Top Ten Albums of 2017 (Me)

Time for the annual deep dive back through the year to see what I think were the best albums released in 2017.  

A few preliminary notes:

• I'm 94% sure that I already know which album is my winner of the year, but I still want to go back through all of the albums I've heard in 2017 to make sure that my instinct is right.
• Since I made my 2016 list, other albums that were either released late in 2016 (Run the Jewels, looking at you) or that I never got around to hearing until 2017 (Paerish, Margaret Glaspy), have popped up and should have made that list.  I'm sure similar things will happen here, but I'll do the best I can.  That Paerish album still rules.
• Some albums aren't available on Spotify, so as usual I might not be able to hear them.  If you feel like I'm missing your favorite thing ever, let me know.
• I follow local badass record shop Waterloo Records on Twitter, and while I have purposefully avoided going out to see what others are putting in their top 10 albums of the year, I have noted some of the lists that Waterloo employees have published.  AND THEY ARE BATSHIT.  I'd say that at least 99% of them are entirely comprised of music I've never heard of.  Like not just an album that I didn't know an artist released, but like I've never even heard of any of the bands in the first place.  Go find "Corby" list, published Nov. 24, and other than QOTSA, I have no clue who any of those bands are.  Weird.

All the 2017 Albums I Might have Heard:

Anyhoo, I'm going to start this process by running through all of the albums that Wikipedia says came out in 2017.  Let's see which ones ring a bell that I heard them.

The xx - I See You, John Mayer - The Search for Everything, Japandroids - Near to the Wild Heart of Life, Migos - Culture, (man, January was a pretty bleak month for good album releases), Big Sean - I Decided, Future - Future, Ryan Adams - Prisoner, Strand of Oaks - Hard Love, Future - Hndrxx, King Gizzard... - Flying Mictrotonal Banana, Old 97's Graveyard Whistling, Thundercat - Drunk, Ed Sheeran - (symbol for division), Khalid - American Teen, Methyl Ethel - Everything is Forgotten, Temples - Volcano, (hahaha!, Bush put out a new album this year!), Hurray for the Riff Raff - The Navigator, The Shins - Heartworms, Valerie June - The Order of Time, Milky Chance - Blossom, Depeche Mode - Spirit, (Hey, Real Estate put out a new album I didn't notice!), Rick Ross - Rather You Than Me, Spoon - Hot Thoughts, Drake - More Life, Kodak Black - Painting Pictures, Mastodon - Emperor of Sand, The Chainsmokers - Memories...Do Not Open, Cold War Kids - L.A. Divine, Father John Misty - Pure Comedy, Karen Elson - Double Roses, (a new Mike and the Mechanics?  What?), The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions, White Reaper - The World's Best American Band, Kendrick Lamar - DAMN, Incubus - 8, Sheryl Crow - Be Myself, Gorillaz - Humanz, Willie Nelson - God's Problem Child, Foster the People - III, At the Drive In - In ter a li a, (there is a band called Big Walnuts Yonder, FYI), Chris Stapleton - From a Room Vol. 1, Logic - Everybody, Mac DeMarco - This Old Dog, Harry Styles - Harry Styles, Machine Gun Kelly - bloom, Paramore - After Laughter, PWR BTTM - Pageant, XXXTentacion - Revenge, Linkin Park - One More Light, (by the way, Warrant, Papa Roach, and Quiet Riot are all still making new music), Snoop Dogg - Neva Left, Lil Yachty - Teenage Emotions, Alt-J - Relaxer, Bleachers - Gone Now, Dan Auerbach - Waiting on a Song, Vic Mensa - The Manuscript, Gov't Mule - Revolution Come...Revolution Go, (never did try out the new Katy Perry, huh...), Phoenix - Ti Amo, 2 Chainz - Pretty Girls Like Trap Music, Bassnectar - Reflective, Big Boi - Boomiverse, Fleet Foxes - Crack-Up, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - The Nashville Sound, Lorde - Melodrama, Portugal. The Man - Woodstock, Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark?, DJ Khaled - Grateful, Jeff Tweedy - Together at Last, King Gizzard ... - Murder of the Universe, Vince Staples - Big Fish Theory, Jay-Z - 4:44, 21 Savage - Issa Album, Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder, Haim - Something to Tell You, Coldplay - Kaleidoscope, Waxahatchee - Out in the Storm, Foster the People - Sacred Hearts Club, Lana Del Rey - Lust for Life, Arcade Fire - Everything Now, Vic Mensa - The Autobiography, Kesha - Rainbow, ASAP Ferg - Still Striving, Action Bronson - Blue Chips 7000, ASAP Mob - Cozy Tapes Vol. 2., The Oh Sees - Orc, Queens of the Stone Age - Villians, LCD Soundsystem - American Dream, (there is a new Living Colour album!!!), Nothing but Thieves - Broken Machine, Foo Fighters - Concrete and Cold, Prophets of Rage - Prophets of Rage, The Killers - Wonderful Wonderful, Macklemore - Gemini, Primus - The Desaturating Seven, Wolf Alice - Visions of a Life, Liam Gallagher - As You Were, Beck - Colors, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice, Robert Plant - Carry Fire, St. Vincent - Masseduction, Margo Price - All American Made, Big KRIT - 4eva is a Mighty Long Time, Weezer - Pacific Daydream, Grace VanderWaal - Just the Beginning, King Gizzard ... - Polydondwanaland, Bjork - Utopia, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Chris Stapleton - From a Room Vol. 2, U2 - Songs of Experience, Taylor Swift - Reputation, Eminem - Revival.

Whew.  Quite a pile up.  But, I already know that many of those won't even come close to the top of my list, because things like the new Jay Z album blow.  Let's get to it, after one additional anecdote.  Last night, I was talking Taylor Swift with my daughters and I was OVERJOYED to hear them say it was a weak album.  My son may be a musical lost cause, but maybe the girls know what is up.  The older one said that she just didn't like the lyrics.  YES!  I spent a few hours with that album in the car the other day, and in comparison to the great tunes on Red or 1989, Reputation is just very derivative and boring.  Without further blathering, my top ten for 2017.

Jack's Top Ten for 2017:

1. Beck - Colors.  I still can't get enough of this album.  I went out and bought it on vinyl the other day to prove my devotion and to further my hipster cred with the world.  From the opening sparkle and funk of "Colors" to the hyped-up jam of "I'm so Free," to the excellent three song chunk in the middle - "Dreams" to "Wow" to "Up All Night."  The album references some of his weirder, quirky days from Odelay, but brings that forward into the more electro sound of now.  The main thing about the album is that it is freaking ridiculously fun.  I love rock and I love hip hop and this has elements of both, shoved into a joyously funky mash.  Give it to me.

2. Queens of the Stone Age - Villains.  Another album that taps into my happiness zone and just makes me glad to listen to music.  More groove-based rock and roll, swaggering and brawny, but with enough pop sensibility to make it more fun than just some cock rock chug-fest.  "Feet Don't Fail Me" is a great intro, ominously building up to the breakdown roar of the opening.  "The Way You Used to Do" shows that pop side, hand-claps and loose bounce with Josh Homme's leering lyrics cruising along with it.  I also went out and bought this album on vinyl the other day - went right after Record Store Day so that I could get the limited edition cover with the devil flipping double birds.  Which is an absolute indication that I have too much disposable income and need to get my priorities straight.  And then this track, which has odd time signatures to go with the great guitar work and groove.  Good stuff.

3. Chris Stapleton - Songs From a Room, Vol. 1 & 2.  As I mentioned in one of my reviews for these two albums (which I'm treating as one album here), I'm a drooling fanboy for this guy's tuneful, soulful, bluesy outlaw country sound.  These songs are great.

