album review: 'mono' by the mavericks

So let's talk about comebacks again.

I've talked a bit before about artists managing to revive their careers thanks to diehard fanbases, critical attention, or simply stepping into the right place at the right time - one of the reasons Sleater-Kinney's No Cities To Love did as well as it did this year, on top of just being awesome. But Sleater-Kinney wasn't just a great band, they were responsible for shaping that particular brand of feminist punk rock for years to come, and you could argue their influence runs pretty deep.

The Mavericks, on the other hand... okay, who was expecting this comeback to work? For those of you who don't know, The Mavericks were a neotraditional country act that came up in the mid-90s that I'd describe as midway between Alabama and Lonestar - not quite as rollicking or twangy, but not the slick pop country that would define Lonestar successful years in the late 90s and early 2000s. They charted a few modest hits, but were never massive hitmakers with anything that hit the top 10, or made music that I'd describe as essential of the era. Hell, on some of their singles I'd have a hard time describing them as a neotraditional country act, which might have been their problem getting hits - they were too polished for most country with the ska-like horns, clean adult contemporary production, Raul Malo's rich baritenor, doofy yacht rock vibe, and tendency for covering Elvis and Cat Stevens. It's no surprise that 'All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down' is their biggest country hit and the only one I recognized at all on first listen - and they still managed to find a way to wedge an accordion solo into it! So after breaking up, I had no reason to care about The Mavericks, putting them in the same historical footnote as I put similar 90s neotraditional acts that never really caught on - yes, I know they had a Grammy, ask Marc Cohn or Debby Boone how much those matter for one's long-term career.

But then they came back with In Time in 2013... and really, it was like they never left. The horns, the accordion, the eclectic country of The Mavericks only seemed to really change and evolve in the thicker grooves and picking up more texture, which was a welcome shift. But despite the waves of critical acclaim the record got, I was a little more lukewarm on it - I got the old-fashioned flavour to the vocals and songwriting, but to me it always felt a little staged and kitschy - not bad by any stretch, let me stress this, but a little broad. But then again, the band seemed to be committed to pushing their sound even further, so I made sure to check out their newest album Mono - how did that turn out?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 7, 2015 (VIDEO)

Another episode out of the way. Whew.

Okay, next up... see, I've got a few I'd like to talk about. Misterwives, The Mavericks, The Pop Group... lots of options. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 7, 2015

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have even covered that surprise Drake album - because if the radio is going to decide to play the entire record, I'm going to end up covering all the songs anyway. I would say that, except that none of the songs I actually thought were great from If You're Reading This It's Too Late have made the Hot 100. I will note this: for as much as many critics hypothesized that there didn't seem to be an easy radio hit off of Drake's new record, not since Taylor Swift have we seen this many album tracks crack the Hot 100. And speaking of her, she's got another single - and even though I reviewed her album, it's not one I've heard yet... interesting.

video review: 'hand. cannot. erase.' by steven wilson

And that's two. Whew.

Next up is Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

video review: 'dark sky paradise' by big sean

One down, one to go. Stay tuned!

album review: 'hand. cannot. erase.' by steven wilson

So by now the majority of you know that I'm a fan of progressive rock and metal, and as such it shouldn't really be a surprise that one of my favourite acts in that vein coming out of its brief revival in the 90s was Porcupine Tree. While I wouldn't say every album they dropped was stellar - there definitely were moments that were indulgent, overwrought, or experiments that just didn't quite come together - they had a unique sound that distinguished them from their roots while still calling back to their past, and they wrote some truly gorgeous material.

