video review: 'liberty' by lindi ortega

So I have to admit, I'm a little surprised to realize that Lindi Ortega wound up blocking me on Twitter... shame, I thought this album was pretty damn good and she may never see it.

Anyway, next up is some more country (albeit of a slightly different stripe), so stay tuned!

album review: 'liberty' by lindi ortega

So I've talked before about narrative-driven concept records in country music, and while you'd think they'd be more common given the genre's penchant for telling stories... look, I can barely say that with a straight face anymore, especially in the checklist-driven mainstream scene. But even outside of that, for a country artist to take a real risk and build a coherent, multi-part narrative over an entire project... that requires a level of ambition, forethought, and oftentimes budget that can be daunting for any act, especially in the indie scene.

But that wasn't going to stop Lindi Ortega this time. After she broke out in 2012 with the excellent Cigarettes & Truckstops that won her a ton of justifiable critical acclaim, most of which carried into her 2013 follow-up Tin Star, I had the feeling that she was on the cusp of really taking at least the indie scene by storm, if not more. And yet while I mostly liked 2015's Faded Gloryville, it was also clear that her vintage, rockabilly-infused country lane was starting to lose its luster in the face of an increasingly oversaturated scene and songs that just didn't rise to her best... and beyond all of that, there's just not a lot of money in that brand of indie country, and Nashville is an expensive city. So she left it altogether, came back to Canada, and set out to make her most ambitious project to date, putting aside the rockabilly tones for something grander and rougher, pulling on spaghetti western bombast like that of Ennio Morricone for the gritty melodrama to come. Three acts, fifteen tracks, with songs in Spanish and English blending mariachi with her smoky blend of noir and country rock, I've been wanting to cover this for weeks... and now that it's up the schedule, let's dig in: what did we get on Liberty?

video review: 'COSMIC' by bazzi

You know, I rarely cover acts who blow up in this vein... but I'm kind of curious to see if this review takes off, it's intriguing.

Next up... whoo boy, this'll be interesting, one of the most ambitious country records of the year, so stay tuned!

album review: 'COSMIC' by bazzi

I'm not going to deny how weird it feels when a record like this winds up on my schedule.

See, it's been very well-documented that I was no big fan of the Vine dance crazes that dominated entirely too much of the Hot 100 in the mid-2010s, and while there were a fair few Vine stars that found careers after the platform collapsed - some of which I like a fair bit, such the David Dobrik vlog squad or Gabbie Hanna - the only one associated primarily with music I came close to liking was Shawn Mendes, and even he has had some gross low points. But Bazzi's meteoric rise might be even stranger - he also started on Vine, but the breakthrough of his song 'Mine' was linked to a Snapchat lens going viral. Now considering Snapchat is in its own dire straits right now, I couldn't help but feel surprised to discover that not only did Bazzi have a record ready to capitalize on his sudden success - seemingly backed by Warner and Atlantic to boot - but that it looked like a fully fleshed out project: sixteen tracks, self-produced with only a assist from duo Rice 'N' Peas, and getting a surprising amount of buzz to get up my schedule remarkably quickly. And considering 'Mine' was a pretty good song, I was inclined to see if this guy was truly ready for the big time, so what did we get with COSMIC?

video review: 'joyride' by tinashe

Well, this was... actually better than I expected. A few really choice cuts keeps this in interesting territory, definitely worth the listen if you're curious.

Next up, let's go with this Bazzi project - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 21, 2018 (VIDEO)

So yeah, crazy busy episode, but it seems like it's going down well, so enjoy!

album review: 'joyride' by tinashe

At this point it's hard not to feel like Tinashe should be bigger.

And believe it or not, this has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion on her music - I didn't really like Aquarius, and while I found Nightride a modest improvement, there was R&B I liked more that year - hell, more R&B I liked both years. And in a sense it's hard to escape the feeling that Tinashe might have fallen victim to a peculiar phenomenon I've observed with rising R&B starlets: they get one big mainstream-crossover hit, their breakthrough album gets critical acclaim and hits a bunch of year-end lists... and then if they don't have the guaranteed follow-up smash on the next project, the interest dries up in record time, even if it might turn out those later projects are better or more interesting. But even then, Tinashe is on a major label, you would think there'd be more of a marketing push to break her into the spotlight... but her sales have not been great, and it would be a damn tragedy if she releases her strongest project to the weakest public response yet. Granted, I did have concerns given how much Joyride was delayed and that it had the guest stars that she hadn't needed on Nightride, and it's not like Offset, Future, Ty Dolla $ign and French Montana are known for consistent quality, but given the years of development time, there had to be something potent here, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 21, 2018