4. Royal Blood - How Did We Get So Dark.  Also a raging boner-eared nerd for these dudes.  I've seen them twice because of ACL Fest, but I'd go see them again immediately if they were coming through town right now.  Heavy, groove-based rock, this stuff speaks to me.

My wife is extremely sick of coming home to me blaring these songs on the Sonos system in the house when I think I'm home alone and can therefore get my blaring rock and roll fire on.

5. Arcade Fire - Everything Now.  I bought this album almost as soon as I streamed it a few times, I loved it immediately.  Something in the melancholy spirit of the album spoke to me right away, and it still wipes me out sometimes when I'm driving around and a lyric catches me crossways all over again.  "Creature Comfort" wasn't my favorite song right away (that was probably "Chemistry" or "Everything Now") but the lyrics have snuck up on me repeatedly.  

"God, make me famous, If You can't, just make it painless, Just make it painless."  Something about that, while I'm raising kids in an age of continuous connection and feedback, and still remembering my own times of coming up through those feelings.  "It's not painless. She was a friend of mine, a friend of mine. And we're not nameless, oh."  Suicide is just such a shitty damn shit thing.  After just watching Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway and then listening to this song again, I'm going to need to go jam some Royal Blood for a couple of hours.  Anyway, this album is very good stuff, I dig the Arcade Fire.

6. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.  Kendrick has so much to live up to in his catalog, so this one doesn't make the top of my list, but it is still very good.  But Good Kid and Pimp a Butterfly are just better.  This one is still a great mix of brawn and lithe lyricism that will last.  I just wish he hadn't done all those stupid sounding shoutout aside things ("NEW KUNGFU KENNY!") throughout.

I just ran through it again this morning before publishing this, and it is so well done.  It maybe should be above Arcade Fire.
7. Pearl Jam - Let's Play Two.  Now, I know that it is unorthodox to have a live double-disc album of songs that are previously released creep its way up into a current top ten list.  But honestly, while looking up and down my list of the albums that might make this list, I'll probably keep listening to this one before many of the others on the list.  But the joy that I derive from listening to this faithful reproduction of these classic songs, and the goosebumps that roll up my arms as I sing along, is just too good for me to pass this up and act like I'm not going to keep this album around for a long ass time.

8. U2 - Songs of Experience.  My review of this one is so comprehensive and freshly written that I won't even try to re-do it here.  It might belong a little higher up on this list, but I'm satisfied with it down here for now.  Classic U2.

9. Spoon - Hot Thoughts.  I was extremely bummed to miss out on them for ACL this year, as this was a very enjoyable album and I've never seen them live.  As the current hot Austin band out there in the universe, I feel like a bad Austinite to have never seen them live.  Great rock and roll with a good groove.

10.  J. Roddy Walston & the Business - Destroyers of the Soft Life.  These guys can go from raw, ripped-up rock and roll to a new, cleaner modern rock sound, and I'm in on both of them.  This is that cleaner sound, like Kings of Leon type stuff, or Moon Taxi stuff, and its just plain good rock and roll.

I think the band name is the only thing holding those dudes back from future stardom.  That song right there should be on every alternative rock station right now.

The close misses: If I made a 19 album list, then you'd see more discussion of these nine.

John Mayer's Theory of Everything, Dan Auerbach's Waiting on a Song, Nothing But Thieves' Broken Machine, Temples' Volcano, Waxahatchee's Out in the Storm, War on Drugs' A Deeper Understanding, Liam Gallagher's As You Were, and Broken Social Scene's Hug of Thunder.  In addition, I have to note that the new Jason Isbell is really very good, but it is such an unrelenting bummer that I refused to put it on my list.  Very well done, though.

Albums that I expect to see on other people's top ten list that will baffle me to my grave: Taylor Swift's Reputation, Jay-Z's 4:44, Drake's More Life, Migos, Future, (pretty much 98% of all rap this year), Gorillaz's Humanz, and Lorde's Melodrama.

Good year.  I feel like I accomplished a lot in my music listening and fandom and live music seeing and writing here.  Hope you have enjoyed some of it as well.  Now, time to go read up on other people's top ten lists and learn about all the good music I've missed out on.

Spotify 2017 Year in Review

Spotify Year in Review:
I got my Spotify year in review thing the other day, and was MORTIFIED at what my evil children have done to my streaming data.  

• I listened to 61,321 minutes of music (well, or at least someone associated with my account did before I started paying for a family account so that people would stop high-jacking my stream).  That is just over 1,000 hours of listening, and just about 42.5 straight days.  1,061 different artists in the year.
• This year's wrap up gives you a quiz.  The five options for my most-listened to artists of the year quiz were Queens of the Stone Age, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Black Angels, Run the Jewels, and Arcade Fire.  I got this one right, definitely Run the Jewels.  No shocker there.  Actual top artists were RTJ, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Royal Blood, and A$AP Ferg.  Interesting.
• BUT THEN MY SON RUINED EVERYTHING.  My song of the year candidates were RTJ's "Hey Kids (Bumaye)," RHCP's "The Getaway," and then THREE FREAKING TWENTY-ONE PILOTS SONGS!!!  Oh, the shame.  The sadness.  The deep and unceasing disappointment.  "My" most listened-to track of 2017 was "Stressed Out" by 21 Pilots.  Brutal.
• This means that my top genre was also jacked up, Modern Rock, instead of whatever it should have been.  Dammit.
• Apparently I listen to enough of something called Dwn Trap that Spotify wanted me to know that it is most popular with 24 year olds.  DON'T I KNOW IT.
• Weird fact, I only skipped 93 songs this year.  That is odd.

Stupid kids.  Now I'm embarrassed to share my 2017 music history online because I couldn't take someone thinking that I love Twenty One Pilots that much.  NOW BACK TO LISTENING TO MORE CLASSIC LIMP BIZKIT!!  WHEN MUSIC WAS REAL!!!

Quick Hits, Vol. 165 (Eminem, Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton, Greenleaf)

Eminem - Revival.  Ah man.  That is really too bad.  From the first moment, with the Beyonce-assisted "Walk on Water," this album is just a disappointment.  Do you remember what was awesome about Eminem back in the day?  Ridiculously excellent wordplay and storytelling over and through fun beats.  Most of the beats on here are extremely simplistic.  Hell "Walk on Water" never even gets a beat.  It just uses piano chords and Eminem spewing some whiny lines about himself and the difficulty of fame that fall flat because there's no beat to match them to or save them from sounding random and rambling.  
And since that is the first track on the album, it sets the tone, now all of these tunes sound skeletal and rambling.  Did you hear his freestyle thing that he did to diss Trump a few months ago?  That is what a lot of this feels like, just him going stream of consciousness without worrying about connecting any of the lyrics into a cohesive story or organizing them around a beat.  With random pausing and disconnected thoughts.  Like "Offended," where he uses a super basic horn sample (with some other little sounds) that eases into the ghost of a beat, but then gets a complete hard stop for a weird sing-song chorus based on the silly song about "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat some worms."  Then that chorus stops and the "beat" comes back.  It's just half-baked.  Why can't there be a real beat here that carries throughout the track?  Its garbage.
"Walk on Water" already has 50 million streams, but almost all of the rest of the album (which was, to be fair, only released to streaming last Friday) is under 200k streams.  The second most popular one (because that top track is hot garbage) is called "Untouchable," with 4.6 million streams.

