special comment: the finale of 'how i met your mother' - a response

I've been watching How I Met Your Mother since Season 3. I didn't get on board straight away because it reminded me of Friends and I've never been able to stomach that show. And since then, for nine seasons, I've watched the show and rewatched the show time and time again. I know some of the classic episodes beat-for-beat. I've laughed, I've cried, I've cheered and defended this show even in the seasons I saw it circling the drain - which, namely, was Season 5, because despite the Zoe arc in Season 6, there were moments in that season that had emotional pathos and goddamn it, I bought it.

And then we had Season 9, the season encapsulating just a few days of Barney and Robin's wedding - and I'll be honest, despite the gimmicky nature of some of the episodes and the reliance on callbacks that has become more of a crutch for this show year after year than a strength, I was on board. Some of the callbacks felt like the payoff of seasons of build-up, emotional and character arcs that lasted for years and finally met their righteous ending. I'm not going to lie, there were moments that were glorious and well-earned and I even bought into Robin and Barney as a couple, the two who had always been the most deeply broken inside and how they made each other stronger as they stayed together. 

And there were telegraphed moments throughout that season that built to the finale tonight. Going in, I had a feeling in my gut that there was tragedy in the future. I didn't know if the mother was going to live - I assumed she wasn't, it was obviously telegraphed - and honestly, I expected Ted could have been dead, and he's retracing the moments of his life that led up that climax, and how everything else didn't matter as he faced Purgatory or whatever. That would have given some real weight to the moment when Ted meets the Mother, the high point, the climax, the moment for which we've been waiting. And it would have been devilishly charming if it had ended at that moment, a quiet moment of anticlimax that would have been goddamn beautiful and earned.

The finale went in a different direction. And I will say this: on paper, the majority of makes sense. Friends, even as tightly knit as these have been, drift apart. If you have kids, you'll go weeks or months or years without seeing people. If you're on an insane travel schedule, marriages will fracture, especially when both partners are as driven and free-spirited as the two in question. And when that happens, people regress until they make stupid decisions and are forced to turn their lives around. And spouses die, and eventually, it's believable that you might return to that old flame that you've nurtured in the back of your heart year after year after year. From a position of human drama, I buy everything that happened in the finale of How I Met Your Mother - on paper.

The reason the finale does not work - and really does impressive amounts of damage to the show's many dramatic arcs as a whole - is entirely a matter of tone. And you know, tone is a tricky thing, especially when you're working with footage cobbled together for years and you've had the finale lodged in your mind almost a decade since the very first episode. And here, the misunderstanding of tone is mindboggling - because in the writers' minds, it's always been about Ted and Robin. It's the central locus, the primary element since the pilot that has defined this show - and really, it's never been about the Mother.

It was that pilot in the mind of the writers when they wrote the finale. It's just a shame they didn't consider all the other elements they had brought in, and for a show with this sort of storied history, it's amazing how much they forgot and disregarded to create this finale, most specifically the final moments.

video review: 'pulses' by karmin

Damn, I wish this had been better.

Before the deluge of April releases, I need to take care of some unfinished business, so Anette Olzon and Tokyo Police Club reviews are coming soon - so stay tuned!

album review: 'pulses' by karmin

Well, this is awkward.

See, initially I didn't want to cover this album and for good reason. For one, the reviews from other outlets did not look close to good and believe it or not, I don't like giving negative reviews. It's that same sort of logic that normally keeps me from reviewing true genre trainwrecks if I don't have anything new to say about them - except, well, with country, but that's only because I'm still the only country music critic on YouTube and somebody has to cover them.

But with Karmin, it's a little more complicated - because, like me, they got their start on YouTube, as a upstart duo making pop videos and covers. I'll admit I didn't watch the material on their channel, but I knew they had an upbeat sensibility and a certain self-deprecating goofiness about them that did redeem some of their material. On the other hand, the stuff I did hear from them wasn't great, and I wasn't really a fan of either 'Brokenhearted' or 'Hello', the former which struck me as a Katy Perry wannabe pop track and the latter which bungled a chord progression that sounded way too much like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to be ignored. 

