album review: 'what now' by sylvan esso

So here's a problem that pretty much only music nerds and music critics have that I'm fairly certain I've brought up before: we simply hear so much that it becomes a lot harder to surprise us with sounds or tones that are presumed to be 'on the cutting edge'. Oh, it can happen with an interesting melodic turn of phrase or lyrics that twist in a fascinating direction or an artist presenting themselves in a starkly different way, but at the end of the day, I have to admit there's a part of my mind that wants to immediately place new records in a context with the sounds of the time. And yes, I know that's not entirely healthy - go into everything fresh, that whole thing - but context is important, and if I feel I don't acknowledge at least some of it, I'm not doing my job.

So take Sylvan Esso - when I first heard their self-titled record, their sound immediately fell into place in my mind: imagine a group who smoothed over the edges of Purity Ring with gentler folk tendencies, and an odd sense of heartfelt but wry humor that could draw you towards the huskier tones rather than shock with visceral detail. By necessity that made them a subtler group, and yet one that I was certain was never to get the same buzz - the hooks had a slower burn, the writing required a little more to unpack, and while I wasn't crazy about that debut, I definitely heard its appeal - they made complete sense in the indie pop scene of 2014, at least for me.

And to my mild surprise, that record actually turned out to be a modest hit, prompting a switch in label and the band to release a follow-up this year that finally managed to get to the top of my schedule. Apparently, they were going to taking more of a satirical approach to bigger sounds in modern pop this time around - which made sense to me, given their sense of humor and style of delivery - so I did want to cover this, so what did we find on What Now?

movie review: 'spider-man: homecoming' (VIDEO)

Well, about damn time I got to this - and it was pretty damn good. Not really great - and I'm still working on trying to get the vlog microphone tuned, it's going to be a work in progress, folks - but it was a cute little gimmick to start things off.

But that's not all you're getting tonight... stay tuned!

video review: 'the click' by ajr

So I may have gotten a tad bellicose and profane in this review - hey, when you're in hell, you do as the demons do, I guess.

In the mean time, I've got a few other things coming up tonight that are much better...

album review: 'the click' by AJR

A friendly warning: this review will not be safe for work. There will be plentiful profanity in descriptive and disgusting varieties. I'm not quite certain what the qualifiers for any bots to flag a video like this as age-gated, but this review will certainly test them. If you have an issue with such a bellicose manner, I highly recommend you click away now, because the next several paragraphs of this script will surely aggravate you. I also recommend if you're a fan of this band, unless you're into a sort of masochism that involves sounding, you might want to clear out too - to put it mildly, you're not going to like what I'll have to say.

video review: 'big fish theory' by vince staples

Well, this was a fascinating listen... not sure how well this review will be received, but eh, it happens.

Next up... actually, no idea, so we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'big fish theory' by vince staples

I have a hard time getting a grip on what Vince Staples is doing. 

And I don't think I'm the only one here. Like most people I started getting into him through his 2014 EP Hell Can Wait and its relentless, hard-hitting darkness, tinged with a frank gallows humor where the edge was only intensified by how close it hit to home for him. The language was blunt, the production was stripped down and lean, and by the time he released his viciously sharp double album debut Summertime 06, I was all set to get on-board... and yet unlike so many critics, I wasn't quite taken in. Maybe I was expecting the curt lyricism to build to a little more or show a little more refinement, maybe the production was in fact too stripped down to stick with me, maybe it was that Vince Staples delivered an hour-long double album for his debut that probably should have been trimmed back in order to add a little more density... look, I remember liking the record a fair bit, but I didn't love it.

And yet from there, I got the impression Vince wasn't one to stick with that sound, and when I heard his follow-up this year Big Fish Theory was attracting controversy for pivoting more towards hip-house and Detroit techno... well, there was a part of me that wasn't surprised, especially given that style would probably compliment the blunt nihilistic themes of his lyricism fairly well. Hell, I had heard how well he had worked opposite Gorillaz earlier this year, and this sound on this record was probably aiming to be more ragged and experimental, especially for hip-hop. So okay, what did we hook on Big Fish Theory?

video review: 'something to tell you' by haim

Believe me, folks, I wanted to like this as much as anyone. Not precisely bad, but I'm going to forget this exists in a week, I'd put money on it.

Now to cover something I should have covered a few weeks ago... stay tuned!

album review: 'something to tell you' by haim

I'll be the first to admit I was really hard on HAIM the first time I covered them. Again, I can make the excuse that I was very early in my reviewing career on YouTube, and that I probably could have afforded to be a little more deft in my commentary - but I'm also not going to deny that for all of the hype thrown behind this group, I've consistently been underwhelmed by the actual music and songwriting on display.

