July 9th, 2018 12:46am
If you’re familiar with Kendrick Lamar’s “Untitled 06 | 06.30.2014,” then you know this song. That’s easily one of my favorite songs by Lamar, so it took a bit to get used to hearing a version of this without him on it and to grow accustomed to different shifts in the song that give more space to Cee-Lo Green’s voice. And though I quite like both songs, I feel a little bad that “Questions” – despite being the source material – has to be secondary, simply because it came out after Lamar’s track. This is an exceptionally composed R&B tune that nods to ’70s soul aesthetics while having a very distinct feeling to it. There’s a tranquility to the chords, and Green expresses a remarkable humility while singing lines like “I am wonderful, let me count the ways” and repeatedly uttering the phrase “let me explain.” This not a song coming from an arrogant place – it’s more about self-love and clarity opening your heart to other people and things greater than yourself.
July 6th, 2018 2:10am
“We all live on planet Earth and this is how it works,” Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi sweetly sing before laying out the rules in a boppy, funky chorus: “When you’re sexy, people want to talk to you, and when you’re ugly no one wants to talk to you.” And you know, at this point I just think “well, fuck you guys!” But then there’s the turn: “When you’re ugly, here is something you can do: FUCK THE WORLD AND BE REAL COOL.” That sentiment might be a little trite, but it’s also something I personally need to hear a lot lately. The world may be cruel in aggregate, but there are many good and open-hearted people, and there is always value beyond the superficial. Cole’s song is incredibly sunny, elegant, and joyful. When he implores you to just be cool, the song offers you some of its grace and strut to take as your own. You get to decide how you feel. Fuck the world and “how it works.”
July 4th, 2018 6:14pm
“Don’t Miss It” is a song written from a position of clarity about living in a distorting cloud of depression and anxiety. And with that clarity – guilt, shame, fear of backsliding. The music is melancholy and mournful, but the elements of the arrangement are just off-kilter enough that the feeling isn’t pure or easy to place. There’s a slight warble on the piano, the emotional and wordless backing vocal is mixed so it feels a bit distant from James Blake’s voice, and Blake delivers some lines with bleak sarcasm. The music frames a feeling from not long ago, and Blake comments on it. He’s close enough to feel it, but also to be outside of it. The clarity he has in the moment is not yet fully clear.
July 3rd, 2018 1:52am
“You Weren’t There Anymore” is a song that’s very much in the phase of a breakup where you’re just looping a one-sided argument with your ex in your head, like you’re rehearsing a script for the most cathartic conversation you’re probably never going to actually have. The song seems to move in emotional circles, with Lindsey French singing lines like “I’d feel better if you felt bad” with a mix of raw anguish and resignation. The song structure reinforces the feeling of being trapped in a loop, but there are a few dynamic shifts that shake up the rhythm and the feeling. When the beat picks up in the final third, it relieves some tension and suggests she’s almost through ruminating about this.
July 1st, 2018 11:38pm
Christina Aguilera’s new album is called Liberation, and it truly sounds like the work of a singer who has been liberated from the pressure of having to compete as a pop star. This time around, she’s just an R&B singer making an R&B record with an assortment of talented collaborators – Kanye West, Hudson Mohawke, MNEK, Demi Lovato, Julia Michaels, and on this track, Anderson Paak and GoldLink. Paak’s track has a warm, mellow vibe that gives Aguilera permission to dial back her typical bombast, but without neutralizing her mighty voice. Aguilera is playing it cool here, and singing from a place of understated confidence – she’s basically telling a guy, “hey, I’m a lot more successful and experienced than you, but I’m going to give you a chance to get on my level.” It’s a welcome flip on usual gender roles in pop, and allows her to play flirty in a way that feels fresh.
June 29th, 2018 12:31pm
“Your Cocoon” sounds chill but not relaxed. It’s like a room that’s been meticulously designed to be conducive to peaceful relaxation but is a bit too… sterile and stiff and clean and pricey to actually relax in. Jerry Paper’s grooves are strong, but a bit uncanny – the song has some swing, but it’s just a bit too tight. But the effect of the track suits the lyrics, which come off like half of a passive-aggressive argument that will never actually be verbalized outside the confines of a song. It’s the sound of someone who is presenting themselves as cool and above-it-all, and actually is to an extent, but definitely not fully. The neuroses tighten up the slickest grooves.
