album review: 'peace, love, and country music' by ronnie dunn

My very first concert was a Brooks & Dunn concert.

I don't remember much of it - I remember Lonestar opened for them and did a pretty solid job, and that Brooks & Dunn really had a lot of flashy fireworks in their show - but the duo left on an impression on me growing up. When I was listening to 90s country, I listened to a lot of Brooks & Dunn, and looking back on them now, I'm not surprised why they did so well. Kix Brooks had the smoother tones to bring in a more pop audience, and Ronnie Dunn had the rougher, more 'country' vocals to appeal to mainstream country fans. 

That said, as much great line-dancing music as they made, they were never critical darlings, mostly because they weren't exactly deep songwriters before they subsumed to the Nashville songwriting machine. And as much as I like the band for making some 90s country standards, you didn't go to Brooks & Dunn for depth in mainstream country, you had Alan Jackson and George Strait for that. And thus, when Brooks & Dunn split up after two decades of music, I wasn't that fazed. 

What did interest me was Ronnie Dunn's continued solo career, which he kicked off in 2011 with a self-titled album and is most remembered by me with 'Cost Of Livin'', a brutally tragic song about the continued recession across the United States, especially in rural states and small towns. It was a daring move for a second single, and what makes the song so powerful is that it doesn't present a solution or a message that it's all going to be okay. That song, combined with some vitriolic remarks against the evolving state of modern country, did have me curious about his newest album, albeit with a certain degree of caution. After all, I appreciate steps in a more mature or deep direction, but I'm also aware those comments can be used to placate country music press concerned with authenticity from examining your material. So, what does Ronnie Dunn deliver?

video review: 'pop psychology' by neon trees

Oh, I bet I'm going to get some hatred for this - which will be frustrating, because I still really do like this band. Eh, what can you do.

Next up, I finally tackle Ronnie Dunn before moving onto the May releases. Stay tuned!

album review: 'pop psychology' by neon trees

Here's one of the funny quirks about pop music, especially about artists who don't chart many hits: said artists will only typically be remembered for the element that stands out the most, which can often be a radically unfair definition of the band's content. And thus when the Neon Trees' singles 'Animal' and 'Everybody Talks' charts highly in 2010 and 2012 respectively, the popular consciousness is that they were a indie pop rock act who wrote plenty of songs about getting laid with almost naively teenage brand of kitsch.

And speaking as a fan of the band who really likes both Habits and Picture Show as pop albums, I can say this definitively: that's all they do. They might switch up their style from clattery late-70s/early-80s retropop to Depeche Mode-reminiscent icy synthpop, but Neon Trees almost exclusively write about songs about hooking up and having sex, or being frustrated that they aren't having sex. It's the sort of straightforward narrow-minded pursuit that can straddle the line between embarrassingly cheesy and more than a little unsettling, and this caused some critics to brand the band as one-dimensional.

That honestly strikes me as a little unfair, because Neon Trees have tried to switch up the formula across many genres of pop rock, past and present, with varying degrees of success. Personally, I think they score the most points with the committed embrace of ridiculous retro-70s cheese that worked so well for The Killers and Franz Ferdinand, but on their 2012 album there were attempts to go for darker, late 80s-inspired synthpop and darkwave tones with mixed results. What concerned me most about the Neon Trees is that the frenetic edge of their sound was slowly falling away in favour of glossier music, and while they did have a grasp of solid melodies, they might lose of their flavour, especially considering retro-disco pop returned to the charts last year and doesn't seem to be leaving any time soon. And considering I wasn't exactly blown away by their lead-off single 'Sleeping With A Friend', I was a little worried to dig into their newest album Pop Psychology. Was I worrying for nothing, were my fears unfounded?

video review: 'retrohash' by asher roth

And to end off a week of hip-hop, we get this. Ugh, wish this was better.

Okay, likely no reviews tomorrow given my schedule, but I think I owe everyone a Neon Trees review at some point, so stay tuned!

album review: 'retrohash' by asher roth

You know, there are certain one hit wonders that really don't deserve the title. Upon further research, bands like a-ha and Semisonic and Chumbawamba and Dexy's Midnight Runners turn out to be far more than just 'Take On Me' or 'Closing Time' or 'Tubthumping' or 'Come On Eileen'. Just because they managed to capture mainstream attention for a brief, shining second doesn't mean their larger body of work wasn't worth considering, or that the band could or should solely be defined by their one hit.

