video review: 'texoma shore' by blake shelton

I honestly don't think anybody gave a shit about this record. Including Blake, really, because the bad tracks really do feel like they outweigh the good here...

Anyway, hopefully we'll get to SHREDDERS next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 18, 2017 (VIDEO)

So apparently this was not my most well-edited video in the world... sigh, it happens, but I do wish this was better and there weren't blatant mistakes.

And speaking of records that might as well be mistakes...

album review: 'texoma shore' by blake shelton

So here's the frustrating thing about writing this review: if you are not a Blake Shelton fan or peripherally interested in mainstream country, I have no idea what I could say to make this interesting. Let's face it, Blake Shelton is on his eleventh album, he cowrote only one of eleven songs on it, and with the lead-off single and set of cowriters he has, I had no reason to expect anything new or challenging. It wasn't like Bringing Up The Sun, where there was a very real question how he could pivot out of bro-country, or like If I'm Honest, where the only real reason I wanted to cover it was the fallout of his failed marriage to Miranda Lambert and what he was building with Gwen Stefani. 

But this time, he explicitly said he wanted this album to reflect 'where he is now, that's just happy and going with the flow'. In other words, going into Texoma Shore this felt like a record where Blake Shelton was just punching the clock - it was shorter, it looked to be heading back to his adult-contemporary style that made for pleasant and sedate but not really interesting music, it had the feel of an artist just looking to coast - hell, he's even using the same producer! So in other words, I'm probably going to end up repeating some things I said in my last two Blake Shelton reviews, but you know, even if he's not trying I might as well give this my due diligence, so what did I find on Texoma Shore?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 18, 2017

Okay, second last week of the Billboard year, where the final list of songs that have a shot of clinching a spot narrows all the further... and where one album smash made an utterly exasperating non-impact on the Hot 100, somehow we got even less when Without Warning by Offset, 21 Savage, and Metro Boomin crashed through this week. Now again, how much any of this will matter in a few weeks when the rest of Taylor Swift's reputation destroys everything in its path, I can't tell you, but for now, I wouldn't put money on the Hot 100 remaining stable, even into next week.

video review: 'take me apart' by kelela

Ehhh... man, I wish I liked this more. It happens, I guess, but still, kind of disappointing.

Okay, so either Shredders or Blake Shelton (sigh) next, but we've also got Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'take me apart' by kelela

I'll be honest: I should have covered this weeks ago. And while if we were to go back to 2014 I'd say my prior ambivalence was due to my general unfamiliarity and distaste for certain tropes in R&B, that's changed over the past three years, thanks to me covering a fair amount more in this genre and finding styles and sounds I really liked.

But let me be honest, the reason I was not more on the ball with this album was a lot more human and mildly more embarrassing: because somewhere in my brain wires got crossed and I kept thinking that Kelela was Kehlani, another R&B act who released her full-length debut this year and with whom I was a lot more familiar thanks to a number of guest appearances... which was also a record I missed covering. Now I did listen to SweetSexySavage - it's okay, a few good songs let down by more filler than it needed and some frustrating production choices - but again, I'm getting off track here because Kelela is a very different performer, even if their career trajectories fit a similar timeline. From the guest appearances I did hear from Kelela, she was going in a far less commercial direction, signed to Warp and working with Gorillaz and Solange and Danny Brown. And her own musical background is a lot more eclectic - she started off singing in jazz and even a progressive metal group before switching to more alternative, electronic R&B. In other words, when you factor in the critical acclaim and the line-up of producers and songwriters she was working with - the names that jumped out at me were Ariel Rechtshaid, Romy Croft of The xx, and Arca - this was bound to be a fascinating listen, so what did I find on Take Me Apart?

video review: '4eva is a mighty long time' by big k.r.i.t.

So yeah, excellent record, so easy to recommend - an easy sell for fans but really I can see this having tons of crossover appeal if properly marketed. Also, it's a ton of fun.

Next up, though, some old business... and it might be disappointing to a bunch of you. Stay tuned!

album review: '4eva is a mighty long time' by big k.r.i.t.

I've always been of the opinion that Big K.R.I.T. should be so much bigger than he is.

And really, from the more people I've talked to, that's not an uncommon opinion: Big K.R.I.T. seemed like the guy destined to propel his career to the stars, driven off of mixtapes that could often been perceived as dynamic and potent records in their own right. Huge hooks, sharp writing that drew upon Southern hip-hop traditions without ever feeling like a gimmick or old-fashioned, and he produced the majority of it himself with enough flash and polish to court the radio, Big K.R.I.T. showed incredible versatility and promise, and when he got signed by Def Jam, everyone thought it would be his ticket to the top...