So when their frontman and mastermind Steven Wilson split off to go solo, I was optimistic. The man was a gifted songwriter and he had a solid voice, I had reason to expect good results. But my reception to the three albums Wilson has released since Porcupine Tree has been... complicated. A comparison that I've made in the past between Steven Wilson and Kanye West - stay with me on this one - in that they're both musical geniuses with a unique sound, they both use plenty of vocal effects to accent their personalities, often more than they should, they both can be introspective in releasing vulnerable and evocative records, and they both are kind of insufferable. I might have liked Insurgentes and I respect his commitment to audio fidelity and dynamics, but only releasing a digital copy as FLACs which can't be played on most players and making a short film where he smashed iPods reeked of pretentiousness in the worst possible way. And this would have been fine if the music was good - and for the most part, it definitely was, but then he followed it with the more jazzy experiment Grace For Drowning. Which wasn't a bad album, let me stress this, but it pushed Wilson's more indulgent side and my patience to the limit and lacked a lot of cohesion.

Fortunately, he pulled things tighter with the significantly stronger The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories), and with this record Wilson was stating he was moving more towards electronic or even pop music structures, I was definitely intrigued, especially when he described the themes, inspirations and story he was trying to tell. And hell, even though his solo work hadn't always gripped me, I'm still a fan, so I checked out Hand. Cannot. Erase. - what did we get?

album review: 'dark sky paradise' by big sean

I haven't been looking forward to this.

Because those of you who are familiar with this series probably know that I'm not a fan of Big Sean, something that seems to baffle his bewildering number of fans. And if you take a look at just his highest charting singles, it'd be hard to disagree with that. This is a rapper whose first and biggest hit was a song with Nicki Minaj called 'A$$' that seemed to be made on a bet to see how asinine hip-hop could be - no pun intended. This was a guy who for no adequately explained reason showed up on a Fall Out Boy record on what was otherwise a good song to completely miss the point with sixteen bars delivered in a nasal whine that completely lacked presence or lyrical punch and stole a punchline from goddamn Simple Plan.

But those were aesthetic quibbles - going deeper, was there anything more to him? Well, I'll say this, at his best, he worked with some producers that I did like such as No ID and he did have personality, which can do a fair bit to redeem lyrical deficiencies. And while Big Sean is not a terrible technical lyricist, his punchlines are so basic and corny and his vocal style is so cartoonishly nasal that I only really find him entertaining when he's trying to be funny - which isn't often. Coupled with incredibly thin subject matter that barely descriptive or interesting, there's so little dimension to Big Sean for me to grasp beyond the moments that just irritate me. And don't even get me started on songs where he's trying to be hard - I'm sorry, but he's got nowhere near the heavier timbre in his voice to pull that off. He doesn't sound imposing or threatening, he sounds laughable - and the sad fact is that the majority of the time he's either not funny or not trying to be funny.

That said, when I heard that the title of this album was Dark Sky Paradise, I laughed my ass off - as I said, we wouldn't let symphonic metal or goth rock get away with that, and somehow Big Sean's getting a pass, coupled with some pretty damn awful opening singles to boot? And I wasn't enthused by the changes in his producer line-up either - you swapped out No ID and The Neptunes for Mike Will Made It and DJ Mustard? Sure, you might have gotten what is popular right this second, but dark minimalism and atmosphere was the last thing Big Sean needed for his usual bars of clumsy bragging. But you all kept asking that I cover this, so what did we get?

video review: 'holding all the roses' by blackberry smoke

Well, that turned out pretty damn great. Think I need to get to some more country soon...

So yeah, I'll be covering the new Mavericks record, but first... hmm, not sure yet. Need a bit more time before Big Sean, so I might take care of some old business first. Stay tuned!

album review: 'holding all the roses' by blackberry smoke

You know, I don't tend to talk much about southern rock - and really, I'm a little surprised at that myself. Inspired by blues, country, and hard rock - three genres I do really like, it was most prevalent in the 70s from the country rock scene originally driven by the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and from there it's been around for decades in scattered that do accrue a fair amount of popularity, spanning Tom Petty to Kid Rock to the genesis of sludge metal. As such, it falls into a bit of a weird niche, typically landing on classic rock radio or some of the harder country stations, never quite reaching the peaks of the 70s beyond scattered success from a few acts. You could almost argue that it's gone underground, but it's less that and more that like other genres such as bluegrass or grunge or some offshoots of punk, it's just not as popular as it was and ends up catering to smaller, cult fanbases.

