I read an article the other day about how the RIAA has revised their methodology for awarding gold and platinum record status to albums and singles. Very interesting. The new Album Award formula is 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. Gold = 500,000 album sales and Platinum = 1,000,000. At first, because I suck at the maths, this sounded like a crappy plan, as a ton of artists are going to be able to make that threshold easily. And then I broke out a calculator. 750,000,000 streams to get to gold. 1.5 billion to get to platinum. That is a BUNCH of streams. Rhianna's "Work" is the number one worldwide track on Spotify right now, with 215 million streams and daily plays of 3.5 million. Although, apparently, that album was certified Platinum by the RIAA within a day of its release, mainly because of Tidal downloads and streams. Its a brave new world, kids. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Style. You have to love a good backstory to a band name, and this guy apparently found that the best place he could record was in the back seat of his car, so he named the band after the item right in front of his face. This album apparently collects some of the tunes on his prolific, older, self-released albums, but it is a pretty cool dip into indie rock. My main beef with the tunes is that the vocals are all kind of smothered/deadened and I'd rather really hear them fully. The top song on Spotify right now is "Something Soon" with about 469k listens.
Is that McLovin'? And a weird video for sure. But the melody and the lyrics are tight. I just wish there were so many effects on the voice. And the rest of the album is similar with really great tuneful melodies but mounds of effects on the vocals. I've given it many spins by now, and while I generally enjoy it, I don't think I plan to keep it around for additional listens. ILoveMakonnen - Drink More Water 6. Terrible new rap album from the guy who was marginally entertaining with his hit from a few years ago called "Tuesday." The most popular track off this album is "Solo," which somehow manages to have 622k freaking listens on Spotify. What is wrong with people?
It must have been on a Spotify compilation mix or something. There is no way this ode to how well the guy could do without collaborators should be that popular. Most of his tunes are like this, soft-spoken and kind of boring. On the other hand, some of his stuff reminds me of Ice Cube's line in "No Vaseline," "Tryin' ta sound like America Most, you can yell all day but you don't come close." As an example, check out "Live For Real," and while you are at it, enjoy some of the crazy-deep lyrics from that song. [Hook] So watch me live, hey I live for real, hey So watch me live, hey I live for real, hey So watch me live, hey I live for real, hey So watch me live, hey I live for real, hey LOVE WHEN THESE GUYS FIGURE OUT THAT A WORD RHYMES WITH ITSELF. SO AMAZING. THIS IS THE ESSENCE OF RAP MUSIC AND HOW IT RHYMES. I think I recall this from my high school English class. Was it Whitman or Dickinson who wrote every line to end in "hey?" or "Closing plenty deals, My friend got beach houses, on fucking hills, hey We trip for real, This shit is serious, Ain't got no time for a motherfucker serious, hey So watch me live Dish and dive, I do the rib, ay When we at the fucking diner, hey In real life all my friends is designers" WOW! I mean, that is some deep stuff right there. I, too, (hey) don't have time for a (hey) serious. (hey) As such, (hey) I am never (hey) going to listen to this (hey) album again. (hey) (hey) Aubrie Sellers - New City Blues. These days, make a psych rock record or a country album that doesn't sound like Avicii, and I'm probably all over it. This is Lee Ann Womack's daughter, and she definitely inherited the pipes to sing these songs. Her voice is excellent. And this is the kind of sound that Kasey Musgraves has recently perfected - kind of bluesy rock, kind of country, with some fine lyrics and wordplay. The hit off the album, at least as far as Spotify listens goes, is "Losing Ground." It has over 380k spins, while the second entry on her list of popular tracks has only 77k.
If it weren't for the slide guitar, it could just be a simple indie tune. "Something Special" has a great beauty and simplicity while telling a story. Cool album and I'm going to keep listening. Elton John - Wonderful Crazy Night. From the cover of the album (a spatter paint of bright colors with Elton's gap-toothed grin shining out in the middle) to the exuberantly happy gospel sounds of the opening song, this album just seems happy. That tune, also the title track of the album, has the most plays on Spotify at about 536k. Here is a live version:
I mean, that is a pretty fun song. He's got more on the album as well (check the hand-clap-happy "Guilty Pleasure"), but there are also a lot of kind of slow, lovely, orchestral-ish numbers that make me want to nap. Looking at you, "Blue Wonderful" and "A Good Heart." I won't keep this album, but it was kind of fun to go back to the Elton John well and remember how fun some of his music can be.