That is way better - it is like he knows there is a beat there for him to rap along with.  So much better than the non-existent beat rambling.  This sounds kind of like that new Ice Cube track about Good Cop Bad Cop...  And it is talking about something important and digging into police brutality on African Americans.  This is a dense ass song, and I'm sure someone is going to complain that Em shouldn't be rapping from the perspective of a black man, but I appreciate him for trying to jump into there and bring it up.
Another thing on this album, he goes the gigantic star guests route, with Queen Bey, Ed Sheeran, Alicia Keys, P!nk, and then some weird ones like the X Ambassadors (those guys with the Jeep commercial song a few years ago), Kehlani, and Skylar Grey (whose name sounds very porny to me).  Most of those are just hooks - the chorus singing.  But I loved the rapped choruses (chorusi?) from his old tunes.  I've never been all that excited about sung hooks like the Chris Brown garbage that everyone does, so these don't work well for me.
I don't know, I don't need for him to still be talking about horrible misogynistic things or murdering his mom or eating drugs, but this album just doesn't have much fun going for it.  About the only fun thing in here is when he uses cool samples like "I Love Rock and Roll" for "Remind Me" - got that Rick Rubin sound right there for sure - The Cranberries' "Zombie" in "In Your Head," "The Rose" (of all weird things) in "A Rose," or "Heat," which depends on an interpolation of some song that feels like it should be Skynyrd or no, wait, its "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo," right?  NO, the Internet says it is from Boogie Nights, some riff that John C. Reilly plays for a song for Marky Mark.  Weird, that is a deep cut sample man.  But at least those recognizable samples are interesting?

Damn, speaking of rambling.  This review just keeps farting along...  19 songs on this album, an hour and 17 minutes long.

So, here's the deal.  I'm not going to try to say that Em can't wordsmith as good or better than anyone.  He makes lines that are so dense with rhyming words that you almost need to slow down the track to catch them all.  I love that, where he doesn't just rhyme at the end of a line, but packs the whole couplet with words that click - very cool.  But I'm very good with never hearing this album again, and honestly none of the tracks are good enough for me to hold on to them.  I'm bummed to say that.

Taylor Swift - Reputation.  Oh hey, speaking of disappointing shit!  I wrote about this somewhere else recently, but I could not have been more grateful for my middle child the other day, who voiced an opinion that this album is very disappointing and not even close to Red or 1989.  AMEN, CHILD!  The first single, "Look What You Made Me Do," is actively bad.  The beat is lame, not danceable, not memorable.  The lyrics are garbage, and that is the worst possible thing to get from Swift, who can write some legitimately excellent turns of phrase.  But instead, like most of this album, you just get trite junk that sounds like any other boring girl starlet - "In the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things that we do, in the middle of the night, in my dreams, I know I'm gonna be with you, so I take my time.  Baby, let the games begin."  It's just lazy and the kind of thing I've heard a hundred times.  Now, that particular track, "...Ready For It?" has the best beat on the whole album, so it isn't all terrible, but that beat can't save the jenky lyrics.  

Ooooh, so tough!  The second track ("End Game") showcases terrible verses from Future, more garbage from TayTay, and then a poor hook from Ed Sheeran.  Hard to beat the total world domination of that trio of artists for current popularity, but it is almost like you took Lebron, Steph, and Kahwi, got everyone all excited about what they might be able to do on the basketball court, but then you asked them to play on 6 foot goals.  Some of the other tracks have beats/tracks that at least pique the interest, but lyrically they are just weak as hell.  Here, try "Gorgeous."

"You should take it as a compliment that I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk."  Uh, what?  Is this a Donald Trump song?  And then "You're so gorgeous, I can't say anything to your face, 'cause look at your face."  Man, really plumbing the depths of your writing abilities there.  Too bad Shakespeare didn't know about this wonderful trick, would have saved him a lot of extra words.  Instead of "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief. That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she," he could have just said: "Juliet is fine.  How fine?  So fine.  Yeah."  I'll stick to her older, better albums.

Chris Stapleton - Songs From a Room, Vol. 2.  I'm a lost cause when it comes to this dude.  After seeing him at ACL two years ago, I loved it, but after seeing his ACL taping at the Moody a month or so ago, I'm a drooling fanboy.  While I wish he had stuck this album together with Vol. 1 to make life even better, its still excellent on its own.  The album opener, "Millionaire," is another smooth sailing track of soulful country goodness, then the second track ("Hard Livin'") kicks in some classic outlaw country swagger.  The thing I didn't know about Stapleton until the ACL taping is how bad ass the man is on the guitar.  He must have used 38 guitars at that taping, and he just slayed the shit out of them.  I love Stapleton's ability to go from down-low, low-down blues like "Nobody's Lonely Tonight" into a drinking/stoned rock swagger track like "Tryin' to Untangle My Mind" or "Midnight Train to Memphis."  
This next video isn't the most popular track on the album (that would be Millionaire at 3.3 million streams) but it is a really sweet one.  " A Simple Song," which has just under a million streams.

The title is perfect, its just a simply plucked little tune, supporting a classic country sentiment of happiness despite things not being perfect.  I'm really enjoying this album.

Greenleaf - Rise Above the Meadow.  Swedish band, chock full of sludgy hard rock riffage and stoner rock bluster.  It is always going to be weird to me when foreign people are so able to emulate English that you would never know that they are from Sweden and normally talk like the Muppet Chef.  Because this album has been right after the new U2 and new Stapleton in my queue for the past two weeks, I've heard it many many times by now, and it actually works really well.  If you are in to the heavy rock stuff, this one is good.  By the way, their top track overall on Spotify is a tune called "Stray Bullit Woman," which makes me think I might be wrong about their ability to assimilate into the English language...  Their top tune on this album is the album opener (a bad sign), with about 155k streams for "A Million Fireflies."

Super freaky body paint lady makes the video OK, but the long sections of the guy just falling next to a building make me want to freak out.  I think I would enjoy seeing these guys rage in person.  Pretty good album, I think I'll keep it around for anger listening and lawn mowing.

ACL 2018: Ridiculously, Outrageously Early Predictions Based on Nothing Concrete

Oh man, I had to drive to Dallas and back yesterday, which is a long ass day of driving.  So I spent a chunk of that time finishing up a podcast (S-Town is weird and good, btw), then listening to the new Kamayiah (OK so far), and then thinking about who is going to headline ACL next year.  As usual with my post that happens before the new year has even passed, I know this is ridiculous. Making guesses this early and without any research. But I have thoughts. They are based on nothing at all. This is pure conjecture. But I feel like I have solid guesses and I need to share them. Here are the top 6 headliners.  BTW, I got this super wrong last year, with only the Chilis right out of the top 6 I chose, falling flat with Green Day, Metallica, Steve Aoki, Paul Simon, and Daft Punk.  So read this for what it is worth.

• Beck. This is my most solid guess as of right now. Perfect headliner. Totally kick ass, fun, exciting new album that crosses over into dance and rock at the same time.  He hasn't been to ACL in a few years.  He's also doing the Aussie and NZ ACLs.  I feel good about this.

• Queens of the Stone Age.  Another excellent new album this year and they haven't played for a few years.  Maybe not big enough to be a top 6 headliner (except to me) so maybe this is a silly prediction anyway.
• I thought Arcade Fire would be here last year and was foolishly incorrect.  Maybe next year?
• Kanye West.  Honestly, this pick is based on thinking through who is a major rap star who hasn't been in a while.  I don't know if Kanye is even still doing music anymore.  But we've already recently done Jay-Z, Drake, Kendrick, Chance, RTJ, Cube, Outkast, Eminem...  So I'm going with Kanye.
• For a big EDM group, maybe I was off by one year and Daft Punk will be the big electronic group in 2018?  I don't know enough about EDM to know who else to predict for this slot.
• Having a hell of a time coming up with number 6.  U2 would be rad but I kind of doubt it.  Lady Gaga just played Austin.  I always want to guess Paul Simon.  Fleetwood Mac on their reunion touring?  Black Keys, Lorde, Muse, Coldplay?  Everyone else I am thinking of doesn't belong on the top line of the poster...  I'll say U2.

