billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 18, 2015

...ever have those days when everything you expected just goes wrong in spectacular fashion? You'd think that I'd have more of those days, considering that I have this show and attempting to predict the evolving tastes of the American public - or at least what the music industry thinks the American public wants - is an exercise in guesswork at best. But I thought after thirty weeks doing this show, I thought I had a reasonably firm grasp on it - and boy, did this week prove me wrong. And that would have been fine - I generally like surprises - except it went wrong in the worst possible way.

video review: 'mobile orchestra' by owl city

Man, this was a disappointment. Adam Young, you can do so much better than this.

Next up... well, I originally thought I wouldn't have to do Billboard BREAKDOWN tomorrow thanks to the chart switchup, but turns out I was wrong, it's the week after. So, Billboard BREAKDOWN and then Between The Buried And Me. Oh, and plus a special surprise for my two year anniversary - stay tuned!

album review: 'mobile orchestra' by owl city

I like Owl City.

And that's not a statement many music critics will make, especially considering when Adam Young adopted the moniker and smashed into the mainstream with 'Fireflies', he was described as the overly twee rip-off of The Postal Service. And yeah, going back to it, the similarities are pretty blatant on the surface, but Owl City quickly distinguished himself with distinctive melodies, a knack for quirky synths that stuck in the brain, and the sort of overwritten, detail-infused lyrics that walked the line between honest and poignant and hopelessly kitschy and ridiculous. It didn't help matters that Owl City made no secret of infusing religious iconography into soaring anthems that could ride the line of tolerability with me - not quite evangelizing, but getting dangerously close to the scrubbed-clean, drama-less purity that makes up the most inoffensive and boring of Christian music.

That was his earlier material, but as the years passed, Owl City's material seemed to be getting more and more bland with every passing year, culminating in his 2012 release The Midsummer Station - and sure, there are songs I liked on that album, but it seemed like the unique blend of overly earnest poet, melodic mastermind, and anxious hypochondriac was staying closer to the mainstream and losing the personality that made him special along the way. And sure, I love 'Good Time' with Carly Rae Jepsen for being a damn solid pop song, but it's not on the same plane of originality as his best work, and in an increasingly oversaturated synthpop scene, I had no idea what Owl City's new album would deliver. And it didn't help matters when I saw the feature list: I like Aloe Blacc, but when I think of his features, I think more of Dilated Peoples and Fashawn than Owl City, and Hanson's been doing their own indie pop thing for years now, the team-up only made sense in terms of relative innocence. Probably also the reason Christian pop artist Britt Nicole is here... and then there's Jake Owen, likely angling for a pop country smash that'd bring in his own lightweight sensibilities. 

And considering I knew fans of Owl City who had really turned aggressively on this album, I prepared myself for the worst: how did it turn out?

video review: 'free weezy album' by lil wayne

Man, I was conflicted on this one. Not especially bad, but it should have been a whole lot better.

Next up... you know, I could continue on this whole hip-hop thing and tackle Meek Mill, but I dunno if I really care enough... eh, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'free weezy album' by lil wayne

It's hard to talk in today's hip-hop scene about Lil Wayne. His fans think he's the greatest rapper alive, a pioneer of creative rapping techniques and wordplay that managed to accrue mainstream hits through pure explosive technique, disgustingly catchy hooks, and unquestioned bravado. Others see Lil Wayne as a charismatic rapper but lacking in technical skill and prone to bad fits of hyperbole and the occasional atrocious line that is impossible to ignore. Still others see him as a toxic presence who brought lean, Autotune, rapping words with themselves, hashtag rap, and the absolute abortions that are Rebirth and I Am Not A Human Being II to the table and little else, massively overrated by an obsessive fanbase and responsible for enabling the laziness of him and large chunks of his Young Money crew. And all three groups will inevitably argue with each other in the comments of this video and will take issue with what I say regardless of whether it's positive or negative.

