album review: 'echo bench' by echo bench

I'd like to start this review with a necessary clarification that I really didn't was necessary until fairly recently, specifically in some of the comments that were posted on certain videos. This is not a response to these comments and I won't be naming any names, but I do feel I need to get something off my chest before I get into the meat of this review.

And here it is: one of the big reasons that my reviews are so long in comparison with others is that I want to ensure that people going through them are completely informed regarding my state of mind before I dive into what I like and dislike about music. I want all of my cards to be on the table in full view, and since I prize honesty, I want to make sure that you're aware of all of the factors that could influence my opinion, one way or another. 

Now this has led to a criticism I didn't really expect: the comment that since I went into said reviews with expectations, I was thus unfair to the artists in question. And there's a simple response to this: yes, I did go in with ideas and potentially even expectations regarding what said albums might entail - I'm a human being, and it would be intellectually and emotionally dishonest for me to curtail those expectations and not speak without a fully informed opinion that is uniquely my own. 

That being said, there is a marked difference between expectations and keeping an open mind, and this is where I feel the majority of said comments missed the point. Sure, I might have gone in with expectations, but I was open and willing to believe that I might be wrong in some capacity. I never go into reviews 'wanting to hate' something - if anything, I want to be proven wrong, I want the artist to step up and smash all of my preconceived opinions about their work. Is it the artist's job to prove themselves to me exclusively? Well, of course not, but it is the artist's job to make art that is compelling or is informed by some purpose, and it's my job as a critic to interpret that purpose and pass judgement on whether it works or not. And thus, when it comes to every act, be it country or hip-hop or metal or indie rock or even the shallowest of pop and EDM, I try to keep an open mind and try to understand their appeal. And while I might have creeping feelings of dread opening up some albums, I'm always willing to give them a fair shot, and i'm constantly seeking to improve my knowledge of acts so I can make my judgments fairly.

And yet, I'm going to get excited about some albums, and I'm going to dread reviewing others. I'm not going to stop having expectations, because said expectations inform my opinions and thus my reviews. And since I am an optimist, I will reaffirm my commitment to go into albums with hopes for the best. And so when I got a copy of the debut self-titled album from all-female post-punk trio Echo Bench and was informed they were reminiscent of acts like Savages (who I reviewed very highly earlier this year) and Joy Division, I was excited. I made sure to temper my excitement with some measured forethought - indie rock debuts are tricky things, and the high, high standard Savages set should definitely not be the same for every act in their vein - but I was excited and intrigued just the same. So, how does the Echo Bench album turn out?

video review: 'true' by avicii

So here's the final video in the second wave of albums from September. I'm going to spend my weekend catching up on a few other little things that shouldn't take long to review - or at least I hope they don't - before the deluge gets altogether too huge (which starts at around September 17 with a trio of country albums that I'm likely going to have a hard time telling apart - joy).

Stay tuned!

album review: 'true' by avicii

There are certain acts to which I don't feel qualified in reviewing, often for a number of reasons. I don't touch classical music or jazz mostly because I'm largely unfamiliar with the genres and I don't feel remotely qualified to talk about them. Similarly, there are whole swathes of heavy metal that I would like to review, but I just haven't had the chance to become familiar enough with the best and worst of the genre to speak definitively on the subject. Sure, I'm working my ass off to catch up, but until then, I don't think I'm the best reviewer to speak to, say, the new Motorhead or Carcass albums (Motorhead more because I'm not as familiar with their discography as I'd like to be), or that Deafheaven album that came out earlier this year and has received a ton of critical acclaim. And of course there are genres like metalcore and electrocore of which I've listened to a fair bit and thus cannot be remotely objective when talking about these acts (it's a hatred thing).

And for a long time, one of those genres I hesitated to talk about was EDM, partially because I felt I wasn't familiar enough with the genre, partially because I didn't particularly like most of what I had heard, and partially because, as a critic, I tend to spend a fair amount of time analyzing lyrics - I'm a published author, that's one of my big strengths. And since most trance and house and EDM don't have lyrics, I find myself guessing more than I'd like when I review those albums, because the review is less based on solid content and more based upon mood and emotion. And thus, there'd be a limit to how much analysis I'd be able to provide when reviewing the act.