June 28th, 2018 12:12am
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have composed so much music for film that the aesthetics of film pacing have carried over their work in Nine Inch Nails. “Ahead of Ourselves” strikes me a distinctly cinematic song – it sounds like a chase sequence cut between multiple perspectives, with the loudest and most abrasive moments of the chorus presented less like chord changes and more like sudden smash cuts. The drums are the focus all the way through, starting at a maniac pace but speeding up with drum fills that seem to swerve across the song like the beat’s taking a shortcut. There’s something cartoonish about those fills, and I like the way this musical element that strikes me as rather un-NIN contrasts with the rest of the composition, which is full-on NIN aesthetic.
June 26th, 2018 12:29pm
The first two verses here are very good – it’s Kendrick on the first, Jay Rock on the second, so what would you expect? But the real draw here is the third section in which the two go back and forth on the mic while Hit-Boy’s beats subtly shift for emphasis. The track has a drowsy feeling to it, mainly due to a flute loop very similar to the one in Future and Kendrick’s “Mask Off,” but the energy level in the vocals is quite dynamic with both men approaching the groove differently every few bars. I particularly like when Jay Rock seems to lose his cool and gets aggro – “Fuck your plan, I’ma burn that castle!” – especially since it’s in strong contrast to some much more chill moments less than a minute earlier in the song.
June 25th, 2018 1:39am
Trippie Redd has, up until this point, mainly been associated with the more mumbly end of the SoundCloud rap cohort, so it’s something of a surprise for him to release this song, which is basically a straight-up alt-rock ballad. “How You Feel” is very minimal in terms of arrangement – there’s no percussion at all, the guitar part is pretty basic and sounds a bit like someone trying to play Eddie Money’s “Baby Hold On” from memory, and the only flourish is a droning lead guitar line. But despite this fairly static arrangement, Redd’s voice is dynamic and emotive enough to keep it compelling all the way through. He sings this with great feeling and urgency, and with the commitment of a guy who has no real incentive to do a song like this but clearly feels like he MUST. The melody is strong, the sentiment is heart-wrenching, and there hasn’t been a good power ballad in a while: This song should be a hit. People should be waving lighters to this thing.
June 25th, 2018 1:25am
Kanye West raps on this song and co-produced it, but the Kanye-ness of this song – particularly in comparison to most other songs he’s released in the past few weeks – is fairly subtle. Kanye has rarely made music as slinky and sensual as this, and even when he’s on the mic he’s wise enough to dial down the antics and just complement the groovy before tossing it back over to Teyana Taylor. Taylor is a revelation here. She’s charismatic and bold, particularly when she’s switching up the melody and cadence. This is a singer who has clearly learned a lot of the best musical lessons from Beyoncé, but stops short of directly emulating her. But it’s there in the creative approach to melody, the commitment to interesting phrasing, and the playful sexuality. “Hurry” is too sincere in its horniness to be a joke, but it’s definitely the kind of sexy song that isn’t afraid to give you a knowing wink.
June 22nd, 2018 3:53am
Sales’ songs all feel intimate and low-key dramatic, with singer Lauren Morgan delivering her lyrics as though she’s pulled you aside to tell you a secret. “White Jeans” is a song about having some hot person flirt with you at a party, and dancing with them, and loving every bit of the moment while still being a bit in your head. It’s not an anxious song, but it is loaded with anticipation and vague confusion. “This is not a test, this is not a dream,” she has to tell herself early on. But by the end, she’s dancing and letting go and just feeling the feeling. The music itself is danceable but in a rather muted way – it sounds almost like a pop song heard from a distance, or reduced down to just the most delicate sensations.
June 21st, 2018 12:38pm
“The World’s Best Kisser” is a work of very carefully considered minimalism in which basic musical elements – accompaniment, rhythm, chords, counter melody – are withheld for substantial stretches of the song so that when they’re deployed they have maximum impact. The opening a cappella goes on much longer than expected but is melodically and lyrically interesting, and it just makes me hang on every turn of phrase. The song has an interesting feeling to it – it’s not tense, but there’s a lot of suspense, and when sounds are introduced it feels like a relief. This is particularly true when guitar chords come in on a brief bridge, and it’s sort of like getting a blast of cold AC while walking down the street on a hot, humid day.
