album review: 'alvvays' by alvvays

Well, this was a damn great surprise. I might have to do this sort of Pitchfork diving more often.

And you know, I think I'm going to stick on the side of Canadian indie rock for a bit longer and handle some old business I should have talked about months ago. Stay tuned!

album review: 'alvvays' by alvvays

For those of you who weren't watching my series a good year ago or those who perused my back catalog back before I had a decent camera or any presence in front of it, you might remember that I didn't exactly have a lot of material to cover in the middle of the summer. There's a reason for that: like early January, the mid-summer tends to be a dead zone for album releases under the assumption that the radio has already locked in their 'songs of the summer' and people will have already picked up the albums they want if they're going to the beach or cottage or the backyard barbeque. And in a year where the pop charts have been fairly stagnant in terms of turnover or are populated by singles from albums released last year, it leaves album critics like myself in a bit of a tight spot. It's gotten to the point where the albums battling out for the top spot this week are Jason Mraz and Weird Al Yankovic, neither of which are acts you would ever expect to get a #1 hit!

And since I already covered Weird Al and you couldn't pay me to cover Jason Mraz, I thought I might hop into my backlog of critically acclaimed records that I may have passed over - but the problem with that is I already covered most of those records too, and the ones I might have missed have discographies that require a bit more time to peel through before I feel confident in talking about them. So in sheer desperation, I went that wretched hive of scum and villainy - Pitchfork - and grabbed the first record that looked somewhat interesting, a debut album from a Canadian band called Alvvays. Based out of Toronto, they're an indie pop quintet that is advertised as pairing 'millennial social anxiety with breezy effortlessly cool surf rock'. In other words, the perfect act to drop an album in the middle of summer. So I picked up that self-titled debut album and gave it a listen: how was it?

video review: 'trouble in paradise' by la roux

Yeah, that Sadistik review isn't happening, I don't think. Every draft of it did not work, so I'm probably not going to cover it unless I get really desperate.

But then again, we're now entering the point of the year where nothing is coming out. So expect some odd shit over the next few days, so stay tuned!

album review: 'trouble in paradise' by la roux

Someday when pop culture historians sit down to write about the rise of EDM in the United States, they'd be wise to keep in mind two very important factors. The first is an admission that despite some of the genres roots coming from the discos and club scenes in Detroit and Chicago, it wasn't the US that was responsible for turning EDM into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. For that, you need to give the majority of the credit to Europe, who had been engaging in fluorescent explosions of pounding bass and gleaming synth lines for decades before rave and festival culture reappeared the Atlantic. For me, the years that always jump out as the 'peak' of said scene was the very late 80s and early 90s, especially in England with the moves to fuse the baroque weirdness of synthpop of all stripes with dance music. 

The other factor, of course, is the club boom, an era from approximately 2009 to 2012 where mainstream culture gravitated towards nightclubs thanks to a resurgence in synthpop and the success of mainstream hip-hop in pushing that lifestyle and sound. What tends to get glossed over in this story is that after several years of mainstream radio generally ignoring European music, several synthpop acts from other markets broke through around this time. These are acts like Robyn, Ellie Goulding, and the artist we're going to be talking about today, La Roux, who smashed onto mainstream radio with 'Bulletproof', a song all hard-edged synths and a fiercely dynamic vocal performances by Elly Jackson. What made the album stand out for me was the razor-edged balance between raw vulnerability and confidence, and much sharper lyrics than you normally see in this brand of synthpop - in other words, La Roux for me was the proto-CHVRCHES.

And yet after 'Bulletproof' and world-wide tours, La Roux dropped off the face of the earth. Elly Jackson admitted she wasn't ready for the insane fame that comes with such a hit and took a step back, eventually parting ways with her longtime producer partner Ben Langmaid, but not before writing a few songs for the new album Trouble In Paradise, an album coming five years after their self-titled debut and into a very different pop and dance music climate. So, how does it hold up?

video review: 'strange desire' by bleachers

Holy shit, completely forgot to post this. Yeah, the album's awesome and getting better every time I listen through it. But yet it's one of those records that will not click with everyone and I get why.

