billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 6, 2018 (VIDEO)

So this came together pretty damn quick... nice stuff.

Next up... you know, this Logic album is so damn long, I need to knock out an episode of the Trailing Edge soon, so we'll see what comes first!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - october 6, 2018

Okay yes, I'm very relieved it's a cooldown week... but look, in the era of the album bomb and with Logic and Lil Wayne set to do stupid numbers for next week, it's really not that much consolation that I get a breather here, especially if it comes at the expense of any analysis or predictions beyond 'well, Lil Wayne has a shot for a few top 10 debuts and maybe a shot at #1'.

video review: 'tha carter v' by lil wayne

Took a long-ass time to get here... and honestly, I have no idea whether this'll be enough to satisfy folks, but enjoy?

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and we'll see where the chips fall on upcoming records, so stay tuned!

album review: 'tha carter v' by lil wayne

I don't think anyone can deny at this point that the hype behind this album has long ago eclipsed any impact it could ever make. 

And when I say that, I'm referring to artistic impact in the same way Lil Wayne drove a decade ago, because the sales and streaming numbers mean in terms of popular impact, it looks like Lil Wayne still has it. But I think even Lil Wayne fans grasp this, because I know even a fair few of them considered the possibility of this release like a pipe dream, the sort of project that remains shelved or unreleased to become the stuff of what might have been, especially when it came to Lil Wayne's stifled career over the past five years. But beyond the possibility, the largely unasked question - namely, whether Tha Carter V should be released at all - is a much dicier one. Folks forget that while his commercial clout was undeniable, Lil Wayne hadn't exactly been on a hot streak of quality in the 2010s. Between album concepts that felt unrealized or at the very least uneven and Lil Wayne struggling as both an MC and songwriter across mixtapes, albums, and even guest appearances, despite his undeniable influence his star had fallen hard and far. And with Tha Carter V developed in that environment, I don't even think it would be reasonable to expect a return to the glory days of Tha Carter II or III. At best I expected another overlong, messy project that could nail a few more hits than misses that would get better than expected reviews thanks to a relieved fanbase... and thus with my expectations safely lowered, did Tha Carter V deliver?

resonators 2018 - episode #009 - 'rites of spring' by rites of spring (VIDEO)

First video of the night... and man, it's a fantastic one. But now up for the main event...

resonators 2018 - episode #009 - 'rites of spring' by rites of spring

The tricky thing about this series was always going to be where the line was drawn when it came to genre. That's the tough thing when you're on the cutting edge and subgenres are forking off of subgenres, and considering how much music critics and fans love drawing lines, I could very easily run into trouble by covering this act under the umbrella of a series looking specifically at 80s hardcore punk. On the other hand, as I've stated a few times already it makes sense to look at what came out the hardcore scene in its entirety, and since I've gone through a fair number of the albums that set the foundations for the genre, it makes sense to examine what was built upon them.

So the year was 1985, and the setting was Washington D.C. - we've already talked about the D.C. hardcore scene surrounding Bad Brains and Minor Threat, but by the mid-80s the scene was shifting - the original wave of hardcore punks were entering their mid-20s and a whole new wave of teenagers were flooding into the scene, using the excuse of the genre to get more raucous and violent. Now the roots of that change in the scene are complicated - some of it was demographics, but a pronounced theme of that era was machismo. And to be fair, this was endemic across American culture in the mid-80s, a hypermasculine ideal reinforced by the Reagan administration and an economy that had picked up a lot of steam, to say nothing of a reactionary media climate that loved to brand punks as thugs or outlaws. This was an era of swagger, cockiness, and no fucks given, and even though hardcore had a left-leaning slant, it's always been more complicated, which meant not only did a lot of young guys push a very different ideology, they had the bravado to saunter in and use the show as an excuse to get violent. And while some punks who shied away from ideology flourished, a lot of hardcore acts were either evolving out of the genre or quitting altogether.

But in D.C., Ian MacKaye was not going down without a fight, and in 1985, he and various other members of his independent label Dischord Records began forming new acts for what would be branded as Revolution Summer, beginning an active pushback against aggression at shows and the sexism that was leaking into the scene. Many of the acts wouldn't last beyond laying the groundwork for bigger bands to come, but one has survived and has become what so many have branded as the genesis of an entire new genre just adjacent to the infant post-hardcore. That's right, folks, we're going there, we're going the only album released by the band widely considered as the inspiration of emo, the 1985 self-titled record from Rites Of Spring - and this is Resonators!

video review: 'budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies' by milo

So this was a tough record to write about... I think I stuck the landing okay, but still, I can only imagine the response from the fans on this one, just like with Lupe.

