resonators 2018 - episode #003 - 'milo goes to college' by the descendents (VIDEO)

I kind of feel like I had to cover this one, but man alive, I'm expecting a pretty sizable backlash here...

Anyway, working on the Trailing Edge next, so stay tuned!

resonators 2018 - episode #003 - 'milo goes to college' by the descendents

So let's change gears for a bit on this series and talk about something light, something with a little more melody and upbeat charm - and frankly, this is a side of punk that you'll often get on the poppier side but I'm always a little mystified that it doesn't translate to the other subgenres as often. And it's also something I'd argue can drive a lot of people away from punk in the long-term, especially the more political stuff. Yes, punk often deals with serious issues and the furious intensity of hardcore means that it's naturally suited to emotions that are more negative or angry, but the truth is that said material can burn out a lot of listeners, especially when you consider the puritanical straight edge side that came out of hardcore as the 80s continued on. And yes, there is absolutely a place for that, and when I finally get a chance to talk about Minor Threat we'll discuss it in detail... but there's a reason why bands that at least seem like they're having fun have a little more longevity in popular culture. And while some will look down on that, it's hard to deny a sense of humor and raw populism might spread the message even further - even the bad or misguided ideas Dead Kennedys had have stuck around thanks to Jello Biafra's delivery and wit.

So let's discuss one of the more influential acts in that mold across hardcore and pop punk, who released their full-length debut in 1982 and titled it with the expectation that their frontman Milo Aukerman was going off to college, after which the band went on one of their many hiatuses. They had seen some groundswell a year earlier with the Fat EP - just to give you an idea of the sense of humor we're dealing with - and had actually been produced by Spot, the guy who worked in-house for most of SST and co-produced Black Flag's Damaged, among many others - expect his name to come up a lot more, especially when it comes the California scene. But this group was the furthest thing thematically from Black Flag - a band of hyper-caffeinated teenagers on the goofy side that in 1982 were actively looking to buck the serious, destructive, borderline anarchistic side of the scene... and in doing they made one of the most influential melodic hardcore albums of all time and inspired countless groups, especially the pop punk mainstream breakthroughs in the mid-to-late 90s. That's right, folks, we're talking abut Milo Goes To College by The Descendents, and this is Resonators!

video review: 'may your kindness remain' by courtney marie andrews

Yeah, it took a little longer than I was expecting to put this together, but I really wanted to be sure... and now I am, easily one of the best of 2018, hands down.

Next up... well, I have Resonators, the Trailing Edge and this A.A.L. record, plus whatever's coming up on the schedule plus this Patreon update - lots going on, so stay tuned!

album review: 'may your kindness remain' by courtney marie andrews

I got to reviewing Courtney Marie Andrews way too late in 2016 - and honestly, for as critical as I was of it, I may have been a little too hard on it as a whole. Part of this is that she was facing some really stiff competition in 2016 that made for apt comparisons - the list of women in country who dropped literate, intensely emotive records that year is considerable and she had an uphill battle. But the truth was that some of my criticisms of her last record Honest Life did feel a tad forced, as it was certainly a record intended to grow through the understated details and subtext, rely more on gorgeous vocal delivery and production to carry the deeper message - and I'll admit that in my headlong rush towards the end of the year, I probably didn't take it in as deeply as I'd prefer - and yet even with that her absolutely stunning track 'Only In My Mind' notched a well-deserved spot among my best songs of 2016, a late entry that was very well-deserved.

Well, there are no such excuses for me this time around, and given how much critical acclaim this follow-up is receiving for fleshing out more of the lyrical details against arrangements I know are bound to sound terrific, I was really looking forward to giving this my full attention before both Linda Ortega and Kacey Musgraves sweep in to grab the spotlight in a few days. So what did I find on May Your Kindness Remain?

video review: 'new material' by preoccupations

So, uh, this was really great and I enjoyed the hell out of it more than I thought I would. Easily the best thing these folks have assembled since Women, highly recommended!

And next up, something also very underground but very promising all the same, so stay tuned!

album review: 'new material' by preoccupations

So at least for me it's been difficult to tell exactly where Preoccupations have been going with their music. The transition from the crushing, grinding riffs of Viet Cong to their self-titled record under this name came with a sonic shift towards a more synth-infused, drone-like post-punk that was brighter and didn't quite feel as implacable as their debut, or as wiry at tight as what most of the group was doing with their previous band Women. And yeah, it wasn't a bad shift but it led to tonal choices that didn't always seem to cleanly match their compositions - a potent listen, but misshapen around the edges, and definitely transitional.

But it looked like Preoccupations was going to keep on shifting, with the songwriting turning introspective and the tones reportedly sounding even brighter and more melodic. And I'll admit that I wasn't at all sure how this would turn out - part of losing that impact was why their last record hadn't resonated quite as well, and while there had been some influences reminiscent of The Cure I didn't exactly see Preoccupations making any strides towards pop. But hey, if this was a record looking to hit rock bottom with better tunes than ever before, I'd give it a listen, so what did I find on New Material?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 31, 2018 (VIDEO)

Heh, this turned out WAY more controversial than I expected... eh, it happens.

