time I had the strong suspicion that I'd end up hating it, I am curious about the 2 Chainz phenomenon, if that makes any sense, in the way I'm perplexed by how a singer like Future became famous. Keep in mind that 2 Chainz has been in the rap game since 1997, and once was on Disturbing Tha Peace, Ludacris' record label - and yet it has taken him over a decade to become commercially successful, or get a real major label debut. 

And then Kanye West - making one of many inexplicable Kanye West decisions - decided to recruit 2 Chainz for the lead-off single for 'Mercy' off of 2012's Cruel Summer, the collaboration album that did very little to impress me, particularly coming off of the much stronger Watch The Throne from Kanye. And suddenly, 2 Chainz was everywhere on hip-hop radio, to the bewilderment of critics, myself included. There were so many better rappers working, and yet we gave chart success to the rapper who formerly had the name 'Tity Boi', and whose rapping was also roughly on that intellectual level? 

And I'll be honest, I hated his debut album Based On A T.R.U. Story, as it was yet other trap-instrumentation driven wasteland of worthless punchlines and terrible rapping. 2 Chainz did absolutely nothing to inspire any sort of emotional reaction from me other than groans of disgust. But the chart success of the album was kind of mesmerizing in the ways it did not make the slightest iota of sense to me: we had a rapper who had nothing to say and very little in the way of how he might say it, and yet he was hugely successful. 

So this review is going to be a bit different. B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time is going to (in my opinion, very wrongly) outsell every other record that comes out this week, so I'm going to use my time to explore why this guy is popular, what his appeal is to the mainstream. I want to understand the phenomenon of 2 Chainz, I want to understand why this guy is popular. Hell, if I missed something about this guy or misjudged him, I want to be surprised and proven wrong - I mean, if the problem is me, I want to realize that. So, what do I think?

video review: 'trap lord' by a$ap ferg

I talk about the new album from A$AP Ferg titled 'Trap Lord', and the reasons why trap music doesn't always work with me.

Oh, and outside of maybe two songs, the album's pretty mediocre. Sorry.

album review: 'trap lord' by a$ap ferg

Here's something you might not know: the term 'trap' often heard in rap and electronica is significantly different than you might think.

You see, in electronica and dubstep, 'trap' tended to refer to a specific type of instrumentation, complete with accelerating 808 drums, an excess of hi-hats, menacing string sections, and moody, darker layers of synthesizers. Now I'll admit right out of the gate that I'm not the biggest fan of this particular musical style, but I can definitely see its appeal, particularly when balanced out with the right lyrics. After all, cold, bleak minimalism can work if you have a performer with enough charisma or force of personality to back it up (which is rare enough in its own right, keep that in mind). 

Unfortunately, the definition of trap instrumentation is very different than what is typically considered 'trap' lyrics, which uses the term much more literally as a reference to the trapped lifestyles that many rappers struggled to escape, the traps created thanks to poverty, societal inequalities, or other such factors. And to be fair, the places where trap instrumentation and trap lyrics are balanced out can lead to some compelling symmetry within the song. Granted, it won't be much of my thing - to me, too much trap music goes for bombast over grit, which loses some texture - but I can appreciate it when it works.

The problem though, as one could easily say if looking at the Billboard Hot 100, is that this symmetry between trap instrumentation and lyrics rarely gets popular in a big way on the charts. Instead, many producers and rappers have co-opted the trap aesthetic and instrumentation to build their conventional rap songs about money, cars, and hos - and believe me, for often than not it doesn't work at all. This is actually for a fairly simple reason, believe it or not: it's hard to glamorize a lifestyle as attractive to the mainstream audience if you pair it with production and instrumentation that is bleak, dark, and makes it seem like the artist isn't having any fun. It makes the songs come across as astoundingly soulless to me, and often far darker than I suspect the artist intended. And sure, it'd be one thing if the rappers were looking to satirize their lives of partying and paint them as hollow or token, but it's clear that more often than not, they're entirely sincere.

And this isn't me coming down against vapid hip-hop either - when placed in the right context, superficial themes in hip-hop (or indeed any genre of music) can work just fine. Hell, this is all coming from the guy who'll defend crunk more than the majority of critics. As I've mentioned before, there's a place for shallow, hedonistic material, and while it might be indulgent, vacuous, or dumb as hell, it can occasionally be rather entertaining nonetheless (basically my general defense for most hair metal). The problem here doesn't come from the luxury raps, but the placement of said raps against a dour, humourless instrumentation that sucks away the possibilities of fun or awesome bombast.

So with all of that in mind, what could I hope to expect from A$AP Ferg, whose debut album is titled Trap Lord (very much analogous to T.I.'s Trap Muzik from 2003)? I've heard reasonable things about the guy from the underground, but I know exactly how much pressure to conform with the mainstream has ruined all too many rappers who had underground street cred. And while I wasn't intimately familiar with his mixtapes, I was a little encouraged that he somehow managed to dredge out Bone Thugs-n-Harmony from wherever they were and pull them onto the album. It couldn't be that bad, right?