I'd honestly be super pumped to have Beck, Queens, Arcade Fire, and Kanye show up, so this would excite me for sure.  After the new year, I'll get rolling on my massively nerdy, detailed prediction posts, which will be based on more data than this one, which is just instincts.

Quick Hits, Vol. 163 (Robert Plant, Thee Oh Sees, Dead Moon, David Wax Museum)

Robert Plant - Carry Fire.  The Led Zeppelin Golden God lives!  Well, yeah, I mean, he's still alive.  Not sure if he's much of a golden god anymore.  All of these songs hew to a lower, more comfortable register of his voice, there is none of that soaring, yowling lightning that used to make him so distinctive.  Not to say that his voice isn't nice here, but this reminds me of the end-of-career sound of guys like Cash and Willie.  The weirdest thing about this album is how varied the tunes are.  You'll have a shoegazing love tune based on a Cure baseline ("Season's Song") and then backwoods Americana lyrics mixed over lite NIN effects ("Bluebirds Over the Mountain") and then an electronic-based Radiohead-ish track ("Keep It Hid") and then an atmospheric Norah Jones space-jazz number ("A Way With Words") and then to some Middle Eastern-infused action ("Carry Fire").  All over the place.  It is jarring.  The top track, coming in just under a million streams, is "The May Queen," more of a Zeppelin style blues/Americana track.

I mean, that sounds like something that could have been snuck into Zeppelin 3 instead of "Friends."  Weird fact about writing this review, I bet I spelled 98 of the 100 words in here wrong at first attempt.  I'm struggling.  Maybe this music is such a powerful message that it ruins the brain!  POWERFUL!  Interesting listen, but I'll let this be.

Thee Oh Sees - Orc.  Good psych rock flailing that turns into odd instrumentals.  I kind of like it, but it feels like one of those albums where I'm going to find better stuff in their catalog or should wait until the next one comes to see their best stuff.  Album opener "Static God," a squealing punk jam, has the most listens, but "Animated Violence" is currently more popular.

That one is a lot more metal than the rest of the album (although kind of prog-psych-metal), which definitely gets more blissed out in the back end, but I dig the crunch of it.  The vocals lean too far into the growling-almost Cookie Monster thing, but I still enjoy the riffage.  My first instinct was to dismiss this album, but the more I've listened, the more I've wanted to go back and check it out again.  I don't love it, yet, but I want to keep it around for a while and see what I think after more time.

Dead Moon - What a Way to See the Old Girl Go.  I know that I sometimes claim ignorance as to how something came into my new music list, but seriously, I have zero clue who the hell this band is.  Or where this album came from, which appears to be a live album from 2017.  Huh.  The Spotify bio says that this is archival footage of a 1994 show in Portland, Oregon.  OOOOOH, I added this because everyone on Twitter was super sad that Fred Cole (their guitarist) had died just recently, and since I'd never heard of him, I added this to the Q.  There you go.  Well, this is super raw punk-ish music with pretty bad sound, and after a few listens, I think I'm good.

While I'm bummed that the guy died and everyone else was bummed, nothing on here is that interesting to me right now.

David Wax Museum - Electric Artifacts.  An old co-worker suggested this album to me the other day, although it comes to mind now that we didn't talk much when she was here about the types of music that I like, so I suspect this rec was not personally tailored for me.  These songs are fine, mostly a very eclectic thing combining male/female voices, violin, and a very quiet touch.  Not many streams for these songs on Spotify, the most (35k) for "Betray Everyone," way more than all the rest of the album, none of which crack 5k. 

The album starts off a little fiery, with that one and the opener ("At Least I Tried") pretty upbeat and forward, but then most of the rest of the album is like a sleepy indie piano, guitar, and violin folk Americana album that kind of smears off into the barroom sunset like a Wilco feverdream.  Check "Your Mother, the Ghost" and see if it doesn't remind you of Wilco.  Not really my thing.  Wikipedia makes it sound like they might be the greatest band of all time, so maybe I need to go back into the catalog instead of this new one...

Quick Hits, Vol. 162 (Justin Townes Earle, Iron & Wine, The Lone Bellow, St. Vincent)

I just have to note that all of the U2 singles released so far on Spotify for the upcoming new album are freaking great.

Justin Townes Earle - Kids in the Street.  I feel like using your middle name to evoke one of the greatest songwriters of all time is kind of improper.  I know it is really his name, and Steve just wanted to pay homage to the man, but now every time I think of this guy he gets the benefit of both his dad's fame and Townes'.  Seems unfair.  I'm gonna change my daughter's middle name to AdeleSwiftBey and she's going to be rich as shit and buy me a replacement floor mat for my 4Runner.  These tunes are vaguely pleasant, the kind that just disappear into the ether of time if you don't take a hard listen to them to get to the lyrics.  Another album where the opening track is the most popular, by quite a bit, but I'll give you "Maybe a Moment," because it has a video, for your listening pleasure.

Good one.  "Maybe only a moment, maybe the time of your lives."  The lyrics are why you'd stick with this album, although it is generally kind of sleepy Americana/lite rock.  I like it, but honestly not enough to keep it around.

Iron & Wine - Beast Epic.  I&W has a great thing going, with this easily recognizable brand of lovely, quiet soft rock, where each song sounds like it should be on the soundtrack of an indie film.  Sam Beam, the apparent entirety of this band, just has a feathered, whispered way about his vocals that is soothing as all get out.  Hard not to enjoy the comfort of this one.  The top track on here is on the radio here and there in Austin, and its a nice one.  This is "Call It Dreaming," with 9.2 million streams.

I wanna ride in the back of ghost truck with that good doggie!  Very Jose Gonzales sound, gentle, soothing, lovely, nostalgic (if that is a term that can be used for a sound).  Freaking beautiful song.  "say its here where our pieces fall in place, we can fear because a feelings fine to betray, where our water isn’t hidden, we can burn and be forgiven, where our hands hurt from healing, we can laugh without a reason."  Now, some of these tunes can just wash on by without much to distinguish them, as you listen to the entire album.  But if you spend some time with these tracks and listen to both the lyrics and the music at the same time, it really is a great one.

The Lone Bellow - Walk Into a Storm.  The Lone Bellow do a very good brand of large Americana music with good harmonies and a lot of soul.  One of the tracks from this album is the most instantly familiar to me ("Is It Ever Gonna Be Easy") which makes me think it must be getting radio play, but at only 200k streams, it sure doesn't seem like it is out there much.  Maybe its just so very like much of their old music that I'm conflating the two.  Probably the most beautiful song on the album is "Come Break My Heart Again," which is truly lovely.  But the track with the most streams from this one so far is "Time's Always Leaving," with 733k streams.  Surprisingly low number for a band I thought was popular.

More upbeat, kind of a Nathaniel Rateliff thing.  Oh no, wait, I've seen that video before!  I know that guy!  If you watched the Netflix show Ozark, then you've seen him before as well, that guy is Mark Menchaca, and we worked at the same youth camp a million years ago.  Fun song.  Totally forgot that I had seen him post something about being in this video, on Facebook, and that I had watched this video several months ago.  Well there you have it.  Terrifying the Olds with his dance moves even 20 year later...  Most of the album is a lighter touch, which gets a little forgettable at times, so while I've enjoyed it I probably won't keep it.

