album review: 'they don't know' by jason aldean

I've put up with a lot from Jason Aldean.

And make no mistake, it seems like every time he opens up his mouth in an interview I end up finding more things about him that frustrate me or piss me off, mostly because I should like this guy more. For one, he's one of the few 'independent' country artists to have consistent chart success on mainstream radio, and you can tell in terms of his sound he at least tries to push into new directions. Don't get me wrong, 'Burnin' It Down' was awful and helped push the metropolitan country trend that followed in the aftermath of bro-country, but you can tell it was coming from a mostly unique perspective. And to give Aldean a little more credit, he does occasionally put out songs I really like - a deep cut called 'Don't Change Gone' actually landed on my list of best songs of 2014, and that list didn't include the hits!

But eventually you start shifting towards a tipping point, and in the lead-up to They Don't Know... well, it was mixed to say the least. I didn't mind his more country rock-inspired lead-off singles for this release, but then you balance it with the incident where he got caught in blackface at a Halloween party, or how his anger at the term 'bro-country' increasingly titled towards intentional ignorance - yes, you weren't at the forefront of the movement, but don't think you weren't a part of enabling the environment. And when he went to Billboard and said that he was intentionally choosing songs that weren't 'too clever or songwriterly' for his albums, I just about had it - sure, Jason Aldean, I get that not all country music has to be insightful or contain emotional nuance, but if you're going to embrace that, can your production be a little less colourless and your music be a little more fun? Granted, there's a suspicion that I've discussed with fellow country fans that also feels Jason Aldean is kind of jealous of the reputation Eric Church built for himself as the 'outlaw' in mainstream country - but Eric Church chose to embrace his singer-songwriter instinct that, yes, were a little weird but gave him real personality. Aldean has never seemed willing to compromise his swaggering alpha-bro image, which as country swings back towards quality makes him appear one-dimensional.

But whatever, we've got the new record - apparently delayed from release on streaming services so Aldean can get another #1 album on pure sales and for another headline of 'standing against the man' - so how did it turn out?

video review: 'hard ii love' by usher

Well, this was long-overdue. And yeah, it should have had 'Good Kisser' on it, but overall it's still a good record. Probably overthought the themes a bit, but eh, it happens.

But we're not done tonight - Jason Aldean up next, stay tuned!

album review: 'hard ii love' by usher

There are so many ways that I could start this review. So many obvious choices for a topic and preamble, the biggest being the storied history of one of my favourite R&B artists in the past decade and how his ups and downs have translated to some fantastic singles but inconsistent albums - with the exception of Confessions, obviously.

But I bet the fact that I would even consider Usher a favourite R&B artist when on the surface he's not all that different than many of his peers probably raises some eyebrows. Well, remember how I said several reviews back that an artist with real charisma can make music that's powerful without needing to sound like work? Usher falls right into that lane, with easily one of the most expressive vocal ranges you'll hear in R&B and the sort of poise and confidence that makes him damn near untouchable when he wants to be. And yet as an artist, I really wish I liked his albums more, but that's what you get with a singles artist, a musician far more well-known for songs that entire projects - with, of course, the exception of Confessions.

I guess that's a larger part of the problem: as a record, Confessions did have a more unified theme and at least aimed for a little more insight, which meant that it set an expectation that Usher would deliver more in this vein... and he really hasn't. He kept pushing his sound with the times or even bypassing it altogether into newer territory. People tend to forget how much a song like 'Climax' pushed that darker sort of PBR&B into the mainstream, on top of just being a jaw-dropping example of how to do a quiet storm song right as one of the best hits of 2012. 

But since then... yeah, I really liked 'Scream', but Usher seemed to have a lot of trouble pulling the album together. He released a series of singles that balanced between absolutely incredible like 'Good Kisser' - seriously, if you had put this on a record it'd have a shot at the best songs of ANY respective year regardless of being a hit - and other tracks like 'I Don't Mind' that were merely okay to good, mostly elevated by Usher's presence. But we've finally got the new, much delayed album from Usher called Hard II Love - did it deliver?

video review: 'AIM' by m.i.a.

