album review: 'joy as an act of resistance' by idles

When I reviewed Idles last year, I was a very different person - specifically, one who hadn't exactly developed an appreciation for hardcore punk. I had brushed against the genre over the years, but I wouldn't qualify myself as having in-depth knowledge or even a liking for the genre... and thus it was all the more startling how well Idles' debut Brutalism clicked for me, a howling, guttural grind that was also fiercely intelligent and the sort of political polemic that could hit like a ton of bricks. Both it and the song from it '1049 Gotho' wound up on my year-end lists, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't kickstart some deeper curiosity that contributed to putting hardcore punk as an option on Resonators.

Of course, now it's eight months later, and with a much deeper knowledge base around hardcore punk, I was anticipating this record all the more but my expectations were even higher. The fast turnaround time was a bit concerning, and it wasn't like Idles didn't have problems on their debut, and while embracing a spirit of riotous optimism in the face of dark times is an attitude I can get behind, I wasn't sure Idles was the act from which I wanted to hear that message - my favourite cuts from Brutalism had been some of the darkest and angriest, so this was looking to be quite the tonal shift. But hey, it was either this or Eminem, and I wanted to start on a high note, so what did we get out of Joy As An Act Of Resistance?

the top ten best hit songs of 1993 (VIDEO)

And we've now got the list that's taken me months to make. Really pleased with this, enjoy!

album reviews: 'songs for the saints' by kenny chesney / 'all of it' by cole swindell / 'steak night at the prairie rose' by mike & the moonpies (VACATION)

And finally, we're done with the vacation reviews - next up should be Idles, but before that...

album reviews: 'anno: four seasons' by anna meredith & antonio vivaldi ft. scottish ensemble / 'your queen is a reptile' by sons of kemet / 'in praise of darkness' by shades (VACATION)

This was a fun one to put together too - definitely happy with this. Enjoy!

album reviews: 'sweetener' by ariana grande / 'lost & found' by jorja smith / 'mimi' by bad rabbits (VACATION)

Hmm, this is probably one of the better vacation reviews - definitely check it out!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 1, 2018 (VIDEO)

Man, this was a pain in the ass to get online, but I think it turned out alright in the end - enjoy!

album reviews: 'be the cowboy' by mitski / 'musas 2' by natalia lafourcade / 'to the sunset' by amanda shires (VACATION!)

Okay, a lot of catchup posts ahead, so stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 1993

So I'll freely admit of the Patreon-requested years for which I cover the year-end Hot 100, we haven't really encountered a 'bad' year for the charts, the sort of years that even with the benefit of hindsight and nostalgia cause us to wince in the face of the memories. The closest that I've covered in this territory throughout the five years I've been on YouTube have been 2016 and maybe either 2010 or 2014, and even then, both of the latter have strong enough redeeming moments to knock them into quality.

1993 is not one of those years - perhaps not the worst the Hot 100 has had to offer, but definitely the sort of transitional early 90s year where the best stuff wasn't charting, most of the good stuff was starting to get overexposed, music legends were falling apart in slow motion, and the rest was a wasteland of formless mush. Thank god R&B and new jack swing were mostly holding up and that g-funk was cutting a swathe across hip-hop, because rock had lapsed into parody, the pop-rap of the early 90s was trying and failing to keep up, and punk and country were nowhere to be seen, despite the advent of riot grrl and the neotraditional country revival in full swing. Even grunge, widely hailed as the breakthrough sound by music critics of the early 90s, had little to no traction in 1993 - and before hip-hop can raise a triumphant flag here, there was no way in hell that the best of that genre was getting to pop radio in the face of an avalanche of easy listening pablum left over from the 80s and artists who should really know better! No In Utero, no 36 Chambers or Ain't No Other or Buhloone Mindstate, but hey, you got Kenny G!

Now what that means is that the best of 1993... look, it's all over the place, especially as some of the chart oddities have aged better than what was big at the time, and while there are a few classic cuts from this era, in comparison to stronger years this particular top ten is substantially shakier - and as always, the songs have to have debuted on the year-end Hot 100 in 1993... which actually didn't result in any cuts from this list, and thank god for that, as it's pretty thin. But hey, let's start off with...

