billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 16, 2015

So remember when I was lamenting last week that the expected chaos after the collapse after a long-running #1 didn't happen? Turns out I should have just waited one week, because we might have one of the busiest weeks on the Hot 100 I've seen in a long time. Massive gains, sizeable losses and dropouts, a slew of new and returning tracks, and even new entries to the Hot 100 that show that even if the #1 slot might be safe, everything beneath it sure as hell isn't. And in some cases, that instability might end up being a good thing.

video review: 'jackie' by ciara

Well, this was... honestly better than I expected. Seriously, I expected this to go in one ear and out the other, but there's some quality here, and 'I Bet' is genuinely excellent. Sincerely hope it's a bigger hit...

Okay, next up is Billboard BREAKDOWN, then time to see what all the fuss is about with this Chris Stapleton record. Stay tuned!

album review: 'jackie' by ciara

So here's the thing: even though I was a teenager who listened to popular music in the mid-2000s, I never really got into R&B in a big way. Part of it was that I was busy listening to symphonic metal at the time, but part of it was that the mid-to-late 2000s wasn't a great period for the genre, at least in the mainstream and especially for its female artists. Sure, you had Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Mary J. Blige, but the R&B boom of the 90s and early 2000s had faded significantly in the wave of crunk and the rising swell of pop. The male stars of the genre had fared better, with Usher, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, and even Justin Timberlake raking in significant rewards, but many of the starlets who had done exceedingly well in the years prior began to struggle a bit.

And one of those artists was Ciara. Now let me admit right out of the gate I was never really a huge fan - her lyrics were frequently underwhelming when they didn't just get weird for no adequately explained reason, she occasionally worked with some obnoxious co-stars, especially early on, and her voice was so thin and delicate that it often seemed peripheral to the music, analogous to Janet Jackson but often lacking that core of strength and personality that I've tended to like about Janet's work. And yet in the era of snap percussion and incredibly minimalist beats, Ciara thrived for a few years. But as pop started to take over in the late 2000s, Ciara's material started to seem a little desperate to hold the spotlight, and that third album Fantasy Ride with its murder's row of top-line producers and guest stars ironically only stole more of the spotlight away from her. And after the follow-up the next year Basic Instinct did even worse, and I assumed, like many, that Ciara's career was over.

And yet in 2013 she came back with a self-titled album and with the rising tide of R&B, she was back on the charts. Now I'm not going to say that record's great - it's not, like most of Ciara's work I tended to find it pretty thin, as I tend to like my R&B more soulful or fiery, although Ciara's voice was becoming more rich with age. And the two Future collaborations didn't help, both of which I assume are there because they were in a relationship at the time. But two years later, the scene has changed - her engagement broke off with Future, her first child was born, her album quietly filled with some more material focusing on that broken relationship, and more cowriters and producers than ever. And as I said, I've never been a huge fan of Ciara's, but I really liked her debut single from this album 'I Bet', and hey, if she was going to spend an entire record taking potshots at Future for being a cheating asshole, that's a theme I can get behind! So how did Jackie turn out?

video review: 'wilder mind' by mumford & sons

Man, I had low expectations for this, but it could have been a hell of a lot better than this... ugh.

Next up, either Chris Stapleton or Ciara, so stay tuned!

album review: 'wilder mind' by mumford & sons

So I've mentioned a couple times that I'm a fan of karaoke - hell, anybody who follows me on Twitter knows I occasionally post semi-witty observations when I head out to one of my favourite watering holes to sing. And one of the songs that I've put on semi-permanent rotation for myself is 'Little Lion Man' by Mumford & Sons - I can sing it well, I know the song by heart, and it's got an anthemic vibe that plays incredibly well to a crowd. One could make the argument that it's the best song Mumford & Sons ever wrote, one of the few where critics and fans could listen and acknowledge that it worked... because not since Nickelback will you find a more passionate and egregious divide between the critical press and the mainstream public than on Mumford & Sons.

