There will be no way to talk about pop music in 2016 without talking about The Chainsmokers - even if you desperately don't want to talk about The Chainsmokers. And here's the funny thing: I'm starting to get the impression that the people who don't want you talking about The Chainsmokers in deeper detail includes the duo themselves. They'd probably prefer that you don't reference their atrocious faux-ironic sketch comedy beginnings, or the fact they were responsible for inflicting that viral marketing trash 'hit' '#SELFIE' on the world in 2014. In other words, right from the start I had a certain distaste for these guys, especially in their attitudes towards pop music, which can be aptly summed up in a quote they made in an interview with Billboard: 'even before success, pussy was number one'. Fantastic, all the proof that the attitudes typically associated with the 'white guy with acoustic guitar' stereotype can cross over: the guys who never made music out of any sort of artistic impulse, just to pick up chicks. Follow it up with an awful live performance with Halsey at the VMAs, their slagging of the band Weezer as 'thirsty', and their much-covered insults at Lady Gaga and Rihanna for either sucking or having 'no work ethic', and you can see why legitimate artists both in and outside of EDM treat The Chainsmokers with at best disinterest and at worst outright contempt. But look, we've had assholes in music forever, I'm not holding The Chainsmokers to any sort of moral standard. No, what I find more corrosive is how it feels like so much of their music feels like an extended con run on the mainstream public, abusing the pass that's now common for pop in the cultural conversation to make some of the most cynical and hollow music imaginable. You might not like Lady Gaga's artifice or The Weeknd's nhilism, you might think Taylor Swift is thin-skinned and vindictive and Drake is overexposed and creatively stagnating, that Meghan Trainor can't back up her ego and Shawn Mendes is way over his head, but when I listen to their music, there's an artistic impulse that I might not like but is at least there. Even will.i.am, who I used to loathe for his 'music-as-marketing savant' approach at least took the music with artistic integrity - even if he couldn't always execute, there was at least something. The Chainsmokers, meanwhile, freely admit in public to being inspired by Jeremy Piven's character from Entourage and seem to treat music more as a marketing gimmick to enable hedonism rather than any sort of art - so no wonder they've said they've never considered releasing a full-length debut album, because that would enable critics to drag them into a serious conversation they aren't prepared or willing to have. And that's the reason why I'm covering their second EP Collage in detail - call it a review, call it an expose, what did this Collage deliver?
Well, this happened. Wow, did not expect to find anything to like here, but hey, it happens. Next up... look, I'd like to say that new "solo" album from The Game is worth talking about, but I really want to knock something out of my backlog first... so stay tuned!
Oh, I am the wrong person to be covering this record. See, I think I've gone on record that I never really had an 'angry white boy' phase, and since I was such a massive nerd growing up, when I did start getting into metal in the mid-2000s, I kind of skipped hard rock radio entirely and dove straight into fantasy-inspired symphonic and power metal. Sure, I heard some of it in passing if it ever crossed over to pop radio, but my musical evolution was taking me in precisely the opposite direction of rock radio: I was listening to progressive rock and metal and later the more anthemic strains of hair metal and thrash, or getting into punk and post-punk that would drag me into experimental and noise rock, all of which would culminate in my continuing exploration of even more abrasive genres like black metal which continues to this day. But going back to relisten to some of that mid-2000s material now... wow, I can't tell you how lucky I feel about this. I avoided the dregs of nu-metal, the post-grunge imitators, so much of the meat-headed metalcore scene... look, I doubted I would have gotten into this when I was a teenager anyway, but it's very telling that going back to this now how badly so much of it has aged. That's what makes a look back at Avenged Sevenfold kind of fascinating to me, a band that gets dumped on by metal fans for not being heavier and the sort of theatrics that they've rarely if ever been able to pull off convincingly. Yeah, okay, the guitar work and solos did have a certain charm on City Of Evil, but the band followed it with a self-titled release in 2007 that tried to add elements of symphonic rock and fell ridiculously flat. And yes, for the most part I'm going to blame frontman M. Shadows for this - his songwriting has always been hilariously overwrought and his more nasal delivery has never had swell or impact for me. Now granted, things have improved: after the unfortunate passing of their drummer The Rev, they pivoted into heavier material like their 2010 album Nightmare, which was a decent if unremarkable slice of heavy metal. But by the time they released Hail To The King in 2013, it became apparent that even if Avenged Sevenfold had started to evolve past adolescent whinging, I was struggling to find anything fresh or interesting about their material. I get making a tribute to the past, but when the influences are so blatant without fresher content, I can lose interest. And it looks like Avenged Sevenfold have reportedly taken that to heart: without warning they released their longest album to date, apparently drawing on progressive metal, thrash, and even hints of their metalcore sound they left behind years ago. Now I still wasn't a fan of this band, but this looked to potentially be their most experimental work to date, one of their more 'conceptual' and perhaps even their heaviest, and that looked interesting at least, so I dug into The Stage. Did Avenged Sevenfold redeem themselves?
