album review: 'stories' by avicii

Of all the electronic producers I've covered in the mainstream, both in full-length reviews and on Billboard BREAKDOWN, Avicii is one that continues to frustrate me.

See, those of you who have followed me for a long time know that I wasn't too kind to his debut album TRUE, not a bad record but ultimately an experiment that landed steadily decreasing dividends throughout its runtime in attempting to fuse folk with accessible EDM. And yet many of you probably know that two Avicii songs have landed on my year-end lists for my favourite hit songs of 2013 and 2014 with 'Wake Me Up!' and 'Hey Brother'. And the stranger thing is that I'll stand behind both of those choices even though I'd still argue that TRUE was only ever a decent album.

And here the crux of that argument: Avicii is the sort of artist who has a great grasp on the fundamentals and the broad strokes of his experimentation, but can get stuck on the details, which is why the folk sections of that debut album ended up working better than any of the electronic segments. Sure, he's a strong melodic composer in putting together dynamic, surging progressions and marrying them with well-textured guitars and banjos and solid acoustic grooves... but the second he starts adding in thicker beats or percussion, things kind of go off the rails. Hell, he's not even a bad lyricist - all of which makes me think Avicii might be a better songwriter than producer and performer - but I can't help but see the irony in an electronic producer who blended folk in and made it work, except in the underlying electronic production itself!

But that was 2013, and let's face it, the EDM world has changed significantly in even just the past two years. The leftovers of the folk boom that Avicii was riding is now long dead and most modern EDM has gone to the deep house or R&B/neo-soul route - that'd be your Calvin Harris - or suffered badly for it, like Zedd. Where does Avicii fall with his sophomore release Stories?

video review: 'evermore: the art of duality' by the underachievers

Damn great record that took me way too long to get to - stupid overloaded schedule (really just overloaded October, to be honest). 

Next up, I need a little more time for Julia Holter, so I'm probably going to go with Avicii next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'evermore: the art of duality' by the underachievers

Goddamn it, I'm kicking myself for this one.

See, I've actually heard about this duo before when I started getting requests last year, and given the fall is always an overloaded time for album releases, I skipped over them. And given their debut album was getting solid but not exceptional reviews, I figured I'd put them on the backburner and eventually I just never got around to covering them. So when they announced their sophomore album this year, I figured I might as well check in on that debut...

And wow. As I said, I'm exasperated with myself that I let AK and Issa Gold get past me, because this is the sort of smart, articulate, hard-hitting hip-hop I really enjoy. Breakneck, multisyllabic flows that remind more than a bit of Bone Thugz-N-Harmony, great chemistry, solid psychedelic leanings in the wordplay that have only become better articulated, they broke through with the star-making Indigoism mixtape in 2013 and the better written and tighter but slightly less refined Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium in 2014. I'm not sure whether it would have been enough to knock either into my favourites list, but they definitely would have been contenders.

And as such, I definitely had some interest in their sophomore release Evermore: The Art Of Duality - even though at fifteen tracks this looked to be an exhaustingly dense listen. Which I think even they realized, because from the album art to the track listening, they looked to be segregating this record into two distinctive parts, one light, one dark. But regardless, how did the album turn out?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 17, 2015 (VIDEO)

Wow, I'm amazed I got this out at all. Multiple crashes, editing was absolute hell, but here it is. 

Next up... I want to cover something I'm actually going to like, so how about The Underachievers? Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 17, 2015

Okay, normally what happens on a week full of new arrivals from a big release, you can normally expect a bunch of them to fall off the week after or at least take a sizeable dip after the hype fades. What you don't normally expect is nearly all of them to gain traction and for the charts to pick up all of the remaining tracks from that album you didn't cover and add them too! Such was the apparent magnetism of Drake & Future that not only did they not go away, they got bigger and even brought more along for the ride. Joy.

video review: 'tangled up' by thomas rhett

God, I'm not a fan of this review. It's a mess, my hair looks terrible, and the bitterness really does sour me on it - even though it was like the fifteenth take and I really wasn't feeling pretty well. It's me pushing myself too hard in one night - all the more evidence I need to better manage my time.

Okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN next - stay tuned!

album review: 'tangled up' by thomas rhett

There's no easy way to do this review.