But as of recently, there's been something of a shift, mostly due to EDM-inspired music moving more towards the mainstream, with the success of acts like Zedd and Swedish House Mafia and David Guetta and Calvin Harris. What I find as a significant relief is that a lot of this music has vocals and lyrics - often not very well written lyrics, but they are there in order to better court the mainstream. 

And thus, when I heard about Swedish DJ Avicii's debut album not only containing vocals and lyrics, but also an exploration of folk and country, I was seriously psyched. Not only would I have some lyrics to examine, I'm also significantly more familiar with folk and especially country music. For once, I felt that there was an EDM album that fit within my area of expertise, and I was really looking forward to reviewing Avicii's TRUE. So, what did I find?

video review: 'back 2 life' by sean kingston

I feel like I'm the only guy who bothered to review Sean Kingston, but here it is anyways. What's more annoying is that I'm not satisfied with how the lighting is working out. Sure, it's brighter, but it's inconsistent between videos, and I'm starting to think it's an issue with my webcam.

Ugh. Guess it's getting close to that time when I actually have to invest money in a good camera.

album review: 'back 2 life' by sean kingston

There are some performers that you can look at once and immediately know that they're going to be a pop smash hit - and sometimes, it doesn't even rely on their music. They have the look and sound and natural charisma and you just know in your gut that on image alone, there is serious potential for them to become huge. The great producer songwriters have a knack for spotting these types and then giving them everything they need to become chart smash hits, whether it is songs or enormous overproduction to overlook the fact that they can barely hit a note - they smell money, and they're going to make a killing.

With all of that in mind, Sean Kingston does not seem to fit that mold - at all. Not to be offensive, but the fellow kind of looked a bit like a doofus back when debuted with his self-titled album in 2007, and he just seemed to have some of that wide-eyed naivete that didn't exactly strike me as the look of a professional. Now there was a reason for that - he made those first two albums when he was a teenager, and it shows - but he seemed like the kind of performer who was very much aware of the fact that he didn't quite belong in the pop landscape, and was just riding out his time in the spotlight for as long as he could.

And really, that was kind of a shame, because he wasn't a bad performer, particularly for his age (his first album came out in 2007 when he was seventeen, when he was my age). He had a distinctive voice and some occasionally interesting (if amateurishly written) songs. Furthermore, he brought a welcome touch of reggae to the mid-to-late years of the first decade of the 2000s that I definitely appreciated - it gave him some personality and helped him stand out. Yes, most of his songs had the reek of JR Rotem behind them, but I thought that with time, he might be able to transition into at least a successful reggae act, if not a pop star in his own right. But after his second album didn't sell all that well, Sean Kingston seemed to vanish from the public eye for a good four years, with only occasional public appearances (most in Africa), a series of mixtapes that nobody cared about, and a pretty traumatic jet-skiing accident (he made a full recovery) to mark his time out of the spotlight. 

But now he's back with a new album Back 2 Life, heralding his return to the spotlight once again. Did he put those four years off to good use and have something great for us?

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: 'the electric lady' by janelle monae

Man, I was happy that I got a chance to review this, because it's a great album and I don't think I'll have many of those for the next little bit. 

Seriously, if you didn't get the message in my previous post, you need to check this album out immediately, it's definitely for an artist who deserves far more fame than she gets. Janelle Monae's 'The Electric Lady' might not be as much to my tastes as 'The ArchAndroid', but goddamnit, it's close.

And now for the shitstorm to commence... 2 Chainz, you're up.

album review: 'the electric lady' by janelle monae

Back in my review of Robin Thicke's album Blurred Lines, I mentioned why R&B as a genre doesn't tend to work for me as well as others, mostly because I've found the traditional topics in their songwriting a little overused. Now, you get this in every genre, but it got on my nerves a lot more in R&B because so many of the artists had a serious problem in having their songs be criminally underwritten, instead preferring to fill the verses with vocal gymnastics and other such elements that might sound pretty but don't really have a lot of substance.

