Quick Hits, Vol. 94 (Car Seat Headrest, Young Chop, Chance the Rapper, Lil Uzi Vert)

Just bought my ACL passes for first weekend of 2017.  I'd like to say I'm psyched, but $240 for the early bird tickets is a little steep, especially when I just bought four of them and the C3 folks are now going to just hold that $1k for the next year.  Obviously my own fault for wanting to jump right on the early bird tickets, but that stings a little.  Nonetheless, I am psyched to get started on sleuthing to see if I can figure out who is going to be here for 2017.  Always a fun game to play.

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial.  I recall trying out his last album, and being sincerely underwhelmed, but this album is actually really great. That older album (Teens if Style) was more lo-fi and dissolved, but this one has a real cohesive alt-rock/garage rock sound kind of Replacements-y ("Fill In the Blank") and sometimes Strokes-y ("Vincent") and sometimes R.E.M.-y (aspects of many of these songs) enough to be really cool sounding.  My recollection of the guy is that he made his first albums in the back seat of his car, which is why he named the band after what he looked at the whole time he was recording.  The top track on Spotify is "Fill in the Blank," with 1.8 million streams, but the one I like the most is lower down the streaming totem pole at 860k called "Destroyed by Hippie Powers."

Crap video, sorry, no good versions of that tune on YouTube right now.  But this is more of a bashing Nirvana crunchy nug of a track, which jams and endears me to my boy Will.  The breakdown and re-smashing at 4:20 freaking rules (and includes cow bell).  I'm going to hold on to this one and keep unpacking it for a while.

Young Chop - King Chop.  Tough sounding rap, with good beats, but the kind of new sound that depends heavily on boring repetition.  For example, I think that "With tha Choppa" might say "I'm like Blago with the chopper" 7,297 times during the course of a 3:17 long song.  This is the guy who produced several of Chief Keef's biggest tracks, which is what lead me to him, but since then he's produced tracks for everyone, from Gucci Mane and Pusha T to Juicy J and 2 Chainz.  The best part of these tracks is definitely the beats - you can see why he is a popular track guy who gets signed up again and again.  But the raps are nothing special.  The most listened to track from this album (with only 117k listens) is "Ring Ring Ring," which features Chief Keef.

I do appreciate the homage paid within "Mo Money, Mo Problems," being that "Kick in the Door" is my jam.  I don't think I'll keep any of these tracks around after this, but I won't deny that I felt very tough today drafting a settlement agreement while nodding my head to this album.

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book.  I just wrote an entirely different review of this album, generally saying that while I like the exuberant, bouncing Chance, I could do without the slower introspective stuff.  However, after going through the album another couple times, I find that I've been sucked in by the album as a whole.  I don't know what the deal is, I had never heard of Chance as being a particularly Christian-inspired rapper (in fact, my recollection of Acid Rap was that it had a lot to do with drugs and getting kicked out of high school), but this thing is heavily steeped in gospel and raps that center on Christian thoughts and ideas.
Still, the best thing about Chance the Rapper to me is when he puts on his exuberant hat and bounces off the walls with some fun stuff.  This album has a few of those kinds of moments, stashed among the gospel bits. For example, the Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz-assisted "No Problem" has this bouncing, joyous beat backed up by a choir, and its just hard to not grin and bob your head as Chance disposes of beef.

AND, he references Friday in his verse, which is always a winning combination for me. Chance has the best verse of the three, although I grinned at Weezy's line "Codeine got me movin' slower than a caterpillar race."  That is funny.  Then "Mixtape" has a tough sound and good verses (except for the AutoTune business - can we just collectively get over using that crap for rap verses?), "Angels" goes back to the fun, bouncy, exuberant well, and then "All Night" does more of the same.
But then he also has some tracks that leave that bounciness behind in favor of a more traditional roll with the gospel and R&B sound.  Although I wasn't into it at first, "Blessings" snuck up on me.

Look, I can dig the message going on there, but I'm not trying to say that the beat is anything worth remembering.  If you are looking for rap that you can bump in your car and look tough to the guy next to you at the stoplight, then go get some Young Chop.  This beat is boring and uninteresting. I have no clue how people on YouTube comments are saying this is fire.  I cannot agree with you, Ahmad.  Other beats are similarly uninspiring - "Summer Friends," which sounds like something off of the new Bon Iver album - has little going for it on the beat, but it nonetheless got under my skin and I found myself enjoying it too.  But I still don't care for "Same Drugs" or "Juke Jam," and you can't make me like them. I'm going to keep this disc and keep listening, I think this is good stuff.

Lil Uzi Vert - Lil Uzi Vert vs. the World.  No clue where this came from.  Don't go listen to this album.  Got that AutoTune Chief Keef sound, and just uninteresting.  Just so you can see for yourself, here is the most popular track on Spotify (which, amazingly, has 58.8 million freaking streams, showing that others may love this dude despite my dismissal), "Money Longer."

Just instantly forgettable.  Its fine, but nothing in the beat, or the rap, or the cadence, or anything is memorable or something I'd try to go hear again.  Also, that video makes no sense.  Why would the kidnappers take her to the drag race track to watch Lil Uzi dance on the track?  Why isn't anyone a good shot with their uzi?  What is on the back of her jean jacket, under her name?  Inquiring minds, man.