That's not saying that there aren't some southern rock bands that are worth following. Case in point, Georgia band Blackberry Smoke. Affiliated with acts like the Zac Brown Band and Eric Church, if you're looking for an act that would define modern southern rock - a distinctive country twang matched with groove-heavy hard rock - Blackberry Smoke would be that band. And for the most part, they were a pretty damn solid band - the melodies were prominent, the guitar solos were great, Charlie Starr's vocals had real flavour, and with every record, the songwriting was steadily getting more nuanced and distinctive. If I were to pinpoint an early weakness on those first few albums, it'd probably be in some of the lyrics - not that they were bad for the genre, but that some of their material began to run together a bit. And like most hard rock, sometimes the sleaze could get a little obnoxious.

But their 2012 album The Whipporwill was their best yet, and I was curious to check out their 2015 record Holding All The Roses, especially when it managed to top the country album charts last week. And sure, country's been slow thus far this year, but to think that the album had enough coming from an independent label without a huge single tearing up the radio was promising, especially considering the album has notched some solid critical acclaim. So I checked it out - how is it?

album review: 'fan of a fan: the album' by chris brown & tyga (ft. ARTV) (VIDEO)

And to think there was still worse things that neither Jon or I could mention, like Tyga referencing OutKast when he has no business doing so or referring to a girl as 'Ass-zilla.'

I wish I was kidding. Next up, something better!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 28, 2015 (VIDEO)

Well, that's another week. Man, that took a long time to finish.

Okay, next up... you know, I think it's time we tackle something really awful, and I might just need help with this one. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 28, 2015

I was expecting the Billboard Hot 100 to be busy this week. Coming off of the Grammies, it always is - you get performances that remind people that certain songs exist and they start rising again or ever return to the charts. Big award shows are like that, and even though most of the critical public treats them with professional disinterest - well, at least until one of our favourites wins like with St. Vincent this year - the public puts a lot of stock in them regardless. That was the plan... and then a certain Canadian rapper decided to drop an album out of nowhere and suddenly - and I hate that I'm saying this - but the radio turned into the Drake show. Let me stress this was US radio - where you guys got five new Drake tracks charting - and not even the best ones, at that - guess how many we Canadians got? One - once again, proving the universal truth that the Canadian charts are always better.

video review: 'i love you, honeybear' by father john misty

Dear god, I love this record. Seriously, it'll be one of my favourites of the year, bar none - so witty and charming and ridiculous, it's been on constant loop for the past couple days, definitely can see this holding up.

Okay, tomorrow is Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'i love you, honeybear' by father john misty

So let me ask you all what might seem to be an interesting question: how seriously should we take music?

And I don't mean this in the tiresome argument that, 'oh, you take music too seriously, most people don't care about bad lyrics and they just want to dance and it's popular and on the radio and ergo it's good' and all that nonsense that I hear whenever I review a bad pop record. No, this is more related to music with more of a comedic or whimsical tone - and that in some cases, it doesn't get a lot of respect. Let me put it this way: it's very rare outside of specific comedy records that an album or an artist being funny or light-hearted is praised, at least not as a primary focus. And I'm guilty of this too - I love the albums from Run The Jewels and Open Mike Eagle last year for their composition and technique and raw emotional power, but I didn't really highlight that they also had a real sense of humour and wit beyond their dramatic emotional pathos.

The frustrating thing is that comedy can have real emotive power just like drama, and I'd argue it's even more difficult to achieve, especially if you're looking for something with staying power. And going for something like carefree whimsy is even harder - by its very nature it's frivolous and flighty, something that might bring a ready smile but it's extremely rare it can connect on that deeper level on its own merits without resorting to darker, dramatic cliches. I guess the closest thing I can think of are the Discworld novels by Sir Terry Pratchett, but he's a one-of-a-kind genius and is frequently praised for it.

