movie review: 'solo: a star wars story' (VIDEO)

I honestly don't know how many people will get down on me for this one, given how little hype the movie as a whole seems to have... eh, you never know.

Next up, Resonators and Shawn Mendes - enjoy!

video review: 'tell me how you really feel' by courtney barnett

I keep forgetting to post these videos here... but speaking of which -

album review: 'tell me how you really feel' by courtney barnett

I feel like I've opened up a lot of my reviews in recent weeks with, 'when I covered this artist last time, it didn't go well'... and yet while I'll definitely question my presentation in those older reviews, the more I've gone back to the actual points I was making, the more I'm convinced that my opinions haven't really changed.

And yet if we're talking about one of my most contentious reviews, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett stands as one of the big ones - and what was all the more exasperating is that I definitely understood the appeal. The flat disaffection masking deeper wells of depression, the jagged garage rock tones, the well-framed self-deprecating passive aggression, it had a very stark mid-90s indie rock veneer that I could respect... to a point. And that was the frustrating thing - I kept expecting this project to actually cut more deeply in its content and production, but that would require a greater amount of investment and focus that it didn't seem like Barnett brought to the table in comparison with her sharper peers, and while she provided a firm rationale why caring wasn't on her menu, it also meant I didn't really have the same interest either. And that disaffection couldn't help but feed into her collaboration with Kurt Vile last year Lotta Sea Lice, which I may have liked more if it had felt like a cohesive or engaging project than an extended workshopping session.

And thus I had some serious concerns about the critical reception to this record, nearly all of which was pointing a finger at those Kurt Vile sessions as an indicator of what was to come in neutering any sense of direction or edge or deeper punch... most of which I'd question was on there in the first place, but hey, it's not like my expectations were going to get any lower: what did I find on Tell Me How You Really Feel?

video review: 'wide awake!' by parquet courts

So this was genuinely great - not quite 'best of the year' material, but I'm generally happy with it regardless.

Next up, though... well, it'll be interesting - stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 26, 2018 (VIDEO)

Can't believe I nearly forgot to post this... but still, it was a pretty rough week overall, and I really have no idea what's coming next.

Thankfully, what's up next...

album review: 'wide awake!' by parquet courts

So I'll freely admit that Parquet Courts can be an obtuse band to talk about. Drenched in tones half pulled from the Velvet Underground and Wire but also contorting into weird spaces with lyrics that feel socially resonant but making sense of any of them can be a real effort, the group has always skirted being a personal favourite of mine in comparison to acts pulling on similar material - think Preoccupations or Ought or even Iceage. Granted, that's not to dismiss their records - their last album Human Performance landed its title track on my top fifty favourite songs of 2016 - but I've been waiting for that moment where they really deliver.

So could Wide Awake! be that moment? Reportedly the band was looking to make this a 'punk record you could put on at parties', and for production they brought in Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse, a producer with whom I have a very complicated relationship from his work with The Black Keys and Broken Bells to production he's provided The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Portugal. The Man. Suffice to say in recent years I've found his material increasingly desaturated and dreary - about the last thing I'd want to hear paired with a 'punk record you could put on at parties', but hey, this could still be pretty fun, right?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 26, 2018

I'm not sure how to evaluate what happened on the Hot 100 this week. Obviously there was going to be some slide towards conventionality as Post Malone's album bomb continues to fade, but there seemed to be more going on here, songs from artists I've never heard of showing up and other songs changing in ways I wouldn't predict or expect - or in some cases, not really changing much at all.

video review: 'light of mine' by KYLE

Alright, the review is done, but we still have Billboard BREAKDOWN for tonight, so stay tuned!

album review: 'light of mine' by KYLE

I'll admit to being a little surprised this record is on my schedule.

Actually, let me back up a bit, I'm surprised this record garnered as much attention as it did on my schedule given that it seems like it's dropping a good year later than I expected. Don't get me wrong, I really liked 'iSpy' when it first came out, and if it hadn't been for Lil Yachty it probably would have had a shot for my year-end list of hits in 2017, or at least the Honourable Mentions. And it was primarily because of KYLE - I liked him as a presence in hip-hop and R&B, almost a little reminiscent of Chance The Rapper but with more of an R&B angle and an oddly childlike optimism, which tended to take the edge of the sleazier parts of songs like 'iSpy'. 