And I can see both sides of the matter. When the band broke in the last few years of 2000s, they gained some attention from the mainstream public for having strong singles with anthemic choruses and a ton of rollicking energy that rarely ever got popular... and then in a quirk of fate, they did get some chart success that only increased with their second album Babel, which launched a fair few singles into the charts, won a Grammy, and solidified the folk boom of the early 2010s. And most of the critical set couldn't stand them, seeing them as a pop sellout of 'real' folk music, one of the few genres left where a vestige of authenticity still mattered. And they weren't wrong here: Mumford & Sons were slick and polished despite the folk instruments and image, and Babel was even more so, and even despite the braying howl of Marcus Mumford's voice, the band had nowhere near the grit of acts like Old Crow Medicine Show or the Avett Brothers or any slew of alternative country folk acts.

Now for me the issue was different, because I didn't mind the bluegrass tinged Mumford & Sons sound and I'm a sucker for a great stomping chorus. But the larger problem revealed itself in the framing of the songs in their lyrics - namely that they wrote a lot of catty, passive-aggressive songs about sour relationships and played them all with such serious earnest power to disguise the nastiness of the material. It's why 'Little Lion Man' remains their best song: at least they admit they were the ones who screwed things up, but beyond that? To this day, I'm still debating whether it's an issue of incompetence - the bargain-barrel symbolism would support that argument - or just douchebaggery, but it sure as hell did not make Mumford & Sons remotely likeable. And just like Nickelback, their post-grunge parallel, their material gets formulaic in a hurry if you listen through an entire album front to back.

And thus it wasn't really a surprise to me when I heard that the band had gotten so resentful of their image and the banjo that they ditched them entirely for a straight-up electric rock sound - proving it was transparaent since the very beginning, but whatever. I'll, I wasn't looking forward to this release - I covered the lead-off single on Billboard BREAKDOWN and it sounded like a watered-down U2 wannabe, and I already heard Imagine Dragons try that earlier this year. So I had low expectations, especially considering the best element of their sound - the folk groove - was now completely gone. But even with that, what did Mumford & Sons deliver with Wilder Mind?

video review: 'escape from evil' by lower dens

And that's two. Much better, and seriously a slept-on record.

Next up... damn, I might as well talk about Mumford & Sons. Stay tuned!

video review: 'suffer in peace' by tyler farr

Not a great record, but I am glad I covered this. Nice to see one bro-country artist actually improving and who might have a career after this mess.

Next up... well, stay tuned within the hour, it's rendering now!

album review: 'escape from evil' by lower dens

So there are some indie acts that just fly under the radar and nobody beyond the hardcore fanbase seems to know. I've barely gotten requests for this act, the buzz has been negligible, and even despite the fact this new record has been very well-received, nobody besides critics seems to care.

And this is something I've noticed about certain acts getting critical acclaim - it rarely means much at all for the actual act outside of very specific circumstances, and it needs to be spread wide enough to drive buzz. But even with that it might not be enough - I can think of a slew of indie acts that because they didn't get the right big performance or that huge hit single, they might have the love of critics but nobody else. Even in the age of the internet, where certain sites like Pitchfork want to define the narrative of what is popular, or where we have music critics who have accumulated enough subscribers to nearly reach half a million people, it's not often enough.

So with all of that in mind, let's talk a little about Lower Dens. Beginning with a shoestring budget in Baltimore in 2010, their debut album immediately reminded me a lot of The War On Drugs in terms of the spacious, hazy shoegaze-inspired mix and willowy vocals of Jana Hunter, but that's where the similarities ended. For one, the bass and guitar tones were far more reminiscent of post-punk, and the melodic grooves were simply phenomenally balanced against the crisp, stripped back percussion. They added more electronic elements with Nootropics in 2012, which eased back some of the haze and added sharper, more defined grooves and some synthesizers, and while I definitely think it's a damn great album, I think I liked their debut a tad more, although songs like 'Brains', 'Lamb', and especially 'Candy' were huge standouts.