And then there's Asher Roth, who released 'I Love College' in 2009 and immediately fell into the trap so much worse than the one-hit wonder: that of the Novelty Song artist. Where the song might have captured the zeitgeist for an instant before immediately becoming an instant punchline - or hell, it might have been the punchline upon release. The later reconsideration that can redeem some one-hit wonders is much less likely with Novelty Song artists... and to be fair, it's not like some of them deserve the additional attention. Does Asher Roth deserve reconsideration?

Honestly, I'm not sure. Going back to revisit Asher Roth's debut album Asleep In The Bread Aisle wasn't entirely a pleasant experience. Sure, the production was pretty good and I liked the college-rock inspired instrumentation, but I couldn't exactly call Asher Roth a great performer. Technically, he wasn't exactly impressive as a rapper, and his stoner-douchebro affectation really got insufferable after only a few songs, mostly because it was plainly apparent that Asher Roth wasn't trying. And while there are a few acts that can make 'not trying' work for them, Asher Roth wasn't one of them, half because his lifeless flow didn't have the wit or punchlines to back it up, and half because the tracks where he did try were easily the best on the album. But even with that, I couldn't say that I really liked that album - it was smug, crass, and unbelievably petulant at points, and I really wasn't a fan of Asher Roth's style - the Beastie Boys had spent their time pretending to be and satirizing dumb frat boys, so to see Asher Roth do it somewhat unironically wasn't exactly pleasant.

But to be fair to the guy, he has finally gotten around to releasing his long-delayed sophomore album, and he's claimed that it's a major shift in direction. And while I'm never one to take an artist on his word, I gave Retro Hash a listen - how did it go?

video review: 'so it goes' by ratking

Man, this one took a lot of work to really unpack, but I'm glad I put in the work for it.

Okay, let's round out this week of hip-hop with RetroHash from Asher Roth, and then I'll deal with Neon Trees and Ronnie Dunn. Stay tuned!

album review: 'so it goes' by ratking

How much does it matter where you're from in music?

Because in some genres, nobody will care one way or another - as long as the music is good, most heavy metal or pop or indie acts couldn't care less which city or town from whence you came. But when it comes to music that not only just demands a degree of authenticity, but also harkens back to the community at large, location starts to matter. You see this a lot in country music, where regionalism across the United States and Canada plays a bit of a factor in defining the referenced landmarks and delivering a specific appeal. That's one reason why country acts love to reference rural tropes in their music: whether it's building a sense of community or just affirming the fact they came from that sort of upbringing, it's a nationalist spirit in microcosm.

And yet in one of many bizarre similarities between country and hip-hop, rap music does a lot of the same. Thankfully we've moved past the eras of region conflicts between west and east coast, but there's still plenty of references and callbacks to the places where these artists came, to frame their stories, add richer detail and context, and give their music a definite sense of place. Both country and hip-hop have a sense of richer history about them, and defining one's place with respect to that history is a major part of some rappers' careers.

So when I started to look at Ratking, an upstart alternative hip-hop duo from New York known for chaotic and noisy production in the vein of acts like Death Grips and Clipping and with a reportedly strong punk sensibility, I was curious in spite of my own issues with this particular brand of noise rap. After all, the Beastie Boys were New York rappers who had inclinations towards punk, and they were some of the most influential and awesome acts to ever rock the music world, so it made a certain amount of sense for me to at least get a familiarity with this sort of music. So I picked up So It Goes and gave it a few spins - how did it go?

video review: 'the new classic' by iggy azalea

Well, this was definitely a welcome surprise. Fun stuff.

Next up... hmm, continue with hip-hop and deal with Asher Roth, or finally deal with the Neon Trees? Stay tuned and find out!

album review: 'the new classic' by iggy azalea

So do you want to know something that really pisses me off about mainstream radio in the modern era, something that reveals a certain type of systemic sexism that somehow has only gotten worse in the music industry? It's that whenever you have a new, up-in-coming female rapper who has a reputation for being able to spit and deliver potent lyrics, they try to give her a pop or R&B edge or at least that one song that will cross over to mainstream radio because of that pop edge. And as their careers progress, you quickly realize that the radio is going to stick with those pop-friendly songs instead of letting her step up to the microphone with hard-hitting raps, unlike her male counterparts. I mean, outside of Drake, how often have major labels gone up to rappers and said, 'Yeah, you need to be able to sing an R&B ballad or pop tune or you won't get radio play'? Male acts might be asked to dumb down their content - female rappers are asked to change their entire identity.

