billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 9, 2015

So here's the odd thing - remember when I said last week that the charts tend to become more unstable when there's a big change at the top, as the old hit tumbles and plenty other songs jockey for its place? Well... that's not really happening, and from what I dug up this week, it lends all the more evidence to the fact that if 'See You Again' hadn't shown up, 'Uptown Funk' would have broken 'One Sweet Day's record, or at least would have gotten a lot closer. As it was this week, it was all about what song would manage to make that big push... and the push didn't happen yet. Meanwhile, a bunch of songs fell off the charts because of longevity and were mostly replaced by... well, you'll see.

video review: 'kindred' by passion pit

Man, I could have done without covering this. I suspect the shitstorm won't be huge, but you never know these days. On the plus side, I did get a chance to catch up on a bit of my back catalogue today, which was nice.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, Lower Dens, Alabama Shakes, and Sufjan Stevens, so stay tuned!

album review: 'kindred' by passion pit

So let me clue you all in to one of the biggest 'tricks' surrounding indie pop, and where it can have an easy path to critical acclaim with a similar sound to what's subsequently derided in the mainstream. Simple enough trick, but it works a lot more often than you think: tonal subversion. Basically how it works is a shift in the tone or content of your lyrics in comparison to that of your music - shifting the acid high to the acid freakout, a song with a generally cheery tone being about death, you get the picture. If you trace your way through the indie scene and especially indie pop, you see a lot of this. Take the typical pop framework and use it to package lyrics that might not be all that exceptional with a similar tone, but make the instrumentation go in the opposite direction and suddenly people will really start taking notice.

Now of course there's a scale of quality to this, because there are plenty of acts who go against the tone of their instrumentation lyrically and have the skill as writers to pull it off. But if we're looking for an act who has gone to this well more aggressively and consistently than nearly any other indie pop act, I'd point to Passion Pit, an indie pop band that I've liked but never quite loved that exploded in 2009 with their breakout hit Manners. And let's make this clear, I'm not really a fan of Manners as a whole - going back to it, the chiptune production and sugar-sweet instrumentation hasn't precisely aged well, and Michael Angelakos' shrill, breathy voice could start to grate on my nerves, especially considering how bleak the lyrics often got. They nailed the balance a lot better on Gossamer in 2012, swapping out pure sugar for a more opulent and varied presentation, and Angelakos' delivery didn't feel as one-dimensional - just as earnest but you could tell there was other emotions boiling behind the surface, holding on by a thread as frail and precarious as its title.

Well, turns out there was a reason for that dichotomy - Angelakos had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and after a year of cancelled tours and therapy, things seemed to have finally righted themselves, with Angelakos replacing his entire live band and bringing in a new producer: Benny Blanco, the writer/producer known for churning out some of the biggest hits of the early 2010s for Kesha, Katy Perry, and Maroon 5. To see him on a Passion Pit album seemed to imply that they'd probably be going in a much more commercial direction... did we get that with Kindred?

video review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

Man, I wish this album could have been stronger... although then again, experiments like this are always risks, so it's not surprising it might not have pulled off the power of a record like Uncaged. Eh, it happens.

Next up... honestly, I've got a few that I'm interested in covering. Stay tuned!

album review: 'jekyll + hyde' by the zac brown band

If you were to ask me what my most anticipated album of 2015 was... well, depending on the day I would have given you a number of answers. Depending on the genre I would have given you a number of answers, but I was getting asked about country, it wouldn't have even been a challenge. And for me, it's always a little odd admitting things like this, because it sets expectations for this review and immediately there'll be accusations of bias or some silliness like that. Let me say that my critical faculties are not impaired, and I'm not going to give something a pass just because I'm a fan - my Nightwish review was proof of that.