And when I heard they were heading towards even more of a pop-friendly direction... well, to be honest, I was a bit mixed on it. I had no doubt in my mind that Lower Dens could write some stellar hooks if pressed for it, but I didn't want to see them shoved towards synthpop like so many other bands in their vein and lose some of their unique identity. So what did we get from Escape From Evil?

album review: 'suffer in peace' by tyler farr

You know, it's always a little fascinating to see what happens to certain artists after the trend they rode to stardom falters or fails completely. In many cases, the artists simply drop off the radar entirely, especially if they were transparently a product of the label looking to cash in. Sometimes they'll stick around for one more awkward, uncomfortable album trying to find footing with the same formula, only to be looked upon as has-beens. Some, especially if they jumped on the trend midway through their careers, will simply go back to what they did normally, with singles from that trendier record hastily wiped from memory and any live shows. And yet sometimes you get artists who are able to roll with the punches, start off riding a trend and yet able to transcend it and become staples of the genre.

And here's the thing: you can't assume that it's just the ones that'll be the most successful that'll end up in the last category. Let's be honest, what gets popular isn't always the material with the most quality, but with the most definitive image or flash or energy, and those seldom translate well into the long term, especially if your artistic persona is so tied to that image. As such, it's typically the artists that are a little more restrained or in control of that image that can ride their debuts to greater success - or, of course, if you actually a distinctive artistic identity, but that might be hoping for too much.

But could I be wrong here? For an example, let's consider Tyler Farr, a definitive b-lister in the bro-country scene who released Redneck Crazy in 2013 in the heat of the craze and rode the absolutely terrible titular single to nearly the top of the charts. Now I reviewed that album and I remember not being kind to it, but truth be told, I can barely remember that album at all. I remember the singles and i remember thinking that Tyler Farr had a good enough voice to do well - turns out the guy had classical training, which is uncommon to see in country music - but his material often came across leering and creepy when it wasn't boring and forgettable. Coupled with production that was all over the place, I was prepared to write Tyler Farr off... but then I heard his lead-off single 'A Guy Walks Into A Bar', and I was struck by its intensity and frustration, and the realization that gruff anger might actually be a solid fit for the guy. And considering rumors that this record was supposed to be a little rougher and heavier, I was actually interested in covering him, whereas you couldn't convince me to cover a sophomore record to other bro-country acts like Thomas Rhett or Cole Swindell. So what did we get with Suffer In Peace?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 9, 2015 (VIDEO)

Man alive, this week sucked. 

Okay, crazy weekend ahead of me in RL, but I'm going to try to get at least one review out. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 9, 2015

So here's the odd thing - remember when I said last week that the charts tend to become more unstable when there's a big change at the top, as the old hit tumbles and plenty other songs jockey for its place? Well... that's not really happening, and from what I dug up this week, it lends all the more evidence to the fact that if 'See You Again' hadn't shown up, 'Uptown Funk' would have broken 'One Sweet Day's record, or at least would have gotten a lot closer. As it was this week, it was all about what song would manage to make that big push... and the push didn't happen yet. Meanwhile, a bunch of songs fell off the charts because of longevity and were mostly replaced by... well, you'll see.

video review: 'kindred' by passion pit

Man, I could have done without covering this. I suspect the shitstorm won't be huge, but you never know these days. On the plus side, I did get a chance to catch up on a bit of my back catalogue today, which was nice.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, Lower Dens, Alabama Shakes, and Sufjan Stevens, so stay tuned!

album review: 'kindred' by passion pit

So let me clue you all in to one of the biggest 'tricks' surrounding indie pop, and where it can have an easy path to critical acclaim with a similar sound to what's subsequently derided in the mainstream. Simple enough trick, but it works a lot more often than you think: tonal subversion. Basically how it works is a shift in the tone or content of your lyrics in comparison to that of your music - shifting the acid high to the acid freakout, a song with a generally cheery tone being about death, you get the picture. If you trace your way through the indie scene and especially indie pop, you see a lot of this. Take the typical pop framework and use it to package lyrics that might not be all that exceptional with a similar tone, but make the instrumentation go in the opposite direction and suddenly people will really start taking notice.