I can imagine this review will probably pull some controversy. Granted, it's M.I.A., wouldn't that be in the spirit of everything, but given the subscriber numbers... eh, it happens.

Next up... well, I should do Jason Aldean next, but that Usher album... we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'AIM' by m.i.a

So let me put forward something with the benefit of some hindsight: could it be that M.I.A. was never that great of an artist?

Harsh charge to make, especially coming from someone who has never been all that fond of M.I.A., but let me make my case. Even when she burst onto the scene in the mid-2000s with her eclectic blend of choppy Afrobeat, hip hop, and raw provocation, I wasn't much of a fan, but I got the punk appeal. Jagged, explosive, not especially nuanced in her politics but loaded with enough potent sloganeering that she was hard to ignore, both Arular and KALA weren't really my thing but I could appreciate that she had her audience. Then MAYA happened... And here's the thing, I've heard a lot of people say that if it were released nowadays where noise rap is more prevalent, it'd get a better reception... but having gotten onboard with that genre in recent years and revisited that record, it really is as messy, shallow, and migraine-inducing as you'd remember - just because you're the first to the sound doesn't mean you did it best. She followed it in 2013 with Matangi, which I actually reviewed in full, and upon retrospect, I may have actually been too kind to it. I didn't like MAYA, but it at least felt like it was trying - when Matangi wasn't irritating the piss out of me with its sloppy misunderstandings of technology and politics and some painfully trite writing, it was just tedious, not helped by a laconic delivery which did nothing for any populism or melody the record half-heartedly tried to create.

But going into this reportedly final record, where even self-professed M.I.A fans were a little reticent, I started to wonder what it was M.I.A will have left behind. Of her five records, I'd only say two were close to good, and while I appreciate the embrace of rougher, noisier African-inspired textures in hip hop, M.I.A wasn't the only one to introduce those sounds. And fifty percent is not a winning or even passing record, so is AIM the album to tilt the scales in her favour?

video review: 'MY WOMAN' by angel olsen

I predict this review to get some fascinating response. It's a little too late to stand firm against the bulwark of people who loved this, but hey, I've been busy.

In the mean time, the schedule is piling up yet again, but we'll have to wait until I'm back in town on Saturday for M.I.A, Devin Townsend, Jason Aldean, and the rest. Stay tuned!

album review: 'MY WOMAN' by angel olsen

So I've been taking stock of the music I've enjoyed thus far this year, and there's one big trend that's starting to emerge: women on the fringes of country and folk putting out some absolutely excellent records. Sometimes they're a little more pop like Jennifer Nettles, sometimes they're a little more towards rock or mainstream country like Brandy Clark or Lydia Loveless, but between case/lang/veirs, Dori Freeman, and Lori McKenna, it's starting to coalesce into a trend, especially this summer.

In other words, given the frankly startling amount of critical acclaim going her way, I was bound to check out the newest album from Angel Olsen. Long time fans will remember that I covered her 2014 album Burn Your Fire For No Witness...  and that I didn't really care all that much for it. It wasn't because of the content, don't get me wrong - Olsen is a strong songwriter with a good penchant for capturing the emotional subtleties in her tunes, and a lot of the rougher production could have been a good compliment for it. But her biggest strength by far is her vocals, and that record chose to smother her in lo-fi fuzz that didn't flatter her subject matter or delivery - what could have been a potent torch album instead guttered into something I wish I remembered better.

So when I heard that Angel Olsen was releasing a more open-ended, experimental record that was jumping across styles - and was one of her most critically acclaimed to date - I was definitely on board. Hell, I've always wanted to like her music more but have been waiting for her to find the right sound to balance against it... so with MY WOMAN, did she get it?

video review: 'skeleton tree' by nick cave & the bad seeds

So this happened... look, I'm not often one to be advocating on behalf of records - I prefer to analyze and discuss rather than promote, it always feels weird, especially with an album like this - but if you're on the fence about Nick Cave, you need to give this a chance. It's amazing that over the course of over three years doing this critic business that for most years I didn't get a single 10/10 and in 2016 we've had two... don't know what to tell you, folks, I gave this so many listens and yeah, it would have felt wrong to give it anything else.