But next up, Resonators, so stay tuned!

album review: 'budding ornithologists are weary of tired analogies' by milo

So the last time I reviewed milo, it was a very different experience... and if those of you who are now wondering where the hell that review is, it was last year when I was in Atlanta and connected with a few members of the Dead End Hip-Hop crew to film for Myke C-Town's channel. And as such, while I did have a chance to go in-depth surrounding my introduction to milo - fairly late in the game, I was never quite pulled on-board in the same way as many fans were with so the flies don't come, really came to like and appreciate who told you to think??!!?!?!?! as one of milo's strongest projects to date - I will stress that milo can be an artist with whom I have a bit of a distant relationship. It's the sort of music I need to be in the right mood to appreciate and dissect, give him plenty of listens to really decode his pool of references and oblique production, and as such while I thought his last album was great, it wasn't something I was in a hurry to revisit last year besides maybe the deep cut 'embroidering machine'. 

And as such, while I was gearing up for another round of abstract hip-hop fresh off of Lupe's massive release, this looked to be a lighter affair - where who told you to think??!!?!?!?! was a respectable length for fifteen tracks, this album didn't appear to have many songs breaking the three minute mark and was reportedly even more abstract and diffuse than the last album... which I'm not against, but I also remember saying that the immediacy of his last album was what I found truly gripping. But still, I wanted to give this some time to really sink in, so what did we get from milo this time on buddy ornithologists are weary of tired analogies?

video review: 'fortress of primal grace' by vallendusk

Man alive, I really did enjoy this - great black metal, sorry I got to it so late.

Now back to the hip-hop train and an episode of Resonators for which I'm genuinely excited - stay tuned!

album review: 'fortress of primal grace' by vallendusk

It seems like every damn year around this time I make the statement that I just don't feel like I've covered enough black metal... and to be fair, some of that has come with schedule complications I've been struggling to work through over the past several months, but this review has been overdue for long enough!

So, Vallendusk. I first covered the Indonesian band way back in 2015 when I working to get into black metal, and while I had really dug their breakthrough album Black Clouds Gathering from 2013 for flat-out insane guitarwork and some really striking melodic composition balancing acoustic passages with more atmospheric black metal, their follow-up didn't quite resonate as much as I had hoped, mostly through expanding their sound towards folk metal in ways that only seemed to detract from a rock solid core. And what got a little frustrating is that the talent was still very much there, but either through production missteps or the introduction of some awkward clean vocals and organs or just a few weird compositional choices held the project back for me. Still a good record, just not quite great... but for all intents and purposes, Vallendusk had redoubled on the raw atmospheric black metal this time around for Fortress Of Primal Grace, and while I'm extremely late to the party, that was effectively what I was hoping they'd do here. And considering nobody else on YouTube seems to have covered this, might as well be me - so what did Vallendusk deliver with this?

video review: 'DROGAS wave' by lupe fiasco

Yeah, I can't imagine this'll go well... but hey, it's a Lupe review, you kind of expect it when he's not releasing a record that's universally condemned. 

Next up... okay, either Vallendusk or milo, so stay tuned!

album review: 'DROGAS wave' by lupe fiasco

I wish I could say I was hyped for this.

Seriously, I do - I might have a complicated relationship with Lupe Fiasco's mixtapes and albums and the wild turns his career has taken, but to this day I'm still a fan. I'll still go back to Food & Liquor and to a lesser extent The Cool, and there are cuts even on Lasers I'll stick up for to this day! And if you saw my year-end lists in 2015, you'll see a number of Lupe Fiasco songs that made those lists and for damn good reason! And when I heard that he was going independent after Tetsuo & Youth I was excited for some high concept, ambitious hip-hop...

Which we didn't get with DROGAS Light. Let's not mince words, as much I really liked the song 'Jump' off that album, it could have been pitched to any major label willing to take a stab with Lupe's brand of pop rap and he'd have been mostly fine - and yet even on that basis it's a sloppy, overlong project seriously let down by its production and even Lupe's rapping. But more critically, it compromised my faith that Lupe Fiasco, outside of major label restrictions, might not make the best judgement calls when it came to his work, and I'll admit some big reservations stepping up to DROGAS Wave. Not only was it running an hour and a half, it was a concept album telling the story of a slave ship that had sank in the Atlantic and where the slaves had adapted to live underwater. And while I was inclined to say that Mick Jenkins kind of beat him to the punch with analogous metaphors as another Chicago MC, this did seem to be more like what I wanted to hear from an independent Lupe Fiasco, and I wanted to give this a chance, so what did we get from DROGAS Wave?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 29, 2018 (VIDEO)

Man, quick rendering time helps me get these out so much faster... shame it was a rough week, though.