Now I'll admit that my particular point of view has already been proven wrong once this year by Ariana Grande, but to be fair, she was using the conventional songwriting topics for R&B, just written with a little bit more wit and sharp poetry. But considering that I do like to be proven wrong when in the process I'm exposed to great music, I finally took the opportunity to get into the discography of Janelle Monae, an R&B act who has amassed some serious critical acclaim and who reportedly eschewed genres traditions in favour of weirder topics. And while I definitely was optimistic, I remembered the catastrophic example of 30 Seconds To Mars and I prepared myself for the worst.

Instead, I was blown out of the water. Folks, if you're not listening to Janelle Monae and her Afrofuturist sci-fi masterpieces, you should be. Not only are her high-concept topics of choice brilliantly realized in some of the most innovative and strikingly original ways I've seen in a long time, she's also an extraordinarily talented singer and songwriter, fusing a dozen genres of the past into a coherent, frequently beautiful whole that somehow remains catchy and emotionally evocative just the same. I'll admit that I'm a serious sucker for great space rock (and Janelle Monae is one of the best in the genre, hands-down), but I'm still stunned by how well she manages to make so many disparate genres sound distinctly fresh and new, breathing new life into them in a way I haven't seen since Daft Punk released Random Accessed Memories earlier this year (before that, I'd probably have to go all the way back to The Love Below from OutKast). People say that Justin Timberlake is innovating in R&B - all respect to Justin Timberlake, but he doesn't possess a tenth of the imagination, soul, and creative genius that Janelle Monae has.

And I could spend the next several hours raving about how the music is striking and unique and how Janelle Monae sells all of her material with well-chosen and incredibly heartfelt emotion and how she manages to get her guest stars swept up in her eclectic vision and how her Afrofuturistic themes are a perfect blend of past and future African-American art synthesized from multiple generations and how even with her high-minded ideals she still has that streak of populism to make her music compelling to a wider audience, but really, all I need to say is this: Janelle Monae is to R&B what Arjen Lucassen's Ayreon project is to metal. And if you're one of the three people who are looking at this and know what the Ayreon project is, you'll understand precisely how high of a compliment that is.

So to say that my expectations for her new album, The Electric Lady were high is a bit of an understatement. Continuing her ongoing space-epic saga from her 2010 album The ArchAndroid and recruiting guest stars like Miguel, Erykah Badu, Solange, and even Prince, one of the legends of R&B himself, I was incredibly excited to find out her newest album was coming out this month, and I was looking forward to seeing how her story would continue. So what does the next chapter in her story look like?

video review: 'fuse' by keith urban

Hmm, this was definitely a pleasant surprise. Have to say, I was quite impressed by the new album from Keith Urban. Have to say, it's kind of funny how the videos where I actually like the material are so much easier to edit and put together than when I don't like it (although the lighting is still not consistent - goddamn it, the sooner I get a real camera the better). 

In any case, Janelle Monae is on the way... and then the real shitstorm will begin. Stay tuned!

album review: 'fuse' by keith urban

I think, over the past several years, I've been unfair to Keith Urban.

At first glance, the rise and success of Keith Urban and his type of handsome, inoffensive pop-country is the sort of direction for country music that gets my nerves, mostly because of a marked shift in instrumentation, production, and themes. The songwriting gets a little shallower in order to court mass-market appeal, the production is a little more bland to sand down the rough edges, the instrumentation is simplified, and it's all fronted by a succession of musicians who look distinctly too polished to be performing country music. What's worse is that many of these acts attempt to co-opt traditional country elements into their songwriting and it often sounds forced, inauthentic, and fake.

Now to his credit, Keith Urban has rarely, if ever, done this, and I think there's a few very simple reasons why. Firstly, he's actually Australian, and thus probably didn't grow up with the cultural attitudes that might push him to adopt styles that don't match his image. Secondly, despite the more polished style of music Keith Urban has written, produced, and performed throughout his career, it feels authentic with his image. He has always seemed distinctly comfortable in his stylistic choices, and the fact that, unlike some country singers (looking at you, Justin Moore) seems like a genuinely nice guy, means that he's not going to co-opt somebody else's style if it doesn't work for him. Thirdly and finally, Keith Urban is actually a pretty good songwriter on his own, so he never needed to run to the country song generating machine that Nashville has turned into for some artists.