But next up... hmm, Jason Aldean, MIA, Devin Townsend, that Angel Olsen review that I have filmed... probably that one (again, crazy busy this weekend), but we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'skeleton tree' by nick cave and the bad seeds

I know the easiest way to start this. It's also the way I don't want to start this. It feels cheap and exploitative to acknowledge it, especially given how so many music websites have covered this story - I can't imagine how much it stings every time he might see a review and the first thing that's mentioned is... well...

Goddamn it, this is hard - harder than for most artists, mostly because of the acts who have defined my evolution as a music critic, Nick Cave looms as one of the biggest. His record The Good Son from 1990 I would call a classic 10/10 record, and that's not even counting Henry's Dream, Murder Ballads, The Boatman's Call, Tender Prey, and Push The Sky Away, the last of which was my best album of 2013. Spoilers, I stand by that pick too: some may consider it too slow and muted and impenetrable but there's a genuinely unsettling power in the cryptic writing once you decode it, one of the few records that when Nick Cave is called an 'apocalypse prophet', he earns the title. 

So of course when I heard he was working on a new project I was thrilled... and then came the news that his fifteen year old son Arthur had died in a tragic accident. And there's no way around the fact that it would colour the album, especially when Nick Cave had come back into the studio to finish the recording. Most of the songs had been written but later takes had been semi-improvised, as Nick Cave noted that he had lost his faith in 'narrative-based songs', the sort of statement that can ring as frightening coming from the man who wrote Murder Ballads - for such a storyteller to lose his faith in that form is understandable, but genuinely chilling and reflective of the deep, unyielding pain he had to be experiencing. As such, there was a part of me that didn't even want to listen to this record: it felt too personal, too real, almost reminiscent of Blackstar, the last album David Bowie wrote before he died. And as you can likely tell by this point, I was almost certain that this album would get to me as deeply, if not more so... but by this point, with so many critics hailing Skeleton Tree as one of the best records of this year - it's currently the highest rated record on Metacritic, if you put stock in such things - I had to hear it. What did I hear?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 24, 2016 (VIDEO)

Well, this happened - I can imagine people might be a little surprised that I'd actually brand a Kendrick verse as subpar... but yeah, it happens, he hasn't quite mastered the tactic of coasting on pop guest verses yet like Lil Wayne (in his prime) or Ludacris could do effortlessly. The king does have weaknesses, folks.

Beyond that... I think I'm about ready to talk about Nick Cave. Brace yourselves, folks: this one gets heavy. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 24, 2016

Do you ever have those weeks where you were expecting a lot to happen... only for very little to actually materialize? I was expecting Lady Gaga to debut, for Travis Scott's album to make a major splash, for some pretty significant shakeups... and yet I didn't really see that, as we otherwise had a pretty quiet week, with a sparse number of debuts, a few returning entries, and overall very little to complain about. 

video review: 'wild world' by bastille

So this happened... man, I wish I could have liked this more, but the more I think about the writing and framing the less I like this project. Ugh, such a disappointment...

But moving on, we've got Billboard BREAKDOWN up next, then Angel Olsen and Nick Cave and whatever I've got time for before my insane weekend - stay tuned!

album review: 'wild world' by bastille

I have a gut feeling that this review will end up being more controversial than it should be.

Hell, the last time I covered Bastille it ended up controversial, mostly because while I didn't mind the record I also felt a little distant from it. Keep in mind this is a group that had a song that landed on my top ten best hit songs of 2014 and a record on which I was positive... but not one that I felt held up outside of a few songs. Part of it was the somewhat awkward blend of textures that came through matching colder, stiffer electronic beats and percussion with more organic vocal textures, and then when you factor in lyrics that occasionally aimed for higher concepts and yet rarely stuck the landing when they weren't wallowing in relationship drama that didn't match the bombast... it felt like an odd blend that didn't quite connect.