The lineup for Lolla 2016 has been posted, and its got some fun stuff going on.
The big three are Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and LCD Soundsystem. Radiohead had already been leaked/announced, and I figured LCD was a lock for this and ACL after they've been named to headline every other big fest. But the Chilis are a welcome addition, I'd love to see them again in Austin.
Second line is a let-down for me, with J. Cole being the only thing I think I'd go see. Lana Del Rey, Future, and Ellie Goulding? Probably not. I hope that ACL gets a little more top heavy than this. I mean, Future is on the second line. This is a guy who is playing venues like a gym on the University of Missouri-KC campus, or the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach (capacity 2,000). The bands on the second line of the Lolla poster should be selling out stadiums. I hope that we'll have something more exciting for Austin, but we'll see.
Next few lines, I'd still like to get to see Disclosure, but I doubt they will come right back to ACL. Jane's Addiction I'd see for sure, but I suspect they are only going to Lolla because of the 25th anniversary thing, and wouldn't come down to Austin. Christ Stapleton, Haim, Leon Bridges - there is some more good stuff in the top third.
And then you get down to the rest of the poster, and there are still great bands all the way down. Foals, The Arcs, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Silversun, Houndmouth, Lettuce, Local Natives. Bunch of fun music to see on here. Hell, Third Eye Blind might be fun to see?
Probably another month or two before we see the ACL poster, but this is exciting!
Man, I'm really bummed out about the news that Phife Dawg, part of the so very great Tribe Called Quest, passed away yesterday. I was just listening to them yesterday because I was reminiscing about just how great Low End Theory was while I was writing about the Ambrosia for Heads GOAT bracket. it made me think that it would be super fun for them to be added to a big festival and get to hear the old school action.
That freaking sucks.
R.I.P. to Mr. "Bussa nut up in yo eye, to tell you where I come from."
Maybe the guys at Ambrosia for Heads have figured out a better way of determining the question of which era was truly the best for hip hop. They have been slogging their way through a crowd-vote-based bracket system pitting Greatest of All Time albums against each other, and have culled the pack down to their sweet 16.
I like this because the crowd can measure more of the intangibles. Sure, it once again creates a small sample size of only 34 albums, but because they took the time to bracket them out by era, you get to see that the bracket results are made up of nine albums from the 90's, four from the 00's, and three from the 80's. Which, unfortunately, completely runs afoul of my theory that the pre-1991 albums were the strong ones, and only after sampling was taken off the table did the music start to suck.
But maybe not. First, two of the 90's albums in the list were released in 1991 (Death Certificate and Low End Theory, two of my votes for GOAT). So that makes the score "Post-91" 7, "Pre-92" 5, 00's 4. Then, if you look at the margins of victory given to each of those albums from their round of 32 battles, you can see that three of the four 00's are the last place finishers, the ones with the slimmest of margins to take their battles. Jay-Z's Blueprint only took 51%. Only the Marshall Mathers LP had a dominant showing in the round of 32 out of those four albums from this century. Which I think looks like those are the weakest of this group of 16 candidates, lending some credence to my theory that the more recent music is lame.
Also, note that, of the albums from the oughts in the list, they were released in 2000, 2000, 2001, and 2004. No album from the past 12 years won a battle to be included in the discussion of the best rap albums of all time. Again, not a definitive answer on the road to what makes new hip hop lame, but not a bad data point.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - The Unruly Mess I've Made. I know Macklemore has become a hot button topic for people, but I like the fact that he is trying to navigate the mine-filled waters of race and rap. Even if he does it imperfectly, I appreciate the fact that he is sincerely thoughtful and putting out interesting music to push people into the discussion. "White Privilege II" is the track that is firing people up, and here is the video.