St. Vincent - MASSEDUCTION.  Or, as I'll call it, the one where every time I look at the album cover I feel dirty and like I shouldn't be listening to this.  I've generally enjoyed St. Vincent when I've tried her out in the past, but beyond a few tracks, this one isn't doing much for me.  The hit, that I keep hearing in bleeped out form on the radio, is "New York."

Very pretty at times, and has a nice sense of melancholy, but also has that jarring repeat use of MF in the midst of that pretty thought.  But this is definitely better than the stressfully bad "Sugarboy" or the title track.  This album straddles some line between tech sounds and real music, while keeping the lyrics as witty and winkingly smart as possible, and its just not for me.  I won't keep the album around.

Quick Hits, Vol. 161 (Broken Social Scene, Gov't Mule, Bleachers, Phoenix)

Broken Social Scene - Hug of Thunder.  Well, that is interesting.  Mentally, I thought this was something entirely different, but this album is excellent indie rock.  Sounds to me like Arcade Fire spent a lot of time listening to U2.  Especially if you listen to "Halfway Home," the brightly lit top song from the album (well, most listened to anyway, at 2.6 million).

Got a little Edward Sharpe-type action to it as well.  But do you hear that U2 sound?  Its like a less bombastic "Beautiful Day."  This band is weird, it is called a "creative collective" with a "flexible lineup," which is a curious thing to think of.  Of the 15 members on the album, the only one that I immediately recognize is Feist.  Some are sung with a female lead and guys in the background, others go vice versa.  Some Cure-esque guitar on "Please Take Me With You," so go along with vocals that sound cribbed from The National.  "Stay Happy" has a world music/Arcade Fire vibe that is pretty rad, and then the urgent collective singing on "Vanity Pail Kids" likewise cops that Arcade Fire rock and roll sound.  I really like this album.

Gov't Mule - Revolution Come ... Revolution Go.  I've been reading about Gov't Mule for some time, a jam band with southern roots in the Allman Brothers, but I've never really given them a shot before.  You can hear late-model Allmans in the voice of Warren Haynes on these tunes, and the guitar can do some good work here as well.  But after a few attempts on this one, I'm left pretty underwhelmed.  Another bloated album as well, clocking in at almost two freaking hours for 18 songs.  When the first song came on, I was confused as to what I had slotted in my queue behind Broken Social Scene, because it honestly sounds like your cousin's Rage Against the Machine cover band's crappy demo they gave you for your birthday and you forgot about until you realized that you couldn't access the internet on that drive into deep West Texas so you had to listen to whatever CDs you had lying in your car.  I get the feeling that this sound would be much improved in the live world.  Only one song makes their current top ten on Spotify, with "Stone Cold Rage" (the album opener) barely squeaking in at #10 with 190k streams.

You hear that Rage Against the Machine sound there?  Well, until the vocals anyway.  I'll let this album go.

Quick aside - if you are reading this and you have never tried out John Prine, get thee to Spotify immediately.  His music is clever and funny and smart and classic.  This summer, I made a Pandora playlist seeded with his music, and used it daily with my family when we were on our vacation in Colorado, and it was perfect.  You can start with Souvenirs for a greatest hits-type experience, or The Missing Years or John Prine for best individual albums.  "Jesus, the Missing Years" is funny stuff.  Give him a shot.

Bleachers - Gone Now.  This is the guy from Fun who is now producing and co-writing with big time people like Lorde and Taylor Swift.  I saw this new group play at ACL a few years ago and thought they were pretty solid.  He's won two Grammys, one for "We Are Young" with Fun and one for his work on Taylor Swift's 1989.  But this album should not be winning any Grammys.  Its not terrible, but also not very interesting to me.  The hit from the album (although still like a fraction of the listens for "I Wanna Get Better" from the last album) is "Don't Take the Money" with 17.5 million streams.

I have no clue what is going on there with the bride and her hardcore friend, but I know that this is an 80's music track that is unnecessary.  Just give me the real 80's music.  "Goodmorning" rips off the sound of Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Our House."  "Goodbye" sounds like a Kanye b-side beat with some weak lyrics.  Nope.

Phoenix - Ti Amo.  Phoenix is one of those bands that I mentally think that I like well enough, and then one of their songs comes on the radio and I switch it to see if I can find something else.  This whole album feels that way, good enough sparkly 80's pop with disco elements, but I'd rather switch the station and see if I can find something else.  The album opener is the most listened to track, an indictment against the album, but I'm going to give you the title track because I think it is a better tune.  "Ti Amo" has 6.5 million streams.

Fun track, very heavy disco 80's dance party rock.  These guys came to ACL years ago (like 2013?) and I remember being relatively energized by their dance rock, but being pretty unimpressed overall.  Feeling the same way about this album.  Like the last one, just give me the classic 80's songs instead of this redux.  Not terrible, but not my thing.

Quick Hits, Vol. 164 (Bjork, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, U2)

Bjork - Utopia.  There was a time when I probably loved Bjork more than any other artist.  Debut and Post are amazingly fun and interesting albums.  I still love them to this day.  And I've tried to stick with her, buying albums (until now and Spotify) and dutifully listening along to try to figure them out, but I think this one is finally ending my love affair.  Here is the problem.  My joy in the old Bjork albums was that she made weird-as-shit music that you could still dance to or jam out to.  Obviously "Big Time Sensuality" or "Army of Me" or "Human Behavior" or "Hyperballad" were like that (and if you are thinking right now, "Jack, you crazy, Bjork blows," then go check out those tracks), but I'm even saying something quiet and less beat-forward like "Isobel" or "Come to Me" still at least have a structure that makes them sound like real music.  
On the other end of the spectrum, these are extremely spare tracks of her singing random poetry over meandering sounds with no discernible beat.  Bare choral vocals are the backing on "Features Creatures."  Clicking and random flute notes on "Courtship."  Shuddering shudders and a harp plucking on "Losss."  "The Gate" is the most listened to from the new album, since it was an early single that I have been hearing for a while now.  1.6 million streams.

Just got all blissed out by the weird ass video man.  She just jizzed light all over that empty alien metal person thing.  True love.  Or maybe sexual assault.  I can't tell.  I mean, I care for you too, man.  But can we move it along or something?  What is the line between this being music and just a poetry reading with some sounds that happen to happen in the background?  Because this doesn't follow any sort of structure for what I would call music.  The internet definition of music: "vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion."  Well, then this is absolutely music, because most of these songs are beautiful and have harmony and emotion, and that definition doesn't require any certain structure or beat.  But as for me, I'll stick to her amazing early albums and the super avant-garde art nerds out there can keep searching for meaning in the random bleeps and bloops of "Claimstalker."

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Who Built the Moon?  Well hell, maybe its actually better if Oasis stays broken in half, so that we end up getting double the music.  This album is legitimately good as well.  "She Taught Me How to Fly" is a driving 80's-new-wave-guitared slice of shimmering pop rock.  Although it won't sound that appealing, the lead single ("Holy Mountain") reminds me of that terrible old song "She Bangs," mixed with Chicago's horn section or something, in making a bombastic rock track.  This one has 3.8 million streams.

Fun shit.  The little whistle/flute tune in the midst of it is a good addition.  "Get out of your doldrums baby now!"  Those are the best tunes on here, the brassy, aggressively fun ones, like that one and "Keep On Reaching."  Nothing on here is revelatory, nothing caused me to stop my work and perk up to see what was going on, but I very much enjoyed each listen to the album and will keep it around.