That said... the Zac Brown Band is probably one of my favourite country bands ever. The project of singer-songwriter Zac Brown and a killer selection of multi-instrumentalists and backing singers, it was a band that started small with The Foundation in 2008, and while I liked that album for its singles and a couple lightweight deep cuts, it wasn't until their 2010 record You Get What You Give that they seriously won me over. Not only was this a band that knew their neotraditional country and had a gift for killer melodies and great texture, but they were also strong songwriters that could sketch great pictures and had the talent to work with the greats like Alan Jackson. And with songs like 'Colder Weather' - which I should remind you all was my pick for the best hit song of 2011 - they proved that the success of 'Chicken Fried' or 'Toes' wasn't going to confine them to lightweight beach fodder.

But while You Get What You Give was a damn solid record, 2012's Uncaged was damn near a masterpiece. No joke, if I were to make a list of my top records of 2012, it'd be fighting with Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean for the top slot. Not only was the writing even better, it showed the band getting more experimental, fusing elements of reggae, bluegrass, rock, and even R&B into their music - and what was all the more amazing is that they made it feel cohesive and powerful with songs like 'Goodbye In Her Eyes', 'Natural Disaster', and 'Last But Not Least' standing as some of their best ever.

And then things really got interesting. They put out an EP with Dave Grohl, Zac Brown later showed up on one of the best songs of the Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways, and with an upcoming collaboration from Chris Cornell on their newest record Jekyll + Hyde - along with Sara Bareilles of all people - it looked as though the Zac Brown Band were continuing their experimentation. What worried me, though, was the producer: Jay Joyce, who in recent years has developed a bad reputation for overproduction and turning albums that could have been amazing or at least passable from Eric Church, Little Big Town, and Halestorm into complete messes. And I'll admit, I was worried here: I knew Zac Brown had a reputation for a tight grip in the studio, but swapping out Keith Stegall, known for working with Alan Jackson, for Joyce struck me as a monumentally bad decision, especially considering they were already working with Grohl! But even putting that aside, I hoped for the best: did the Zac Brown Band manage to pull something together?

video review: 'bills ep' by lunchmoney lewis

The more I listen to this, the more I just love it. Goddamn, what a great EP, definitely worth breaking my rules to cover.

Next up, one of my most anticipated albums of the year, so stay tuned!

video review: 'handwritten' by shawn mendes

Ugh, I wanted this to be better. Can't all be winners, though.

No, if you want that... well, just wait, it's coming!

album review: 'bills ep' by lunchmoney lewis

I don't tend to cover EPs.

And believe it or not, there's a reason for that. As I've said in the past, I like records that are full-length album statements, mostly because they're the ones that give me a ton of material to work with in these reviews - and sometimes I don't even get that. So slice it down to four songs and I've got even less to talk about, so unless I have reason to believe this EP is going to be insanely good, I hold to this as a rule.

Today I'm going to break that rule, because the more publicity I can give to this guy, the better. Viewers of Billboard BREAKDOWN probably aren't surprised that I'm going to talk about LunchMoney Lewis, but for those of you who don't, he's something of a hip-hop artist from Atlanta and the son of a member of Inner Circle, the Jamaican reggae band that wrote the Bad Boys theme. He's been behind the scenes for a bit now, working with Dr. Luke as a producer and songwriter, but now he's striking out for himself, rounding up a couple songwriters who work with Dr. Luke for a chance in the spotlight. And I have mixed feelings about this. I've been following the legal nightmare unfolding between Kesha and Dr. Luke as she quietly works to rebrand and rebuild her career after her nightmarish 2014, and considering Becky G's debut album is nowhere in sight, signing to Kemosabe to drop a new hit seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea. But his leadoff hit 'Bills' convinced me I needed to hear more from LunchMoney Lewis, so I found his debut EP and decided to listen through it? Was it worth it?

album review: 'handwritten' by shawn mendes

Now I may have said in my last episode of Billboard BREAKDOWN that Vine was one of the worst things in recent memory to happen to mainstream hip-hop, and I stand by that. But that's not to dismiss its growing impact on pop music as well, where certain acts, trending towards a younger demographic, have earned some success too. And you know, on some level it makes sense - as attention spans grow shorter and shorter with every generation, and pop music perpetually lodged at the age of early teens, it makes sense that Vine could spawn material perfectly tailored for that audience.