But to be fair, Bastille's always been a weird mishmash of an act - probably closest to the percussion-over-melody brand of indie pop rock that can be very hit-and-miss with me, and yet they did have a distinctive style and attitude that I wished I could like more. And that's one reason I was willing to give their follow-up record Wild World a chance - same production team, a little more experience and polish and knowledge of a workable sound, maybe it would lead to stronger songs. Was I right?

video review: 'splendor & misery' by clipping.

Oh, I expect the responses to this album to be all over the map - I only ask you actually give it a real chance before dismissing it as pretentious and up-its-own-ass (which, yeah, it kind of is, but in the right way).

Next up... probably Bastille or Angel Olsen if I can get back on schedule and give NIck Cave a few more listens to really sink in... stay tuned!

album review: 'splendor & misery' by clipping.

There will be two sets of people who will see this review.

The first set are those who know what clipping. is, the experimental rap trio signed to Sub Pop who in 2014 dropped their debut which remains one of the best records of that year and featuring some of their best ever songs. A trio known in the underground for explosively distorted music, twisted samples, and the sheer mindbending wordplay of Daveed Diggs, I know why all of you are here. You know what clipping. is and the meticulous yet delirious intensity with which they approach their work, and how their newest concept album experiment makes all too much sense for an act that has a knack for storytelling...

But let's get brutally honest, you're not the set of people I'm worried about. I'm talking about you, the people who saw Hamilton - or more likely just got the soundtrack - and were entranced by Daveed Diggs' insane skills as a rapper, which won him a Grammy and Tony earlier this year. From there you might have heard that this guy had a group dropping an album this year and were curious to hear more - maybe it would be like Hamilton? So let me disabuse you all of some notions: this is not going to be like 'Hamilton'. The theater that Diggs was involved with before Hamilton was experimental, the stuff that would never land on Broadway in a million years, and clipping. is even further away from that, in production and content. And this record looked to be pushing in even weirder directions: heralded as a hip-hop space opera - of which I hoped was a lot more Deltron 3030 than Shabazz Palaces or Logic - this is an album that was looking to push its high concept to the limit. Of course, you'd expect that from a group where one member has a Ph.D with a dissertation on experimental music and who is influenced by Tim Hecker and Death Grips, but if all you know is that 'Daveed Diggs was in Hamilton', you might run screaming for the hills before giving this record its fair consideration. And hey, you'll be in fair company, there are plenty of critics who have dismissed this project rather than admit they don't get it. So if you're expecting something accessible or easy to take in, this is your change to clear off now, friendly warning.

Are they gone? Good, so let's dig into Splendor & Misery - does it live up to some high expectations?

video review: 'and the anonymous nobody...' by de la soul

So I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected I would. Hell, I think I enjoyed this more than a lot of people did... which is a damn shame, because it's a great, intelligent release that definitely deserves a ton more attention from legends in hip-hop.

But moving on to something more experimental, I think I'm going to push the Angel Olsen review back a day or two... mostly because clipping., Bastille, and Nick Cave all dropped records and I'm far more interested in those. Stay tuned!

album review: 'and the anonymous nobody...' by de la soul

So a few months back I had the misfortune to read a piece at MTV from someone I hesitate to call a journalist about his first exposure to De La Soul's 3 Feet High And Rising. And if you want to imagine the worst sort of scattershot, self-involved millennial 'thinkpiece' for which Buzzfeed pays a premium, it would be that, as the author meanders from half-hearted engagement with the project to musings about yoga, bagels, and a whole load of dance music that shows the sort of professional disinterest that creeps right up to the line of insulting. And look, I get it if the old-school sample-heavy sound isn't for you - that can be a bit of an acquired taste - but the complete failure to actually dig into the music or content almost makes me suspicious that it was an attempt to troll and gain clicks rather than make an actual point.