Which of course is awkward for me to say because on some level, HAIM is the modern mainstream music critic's dream project to review: independent and underground enough to earn hipster points, but not too weird or unconventional to lose the mainstream public - hell they're friends of Taylor Swift, which is an easy namedrop for clicks! They're indebted to folk and indie acts of the past but with a very modern style of songwriting that would win over the poptimist. They had an image that seemed a little more weighty than your average girl group, they all played their own instruments, they were quirky, it's very easy to see why a lot of critics were taken in... and I wasn't one of them. And I'm not saying that to brag, I wish I could have found more to like in the songwriting behind HAIM to really appreciate and get onboard the bandwagon, but outside of specific songs like 'The Wire' - which is awesome and made my year-end lists of the best songs of 2013 - I was just underwhelmed and a little unsettled by some of the implications in that writing.

But again, your average music critic's dream band, so with all the acclaim you'd expect them to have a follow-up ready fairly quickly... and now it's four years later. I'll give them points for two years of touring, but apparently initial studio sessions were unfruitful and it took a lot longer for the band to pull things together - which struck me as odd, given that I never found their arrangements or writing to be incredibly complex or challenging to assemble. But hey, there's an art in blending styles and nailing the formula well, so now that we finally have Something To Tell You, what did we get?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 22, 2017 (VIDEO)

My lord, this was a rough week to get through. Not exactly terrible, but mediocrity is almost worse on some level.

Eh, whatever, time for something more recent, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 22, 2017

Okay, maybe I'm just not as in-tune with what will cross onto the Hot 100 as I thought as I was, especially when it comes to album tracks. I knew that Jay-Z's 4:44 would take the wide release to land on the Hot 100, but I did think that there'd be at least a few album tracks from Calvin Harris' last release that'd have a chance, or maybe a bit of traction for Kesha's big comeback single 'Praying'... but while of course it landed on the Canadian charts, thanks to not getting a full tracking week it just missed the Hot 100, and what we got instead... well, it's interesting, I'll say that.

video review: 'whiteout conditions' by the new pornographers

And there's the last one - whew, about damn time I got to this, and it was mostly worth the wait!

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and something more recent, so enjoy!

video review: 'stoney' by post malone (4th year anniversary!)

Well, I should have seen this coming... but really, this was a slog and honestly a bit of a letdown when it comes to anniversary episodes. I was hoping for more from you guys, especially if you're just going to troll with a bad record from one of the worst years in modern pop culture.

But we're STILL not done here...

video review: '4:44' by jay-z

Okay, LOTS of updates to keep everyone in the loop, so let's start with a surprisingly great record. Yeah, short, effective, and it does exactly what Jay needed to do. Check it out!

But that's not all...

album review: 'whiteout conditions' by the new pornographers

So I've talked a little about supergroups before, the music fan's dream collaborations that more often than not never quite live up to expectations... but of course, it's not always like that, and considering how much I tend to champion Canadian music, it's a damn tragedy it has taken me so long to get to this group.

So, The New Pornographers. Born out the Vancouver indie rock scene around the turn of the millennium, many of the members had prominent roles in their own groups before coming together for this, and looking back now it's almost a little astounding how well it turned out. Carl Newman was widely held as the primary songwriter and band 'leader', but when you surround him with acts that would become songwriting powerhouses in their own right like Neko Case and Dan Bejar of Destroyer and a host of other 90s Canadian indie veterans, the lineup was almost too good to fail.

And sure enough, for the first half of the 2000s The New Pornographers made some of the catchiest and most infectious power pop and indie rock you'd hear, getting a ton of well-deserved critical acclaim. Yes, things did slip with Challengers and Together, but they were able to yank things back in line with Brill Bruisers in 2014, a record I really wish I could have covered three years ago, cranking up the synthesizer lines and creating a project that didn't quite feel as backwards looking or indulgent as earlier record could occasionally feel. And while I was excited to hear they were going to push further down that new wave path on Whiteout Conditions, I'm not going to deny I was concerned to hear that Dan Bejar didn't contribute to it. Apparently he's been hard at work on the next Destroyer project, but in terms of songwriting - and this is no disrespect to Newman - but Bejar is in a class of his own, and I was concerned what his absence could mean for the new album. But hey, it was bound to be energetic and fun, right, even if I am months late to the punch, so what did we get with Whiteout Conditions?

album review: 'stoney' by post malone (fourth year anniversary)

...I would say I'm surprised about this, but the truth is that I'm not. When it comes to YouTube after all, if you say you're not going to do something  - as I did - and then you give an option to the fans - as I did - you all will take the opportunity to watch me suffer. 