See, here's the thing: they're all right to some extent, at least at specific stages of his career. When Lil Wayne started making some critical impact with Tha Carter, he was a hungry MC who had a solid flow, a ton of swagger, and a lot of creative and mainstream-accessible wordplay. And that continued into both Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III, which were both genuinely great album that I really dug. And then Rebirth happened and while the record was a commercial failure and critically savaged - for good reason - it didn't immediately ruin Lil Wayne's reputation - he was still pumping out mixtapes at a frankly ridiculous pace. But then I Am Not A Human Being was underwhelming and Tha Carter IV didn't live up to its name and I Am Not A Human Being II was absolute shit, and popular buzz was that if Lil Wayne hadn't fallen off completely into a pit of his own reckless hedonism soaked in laziness, lean and increasingly asinine sexual references, he was nowhere near his best anymore.

So I will admit to being surprised when the feud between Lil Wayne and Birdman erupted near the end of 2014, with Wayne accusing his former mentor of blocking releases - which baffled me, considering Lil Wayne has long had enough free rope to hang himself multiple times over. The ultimate result was a well-publicized split with Cash Money and Lil Wayne signing with Jay-Z's TIDAL - which to me felt like a bad idea, especially considering a Wayne endorsement might not be enough to save TIDAL from being the money-pit disaster that it is. But on a bigger level, Jay-Z also does not deal well with stupid or incompetence, and unless Wayne can stay sober and producing quality - which given his
track record is still up in the air - I see this backfiring. But putting all that aside, we now have Free Weezy Album - how does the newly liberated Lil Wayne sound?

video review: 'every hero needs a villain' by czarface

Almost forgot to put this out. Seriously, check out this album, it's awesome.

Next up, almost momentarily, new Lil Wayne - stay tuned!

album review: 'every hero needs a villain' by czarface

So I occasionally get asked by non-fans of hip-hop how I can excuse the lyrical content, which can focus on crass materialism, unbridled hedonism, rampant drug abuse, and violence. And normally after I roll my eyes - seriously, what genre beyond the most sterile of bubblegum pop or any art hasn't touched on all of these subjects in some form - I often inform them that there's different varieties of hip-hop and how seriously you can take them. Now some of the more political material like on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly I take very seriously - and even with that and a far less violent message compared to the incendiary material from Run The Jewels, you're still going to get cretins on FOX News misinterpreting it and trying to ram down a message of promoting violence. Seriously, the only time FOX remotely gets close to discussing hip-hop or the black community with any sort of credence is - ironically - when Killer Mike is a guest star.

But there's always been a competitive element to hip-hop and that tends to mean confrontational language is used, often with violent imagery, and when you start treading towards horrorcore or gangsta rap, things get a little trickier, especially when you acknowledge while it might be entertainment for the consumer or the critic, it might be very real for the artist creating it who grew up in that environment, and consideration and empathy should be shown. Of course, there's another way: make the violence so hyperbolic and exaggerated that it almost becomes like a cartoon. It doesn't mean the message is any less potent, but it's conveyed in a different way - analogous to the way Tarantino smuggles his 'message' movies through the guise of b-movie exploitation. Run The Jewels can walk this line, and so can Action Bronson.

And this is where we run into Czarface, half the underground hip-hop duo 7L and Esoteric, and half the Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck. I'll admit not always being the biggest Wu-Tang fan - part of it is that I just haven't had the time to fully unpack and decode all of their albums across their storied history with several solo members having full discographies of their own. But Czarface interested me, if only because the lyrics overloaded with references to comic books, pulp sci-fi, and pro wrestling merged with sample-heavy old-school production reminded me a lot of MF Doom in a good way. I guess if I were nitpicking, I wasn't the biggest fan of their debut, which was solid but occasionally lacked killer standouts and did drag a little by the end, but with a stronger feature list than ever, I figured I'd give the sophomore record a listen - was it worth it?

video review: 'summertime '06' by vince staples

Man, this one took a lot to get out of my system. Next up...