Next up, something way better than everything I'm talking about here - enjoy!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 31, 2018

You know, given how the past week has been it's been very tempting of me to just step up in here, say the Billboard Hot 100 shit itself inside out like most of the rest of this year - and let's not mince words, it's about as bad as I've seen it in the past few years - but hey, it could have been worse, right? We didn't get a full album bomb from XXXTENTACION, and while I sure as hell don't think our replacements are anything close to good, I have to keep reassuring myself with the thoughts that this could be a much more miserable experience than it is.

video review: 'boarding house reach' by jack white

And here is round two - and I imagine this'll be the contentious one, with nobody being all that satisfied with the conclusions I draw. Eh, it happens.

Next up, the living hell that's going to be tomorrow's Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!

album review: 'boarding house reach' by jack white

So here's something paradoxical I've noticed with Jack White: for as much as his presence and influence seems to loom over so much modern rock music, I don't think about him that much these days. You'd think I would, given his work with The White Stripes or The Raconteurs or even solo, but for as much as I really liked Blunderbuss, there was a certain distance I still have towards Lazaretto even despite liking it a fair bit. And this is coming from someone who has seen White live in concert and who generally likes his southern gothic, jagged, almost hermetic approach to his sound, spiraling down into twisted rabbit holes that might stumble towards blues rock lyrical cliches but nearly always had the tunes to back it up.

But here's the thing: not counting that overstuffed release of b-sides two years ago, this is the first proper Jack White record in four years, and I was genuinely curious how it would stick out in comparison to so many artists trying to chase some brand of his sound... or hell, even outright surpass it in the vein of artists like Ron Gallo or Kyle Craft. And I'll admit a certain amount of concern about this one: I won't deny that it was likely a natural step for White to step away from conventional blues rock in favour of a more diverse or eclectic sound, but he's never been a great lyricist and if he was refocusing there at the expense of good riffs, with even reportedly a rap-inspired song on this project... yeah, I had room to worry. But what the hell: how was Boarding House Reach?

video review: 'staying at tamara's' by george ezra

Okay, this was pretty decent, but it's not the only thing we're getting tonight - stay tuned!

album review: 'staying at tamara's' by george ezra

And now we've arrived at the second primarily acoustic singer-songwriter who has somehow sold over a million copies around the world based off a single hit that seemed to peak a fair bit later than the actual album did... and yet the more I think about it, George Ezra is a very different sort of artist than Vance Joy, even despite playing with what might seem like a similar genre and sound. For one, George Ezra actually had some rich baritone in his vocal timbre and knew his way around lyrics that could back up their metaphors and loose sense of imagery, but that actually ties to something peculiar about Ezra's presentation: roughness. And I'm not talking about the sort of edge you typically got out of adult-alternative acts that trended in the 90s - with some of the touches of blues, firmer low-end grooves, and slightly more earthy, haggard feel overall, many pinpointed Ezra's influences as much older, calling back to the folk singer-songwriters of the 60s or early 70s that were just adjacent to the mainstream in production if not the songwriting. And yes, some of this affection is linked to how much 'Budapest' has become a karaoke staple for me, but even if the writing hadn't quite gotten there yet George Ezra was at least a more compelling presence behind the microphone...

But like the singer-songwriters of the day, the music media would aim to frame the conversation as competitive, and I've seen a lot of comparisons to Ed Sheeran in the buzz leading up to this release, a sophomore record four years later... and not one that I found had much merit, at least coming off of Ezra's debut. As much as I might hope for otherwise, Ed Sheeran trends more towards pop and R&B than blues or soul or rock, which looked like a more natural landing point for George Ezra - although I did have the twinge of worry that given how well Ed Sheeran and those seeking to rip him off have done, it wouldn't be a far stretch to nudge George Ezra in that direction, regardless of whether that'd fit his style or presentation. So okay, what did we get on Staying At Tamara's?

video review: 'we beefin?' by wendy's (MEME REVIEW)

I feel I might owe some of you an explanation for this.

and I don't feel like giving one - someone paid for it, they got it. Jack White and George Ezra next, enjoy!

movie review: 'love, simon' (VIDEO)

Yeah, a little late to this one, but pretty happy with it overall. 

Next up... whoo boy, Jack White - enjoy!

video review: 'punk' by eric taxxon

Wow, this went... long. Really damn long, but I think I got to the right point.

Next up, something to knock out of my backlog, so stay tuned!

album review: 'punk' by eric taxxon

The last few projects from Eric Taxxon I've put on the Trailing Edge. Not entirely by choice - I ran out of time with The Art State at the end of 2017, I really did want to give that one a full review given the richer set of ideas and more abrasive experimentation, but One Pop didn't give me a lot to say, and while 'Guns' is a damn great song, the rest hasn't quite stuck with me in the same way as, say, Paul did.

