album review: 'dna' by backstreet boys

So here's a difficult question: what does a Backstreet Boys album sound like in 2019?

Here's a better question: what should a Backstreet Boys album sound like 2019? Because while I'd argue there might be a market for the long-running boy band to deliver a project that imitates the sound of what made them famous twenty years ago, the group has always striven to update their sound with the times, from the pop rock flourishes on their underrated mid-2000s output to the Red-One-infused club boom pivot of 2009 to the embrace of broader, sunnier textures in 2013 for In A World Like This, of which I defended in one of my first ever reviews because it gave all of them the space to really exercise their harmonies. Yeah, there were some dull acoustic moments, but big flashy pop has always been a good fit for them and I really enjoyed that album - hell, a song from it even made my list of the best songs of 2013!

But in 2019... look, pop music is not really in a healthy place, and I wasn't at all convinced the Backstreet Boys would be able to persist amidst trap beats and an increased unnecessary reliance on Autotune - I hadn't been a fan of 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' for succumbing to those cliches, and I had no reason to believe this new album wouldn't face similar issues. And again, this is coming from a fan who has seen them live twice and could compile a healthy list of favourites from all of their albums... but I call it like I see it. especially when I saw their list of co-writers and producers. But hey, I had to hope, right, so what did we get off of DNA?

video review: 'malibu ken' by aesop rock & tobacco

Man, I kind of expected this would be a lot of fun, but it really did connect in a great way. Not quite better than The Impossible Kid, but still worth a lot of listens regardless.

Next up... yeah, Backstreet's back, folks, stay tuned!

album review: 'malibu ken' by aesop rock & tobacco

Ooh, I've been looking forward to this one.

And yes, this review might be later than you'd otherwise expect, but for Aesop Rock I wanted to give myself the space and time to fully digest this. As a rapper I'll freely admit I got into Aesop late and it took me a while to fully absorb his dense production and even more dense and layered rhymes and content, but The Impossible Kid took two big steps towards accessibility in 2016 and it wound up being one of my favourite hip-hop albums of that year, and one that I return to regularly to this day. And what I really admired was the change in tone - many of his projects could have a heavyset grimness that could be hard to process if you weren't in the right mindset, and yet for as creative of a wordsmith as Aesop was, I really liked the steps towards a more varied tone, if not precisely a lighter one.

And that takes us to Tobacco - signed to indie label Anticon, he's a psychedelic-funk electronic producer and frontman of the critically acclaimed band Black Moth Super Rainbow. Now they've worked with Aesop Rock before over ten yeas ago - Aesop even brought a verse to a breakout single 'Dirt' - but here they've teamed up for a full collaborative album that looked to bring a very different, borderline silly tone to bear. And I'll admit that Aesop was looking to bring a bit more levity to bear, this could be a really fun album, so what did we get with Malibu Ken?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 26, 2019 (VIDEO)

So okay, nearly forgot to post this - a shame, really, as I think this was an above-average week, need to be more on top of this...

Anyway, next up is one I'm really excited about - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 26, 2019

...so yeah, it's another slow week, and again, I'm not about to complain, especially when we're all staring down the barrel of that Future album bomb coming in - and while I'm not at all convinced it'll be that big, given the mixed reception at best, the lack of serious competition means it has the capacity to do a lot of damage. But in the mean time, not only did this seem like a slow week, but also the sort specifically designed to irritate me regardless.

video review: 'assume form' by james blake

Honestly, I'm really proud of how this review came together, generally one of the better ones to put together - I dig it.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then I think I've finally got time for Aesop Rock - stay tuned!

album review: 'assume form' by james blake

So am I the only one who is a little bit surprised there's so much hype surrounding this album? Or indeed around James Blake at all - I get that he's quietly racked up the sort of credits and connections for production details and work you'd be hard-pressed to notice, but it's not exactly the sort that seems designed to build a following, let alone a mainstream one.

Granted, it's not like James Blake has been entirely in the indie scene - he's had hip-hop verses as early as his second album Overgrown, of which I go back and forth whether it's better than his debut, and again, he's had credits on songs with Beyonce and Kendrick. And I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that he'd have crossover appeal - in comparison with any number of experimental electronic artists he's probably one of the most accessible - but I remember in my review of The Colour In Anything that I said I wasn't sure if he'd ever cross over, or if he even wanted that. Granted, if said crossover was going to help him tighten up a flabby album that lacked a lot of the character that made his first two projects so striking - seriously, that album has aged rather poorly since 2016 and I think I was too nice on it even then - I wasn't going to be against that, but I was skeptical about this. While Overgrown had credits from the RZA and Brian Eno and The Colour Of Anything had Frank Ocean and Bon Iver, this album... has credits from Metro Boomin and Travis Scott. Now granted, it also has a verse from Andre 3000 and the critics have been praising this to high heavens so I had reason to believe this could be great, so does James Blake deliver on Assume Form?

video review: 'remind me tomorrow' by sharon van etten

Okay, bit of weirdness today getting this all together (and filming was a living hell - stupid sirens), but looks like I'm on track here.