And thus, when I heard they got a major label deal and were dropping a new album with plenty of new pop collaborators, I felt a little uneasy about covering Karmin with my typical reviewing style, especially when some of the early reviews were less than complimentary. On the one hand, YouTube is a community and the odds that they might see my review are higher than most, and in the spirit of that community, any review I'd drop might hit closer to home. But on the other hand, I've got my integrity as a critic, and just because they started on the same platform doesn't mean they don't deserve the same level of analysis or scrutiny. And so with that in mind, I cautiously picked up Pulses and steeled myself for whatever might come - how's the album?

video review: 'piñata' by freddie gibbs & madlib

Man, I needed this album. After a tumultuous week of reviews, this was a good breath of fresh air.

Next up, the insanity resumes with Tokyo Police Club and Anette Olzon, to say nothing of whatever is getting released in April. But first, since you all requested it... Pulses, by Karmin. Stay tuned!

album review: 'piñata' by madlib & freddie gibbs

So here's a complaint that only a music critic will ever make: if you want to come across as remotely knowledgeable as a critic, you'll need to have listened to a lot of music.

Now that's not a bad thing by any stretch, especially considering listening to the greats of any genre is often very rewarding. But at the same time, if you want to come across as any sort of expert - and let's face it, most music critics do - you accumulate a pretty impressive backlog very quickly, especially if you talk about more than one genre. And listening to greatest hits albums doesn't cut it - assuming you've already listened to the essential discographies, your next criterion is to tackle all of the music that might be critically acclaimed within the genre, and not just what got popular. In other words, there's a reason why my backlog is now longer than my entire music collection - and that's just the stuff I know about, and it's not including all the new material I need to listen through this year.

Fortunately, it's always something of a relief whenever a new record comes out by an artist who falls into the critically acclaimed category, because now I can tackle two birds with one stone: review a brand new album and take the excuse to visit the works of artists in my backlog under the pretense of 'research' and 'appropriate context'. And since this album is a collaboration, I get to tackle two artists in question, which is even better! The first you should all know: DJ and hit producer Madlib, responsible for some of the most critically acclaimed collaborations in the underground, most notably with MF Doom for the classic album Madvillainy, which showcased his love for great beats, offkilter 70s blaxploitation samples, and a decidedly unique sound rooted in the fusion between over-the-top kitsch and gangsta grime. The second is Freddie Gibbs, who signed to Interscope in 2006 before leaving the label and becoming an underground star in the mixtape scene, where he developed a reputation as a great technical gangsta rapper with an unfortunate habit of retreading similar ground over and over again. And having relistened to his debut album ESGN, it wasn't exactly an unfair assessment: Gibbs' standard methodology for his rapping was as a thug with a conscience, and that's always a tough balancing act to maintain. And thus, I was intrigued to check out their collaboration, for at least at first, it seemed like an odd fit - how did it go?

video review: 'my krazy life' by yg

Well, I'm glad I got that out of my system.

Okay, next up is Madlib & Freddie Gibbs and Pinata. Stay tuned!

album review: 'my krazy life' by yg

I was going to skip this album.

And honestly, on first look, could you have blamed me? I've said a number of times in the past that the current crop of gangsta rappers have rarely interested me if they don't do something fresh with the formula, and YG looked like the poster child of not only cementing himself to that formula, but doing it worse than everyone else combined. Frankly, I was shocked to see him with a new album at all - for a rapper who built the first steps of his career off of the oh-so classy track 'Toot It And Boot It', I thought we had consigned him to the same memory hole in which we dumped Chingy, Mims, and Soulja Boy.

But then I thought to myself, 'Mark, get your head out of your ass, just because it's superficial and dumb party bangers doesn't mean they have to be bad, and it's not like all the material in this genre is stuff you dislike'. And to a point, that's true - I'll admit I've got a soft spot for certain brands of dumb gangsta rap, particularly in the crunk vein that was popular in the early-to-mid 2000s. But I guess some of my unironic liking for acts like Ludacris and especially Lil Jon came from the fact that what they didn't have in intelligence they made up in explosive, high-energy beats or solid technical rapping or even just an ability to go over the top with a populist vibe that can suck you in - call it the Andrew W.K. methodology, if you will. And yet with YG, his main collaborating producer is DJ Mustard, a producer who has already picked up a bad reputation in the hip-hop community for making sterile, lifeless beats that aren't all that interesting. 