There are a lot of narratives that need to be considered going into this week, most of which I predicted and those that I didn't I'm not sure I wanted to entertain. Of course the biggest story is the Cardi B album bomb, but like last week the Hot 100 would have been plenty busy without her.

video review: 'find a light' by blackberry smoke (ft. the lp club)

Not quite a great project - which yes, is disappointing - but overall, pretty solid and I'm happy Ethan and I were able to pull this together. Enjoy!

video review: 'sister cities' by the wonder years

Man, this was long in coming - and holy shit, this was awesome! Definitely happy to have covered this.

Next up, before I tackle Laura Veirs, I've got a crossover in the works, so stay tuned!

album review: 'sister cities' by the wonder years

So here's something as a music critic I'm very conscious of, but I doubt is noticed by anyone else: the 'token' album. And even if you're not a critic you've probably seen evidence of this in "I don't like x genre but I like this". Now on the one hand the records that typically fall into this narrow category can hit universal appeal that even those who might not be fond of the genre can't deny the greatness, but when you have musical subgenres that don't tend to get critical respect, there's an air of condescension that comes with these picks that can be pretty obnoxious. Now I've already mentioned this can happen with artists like Kacey Musgraves, but she was making an obvious play for crossover appeal - what we're going to be talking about today are artists who are damn great within their own genre and yet get picked up as critical darlings as the 'token band' by folks and critics who'll never deign to go deeper.

And yet with a band like The Wonder Years, you'd think critics would have learned. Coming from the fertile intersection of pop punk and the 2010s emo revival, their early work may have been slagged as formulaic, but by 2011 they had hit a serious stride with Suburbia I've Given You All And Now I'm Nothing, tapping into the decay of American suburbia and existential teenage angst on a much broader, more universal scale. This is a group that fused the layered, personal detail of emo with the huge hooks of pop punk, and it was a synthesis that won over fans of the genre very quickly, especially on their follow-ups The Greatest Generation and No Closer To Heaven, records that are pretty damn great even if I personally prefer Suburbia. But those records started to get picked up by some critics as their 'token' pop punk or emo act on year end lists, and as much as that could feel galling from the outside, it did mean their newest record Sister Cities was starting to pick up a lot more attention... which might have come a rough time, as many of the longtime fans were saying this record didn't quite hold up to earlier releases. But hey, I still wanted to cover it given that I've been criminally late to the party with this group before, so how is Sister Cities?

video review: 'isolation' by kali uchis

Yep, I know, I'm late with this one, but really, this project wasn't on my favourites regardless. 

The Wonder Years up next, so stay tuned!

album review: 'isolation' by kali uchis

I was genuinely surprised with how many people were requesting I cover this record.

Well, okay, maybe not that surprised - many people know her most for her Grammy-nominated collaboration with Daniel Caesar, but I was familiar with her name going a little further back, mostly through her connections to Tyler, the Creator. And dig a little deeper into the featuring credits and I've seen her name come up a fair bit associated with Gorillaz and Miguel and I don't recall saying anything bad about her. And going back to those collaborations, the weakest might have been 'Caramelo Duro' with Miguel, but she did a great job on 'She's My Collar' with Gorillaz and even better opposite Tyler on 'See You Again'.

And that was enough to at least get me intrigued to do a little more research into where she was taking this debut. Reportedly her mixtapes pulled on a broader cross-section of sounds, spanning doo-wop, jazz, bossa nova, and of course reggaeton given her Columbian heritage. And considering the massive amount of critical acclaim she's received for this breakout project - and if you dig through the liner notes, you'll see names ranging from Thundercat and BADBADNOTGOOD to Damon Albarn and Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, and that's before you get the who's who of big name producers from Greg Kurstin to Sounwave. Alright, I'm intrigued, what did we get on Isolation?

video review: 'the scars of man on the once nameless wilderness (i and ii)' by panopticon

And man alive, this took a ton to finish. Next up, Kali Uchis - stay tuned!

album review: 'the scars of man on the once nameless wilderness (i and ii)' by panopticon

I'm not sure without Panopticon I'd have gotten into black metal.