See, this is the problem with being one of the few critics who covers country on YouTube and one of the only ones who covers mainstream country. I feel I've got an obligation to show off the best stuff, mostly because I want to see it get more traction, but for the bad stuff... well, who wants this review? Certainly not me because as I've said in the past, negative reviews aren't often that fun, and you guys mostly come for recommendations. I know there's a certain visceral catharsis watching someone tear into a terrible record, but there's a hollowness to it for me - if there was ill intent, I could feel righteous, but this is just taking out the trash.

Now some of you have realized this is all predicated on the album being bad, which is not an assumption you ever want to enter into when it comes to art. The big problem was that almost every factor going into this record screamed of outright disaster. I covered Thomas Rhett's debut album back in 2013 when bro-country was near its peak, and that album sucked. And it did so in perhaps one of the worst possible ways: by being so forgettably sterile and limp its production and melodies that the only things that stood out were Thomas Rhett's obnoxious voice and even more obnoxious personality. Let me put it like this: when you owe your industry career to your dad being an average-at-best songwriter and you make songs like the cheating song 'Take You Home' and 'All-American Middle Class White Boy', and frame them both as glorification rather than commentary, there's nothing I can remotely respect about it. 

So I'll give Thomas Rhett the slightest bit of credit when he announced he was taking his new album Tangled Up in a different direction, more towards a metropolitan pop country sound. The problem was putting aside that he needed over twenty additional songwriters to do this, the lead-off single was 'Crash And Burn', a slice of bad pseudo-vintage pop that outright stole from Sam Cooke's 'Chain Gang', made Thomas Rhett look and sound like a braying asshole, and was cowritten by Chris Stapleton, which just makes me feel really, really sad. The presence of LunchMoney Lewis and Jordin Sparks on the features list only made me feel worse - more talented people completely wasting their time. That said, the ballad 'Die A Happy Man' actually seemed decent, and right now, this album has nowhere to go but up - is there anything that can save it?

video review: 'caracal' by disclosure

Ooh boy, I'm expecting a mixed response to this video. Not so much the next one - the next one might be pretty polarizing - but this for sure might raise eyebrows.

Next up... oh, fuck, you all know it is. Thomas Rhett, stay tuned!

album review: 'caracal' by disclosure

There's no easy way to do this review.

And to some extent that's my fault, because the more I think about it, the more I feel I got into electronic music in the weirdest way possible. Last year, when I decided I wanted to push my comfort zone beyond trance and some of the greats like The Chemical Brothers, I started covering weird, critically acclaimed acts that were getting that acclaim by pushing boundaries. Acts like Levon Vincent and Objekt and Jlin and Arca were building a reputation for off-kilter, difficult electronic music, and even the ones that had a closer mainstream connection like Ghost Culture or Todd Terje or Jamie xx were still well outside. 

So when I went back to dig into Disclosure's critically acclaimed debut record Settle from 2013, I found myself distinctly underwhelmed. Yeah, 'Latch' had been everywhere, but as someone who never really loved that song, finding a record that played very much to that formula didn't really engage me all that much. Yes, there was a certain tightness to the progressions I appreciated, yes, many of the guest performances were solid, and yes, I don't see anything wrong with calling back to the trends of the past - hell, I wouldn't say this album is bad. But I was definitely baffled why this became the electronic album that captivated so many people and crossed over - if it wasn't for the murderer's row of guest stars, the production was sparse and the melodies weren't particularly interesting, with production that didn't do much more to enhance it. But again, I'm coming from a weird perspective here - I do see the appeal in certain settings and 'Help Me Lose My Mind' was indeed awesome, especially as an album closer thanks to London Grammar, but I wasn't as blown away as I hoped.

And as such, when I started hearing the buzz that Caracal, the sophomore release from Disclosure with more expensive guest stars like The Weeknd and Lorde, was considered a step back from Settle, I prepared myself for the worst. Did it at least manage to be passable?

video review: 'b'lieve i'm goin down...' by kurt vile

Well, this was a surprisingly easy review. Glad I did it, though, pretty solid album.

Next up will either be The Underachievers or Disclosure, gotten plenty of requests for both. Stay tuned!

album review: 'b'lieve i'm goin down...' by kurt vile

I think I've been a bit unfair to Kurt Vile in the past. 

