Monday, April 30, 2018

resonators 2018 - episode #004 - 'bad brains' by bad brains


I think it's time we talk about race in punk music.

Now this is not a comfortable topic, and there are layers and nuance that I'll freely admit that I'm probably not the best guy to talk about beyond looking for the history. And with the history of punk... well, it gets even dicier, especially coming out of the late 70s and how genres were co-mingling and mutating. Of course punk has some of its deepest roots in black music - at its core much of punk utilized traditional rock and roll song structures invented by black musicians - but throughout the 1970s traditionally black musical genres were going in very different directions, from the growth of soul, funk and R&B to the mutation of disco to the very early days of hip-hop. And while black music was getting more opulent and smooth, punk seemed to be heading in the exact opposite direction - although one can make the argument that the sharp political subtext that underlined a lot of soul music and funk music would have had common cause with the punks of the time.

But that doesn't mean there weren't punks of all races within the scene who found common cause with the righteous fury and rough edges of the genre... and this is where we hit another major roadblock and it has to do with a subgenre I referenced a few months back: the Oi! scene. Originally grounded in working class rebellion in the U.K, it was a sound that sadly got co-opted by second wave skinhead culture and hard right, frequently racist groups in the late 70s and early 80s. And while you could definitely make an argument how much of this was fair to the scene or the artists within it, many who could credibly make the argument to being misrepresented, the messy public perception led to ugly assumptions and branding that Oi! bands and even hardcore punks have had to fight to escape for years since, not helped by the street punk and skinhead explosion in the U.S. where the hard-right branding was harder to escape or deny. And with that popular connotation, it's no surprise why black artists might have shied away from the scene, especially in the face of friendlier, no less conscious or political spaces like in early hip-hop.

Of course, there's another side to this, and it leads to another genre that was organic, raw, and often sharply political: reggae. It was a looser subgenre than punk, but throughout the 70s it had flourished and had often received billing and airplay in punk venues. And thus the cross-pollination of genres between the newborn hardcore scene and reggae was only a matter of time, with one group originally making music as a jazz fusion act before amping up the tempos and bringing an distinctly black flavor to hardcore punk, now widely held as one of the most legendary bands of the genre. That's right, we're talking about the 1982 self-titled debut from Bad Brains, and this is Resonators!

album review: 'dirty computer' by janelle monae

I remember referencing Afrofuturism in brief while talking about Janelle Monae's past two records, the underlying Cindi Mayweather stories that have served as a time travelling narrative undercurrent to her stories, taking the tropes and aesthetics of 50s and 60s sci-fi and fusing it with modern language, taking the textures of R&B and soul of the 70s and 80s and bringing them into a swirling, neon genre fusion with rock and modern R&B, and its core was the swirling, magnetic charisma of Janelle Monae...

And there's a part of me that feels I owe her an apology. Now to some of you that might seem confusing - I've been openly a fan for years ever since her guest appearance on Idlewild, I'd put both The ArchAndroid and The Electric Lady on year-end lists, I wouldn't hesitate to put her on a list of one of the most defiantly unique and potent artists of the 2010s both in terms of raw talent and experimentation and that's even before you consider how she hasn't compromised her pop sensibility. And yet going back to my review of The Electric Lady five years ago, just when I was starting out... there's a part of me not proud of it, primarily because of how I treated the underlying metaphors and themes at the core of the work. Not that I didn't grasp it - the queer black femininity at its core was always apparent and Janelle Monae did a wonderful job exploring its nuances through the larger metaphors of her story - but I feel the language I chose was minimizing, especially given how deeply personal said narrative turned out to be. For me it was more paying attention to the mechanics of the story, looking for a weightier external payoff to the narrative rather than realizing the true thematic and emotional arc was internal... and while some of that could be explained due to the theatrical artificiality of the narrative, I should have realized the inward shift of the metaphor and presentation was likely far more representative of what explorations of queer black femininity and sexuality are. 