In other words, the only reason why I'm covering this at all is because critical outlets that I normally respect started throwing scores that seemed suspiciously high at this album, so maybe I was presumptuous and missed something. And to give YG some credit, he did say he was drawing more inspiration from the 90s G-funk scene, most of which I do like, so I gave this album a couple of listens - how was it?

video review: 'high noon' by jerrod niemann

Ugh, I had no assumptions this would be good, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.

Up next... okay, look, I'll get Madllib & Freddie Gibbs, but this YG phenomenon needs to be explained before I start hitting fellow critics with lead pipes. Stay tuned, this might get messy.

album review: 'high noon' by jerrod niemann

Do you guys remember back when I reviewed the Eli Young Band that I said there was just a period of time I wasn't listening to much country music outside of the material that hit the charts? Well, even with that scant knowledge, I had no idea who Jerrod Niemann was before starting to research this album - and he had a number one country single that actually briefly landed on the pop charts! 

That was the first warning sign I got when I started going through Niemann's discography and those hit singles. Signed to Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville, a label co-owned by Brad Paisley, Jerrod Niemann released his major label debut in 2010 and it's not hard to see some of Paisley's influences on that album - it was silly, hopelessly corny country music, but it wasn't offensive. But then again, I'd have a hard time calling it interesting or all that distinctive either - outside some of the comedy bits and the fact that Niemann had an agreeable voice, I'd have a hard time picking him out of a line-up of other good time country singers. And it looked like the general public agreed, as his second album did have greater musical flavour and diversity, but not a lot else especially in the breezy songwriting to really give Niemann a lot of distinctive staying power. He reminded a lot of Jake Owen, except Owen always seemed to have more charisma or maybe better songwriters.

And thus, I can't exactly say I was enthused to listen to Jerrod Niemann's third album High Noon, especially off of his lead single 'Drink To That All Night', which featured the twin cardinal sins of bro-country in bad low-key rapping and auto-tune, and none of the instrumental diversity or humour that at least made Jerrod Niemann remotely distinctive. And thus, I wasn't looking forward to covering this album but I figured I owed him at least one chance to really surprise me. How did it go?

video review: 'shakira' by shakira

Damn, I wish this album was better. Eh, it happens.

Next up... yes, I'll will be covering 'Pinata' by Madlib & Freddie Gibbs, but I need a little more time to truly process it, so it'll probably be Jerrod Niemann next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'shakira' by shakira

Oh, I've been looking forward to this review since the beginning of the year.

See, if we were to go back twelve years to 2002 and look at my list of my top 10 best hit songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart... well, the first one would be Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' and the second would be 'Where Were You', Alan Jackson's heartbreaking song about 9/11 and really the best song not written by Bruce Springsteen about that tragedy, but the third on my list would 'Whenever, Wherever' by Shakira, an artist of which I've been a fan since she's crossed over to English radio in the early 2000s. And looking back on her massively successful career, I don't feel any shame whatsoever in saying that Shakira is the sort of pop star I really do enjoy. Not only is she the main writer of a lot of her own music - and a pretty good one at that - she's also the sort of pop star who can blend genres effectively, has a distinctive voice and sound, and also has buckets of raw charisma. She works along a similar line of alpha female sexuality that Beyonce does, but I've always thought Shakira has more emotional range and always seemed to be having more fun as a pop singer.

Plus, she's weird - and I mean that as a compliment. Between the odd assortment of instrumentation she routinely uses and her frequently bizarre lyrical choices, I'm always a little perplexed whenever I cover a Shakira album, because while she might tackle conventional pop subject matter, she's going to do it in her way, and damn everyone else. And yet, she's been quiet for a while, because after she released She-Wolf in 2009 and Sale el Sol in 2010 in Spanish, she took some time off, half to have a baby, half to work as a coach on The Voice, and half because she changed labels to RCA Records. On the one hand, I'm happy to see a new record from Shakira... but on the other hand, there are significantly more names in the writing credits than I'd usually like to see on a Shakira album, plus some collaborators that don't leave me that enthused, including Rihanna and country artist Blake Shelton of all people, who seems to make it his job to collaborate with everyone who shows up on The Voice with him. So, how is this new self-titled album from Shakira?

video review: 'lost in the dream' by the war on drugs

Holy shit, I did not see this album coming. Genuinely gripping and an early contender with 'Daylight & Dark' and 'Sun Structures' as one of the best albums of the year.