But it also served as a stark reminder that I myself hadn't really given De La Soul their due, so in preparation for this review and an album funded on Kickstarter and their first full project in twelve years, I went back through their entire back catalog and wow I'm glad I did. Naturally clever and insightful without being incredibly showy about it, featuring some great grooves and killer sampling choices, I can definitely see why De La Soul is held up as legends in hip-hop, and I'd argue their material has certainly aged better than some of their contemporaries. Sure, there were a few goofy elements that can read as missteps, but De La Soul were comfortable their audience was smart enough to get the subtext behind the comical flourishes, like the album-spanning middle finger to Vanilla Ice that was De La Soul Is Dead, or how measured their retort to gangsta rap was on Stakes Is High, or just how goddamn fantastic Buhloone Mindstate was, probably standing as my favourite of their classic records. Now I will say that around the turn of the millennium De La Soul did hit some diminishing returns, mostly courtesy to overloaded guest stars lists and a seeming dilution of their tighter thematic focus, but even with that I did like the aborted Art Official Intelligence trilogy to the point I'd love to see it eventually concluded. And yet, I have to say I was a little worried about this project, mostly because not only had the overloaded guest star list returned, it was more varied and eclectic than ever, which can be tough to blend into a cohesive sound or a smart narrative. But look, I had faith in De La Soul, that they could pull something together that was interesting and insightful - did they pull it off?

video review: 'the sun's tirade' by isaiah rashad

Oh, I can imagine this review raising a fair amount of controversy... but eh, I wish I liked this more too. It accomplishes its goal, that's for damn sure... I just wished I like this more.

Next up, let's see if I can get De La Soul and Angel Olsen out before I dig into Nick Cave and clipping., so stay tuned!

album review: 'the sun's tirade' by isaiah rashad

Here's something I don't often talk about when it comes to records: timing. Specifically the timing of when I might hear something in comparison with the general public - and while you would usually think that wouldn't matter all that much, it does play something of a role when you consider the hype cycle in the popular consciousness. Now since I'm a music critic I'm normally ahead of the cycle - I've heard the record early or at release, and by the time the rest of the mainstream catches up - which can be anywhere from a week to months later - I'm going to have very different feelings about the project, especially depending how much time I've sat with it or whether it's made a big impact. An easy example nowadays is twenty one pilots - I was cheerleading for the bad in early summer last year, and even though I still like Blurryface a lot, I'm also keenly aware that the band might wear out their welcome if they keep releasing weaker singles. 

But I don't want to say I'm always ahead of the game - on the flip side, I got on board with Isaiah Rashad over a full year after the release of his breakout project Cilvia Demo in 2014, a project that many consider his debut album at nearly fifty minutes... but it was an EP, and I don't normally cover those, only talking about it in the summer of 2015 as my second year anniversary review voted by you guys. And yeah, the project was great, a genuinely insightful and versatile project that showed the aftermath of family estrangement, overloaded responsibilities, and the complicated position of leadership that he falls into thanks to his success. And yet while I was enjoying the project late, Isaiah Rashad was seeing his life reflect art, sinking into a Xanax and alcohol addiction that nearly led to label conflicts with TDE, depressants reflecting isolation and inactivity weighing on him all the more heavily. Indeed, you could argue it's a miracle that we got this project at all, given how quickly drug abuse can destroy careers, but Isaiah Rashad pulled out and more than two years later has delivered a proper full-length follow-up called The Sun's Tirade. I can't imagine for long-time fans how much anticipation there is here, but you can bet I was curious about this - so how did it turn out?

video review: 'e.mo.tion: side b' by carly rae jepsen

Well, you all wanted it. And I needed more time to think through Isaiah Rashad, but the bigger story is that you wanted it. 

And on that note... let's see if I can get through The Sun's Tirade. Stay tuned!