But that's not saying that music from these sources is essentially bad, or even tells the complete story. More of that comes through in the rising fortunes of Ed Sheeran, the singer-songwriting who is slowly taking more and more steps from dreary, white-guy-with-acoustic-guitar territory into tighter, more groove-heavy, more fiery material. And given how much he has dominated the charts over the past year and with singer-songwriters like Hozier pushing a more organic, rougher sound, it stands to reason that the music industry would look to cash in on this in the quickest way possible.

Thus we have Shawn Mendes, a Canadian teenager from just outside of Toronto who built a following on Vine and has been tearing a swathe through the Canadian charts. Keep in mind that our radio stations have to play a certain percentage of Canadian music, so I've heard of Shawn Mendes before this review - and honestly, I don't mind him. Sure, there are moments that could use some polish, but there was some raw talent here and he sure as hell sounds more ready for prime time than Justin Bieber ever did. And hell, if he's going to bite from Ed Sheeran's template and take the one element from Vine that I actually think could be a net positive - a sense of immediacy and pop-friend punch for his hooks - this debut could actually be worth a damn, even if he didn't write the whle record. So I checked out Handwritten - did it live up to expectations?

video review: 'short movie' by laura marling

Dear god, it took me WAY too long to get to this. Hopefully, the wait time for Sufjan Stevens will be less, but again, not quite ready for that yet.

On the other hand, this Shawn Mendes album or Passion Pit? Yeah, those coming soon, plus the new Zac Brown Band record! Stay tuned!

album review: 'short movie' by laura marling

Man, this record took way too long for me to talk about.

Now some of this I can blame on a turbulent month and a hefty back catalog, but I'd argue it's more than that in the case, so I think some explanation about my schedule is required. Before I review an album, I go back and listen through their entire back catalog. Not just the singles, not just the hits, the entire list of records - and I also endeavour to be an active listener. I'm the sort who if there are oblique or confusing lyrics, I'm going to digging through them line by line to truly parse them out, and that tends to require multiple listens. Coupled with the fact that I still try to get out multiple reviews in a week plus Billboard BREAKDOWN plus work a full time job... well, yeah, you get the picture.

And a lot of this comes down to the singer-songwriter we're going to be talking about today, a critically-acclaimed artist whose knack for intricate and mature lyricism meant her work didn't just merit additional listens, it demanded it. Yep, we're going to be talking about Laura Marling today, the sort of folk singer-songwriter that I have a hard time not liking, not just for her literary sensibility but for the fact she brought a level of maturity and songwriting craft that seemed beyond her years. And as her songwriter ventured more towards abstraction and layers, her material got trickier to process. Her first creative peak for me came on her second album I Speak Because I Can, which recruited Marcus Mumford to contribute to a record that not only easily outstripped anything he did with Mumford & Sons, but also had strong enough melodic grooves and writing to stand as one of the best of 2010. Her 2011 album A Creature I Don't Know was a little trickier to gauge given its slightly more abstract writing, but it was still incredibly solid if only because the writing was so damn good and it wasn't afraid to get noisier and nastier deeper into the record for cuts like 'The Beast' which kicks all amounts of ass. Then came Once I Was An Eagle in 2013, a record that dipped into even greater abstraction with even less instrumental accompaniment and one that took so many listens to really understand - and yet I'd still argue that as a songwriter Marling had never sounded better, an album that felt transitional only in that she was stepping towards something new and dropping an air of finality on what came before.

So when I heard she was releasing a new album that apparently featured electric guitar - a first for her - I was excited. After Once I Was An Eagle, a new beginning felt inevitable... so what did we get with her newest record Short Movie?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 2, 2015 (VIDEO)

Man, this took way too long to get out. Glad it's here, but between computer problems and editing...

Want to know what else took WAY too long to put out? My next review, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 2, 2015

So here's the funny thing about when songs fall off the very top - it can take a bit of time for everything to start breaking down and getting interesting, or at least allow a little more instability into the charts. And while last week was the one that got all the big headlines, this week is where things started to shake up a little. Coupled with the Academy of Country Music having its annual awards - even though they were a complete joke - we got a couple surprises on the charts this week, even if the quality of said surprises remains to be seen.

video review: 'love story' by yelawolf

Unsurprisingly, some of the reception of this album has been mixed, but for a guy who has always loved country and hip-hop, the fusion works stunningly well and I really dug this record. 