And that didn't happen. In fact, if I were to look at utterly tragic missteps in hip-hop management, it would be that Big K.R.I.T. never took off in the mid 2010s the way he should - and yes, you could make the argument that those major label projects were not as good as the mixtapes - in that they were decent to really good but never quite great - but I've covered entirely too much mediocre music that's impacted the Hot 100, whoever was promoting or managing him screwed this up big time. So it was no surprise when Big K.R.I.T. and Def Jam parted ways in 2016, keeping the mixtapes steady as he prepared a double album of material for independent release. Now to some extent I was a little concerned about this - to me double albums are always a risky proposition, especially if it becomes clear it could have been cut down. And the truth is that between the albums and mixtapes Big K.R.I.T. has put out a lot of solid material that has nevertheless done plenty to fill and nearly saturate his lane, and there was a part of me that felt for this to really stand out and resonate it had to be a home run for him, a swing for the fences, really elevate his sound to his best. So did we get it?

video review: 'five' by hollywood undead

Well, unsurprising to anyone, this is garbage... but really, did we have any reason to expect otherwise?

Next up, something MUCH better, stay tuned!

album review: 'five' by hollywood undead

So if it isn't unbelievably obvious, I didn't want to cover this. More importantly, I have no idea why anybody wanted me to cover this - I'd like to think my Patrons watch my reviews and aren't just adding records to fill space on the schedule, and the fact that this consistently got so many votes utterly baffles me.

But I don't want to mince words here with this: Hollywood Undead sucks. As someone who likes good metal and good hip-hop and can tolerate some crossover between the two and even appreciates a good horrorcore gimmick, this is the sort of group I would have avoided like the plague, because, as I keep on saying, I never had an angry white boy phase! And after I listened through all of their last albums, that's really the only demographic I can see somewhat appreciating this, even ironically. The best way to describe their first record was trying to split the difference between Eminem and Linkin Park, but the rapping was nowhere close to as good, the clean singing was a poor imitation of Chester Bennington at best, and the production has aged particularly badly. They got a bit heavier on their second record, but the clean singing and rapping somehow got worse and I found their blend of meat-headed flexing and flimsy shock tactics to almost reach the point of parody. To someone who listens to far nastier hip-hop and metal, this doesn't shock me, but unlike Marilyn Manson or Eminem, there was no depth or skill or potent fire to outlast the shock tactics, and the ballads might be some of the most embarrassing music I've heard all year - how anyone can justify a song like 'Bullet', I have no idea. And from there... look, no matter how many bargain-barrel Skrillex-ripoff effects you add to subsequent records, it doesn't make the writing any less walking cringe! The best thing is that if you completely tune out anything these guys are saying, the production can go in a somewhat interesting direction with a decent hook or groove, but that's not saying much. So forgive me when I say I had no expectations for this new record, which reportedly was taking things in a completely new direction... yeah, I'll believe it when I hear it. So what happened on Five?

video review: 'meaning of life' by kelly clarkson

And we aren't out of the woods with these reviews yet... it's coming tomorrow, stay tuned!

album review: 'meaning of life' by kelly clarkson

Okay, let's try this again.

For those of you who don't know, when I covered Piece By Piece by Kelly Clarkson in 2015 I was, to put it mildly, underwhelmed. It wasn't that it was precisely bad, but it certainly was forgettable and sloppily produced and often poorly written to boot, the sort of record that really didn't add anything new or interesting to the pop culture conversation. It really only was redeemed by the fact that Clarkson remains a great singer to this day, but it's not like the production or compositions flattered her as much as they could, and the second you compare this to what she was doing in the mid-2000s... well, one of the phrases I used was 'sell-out', but in truth any sort of greater unique artistic ideal went out the window after My December underperformed ten years ago.

And you know, I got a lot of crap for those statements. I stand by them, but I also think something was missed: namely, when Kelly Clarkson gets good material she's a tremendous pop singer. I put her in a similar category to Demi Lovato in that they're both singers with huge voices that sound better in rock than R&B or soul or gospel, but if the pop song is great I'll take it, as I did when her cover of 'It's Quiet Uptown' from The Hamilton Mixtape made my year-end list of the best songs of 2016! But I was genuinely worried about Meaning Of Life, not just because she had changed labels but also because if 'Love So Soft' was representative of the artistic pivot she was trying, it was not one that remotely flattered her voice! But my Patrons wanted me to review this, and while there were a few returning producers overall she looked like she had a new team - even despite having only four writing credits on a fourteen song album, but whatever. So how is Meaning Of Life?

video review: 'pacific daydream' by weezer

Well, this was disappointing... eh, it happens.