Next up... alright, let's handle James Blake, shall we? Stay tuned!

album review: 'remind me tomorrow' by sharon van etten

Before this album, it's been close to five years since Sharon Van Etten put out Are We There which I reviewed way back in 2014, a really damn good album that I didn't quite love as much as I wanted despite some sterling cuts - maybe it's just me, but I thought epic was just a shade stronger and more consistent. And I'll admit that for as much as I liked those songs, I've only gone back to Sharon Van Etten sporadically - which is more than 'not at all', but for as powerful of a singer as she is, I've still been waiting for her potential to coalesce and for her to really drive it out of the park, at least for me, and it's not like she's short of more prolific competition either.

Granted, it's not like she hasn't been busy - she got married, she had a kid, she did some acting work, she went back to school, that's a lot to cram into five years as well as record what many have described as her most lush and expansive project to date. And while I wouldn't say I was incredibly excited to cover this - the hype has been a long, slow boil - I wasn't about to let it slip past me, so what did we get from Remind Me Tomorrow?

video review: 'future hndrxx presents: the WIZRD' by future

Honestly, I probably should have known better than to cover this... but eh, live and learn, right?

Okay, next up... see, I took a poll on Twitter and folks selected KONGOS... but that album is leaving me in a weird spot and I'm not sure how viable it'll be for a full review, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'future hndrxx presents: the WIZRD' by future

So I skipped reviewing Future's twin album release in 2017. 

In fact, I've skipped covering a lot of Future's albums and mixtapes since I reviewed Dirty Sprite 2 in 2015 - three albums and five mixtapes, as a matter of fact - mostly because I know that a significant chunk of them will wind up on Billboard BREAKDOWN, but the principle remains. Think about that for a second: Future has put out eight projects that have had charting presence on the Hot 100 in three years - even by Drake standards, that's the sort of flood of content that runs the very real risk of flooding the market, especially if they don't have moments that really stand out or feel distinctive, and how often has that really happened?

And I'm deadly serious about this, because you can burn out an audience by giving them too much material too quickly - flooding the market only can work if you can wring out enough hits or distinctive moments to stand out. And more than ever I'm getting the impression that Future is hitting diminishing returns with every project he's pushed out - you can only take so much empty flexing, dead-eyed nihilism, and swamped out trap beats with Future's half-formed croon-rapping before you ask for something more, especially when they don't play to the pitch-black darkness and rage that gave Future his strongest cuts.

So why cover this now? Well, from the extensive round of interviews Future has put out, it seems like not only is he the most clear-headed he's been in a long time, he's also showing a surprising amount of introspection. He's seen the depressant-soaked landscape of modern trap and was afraid to admit he quit lean a while ago in fears of losing an audience who is accustomed to it, and while I can't speak to how well the possible album bomb will hit, underwhelming lead-off singles from a quick rollout for another long album give me the impression even Future's diehard fans are starting to move on - bad news for a rapper who has coasted on a limited skillset and dimensionality. So might as well get ground-level seats for what Future manages to extract from this, whether we get a late-game shot of quality and maturity or whether disaster is eminent, so what did we get from The WIZRD?

the top 50 best songs of 2018 (VIDEO)

Honestly, I forgot to post both the videos here, but I'm generally pleased with how all of this came together. Hope y'all enjoy!

video review: 'outer peace' by toro y moi

Ehh... I've had this one for a while, still not all that much of a fan. It's decent, but I'm not going to remember much of this.

Next up... let's get Future out of the way...

video review: 'why hasn't everything already disappeared?' by deerhunter

And here we go... man, this was a mess. Enjoy?

album review: 'outer peace' by toro y moi

...I remember the last time I talked about chillwave, back in 2015 when I reviewed Neon Indian - and that's saying something because I'm getting the impression that whole genre designation is something music critics nowadays want to forget ever happened.

See, there's a phenomenon especially among music critics and writers to apply genre branding to sounds for quick categorization, especially if it was a trend on the rise. This seemed to hit its peak in the blog-and-Pitchfork dominated era of the late-2000s and very early 2010s, mostly to the indifference and distaste of the artists or indeed anyone besides music writers. And looking back on it now, it's hard to ignore how manufactured it felt - not an organic label by the artists, who had approached their gauzy blend of shoegaze, lo-fi synthpop, ambient, and psychedelia with a variety of different tones and styles, but a branding that soon led to a saturated market and a broad misunderstanding of how anyone was to approach it. And I want to use Toro y Moi - stagename for Chaz Bear - as an example against easy classification... mostly because while his initial tones might have started in that loose subgenre, he didn't stay there. A few albums in he was expanding into house music, by 2015 he was pulling on that jangling 80s indie rock sound, and he had always had a taste for funk, choppy hip-hop-esque samples and a crooning that owed a considerable debt to indie R&B. So yeah, Toro y Moi was really tough to categorize...