That being said, the majority of many critic' issues with Keith Urban isn't that he's offensive or bad, but that he's kind of boring. It's sort of like the same issue I had with Jay Sean - not that the music is all that egregiously awful, but that it doesn't really inspire much emotion. If I wanted to be crass, I could call him a pretty face without a lot of substance (seriously, Keith Urban seems to have only gotten better looking with age, it's unnerving), but that's not entirely fair because he has indeed written some solid, catchy, occasionally emotionally evocative tunes, and I can't really hate the guy. To me, I've always slotted him in with Rascal Flatts, as a country act that's a little polished and a little too slick for me to really get enthused about, but nobody I can really take offensive with either. 

But as I said, I might have been a little unfair to the guy, because his new album Fuse reportedly was described as Keith Urban trying a new artistic direction, which was enough to catch my interest and give the new album a look. After all, Keith Urban has been around long enough in the scene of solo male country singers to practically be considered an elder statesman of the genre. So how does the new album Fuse turn out?

video review: 'a.m.' by arctic monkeys

So the second wave of album releases has begun, starting off with an album from a band that I never really liked. So with that in mind, does this mean I can overcome my issues and talk about what will likely be a divisive album? Let's find out!

album review: 'a.m.' by the arctic monkeys

Everybody has specific 'sounds' that they don't like. Nails on a chalkboard, the rasp of metal against rocks, the chipmunk voice effect, basically some sound that just sets your teeth on edge and just leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth. It's not often something you can help either, it's a gut instinct, it's a subconscious emotional reaction to something in the sound that just makes you feel queasy or just triggers that element of dispassionate loathing. And as a music critic, this impulse is absolutely infuriating, because it often prevents me from being as objective as I'd like when evaluating the material. It basically prevents me from doing my job effectively, and given how hard I've strove to be professional, it really bothers me.

And if we're going to talk about a band that leaps to the top of that list in my mind, the Arctic Monkeys would be that band. 

I know it's crazy. I can't explain it, no matter how hard I've tried. Something about this band, whether it's lead singer Alex Turner's vocals or songwriting, just gets on my nerves in ways I really can't comprehend. I'm going to try and intellectualize this instinctive reaction in some way, see if I can parse some of it out, because the more calculating and rational parts of my mind are telling me that I should like the Arctic Monkeys. The guitar work is catchy and interesting (for the most part), they're good songwriters, and hell, Alex Turner isn't that far from Billy Joe Armstrong in his vocal delivery, so where's this antipathy coming from? What is it about this band that alienates me so much?

Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I'm thinking some of it comes from two factors, neither of which are all that fair to the Arctic Monkeys, at least in terms of judging their execution. The first is in the subject matter and the delivery - Alex Turner comes across as acerbic and bitter and sour in both the songwriting and the delivery right out of the gate, starting on that first album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. And what strikes me as out-of-place is that the target of said anger seems to be the activity of going out and partying and having a good time. And sure, I get where said subject matter could easily be reinterpreted with a dark or sarcastic twist, but Alex Turner seems like the douchebag who stands morosely at the bar after you drag him out and then spends the rest of the night complaining, arguing with the bouncer, being a creep with girls, and blaming it all on you at the end of the night. It'd be like dragging Morissey and Severus Snape to a nightclub. And sure, I'll give props to the Arctic Monkeys for executing that sort of song so well, but that sure as hell doesn't make it remotely pleasant.

And here's the other unfortunate and probably unfair thing: it's really, really hard for me not to compare the Arctic Monkeys with Franz Ferdinand. Maybe it's the similar guitar work and strong technical songwriting that the two acts share, but every time I listen to the Arctic Monkeys and their acrid brand of unpleasantness, I can't help but think that those dudes over in Franz Ferdinand just sound like they bring a much better party. I get that there's a place for bitterness in music and arguably the Arctic Monkeys execute their morose emotions better than most, but it sure as hell isn't an enjoyable or moving experience in the slightest.