Next up... well, I need to talk about that Freddie Gibbs & Madlib collaboration, but I need to do a little more research on that one first, so I'll probably tackle something like the Shakira album next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'lost in the dream' by the war on drugs

So believe it or not, I actually do like indie rock.

And it's always a little exasperating when the presumption is made that since I've handed out some pretty harsh reviews to indie bands recently that I might dislike the genre - or hate good music in general, because that tends to be the hyperbolic jump-off point. Because while I might listen to plenty of pop and hip-hop and country, I still have a big spot in my heart for indie rock, and I'd much prefer to hear it on the charts than other miscellaneous crap that gets popular. 

However, I will admit that there are currently popular trends in indie rock of which I'm not exactly fond. The current brand of percussion-heavy, melody-light, reverb-and-effect-swollen brand of indie rock is not exactly my cup of tea, especially in comparison with the jangly edge of mid-80s college rock, the explosive distorted edges of the 90s indie scene, or the garage-inspired riff-based roughness of the early 2000s. And on top of that, I'll wholeheartedly admit that I tend to be harder on indie rock with grander ambitions and goals than acts that are just trying to make simple pop songs. Just because you step up to the plate with big ideas doesn't win credits in my books unless executed well.

And thus it's been a real treat for myself to revisit the discography of The War On Drugs, the band that was originally formed as a collaboration between Adam Granduciel and Kurt Vile. I covered Kurt Vile last year with his album Wakin' On A Pretty Daze, but The War On Drugs is decidedly more Granduciel's project, with Vile departing on amicable terms after doing a bit of work on the band's excellent second album Slave Ambient, a record that features a blend of Dylan-esque vocals, mid-80s REM-inspired riffs, U2-driven bombast, and lyrics featuring potent journeyman themes and great songwriting. And considering their newest album Lost In The Dream, the first without any involvement from Kurt Vile, has been receiving rave reviews, I figured it was about damn time to give it more than a few listens. How did it go?

video review: 'say yes to love' by perfect pussy

Man, that was a welcome surprise. Great album, definitely liked it.

Next up... hmm, not sure. We'll see, so stay tuned!

album review: 'say yes to love' by perfect pussy

I've got a complicated relationship with noise rock.

It's a critically beloved genre, especially by Gen X critics coming up in the 90s who love Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., but I've always had a certain amount of difficulty breaking into it. Maybe it was just the walls of distortion and fuzz that defined 90s rock and the lack of distinctive driving tunes - or the fact that the mix seldom made it easy to parse out the lyrics - but the noise rock that I like often sticks closer to a punk edge rather than meandering shoegaze. After all, I like good melody lines, and the punk rock I like the most tends to have the most straightforward, potent melodies in the book, even if they are overwhelmed by waves of harsh distortion.

And thus, it wasn't long before a critically acclaimed act like Perfect Pussy caught my eye. Last year they built some impressive buzz with their debut EP I Have Lost All Desire For Feeling, which stuck close to the post-hardcore roots of their lead singer Meredith Graves. But the reason I was a little averse to covering the band at first was a noted production choice where the band chose to shove Meredith Graves' vocals near the back of the mix, which would make the lyrics even more difficult to figure out. Which, if you've followed this review series, is a production choice of which I'm rarely a fan.

That being said, with the strong critical buzz surrounding their debut album Say Yes To Love, especially with regards to their feminist-themed lyrical nuance, I felt obliged to take a look out of sheer curiosity. Would Perfect Pussy end up being the Savages of this year?

video review: 'recess' by skrillex

Hey, you asked for this.

Okay, next up is a bit of a breather, as I'll tackle Perfect Pussy and The War On Drugs. Stay tuned!

album review: 'recess' by skrillex

You asked for this.

And honestly, if I hadn't gotten a request for this, I wouldn't have covered it. Hell, until I got a request for this, I didn't know Skrillex was actually putting out an album, let alone his major label full-length debut. Yeah, turns out all of the singles I had seen cropping up on the charts were really just off of a collection of EPs, which apparently were enough to win this guy multiple Grammies. And while I'll restate the commonly held assertion that the Grammies are a joke, this guy has beaten out the Chemical Brothers, and that's just wrong.