So why bring this up? Well, when I started listening through the 2012 debut album Fear Fun from Josh Tillman under the alter ego Father John Misty, I really got a sense of that whimsy managing to stick for me. The album is a little difficult to describe - reminiscent of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, but instead of hazy hippie earnestness, Fear Fun was a rambling, semi-coherent record from a caricature of a hippie cult leader who is not only entirely self-aware, but careening out of flights of drug-addled cartoonish silliness. But there was wit and insight and a bacchanalian feel to the lyrics that was really infectious, even if to some extent it was completely full of shit. Josh Tillman may have initially built his reputation as a serious artistic folk singer-songwriter and some wildly exaggerated by everyone except him work with Fleet Foxes, but he sounded way more comfortable in a more lighthearted vein. Now the album did suffer for its more serious moments and its more conventional instrumentation, but I still recommend it and I was definitely curious to really dig into his sophomore followup I Love You, Honeybear - how is it?

video review: 'smoke + mirrors' by imagine dragons

Man, I wanted this to be a lot better. Really disappointed it's not. Eh, it happens.

Okay, next up is Father John Misty, and oh, I'm looking forward to this one - stay tuned!

album review: 'smoke + mirrors' by imagine dragons

So as many of you probably know, I listen to a fair bit of rock music - and since plenty of you probably follow Billboard BREAKDOWN, you're all probably aware that we don't get a lot of rock music on the charts anymore. It's been declining for years, really since the 90s, but ever since post-grunge had its last gasps, most of the rock that lands on the radio is indie-flavoured or is so gutless it'd have been laughed off the radio in the late-80s, when hair metal was at its most poppy. As of now, if I'm being charitable we might have eight rock songs out of a 100 on the charts right now, and some level, that makes me a little sad, especially considering it has been like this for a while.

So going back to 2012, when I heard 'It's Time' by relative unknown Imagine Dragons, I didn't care it was only on the charts thanks to Glee and that the production was a little colourless, it was an indie rock song that landed on the Hot 100, I took what I could get. 'It's Time' landed on my 2012 best list, and the massive follow-up 'Radioactive' landed on my list in 2013. I'm not going to say that either song is fantastic, and I would have preferred to hear Queens Of The Stone Age on the radio than them, but again, there weren't many other options. But I was more curious about the band so I did pick up their debut album Night Visions, and for the most part I liked it. Lead singer Dan Reynolds had presence and power that reminded me a lot of Bono in a good way, the lyrics were reasonably solid albeit a little basic and overly broad, and the anthemic quality of many of their tracks did stick with me.

But let's be honest, that album has not aged well, mostly thanks to the monochromatic production courtesy of hip-hop producer Alex da Kid - many of the guitars were crushingly dreary, the percussion was over-emphasized, and the fact that the album was a composite of three different EPs and a few scattered songs really works against it. In other words, I was definitely curious where the band was going with their sophomore record Smoke & Mirrors, half because the band said they were going in more of a rock direction and the singles seem to be reflecting that. But then again, it's also getting produced by Alex da Kid, who I've never really been impressed with as a whole. So what did Imagine Dragons deliver?

video review: 'vulnicura' by björk

And that's me catching up. Whew, that feels nice.

Okay, Imagine Dragons and Father John Misty time, stay tuned!

album review: 'vulnicura' by björk

And now we come to an artist to which I have a complicated relationship, the sort I can definitely respect but not quite love, one that I understand but struggle to like. An artist that has received critical acclaim throughout her career, but a career that I'd ultimately brand as pretty uneven.

Yep, it's time that I finally talk about Bjork, Icelandic singer-songwriter and one of the most distinctive and unique performers of her time. Breaking the mid-90s, Bjork immediately established herself through her uniquely expressive voice and half-playful, half-tragic approach to her delivery and songwriting. And for the longest time for me, that voice put me off really getting into her, unearthly and surprisingly visceral but just never really gripping me. And one of the reasons this review is late is because I went back and listened through Bjork's entire discography before covering this record, which leaked months ahead of schedule. So now with the benefit of added context, what do I think of her?