One of the other interesting factors with the Arctic Monkeys is that the band has followed something of a similar career trajectory to Franz Ferdinand, starting with two strong, critically-acclaimed albums right out of the gate (the second being strongest in my opinion), before attempting to switch things up a bit for their third album. For the Arctic Monkeys on Humbug, they slowed things down and attempted to make their instrumentation sound a bit more grandiose - but at the same time, many of the lyrics that went by too quickly to fully sink in on previous albums now had plenty of room to breathe and reveal the unpleasant truth: the narrator Alex Turner writes is an asshole. Maybe it has something to do with the pseudo-not-trying delivery or the fact that every single one of the songs are full of needling little insults, but it really reveals a whole new layer of ugly unpleasantness reminiscent of Ethan Hawke's character in Reality Bites: the snide jackass who is so smart he has chosen to only interact with the world via smug observations. And what's really grating is that more often than not, we're supposed to sympathize or at least identify with the narrator because a lot of his observations - crass as they might be - are at least intelligent, and we're supposed to shove to the back of our mind the fact that he's really quite the asshole, which is framing I find hard to accept. 

Now all of that being said, I do think the lyrics improved a bit on the next album, Suck It And See, mostly because the poetry got a little more benign and, dare I say it, mature. Some of the snide petulance had faded from Alex Turner's delivery (not all of it, mind you), and with the songwriting as sharp as ever, he grew marginally more tolerable and the album was significantly less unpleasant for me to listen through. But at the same time, I kind of missed the high-energy instrumentation from those first two albums, and while I still think the Arctic Monkeys wouldn't quite be my thing if they had returned to that instrumentation (while keeping the better tone and lyrics), I do think it would have incorporated the best of both worlds. As I said, I can recognize talent and solid work when I see it, and while there are issues with the Arctic Monkeys that still get on my nerves and prevent me from liking them, I know that some of these issues are my issues, and what is key is separating my issues with legitimate grievances.

So with that hefty challenge in mind, what do I think of the newest Arctic Monkeys album, A.M.?

video review: 'the 20/20 experience' by justin timberlake

For those of you who have been following my blog, you've probably all seen this before - hell, it's the most viewed review here (something that still kind of baffles me) - and you're probably wondering why I bothered to record it. Well, since I discovered that The 20/20 Experience Part 2 is on the way at the end of this month, I figured that I should at least get my thoughts on YouTube to provide the slightest hint of context before the second review. 

Then again, I probably could have done better than an eighteen minute video. Eh, it happens.

video review: 'colourful cows' by syndrome

So yeah, my first review where the band themselves contacted me to review them... and it's one of my most negative reviews I've done on Youtube. I kind of feel like shit posting this review, but the band did ask for this. And with that in mind, I tried to help the best I could.

Next up is Arctic Monkeys as the first of the 'second wave' of September. Man, that review's going to get me some stimulating 'feedback'...

album review: 'colourful cows' by syndrome

As I've mentioned a few times before, I have taken requests to review albums in the past, mostly during times when there's nothing really coming out and I need to review/rant about something. This month, however, I wasn't planning on taking any requests for reviews, mostly because September is an overloaded month (and from the look of my schedule, October looks just as bad if not worse) and I'm going to have a hard time covering everything I want to cover without keeling over from exhaustion.

I'm making an exception here - because for the first time in my 'career' as a reviewer, a band has actually approached me directly and asked for me to review their material. 

And you know, at first I was really flattered. It's one of those moments which is kind of nice, when you read that they approached you because they value your critique and analysis (or at least they said they did). But I got a sick, sinking feeling in my gut, because talking about a pop star who I will likely never meet is a lot different than talking about an unsigned indie act trying to get their first break. And as fun as it can be to rip some shallow, studio-produced crap to shreds, it's a lot harder when you know this work might be a labour of love that they put a lot of effort into, something that they want to share with the world.

Of course, I'm also keenly aware that I might just be getting used to build free buzz for the band or at least get somebody talking about these guys. And so before I accepted the task of this review, I made it very clear to the band that I wasn't about to pull punches here. I'm not going to coddle them or act as free positive press - I'm a critic, and I'm not going to have my integrity compromised, no matter how independent the source. But at the same time, I do want to see people with passion for their art succeed, so this review is going to be structured a little differently, instead framed as a series of questions this band will inevitably face from labels as they try to get their band signed. These are the questions for which they're going to need answers if they want to have any hope of success.

