Quick Hits, Vol. 194 (Restoration: The Songs of Elton John, Manchester Orchestra, T.I., Sheck Wes)

Restoration: The Songs of Elton John.  This is a tribute album of a bunch of Elton John songs, recreated by country and western artists.  Most of it sucks on toast.  The Miley Cyrus one is horrible.  The Little Big Town one is pretty weak.  However, a few tunes, like Lee Ann Womack's cajun-tinged "Honky Cat" and Chris Stapleton's "I Want Love" are great.  The Dierks Bentley version of "Sad Songs" is actually pretty OK too.  The Willie tune on the end is fine, but its pretty basic.  The Stapleton track is the top streamer by far (for good reason) at 3.3 million, but I'm going to give you second place instead.  This is "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" by Maren Morris (the singer to that ubiquitous "why don't you just meet me in tha middle?" song from this summer).  1.4 million streams.

Its fine.  Not my favorite Elton song anyway, and so hearing her blare it over a plain country shuffle is pretty uninteresting.  Glad I gave this a shot and all, but I'll let it go.

Manchester Orchestra - A Black Mile to the Surface.  Holy crap this album is great.  I liked these guys, leading up to Austin City Limits this year, but after seeing them throw down on stage and now re-listening to this album, I'm deeply digging it.  Got some gentle Lord Huron/Iron & Wine vibes at times, got some rock and roll shred senses at other times, and I'm all in for the combination.  Also a good Band of Horses vibe at times, another band I like.  On stage, they were surprisingly shoved over on the grungy riffage side of the equation, but this album is generally pretty relaxed and lovely.  "The Gold" is the hit, with just under 10 million streams, but I've played that one a ton.  So I'm going to give you "The Alien," which has 5.2 million streams.

Great song.  Powerful, emotive stuff.  And if you go read the lyrics, it sure sounds like it is about a guy who had his ears cut off by his drunken dad and then later tried to commit suicide by ramming his car into a bunch of people.  WTF, man.  Whatever, very good album.  2017 album though, so it can't compete for my albums of the year.

T.I. - DIME TRAP.  Paper Trail is an excellent rap album.  Other bits and pieces of T.I.'s catalog are also good, but this album is pretty up and down.  The best stuff T.I. does is his confessional raps where he uses his deeply rough voice to explain his life in stark terms - all those tunes when he was going back to jail on gun charges, those were the good stuff.  

But this album opens up with a gospel-tinged groaner that lasts too long and employs too much singing.  And only then does he kick in with the dope beat and a power rush flow.  Stuff like "More & More," "Jefe," "Laugh At 'Em," and "Wraith" are prime T.I. nuggets.  But some of the others like "Seasons," "Pray for Me," and "You" are dreary sing-song things that suck the life right out of the album.  And then the cooler than cool beat kicks in for "Looking Back" and TIP's slurring, deeply Southern vocals sink their way right down into the crevices of that laconic groove, and everything is right again.  Shockingly, I think I figured it out - if the song is just straight rap, then I dig it; but if the song is half R&B, then it can bugger off.  Unfortunately, the album is about half and half.  The top track is "Jefe," which features Meek Mill and has 10.5 million streams.

I've never been able to get behind Meek's high pitched yelling of a flow, but I actually like that tune.  The trumpets are cool, a different sound for a rap track, and while neither of them is saying anything of value, I like the flow and some of their jokes.  I'll just save a few individual tracks from this one.

Random aside here, the beat underneath G-Eazy and YG's "Endless Summer Freestyle" makes me want to bounce right off the surface of the planet.

Don't get me wrong, G-Eazy still sucks, but just play that and bounce around your room.

Sheck Wes - MUDBOY.  I saw someone on Twitter talking about this one and thought I'd check it out, which was oddly fortuitous, since it allowed me to look highly cool to high school kids soon thereafter.  I was driving a group of 9th grader boys around town for church, and told one of them that he could DJ our ride if he would pick clean songs.  He hits the search button on my Spotify, which brings up the last searches I've done on Spotify, and he pipes up from the back seat - "you listen to Sheck Wes?  Really?"  WHATS UP, PUNK ASS KIDZ, I'M SUPER LIT, YO!  Anyway, he then proceeded to go into some deep well of scary rappers on Soundcloud who said the N and F words every other word, and I'm probably both going to hell and the Principal's office.

Anyhoo - popcorn rap here, but insanely catchy stuff.  The beats are those currently hot, trap-ish and very minimal, heavy on the bass, clicks, and atmospherics.  And he does a lot of those yelled asides like a Travis Scott or Migos.  So you would think that I should hate him - I've talked 9 levels of shit about those other two artists, but something about this one scratches an itch for me.  His big hit is called "Mo Bamba," after the Texas basketball star, and he also has another basketball star song called "Kyrie."  "Live Sheck Wes" and "Gmail" are my favorites, and while I like "Mo Bamba" well enough, I wish that it kicked in a little harder.  The flat-toned sing rapping at the beginning sets the song up perfectly to have a super-hard drop when the beat hits, but instead the bass just kind of sneaks in.  Still, I like the ominous feel of the track.  148.3 million streams.

The dudes in that video appear to think that the bass hits a lot harder than me, so maybe I just need to crank this on louder speakers?  Also, that video is like a parody, and I like it.  I'm gonna give you my other favorite too, this is "Live Sheck Wes."  Only 1.8 million streams.

Give me all of that bass.  All your bass are belong to us.  Again, lyrically?  Nope.  Feel though?  Hot.