Now granted, 'iSpy' was really all I was familiar with from him, but I was a little surprised it took this long to get a major label full-length follow-up, given that his last mixtape with real hype dropped in 2015 and you'd think he'd be trying to ride the early wave with an EP or an tape or something early last year - don't get wrong, he had two tapes, but it didn't seem like anyone really cared as much. Instead, it looks like KYLE redoubled his focus to taking his time and pulling together a debut with features spanning from 2 Chainz to Khalid, from Alessia Cara to Kehlani. And hell, with as many votes as this was getting, I had some hopes the extra time had been worth it, so what did we get with Light Of Mine?

video review: 'echoes from eta carinae' by alrakis

Yes, I know this has been LONG in coming, but I'm happy I got this out - great atmospheric black metal, really enjoyed this.

Next up... hmm, let's do KYLE and Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'echoes from η carinae' by alrakis

Oh, I'm happy I finally got this one, the sort of project that I was originally going to put on the Trailing Edge but took off specifically to cover here in a full review, I was that excited about it...

Well, perhaps 'happy' isn't the right word, because today we're going to be talking about a brand of black metal that is pretty controversial - yes, even for black metal. This sub-subgenre is labeled DSBM, an acronym for depressive suicidal black metal, where the tones were more dreary and drone-like, the lyrics more nakedly introspective and dark... and that's the polite way of getting around how some of these acts could dig into some of the most transgressive and masochistic material both on and off the microphone. And if you do some research into what some of these bands did it can be shocking, enough to push away from exploring more - especially for me, given that I'm not really a huge fan of drone or doom metal and I'm behind schedule as it is - but more research unearthed some articles describing the raw catharsis this subgenre could trigger, that its exploration of such themes through the agency of art gave the artist and by extension the audience some form of release. And while I'm not quite sure I can buy into all of those themes, especially when the bands pair those tones with more conventional, naked aggression, it at least gave me some context.

And even with that, I'm not sure I needed to dig that much deeper with Alrakis - from my research, he's a German artist known for blending DSBM tones with a more atmospheric soundscape, which some have branded 'cosmic' black metal. He broke out in 2011 with Alpha Eri, but it's been seven years since, and he had a behemoth project here: a single track, over fifty two minutes long, with the title 'Echoes of Eta Carinae'. And while I initially thought I wouldn't have enough to say - after all, it's just one song - a single listen changed my mind and convinced me I would have to cover this at length. So what was so compelling about this that I took it off the Trailing Edge?

the top ten best hit songs of 2012 (REDUX) (VIDEO)

ABOUT FUCKING TIME I GET THIS DAMN THING OUT...

And now to get back on schedule. Lots to do, folks, stay tuned!

the top ten best hit songs of 2012 (REDUX)

So this top ten list is going to be a little different than the previous few I've put together - mostly because I've made it before.

So let's back up a little - as many of you know, I started on YouTube in July of 2013, but I had begun writing about music a good two years earlier, first on Facebook and in 2012 on my personal blog, where I started by assembling my list of the top ten best hit songs of 2012. And while I've made reference to that year on Billboard BREAKDOWN and in year-end lists, I've never actually converted that list to video, which is what I'm going to be doing today... with a twist. See, my opinions have evolved and changed over the past six years and I figured it wouldn't be a bad step to revisit the year-end Hot 100 of that year and see if my greater critical acumen and hindsight had shifted my opinion... and while for the most part it hasn't, I am going to making a few changes from that original list, so there's no guarantee you'll know what shows up here.

But if there is one thing that has been solidified by this relisten, it's that 2012 stands head-and-shoulders above the majority of this decade with some of the best hit songs of the 2010s. Pop was still riding out the club boom to a fair amount of success, country was only in the early years of the growth of bro-country and landed some real quality on the charts, R&B was notching some genuinely forward-thinking tunes, and hip-hop... okay, maybe more of a transitional year overall, but there were highlights. But what makes the 2012 chart so vibrant was the indie boom, a flashpoint of out-of-nowhere crossovers from indie folk, pop and rock that for a brief shining moment redefined what a hit could be in the mainstream. And while it's dispiriting how much of it would fizzle away in the coming year - and indeed, if we're looking at a theme for this list it would be high points of potential never quite achieved again - it still left us with a list of tracks where I actually had to cut some great songs, something you can't say about years like, say, 2016. So as always, the rules are that the song must debut on the year-end Hot 100 in this year, and let's get started with...

video review: 'providence canyon' by brent cobb

So this was pretty cool - it's pretty niche and probably won't be for everyone, but still worth a listen or two, definitely check it out!