What, you want evidence? Look at Nicki Minaj, or Kreayshawn, or even to some extent with Angel Haze. Hell, even though Colette Carr had more outright pop appeal, her singles weren't exactly the songs where she was outstripping her male counterparts, which she can easily do. And thus when I saw early buzz suggesting Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was going to be singing for the first time on her debut album The New Classic, I simply shook my head. Of course she was - even though she featured on XXL's list of top rap freshmen in 2012 with Danny Brown, Hopsin, and Macklemore, I expected that with the long-delayed release and troubled production, this wasn't going to be a hard-hitting rap album. Either way, I gave the album a listen: how did it turn out?

video review: 'honest' by future

Ugh, good lord, this album sucked. Glad to get this shit out of my system once and for all.

Okay, Ratking needs to be addressed, and then... well, not sure, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'honest' by future

I do not understand why Future is famous.

I've said this before about other artists, most notably about 2 Chainz way back when I reviewed his last album, and the fun fact is that I actually came to an answer about that particular rapper: apparently, he's the funny one. Frankly, since my own sense of humour is weird, I guess I can accept that for 2 Chainz, even though his technical skills as a rapper would have had him laughed out of the game only a decade ago.

But with Future, I don't get it, and I'm starting to think I never will. The only reason Future has a career is because his cousin Rico Wade founded Dungeon Family and brought him on - which from a larger point of view blows my mind because this is the music collective that gave us OutKast, Killer Mike, Cee-Lo, Janelle Monae... and then Future. One of these things is not like the other, folks, so let's all give thanks for nepotism! But okay, that's obviously the push that has gotten him success, but why him? He can only barely sing with gratuitous autotune that barely gives him a personality, his rap flow varies between disinterested and embarrassing, his content only manages to paint him as a materialistic, lecherous asshole with none of the charisma that briefly made it excusable from Ludacris or T.I., and he works with terrible producers like Mike Will Made It. I listened to his debut album Pluto, which had five singles that managed to chart, and frankly, I couldn't recommend any of them other than overproduced commercials for the luxury brands he crams into his rhymes. The one thing I'll give Future is that he sounds like nobody else on the radio, but you know that's not always a good thing, right? Just because you stand out somewhat stylistically doesn't mean your lyrical content is worth a damn.

But apparently he scraped up enough goodwill to make a second album titled Honest, which apparently is distinctive because Future proclaimed there would be 'no love songs on this album'. I'm fine with that - Future was never convincing on the love songs anyway - but did that mean his new album was worth a damn anyway?

video review: 'ptsd: post-traumatic stress disorder' by pharoahe monch

Glad to be back - Easter was relaxing, but it's good to get back into routine, and this album was a great way to start.

Next up, not quite sure yet. We'll see!

album review: 'ptsd: post traumatic stress disorder' by pharoahe monch

You know, when Eminem released ‘Rap God’ last year, I wonder how many people saw the underground rapper Pharoahe Monch referenced in the lyrics and either thought, ‘Hey, I wonder who that is’, or ‘I’ve heard the name, but if Eminem referenced him, he must be good, so it can’t hurt to check him out’.

And I’m not too proud to admit that I include myself in the second category. I had heard of Pharoahe Monch’s strange and twisted career before – starting in the underground with the critically acclaimed duo Organized Konfusion with Prince Poetry before releasing his debut instant classic Internal Affairs in 1999… and then vanishing from rap music for a good eight years after a sampling controversy before a comeback and complete shift in style and content with Desire in 2007. I figured that once again, it was a good opportunity to finally acquaint myself with an artist in my backlog that I just hadn’t had time to cover.

And man, it’s a good thing I did, because Pharoahe Monch represents almost everything I love in rap music. A lot of personality and charisma, a taste for eclectic beats and production, an actual sense of humour, and most of all a gift for intelligent and layered wordplay that deserved all of the praise it got.  And with the benefit of that knowledge, I could see traces of his multisyllabic flow and delivery in so many rappers who followed him that it’s startling that he isn’t more famous considering his influence.