Okay, I need to get this Sadistik review out of my system. Stay tuned!

album review: 'strange desire' by bleachers

I've made it no secret that I'm a fan of the indie rock act fun., who came into sharp prominence in the mainstream thanks to a lucky Glee collaboration and three killer singles. Now I'm a fan of fun. for a number of reasons, and I'd make the argument their best songs likely came on Aim & Ignite the album before Jeff Bhasker got his hands on their mixes and amped the bombast to eleven and made the Queen parallels all the more stark. And sure, it was cheesy and utterly ridiculous, but there was a certain pop grandeur to their material that always underscored their material, an earnest sincerity that belied their killer melody lines and Nate Ruess' impressive voice.

But here's the funny thing about indie rock acts: most, if not all of the band members typically have at least one or two side projects running simultaneously, especially when they're hoping for that next mainstream crossover hit. And fun. is no exception, and while many pegged Nate Ruess as the breakout star as the frontman, I made sure to take notice when I heard about Bleachers the solo side project of Jack Antonoff, the lead guitarist of fun. and a contributing songwriter for Tegan & Sara, Christina Perri, and Sara Bareilles. And when I heard that he had managed to rope in Grimes and Yoko Ono to boost his indie cred, I figured the debut album was at least worth a few listens. Was I right?

video review: 'mandatory fun' by "weird al" yankovic

Man, this record was a ton of fun. Really enjoyed it, definitely worth my recommendation.

Okay, next up... hmmm, not quite sure. Probably Sadistik. We'll see. Either way, stay tuned!

album review: 'mandatory fun' by "weird al" yankovic

If you've been following this review series at all for a while, you may have come to a certain conclusion about yours truly: that I am, despite all appearances, am a total nerd. And I'm here to inform you that...

Yeah, duh. Amazing what the passage of time has done, isn't it? Twenty or even ten years ago, such an admittance would have tantamount to social suicide, but in today's day and age, where The Big Bang Theory can run for over seven seasons, conventions are attended by tens of thousands of people if not more, and comic book & toy movies can enlist A-list talent and break box office records, admitting I've got deeply nerdy interests is - and indeed, never should have been - an object of remorse or shame. And yeah, I'm the kind of nerd who has hundreds of fantasy and sci-fi novels, can quote Monty Python and Star Wars verbatim, used to be a Dungeon Master when playing D&D, occasionally still goes to Magic: The Gathering tournaments, has a physics degree, and has Aragorn's longsword Anduril from The Lord of The Rings mounted on his wall. 

And like the majority of nerds, I love Weird Al Yankovic, the legendary polka comedy performer who has spent over thirty years parodying pop music with a razor-sharp wit and relentlessly upbeat sense of humour. It should go without saying at this point that the man is a cultural treasure with extraordinary wit and talent, and who is beloved by artists and pop satirists around the world, and it's impressive that he can still come up with innovative and relevant comedy for so long in his career without becoming bitter or jaded or hotly political. 

But over the past few years, something decidedly odd has taken place - the world and especially the Internet embraced nerd culture, and suddenly it wasn't just Weird Al making comedy songs and videos and parodies. And given how damn quickly so many of them work, especially on YouTube with its five minute attention span, it was a little unsettling to think that Weird Al might be crowded out of the market he helped create - or worse, that his material not be as relevant given the lightning turnaround time for so many YouTube comedians and parody acts. That was one of the issues that I found when I listened to his last album Alpocalypse, which took material from across three years of pop music and while I liked a great deal of it, there were parts that even then felt a little dated.

But putting that minor concern aside, this is Weird Al, and if his appearance on Epic Rap Battles of History didn't prove that the man still had enormous chops, I don't know what would, and so of course I was excited for his newest album Mandatory Fun, and since none of this album had been leaked ahead of time, I had no idea what to expect. Was it as fun and hilarious as I hoped?

video review: 'dark comedy' by open mike eagle

Wow, this was incredible. The record may have taken a long time to review, but it definitely was worth covering. Trust me, get this album, it's awesome.

Next up is Weird Al and some real solid comedy. Stay tuned!

album review: 'dark comedy' by open mike eagle

So, how many of you are absolutely sick of the songs about money, cars, drugs, and hos in hip-hop music?

