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.