From the slave-song intro, to the admissions he makes about feeling awkward because he's an outsider trying to do something, and crapping on Iggy Azalea, this is well done. It isn't perfect, but it makes me cringe and think, which is valuable. I'd prefer that it had an actual good track and beat behind it, but this definitely allows you more obvious access to the lyrics. And here is an interesting deconstruction of the song:
I like his point that he could keep these views to himself and avoid controversy, but that bringing it out to the public creates the conversations we need to have about cultural appropriation and advantages still afforded to certain people. Also interesting that he thought he was making it for his young, white audience, but they aren't the ones who are feeling free to discuss it on social media. I felt the same thing here, slightly nervous to even bring up the song, but this is a good thing. I wish the Republican candidates would be forced to debate this song instead of their dick size.
For the rest of the album, I love the intro song, which is like a rhyming diary of his viewpoint when he won the Grammy a few years ago. I love the exposition, again, of him revealing how awkward it was and how uncomfortable it was for him, while he was still excited and proud and trying to have a good time. "Downtown" is also great, except for the scream/wail hook thing with the guy screaming DOWNTOWN!
I wish that part wasn't in there, but the beat is dope, I dig the lyrics about rolling on a moped, and its fun to have some of those classic rappers on there with him. There are some annoying tracks - "Brad Pitt's Cousin" chief among those for me - but even on that track, the beat is solid and catchy. I even like the treacly "Growing Up" track with Ed Sheeran, rapping a bucket list. KRS-One sounds bad ass. And he has a guest spot for Leon Bridges, so that is cool as hell. You should go listen to this album. I think you'll enjoy it.
Kendrick Lamar - untitled unmastered. This is an odd, surprise album that popped out of Lamar a week or so ago. According to the Internet, we should all thank Lebron for it. I refuse to actually go click on the articles that explain why I am supposed to thank Lebron, because my clicks are too valuable (<clicks on buzzfeed article about 32 hidden images in sports logos>). Each song title says "untitled," a track number, and then a date or a range of years. I suppose that is when the lyrics were written, but I dug around on the 'net and have no clue. The two standout tracks on here to me are #2 and the first two minutes of #7. There is a lot sexual stuff going on in here, and I agree that head should be the answer. I'm totally confused by what I am finding on YouTube for the videos for these songs - the Fallon performance I just watched, in which the track is introduced as Untitled 2, is not the same song as the "untitled 02" on this album. And the "untitled 3" I just watched likewise doesn't match up. So, I'm not going to give you a link, but I think you should definitely go listen to the sweet ass beat used for the first two minutes of #7.
2 Chainz - COLLEGROVE. Yaaaaaawwwwwwnnnn. About the only thing interesting on this is that Lil Wayne is on eight of the twelve tracks here. I just don't care for 2 Chainz's flow, or the annoying little noises ("yaaaaaa!") he makes as his identifying tic, and nothing on here changes that feeling. The top track so far on Spotify is "Gotta Lotta," which you can check out here.
Robot Skat Lil Wayne is the worst Lil Wayne. And yet again, here is a song about having a lot of drugs. Groundbreaking stuff. I'd like to tell you that there is a redeeming song on here, but I don't care to listen to this crap more than the three times I've already devoted to it.
Future - EVOL. The more I listen to Future, the more I think this is some sort of art installation project that we are all being subjected to. The beats are kind of tight but all run together in a non-stop stream of skittering trap, hand-claps, and bass. The lyrics are nonsensical smears of abstract auto-tune syllables, some of which rhyme, but mostly the rhymes seem like they consist of rhyming by repeating the same word at the end of every line. Its kind of hypnotic. And I'm not even on any drugs. But I am literally doing all I can to listen to the lyrics, and I'm catching a few words per couplet that I can actually interpret. The most popular track right now from the album (per Spotify) is "Low Life." By the way, the idiotic "Jumpman" with Drake has over 156 million listens. That is so annoying.
The Weeknd contributes the hook here, but seriously, if that wasn't a lyric video, would you have any clue what the hell Future was saying? "ijutuhsumaliwiuss. gossabutchafallwiusss" Oh, wait, I hear "Ferrari" in there! And "club." So, in the end, I kind of actually enjoy hearing this album - its got swagger and sounds kind of bad ass, despite the fact that it generally makes no sense, and I hate autotune, and I lose track of the difference between songs after a while. But I won't keep this one around.
I heard a single on a Spotify playlist the other day that locked right into my musical hot zone. The band, Paerish, has no album out of other tunes to check, but this track ("Undone") is worthy of being heard.