And on the topic of disappointments... well, stay tuned!

album review: 'pacific daydream' by weezer

So as many of you probably know, I didn't like the last Weezer record, another self-titled release otherwise known as the 'white album'. To me I found the lyrical arc undercooked and occasionally very questionable, the delivery underwhelming, and the production to be all over the place, not helped by bringing in producer Jake Sinclair who didn't seem to grasp the melodic subtleties in the groove that have always been Weezer's greatest strength on records like the Blue Album and Pinkerton and Everything Will Be All Right In The End. But I'll also be the first to admit that I was in the minority with that opinion - a lot of folks found something in the white album they liked and for diehard Weezer fans... hey, given what they've gone through over the past twenty years, all the power to them.

So it got me worried when I started hearing the buzz for Pacific Daydream - not just that it had resulted in the shelving of darker material for the rumoured 'black album', but also that it was a more sedate, pop-leaning record, which is about the last direction I think most Weezer fans want them to go. And to get there, they changed producers again to bring in J.R. Rotem and mega-producer Butch Walker, who actually has worked with Weezer before - on Raditude. And when it didn't look like even the critics were on-board this time, I was genuinely worried - and look, I'll never say I'm the biggest Weezer fan, but Rivers Cuomo knows his way around a really good hook. But considering the last time I heard Rivers Cuomo collaborate with a pop band in 2017 it was AJR's The Click, I had very little faith that his pop instincts right now. But okay, what did I find with Pacific Daydream?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 11, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this was a bizarre week - but I'm mostly pleased with it, to be honest. But next up... whoo boy, none of this looks good, so stay tuned?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - november 11, 2017

So I've been predicting for some time that the Hot 100 would be hit with a pretty major shift that would knock things loose, really shake up the status quo. And yet somehow I think we got the worst of both worlds with this, with the top ten mostly staying static, the majority of our new arrivals hitting in the bottom half of the Hot 100... and it's all coming from a collaboration between Future and Young Thug. Yes, over half the songs here are from Super Slimey, and whatever else we got... well, we'll get to it.

video review: 'trial by fire' by yelawolf

So the most common comment I've been seeing is that people forgot this album was coming out... not a good sign for album promotion, and a damn shame too - the album is great, and with 'Sabrina' is at least worth the cost of admission.

Eh, whatever - next up is Weezer, but before then we've got Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'trial by fire' by yelawolf

I'm not sure how to talk about Yelawolf these days. I'd like to open up this review with a discussion how after the underwhelming Radioactive he pivoted into a country rap vein for his sophomore project Love Story in 2015, an album I still think is underrated to this day. Seriously, even though that record definitely has its flaws - Yelawolf was still ironing out kinks in the genre fusion and the record probably ran too long for its own good - two songs from that album made my year-end list that year, and while both a considerable percentage of country and hip-hop fans seems utterly allergic to the concept, speaking as somebody who knows both genres and who has heard entirely too many bro-country acts try hip-hop flows, Yelawolf was ahead of the curve. He was a good rapper - you don't get signed to Shady if you're not - he had good taste in country, and he was willing to write frankly about the common topics that only underground hip-hop and indie country would touch - poverty, depression, alcoholism, and a backwoods that felt far more textured and realistic than any bro-country pandering.

And if we could just proceed to the new album from there, I'd be thrilled... but let's be blunt, Yelawolf has had a bad couple of years since Love Story. He got considerable - and justified - backlash for his Confederate flag comments which led a lot of hip-hop to want nothing to do with him, his friend Shawty Fatt was killed in a car accident, and when you factor in the pressures to exceed Love Story's success, you can see why it led to a breakdown on tour last year, which led to dates being cancelled and caused Trial By Fire to be pushed back. And yet he pulled it together - a full-hour long release with guest appearances from both hip-hop and country that he produced entirely himself, and enough drama to surely inform the subject matter. So, what did I find in this Trial By Fire?

video review: 'skin & earth' by lights

Yes, I know this is very much late, but honestly, I didn't have much to say on this... outside of 'Savage', kind of an underwhelming record.

But now onto something more recent... whoo boy, this'll be fun, stay tuned!

album review: 'skin & earth' by lights

So I'll be the first to admit I've been really hard on Lights in the past, the Canadian indie synthpop artist who has fluttered around the edges of the mainstream for the past few years now, especially in Canada. And for me it can feel awkward because I keep getting the feeling that I should like her work more than I do. The Listening was a slice of bubbly, exuberant electro-pop, Siberia was moody and experimental as it fused in dubstep, and Little Machines split the difference between the styles... and yet I'd struggle to say that outside of isolated moments that these records just never quite connected for me. The framing of the writing and Lights' delivery never quite meshed with the synth tones she chose, and in years where there was an abundance of artists pursuing similar sounds - particularly CHVRCHES - I never thought her material stood out.

But I've covered a lot less synthpop in the past year - hell, in 2017 I've barely covered the genre at all - and so maybe without my own personal saturation I'd find something distinct and special on this project, which Lights herself has described as her most carefree and fierce record to date. Okay, I'm in the mood for some pop like this in an increasingly dour year, what did we get?