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 25, 2018 (VIDEO)

Man alive, this took WAY too damn long to put out - hell, I had something ready in Birmingham, but the footage got corrupted. But not to worry, I've got more reviews on the docket and then the next episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'stay dangerous' by yg / 'freddie' by freddie gibbs / 'tables turn' by fredo (VACATION REVIEW!)

Took a while to get to this... but it took even longer to get to...

video review: 'queen' by nicki minaj

Man, I'm behind at posts here... let's catch up with mediocrity and move on to...

album review: 'queen' by nicki minaj

I've never been one to give Nicki Minaj a free pass.

Yes, even in the beginning when she was one of the few women making serious moves in hip-hop's mainstream at the time with a ton of charisma and occasionally some striking wordplay. Whatever you could say about Nicki, she had the charisma and presence to be a provocateur and a contender for the throne for women in hip-hop, at least in the mainstream. Sure, someone like me might point to the underground and rattle off the names of a dozen MCs to whom I'd prefer to give that pedestal, and I've not been shy about pointing out my issues with Nicki even in the mainstream - the construction of her bars can get really slapdash, and borderline lazy, her pop pivots have more misses than hits, and she's proven more willing than most to embrace a caricature of her image if it would give her success - but very few of her fanbase gave a damn about that. So long as they got the snapshots of genuine promise, they were able to tolerate her overlong and incredibly uneven records. Not bad records, but for every high there were steep lows.

But deep down I knew it wouldn't last - the tidal wave of hungry and razor-sharp MCs from the underground was growing bigger with every year, and while Nicki was able to smack back Remy Ma and both Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks would mismanage their careers into the ground, the real challenger would be Cardi B, who not only had more consistent bars and charisma, but also seized the chart-topping success that had long eluded Nicki's biggest singles. And here's the thing: I wouldn't feel the need to bring up Cardi B if it wasn't so blatantly obvious that Nicki Minaj had internalized her as a serious threat, which has led her to so many baffling promotional missteps in the rollout of Queen along with songs that made it clear she was not taking even the mere presence of competition well. Like her fellow Young Money peer Drake, she had been shaken when truly challenged, and despite the protests of her Barbie fanbase, it looked like it was backfiring onto Queen, leading to critical opinions that were all over the damn map. And since I've never claimed to be a fan or a hater, I had the hopes this would work - I've been hard on Nicki but that's because I've always seen volumes of tremendous potential, so did Queen turn out okay?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 18, 2018 (VIDEO)

Okay, a Travis Scott episode... but honestly, not a terrible one to put together, it just went a little long to put together.

Next up... ugh, let's deal with Nicki Minaj, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - august 18, 2018

...look, it's the week of Travis Scott. Yes, there were other debuts and we'll be giving them a little bit more time, but this is the week Astroworld rolled over the Hot 100 thanks to much of the same sort of juicy Spotify payola - I mean I promotion that Drake got. But while this means that all seventeen songs from the album charted - pray for my soul - it's at least a better record than Scorpion was, arguably one of the better album bombs this year, and at the very least I don't expect it to last, especially given that next week Nicki Minaj will likely net some sort of chart success right behind him, and then Ariana Grande behind them!

video review: 'the great depression' by as it is

Well, this was a thing. Certainly a thing. And probably not one I'm going to revisit much soon...

Anyway, Billboard BREAKDOWN with entirely too much Travis Scott ahead, then probably Nicki Minaj - stay tuned!

album review: 'the great depression' by as it is

So I remember hearing some promising things about this pop punk band a few years back and while the production was perhaps a shade more polished and the lyrics a shade less interesting than I'd personally prefer, the hooks were pretty damn strong and that gave me hope for what could be next... and then I started digging through their next few projects and coming to the realization that it might be all they have...