See, when I covered his album Wakin On A Pretty Daze in 2013, I was still very much in the learning curve when it came to album reviews, and finding an entry point into his woozy brand of half-stoned meandering rock music was tricky for me. I definitely found a lot to like about his knack for a solid hook, his fascination with smoky Americana, and his lyrics that knowingly walked the line of profound and asinine, depending on what level of irony you operated on. Where I initially took issue was how it seemed like with every record his textures were getting cleaner and more polished and losing some of the jangling momentum he had brought when he used to be a member of The War On Drugs - even though I'd agree with most that Childish Prodigy and Constant Hitmaker were uneven, I liked the rougher edges on those albums and they have some of my favourite cuts.

As such, by the time we reached the meandering and cleanest-to-date record Wakin On A Pretty Daze, I could appreciate the writing and a lot of the hazier melodies and hooks, but the cleaner production just didn't really gel as well as I liked, especially with some of the more tightly regimented electronic beats and pseudo-psychedelic textures. I missed the momentum and grit, and yet it seemed like with every record we were losing that, so when I heard that b'lieve i'm goin down was going to be even cleaner, I wasn't sure what I was going to get here, especially with buzz suggesting this album was emphasizing even a bit of a country sound. So okay, very different entry point than fuzzed-out psychedelia and lo-fi indie rock, I can work with this - so what did Kurt Vile deliver here?

video review: 'every open eye' by CHVRCHES

Wow, this was a ton of fun. Definitely recommending this, just so much energy and heart to this record, so easy to like!

Next up... see, I'm considering Silversun Pickups, but that album is driving off the wall... so I think I'll do Kurt Vile instead. Stay tuned!

album review: 'every open eye' by CHVRCHES

For me, this is one of the big ones.

See, I didn't expect much when I first planned to cover the debut album from Chvrches back in 2013. I had heard the gleaming, early-80s synthpop with gleaming high synths against spiky drum machines and distorted beats that seemed to careen off of modern indie pop on the strident vocals of Lauren Mayberry and while I suspected I'd like it, I didn't know how much. And yet at the end of 2013, The Bones of What You Believe landed on my year-end list, mostly buoyed by surprisingly tight songwriting and thematic cohesion.

Fast forward to now and the highly anticipated sophomore follow-up to that synthpop heavy-hitter... but let's be honest here, Chvrches is stepping onto a different playing field. While there were a fair share of releases inspired by 80s synthpop that dropped in 2013, the past year has given us a huge cross-section of synthesizer-driven indie pop, and with the success of Taylor Swift's 1989 and 'Shut Up And Dance' by Walk The Moon, you could argue it's gone outright mainstream. And that's before we even take into account the indie scene, where acts like Lower Dens and The Wombats have released some of the strongest records of the year and others like Metric or even Carly Rae Jepsen aren't far behind. And sure, Chvrches being great songwriters gave them an advantage, but I was curious to see how they could push their sound in a fresh direction that'd enable them to stand out, especially after a few years of intense touring. Did they pull it off on Every Open Eye?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 10, 2015 (VIDEO)

So this should have gone up last night, but apparently my upload freezes when the file is grotesquely massive or when my computer goes to sleep. Go figure.

Next up on a far lighter note, CHVRCHES! Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 10, 2015

For all of you who wanted me to cover Drake & Future's surprise collaboration release, you're going to get your wish - because it effectively crushed everything in its path and for I think is the third time this year, turned the Hot 100 into the Drake show. And please tell me that I'm not the only one who's starting to get a little sick of it at this point. Coupled with my suspicions that Views From The 6 will probably still end up dropping this year - and the fact that Drake was responsible for cosigning The Weeknd and helping him become huge - the hip-hop story has been dominated by Drake this year, and yet he got there by making some of the least interesting music of his entire career. And given the somewhat mixed critical response I've seen for What A Time To Be Alive, I'm suspecting we're going to hit the backlash zone any time now, because Drake is reaching dangerous points of overexposure. But apparently the mainstream public disagrees, because we had seventeen new songs this week and nearly half of them had Drake on them.

video review: 'deeply rooted' by scarface

And that knocks my two biggest discographies to retrace off my list. Whew, maybe the next few weeks will be a little lighter... although judging by the release schedule, that seems like a fool's hope.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

album review: 'deeply rooted' by scarface

I've said before it's hard to talk about legends, artists with careers that span decades and have made history in their respective genres. But you know when it becomes the hardest? I'll tell you - when you invest the hours of work to go through an entire lengthy discography of one of these legends... and realize most of it wasn't all that great.