But when Pharoahe Monch returned to hip-hop in 2007, he came back with a decidedly different edge, less of the hard-spitting yet deftly intelligent gangsta rap that characterized his debut and more of a conscious political angle. Now in theory, I had no issues with this: of the many rappers who have tackled politics and serious issues in their music, Pharoahe Monch would probably be one of the few who delivered the material with any degree of respectable nuance. But when he released his third album We Are Renegades in 2011, I found myself a little dissatisfied. The political arguments were distinctly disjointed, the wordplay wasn’t quite as tight, the heavier beats and production that moved away from the soul samples often felt like they lacked cohesion, and it all spoke to a lack of singular focus. Sure, the album was still very good and I liked much of the content that he brought up, but I felt his presentation suffered a bit in bringing it to the table. On top of that, the dystopian framing device of the album felt a little silly and hyperbolic to me – not so much bad as lacking in subtlety.

As such, I wasn’t sure what we’d get with Pharoahe Monch’s newest album Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The album did promise a more personal focus – a touch I felt was somewhat missing from We Are Renegades, but given it was marketed as a follow-up to that album, I had no idea what he was planning to do. So I picked up the album and expected the worst – how did it go?

video review: 'the human contradiction' by delain

Well, this was a bit of a disappointment, but eh, it could have been worse.

Next up, I want to talk about Pharaohe Monch's newest album, as it's given me a LOT to talk about. Stay tuned!

album review: 'the human contradiction' by delain

So recently I was watching one of the new React videos from the Fine Bros., specifically the 'YouTubers React to Babymetal'. For those of you who don't know, Babymetal is a band fusing J-pop and heavy metal, amongst other genres, and honestly, they aren't really my thing. But one of the questions the Fine Bros. asked got me thinking: would there be a way to fuse pop and metal in a way that was accessible to the mainstream public? 

Because when we look back through the Billboard Charts, the periods of time when metal has crossed over into mainstream acceptance has been thanks to rock trends of the time - the punk and post-punk movements in the 70s, hair metal in the 80s, and nu-metal and post-grunge in the 90s and 2000s. But if you were looking to skip the conventional definition of rock altogether to fuse metal and conventional pop, how might you do it?

Well in my opinion we already have something of an answer, and that lies in what I'd call the most accessible genre of metal: symphonic metal. Often featuring clean vocals, pretty and upbeat melodies, soaring choruses, this was the method I got into metal and with the commercial success of a band like Evanescence, it's proven to work. 

And if I was looking to answer one of my recent questions of 'how can I get into symphonic music', I now have an answer if you're coming from pop: Delain, the Dutch symphonic metal band formed in 2002 by former Within Temptation keyboardist Martijn Westerholt and who might be without a doubt the most commercially accessible symphonic metal act from a pop landscape I've ever heard. Now that's not a bad thing: I've stressed a number of times pop music is worth defending and a transitory step between the two very different genres isn't a bad thing. However, Delain also strikes me as a band that instead of effectively blending the two genres chose to water down the metal side significantly. The highest praise I can give the band is that lead vocalist Charlotte Wessels is a really good singer with a lot of emotion and range, but the melodic progressions are simplistic, the guitar solos are inexcusably basic, and the production is shallow at best. On top of that, the band often seems to have a painfully high school sensibility to the lyrics, which can make some of the self-esteem and 'social commentary' anthems come across as overwrought and lacking in nuance. And while symphonic metal lyrics are often arch or borderline-irrelevant, here the arch subject matter comes across as a bit pandering to me, and that rubs me the wrong way.

Now let me stress I don't think Delain is a bad band - but in a symphonic metal landscape that has Nightwish, Tarja, Within Temptation, Epica, and others, Delain doesn't really stand out for me. But I figured that I'd give them another chance with their newest album, The Human Contradiction - how was it?

video review: 'the oath' by the oath

The streak of metal reviews continues with this, and it's awesome. Some great riff-based metal, definitely worth a look.

You know, I'll think I'll continue this streak with Delain and continue to ignore Emmure's existence. Stay tuned!

album review: 'the oath' by the oath

Let's talk briefly about simplicity in music.

Now I tend to get a lot of... well, let's call it constructive criticism on my pop reviews saying that, 'Man, it's just pop music, it's not trying to be high art, you're too hard on it!'. And while there are points where that has been true, here's my common rebuttal to that statement: good pop music - indeed, good pop art - can require just as much, if not more talent as any other brand of art. Crafting something that has artistic purpose and can appeal to a wider demographic besides yourself, that isn't easy. And on a similar note, creating something compelling from a decidedly simple formula can be just as difficult. Sure, if you can play a couple chords you can probably make a decent pop song from that foundation, but making that foundation special so it can transcend that simplicity is an entirely different challenge.