Well, this was a diverse week. Not precisely a great week, but definitely an interesting one. Only three weeks of the Billboard year, though, so anything could happen... Next up, though - well, you'll see, so stay tuned!
This was a weird week on the Hot 100. All of a sudden the chart shifting momentum seemed to dry up, and yet we got a whole pile of new arrivals and returning entries spanning every genre except country. It was a lumpy, misshapen sort of week that would normally be fascinating to talk about...
So this completely blew. Seriously, I was thinking about skipping this but when I discovered how completely awful it was, I needed to deal with it. Also probably guarantees I'll never talk about a Kenny Chesney record again, but whatever. Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN and probably Avenged Sevenfold... maybe a chance to knock an album or two out of my backlog too, so stay tuned!
I don't think I've entirely been fair to Kenny Chesney. Granted, there's a limit to how fair one way or another I can be about this guy, because for as long as he's been a consistent presence in country, he's not exactly been an artist that sparks a lot of attention, critical or otherwise, even despite a considerable number of hits. Outside of your average Jimmy Buffett fan club, I don't see many country fans in the mainstream or otherwise saying their favourite artist is Kenny Chesney - hell, he's got a crossover 'hit' right now with an artist I otherwise like and yet I can't really be bothered to care about it all that much - it's breezy, lightweight material, often at the beach, the sort of sedentary music that flows in one ear and right out the other. So when I started getting requests to cover this... well, suffice to say I didn't have high expectations. I may have been overly harsh to Kenny Chesney's last record The Big Revival, which did have a few songs that ended up growing a bit on me in time, but I wasn't holding out a lot of hope for Cosmic Hallelujah. For one, the lead-off single was 'Noise', the sort of non-country track complete with some of the most gratuitous pitch-correction I've ever heard in the genre - whatever that song was, it certainly reflected a change in instrumental direction, perhaps even a point where Kenny Chesney had decided he wanted to blaze his own experimental trail! And while a part of me had no expectations this was going to work well at all - he's only got two writing credits on this release - I will admit that it's a bit of an interesting spectacle to watch Kenny Chesney, seventeen albums into his career, decide to venture out of an extremely well worn comfort zone? So okay, what does this mean for Cosmic Hallelujah?
Well, this was definitely a real disappointment. Certainly was hoping from more from this record, but instead... well, misgivings were proven correct. And on that unfortunate note, Kenny Chesney is next (because I still need more time for Avenged Sevenfold), so stay tuned!
I've had a sinking feeling about this record for the past few weeks now. And believe me, I definitely haven't wanted that, but the misgivings about this record started coming out early and haven't really stopped. See, when I first heard Tove Lo in 2014, I was pretty impressed with her debut Queen Of The Clouds. Not a great pop album, but I saw buckets of potential from a fairly smart songwriter with a knack for pop nuance and good hooks. And coupled with a forceful and surprisingly layered performance, I thought Tove Lo could easily build herself a potent pop career and give most of her contemporaries some serious competition. And for a while it seemed like she had some momentum: 'Habits (Stay High)' was huge, 'Talking Body' was a very respectable follow-up, and 'Close', her collaboration with Nick Jonas, grew on me a fair bit. And I really liked Tove Lo's artistic persona: wild, reckless, she pushed her lyrics into some dark territory, even if on some level you wished she could take as many chances with her instrumentation and production, or that her lyrics didn't always show the self-awareness to elevate the flagrant irresponsibility, add more subtext. But while I initially dug her lead-off single 'Cool Girl', with everything else I learned about her sophomore project the more concerned I got, starting with the incredibly on-the-nose album title. Coupled with the fact that she had kept the same production team and the biggest guest star on this record was Wiz Khalifa, plus the fact that she was going for a double album concept on a record that didn't even crack forty minutes...hate to say it, but it rang as trying too hard to shock or grab people's attention. And sure, that's her prerogative and I generally like that forceful personality, but her lack of greater subtlety meant the play to greater sexuality felt all the more brazen... and while many of her younger fans might not remember, I'm familiar with what happened to Madonna in the early 90s - eventually if you try too hard to shock in this lane, people don't get surprised in the same way. But maybe I'm being too harsh here, maybe there was a place for Tove Lo's directness in 2016, so I took a long hard look at Lady Wood - what did I find?