So, with all of that in mind, let's talk about the band Syndrome, and their EP, 'Colourful Cows'.

video review: 'yours truly' by ariana grande

Last of the first wave of September albums is here, folks, with a review of Ariana Grande's 'Yours Truly', a pop R&B singer with a beautiful voice and some great songwriting. Shame the production isn't quite there, but what can you do?

Now, a bit of a break before the next big wave around the 9th. As I said, busy month.

album review: 'yours truly' by ariana grande

Believe it or not, I am not a teenage girl.

I know, right? It's so hard to tell, particularly given my music tastes! I mean, I like  Ke$ha and Avril Lavigne (well, most of the time) and Colette Carr and Natalia Kills and I used to watch Glee and I'm one of the three internet critics who gave Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez a fair shot and probably the only one who'll provide that same courtesy for Miley Cyrus! I guarantee you that a whole swathe of the reviews of Miley's material will focus on her oh-so-controversial VMA performance instead of her actual music, or will completely ignore the fact that she was tied to one of the best songs of the year ('Ashtrays and Heartbreaks' by Snoop Lion - not kidding).

But that got me thinking again - why do I like this music in comparison with my general distaste for the typical material teenage boys usually like (all the hard rock and associated genres of metalcore and electrocore)? But really, the answer was pretty simple: outside of hip-hop and rap (and even occasionally within that genre), I have a seriously hard time suspending my disbelief and buying into the ridiculous facades of masculinity that these bands like to promote. Even back in 2007 when I was a teenager, I was listening to Nightwish and Blind Guardian and I was much more impressed by their force of personality and subject matter than the whinging and swaggering self-aggrandizement of the metalcore, hard rock, and screamo scenes. Yes, I'm not going to deny that there occasionally was scraps of talent in those scenes, but I never found it remotely compelling.

So why do I, unlike some critics, tend to give the artists aimed at the opposite gender more of a pass? Well, if I look a bit closer, I can say that most of the acts that I like as a part of that group tend to be gunning for the same 'toughness' appeal, going for confrontational, but the ones I like also add flavours of nuance to that confrontation besides plain anger (which is probably the reason I'm no big fan of Beyonce or Carrie Underwood). And you know, maybe it's just me, but it sounds a lot more real and emotionally complex coming from Ke$ha or Pink or Avril Lavigne (well, most of the time), and part of it is because I think they're genuinely trying harder. Let's be honest, most guys don't have to try all that hard to sound intimidating or angry or to impose their presence, and with rare exception, the record industry tends to respond with some skepticism whenever women attempt to match their male counterparts. Yes, it's aggravating and unbelievably sexist (don't even try denying this, guys, the shit women go through in the record industry is miles worse than anything most guys go through, particularly if they're working in a male-dominated genre like rock, rap, or metal), but that means the ones that succeed work all the harder (or they sell out). And I like seeing effort in music, and I respond well to it.

Ariana Grande, on the other hand, doesn't appear to fit the mold of a female pop singer I would normally like. Leaping straight from the teenage sitcom Victorious and styling herself as a pop/R&B act most closely imitating Mariah Carey (I'll come back to this), Ariana Grande notched her first big hit this year with 'The Way', which only seemed to play up the fact that she was a young, girly teenager (even though she's 20), all bubbly and excitable and very, very innocent. In other words, she seemed to be taking the polar opposite route of her contemporaries in Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus and was downplaying her sexuality in order to preserve her fanbase following her over from her shows. Okay, not a bad plan, considering how brutally Miley's fanbase revolted when she made her transition from Hannah Montana. But at the same time, I didn't really have high hopes for her debut album, Yours Truly, expecting it to be the sort of cheaply-produced, High School Musical-esque dreck that catered to the lowest common denominator of her fans. Did I get what I expected?

video review: 'trouble' by natalia kills

Jesus, I'm exhausted - lot of reviews in a short time, and I'm not even done yet. Ariana Grande still waits in the wings, and I'm more than aware that this is only the first wave in September. 