Some hot and fuzzy alt-rock hotness. I want to hear more of that action right there.
Ray LaMontagne - Ouroboros. I've never been into LaMontagne that much, but this album is a beauty. Opens with that Nick Drake, Fleet Foxes, soft-focus vibe, and then kicks in a little bit more rockin', but imagine Pink Floyd in the "Wish You Were Here" era. But then I went and read about the album and see that he made it with Jim James, from My Morning Jacket, and now I see that my Floyd sonic call does sound remarkably like MMJ stuff. None of the songs on this disc have cracked his top ten on Spotify, but the rocker I mentioned above, called "Part One - Hey, No Pressure," is the definite leader in plays at almost a million. Most of the rest of the album is in the less than 70k spins zone.
Definite MMJ influence. And then the break in the middle is very Dark Side. And then wait for the sounds in the middle of "Part Two - A Murmuration of Starlings," which is what locked in this idea. Anyway, man, I think this album sounds great. You should go give it a spin or three.
Eric Church - The Outsiders. I wanted to listen to this album two years ago when it first came out and Rolling Stone was all over it. But Spotify didn't have the whole thing (just the title song) until sometime recently when I was searching for the new album. I just listened to that new album, and its a good sound. I like the combination of rock along with the sense of country. That title track, "The Outsiders" has some lite Jack White guitar skuzz on it that is pretty well done. Strangely though, that track only has about 9 million listens, and is crushed on Spotify by some others with over 20 million spins. The top of those is "Like a Wrecking Ball," a simple Southern burner love song.
Which is all right and all, but not terribly great. I get it, you want to see her so bad that you want to knock down the front door and knock down some pictures off the wall and the rafters'll be shakin, and love you baby like a wrecking ball. No subtlety here. And the next most popular track is also got the cheese, called "Talledega," all about "turnin' up, slowin' down, and cars that go real fast." I feel like his other albums have a stronger lyrical sense than this one. I'll pass on any more listens.
Methyl Ethel - Oh Inhuman Spectacle. I don't know why I only had two songs from this album for a few weeks, but I got really in to "Rogues" and "Twilight Driving" before the whole album showed up in my playlist. Found these cats while looking for others like Tame Impala from the Australia psych scene. and I like it. Here is one of those two, "Twilight Driving"
Also happens to be their most popular Spotify track at about 500k listens. Super chilled tunes, but something about this album has kept me coming back to it multiple times over the past two weeks. I'm going to keep jamming it.
The Record Company - Give It Back to You. Some pure bluesy rock action. Kind of a generic band name, but I'll give them a pass because the music is smoking and swaggering and sweaty good stuff. I'd call them Black Keys-lite, but that sounds like a diss. I mean it as a compliment. They've also got some Cage the Elephant and Black Crowes elements in here. The album opener, "Off the Ground" is their most popular Spotify track by a ways (141k listens vs. 19k for the next highest), and here's a chance for you to add to their playcount:
Nothing flashy, nothing new, but they take the classic sound and hammer it. I dig it. Their Wikipedia page is a heavy duty ad for themselves that is kind of lame, but I won't hold it against them. And the list of their appearances in media is kind of cool - they've done a good job of getting their music featured in stuff. Anyway, I think this album is worth you checking out.
Interesting Chronicle article about the Mayor's plans to save Austin music. Losing 1200 jobs is brutal. And the rent hikes that are either killing clubs or killing profitability are even worse. Hopefully. the City is really committed to making changes and getting some financial incentive handed down to keep venues in the City, or else venues are going to die. Rayland Baxter - SOHO. This fella came to ACL and released a great album in 2015, called Imaginary Man. This EP goes back to that well, re imagining several of the best tracks from that album in a more stripped-down version. He also covers some old My Morning Jacket with a cool version of "Bermuda Highway." Here is the opener, "Mr. Rodriguez."
The picking is lovely, the voice is gorgeous, and the lyrics are kind of mesmerizing in this package. Too bad the EP is so short, but you should totally check it out and hear for yourself.