Now of course there's a scale of quality to this, because there are plenty of acts who go against the tone of their instrumentation lyrically and have the skill as writers to pull it off. But if we're looking for an act who has gone to this well more aggressively and consistently than nearly any other indie pop act, I'd point to Passion Pit, an indie pop band that I've liked but never quite loved that exploded in 2009 with their breakout hit Manners. And let's make this clear, I'm not really a fan of Manners as a whole - going back to it, the chiptune production and sugar-sweet instrumentation hasn't precisely aged well, and Michael Angelakos' shrill, breathy voice could start to grate on my nerves, especially considering how bleak the lyrics often got. They nailed the balance a lot better on Gossamer in 2012, swapping out pure sugar for a more opulent and varied presentation, and Angelakos' delivery didn't feel as one-dimensional - just as earnest but you could tell there was other emotions boiling behind the surface, holding on by a thread as frail and precarious as its title.

Well, turns out there was a reason for that dichotomy - Angelakos had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and after a year of cancelled tours and therapy, things seemed to have finally righted themselves, with Angelakos replacing his entire live band and bringing in a new producer: Benny Blanco, the writer/producer known for churning out some of the biggest hits of the early 2010s for Kesha, Katy Perry, and Maroon 5. To see him on a Passion Pit album seemed to imply that they'd probably be going in a much more commercial direction... did we get that with Kindred?

video review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

Man, I wish this album could have been stronger... although then again, experiments like this are always risks, so it's not surprising it might not have pulled off the power of a record like Uncaged. Eh, it happens.

Next up... honestly, I've got a few that I'm interested in covering. Stay tuned!

album review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

If you were to ask me what my most anticipated album of 2015 was... well, depending on the day I would have given you a number of answers. Depending on the genre I would have given you a number of answers, but I was getting asked about country, it wouldn't have even been a challenge. And for me, it's always a little odd admitting things like this, because it sets expectations for this review and immediately there'll be accusations of bias or some silliness like that. Let me say that my critical faculties are not impaired, and I'm not going to give something a pass just because I'm a fan - my Nightwish review was proof of that.

That said... the Zac Brown Band is probably one of my favourite country bands ever. The project of singer-songwriter Zac Brown and a killer selection of multi-instrumentalists and backing singers, it was a band that started small with The Foundation in 2008, and while I liked that album for its singles and a couple lightweight deep cuts, it wasn't until their 2010 record You Get What You Give that they seriously won me over. Not only was this a band that knew their neotraditional country and had a gift for killer melodies and great texture, but they were also strong songwriters that could sketch great pictures and had the talent to work with the greats like Alan Jackson. And with songs like 'Colder Weather' - which I should remind you all was my pick for the best hit song of 2011 - they proved that the success of 'Chicken Fried' or 'Toes' wasn't going to confine them to lightweight beach fodder.

But while You Get What You Give was a damn solid record, 2012's Uncaged was damn near a masterpiece. No joke, if I were to make a list of my top records of 2012, it'd be fighting with Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean for the top slot. Not only was the writing even better, it showed the band getting more experimental, fusing elements of reggae, bluegrass, rock, and even R&B into their music - and what was all the more amazing is that they made it feel cohesive and powerful with songs like 'Goodbye In Her Eyes', 'Natural Disaster', and 'Last But Not Least' standing as some of their best ever.

And then things really got interesting. They put out an EP with Dave Grohl, Zac Brown later showed up on one of the best songs of the Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways, and with an upcoming collaboration from Chris Cornell on their newest record Jekyll + Hyde - along with Sara Bareilles of all people - it looked as though the Zac Brown Band were continuing their experimentation. What worried me, though, was the producer: Jay Joyce, who in recent years has developed a bad reputation for overproduction and turning albums that could have been amazing or at least passable from Eric Church, Little Big Town, and Halestorm into complete messes. And I'll admit, I was worried here: I knew Zac Brown had a reputation for a tight grip in the studio, but swapping out Keith Stegall, known for working with Alan Jackson, for Joyce struck me as a monumentally bad decision, especially considering they were already working with Grohl! But even putting that aside, I hoped for the best: did the Zac Brown Band manage to pull something together?

video review: 'bills ep' by lunchmoney lewis

The more I listen to this, the more I just love it. Goddamn, what a great EP, definitely worth breaking my rules to cover.