And that's two for tonight. Whew, this went down a lot easier than I expecting, really quite pleased with it too. Did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, that's for sure... And next up, Tove Lo and... well, this Avenged Sevenfold record is bound to be interesting, I suppose... stay tuned!
Of the albums I was expecting that I'd eventually cover this year, a new record from Jimmy Eat World was not one of them. And to be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure why that is, probably not helped that I'm pretty divided on the group as a whole. I've always considered the band something of a mess of contradictions: the lyrics treading right up to the line of emo with frontman Jim Adkins tending to underplay his delivery... paired with instrumentation that went straight for power pop and never turned back, most of which led to songs that had swell and impact instrumentally but weren't always well matched by their content. It was always a balancing act for me with Jimmy Eat World - at their best, they hit anthemic rock beats that could match the broader scope of their writing, or managed to precisely nail a sweet spot that would make them influential in emo throughout the next decade. Granted, by emo standards Jimmy Eat World were never great songwriters - Say Anything never had anything to worry about - which is why I tended to like their more anthemic stabs like Futures and Chase The Light a fair bit more than most, and am willing to forgive some parts of Invented. But 2013's Damage was a frustrating listen, an attempt to go 'back to basics' with their scope and sound, and ditching Mark Trombino's production to do it left with middling results at best - not a bad album, but certainly not one anybody remembered. But there's a part of me that was kind of curious about their album this year Integrity Blues, mostly because they were working with Justin Meldel-Johnsen on production - and even though I've definitely come down hard on his production work in the past, he has injected more personality into his work and that could be a good fit for Jimmy Eat World, who as a band I've always thought could use a little more flash. So okay, how as Integrity Blues?
This review took me a lot longer than I had expected - I've probably listened to the record a dozen times, but it just took a while to really come to any concrete opinion... just one of those things, I guess. Beyond that, I've got the Jimmy Eat World review on deck, so stay tuned!
So I think I've gone on record a number of times by this point how 2016 has been a bit of a dud in terms of popular music, especially hip-hop, showcasing established MCs underperform and a whole load of talentlessness get recognized for no damn good reason. But I think what's made this all the more frustrating is that, well, it didn't have to be this way - it could have been more than just Chance The Rapper who has carried the torch from the underground with real quality, and the lack of recognition for mainstream-ready rappers and performers has been as frustrating if not more so. And if you want the primary example of that, it's Anderson .Paak. Oh, the critics absolutely adored his early 2016 release Malibu - myself included, that record rules - but it was a summer album released in mid-January, and that probably prevented his music from crossing over more. Because make no mistake, if we can give Lil Yachty, Desiigner, Lil Uzi Vert, and Young Thug careers, Anderson .Paak's material was not so inaccessible that it couldn't do well, especially given how damn catchy and charismatic it was. But despite making the XXL Freshman list and a few critically acclaimed guest appearances on other albums, it didn't really seem like he was interested playing the game. Instead, he went over to the independent label Stones Throw - most well-known for backing artists and producers like J.Dilla and Madlib - and set up a collaboration with Knxwledge, who is a prolific producer in and of his own right, but is probably most well-known for some production work he did for Kendrick on To Pimp A Butterfly. Together, they formed NxWorries, and while they had dropped a collaborative EP last December, this was a full-length record - not just a mixtape as I had originally thought. And hell, I like both of these guys, this could very well be a fun release, so how is Yes Lawd!?
Well, this was a lot of fun... but let's face it, any rapper who can make that face while holding an adorable puppy has a good shot with me. On a different note, NxWorries and Jimmy Eat World soon, so stay tuned!