Either way, here's the review of the new album from Natalia Kills, complete with a bit of a rant on trends within record labels and an examination of how this album compares with one of my favourite albums from last year (and long time readers of this blog should know exactly which one that is). 

In any case, I need food and sleep. Next review comes tomorrow.

album review: 'trouble' by natalia kills

If I were able to disregard certain artists just by looking at their record label, it would save me a lot of time.

I should explain. While you typically have your huge record labels - Universal, Warner, and Sony - you also have your smaller labels that are dedicated to putting out a specific style and format of music, and can sometimes even be headed up by the lead artist on the label, or were even founded by said artist (Dr. Dre in the case of Aftermath, for example). And with this rough categorization and the knowledge that certain producers work across multiple artists on the same label, you can detect trends that crop up in the music of artists signed to these labels, and if you dislike those trends, you have an easy target to blame.

And recently, the label Cherrytree Records has come up in my line of fire more than once. This is the record label who put out LMFAO and the Far East Movement, and they handle the distribution of La Roux, Robyn, Ellie Goulding, and bizarrely Marianas Trench in the United States (Marianas Trench should really be on Fuelled By Ramen by now). They also gathered considerable fame for putting out Lady Gaga's first two albums, The Fame and The Fame Monster.  They pride themselves as being a label for up-and-coming artists and for promoting what they call 'alternative pop'. Okay, noble goals to be sure, and I can get behind that, particularly if they're promoting a more baroque or riskier style in their pop music.

The problem with Cherrytree Records is that their producers are seldom ever up to the task of matching their artists' creative ambitions, which can lead to glossy instrumentation that approaches interesting material, but lacks the skills behind the production board to truly elevate it beyond shallow, occasionally disposable pop music (obviously there are exceptions to every rule). And when your artists have no desire but to make the shallowest and most vacant of material, or they lack the talent to make anything greater (looking at you, LMFAO and Far East Movement), you end up with a label with a reputation for superficial flash but little underneath.

But let me be fair here. There's nothing wrong with shallow party music if it's executed well, and so far this year, Cherrytree did deliver with Colette Carr's Skitszo (an album that, much to my surprise, has remained pretty solid for me throughout the year), and thus, I was at least a little interested when I heard about the sophomore album from Natalia Kills. So, out of curiosity, I checked out her first album Perfectionist, to see what she was like, and...

Well, she's pretty good but if I'm looking for the classic example of an artist who is handicapped by the production weaknesses of her label, Natalia Kills would be a prime example. She has a pretty good voice and some interesting lyrics that actually put a bit of meat in her claims to be inspired by Kate Bush, but her attempts at a gothic darkwave sound on that album fall flat no matter how hard she tries, mostly because the sound feels distinctly derivative of and/or sampled from older darkwave and industrial acts like Sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, and especially Nine Inch Nails with a hint of the same gloss Lady Gaga's material was splashed with on The Fame Monster. I have the feeling that if Natalia Kills were given the producers behind Charli XCX's True Romance, she might have a better chance of realizing her vision - but at the same time, the other unfortunate thing she shares in common with Charli XCX is self-obsession. Natalia Kills has said she's a perfectionist and the album revolves around said desires, but at the end of the day, most of those desires appear to be for wealth and fame (with love discarded by the wayside), and none of it is made to sound all that exciting or attractive or all that interesting.  Yeah, she's a good lyricist and she's got some interesting ideas where to take said lyrics (some which raised serious questions, 'Acid Annie' in particular), but she hasn't quite sold me on why I should really care one way or the other. Now all of that being said, she's a much better lyricist that I expected and occasionally had a few songs ('Not In Love' and especially 'Broke' stood out for me on Perfectionist) that I found genuinely engaging, so there's definitely potential here if pointed in the right direction.

So, on that note, does Natalia Kills manage to make me care on her reportedly darker follow-up, Trouble? Normally, darker sophomore albums are the death knell of young artists' careers, but given that Natalia Kills was already heading in a darker direction, will she break the cycle?