Look, I'm of the belief that you can talk about anything and everything you want to in music, so long as you do it well, but to say that certain subjects in rap music can wear me out shouldn't be all that surprising. I'm usually a fan of when rappers take established cliches and subvert them or heighten them for parody or satire, like what Clipping and The Roots did on their most recent records, or when they at least can present the cliches impressively with good rapping technique, flow, or poetic language. 

But there's another side to hip-hop outside of gangsta rap: the vaguely defined yet endlessly interesting subgenre of alternative hip-hop that tends to avoid traditional rap cliches and draws upon richer wells for their instrumentation and style, like jazz or soul or reggae or electronica or even country and folk. Originally rising in parallel with alternative rock throughout the late 80s and early 90s, it was unfortunately sidelined and shoved into the underground by the fast rise of the more commercially-viable, hard-edged gangsta rap. Thankfully, with the rise of the internet, more of these acts have risen to prominence and critical acclaim, even if the radio doesn't want to play material that intelligent or political or experimental.

And at the intersection of all three of those adjectives you'd find Open Mike Eagle, an alternative hip-hop artist originally from Chicago before going to LA, he first came to my attention in 2011 with his shockingly intelligent and unsettling record Rappers Will Die Of Natural Causes, partially because of his plain-spoken yet attention-grabbing flow, partially because of his dark, yet varied melody-driven production, and partially because there was a certain frank honesty and punch to his wordplay that spoke of some real maturity and knack for telling interesting stories and assuming his audience was smart enough to keep up. He followed it up with 4MNL HSPTL, a much glitchier and darker record that pulled back on the humor and targeted some much more serious subject matter - like the financial crisis, articulated in plain, easy-to-follow language that was rich with references to history and culture that proved that Open Mike Eagle knew exactly what he was talking about. So while this review is almost a month late, I knew I had to sit down at discuss Open Mike Eagle's newest record Dark Comedy, and for this record I took my time and over a dozen listens to really unpack and decipher it - what did I find?

video review: 'the black market' by rise against (feat. AlbumReviewTV)

No written version of this review this time, because it's a collaboration with AlbumReviewTV on his channel! Jon and I really did have a great conversation about this album, which I thought was actually a pretty damn great step for the band towards pop punk and it really grabbed me in a good way.

Next up, I need to talk about Open Mike Eagle and Sadistik, and that Weird Al album is on the horizon. But I'll need to have those finished up before Friday, because I will be at the Hamilton Convention Center for ConBravo this Friday through to Sunday! Stop by to say hello if you're there - I'll be ambling in and out of panels, playing MtG, and drinking profusely, so I hope to see you there! But until then, stay tuned!

video review: 'paramore' by paramore (year one anniversary)

Man, this video took a ton out of me to get out. Would have been up yesterday, but the process to get everything to work was absolutely nuts, and that's not counting the noise complaint, the numerous glitches, and the upload process that kept failing. Thankfully, it works, and I sincerely hope it's everything you could have wanted.

And as we settle into the doldrums of summer, my schedule lightens significantly. I still want to talk about Open Mike Eagle - late, but still relevant - and Sadistik, but coming up soon is that new album from Rise Against, on which I will be joining as a special guest, so stay tuned for that!

album review: 'paramore' by paramore

I don't think anybody should have been surprised by Paramore's career trajectory - and that anybody who knows my style of reviews should not really be surprised why I completely passed them by in 2013.

See, Paramore started off in the mid-2000s as a band loosely affiliated with emo with the harsher guitars, but it was a band that had its eyes fixed on one particular bandwagon: that of the pop starlets with attitude in the vein of Pink or Avril Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson. And considering this was a subgenre I liked in the decidedly uncertain pop landscape of the mid-2000s, when I was a teenager, you'd think I would have jumped on the Paramore bandwagon... but no, every single I heard from the band never really impressed me. That first album All We Know Is Falling was decent enough for its teenage angst and decent and Hayley Williams was a born star behind the microphone, but the songwriting did nothing for me whatsoever, lacking the colour and description and rawness that always gave Pink or Avril Lavignre distinctive presence. And coupled with some bare-bones melody lines and not stellar production, I could not have been less interested in Paramore.