Ugh, look, I don't often cover a lot of electronica - mostly because I'm a sucker for great lyrics and that's rarely ever a priority on electronica records, and half because the genre is so heavily populated that it would be physically impossible for me to cover every release in this category and anything else. That's not saying I don't like electronica - I love the Chemical Brothers, I listen to more than my fair share of trance, and I like some of the weirder crossover material, but I'm more than well aware of the shortcomings in my knowledge in this sector.

That said, I also know what I like, and very little of what Skrillex has released has ever engaged me beyond irritation and anger. Say what you will about dubstep, but I honestly thought the mainstream had absorbed the elements of it we liked into modern pop music and had sent Skrillex and his ilk back out to the EDM or club scene - and even with that, there's so much better dubstep than the squealing clash of harmonics that Skrillex rams together. And the infuriating thing is that I actually see potential behind Skrillex, as some of the melodies he's crafted aren't half bad, but then he triggers his mutated brand of drop and what makes a whole set of angry white boys cheer gives me a throbbing migraine. When he teamed up to work with Korn, it was a musical fusion that made perfect sense to me - irritating, painfully shallow abrasion that doesn't have the decency of having a coherent tune.

But I've always said that making judgments without in-depth knowledge is not the mark of a good music critic, so I picked up his debut album, which had collaborators that looked interesting at the very least. It couldn't be that bad, right?

video review: 'supermodel' by foster the people

Well, you asked for it.

Up next... ugh, you'll see. I'm not looking forward to it, but I might as well get it out of my system once and for all.

album review: 'supermodel' by foster the people

If you were around me talking about music in 2011, you probably heard me drop into a rant at some point about Foster The People and their big hit single 'Pumped Up Kicks'. Hell, I even reviewed their debut album back when I wrote my reviews on Facebook, and while I'm not proud of that review by any stretch, I remember the seething hatred I had for this band and everything for which they stood.

Looking back two-and-a-half years later and after a relisten to Torches, I can say this: there are worse albums. Honestly, while I still don't like 'Pumped Up Kicks' for its terrible framing, its insincere posturing, and Mark Foster's awful falsetto, it's not worth the #3 spot I gave it on my list of the Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2011. Hell, looking back on Torches as an album, it's very much of its time: a perfectly primed dose of indie pop-rock that could have only gotten airplay in 2011 thanks to the wispy production, the whistling, and the growing acceptance of that brand of indie music.

Now that's not saying Torches is a good album - it's really so painfully mediocre it hurts, mostly due to an overstuffed upper range and synth line, a lack of good guitar melody when you could hear it at all, an over-reliance on percussion and not interesting percussion at that, Mark Foster's godawful vocals, and lyrics that were trying way too hard to be self-aware and wink at the camera. I've heard people make the argument that Torches was parodying and criticizing the would-be hipsters that embraced it, but I don't buy that, half because the insincerity was way too smug, half because the lyrics weren't nearly smart or well-framed enough to justify it, and half because unlike acts like The Beastie Boys or Ke$ha, they forgot to make the music actually 'fun' for those who didn't get the joke. Instead of working on multiple levels, Torches by Foster The People didn't work at all, only leaving us 'Helena Beats' as the best song of the album.

But what proved a lot more disturbing for me was how successful and influential Foster The People were, especially in the commercially viable indie pop/rock scene. I can trace the musical and popular lineage of bands like The Neighbourhood, Bastille, Young The Giant, and even acts like Imagine Dragons - a band I actually like - to Foster The People. They ended up sparking a mainstream explosion of percussion-driven, reverb-swollen, mix-overstuffed indie electronic rock records - which is kind of hilariously ironic, because it meant that if Foster The People really were going for parody intent, nobody got the joke. And thus, I shouldn't be surprised that Foster The People were back with a new album titled Supermodel, this time with a bigger target in mind, that being consumer capitalism? I prepared myself for the worst - what did I get?

video review: 'sex and love' by enrique iglesias

Well, that was easier than I expected it would be.

Next up... ugh, Foster The People. Hold on, folks, this won't be pretty.