Next up, one of my most anticipated albums of the year, so stay tuned!

video review: 'handwritten' by shawn mendes

Ugh, I wanted this to be better. Can't all be winners, though.

No, if you want that... well, just wait, it's coming!

album review: 'bills ep' by lunchmoney lewis

I don't tend to cover EPs.

And believe it or not, there's a reason for that. As I've said in the past, I like records that are full-length album statements, mostly because they're the ones that give me a ton of material to work with in these reviews - and sometimes I don't even get that. So slice it down to four songs and I've got even less to talk about, so unless I have reason to believe this EP is going to be insanely good, I hold to this as a rule.

Today I'm going to break that rule, because the more publicity I can give to this guy, the better. Viewers of Billboard BREAKDOWN probably aren't surprised that I'm going to talk about LunchMoney Lewis, but for those of you who don't, he's something of a hip-hop artist from Atlanta and the son of a member of Inner Circle, the Jamaican reggae band that wrote the Bad Boys theme. He's been behind the scenes for a bit now, working with Dr. Luke as a producer and songwriter, but now he's striking out for himself, rounding up a couple songwriters who work with Dr. Luke for a chance in the spotlight. And I have mixed feelings about this. I've been following the legal nightmare unfolding between Kesha and Dr. Luke as she quietly works to rebrand and rebuild her career after her nightmarish 2014, and considering Becky G's debut album is nowhere in sight, signing to Kemosabe to drop a new hit seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea. But his leadoff hit 'Bills' convinced me I needed to hear more from LunchMoney Lewis, so I found his debut EP and decided to listen through it? Was it worth it?

album review: 'handwritten' by shawn mendes

Now I may have said in my last episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN that Vine was one of the worst things in recent memory to happen to mainstream hip-hop, and I stand by that. But that's not to dismiss its growing impact on pop music as well, where certain acts, trending towards a younger demographic, have earned some success too. And you know, on some level it makes sense - as attention spans grow shorter and shorter with every generation, and pop music perpetually lodged at the age of early teens, it makes sense that Vine could spawn material perfectly tailored for that audience.

But that's not saying that music from these sources is essentially bad, or even tells the complete story. More of that comes through in the rising fortunes of Ed Sheeran, the singer-songwriting who is slowly taking more and more steps from dreary, white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar territory into tighter, more groove-heavy, more fiery material. And given how much he has dominated the charts over the past year and with singer-songwriters like Hozier pushing a more organic, rougher sound, it stands to reason that the music industry would look to cash in on this in the quickest way possible.

Thus we have Shawn Mendes, a Canadian teenager from just outside of Toronto who built a following on Vine and has been tearing a swathe through the Canadian charts. Keep in mind that our radio stations have to play a certain percentage of Canadian music, so I've heard of Shawn Mendes before this review - and honestly, I don't mind him. Sure, there are moments that could use some polish, but there was some raw talent here and he sure as hell sounds more ready for prime time than Justin Bieber ever did. And hell, if he's going to bite from Ed Sheeran's template and take the one element from Vine that I actually think could be a net positive - a sense of immediacy and pop-friend punch for his hooks - this debut could actually be worth a damn, even if he didn't write the whle record. So I checked out Handwritten - did it live up to expectations?

video review: 'short movie' by laura marling

Dear god, it took me WAY too long to get to this. Hopefully, the wait time for Sufjan Stevens will be less, but again, not quite ready for that yet.

On the other hand, this Shawn Mendes album or Passion Pit? Yeah, those coming soon, plus the new Zac Brown Band record! Stay tuned!