Then came the second record Riot!, which was better and had 'Misery Business', 'crushcrushcrush', and 'Fences', three songs that actually had some interesting melodies and some better articulated subject matter. But for the most part most of the album fell into the grey zone of pop rock for me, lacking the edginess or punch of rock or the gripping hooks of pop to really stick with me, and while the songwriting had gotten better, I couldn't help but feel that the production was holding this album back from being truly great - just a little too flat and lacking in melodic focus to really stick with me. And with the slow collapse of the pop rock boom and rumors of instabilities within the band, I didn't expect to see another record. But in 2009 they apparently resolved enough of their differences to release Brand New Eyes, which was okay and did show a bit of improvement in the songwriting, but it wasn't as catchy or interesting as Riot! and it was this album that brought 'The Only Exception', which for me sealed Paramore's new pop direction after pop rock dropped off the mainstream radar.

And with that shift came a change in lineup, as the brothers Josh and Zac Farro both left the band in 2011 for reasons that spanned creative differences, accusations that Hayley Williams was being trumped up as the star over the rest of the band, and even conflicts in relligion and the band's content. Either way, it was an entirely different act that released Paramore's self-titled album last year, one of their biggest and most successful to date. So now, you're all looking for me to answer the big question: is it any good?

video review: '1000 forms of fear' by sia

Man, I wanted to like this more. Unfortunately, this album falls prey to a lot of the same problems I have with modern pop production, plus more.

Next up is the one-year anniversary special, the album you chose for me to cover... what will it be? Stay tuned!

album review: '1000 forms of fear' by sia

The more I think about it, the less I think anyone should be surprised that Sia's career trajectory went the way it did.

See, while the mainstream likely became acquainted with Sia thanks to her appearances on Flo Rida's 'Wild Ones' or David Guetta's 'Titanium' or from the noted songwriting credits she has scattered across the pop landscape over the past few years, Sia has been around a fair bit longer in the indie pop scene with a selection of albums that were reasonably well-received, if not exactly critically acclaimed. Her original selection of material started in the vein of downtempo R&B, which was a brilliant fit for her solid melodic composition, emotive delivery, and underwritten songs that worked more on emotive presence than on lyrical description. Those of you who have a grasp on my personal taste likely think the latter would mean I was never really a huge fan of hers, but that material worked for me in the same way I liked Rhye - it was subtle, it was understated, and it was powerfully vulnerable.

And yet Sia didn't stay in that vein, as she gradually began pushing her sound towards more of the quirky, flashy, borderline twee side of indie pop that I have a hard time liking. There was some of the subversive darkness in her lyrics, to be sure, but it wasn't always as much of a good fit for her new sound, especially when it came to the poetry. What it was a solid fit for was the rise of bombastic, EDM-flavoured pop in the vein of David Guetta, which didn't rely as much on lyrics as it did raw feeling and emotive presence. And sure, Sia had this, but with the underwritten lyrics, the thinner emotional framework, and her tendency to work with producers and artists who couldn't match her level of subtlety and expressiveness. On top of that, you could always recognize a song written by Sia from another artist, and while Sia could make her brand of songwriting work for her fairly consistently, it didn't exactly translate for singers like Rihanna nearly as well.

But oddly, the prospect of the flash of fame was something that Sia found profoundly uncomfortable, leading to drug and alcohol abuse and nearly a suicide attempt. Instead, she focused on writing songs for other people and only signed with RCA on the condition she didn't have to tour or do any press appearances, which led to this album, 1000 Forms Of Fear. And even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Sia, I knew her brand of confessional songwriting would likely make for some interesting music given her experiences. So, what did I discover?

video review: 'trigga' by trey songz

Gah, this took way too long to upload.

Up next... well, it might take a day to catch up with with all the other albums I need beforehand, but I'll something by Wednesday at least. Stay tuned!

album review: 'trigga' by trey songz

So in the past, I may have mentioned that after Chris Brown's assault on Rihanna in 2009 and his justified career slump, there was a rush by the music industry to find the next big Usher-wannabe and push them into the spotlight. And in 2009/2010, we got a slew of acts getting major promotion in this area, like Taio Cruz, Jeremih, Iyaz, and two I've talked about before, Jay Sean and Jason Derulo, the latter of which managed to stick around and somehow get worse.