Sunflower Bean - Human Ceremony. I don't know what it is about the chilled out psych movement that is happening right now, but I can't get enough. This is more straight rock than the Tame Impala school of psych, but it also begs a good bit from the dreamy Britpop/Shoegaze/Madchester scenes from the 90's. I keep starting this album over again. The rest of the world apparently aren't yet into it, as the most popular track from this album only has 74k streams right now, but my guess is that they'll be playing the festivals this summer and those numbers will jump. Here is that most-listened-to track, "Human Ceremony."
That soft-focus guitar noodling and sweet vocals, totally brings to mind some early 90's Slowdive. But the one I keep coming back to is called "I Was Home," which goes a little harder and with more guitar crunch.
Jam it. The lyrics aren't going to beat down Courtney Barnett for poetic twist of the year ("What did you do today? I stayed at home today. I was home, and then I wasn't.") but I honestly don't care. By about halfway through the tune, the lyrics disappear and you get a sweet ass groove for a few minutes. I've literally been waking up with this song in my head for the past few days. This is the good stuff.
Trey Anastacio - Paper Wheels. Solo album from the lead singer for Phish, and as far as I'm concerned there is zero discernible difference between this solo album and a noodly jam-fest of a Phish album. I never have been able to get my head around the appeal. One of my awesome sisters made me a mixtape of Phish back in college or high school, and I listened to it quite a bit. If she liked it, then it must be good! But I've never gotten it figured out. If you feel like it, here is the most listened-to track on Spotify from this album. It is called "Sometime After Sunset."
If that isn't some disco-Phish-wannabe-Dead, then I don't know what is. He says the word "wiggles," man. This is also one of those albums that is only an hour long, but felt like it took the whole afternoon to listen to. I'm out.
Otis the Destroyer - Belushi EP. Awesome band name and some good straightforward rock and roll. "Fight" is a chugging cow bell rocker in the vein of Queens of the Stone Age that I like a lot. Not too terribly much information out there on the Net, and the website that google suggested I check out is more into Otis Elevators than the band. None of the four rockin' tracks on this EP has a YouTube video yet, so I've got to go with this one that is out there, called "Love Bug."
I think this new EP is all much stronger than that track, so hopefully they'll kill a couple of SXSW shows and get the cash to make some sweet new videos.
If you haven't read part one, go here. And then part two, diving into the beats behind the eight number one songs from 4 different points in hip hop history, is available here. The third part was an admittedly difficult dive into the lyrics of those same eight songs. Here was my plan: to finish out this study with a look at popularity and longevity. However, as you'll see below, I haven't found a good way to measure either metric. I need to come up with another angle for this project. But since I already went through all of the process, I'll still provide you with the results I found. Each of the songs we are talking about made it to number one on Billboard's Hot Hip Hop chart, so we aren't talking about the longevity of just any hip hop track. However, I'll readily admit that choosing random songs like I did leaves a bunch of room for the small sample size to ruin everything. Spotify streams:
Fight the Power: 6,257,725 (72,764)
Me, Myself & I (De la Soul): 7,678,875 (89,289)
Hot Boyz: 1,823,942 (21,208)
Wobble Wobble: 966,233 (11,235)
Best I Ever Had: 40,696,520 (502,426)
Run this Town: 81,319,627 (1,056,099)
Summer Sixteen: 18,041,422 (18,041,422+, all those listens are in less than a month)
Me, Myself & I (G-Eazy): 154,970,772 (30,994,154) (!!!!!)
Spotify launched on October 7, 2008, but I can't tell exactly when they got old songs, but if we use that date and assume that the older songs were available that day, then the number in bold above is the monthly play rate for those songs. From looking at that stat, I think this measure is probably garbage. Other than showing that the two 1999 songs are forgettable, this just shows that streaming activity has gone up over time. 30 freaking million streams a month for that crap G-Eazy song!!! How about YouTube views limited to just 2015? That could show some longevity - if people are still hitting up YouTube to watch old tracks in a modern year? YouTube Artist Analytics show the following for 2015:
Fight the Power: 2,858,231
Me, Myself & I (DLS): 2,826,979
Hot Boyz: Unknown. You can tell it is less than 2 million, but because it doesn't make Missy's top 20 songs for 2015, I can't see the exact number. 7,132,080 views all time, so it must have really fallen off during the 2015 year if it can't crack her top twenty tracks that year.