Well, while I've come to appreciate her and found some of her material very powerful and evocative, she can be very hit-and-miss for me. Like most critics, I tend to like her 90s material a lot more than her releases in the 2000s, mostly because those newer records have some great ideas that don't quite materialize as well as I'd hope. Part of this comes in a change in focus, in that most of Bjork's early work had a more intimate, almost primal thematic focus, which allowed her off-kilter vocals and abstract lyrics to really shine. But starting around Medulla, her material got a lot more fragmented, with experimentation that felt half-realized and really did not pay the same dividends as they did on previous records. The a capella of Medulla, the horns on Volta, and especially the attempted blend of delicate melodies with the half-formed, spasmodic grooves of Biophilia, they never resonated in the same way as her earlier material did, and with her lyrics becoming more politically-themed and outwardly focused which didn't fit nearly as well, I just couldn't connect with Bjork's material in the same way. I'm not saying it didn't have an audience, but these were records that felt thin conceptually and almost unfinished, lacking the melodic presence and foundation to support the flights of experimentation.

But rumour has it her newest album was coming back to earth, back to the potent emotions that drove Homogenic and Vespertine. And while Post is probably my favourite Bjork album, Vespertine is a close second, so I planned to revisit her entire discography to prepare - and then the album dropped two months early. So much for that, but I figured I wanted to be fair and thus went through the back catalog regardless - better late and right than early and uninformed. So finally I dug into Vulnicura - is it the return to form for which we've been hoping?

video review: 'if you're reading this it's too late' by drake

Better late than never- and believe it or not, that's not the first time today I'll be saying that... stay tuned!

album review: 'if you're reading this it's too late' by drake

I didn't expect this to happen - but the more I think about it, the more I should have.

See, after Drake released Nothing Was The Same in 2013, you could tell that he was looking for more of the acceptance of other hip-hop artists and lyricists - even though he was an A-list rapper, one of the few that could notch bonafide hits in today's day and age, a lot of his music was dismissed as just being for girls or the mass public, especially considering the fact many of his albums also had a R&B side to them. Now that wasn't true, as he was lauded by plenty of critics and hip-hop fans as bringing a unique sound and style to the table, a darker, bleaker vibe that often implied more depth than it really had, but for me, I've never been blown away by Drake. Does he have good bars on occasion? Yeah, but very few lines I'd consider amazing and his technical limitations as a writer with sloppy rhyming often prove to be exceptionally irritating for me. Honestly, I've tended to like his R&B side a lot more - it's expressive and moody, and it allows him to eschew some of his weaknesses as a technical rapper.

But that didn't seem to be the direction Drake wanted to go, and his biggest hits in 2014 were dark, minimalist straight hip-hop tracks like 'Believe Me' and '0 To 100/The Catch-Up', which did see him improve as a lyricist, but his content just was not engaging me whatsoever. For as much as Drake was trying to be hard, I just couldn't buy it - he didn't have the menacing presence or the intimidating voice of a gangsta rapper, and many of his bars felt like half measures, never putting his neck on the line or dropping a name at the artists he was trying to challenge. Hell, that was often my issue with his more emotive raps as well - it was always subtext and implied, not actual text, and you can only coast for so long before actually putting your money where your mouth is.

Well maybe this was the chance for him to actually do it, as out of nowhere Drake dropped a full album on iTunes - not really a mixtape, it was available for cash which meant he got his samples cleared - and as a marketing decision, it was a masterstroke. Forget Kanye rolling out his fashion line, forget that upcoming album from Big Sean called Dark Sky Paradise, forget that collaboration album between Chris Brown and Tyga, Drake quite literally stole the hype from under their noses. And coupled with Lil Wayne's threats to take Nicki Minaj and Drake with him on the exit from Cash Money, you have to wonder if this was Drake's step to fulfilling his contract by repackaging what might be considered a hip-hop mixtape as a full record, with few features and a much tighter focus on hip-hop. Could this be the hard-hitting record from Drake that earns him the respect he clearly desires?