Watched some of the virtual ACL played on YouTube over the weekend, and while it was nice to have something ACL-centric during this period of the year, it aggravated my itch for live music instead of salving it. I'd pay all sorts of money right now to go see My Morning Jacket in person.
Margo Price - That's How Rumors Get Started. I've been listening to this disc for a few weeks now, and the funny thing is that my mental pre-review thought on it is that I don't love it. But then I just recently spent a chunk of time in the wilderness with no cell service or really any tech, and I found myself singing snippets of this album in my head repeatedly during that time. So it has stuck with me, despite my thoughts about it. I dig the guitar licks in "Twinkle Twinkle," and the line "call me a bitch, and call me baby, you don't know me" (from "Stone Me") was one of the bits that just kept rumbling around in my head while hiking. Something about the album closer - I'd Die for You" gets under my skin. Feels strident and like she's trying to fit more words into each line than should naturally fit. (although I did find myself mentally singing "pissing in the flooooooooooood" a good number of times while hiking. The brain is very weird.). Interestingly, "Twinkle Twinkle" has the most streams, but "Letting Me Down" is currently the most popular on Spotify, so I'll give you that one at 724k streams.
Spunky little tune, but that video makes me dizzy. One other fun thing about Margo is following her on Twitter, where she bites back against people all the time and is kinda funny. I guess I like the album overall, even if I don't have any individual tracks that are fire.
Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension. What in the hell is this? I was expecting folky indie and got dime-store Radiohead instead. Seriously, "Ativan" sounds very much like a bad Radiohead song - just totally rips off the tense, claustrophobic electronica of the post-Kid A years, but then it devolves into somewhat like a Nine Inch Nails-meets-late-career-Bjork freakout. I can almost guarantee that Pitchfork is just jizzing in their butter coffee over this album. Let's go check, shall we? Oh, only a 7.0? Thought for sure that this would be the kind of thing they called daring and revelatory. They do call it a "huge artistic leap." I definitely do not love the album. Some songs are boring bummers ("Run Away With Me") and some are more exciting but still nothing interesting to me. Also, too much whispering. One song is over 3 million streams, and two have over 1 million, and then the rest is more in the 200k-300k range. The winner is "Video Game," with 3.1 million streams.
Yeah, definitely not very interesting. Heavy 80's synths thing going on, and just singing out some platitudes about how he doesn't want to go along with peer pressure. I guess it is pretty? But he must say the words "I don't wanna" 85 times in that song. Please stop saying those words. "Lamentations" comes on like one of those terrible Tune-Yards songs, and then he just starts whispering over the top. The album keeps making me think of that crappy band Owl City. I will not keep this. I'm not even going to finish this last run through it. Because, in addition to being bad, IT'S AN HOUR AND FREAKING 20 MINUTES LONG! I said no! Get out!
Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death. Kind of a weird vibe from this band, the music sounds punk, but like, downbeat punk? And the vocal likewise are some depressed dude mumbling to himself at the end of the bar while watching a replay of a 1980's high school football game he didn't get to see in person because he was in jail that night. The album opener is pretty good anyway, and the third track ("Televised Mind") is the one I hear on the radio here and there, but the one in between it sounds like Chris Isaak talked The Clash into letting him fart around with one of their B-Side instrumental tracks to see if he could bum out his girlfriend. The top track is "A Hero's Death," with 2.5 million streams.
Woah! They got Little Finger for the video! They're big time! And then they asked him to just do the same thing 5 times in ever weirder circumstances? Such a weird video and a waste of my man! "Televised Mind" is legitimately pretty catchy. I dig the bassline and the poor-man's-Edge reverb guitar licks over the top. But like the other tracks, there is a droning quality to it all (especially the singing) that drags the tune down. It's like he made a bet he could sing an entire album by never changing the note he is singing on. "Ayyye, bloke, I'mma sing de entire globbit in E-flat, innit!" I'd like a little more variance. I'm being facetious, obviously, but it's relatively close to the truth. I won't save this disc.
Toby Nwigwe - The Pandemic Project. A guy asked me the other day if I had heard of this guy, and he was very pleased with himself when I had never heard of him. LOOK HERE, JON, SPOTIFY ADDS 40,000 FLIPPING SONGS A DAY TO THEIR DATABASE! I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH ALL OF THIS! Anyway, thought I'd give it a shot, and its pretty okay. A few quibbles. First, the thirty minute track at the end, what the hell? Stop it. Second, and I'm probably about to step in something here, but I feel like the Breonna Taylor bit at the beginning has become more about attracting attention to yourself than actually doing anything good for her or her family. Like the grand jury is going to hear this obscure ass track and be like "oh, yeah, until I heard this 42 second track that just repeats "Arrest the Killers of Breonna Taylor," I never would have considered it otherwise!" Feels like something more factual would have been more useful and less self-serving. Third, he's stealing Pusha T's "yoouggh" sound. Stop that too. BUT, aside from that, his flow on these tracks is good, and the final song "Try Jesus" makes me giggle. "Try Jesus! Don't Try Me! 'Cause I Throw Hands!" That is the top track at 890k streams.
That being said, none of these have much in the way of great beats (obviously not that track, but even the other ones that are actual rap tracks). I'm slightly interested, but I think I might need to check out a different album instead of this little EP.
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