But this was one of the projects I wanted to review in full, mostly because Eric Taxxon was going into a territory few producers or artists dare anymore: plunderphonics, taking a plethora samples and musical fragments to vividly recontextualize them for his own work. Now this is not unfamiliar territory to him - I distinctly remember his project Copy from 2016 that actually sampled me from one of my videos - but Punk seemed more ambitious, more driven by Taxxon's acrid distaste for modern copyright law and a desire to make a pointed and layered statement about it. Now keep in mind sampling for free mixtapes has not gone away, but the fact that one could pay for Punk - this project is available on Bandcamp, not DatPiff - means this was definitely in questionable territory, because I'd put money on none of these samples being cleared. And that's always a murky legal territory even if it is free given authorial consent - that's always been one of the big grey areas with fanfiction - but on the other hand I've just had a week where I've had multiple videos either stripped of their monetization or blocked outright by copyright bots without any proper third-party arbitration and despite Fair Use and Fair Dealing conditions on YouTube, so I'm just about in the proper mood to enjoy the hell out of this! So okay, what did I find on Punk?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 24, 2018 (VIDEO)

My God, this was a weird week... honestly not a terrible week, but overall, I'm going to cherish what I have here before XXXTENTACION next week.

Next up... ooh boy, this is going to be crazy, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - march 24, 2018

You know, there's a part of me that's really getting sick of the streaming album bombs, mostly because it feels like it makes covering the albums in a full review kind of redundant... even though by covering them at some point on my schedule I'd probably get more traffic overall, which is all the more exasperating. But why get one album when you can get two, because this week, the big competition comes between Logic and Lil Yachty, the latter who I literally forgot dropped a mixtape a week or so back even despite some critics giving it praise. Eh, given that it's less of an album bomb than a scattering of songs in between Logic, we'll see what we get there.

video review: '?' by xxxtentacion

None of you should be surprised by this. Fuck, I'm just waiting for the backlash train to roll in, especially considering some of the comments I made about relatability.

Whatever - I've got better hip-hop on the horizon to care about than this dreck, but before that, Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: '?' by xxxtentacion

The key word of this review is enablement - because while I've gone off a number of times on Billboard BREAKDOWN how given the changing times and cultural norms it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that a rapper like XXXTENTACION would have a career, much less flourish the way he has. You'd think given the domestic abuse charges and how so much of his art has not just referenced it but coaxed it through a blurry haze of malformed self-loathing to seemingly justify or excuse his actions that he would have thrown to the curb... and yet he accumulates hip-hop cosigns from artists you'd think would know better and ever-increasing chart success.

But I know the answer - and even if you're not a fan and you're just here to see me rip this record to shreds, you're probably not going to like my answer, because it's the sort of uncomfortable indictment of our relationship to artists that especially younger audiences probably aren't ready to address and why their defense of said acts in the face of critics like me seem so much angrier - just like it was with nu-metal nearly twenty years ago, just purified down by a social media environment that gives us the feeling that we are closer to the artist than ever before. But with certain Soundcloud rappers like XXXTENTACION it runs deeper - you don't aspire to be XXXTENTACION so much as you relate to him, reinforced by the homegrown, amateurish style that lets you imagine and project yourself onto him as the artist using the excuse of deeply held art to excuse your own acts. And it becomes personal, a siege mentality when critics or the rest of the world calls it out because by extension they're calling out a part of you out, a part you feel you already have to repress in the larger world, especially against a rising tide of culture that speaks against it. And thus come the blind eyes and the free passes en masse and as the success grows with the culture it nearly always becomes toxic for the artist with any self-awareness given the groundswell of enablement, and thus you see one of three cases: they turn on their audience outright, they acquire the means to ascend past their audience and sacrifice some of their relatability, or they burrow into that niche, an ever-shrinking ouroboros that will eventually consume itself. And if you think this hasn't happened before in artists that haven't trafficked in relatability, especially trending towards darker impulses, the stream of examples can seem endless with the benefit of history. Eminem. J. Cole. So much of nu-metal and pop punk and emo. Taylor Swift. 

Of course, there are cultural consequences to all of this, and the list of artists that realize it is slim indeed - hell, Eminem got it as early as the first Marshall Mathers LP and has been making self-conscious reference to it ever since. But for XXXTENTACION, he has nothing to pull him out of that spiral of enablement except when his audience gets bored and moves on when the music doesn't engage further - the fickle price of maturity and a refusal to evolve artistically in favor of doubling down, which is dangerous but expected when riding the subtle tides of cultural backlash... unless, of course, XXXTENTACION pulls a fast one and surprises his audience. Unfortunately, we're still in the midst of that wave's ascent and my role here is the critic who must smack this down as the amateurish dumpster fire that it's likely to be... but in theory I get the appeal of a record like this, and if it provides me the constructive context to address it properly, we might be able to address this properly. So fine, what did we get on ? ?