June 20th, 2018 1:58am
“Hell-On” has a nervous, cautious sound to it, as if Neko Case and her band are trying to keep it down to avoid waking a wrathful infant. And in the context of Case’s lyrics, that wrathful child is God – or, as she makes clear, the natural world. Case writes about the unpredictable brutality of nature with both reverence and fear, and uses cold, dispassionate language in describing seemingly random destruction. She shifts perspective midway through the song, and speaks on behalf of the planet itself, addressing humanity with condescension and contempt. “You’ll not be master, you’re barely my guest,” she sings. That verse ends with a line that’s delivered gently, but only out of pity: “Be careful of the natural world.”
June 19th, 2018 11:36am
“I don’t want this isolation,” Damon Albarn sings, alluding to both personal loneliness and the self-destructive political impulses of England (and for that matter, several other nations in the recent past.) The music is melancholy yet tranquil and idyllic. It makes me imagine someone wandering alone through a vacation resort at sunset, looking at couples and families with muted envy. It’s the sound of desperately wanting connection and community, but feeling hobbled by bad decisions and anxieties. Albarn holds back the more robust tones of his voice here, opting to sound more fragile and exhausted as he tentatively reaches out for help. “I need you in the picture, that’s why I’m calling you,” he sings, and I find the lack of pride in his voice – the humility! – to be incredibly moving and inspirational.
June 17th, 2018 11:48pm
Everything Is Love seems as though it was deliberately designed by Beyoncé and Jay-Z to be the third part of a trilogy about their marital troubles that began with her Lemonade and his 4:44. Those records are both quite good and focused, examining potent emotions of betrayal and guilt while also delivering thoughtful meditations on race and culture. This one is more like a victory lap in which they spend a little time addressing the dynamics of their reconciliation, but mostly flaunt their outrageous wealth, treat their small children like IP, present their family as an aspirational brand, and air petty grievances with the music industry. (They’re not appreciated enough, you see.) The music is pretty good relative to other people’s records, but compared to what Beyoncé does regularly and what Jay-Z accomplished with No-ID on 4:44, it’s all rather ho-hum. It mostly just sounds smug to me. And complacent.
I feel bad saying this. I like both of these artists a lot, and respect them deeply. I recognize what Beyoncé in particular means to people, and I don’t begrudge anyone’s enthusiasm about this record. But it’s 2018, and it’s hard for me to stomach any kind of ostentatious wealth, particularly when it’s presented as this aspirational luxury lifestyle that pushes people to buy into the worst aspects of capitalism. I have personally moved too far left to not feel alienated by prosperity gospel bullshit. I have no love for celebrity culture, and only really care about these people as musicians. I also don’t like the way Beyoncé has figured out that surprise album drops kills all critical takes on her work by drowning it out in enthusiasm and online publications’ desperate need to hype up trending topics. It makes even minor dissent seem contrarian, or the griping of a killjoy.
“Lovehappy” is the final song on the record, and its lyrics essentially summarize the talking points of the project. It’s also the most musically impressive song – it starts off in a very mid-’90s NYC rap track, but shifts into more of a warm, soulful R&B tune that allows Beyoncé to emote as she faces the future of their relationship with genuine optimism. In some ways it is a thematic reiteration of Beyoncé’s “All Night,” but hey, you didn’t get Jay-Z on that track. I appreciate the nuance of this song, and how it embraces the complexities of adult relationships in a way that rejects binary morality. “We’re flawed but we’re still perfect for each other,” she sings, and I believe that’s probably true. These are two incredibly competitive people who live to triumph over obstacles. This is a love song about doing that.
June 15th, 2018 4:09pm
“Immaterial” is the thematic and emotional climax of Sophie’s debut album, a song expressing the pure joy of embracing one’s power to decide for themselves who they want to be. In this song, fluidity of identity is a blessing, not a curse. It’s an opportunity, and a path to freedom and fun. The music starts off feeling like a burden being lifted, but moves into a hyperactive dance pop zone – imagine Calvin Harris, but more sparkly and camp. It’s the sort of song that sounds like a huge epiphany, and listening to it without directly relating to the experience makes it all seem very aspirational.