Fast forward to 2018 and it should surprise nobody that so much of the coded theatricality has slipped away: the institutional pressures have redoubled both internal and external strain, and flagrant urgency becomes a necessity. More than that, Janelle Monae has only grown into a more assured and confident artist, both from her forays into acting or even her steps into mainstream R&B with The Eephus EP in 2015 - yes, I personally preferred more of the fantastical sci-fi aesthetic and genre blending, but raw charisma can compensate for a lot. And thus for Dirty Computer, there was a part of me that knew this record wouldn't quite be the same sort of Afrofuturist affair as her previous work - especially with the lead-off singles, it looked to be, for lack of better words, more conventional and accessible. Granted, she still released an entire short film to flesh out the greater themes of the record that was very much linked to her conceptual framework, but we're here to focus on the album itself - so how is it?

Friday, April 27, 2018

video review: 'the shadow theory' by kamelot


Well, this was... mostly disappointing, but I'm happy I got it off my schedule all the same. Eh, let's just move on.

Next up, I've got Resonators and finally some Janelle Monae, so stay tuned!

album review: 'the shadow theory' by kamelot

So when a band gets twelve albums into their career... hell, what is even left to say? Their high and low points are well-known, as are their moments of genre experimentation and flair. They've become an established quantity, and unless there is a massive paradigm shift, there becomes very little for critics like me to say...

And yet Kamelot has been different, mostly because their past few albums have been a pretty stark departure in sound with new frontman Tommy Karevik. The symphonic bombast had been ramped up, the tones were more aggressive and borderline progressive, and while Silverthorn was pretty damn solid in its own right, their 2015 follow-up Haven featured two of the best songs of 2015 and easily one of the best power ballads of the decade! It was a height that Kamelot hadn't reached in any capacity for me in over a decade, and thus I was genuinely curious how they could follow that up or if the album could match the extremely high quality of some of the individual cuts that came before. Granted, this was also coming with the departure of their longtime drummer Casey Grillo, but replacement Johan Nunez had a respectable pedigree and I was confident that Kamelot could still deliver. So, what did we get with The Shadow Theory?

Thursday, April 26, 2018

video review: 'primal heart' by kimbra


Well, this was a pretty damn good record, definitely enjoyable and recommended!

And hopefully on a similar note to handle some long-overdue business... stay tuned!

album review: 'primal heart' by kimbra

Man, it's been a while since I've had such mixed feelings going into a review.

And to explain why, we need to go back to 2012 - the pop charts are being overrun with out-of-nowhere indie breakthroughs, and 'Somebody That I Used To Know' is becoming one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 2010s. But Kimbra had gotten her start earlier with an off-kilter brand of indie pop that took old school glamour and spent an album driving noisy spikes into it. Occasionally unsettling but frequently compelling, Vows was a really damn potent indie debut, and her collaboration with Gotye seemed to give Kimbra the opening she needed...

And then in 2014 we got The Golden Echo. Now I'll freely admit my review of that record is not one of my best, but the record as a whole didn't hold up then and four years haven't improved it. Critical and commercial momentum hit a brick wall as her characteristically unstable and overwrought production collided with R&B and 90s pop-inspired tones, muddying her usually sharp satirical edge, and her choice to stick almost entirely with her cooing upper register made an already overlong record a chore to get through. Now don't get me wrong, there were some high points that made it compelling, but it's a little understandable it's been four years since that release, and there were major shakeups in the production staff, bringing on John Congleton as a major co-producer and also nabbing credits from Natasha Bedingfield and Skrillex. And considering how often this record had been pushed back, I didn't really have high expectations but I at least hoped Kimbra could make a return to form, especially as Vows has held up to this day. So alright, what did we get with Primal Heart?

video review: 'KOD' by j. cole


Well, this was a mess - and yeah, I may have gone a little too deep with this, but I'm genuinely surprised that there wasn't a huge negative response to this...

Eh, whatever, next up something better - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 28, 2018 (VIDEO)


So yeah, this week was kind of messy... but hey, it could be worse (like what I'm expecting next week), so on that topic...

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

album review: 'KOD' by j. cole

Let's talk satire in hip-hop for a bit. 