Well, I'm not sure what my next review should be. I want to cover Czarface, but there's a fair few other albums that are on my list. Stay tuned!

album review: 'summertime '06' by vince staples

So I've gotten a few requests to cover The XXL Freshman list for 2015 over the past few weeks, and I have even less of a reason to do it than most years. I mean, seriously, Mick Jenkins drops The Water[s] and you instead find room for Kidd Kidd? At this point, if we needed any more evidence that XXL is struggling for relevance in the Internet age, it's here, and at this point it's just sad.

There is one choice they made correctly, though, and it's the one that everyone and their mother expected they would: Vince Staples. California MC, most famous for his collaborations with Odd Future especially Earl Sweatshirt, and hot off of a great 2014 where nearly all of his verses stood out on their respective albums, especially on Common's record Nobody's Smiling. It helped that Vince Staples had a way with bluntly effective lyricism that didn't shy away from tough truths, most of which reflected his time as a crip, which fit the tone in a year where rap music was forced to confront some harsh political realities. Coupled with the fact he worked with great producers like No ID and Evidence, there was a lot of hype behind him when he dropped the damn solid EP Hell Can Wait last year. As such, I was definitely curious to see where his debut album Summertime '06 would fall, especially considering it was a double album that still ran under an hour and was executive produced by No ID - how did it go?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 11, 2015

And that happened. Whew, glad that episode is over with.

Next up, I finally talk about Vince Staples. From there, Czarface, Between The Buried And Me, I've got my work cut out for me. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 11, 2015

...so remember when I said last week I had a sense of foreboding that something bad was coming, that I couldn't quite feel it and it hadn't quite happened yet, but it was on its way? Yeah, I'm starting to wish these bad feelings didn't come up so much, because sure enough...

the top albums/songs of the midyear - 2015 (VIDEO)

Almost forgot to put this video up. This was a ton of fun, really did love making this - always nice to talk about music that's actually all sorts of awesome.

So next up is Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then finally I might have time for this new Vince Staples... stay tuned!

the top album/songs of the midyear - 2015

Last year when I put together this list, I was debating its very relevance. I mean, would it give away what would turn out to be my top albums of the year overall, or would it find an audience at all?

This year, the debate was different: I knew I had to do a midyear review for 2015 because there was so much quality that came out in the front half of the year that I'm honestly a little concerned I'm not going to get a chance to highlight it all. Between comebacks that delivered in spades, debuts that blew my mind, and records that seemed to have an abundance of creativity more than I would have ever expected, the first six months of 2015 have been overwhelming strong, to the point where keeping my list of albums to twelve was insanely difficult. It'll be incredible if the rest of the year keeps up this momentum, but for now, here is my top albums of 2015, thus far:

video review: 'wildheart' by miguel

Man, this album was weird, but so much in the right way. Just wish it aimed for a little more heft, that's all.

Next up, Vince Staples, and then the mid-year review - stay tuned!

album review: 'wildheart' by miguel

So one of the biggest journeys I've taken throughout the creation of this blog is through modern R&B. I didn't used to care for the genre all that much a few years ago and have found myself really coming to love more and more of it as the years have passed. And one of the artists that I've always found myself a little fascinated with along the way is Frank Ocean - and by that, I mean Miguel.

Okay, that might not make a lot of sense, but it's bizarre how much Miguel seems to be overlooked in terms of hype and critical success. Maybe it was just bad timing, but for as colourful and genuinely fun as Miguel's Kaleidoscope Dream was in 2012, it was overshadowed by Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE and everybody seemed to forget Miguel existed beyond 'Adorn' and a few guest spots. And while I'm not going to say Kaleidoscope Dream was better than channel ORANGE - it's not - I've always felt that Miguel is an underrated R&B star, in the indie scene and especially in the mainstream. I mean, was it just a chance collaboration with Ariana Grande that allowed The Weeknd nearly a half-dozen top 40 spots while Miguel has to struggle to even get there?