Okay, next up... I think it's time for Vallendusk and maybe one of these hip-hop records, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - september 29, 2018

This week feels more transitional than I think it actually is. Sure, we have a new #1 and a sizable number of new arrivals and it's not an album bomb week and we are indeed changing seasons... but I dunno, what we're getting on the Hot 100 doesn't exactly seem built to last, which means while I won't call this precisely bad, I don't think it's all that good either.

video review: 'art of doubt' by metric

Yeah, it's the haircut, I know. Certainly not the sling - but hey, it's hard in those streets for a critic. :p

Anyway, I'm still working on polishing up that Vallendusk review and then Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

album review: 'art of doubt' by metric

It's a common thing for critics like me who aren't constantly plugged into the hype cycle to say that we don't know what to expect for certain albums. And while in some cases it's just verbiage in the review to heighten anticipation, most of the time for me it's pretty genuine - if I think I know what's coming from a certain act, I'll tell you, for sure!

But with Metric... I just don't know at this point. The last time I covered the group was their understandably underappreciated 2015 album Pagans In Vegas, a pretty damn sharp satire of the mainstream pop music industry that kind of missed the mark when it came to writing that totally stuck the landing with their concept - a good record for sure, but not a great one and certainly one that didn't quite hold up to their releases in 2009 and 2012. But from there... I just wasn't sure what was coming. Emily Haines rejoined Broken Social Scene for a comeback record in 2017 as well as reforming her solo act Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton for an indie pop album that wound up on my year end list and was better than it had any right to be... also probably better than any individual Metric album, but that's a different conversation. So when you have that, and then she's returning to Metric for their longest album to date and the buzz was inconclusive surrounding what sound the band was taking up this time, I wasn't sure what Art Of Doubt was going to deliver, only with my hope that Haines would bring over her considerable writing heft and hooks from that solo album. So, what did we get on Art Of Doubt?

video review: 'iridescence' by BROCKHAMPTON

Yeah, this is genuinely great, and I really did want to get ahead of this one - definitely a controversial opinion, but we'll see how it goes...

Next up, some long-overdue old business, so stay tuned!

album review: 'iridescence' by BROCKHAMPTON

This was always going to be the biggest test for BROCKHAMPTON. Sure, putting three overstuffed albums out in a year was impressive as all hell and turned a small Internet collective into a festival monster, but when you surge to quickly to that point and land a major label deal as a result, and lose one of your key members along the way amidst a flurry of ugly allegations...

Yeah, I won't lie, even though I would never claim to be a full-fledged fan of BROCKHAMPTON in comparison with their diehard following that nearly crushed me in the pit when I saw them at Reading, I was concerned about this. The collective was bursting forth with so many compelling ideas about pushing hip-hop as an art and genre that I didn't want to see them ground up in the meat grinder of the mainstream music industry, and for a while I was worried that Ameer's departure would compromise their group dynamic. Thankfully it seemed like I was wrong in a big way, as the old songs still banged hard live and the boy band had managed to pull together a record for this year that had every fan salivating at the possibilities. And hell, I'll admit I was excited for this - at the very least a major label budget would give them expanded sampling clearances and fanfare that for their online following they'd never need, but could potentially get them a slice of mainstream crossover or even radio. In my mind that'd be the only reasons BROCKHAMPTON would sign to a major in the first place, but at the same time Iridescence would have to be really good, despite the change in album title every other week - so how is it?

video review: 'room 25' by noname

So yeah, this is something special - definitely check this out!

And yeah, I was planning on Metric next, but considering how much folks want me to cover a certain hip-hop boy band... yeah, stay tuned!

album review: 'room 25' by noname

I'm still kicking myself a little bit that I didn't review Noname's Telefone in 2016. Frankly, I had no reason not to - it wasn't like I didn't cover multiple women breaking out in thoughtful, low-key Chicago hip-hop that year - but for some reason she slipped out of mind for me and by the time I wanted to get the review together it was too late. Granted, I don't quite think the mixtape would have impacted my year-end list choices, but that's more because Telefone and Noname fell into a weird category for me where everything just seemed ever so slightly 'off'. Rhythms and melodies would feel off-kilter in strange ways, Noname's flows would bounce and curl around them, and even the content, despite feeling really clever, rested more on a tangled emotional spectrum than a regular logical throughline. Definitely a fascinating project that had some really damn solid grooves, and Noname had enough subtle charisma to pull me back, but I had a tough time really sinking into her material...

And then I wound up catching an early set of hers at Reading Festival this year, and in a live setting it oddly seemed to click. Her backing band lent an organic touch that made the odd turns feel naturalistic, and Noname's low-key charisma bubbled up in interesting ways, naturally infectious in a way that made the cleverness of her writing all the more enticing. In other words, even though at the time Noname was saying Telefone would be her only project, I'm a little glad that she wound up recording a full-length debut... basically in her own words because she had to pay rent and she wanted new music to play on tour. And there was no way in hell I was going to miss covering her this time, so what did we get on Room 25?