See, since near the genre's inception there have always been artists that have twisted stereotypical tropes of the genre into nastier shapes to comment upon the culture, that take the hedonism and violence and co-opt the production and language with a veneer of irony to comment upon the genre to make a deeper statement about it. And this is always a dicey line to walk, because this sort of satire can very easily fall into the blurry territory where those who get the intentions will get the point but the audience that can't see past the aesthetic will simply embrace everything on display without deeper questions or self-reflection. And what's exasperating is that so much of this is subjective - there is no clear line delineating when and where the satire connects, and that tends to mean these records tend to be pretty divisive among critics and audiences alike.

And thus when J. Cole came out of nowhere to release KOD - an acronym intended to simultaneously mean Kids On Drugs, King Overdose and Kill Our Demons - I started to get worried when I saw comparisons being made with These Days, the 2014 record made by hip-hop's resident satirist troll Ab-Soul and one of the shakiest records in his discography. And what tends to get overlooked is that parody and satire were pretty well represented in hip-hop in 2014, from the neo-gothic opera of and then you shoot your cousin by The Roots to the abrasive nightmare of clipping's self-titled release, and thus when J. Cole is getting comparisons to the weakest of that satirical trio... well, it sparks concerns, especially when you consider how uneven J. Cole's stabs into message-driven hip-hop have been in the past. Granted, if you're placing J. Cole on more aggressive and interesting production he might be able to avoid the frustrating slog that was 4 Your Eyez Only, but again, I had concerns how effectively he'd be able to address this, especially as this is easily his shortest record to date. So fine, what did we get on KOD?

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 28, 2018

You know, it's only in the streaming album bomb era where the cool down week gets any sort of appreciation. I can't even say it was a great week here - honestly, doesn't really look like it, especially in comparison with my mostly positive feelings about Cardi B and 'Nice For What' last week - but considering we have J Cole coming in from around the corner for next week and then whatever the hell Post Malone unleashes the week right after... yeah, I'll take whatever slower moments I can get.

Monday, April 23, 2018

video review: 'port saint joe' by brothers osborne


Okay, not as great as I was hoping... but overall, still solid, definitely recommended.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and we'll see what comes next - stay tuned!

album review: 'port saint joe' by brothers osborne

Oh, I was looking forward to this one - and for a nice change of pace, it didn't look like it was just me this time around and that's thrilling to see.

And there's really no mincing words about it: in the face of other country duos Brothers Osborne have surged to the forefront in critical acclaim and presence over the past few years ever since they released Pawn Shop in very early 2016 - and what's more exciting is that they seemed to be doing it the right way. Sure, that debut was uneven and had rough patches both in production and songwriting, but you wouldn't really know it given that Brothers Osborne had a canny eye for releasing great singles like '21 Summer' and especially 'It Ain't My Fault', which might just have one of the best music videos of the decade. It was one of those projects where the sheer talent, wit, and swagger was hard to deny, and while the larger mainstream never quite got onboard the way they should have - especially considering it wasn't like their labelmate Eric Church had many singles in circulation to compete - this upcoming record starting getting a lot of attention, to see how they'd follow up and expand their southern rock style while keeping that idiosyncratic flair and firepower. Or to put it another way, even though I've been a fan of these guys for a few years now, I was excited to see how much everyone else wanted to get on-board: so what did we get on Port Saint Joe?

Sunday, April 22, 2018

video review: 'liberty' by lindi ortega


So I have to admit, I'm a little surprised to realize that Lindi Ortega wound up blocking me on Twitter... shame, I thought this album was pretty damn good and she may never see it.

Anyway, next up is some more country (albeit of a slightly different stripe), so stay tuned!

album review: 'liberty' by lindi ortega

So I've talked before about narrative-driven concept records in country music, and while you'd think they'd be more common given the genre's penchant for telling stories... look, I can barely say that with a straight face anymore, especially in the checklist-driven mainstream scene. But even outside of that, for a country artist to take a real risk and build a coherent, multi-part narrative over an entire project... that requires a level of ambition, forethought, and oftentimes budget that can be daunting for any act, especially in the indie scene.