And yeah, I'm talking about Scarface, member of the Geto Boys and legend of Houston hip-hop. On his own, the man has put out around a dozen albums of material and I went through every single one of them, including the double albums. And when I started, I was excited - Scarface throughout the first half of the 90s may not have seemed to do much outside of the gangsta rap formula, but he brought personality, strong wordplay, and a selection of pretty damn solid old school funk and soul to his beats, and I'll still hold that his album The Diary is damn close to a classic, taking the depression that has crept through all of his work to underscore his bleak insight. But going beyond that, there's a gap of about ten years where the albums were mixed to say the least. Quite frankly, there's only so many places Scarface could take his brand of gangsta rap, and it got repetitive in a hurry. Coupled with an influx of weaker guest stars and production that could be hit-and-miss, and you're left with a lot of filler, enough so that I understand why despite his longevity and his presence in the underground as a figure of southern hip-hop, his name doesn't always come up. Really, consistent quality only began to return by records like Made or Emeritus- after the latter of which Scarface announced that he was retiring. And really, I was okay with this- go out on a high note, nothing wrong with that.

And that's why the announcement of a new record threw me off-guard, and you have to wonder what it was that pulled Scarface out of a solid eight years of retirement that was only really split by a mixtape in 2010, one of the closest things to a significant departure in from hip-hop that wasn't caused by prison or drug addiction or death. But to be fair, the guest verses I've heard from Scarface over the past decade have been solid, especially when he worked with Freddie Gibbs on Pinata, so did Scarface come back with something worth caring about?

video review: 'poison season' by destroyer

And about time I could get this done! Fantastic record, so highly recommended!

Next up, the next of my extremely deep backlog before the tidal wave of CHVRCHES, Kurt Vile, Julia Holter, Silversun Pickups, The Underachievers, and so many more! Stay tuned!

album review: 'poison season' by destroyer

Let's talk a little about lyrics. I've often been told that in comparison with most music critics, I pay much more attention to the writing than the sound of the album itself, and in a few conversations with other critics, I've come to realize that I might be the exception than the rule with that approach. Where the conversation gets interesting is when it comes to the mainstream public, because where I'm fairly certain I care about the writing more than some critics, I know for certain I care more than most audiences, and even then it breaks down by genre how much one might care - lyrics matter more in folk and country and arguably most of hip-hop than they do in, say, electronica. Now I could argue that I care more about lyrics because I'm a writer myself and I love to decode poetry good and bad alike, but I reckon even in the cases where they're easy to ignore good writing plays a purpose. It's the primary method for the songwriter to convey their art's story or meaning to the audience, with the sonic palette around them being what sets the mood and atmosphere. For me, writing and instrumentation need to have a certain amount of balance when I consider an entire piece, with strengths and weaknesses in both being enough to save or sink an album.

That's why, believe it or not, when I hear about records that are highly touted for their lyrics above all else and aren't hip-hop albums, I'm intrigued but cautious. Sure, I'm predicated to like this sort of thing more, but that means as a critic I have to make sure I'm not giving undue praise when it's not earned. Thankfully, today we're talking about Destroyer, the project of Canadian singer-songwriter Dan Bejar and an artist whose lyrical eccentricities often are matched by eclectic and interesting instrumentation that at its worst can feel sloppy or indulgent but at best can be genuinely breathtaking in beauty and melodic composition. Affiliated with critically acclaimed indie rock group The New Pornographers, who really have a disturbingly high record of producing great side projects from their members, the most striking thing about Destroyer is the choice to switch up musical sounds with nearly every album. From the tight cohesion that defined the excellent Streethawk and Thief to the meandering and yet compelling mess of This Night to the synth-touched and goddamn spectacular Your Blues to the drunken cacophony of Trouble In Dreams. Now since his 2011 album Kaputt - which I thought had some great writing and some gorgeous melodies but could meander a little in late-80s easy listening territory, Dan Bejar has been taken longer and longer between releases, and now he's finally got a new album: Poison Season. And with it came the explosion of critical acclaim: was the album actually worthy of it?

video review: 'fetty wap' by fetty wap

Oh, I bet there was a whole load of people who probably expected me to thrash this album. And I didn't, because it was a lot more fun than I expected. Man, it's nice to like things.

Next up... honestly, no clue, this weekend is going to be a complete shitshow, I'm going to be crazy busy. Stay tuned!