So I may or may not have said in the past couple reviews that the mainstream Hot 100 has sucked a fair bit in 2016. Sure, it's mostly getting better now but that's a slow process and it sure as hell isn't happening all at once. But one of the unrelenting bright spots has been the inexplicable success of the breakout single 'Broccoli' by D.R.A.M., Virginia rapper and the sort of immediately recognizable presence that mainstream hip-hop has really been lacking this year. And yet despite how much Lil Yachty nearly ruined that song, D.R.A.M. managed to outshine him - and I mean that beyond just a reflection on skill and personality. No, what D.R.A.M. brought with 'Broccoli' was positivity and energy, no doubt influenced by his association with Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment and especially Chance The Rapper, which is where I've been recognizing him over the past eighteen months. And while there's a part of me that wishes Chance could have gotten to the top first as a more thoughtful MC, if it takes D.R.A.M. to throw the doors open, I'm definitely on board. In other words, I didn't quite know what to expect going into Big Baby D.R.A.M., but I had the feeling it would at least be fun, something that the desaturated monotone of most modern pop could definitely use. Hell, the only other guest stars besides Lil Yachty were Erykah Badu - okay - and Young Thug, and this would be the sort of lush upbeat production that I've been looking for Young Thug to rhyme against for some time now. So no more wasting time, how was Big Baby D.R.A.M.?
Well, it couldn't last. The past few weeks on Billboard BREAKDOWN, while not perfect, have at least shown a little more potential, but this week shows that crap has its own certain inertia - even though there are some positive signs, a lot of this week feels for every two steps forward we're taking one step back.
Man, I wish I liked this album a lot more... frustrating, because I know the backlash to this episode will probably be pretty intense. Lovely. Either way, I've got D.R.A.M. and NxWorries up soon, along with Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!
I remember when it seemed like for a few brief years, Lady Gaga was the biggest person in pop. She might not have had the most hits or the most critical acclaim, but she sparked conversation by her very presence and how 'weird' and crazy she was. And here's the thing: she really wasn't all that crazy, even with all the ridiculous rhetoric and outfits. I'm going to make a comparison that at first thought might not seem to make any sense: Lady Gaga reminds me a lot of Eric Church, the maverick country artist who remained within the mainstream but in recent years also built something of a reputation on being 'weird' that's proved hit-and-miss. And again, at least to me it doesn't seem that weird or strange for either of them, mostly because I get their type: they're music nerds, the type of people who study and examine music with an obsessive intensity that tends to alienate the mainstream. Both worked insanely hard at their craft, both wanted to be larger than life and worshiped icons like Springsteen who could pull it off, both were unafraid to cross and blend genres in ways that could be famously messy but nearly always unique, and at their very worst, both made a lot of music that was self-referential to the point of disappearing up their own ass. For Eric Church it was his 2014 record The Outsiders, but for as much as I dislike that album, it wasn't all self-focused myth-making, and he alleviated a lot of that sting by following it with Mr. Misunderstood a year later. Gaga, on the other hand, made ARTPOP. And look, I don't hate that record nearly as much as some people do - all of her work has been messy, with The Fame Monster being her most consistently strong record, but there have always been some stunning songs along the way. But ARTPOP remains her weakest record, for in trying to commercialize the art aesthetic without capturing the populism or avant-garde experimentation that could have given the album flair, it wound up trying to make more of a statement with attitude than content, and it didn't really get all the way there, not helped by hooks and writing that were far from her best. And so ARTPOP disappeared down the collective memory hole of pop fans, Lady Gaga went on to American Horror Story and an album of covers with Tony Bennett and wrote a song that should have won her an Oscar, and now she's finally back with Joanne. From what I had heard of the singles and writing, I was getting the impression this could very well be her Mr. Misunderstood, a tighter refocus on her core strengths as a tremendous performer and artist in her own right. And believe me, folks, I wanted this to be good: I didn't love 'Perfect Illusion' or 'Million Reasons'but 2016 in mainstream pop has sucked so badly that I had to hope Lady Gaga would pull something powerful together, right?
Well, this is bound to be an ugly situation... but then again, I'm not sure how the Kings Of Leon fans will love this, so who knows? Next up, I need some Anderson .Paak before Lady Gaga, so stay tuned!
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