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN! Stay tuned!

album review: 'love story' by yelawolf

I've been getting requests to cover this for months now. Ever since I said that I was both a hip-hop reviewer and the only country music critic on YouTube, I've gotten asked to talk about Yelawolf, affiliated with Shady Records and one of the more perplexing talents to be affiliated with Eminem.

But before I talk about Yelawolf, I need to talk about the fusion of country and hip-hop, country rap. Believe it or not, country and hip-hop have a disturbing amount in common, which is why I'm always baffled why so many people are amazed I like both of them. I mean, country and hip-hop are both driven by strong regional pride. Both are genres that are used to telling stories, and both love their alpha-male heroes, especially if they're outlaws. Both as of right now have a serious problem sustaining female talent in the mainstream without overt sexualization, and both have been going through significant growing pains when it comes to more progressive audiences.  Both aren't afraid to speak about the real problems of the downtrodden and talk about real social issues... or at least they used to be before what got popular were songs about booze, cars, and butts. 

So what do we get with country rap? Well, many people think it started with artists like Uncle Kracker and Bubba Sparxxx in the early 2000s, gaining traction with the success of acts like Colt Ford. And I'll be blunt - most of it is goddamn terrible, thanks mostly to the fact that it caters to the lowest common denominator and generally suffers from a serious deficiency in rapping talent. And thus the choice of Yelawolf to start moving towards more of a gritty, country-influenced sound has always intrigued me. He started off with a ton of buzz off of well-received mixtapes... buzz that mostly went out the window thanks to the generally underwhelming and messy Radioactive. The frustrating thing is that Yelawolf is a solid and unique rapper, at least from a technical perspective, but his production really let him down, generally sounding thin and underweight. The album suffered from a serious lack of focus and texture - Yelawolf is a spitter, but he didn't exactly blow me away or show off the elements that made him so unique and distinctive.

Well, it's clear Yelawolf understood that, because he took the criticism to heart and after an EP with Ed Sheeran - which makes way too much sense when you think about it - he dropped another mixtape and finally has released his sophomore release. And the look of it is much different. Recorded in Nashville, with only Eminem as a guest star and with a very limited number of producers, this looked to be something grittier, with the single 'Till It's Gone' on both it and SHADY XV suggesting a sound that was closer to country rap than anything else. So you bet I was curious about the album and dove in: how is it?

video review: 'glitterbug' by the wombats

Not quite as amazing as their debut, but still awesome and definitely worth your time all the same.

Next up... hmm, decisions, decisions. Stay tuned!

album review: 'glitterbug' by the wombats

It's one of the weirdest things about music throughout the years, and something that the more you think about it makes less and less sense: how power pop just isn't successful on mainstream radio.

I mean, sure, you might get the occasional hit from bands with enough of an edge to rock out but a penchant for the strong, sticky hooks that pop music needs, but they seldom stick around, even in years when you'd think they do well. Take the pop rock boom of the mid-2000s, the heyday of Fall Out Boy and My Chemical romance and Green Day: you'd think mainstream radio would have been desperate to snatch up more bands that were willing to take fast-paced guitar-driven rock and present it with a more polished, anthemic package, but success tended to be limited, especially if the band had a quirky, indie edge that hadn't yet become popular.