June 14th, 2018 2:44am
Billy Corgan’s output over the past decade or so has been split between the music he makes for himself – the personal stuff, the formally or conceptually experimental stuff – and the music that seems like him trying to give people what he thinks they want. Some of the music in the former category has been good, and some of the music in the latter category has been good too. But I think for the most part, a lot of it has been lackluster because the songs he wrote at his creative and commercial peak was all in the Venn diagram overlap of those two motivations. Some things are only meant for hardcore fans, and that’s fine, but it’s not very fun to listen to music by someone who seems to be half-heartedly aiming to please.
“Solara,” the first song he’s released with both Jimmy Chamberlain and James Iha in the band with him since 2000, falls in that perfect overlap. He sounds both genuinely fired up AND eager to please, and is more generous with hooks than he’s been in ages. “Solara” glides from hook to hook with supreme confidence, and every member of the band sounds like they want to prove that they can still bring it. I don’t think this is quite Siamese Dream level, but this is strong stuff, and probably what radio stations would’ve liked them to deliver circa 1997/1998 than their Adore material. It’s all oomph and momentum, and the key line – “I am nothing but a body in my mind” – brings a new sort of anxiety into the classic Corgan angst matrix. Hopefully this incarnation of the band can keep this focus, enthusiasm, and raw energy going for a while.
June 13th, 2018 2:44am
Ty Dolla $ign’s first line in this song is so exuberant and direct that it cracks me up: “Let’s haaaaaave sex!” Like, why bother with euphemisms, right? This song is too funky to put this politely. But scratch that, this actually is kinda polite, as he immediately adds a series of caveats: not without the foreplay, or a first date. When Jeremih comes into the song, he sounds twice as smooth and ten times more lascivious. The chords in his section have a cool, relaxed vibe, and make lines like “I’m tryna fuck you on top” seem a lot more gentle and romantic than they might seem otherwise. The sequence of grooves here is all about tension and relief, and the shift in lyrical perspective keeps the lust and sensitivity equally balanced.
June 12th, 2018 2:41am
Jorja Smith sings with poise and precision, and her songs are mostly laid back and tranquil. But that’s all on the surface – the songs themselves are about subtle turmoil and nuanced emotional dilemmas. “Lost & Found,” her loveliest and most accomplished song, is about an infatuation that’s become an entanglement, but not quite a relationship. Smith sounds like she’s processing it all in real time, with changes in her melody and vocal cadence reflecting different stages of delusion, denial, and acceptance. The chill vibe of the song is not necessarily at odds with the neuroses of the lyrics – I think part of the point is that she’s holding herself together well, and coming to a mature realization. It’s a low-key feeling, more bittersweet than emotionally devastating.
June 10th, 2018 10:14pm
Whereas the guitar parts in “Ghost Town” were relatively subtle in shaping the mood and feeling of the song, the guitars in “Freee (Ghost Town Pt 2)” are thundering and bombastic. The ambivalence and conflict of the first song is gone, replaced by unambiguous triumph, with Kanye West, Kid Cudi, and Ty Dolla $ign declaring themselves free of all pain. (This is an… interesting… thing for Kanye, a guy coming off opioids, to say.)
“Freee” comes from a few different perspectives. It starts off with a sort of foreword from Marcus Garvey, who speaks about the power of self-knowledge. Ty Dolla $ign’s lines are paranoid, expressing a frustration with how fickle other people can be. Cudi sounds like a guy who has found some peace, while Kanye’s declaration of freedom comes off as slightly spiteful and vindictive. He makes it sound more like a status than a feeling.
It’s interesting to hear so much rock in Kanye’s new songs, whether he’s building a rock feeling out of purely hip-hop sounds on Pusha T’s “If You Know You Know,” or going for straight-forward arena rock vibe here. The main things Kanye is importing from rock are dynamics, swagger, and drama. (He’s done this before, most notably on “Black Skinhead.”) In absorbing these aesthetics into his established style, he’s highlighting valuable aspects of rock music and offering new ways of framing these core competencies. Hopefully some rock people are paying attention and taking notes.
Support Me on Ko-fi