Wobble Wobble: 1,166,326
Best I Ever Had: Unknown. Less than 1,836,489, as that is the all-time plays for this video, but it doesn't make his top 20 so I can't track exact plays in 2015.
Run this Town: Unknown. The main video for this song only has 978k all time views, but because this track doesn't make the top twenty for 2015, I can't see an exact number for that year. I can't aggregate video plays the way the Artist Insights thing can for the top twenty, so I can't tell if other videos for this same song would combine to a much higher number.
The other two tracks didn't exist in 2015.
Sadly, also not a very useful measure. Maybe it shows that the 1989 songs got more play in 2015 than the others, but the information is just too limited.
Genius is a good resource for looking up rap lyrics, so I thought I might be able to see popularity through that portal, but like these others, it is incomplete and shows a bias toward the recent tunes with over a million hits for the two 2016 songs and no data for the 1999 songs.
I figured that I might also try Billboard data from the Hot Hip Hop chart to see stuff like length of time on the chart and current popularity, but their data is jacked. Despite the chart tool that I used at the start of this thing, the Billboard site claims that "Fight the Power" only made it to #20 on the Hot Hip Hop chart and "Hot Boyz" isn't even listed as being on that chart? That is weird. But they also show "Fight the Power" and De la Soul's "Me Myself & I" as ranking in the top 100 hot hip hop songs for "last week," which is even weirder. That can't be, right?
So my last resort is awards and honors. But, of course, this one will skew in favor of the old songs that have had the time to receive plaudits and prizes over the decades, and lessen the potential future impact of G-Eazy (which is a hilarious sentence to write). These facts come from Wikipedia:
Fight the Power:
Number 288 in the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the RIAA.
Number 322 in Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
Used in NBA Street V3, NCAA Football 06, and the fifth season of Entourage.
Hot Boyz:
Nothing other than chart position information.
Wobble Wobble:
Same. Well, also a mention that there were two videos shot for this song, one of which includes nudity.
Best I Ever Had:
Billboard's "Hot Rap Song" of 2009.
nominated for Grammy awards but lost. Lost a Juno award contest to a Michael Buble song. :)
Run this Town:
Won Grammys for Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Three times platinum
Summer Sixteen:
Nothing of note.
Me, Myself & I (G-Eazy):
Nothing of note.
Again, not especially illuminating. Although I'd expect that no one is ever going to rank the four most recent tracks as "songs that shaped rock and roll" or top 100 rap songs of all time. But the small sample size definitely comes into play here. I'm sure other number 1 tracks from 1989 didn't have this same lasting impact, I just happened to pick two that are beloved over time. Dammit. I feel like my premise is true, but I just don't know that I have the data to prove it. And maybe that is the answer. Millions of people think Drake is the best rapper out there. I'm entirely lukewarm about the guy. There isn't really data that can help you determine why a certain beat sounds better to me. I'm going to think more about how I might be able to quantify the suckage of hip hop, and please feel free to speak up if you come up with another angle.
Surprise Kendrick! I saw a Kendrick Lamar song in a new music playlist this morning, and thought it was odd, being that the name of the song appeared to show that it was old and Kendrick didn't have any new music out. WRONG-O. As my twitter feed blow up would attest, Kendrick dropped a surprise album this morning called untitled unmastered. I spent pretty much all day listening to it, but I'm not ready to discuss the music yet. But I still wanted to note that it exists and think about the song titles, which are just dates or year ranges, which is weird. I had been guessing that those were the dates the stuff was written, but I'm not so sure that I buy it that he was making these tracks three years ago. So far, the first few minutes of untitled 07 is my favorite beat. Weaves - Weaves EP. Electronic indie guitar rock smearing around in weird ways. Pretty annoying at times ("Buttercup"), but then it can be fun as well ("Motorcycle"). Here is the top track on Spotify, called "Take a Dip."
Her voice drones on a bit more than I'd like, and combined with the whine of the guitar at times, this one bugs me. I dunno, this band ought to be up my alley but its not working out for me.