Such was the case for The Wombats, a Liverpool-based indie band that broke out with their debut album A Guide To Love, Loss, and Desperation. Like many of the indie acts of the time, you could see the lineage of their sound - the jangly production and overwritten lyrics reminiscent of the Arctic Monkeys crossed with the warped, jagged, and yet oddly theatrical styling that recalled a lot of Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand, especially with the frenetic drumming and bass harmonies. But The Wombats stood out against all of those bands for me, mostly because frontman Matthew Murphy was able to convey an air of sheer panic so well to match lyrics drenched in over-detailed working class heartbreak and wasn't afraid to toss on some lightweight backing harmonies to cut the sting a little. It helped the band had a solid sense of humor and idea of scope: the topics were pure pop idealism, and they worked to build off of that, and made one of the most intensely listenable and fun albums of 2007.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a formula that was destined to last. Four years later they dropped This Modern Glitch, and while the idealism and energy was still there, it wasn't quite the same. The writing didn't seem as sharp, the energy was less raucous and wild, and while the addition of synthesizers worked well enough in a way reminiscent of The Killers, I couldn't help but feel that The Wombats didn't need to become a cleaner or more polished band, no matter how much some of the guitars snarled. Some could argue it might have been a sell-out move... except it didn't take them any further in the mainstream. So when I heard that not only was the band staying with that direction, but even losing some of their trademark humor, I really had a bad feeling about this. Would Glitterbug end up being the album that breaks The Wombats but at the cost of what made them special?

video review: 'cherry bomb' by tyler, the creator

I expect this video to get a fair amount of debate, but eh, that's what happens when positions get complicated. Hell, I expect the same when I cover Kanye later this year.

Next up, I finally want to talk about Laura Marling, but first I might have a surprise coming...

album review: 'cherry bomb' by tyler, the creator

So maybe Odd Future does have a plan after all.

It certainly seems like something is up. When I reviewed Earl Sweatshirt's I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside, I speculated that Odd Future's fading buzz made the release of Earl's record feel like a bit of an anomaly, especially considering the lack of major Odd Future players on it. Well, maybe I should have known better because it wasn't a few weeks later when Odd Future 'leader' Tyler The Creator announced his own record to be released in a week's time.

Which for me was a good thing, because paradoxically while Tyler The Creator might be the leader of the Odd Future collective, he's probably one of the members of the group that I have the hardest time getting a firm handle on. His acrid contempt for critics who brand him as horrorcore given his complete lack of filter and graphic subject material does have merit, mostly because he's the most interesting when you dig deeper into the outsider mentality that exists half in hyperbole and half in unfiltered, bold-faced honesty. He's not rapping to shock, mostly because his audience won't find him shocking but relatable. Parallels have also been made in terms of subject matter to Ariel Pink, owning the image of the outsider even as the mainstream shows interest for all of the wrong reasons, at least in his view - hypocritical considering so much of his buzz has circled around his controversy, but at least he's somewhat aware of that.

And yet I'm not exactly a fan of Tyler The Creator, and it shouldn't be all that surprising why. As I've said in the past, pure unrelenting nihilism, even when shoved through the lens of confused adolescence, frequently wears out its welcome if it doesn't have a larger point behind it, and Tyler's material can struggle here. The warped therapy session of Goblin worked for what it was - entirely unsurprising from a teenage kid forced to grow up too fast and trying to burn through his issues, even if it was about four songs too long - and the 'prequel' of Wolf fleshed out a hall of twisted mirrors and alter egos that were well-developed against good production but did seem to deflect even more from who Tyler really is - and it was also about four songs too long. Incidentally, the whole convoluted 'narrative' behind Tyler's work is interesting conceptually, but I don't put a lot of stock in the execution - it's well-framed and I can overlook the continuity errors lyrically, but I'm often left feeling it's less than the sum of its parts and doesn't hit me as hard as individual moments.

In any case, when Tyler announced his new record Cherry Bomb with no guest appearances from Odd Future members, instead featuring Pharrell, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West, and also a radical departure in sound, I was curious to say the least. Earl Sweatshirt had managed to keep up an impressive level of quality with his comeback, and divorced from the twisted continuity of Tyler's earlier albums, maybe Cherry Bomb could stand up well in its own world, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 25, 2015 (VIDEO)

I honest to God thought I couldn't get this done tonight. The filming was hell, I started late, and I was bleary-eyed and exhausted. Whew.

Okay, next is Tyler, and then I have a slew of reviews I shouldn't have any problem knocking out... plus I've got a surprise planned for this weekend. Stay tuned!