Oh, it was a genre I was exploring, but it was mostly at arm's length, tentatively probing into alien walls of screaming guitars, hammering drums and howled vocals, and while the huge melodies were appealing in the more atmospheric material, I was waiting for that special record to really click. And then came Panopticon, blending in elements of bluegrass and folk and country, genres I knew well, and with records like Kentucky served as my bridge into a genre that captured the primal character of Appalachians, both at its most abandoned and wild to the mountains ravaged by the coal industry and desperate poverty. Yeah, even though I've always found the lyrics from Panopticon nearly impossible to make out - and project mastermind Austin Lunn has no interest in making them easy - there was something to his guttural roars that painted a stark picture to pull me back again and again, culminating when he released Autumn Eternal and it made my year-end list for the best records of 2015.

So, three years later... and we have a two-hour double album, half of which was atmospheric black metal, the other half country folk with an ambitious breadth of instrumentation that almost seemed to imply a more progressive side coming through with this band. And with that album title, it was hard to avoid the thought that Austin Lunn might be returning to the more stark political subtext that hammered through Kentucky. And while I knew this was going to be a LOT to fully take in... hell, I was on-board, so what did I find on The Scars Of Man On The Once Nameless Wilderness (I and II)?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 14, 2018 (VIDEO)

Okay, that took WAY too long... but in the mean time, I think I'm finally ready to talk about Panopticon, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 14, 2018

...you know, there was a time when an album bomb happened it would at least slow existing traffic on the Hot 100. But since The Weeknd's new EP only had six songs - and seems like it's already vanishing from the cultural conversation given how flat and turgid it was - aside from every single song from it breaking we also had a pretty active week regardless - at least until the next album bomb with Cardi B, and I'd put a fair amount of money on that being far more disruptive.

video review: 'invasion of privacy' by cardi b

Yes, I know that Panopticon was on the schedule first, I'm working as quick as I can to get through it... but it's a two hour behemoth of a record and I'm still chugging through.

But before we get to that, Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

album review: 'invasion of privacy' by cardi b

So I think it's about time I discuss something from my past reviews that has continued to spark a lot of controversy to this day and has been used by many as a cheap attempt to discredit my opinion: that time I gave Iggy Azalea's The New Classic a light 7/10 - don't worry, I'll tie it all together, I do have a point. Because in hindsight, that looks bad, especially considering the hard tailspin that her career took in the years that followed and how everyone really wants to forget just how those singles ruled 2014 and how her phony accent and ignorant behavior effectively discredited her from the jump.

So it might surprise you all for me to say I actually stand by that review, mostly because I think a lot of the criticisms she got were kind of bullshit. Oh, she's an awful human being and is completely ignorant and says disgusting things and oh hi 6ix9ine, Kodak Black, and XXXTENTACION, so where's our moral ground here again? Oh, but she was clearly co-opting an accent that was not her own to sound hard and pay no attention to the Drake in the corner over there, to say nothing of the dozens of bargain-barrel rappers who hopped on the Migos flow, including MCs who should really know better! And if all of that smacks of whataboutism... well yeah, it is, but it's more highlighting the hypocrisy inherent in the mainstream rap hype cycle. And that's not to excuse the real issues with The New Classic - it's all over the place, it falls apart in the final few songs, the production can feel flimsy and dated, it's a slice of shallow pop rap that I probably gave a shade too much credit, it'd probably have a slightly lower score now from me... and yet it effectively delivers what it set out to do, with really solid flows, strong charisma, and occasionally decent wordplay and good hooks. And yet that being said, it was a record built for disposability, and like countless other pop rappers before her, I'm not surprised Iggy Azalea couldn't follow it up.

And thus when I see Cardi B... really, I see so many of the same characteristics. Strong flows, tons of personality, occasionally decent wordplay and good hooks, and what do you know, her breakout hit was a flow jacked outright from another rapper! Hell, you're already seeing analogous authenticity questions, from Cardi B transitioning from stripper and reality show star to rapper to Iggy Azalea's underground come-up. And it's that last comparison that had me worried about this record, despite some critics already salivating over it - Iggy Azalea had time to refine her debut, whereas for Cardi B, despite those mixtapes she's had to pull together a record extremely quickly, and while a good production team can pull off a lot, there was reason to believe this could awry really fast. But hey, I'll give Cardi B a lot of credit for what she's done in her lane, and like with Iggy Azalea, if she sticks the landing I was prepared to praise this... so how is Invasion of Privacy?

video review: '2012-2017' by a.a.l. (against all logic)

About damn time I got to this, whew.

Next up... man, it's a behemoth here, so stay tuned!