So when you move into riff-based punk and hard rock, you might notice some of the compositions of the songs are pretty damn simple when it comes to chords and progressions. And yet through delivery, through songwriting, through presentation and production, you can make something entirely unique. But even putting that aside, there's something to be said for purity, refining a simple approach down into something so visceral and effective. I keep bringing up Andrew W.K., but there's a reason why his album I Get Wet is a near-classic in my books: it takes a simplistic approach to composition, lyrics, and delivery, but it uses that simplicity in creating powerful melodic hooks and pumping everything up to larger than life status. It's a perfect fusion of artistic intent and execution, and it's a reason why simple hard-edged, riff-based rock and metal will never go out of style, in that quest to perfect that visceral thrill.

As such, I was really looking forward to the debut album from the German heavy metal act The Oath, who were already building a reputation for monstrously powerful riffing that called back to the classic years of heavy metal. So I bought the album and prepared myself for a glorious trip back to the past. Did I get it?

video review: 'bang!' by gotthard

Wow, this album was fun. And since I've been listening through the Pharoahe Monch discography in preparation for his new album, I've been awash in great music lately. Times like these I really like this job.

Okay, next up is The Oath. Stay tuned!

album review: 'bang!' by gotthard

I've made no secret of the fact that I have an unironic love of hair metal and hard rock, the sort that was most prevalent throughout the 1980s. Sure, it was dumb, cheesy, and occasionally ridiculously chauvinist, but it was a genre that at least was willing to go over-the-top when it came to instrumental prowess, bombast, and sense of fun to elevate the material, which was a huge redeeming factor for me. And thus, I can appreciate the irony that the hair metal and hard rock I would come to love effectively died out around the time I was born, replaced by a grunge and alternative scene I never really embraced in the same way.

But the fun fact is that Nirvana and Pearl Jam didn't really kill that genre more than the genre simply killed itself through over-saturation and a lot of mediocre bands riding the trend, especially in the tail end of the 80s. And thus in 2008, off of listening to 01011001, the newest magnificent progressive metal project from Ayreon, I decided to check out the band of Steve Lee one of the singers associated with the project.

That band was Gotthard, a Swiss hard rock that started in 1992, a few years after its brand of hard rock was supposed to be dead and yet still managed to sustain a career... and they're one of my favourite bands of all time. No, I'm not kidding, a retro-hard rock act with a terrible pun for a name is one of my favourite bands, and they're also the act I point to when I say this brand of hard rock is worth defending over their decades-long career. Their cover of Bob Dylan's 'Mighty Quinn' has been my ringtone for five years!

So what makes Gotthard worth a damn? Well, in comparison to most hard rock, Gotthard had a melodic focus, which leaned towards killer hooks over displays of sheer instrumental prowess. And while the band had its fair share of cheesy ridiculousness, they also weren't bad songwriters and weren't afraid to take risks with their material or venture into different genres altogether. The combination of those two factors has meant Gotthard has made some killer rock ballads over the years, especially in their mid-period work in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, most people remember Gotthard for their frontman Steve Lee, who honestly might have been one of the best hard rock vocalists in the industry. It wasn't just that he had an impossible range that remained emotionally compelling and expressive, but he made it look easy.

Sadly, Steve Lee passed away in a motorcycle accident in October 2010, and Gotthard brought in a new replacement with Nic Maeder for their 2012 album Firebirth. And while that album is pretty good, it's also decidedly transitory, as Maeder is trying to step into some pretty big shoes and he didn't quite seem to fill them, at least initially. And thus, when I heard they were releasing a new album this year with Bang!, I was excited. Hopefully touring and songwriting with the band had improved their chemistry, and this new incarnation of Gotthard would impress me. So how's the album?

video review: 'here and nowhere else' by cloud nothings

And that was the second album that I had to get out of my system! Whew, that feels good.

Okay, this week we're going headlong into hard rock and metal, because Gotthard, The Oath, Delain, the solo record from Tuomas Holopainen, and hell, I'll even throw Ratking under this umbrella - they all dropped albums and I'm going to cover them. Hell, I might even cover Emmure's new album!

Just kidding, that won't happen. I actually value my time.