But in a way it makes sense, because as a composer, Miguel is kind of weird. Lyrically, he doesn't often stray from typical R&B territory - arguably the biggest facet that held him back from challenging Frank Ocean in 2012 - but his personality and sound are much more eclectic, bleeding across genres in a way that reminds me more of Prince than most modern R&B histrionics. But the element that crept up on me about Miguel is a understated charisma that's genuinely charming - he's often just as explicit, but he makes it sound fun and has some class about it. Now as I said I didn't love Kaleidoscope Dream, mostly because the lyrics occasionally got silly and the production was a little overdone at points, not confident enough to let Miguel coast on a great groove. But as I said on Billboard BREAKDOWN, with the lead-off single 'Coffee' for his newest album Wildheart he got me really excited for this album - how did it turn out?

video review: 'haven' by kamelot

This review took WAY too damn long to get out, but I'm happy I did finally get a chance to do it before the midyear - which I'm steadily polishing up, btw.

But next up, Miguel, Vince Staples, Czarface, Tyga, King Los... whoa boy, lots of hip-hop and R&B, so stay tuned!

album review: 'haven' by kamelot

Back when I first got into metal in high school, I remember having a conversation with a fellow student who was a year or two older than me who was also into metal. I told him that I was listening to a fair amount of power metal and symphonic metal, and I remember him snickering and saying, "What, like Kamelot?" At that time, I was only just getting into the genre, so I had never heard of the band, so I went home and picked up what few tracks I could find, most of which were off of the band's 2003 album Epica. And I remember thinking that while there were a few songs I dug, the band just didn't impress me in the same way that Nightwish or Blind Guardian ever did. Sure, they weren't bad, but they didn't seem all that special to me. And just like my abortive attempt to get into the band Epica around that time, I put the band aside for nearly a decade.

Fast forward to, well, now, and I started getting requests whether I would cover the newest album from Kamelot titled Haven. And at this point, I was in the mood to hear some good power metal and I figured the band deserved a more complete re-evaluation, so I began working my way through the extensive discography of Kamelot and their almost dozen albums of material across line-up changes and nearly twenty years of existence. To me, the band started hitting more of their mark on their second album Dominion, with much tighter and cohesive tracks than their debut Eternity, which featured great guitar work from their one consistent member Thomas Youngblood but definitely needed work in putting together cohesive tracks, instrumentally and lyrically. But it wouldn't be until the replacement of their drummer and lead vocalist with longtime powerhouse Roy Khan that things would materialize more, with the next two records giving them a chance to get their bearings before the absolutely stellar three punch that was Karma in 2001, Epica in 2003, and The Black Halo in 2005. And let's make this clear, if I was looking for records to win a metal fan over on Kamelot, it'd be those.

After that, Kamelot went in a more aggressively heavy direction with their next two records... unfortunately to diminishing returns, with their 2010 release Poetry For The Poisoned probably being their weakest in over a decade. But that wasn't the only issue, as singer Roy Khan left the band due to burnout, something this critic can believe given how his vocals sounded on that last record. He was replaced Tommy Karevik for their 2012 album and their third concept record Silverthorn, which actually turned out to be a pretty damn solid return to form, even if it wasn't quite at their best. So, extremely late to the punch, I decided to dig into their follow-up three years later with Haven - how does it measure up?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 4, 2015 (VIDEO)

Believe it or not, this review was absolute hell to get out - beyond just the lacklustre songs too.

Okay, finally time to deal with some old business - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 4, 2015

You ever see one of those charts on which not a lot really seemed to happen, but still gives you a feeling of foreboding regardless? Believe it or not, I got that feeling pretty strongly this week, because despite the fact very few new songs dropped or impacted the charts in any largely significant ways, I can see things are coming up for change across the board as the summer settles in.

video review. 'e•mo•tion' by carly rae jespsen

Well, this turned out way better than expected. Who'd have known?

Okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN tomorrow, and then finally I'll get that Kamelot review done... that is, if Vince Staples and Miguel don't get in the way. Stay tuned!