But that wasn't going to stop Lindi Ortega this time. After she broke out in 2012 with the excellent Cigarettes & Truckstops that won her a ton of justifiable critical acclaim, most of which carried into her 2013 follow-up Tin Star, I had the feeling that she was on the cusp of really taking at least the indie scene by storm, if not more. And yet while I mostly liked 2015's Faded Gloryville, it was also clear that her vintage, rockabilly-infused country lane was starting to lose its luster in the face of an increasingly oversaturated scene and songs that just didn't rise to her best... and beyond all of that, there's just not a lot of money in that brand of indie country, and Nashville is an expensive city. So she left it altogether, came back to Canada, and set out to make her most ambitious project to date, putting aside the rockabilly tones for something grander and rougher, pulling on spaghetti western bombast like that of Ennio Morricone for the gritty melodrama to come. Three acts, fifteen tracks, with songs in Spanish and English blending mariachi with her smoky blend of noir and country rock, I've been wanting to cover this for weeks... and now that it's up the schedule, let's dig in: what did we get on Liberty?

Thursday, April 19, 2018

video review: 'COSMIC' by bazzi


You know, I rarely cover acts who blow up in this vein... but I'm kind of curious to see if this review takes off, it's intriguing.

Next up... whoo boy, this'll be interesting, one of the most ambitious country records of the year, so stay tuned!

album review: 'COSMIC' by bazzi

I'm not going to deny how weird it feels when a record like this winds up on my schedule.

See, it's been very well-documented that I was no big fan of the Vine dance crazes that dominated entirely too much of the Hot 100 in the mid-2010s, and while there were a fair few Vine stars that found careers after the platform collapsed - some of which I like a fair bit, such the David Dobrik vlog squad or Gabbie Hanna - the only one associated primarily with music I came close to liking was Shawn Mendes, and even he has had some gross low points. But Bazzi's meteoric rise might be even stranger - he also started on Vine, but the breakthrough of his song 'Mine' was linked to a Snapchat lens going viral. Now considering Snapchat is in its own dire straits right now, I couldn't help but feel surprised to discover that not only did Bazzi have a record ready to capitalize on his sudden success - seemingly backed by Warner and Atlantic to boot - but that it looked like a fully fleshed out project: sixteen tracks, self-produced with only a assist from duo Rice 'N' Peas, and getting a surprising amount of buzz to get up my schedule remarkably quickly. And considering 'Mine' was a pretty good song, I was inclined to see if this guy was truly ready for the big time, so what did we get with COSMIC?

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

video review: 'joyride' by tinashe


Well, this was... actually better than I expected. A few really choice cuts keeps this in interesting territory, definitely worth the listen if you're curious.

Next up, let's go with this Bazzi project - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - april 21, 2018 (VIDEO)


So yeah, crazy busy episode, but it seems like it's going down well, so enjoy!

album review: 'joyride' by tinashe

At this point it's hard not to feel like Tinashe should be bigger.

And believe it or not, this has absolutely nothing to do with my opinion on her music - I didn't really like Aquarius, and while I found Nightride a modest improvement, there was R&B I liked more that year - hell, more R&B I liked both years. And in a sense it's hard to escape the feeling that Tinashe might have fallen victim to a peculiar phenomenon I've observed with rising R&B starlets: they get one big mainstream-crossover hit, their breakthrough album gets critical acclaim and hits a bunch of year-end lists... and then if they don't have the guaranteed follow-up smash on the next project, the interest dries up in record time, even if it might turn out those later projects are better or more interesting. But even then, Tinashe is on a major label, you would think there'd be more of a marketing push to break her into the spotlight... but her sales have not been great, and it would be a damn tragedy if she releases her strongest project to the weakest public response yet. Granted, I did have concerns given how much Joyride was delayed and that it had the guest stars that she hadn't needed on Nightride, and it's not like Offset, Future, Ty Dolla $ign and French Montana are known for consistent quality, but given the years of development time, there had to be something potent here, right?