Wait, didn't I already make this review for State Champs? Do you guys understand why I typically leave these bands for Jon over at ARTV if I can't tell most of their material apart? Now in fairness, As It Is did seem to have a slightly different formula, with the second singer and slightly more pop-centric production focus and slightly more emo lyrics... which seemingly came at the cost of good production and any sense of weight. Yeah, I hate to echo a lot of other critics here, but despite being a slightly more dynamic group, both As It Is records are a lot more uneven than I can really excuse and the hooks never quite had the same punch as Neck Deep or State Champs, to say nothing of the upper tier bands in this format - generally passable, but rarely better. And yet I was curious to give The Great Depression a full review - apparently the band had gotten darker and more ambitious in a dive towards more abrasive emo material, which is really the sort of edge that this group could desperately need, so I was definitely interested. So okay, what did we get with The Great Depression?

video review: 'i travel on' by jason eady

So yeah, not quite blown away by this one, but it's still genuinely great all the same. Definitely check it out!

video review: 'swimming' by mac miller

I have to admit I'm a bit surprised there wasn't more of a negative reaction to this... but hey, I guess Mac Miller fans are level-headed enough to not go nuts here, good to see.

But now onto something WAY better...

album review: 'i travel on' by jason eady

I've said this a number of times before, but it bears repeating: if you're looking for about the purest expression of indie country being produced in modern times, you pick up a Jason Eady record. The man has the uncanny ability to write songs where you're struck by how the hell nobody would have composed them before as they seem so elemental and straightforward, with the sort of layered nuance and eye for detail that pushes his material into damn near transcendent territory. There's nothing gratuitous or indulgent or wasted and with records like 2014's Daylight & Dark and 2017's self-titled release, he's released country that rises to the apex of the genre...

But there has been two criticisms of his work, both of which I get but neither of which bother me all that much, the first being that his songs can be a little too heavy and melancholy, which often leads to the follow-up that his work as a whole can feel a bit sedate and sleepy at points. I disagree with both points - the writing and compositions are tight and emotionally gripping enough that it's never bothered me, and it's not like his records run long - but Eady has taken those notes to heart and it led to a shift in the creation of this surprisingly quick follow-up project... which if possible stripped things down even further. No overdubs, primarily acoustic, recruiting two ringers from bluegrass of all things - although Eady has made it very clear that he'd never call this a pure bluegrass album, showing the sort of respect and consideration for the art you rarely ever see anymore for any genre - but with a focus on quicker tempos and a feel as if everyone was in the same room for the recording. Now on the one hand I had no idea how much Eady might be able to emphasize that even more - his records have always sounded incredibly intimate in their production - and while I was a little shocked how quickly these songs emerged, I definitely wanted to hear them as soon as possible, so what did we get from I Travel On?

album review: 'swimming' by mac miller

If there was a review I did not want to do, it's this one.

And I know that sounds bad, believe me, but it comes from a place of frustration on my part more than anything - because I tried to get into Mac Miller. I really did, I revisited every single damn record in his discography before this review, I wanted to really understand what the hell his audience sees in him spanning a career that's evolved from dumbass frat-bro rap to something a little more pensive and reflective. And I can't deny the guy has decent taste when it comes to production and guest stars - he'll shell out for some impressive lush and detailed instrumentals, from his textured grimy hip-hop on records like Watching Movies With The Sound Off and GO:OD AM to the jazzy R&B of The Divine Feminine.

But man alive, I just cannot get into him as a performer, rapper or singer. As a rapper, his wordplay is often way clumsier than it should be and I've never remotely been impressed by his content or any sense of thematic weight and as a singer... Look, there's a way his vocal timbre and delivery could potentially work if you pair it with more amateurish, rough-around-the-edges production or truly raw subject matter - it's what Chance and Tyler did - but when you place him opposite so many genuinely talented R&B singers and genuinely great production, it's impossible for me not to cringe at how flat, off-key and sloppy his singing is! You put him on songs with Anderson .Paak, Bilal, Cee-Lo and Ariana Grande and you expect him to not sound instantly outclassed in every way, and that's before you get to the fact that he can have shockingly little charisma as an MC, and this is coming from a guy who listens to more deceptively low-key and monotone rappers than him, but guys like Evidence and LMNO have a magnetism and intensity that Mac Miller has never had! And when you couple it with too many albums that all have a bad case of the bloat, I was not looking forward to another hour long project from Mac Miller with Swimming - but hey, it was either this or watching YG fumble things and that looks to be even more depressing, so screw it, how is Swimming?