Eric Church - Mr. Misunderstood. This guy gets an immediate pass because "Springsteen" was so very awesome. This one flashes some good stuff, but it is somewhat forgettable as it plinks and plunks along in the background of a day. And he calls Jeff Tweedy "one bad muther," which is too hard for me to get my head around. But I like his juxtaposition of real deal rock and roll with country - he walks that line without dipping into the bullshit bro rockin' country of modern times, all about hot chicks and pickup trucks and 'Merica. "Chattanooga Lucy" is fun, "Knives of New Orleans" is brooding and cool, the duet with Susan Tedeschi is damn pretty, but I think "Record Year" is my favorite track from the album.
I can't put my finger on it with this guy, but I like him despite a thin layer of schmaltz over the top of this entire album. I've run through this thing about 5 times today, and I just can't quite figure it out. But then I woke up the other day singing "Round Here Buzz" in my head, so it has somehow stuck with me anyway. I'll just have to keep it around and see what happens.
Wolfmother - Victorious. Their first album, back in 2006, was awesome. Over-the-top, bombastic, power rock with nerdy allusions to mysticism. It was awesome. And then everyone knew them because "Joker and the Thief" was used in the Hangover when the guys hammer the casino. Anyway, I fell out from these dudes in the interim and never even noticed that they made two more albums (2009's Cosmic Egg and 2014's New Crown), but this album is a good time. If you didn't like the old album - power riffage and chugging rhythm under high pitched rock wail - then you'll want to skip this one too, but I am getting down to this.
The title track is also their most listened-to on Spotify, and you'll know its Wolfmother the second the vocals kick in. They can get a little more chilled, like on "Best of a Bad Situation," but even then they've still got the same proggy organs and hand claps that make it obvious who is playing. "Gypsy Caravan" is the other classic Wolfmother track on here - no mistaking it. Pretty sweet disc. I'm kind of expecting to see these guys show at ACL, so I may need to revisit this review sometime soon.
Kevin Gates - Islah. Sometimes I fault artists for waiting too long in between releases, but like Ryan Adams, ol' Kevin Gates is not the guy to take a bunch of time to craft his next album. Two in 2013 (including the awesome Stranger than Fiction), two in 2014, an uncharacteristic gap in 2015, and now this album released in the first month of this year. Uneven album. I don't hear anything that immediately hits me up like "White Tan" did, but there are a few good tracks on here. The most listened-to track is "2 Phones," about how he's so big time that he needs 2 (or maybe 4) phones to manage all his drugs and women and general badassness.
Over 18 million streams - hotness. I wish I knew what "one for the plug and one for the load" meant. Going to go with drugs. The next most listened to track, "Really Really," fires up over 15 million spins, and then one ("Kno One") cracks 9 million, but the rest of the album is down in the 1 or 2 million range. Unfortunately though, "2 Phones" and "Really Really" are in the first three on the album, and after those you get mired down in some pretty forgettable tracks for the next 14 songs. Like the garbage "One Thing," all sexual braggadocio boringness over a mediocre beat. Even "Kno One" doesn't do much for me - "She say I'm a dog but it takes one to know one, allright." Meh. I think I'll just save a track or two from this and let the rest go.
Sometimes in the past, I've been pretty excited about the Free Press Festival lineup down in Houston. For a small fest, last year they had Decemberists, Weezer, Mastadon, St. Vincent, Gary Clark Jr., Band of Horses, Skrillex, and Sturgill Simpson. Not bad. The year before they got Jack White, Lauren Hill, Vampire Weekend, Wu Tang, Dwight Yoakam. Serious bands and artists who would be fun to see. So, I was excited to see the lineup this year, thinking maybe I'd figure out a way to sneak off to Houston for a weekend in June to check out the action. They released the lineup today, and I think I'll pass. Not tragically awful or anything, but beyond Modest Mouse and Leon Bridges, most of this actively bad or is purely curiosity stuff. Deadmau5 was awful in Austin last year. Would Logic be as good live as in the studio? Would the blood vessels in my head pop with how hard I would sing "Blister in the Sun?" Does Big Grams actually work? Would Refused actually make me KILLKILLKILL if I heard them live? How awesome is a band named Chicano Batman and can I get a t-shirt? Are most of the band names at the bottom of that lineup straight fake names? Seriously, those last four lines are awesome in the pure WTF'ness of them. I hope the ACL poster looks nothing like this one.