Next up... hmm, something from my backlog, I think, so stay tuned!

album review: 'providence canyon' by brent cobb

So I'll admit I regret not talking about Brent Cobb sooner - but in all due fairness to myself, I can imagine a lot of folks maybe overlooking him. The cousin of acclaimed indie producer Dave Cobb, he got the attention of the indie country scene by satirizing bro-country in 2015 with 'Yo Bro', but he came to much greater attention thanks to his appearance on the compilation Southern Family, which remains one of the best records of the 2010s and one of the few I've ever given a perfect score. And yet even with that, Brent Cobb seemed to slide into the background: I really liked his detail-rich, earthy songwriting, but they guy had the misfortune of being placed in the track order between Jason Isbell and Miranda Lambert, who delivered much more impressive songs.

But in digging into his 2016 album Shine On Rainy Day, I came to realize that unassuming, low-key charm was less a bug and more a feature of Brent Cobb - primarily acoustic, with the sort of roughscrabble detail and texture in his lyrics that reward repeated listens to really sink into the vibe. And 'vibe' is a key qualifier, because while there are a few exceptions like the excellent 'South Of Atlanta' and 'Let The Rain Come Down', that record was perhaps a little too low-key for its own good - comfortably riding the firm bass, hints of smokier guitars and rich acoustic warmth to really kick up a groove, the sort of background music that brought a ton of welcome texture and would definitely be an underrated gem for folks who like indie country, but amidst an avalanche of excellent country in 2016, it's no surprise it might have faded to the background. 

Well, that's not quite the case in 2018, and if the buzz was true and Cobb has cranked up the tempos to lean into the southern Georgia funk influences that had been lurking beneath his sound for some time, we could have something pretty unique and interesting here, so what did we get on Providence Canyon?

video review: '7' by beach house

Man, I knew this record was getting critical acclaim... it's nice to come into that mold on my own, though, I really did think this was pretty great. Definitely recommended if you want to get back on the Beach House train, it's worth it.

Next up... whoo, this'll be an obscure one, stay tuned!

album review: '7' by beach house

So I'll admit the last time I talked about Beach House three years ago - the first time I ever had on my channel - it didn't precisely go well. Part of that was inescapable - while I do love Teen Dream and Bloom I appreciate those records most because they expand and heighten the mantra-like dreamy melodies at the core of the duo's sound, compensating for poetic and well-considered but occasionally underweight lyrics. But on the flipside you get records like Depression Cherry which served to strip away so much of that atmosphere where it became much harder to get lost in the mist, and elements that could prove playfully eccentric on one record could feel undercooked or even pretentious when stripped of their packaging. It was hard to ignore the feeling that both Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars in 2015 felt like a regression, albeit for different reasons - I didn't formally review Thank Your Lucky Stars, so here goes: I appreciate the return of more atmosphere and more layered production, but the melodies and songwriting felt even more threadbare and like a retread of past records. Not bad, but not exactly a project I'd revisit over their best work.

So I can't tell you how excited I was to cover 7, Beach House's newest record and one that buzz was suggesting was their most dark and experimental in some time. Departing from longtime producer Chris Coady, Beach House acknowledged that when they worked with an outside producer at all it was Peter Kember, known for his work with Spacemen 3, MGMT and Panda Bear as well as for electronic records under the alias Sonic Boom. And while I expected Beach House to continue with their typical sound - this is not a band that takes dramatic sonic risks - I did hope that they were heading towards the heavier direction pushed on Bloom, which I'd probably consider my favourite of their projects to date. So alright, what did I find on 7?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 19, 2018 (VIDEO)

And it's out... and that means I might be able to go to bed on time on a Tuesday... nice.

Anyway, looks like it's Beach House next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - may 19, 2018

So I've said a number of times that the most interesting weeks on the Hot 100 are not those of the album bombs, but the week right after, when things seem to reset to some form of equilibrium and the charts regain some sort of stability, for better or worse. And in the week following two album bombs in a row, you'd expect the recovery to be more pronounced... and then Childish Gambino unleashed 'This Is America'. And unsurprisingly, that's the much bigger story to discuss later on this show, but make no mistake, we will be talking about it, albeit with more of a focus on the song than the video.

video review: 'voicenotes' by charlie puth

And here we go, second review of the night... and arguably the better one! Really nice to see this done, step in the right direction.

Next up, Beach House, but first Billboard BREAKDOWN - stay tuned!