And man, I wish I liked it more. Again, like most genre-hopping bands with this pedigree there were a number of things that just did not work for me, and ironically they started with the opposite problem I had with Neon Indian, in that I liked the gummy, lo-fi chillwave touches in the production that felt more like accent texture than drowning the mix. But the further he stepped away from it, the less interesting the music became. Part of this was increasingly easy parallels to better acts, but with Toro y Moi's voice moving more to the forefront, the undercooked writing and odd feeling of petulance really started to wear on my patience, especially as the albums got longer with less momentum. Granted, when I heard this album was going even more synthetic and taking more steps towards funk I was intrigued, but I've had mixed luck with this brand of funk and I wasn't sure the trappings of chillwave are what I needed to make it work, but what the hell: how is Outer Peace?

album review: 'why hasn't everything already disappeared?' by deerhunter

So it's been a very long time since I talked about Deerhunter, at least on this channel in a formal review - I discussed Monomania in the very early days of my channel, but when it came to Fading Frontier in 2015, I actually teamed up with the Indieheads podcast to discuss the album at length... and yet somehow I wound up as the guy who was the stick in the mud who didn't really care much for the album.

And what's frustrating is that whenever I've listened to a Deerhunter album in recent years, I've come away with the understanding of exactly why a lot of critics adore this band... and yet it never clicks as well as so many of their peers. Don't get me wrong, there are projects in their back catalog I enjoy, but I struggle to put any of their albums on a pedestal in any respective year - Halcyon Digest might get close, but even then it's dicey. And what's exasperating is that it's never just been one thing: the most consistent frustration probably comes with frontman Bradford Cox's improvised song construction and persistently underwhelming nihilism, but when you factor in distinct production and tonal inconsistencies, it leaves me never quite liking or disliking a Deerhunter album in the same way. And coming off of Fading Frontier... look, it's not bad, but revisiting it highlights a lot of repeated lyrical issues from earlier albums and the more placid tone and instrumentation continues to show how that brand of mid-to-late-80s Americana has been done better elsewhere by a lot of acts in recent years. That said, I was curious about this new project, as buzz was suggesting more elaborate instrumentation could make this Deerhunter's answer to The National's High Violet - a comparison of which I was immediately skeptical because say what you will about that band, Matt Berninger can write cohesive songs and outside of their last album has consistently great production. But fine, I can appreciate more ambition, so what did we get from Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?

video review: 'love train 2' by asiahn

And here we go - really damn good little project, definitely deserves to get Asiahn more attention.

And next up... yeah, let's deal with the controversy now...

album review: 'love train 2' by asiahn

So I'm in a bit of a funny place with R&B right now, especially the stuff that's more mainstream-accessible - namely that I get the impression that the more sensual tones are due for a subtle shakeup, both in tone and the artists involved. And while I'll wholeheartedly admit a big part of this is me waiting for the inevitable Jhene Aiko breakup album that tears into Big Sean, part of it is linked to how pleasantly surprised I was with Mariah Carey's last album and how indifferent I've been feeling with Ariana Grande recently - mostly because I'm surprised at the relative lack of competition! Hell, last year we got some spicy takes surrounding who the 'king of R&B' is prompted by Jacquees of all people, why does it seem like the modern era of queens are ceding the crown to Ariana so quickly?

And while I could make a bunch of excuses - SZA is between albums, Ella Mai is just starting out and doesn't quite have the pipes, H.E.R., Alina Baraz and Kali Uchis are still underground, Teyana Taylor got screwed by Kanye, Janelle Monae is too weird and amazing to even be a part of the conversation, and I don't even want to get into Tinashe right now - the truth is that a lot of major labels are losing money by not capitalizing on that lack of competition. So I'm stuck going into the underground to find those artists with the chops to compete - and early in 2019, I actually found one. Meet Asiahn, a singer-songwriter who also goes by Asia Bryant who you might recognize if you dig through the liner notes behind some pretty sizable acts, but she started coming into her own with the release of the Love Train EP back in early 2017. And going back to it now, I'll admit I'm a little surprised she didn't get more traction - thanks to her work behind the scenes she's racked up a few Grammy nominations, but more than that, her debut EP is actually really good! I'd struggle to call it precisely great - a stunningly subtle voice and solid lyricism can only get you so far if your production and hooks aren't the sharpest - but she had a lot of taste and potential and I had hope for this full-length follow-up, so what did we get out of Love Train 2?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 19, 2019 (VIDEO)

I really need to be better at posting these things on a timely basis... 

Anyway, going to be deviating from my schedule a bit, I think - this new R&B album I found might deserve a review, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - january 19, 2019

...well, okay, I can't say I didn't predict this would happen. I knew that eventually the drought on mainstream album releases would start to impact the Hot 100 directly which would lead to a short week... but man, I didn't expect I'd be handed one of the slowest weeks in recent memory! Now I'm not complaining - gives me that much more time to get ahead on other work and plans, and, you know, take care of myself - but I will say it was a bit of a pleasant surprise. Less so when I saw the new arrivals, but sadly you have to take what you can get.