Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways. In a welcome change, I've actually enjoyed this album. Dylan's voice still sounds like a Muppet with a two pack a day habit, but the music is appealingly relaxed and of course the lyrics are descriptive and interesting. The opening track almost sounds like a Willie song - the plucked classical guitar and very basic accompaniment - but lyrically he's stuffing ideas and metaphors and characters into every nook and cranny of that low-key composition. He really does contain multitudes. The second tracks has a bluesy swagger like a classic Stones tune. The tune of "My Own Version of You" sounds very much like a deep-cut Jimmy Buffet tune on one of his jenky recent albums that I liked more than I should have - and later, "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" actually does sound like something Buffet would have written.
The top streamer is a crazy ass tune - a 17 minute long song about the assassination of John Kennedy and what came afterwards. Fabulous story-telling. From "they blew off his head while he was still in the car" to a bunch of radio song references as he continues to sing about details of the aftermath - speeding past Dealey Plaza or heading for Parkland Hospital - and then just starts actually requesting songs to be played like he's talking to the DJ. It's an odd juxtaposition, but it also rules. Just seems like a narrator actually sad about the events and taking comfort in music. "Murder Most Foul" Just over 3 million streams.
I don't much care for "Black Rider," but otherwise the album is pretty solid from front to back. Most of it is very low key on instrumentation and backing music. Usually either bluesy strut or basic classic guitar. I can dig it.
A$AP Ferg - Floor Seats II. Now that is a transition. Dylan to Ferg. I liked the first one of these, like I liked Ferg's early stuff, but this one isn't great. Most isn't terrible, but at only 28 minutes, there isn't a lot of material here to cover up that some of this is chaff. Some of the beats seem like they are too fast for Ferg to handle, like the last two tracks - "Hectic" and "Aussie Freaks." He does a track here with Marilyn Manson, which is creatively titled "Marilyn Manson." Lame - nothing interesting about it - can't even really tell if Manson says anything in it? The best tracks are "Value," "No Ceilings" (with Lil Wayne), and the second half of "Dennis Rodman," once Tyga is done doing his exceedingly boring portion. The collab with Nicki Minaj is the hit, with 28.4 million streams (many more than the next highest one). "Move Ya Hips."
Public Enemy - What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? Well, they're still out here, trying to seem as though they have something interesting to say about the current political moment. The George Clinton opening, with no raps, but a freaking serving of funky weirdness, may be the best time to turn this one off. "GRID" is just a preachy track about how we are all addicted to the internet, but it is SOOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOOOOOOW. It's literally like Grampa Chuck D wrote a rap, slowed down a track so that he could keep up with it as he meandered along with his deep thoughts about how using the Internet is like being trapped in a real web, and then invited Grandpa B Real to also do the same. And it hurts me to hear them yell "WHEN THE GRID GOES DOWN" as though on "How I Could Just Kill a Man." Painful. Could have been cool - George Clinton, P.E., and Cypress Hill all together could have made something interesting and powerful, instead this just meanders along and repeats the title a million times. "State of the Union" talks smack to Trump, which I like, and the beat is pretty solid. But again, it seems slow, too methodical, too stale. I need some bombtrack-ass shit for this - give me Welcome to the Terrordome's beat or something.
I'll definitely say that hearing the Beasties jump on to a track is enjoyable, but unfortunately, they can't salvage the boring retread of the "Public Enemy No. 1" beat. The "Fight the Power" reboot is probably the best thing on here, which isn't a great compliment. Can't they come up with something new instead of just shoving a million guests into one of their classic beats?
Several tracks actually talk smack to Trump and the current state of affairs, which is necessary and cool and good, but no one is going to listen to these boring ass, slow ass uninspired tracks. Their Spotify discography is actually really interesting - you can tell that no one from the younger generation has discovered them, as their top track on Spotify is something called "Harder Than You Think," from a 2007 album that doesn't ring a bell to me. Nothing from Apocalypse '91. Kids these days, man.
Protomartyr - Ultimate Success Today. Each time this disc comes on, I think it is the new IDLES. Not sure where I found this one to add to my queue, this band doesn't ring a bell to me at all, but it's pretty good. The vocals can be a little underwhelming at time, more of a spoken word thing, but the music is in my wheelhouse of brawny, crushing post-punk riffage. But then, there will be like, a clarinet that fires up to take a few of the riffs - I'm thinking of "Processed by the Boys," which otherwise sounds like it could be at home in Fugazi's catalog, except for the clarinet meandering in here and there for a quick cameo. But the instrumentation on these tunes is good stuff, different - they don't just pound the whole time, but they'll switch it up from a quiet section to pounding and back again, which is certainly more interesting than just all one or the other. Again, I wonder where I found this, because they are getting very few streams - no tune on this album has more than a million streams. Top track is "Processed by the Boys" at 924k.
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