U2 - Songs of Experience.  Dammit Bono.  I'd been super pumped for this album after a few single releases had teased me into a frenzy to hear the rest.  (1) And then the album opener is a pompous, whispered cliche bomb using Bon Iver's vocal manipulator machine over ominous synths.  Hit me with the Edge/Clayton two-by-four first thing, then get all artsy later on in the album!  What the hell, I'm just going to go track by track.  (2) The second track just barely lights the pulse up with a low slung guitar intro that slinks into a low key sing along like the Cheers theme song.  (3) But then "You're the Best Thing About Me" is some good, classic U2 action. 

I like that song.  But why is the video so super-MERICA?  But the good old chiming guitars, very singable chorus, that one works.  (4) Fourth, "Get Out of Your Own Way" sounds fine after two listens, I like the bassline, sounds like classic U2 stuff, but it has an annoying propensity to repeat itself ("all night all night! all right all right! your fight your fight!"), and I'm not so sure how the Kendrick spoken-word outro works?  Why can't Kendrick have provided a real rap on here?  I know U2 appeared on DAMN for him earlier this year, so they owed each other and all that, but give them a real deal verse!  Instead, you just get this sermonizing, not even really rapped:

Blessed are the arrogant, For there is the kingdom of their own company,
Blessed are the superstars, For the magnificence in their light, We understand better our own insignificance,
Blessed are the filthy rich, For you can only truly own what you give away, Like your pain

Well, OK.  I had heard that Kendrick was going to give them a verse, but that is kind of bullshit.  Otherwise a fun song.  (5) And then Kendrick continues preaching platitudes at the start of track 5, "American Soul," which is more of a stomper sing-a-long paced by some fuzzed out guitar work.  This track is good, gets me grooving after a few listens.  (6) Track six, "Summer of Love," is more subtle, and I think it is cool because of that, leaves some of the bombast behind for a little more nuance.  Reminds me of a more spirited Lana Del Rey or something (which I know makes it sound like a bad thing, but I don't intend it that way), singing about the coast (but not the one everyone knows?) and the summer of love.  Ah, he mentions Aleppo near the end of the song, so maybe this is the west coast of Syria, and singing about changing things for the better over there - love instead of war and all that.  Pretty cool, and after a few listens I'm grooving this one.  Almost caught myself snapping just then.  MAJOR DAD ROCK ALERT.  SNAPS ARE POSSIBLE.
(7) Next is "Red Flag Day," which is more propulsive and I especially like the offbeat break at about a minute in.  The tune kind of pogos forward and then breaks into a ska strut for a bit, then back to bouncing on the beat.  This tune is good, and I love that change in tempo throughout.  Funky and cool.  (8) "The Showman (Little More Better)" cranks up with acoustic guitar a bleary kind of singalong.  OK, nothing special after a few streams. (9) And then "The Little Things That Give You Away" builds slowly and then has the chiming, awesome Edge guitar that I know and love, to go along with a mid-tempo love song groove that works really well.  Dig it.  (10) "Landlady" is honestly confusing to me.  I just read through the lyrics and am no better off than I was after several listens.  Maybe the landlady is his mom, who believes in him and helps him when he is down?  I dunno.  Song is OK.
(11) And then you get "Blackout," with all of the right U2-centric bits and pieces all gathered together into one good package.  Grooving bassline.  Solid drums that support a dance party with the chorus.  Slightly goofy lyrics that involve a line like "Democracy is flat on its back, Jack." And the Edge's sweet guitarwork.

Man, if I had been in that little room to hear them try this out in person, I would have absolutely broken.  Shit yes.  Although I will note that Adam Clayton looks bored as hell in that video.  Not saying that is their best song ever or anything, but it still kind of jams.  (12) Nearing the end of the album, you get less rock and more earnest balladry.  "Love is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way" is one of those tunes that feels ready-made to have the crowd yell along to the "oh oh ooooohhh oh ohhhh" portion.  (13) The final track is actually named its track number, which seems like a weird thing to do in this day and age.  "13 (There is a Light)."  Quiet track, but lyrically a good one and a good fit to end the album with some preaching and pretty harmonies.  "I've got a question for the child in you before it leaves, Are you tough enough to be kind?  Do you know your heart has its own mind?  Darkness gathers around the light. Hold on. Hold on."

I've done each track about 5 times now, and my instant reaction is that this album is very good.  Some of the tracks are great, some are not (but may just need some time to percolate, or may just remain weak), but I gotta say I'm glad to have this album to hear.  I sort of wish that the album's pacing had been different.  Like, put "Blackout" as the second song, right after that moody ass intro, to kick the album into gear.  Instead, you get a slower mood that only cranks up later.  Obviously keeping it around.

Quick Hits, Vol. 160 (Jason Isbell, Truckfighters, Calwayne, Khalid)

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - The Nashville Sound.  I've honestly put off reviewing this album for a while because its such a devastating set of lyrics.  Amazingly well written, but strap in, man.  Here, I'll give you a taste from album opener, "Last of My Kind."

I tried to go to college but I didn't belong
Everything I said was either funny or wrong
They laughed at my boots, laughed at my jeans
Laughed when they gave me amphetamines
Left me alone in a bad part of town
Thirty-six hours to come back down
...
Mama says God won't give you too much to bear
That might be true in Arkansas
But I'm a long, long way from there
That whole world's a lonely, faded picture in my mind 

Just a damn sad song.  Sung over a lovely plucked tune that sounds very nice, but the dark lyrics and depressing picture of a guy who just never fits in and worries about what is happening around him, it drags you down.
As soon as that track fades out, you are on to the upbeat rock of "Cumberland Gap," which sounds happy, but is instead a depressing tale of failure for a young miner who just drinks his pains away and can't figure out how to escape the shit of life.  If you ignore the lyrics, its a snappy rock song, but man, if you listen to the words, its sad as all living hell.  "As soon as the sun goes down, I find my way to the Mustang Lounge, And if you don't sit facing the window, You could be in any town.  Maybe the Cumberland Gap just swallows you whole..."  I mean, there is damn song called "Anxiety" on here that talks about being in constant pain - "I can't enjoy a goddamn thing...".  Lord have mercy, this is some dark shit.  

The top track is another real uplifter, this time called "If We Were Vampires," which has 3.6 million streams.

I mean, damn, Jason.  Give me a break here!  The opening verse is about how great his love is, and then he hits you with this chorus of the bleak, horrible reality that your loved ones are going to die: "It's knowing that this can't go on forever, Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone, Maybe we'll get forty years together, But one day I'll be gone, Or one day you'll be gone."  Fuuuuuuuuck, man.  I get it, the reason that his love is so powerful is because he understands the transient nature of it, and the need to work hard at it while he can, but this tune (and re-reading the lyrics afterwards) hit me like a sack of bricks.  Thanks for the daily dose of tears.

I honestly can't think of an album like this.  Is there another album that is so brutally honest and crushingly sad?  I mean, I know an album might have a song - "Everybody Hurts" or "Last Kiss" or "Tears in Heaven" or "He Stopped Loving Her Today" or "Travellin' Soldier" or "Angry All the Time" - but to have a rapid fire destruction of emotions like this for a sustained, multi-song stretch?  Ugh.  Maybe an album by the Smiths?  Beck's Sea Change is melancholy, but nothing like this.  I don't know, man.  On the one hand, I really like this album for being so damn legitimate.  And the sound is great, these songs are fun to hear.  On the other hand, I feel like if I keep this in my musical rotation I'm going to end up driving off a cliff.