And among that group was Trey Songz, although he had been in the industry a little longer than most of his contemporaries and drew much more of his inspiration from one of the most influential figures in modern R&B: R. Kelly, who at the time was coming off of a string of mostly forgettable albums and one unforgettable video series. Now this isn't the first time R. Kelly has spawned artists who tried to mimic his style - acts like Ginuwine and B2K and who you likely forgot existed from the early 2000s fell into this vein - but Trey Songz managed to stick around even as R. Kelly moved into old-school R&B and soul and Chris Brown's career bounced from a resurgence to one of the worst albums released in 2012. 

Now going back to Trey Songz, I'm mostly positive on him as an artist, but he's always been the act who I would consider quite good without ever being great. Yeah, his voice is amazing, but it hasn't always complimented the icy production that tends to dominate his albums. It doesn't help matters that the dawn of Autotune in R&B really hasn't aged well, especially from between 2007 and 2010, and that can hurt some of his older material. On top of that, while I will definitely give him points for making some pretty damn solid love jams, his sleazier material has never really had the insane wit or creativity that characterized R. Kelly's work, and while he has a lot of charisma, he has never really had the soul or boundless presence that has defined Usher's best work. Both of these have meant that he tends to positioned as a B-lister - which honestly strikes me as unfair, because I'd take him over Jason Derulo or Chris Brown any day of the week. 

But now he's got a new record out, and in the wake of R. Kelly's return to convention with Black Panties being less than stellar and Chris Brown continuously delaying X as long as he possibly can, I figured Trey Songz's newest record Trigga was worth a look. What did I find?

video review: 'don't kill the magic' by MAGIC!

Man, this review was an absolute chore to get through. Granted, some of the chore was trying - and failing - to write a review for Sam Smith, but eh, that happens.

Next up is Trey Songz, and then... hmm, not sure yet. Stay tuned!

album review: 'don't kill the magic' by MAGIC!

So if you took a look at the charts right now, you'd find that they look wildly different than they did a good four months ago. And really, that's a good thing because the beginning of 2014 became played out for the pop charts in record time, to the point where I'm honestly dreading making my year-end hit song lists and underrating songs simply because of overexposure.

But putting that aside, at long last summer has arrived with a collection of new songs - most of which are by artists I've never heard of before. Which for me is exceptionally unnerving, because I criticize pop music and I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was becoming popular. And for acts like Nico & Vinz, Rixton, MKTO, and KONGOS to effectively come out of nowhere is more than a little unnerving. It's a troubling sign when I felt relieved I knew who Sam Smith was thanks to his success in the UK - a little less of a relief after I listened through his underwritten bore of an album and couldn't come up with anything noteworthy to say about it, but knowing was half of the battle here.

So when I looked at the charts this week and saw that 'Rude' by Canadian reggae fusion band MAGIC! was at #2, I was a little annoyed, because not only did I barely know who these guys are - and as a Canadian music critic living in Toronto, that's a problem - but that of the Canadian pop rock acts who have come up in the past couple of years, it's these guys who get popular? Not Marianas Trench or Tokyo Police Club or The Brilliancy, but MAGIC!? But when I racked my memory, I did recognize the frontman and songwriter of the band Nasri Atweh - for all of the wrong reasons. Primarily known as a songwriter for Chris Brown, Pitbull, and most for Justin Bieber, my first exposure to him in front of the microphone was on Shakira's self-titled album earlier this year on the song 'Cut Me Deep', where he was promptly blown off the stage, which did not give me a good feeling going into this record. But I figured, 'Hey, it's been a long time since reggae has charted on the Hot 100, so this album could be interesting, right?' So I checked out Don't Kill The MAGIC! - how did it go?

video review: 'paula' by robin thicke

Well, this was exactly as disastrous as everyone predicted. I'm giving him points for trying - not many points, but, you know, points.

Next up... I have no clue. A few ideas, but nothing settled on quite yet. Stay tuned!