But here's the truth: I think any sort of conversation surrounding Post Malone that I'm having now is very different that if I had reviewed his debut record several months back, because his position has evolved with regards to popular culture. He's not entirely the guy that seems tailor-made by record executives to capitalize on mumble rap with a white artist, but instead more of a character who can accept jokes and criticism with good humor and shows up on a podcast with h3h3productions. It's led to a bit of a weird situation, and something I've noticed with a lot of white rappers: they either try to go hard with real hip-hop credibility, or they look to cash in with dumb party rap that's so disposable that the punchline for this guy's career has already been written. And while there is a part of me that feels it's a little twisted and wrong and says a lot about hip-hop audiences that black artists making more lyrical or interesting music - or even other mumble rappers - have been ignored in favor of someone appropriating that style that they can relate to because they're often white, I'm also very much aware that Post Malone has a shelf life. Frankly, I'm surprised he's had as much success into this year as he has, especially with 'Congratulations' being a top ten hit.

All of that being said, while the cultural apparatus and impact of Post Malone is kind of fascinating, his music isn't. To put it bluntly, while 'White Iverson' is terrible and deserves its spot on my worst hits of 2016, what makes it more exasperating is how boring and lifeless it felt, combining the worthless tedium of a Jack Johnson song with the shallow monotony of most mumble rap, and let's be real: 'Congratulations' is not much better. In short there was a very real reason why I didn't want to cover Stoney... but you all insisted, so now, beating all other possible options by a nearly a two-to-one ratio, I'm reviewing this: so what did we get?

movie review: 'baby driver' (VIDEO)

Shit, nearly forgot to post this. Oh, well, it's an amazing movie, SEE IT already!

album review: '4:44' by jay-z

My first review on YouTube was originally going to be for Jay-Z's Magna Carta, Holy Grail.

Now granted, if you go back into my history my first review was actually Don't Look Down by Skylar Grey - not exactly an improvement - but that was a conscious choice on my part, because Jay-Z is not the sort of artist I tackle lightly. I've gone on the record as not being much of a Jay-Z fan - he's made his classics but he's also made a lot of lazy, overly commercial hits that coast more on presence and bravado than actual wordplay or insight, especially in recent years, and it has led to a lot of records I wish I liked a lot more than I do. And let's be very honest: Jay-Z the man has been eclipsed by Jay-Z the multi-millionaire icon entirely too often, both in his public persona and his art, and while his success would have made some of that inevitable, it's not like he's one to showcase something deeper or draw attention to details that would allow an audience to connect with more of his material.

Then Lemonade happened - and look, there's no way to even approach the conversation of this album without mentioning the moment where Beyonce cut loose and delivered the best record of her career - and again, I'm far from a Beyonce fan! It was the sort of accusation that rocked one of the most established institutions in mainstream music, you almost couldn't escape it. But just like with Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, I was intensely curious to how Jay-Z would respond, or if he even could, given who he is and his place in hip-hop. Miranda Lambert owned the fact that she cheated, and it led to a drifting, intensely complicated picture over an experimental double album... whereas Jay seemed to be aiming smaller, maybe even more personal. A record not even reaching forty minutes, ten tracks, one producer with No I.D., a few intensely talented guest stars including his wife. There wasn't anything indulgent or meandering about this, which flew in the face of the majority of his grandiose material over the past decade, both on his own records and in guest verses - and yeah, there was no way I wasn't going to check this out. So what did I find on 4:44?

video review: 'funk wav bounces vol. 1' by calvin harris

And here we go... and I actually liked this a fair bit more than I was expecting, which was generally pleasant. 

Next up... let's talk about Jay-Z. Whoo boy, here we go!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - july 15, 2017 (VIDEO)

So this was a pretty underwhelming week, but at least it was short?

Okay, next up, Calvin Harris, let's go!

album review: 'funk wav bounces: vol 1' by calvin harris

I think some people may have gotten the wrong impression surrounding me and Calvin Harris - it wasn't that I ever hated him, it's just that I never cared about him. I remember when he broke through around the early 2010s and while I could identify plenty of bad producer-driven EDM from that era, Calvin Harris just didn't stand out. The tones and melodic progressions got in your head, but the writing was formless and generic, the production was underwhelming, and his own singing voice... yeah, nobody was going to a Calvin Harris record to hear Calvin Harris, even despite the bizarre amount of success he landed with 'Summer' in 2014.

And up until 2017, that all seemed to be true. He had a few songs that were tolerable - I still hold 'Outside' with Ellie Goulding didn't get the push it deserved - but beyond that, he didn't resonate, especially a lot of his work with Rihanna that always felt incredibly underwritten and tired. And then 2017 happened, and the change in sound was measurable. Sure, given how Harris pivoted towards deep house on songs like 'How Deep Is Your Love' he's always shown himself to be a malleable producer, but a shift towards more organic disco, and adopting the splatter paint collaboration style more reminiscent of DJ Khaled... that was measurable, and proved that his new project might actually be interesting, especially considering how well songs like 'Slide', 'Heatstroke', and 'Feels' worked for me. So for the first time... pretty much ever, I was looking forward to covering a Calvin Harris record - so what did we get out of it?