To the extent you go listen to it, I really would like to hear what you think about this one.  I can't shake it from my mind.

Truckfighters - Gravity X. I could have sworn I already wrote about this album, but now I can't find it, so I suppose I did not such thing.  I remember being at a show during SXSW a few years ago, and striking up conversation with a guy next to me in between sets, and when I told him that I loved the most recent Queens of the Stone Age album, he told me that I had to check out Truckfighters.  Which I did, and I remember enjoying the thump, but being weirded out by the fact that these dudes are from Sweden.  Seems like America should have a lock down on sludgy stoner rock.  But this album is from 2005, so its not like this is fresh music to check out.

That rifftastic nugget is "Desert Cruiser," with 2.6 million streams and all the chugging sludge that you could want from your rock and roll.  The singing that goes with these tunes is more of the half-yell you can find on metal and Tool songs.  Pretty solid album, and I liked the groove on some of the tunes, but not worth holding on to forever.

Calwayne - The Best of CalWayne.  I was reading something the other day that mentioned CalWayne as a king in Houston rap.  Being that I'd never heard of the guy, I figured I needed to check it out.  These tunes are OK, they sound like Houston, that kind of laid back beat with laid back rhymes and poorly sung hooks.
I feel like the bios on Spotify used to be written by real music critics, or at least someone with a high school education.  I feel like they are mostly now written by the PR firm for each band, and this one is especially poorly written.  "Robbed of a descent childhood and of his music royalties several times over, Cal Wayne still goes to the studio and aggressively put in work because of his passion for the music and love of his neighborhood of Third Ward in Houston, Texas."  First, I've never even heard of Third Ward, all I ever hear about in Geto Boys tracks is the Fifth Ward.  Second, a "descent childhood" makes me think he is sad about not getting to spelunk as a child.  I'm an a-hole.  I know.

Anyway, I've given this one a few runs, and very little is special or interesting.  Boring beats, plodding vocals, nothing special.  (one slightly better track I found on YouTube, called "Project Building," but that isn't on this album).  Most tracks are at less than 10k in streams, just one cracks the 5 digit plateau, "P's & Q's," with 10,968 streams.  This one has the best beat of all of these tracks.

Yeah, I like that beat, but I feel like it ought to be screwed to be even better, its a little too energetic for my tastes.  Oooh, you gotta cut yo grass, because they snakes up in this mug!  I'm OK without this album.

Khalid - American Teen.  oooh, holy shit, this is who sings that "young, dumb, broke high school kids" song?  That song is tight.  I've been reading about Khalid for a while, he just recently graduated from high school out in El Paso, and grew up feeling out of place wherever he was, so he started putting songs up on Soundcloud for his high school classmates to check out.  From what I remember of the article I read, he had a cool story about this, that the jocks (or some group) had been clowning him about making music but then "Location" actually blew up and the jocks got to eat shit for being jerk faces.  That may not be the way it went, but its how I'm going to remember it.  I may have some left over, pent up energy relating to my time in band and theater in high school.  Here is that first hit, "Location," which has 379 million freaking streams.  Huge.

Homie's gonna get laid!  Slinky and sexy booty call song using the mapping function on the phone.  Can you imagine being a freaking high school student and coming up with that song right there?  What a bad ass.  First, his voice is fantastic.  Second, he's put together some great lyrics, that reference the slang of youth while still explaining it in terms that even us old people can understand.  And then the track coming up behind it for new dominance, "Young Dumb & Broke," with 268 million streams.

That song is a damn jam.  I mean, that is two legitimate, big-time hits for this 19 year old dude.  Pretty awesome.  I also like "8TEEN," even if the song title makes me want to barf.  I'll admit that the soul-pop-electronic sound is not my normal thing, and after 15 songs I get a little fatigued by it, but those three I've just mentioned are legitimately great tunes.

Quick Hits, Vol. 159 (Grace VanderWaal, Wu-Tang Clan, Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, Yamasuki Singers)

Grace VanderWaal - Just the Beginning.  After having listened to her a lot for ACL and then seeing her magical performance there, I'm predisposed to enjoy this album.  Prior to this, she just had a 5 song EP and some singles, and while this goes for a little more production and more beat-centric stuff at times, it still is very good.  The pre-release singles like "Moonlight," "Sick of Being Told," and "So Much More Than This" are great.  And the slightly mean "Just a Crush" is perfect for a 14 year old girl to be singing, sadly reminds me of my youth.  She doesn't want to tease, so she'll say it straight, you're just a crush so quit talking about the future.  oof.  The top song is still "Moonlight," with almost 23 million streams, but I'll give you "So Much More Than This" because the live version was great and this one should be the bigger hit if it finds the radio.

Fun song.  Has a touch of hip hop to it - in fact, on several of these songs she almost takes on a rap flavor - see "Talk Good," where an actual bass makes the bass notes and she sings the words in a tune, but the cadence of the track sounds kind of hip hop.  I'll say that I got some of the old man feels watching my kids love the hell out of this song as she sang it at ACL last month.  I'm definitely keeping the album around, for one because it brings back good memories, for two because I want to keep parsing the lyrics.

Wu-Tang Clan - The Saga Continues.  Now that is a weird juxtaposition.  14 year old girl known for jamming a ukulele, straight into kung-fu inspired, grimy rappers.  Classic Wu-Tang Clan is freaking awesome.  First, because they create and craft real beats - cool samples and soul strings and vocal blurbs over classic boombap thump - instead of depending on some generic Soundcloud beat of the week.  Second, because they make cool grimy stories for their lyrics, instead of just stringing together mumbled stream-of-consciousness garbage about rain drops and drop tops.  Third, because the weird little skits of old school kung fu movie clips are kind of a dope schtick.  The Clan is made up of a bunch of dudes, and I am most definitely partial to Ghostface as my favorite of the rappers, but the rest of the guys put in some good work on here as well.  The top track from the album is "People Say" with 4.4 million streams.

"Like Swayze at the Road House, ready for the bar fight."  Yeah, that is pretty good.  A couple fun lyrical bits and a great beat.  But "Fast and Furious" is a perfect example of what I love.

Slinky soul sample, ominous violins, and beat, and then check a portion of Raekwon's verse:

Doin' a buck on I-95, screamin', "I live for this,"
They just seen us comin', blew a flat
Pulled over to the shoulder
Pop the trunk to see if it's a spare in the back
A van pulled up, with Florida tags
Three men jumped out with guns drawn and they all wore masks
Snatched me up and handcuffed me
Hit me with the butt of the gun
I'm thinkin' to myself, "The war just begun"
Thirty minutes in the ride, the mask came off
The chickens dropped, the two in the back had Russian accents
Askin' who my connect is, where he rest shit
You better off squeezin' that tool bitch
He said, "Nah, you're worth more to us alive than dead."
He's flashed his badge and started laughin'
"Cocksucker, we the feds"

I mean, it ain't high brow poetry, but I love it.  You can see what he's rapping in your mind's eye and I'm ready to hear the rest of the story.  This is the good stuff.  Wu Tang forever.  Now, some of these tracks, heck, including the chorus of that "Fast and Furious" track, are not the greatest thing ever and some can get tiresome.  Having 80 different people rap is a little annoying, and I'd rather they just give us verses from the strongest guys, but as this exists, I still like it.  Not a classic Wu record, but still solid.

Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile - Lotta Sea Lice. I'm so terribly disappointed in my life that I've never gotten to see Courtney Barnett live.  Her album from 2015 was the shizz, a clever lyrical injection in the midst of so much vapid garbage.  Kurt Vile is pretty cool, I listened to him a lot for ACL a year or two ago, and he likewise uses lyrics as his best weapon for his music.  Joined together, these two have made a super chill album of relaxed and kind of sleepy tunes.  Some go a little faster, but they are all still acoustic guitars and lax phrasing.  Like the gentle sadness of "Peepin' Tom" and Barnett's list of things she doesn't want to do anymore and how nothing seems to be working out as she tries to improve.  The top track is one that I hear on the radio here in Austin with some frequency, "Continental Breakfast," which boasts the nice couplet of "feeling inferior on the interior."

Like they are singing to each other (her from Australia and him from Philly) about their intercontinental friendship.  I feel like his drab voice makes hers sound even more appealing than normal.  Also feels like I would very much enjoy chilling at Kurt Vile's house with his two cutie girls.  This album is a moody one, feels like I'd need to be in the right mood to shut down and enjoy it.  If I'm being honest about it (which is kind of hard because I want to be cool and like this album), I probably won't listen to it anymore.

Yamasuki Singers - Le Monde Fabuleux des Yamasuki.  Want some batshit crazy stuff in your day?  You've come to the right place.  My buddy Joseph heard the first song on this album when he was travelling out in Marfa, on the Marfa NPR station.  His kids thought it was hilarious, so he brought me into the loop.  And it is hilariously weird.  Imagine if the Beatles had decided to add another layer to their sitar-based later music, and that other layer was made up entirely of Japanese school children singing pretty things while an angry Sumo wrestler screamed Japanese words over the top.  As Black Rob would have said, "Woah."

That video is amazing.  All the drugs.  According to the Internet, this is a French band who inexplicably decided to make trippy music that involves Japanese screaming.  And if you dig that, believe me, the rest of the album will NOT disappoint.  I'll never listen to this again, but I feel like from an archive perspective, I needed to mention it and you needed to witness.

Quick Hits, Vol. 158 (Weezer, Courtney Marie Andrews, A Thousand Horses, Big K.R.I.T.)

BTW, if you are tired of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" being the traditional rapey Christmastime tune, check out Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats new version, in which the male sings the demure portions and the female voice takes on the overbearing lyrics of the wolf demanding some action.

Weezer - Pacific Daydream.  *old man shaking his cane at kids these days warning* Dammit, Weezer, why can't you just keep making the Blue album over and over again?  Although I am mildly liking this album, the fact that parts of it were made with computers and it reminds me of Fall Out Boy and 21 Pilots just makes me sad.  Check out the top track, "Feels Like Summer."

While I want to complain, the bouncing bass bumps are actually really seductive in this one, just suck me right in to bobbing my head.  And the sunny chorus blast, both bright/shiny and laid back/chilled is cool.  But despite that fun beat and chorus, its a weak song - like they tried to make a current EDM-ish pop song and forgot who they really are.  The rest of the album feels similar, there are flashes of interesting stuff, but too many layers of gunk on top of those flashes.  Like the lyrics to "Happy Hour," what the hell does this even mean - "I'm like Stevie Ray Vaughan on the stage, high on music, Teeth grindin', sweatin' under the lights, But then my boss calls and she's crushin' me with a 20 ton weight, Just like in Monty Python, Somebody left on the sink, it's still running, My eyes are gonna overflow."  Uh, what?  I literally just googled "was Stevie Ray Vaughan known for grinding his teeth."  This is just not good.  There are many other things to do with my listening time.  I won't hold on to this

Courtney Marie Andrews - Honest Life.  Very pretty album of singer-songwriter type tunes, kind of country-flavored, but strongly reminiscent of Carole King to me.  Mainly in the vocal tone and style of singing.  Some of these songs are so damn achingly beautiful you'll just want to die.  This isn't the top track, but just listen to album closer "Only in my Mind."

Simple tune, just piano chords and some swelling orchestration, but I'd be hard pressed to think of a more melancholy but beautiful song I've heard in years.  Her voice and the lyrics are definitely the main draw here, seems like a fine album to curl up with on the floor for a good solid weeping session.  (that is a little melodramatic, even for me, but it feels like it fits).  This music falls outside of my normal favorite stuff, but I can't deny the allure of the album and the excellent lyrics.  I had fully intended to just delete this and move on, but now I'm realizing that I want to save it for later and more listens.

A Thousand Horses - Bridges.  I feel like it should serve as an indictment that I thought of both Nickelback and Kid Rock while listening to this album of "country" tunes.  Generic tropes like "I'm goin' out in a blaaaze of something" and the second song paying honor to the patron saint of weed smoking "country" artists ("Burn like Willie").  Hell, just the titles of the songs on this EP are cliche - "One Man Army," "Preachin' to the Choir," or "Weekends in a Small Town."  I don't know, I remember enjoying these guys when I listened to them for ACL a few years back, but this stuff right here is just not lighting me up like a Willie blunt smokin' in the ashtray of an old Chevy pickup full of girls in daisy dukes headin' down to the river on a Saturday night.  "Preachin' to the Choir" wins the most popular track award for this album, as just over 2.1 million streams.

Name checking Skynryd's Simple Man, telling folks to raise their hands and spark up their lighters, and integrating both binge drinking and church into the same song, this song is built to be current Nashville country gold.  For me, no thanks.

Big K.R.I.T. - 4eva is a Mighty Long Time.  Woah.  Some of these tracks absolutely bang.  KRIT is one of those rappers who has appeared on a bunch of other people's albums (Big Boi, A$AP Rocky, Slim Thug, Rick Ross, Ludacris, and a bunch of other dudes), but I am not familiar with his own stuff.  Mississippi boy, with a lot of Houston and Atlanta influence on his sound. 

Two immediate beefs with the album.  Length is first because this is a double album with 22 damn songs and almost an hour and a half of runtime.  This is too damn long, man.  Just keep the best 14 tracks, right at an hour, and drop the dead weight.  Second, more of the bad ass tracks with T.I. and Bun B and Pimp C, but less of the jenky R&B garbage like the track with "Lloyd."  Less of "Layup" as well.  So over the tired Chris Brown-esque hooks everyone thinks they need to do for a rap track. 

But aside from those, get down with the T.I. trunk rattler "Big Bank," Outkast-esque tracks like "Get Up 2 Come Down," the UGK songs like "Ride Wit Me," or the pure bombastic stuff like "Subenstein (My Sub IV)."

I need to go buy a 1994 Suburban, add a lift kit and tractor tires, install 40 20" subwoofers in the back, and then just drive up and down Congress Ave. all day tomorrow with that track turned up to 11.  That isn't the best song on the album, but I dig it.  Just banging.  "Aux Cord" is cool - sounds like an old school beat and Kendrick rhymes.  The top track on the album is the second one, "Confetti," with 1.3 million streams.

That one is OK, nothing special to me.  Plain jane beat until about half way through the track when a new bass section morphs in.  Uninteresting lyrics.  Not sure why that one would have so many listens.  I think the first disc is superior to the second disc, which seems to do less of the bangers and more of the singers.  Not to say the second album is bad, its just a different sound.  And shit gets real, on tracks like "Drinking Sessions" (about his alcohol struggles) and "The Light" (sounds kind of Kendrick-esque, Common-esque, with a full on jazz band going to town as he raps about social injustice issues).  The opening track of the first disc is called "Big K.R.I.T.," and the opening song of the second disc is "Justin Scott," so maybe these are supposed to reflect the two sides of him, his rapper name and his real name.

Good album overall.  I won't even call it uneven, even though this review kind of leaned that direction, I just think that there are so many facets here that you can't go into the listen expecting only one thing.  Pretty cool stuff, and I'll keep working on it.