I am literally getting to the end of the new music I want to hear. This stupid pandemic needs to chill out on people so that the artists will put out their new albums. The recently added tab of Spotify is a wasteland of mumble rappers and weird junk. To find Sleaford Mods down there I had to really hunt for something new to listen to. Pandemics are so anooooyyying (emphasis added because it feels so bratty to whine about new music when people are still regularly dying of this damn virus).
Paul McCartney - III. Surprisingly nice album. I never loved his solo stuff after the Beatles - he had some good individual tracks, but I wasn't wholeheartedly signing up for the experience. You could tell that he understands that feeling, as his ACL set a few years ago was light on his solo stuff and heavy on the classics. But, I'll readily say that "When Winter Comes" is 100% lovely. A quiet little acoustic ditty that shows McCartney worrying through a checklist of items he needs to handle on his farm before winter rolls along. Great imagery about some little foxes nosing around and the tweaks he needs to do to protect his carrot crop. I really like that one. And the opening semi-instrumental "Long Tailed Winter Bird" is also solid - kind of flamenco in the start and then a little rock and roll in the middle. "Finding My Way" is the top track, at 2.4 million streams.
I absolutely love the video showing him doing every single ounce of that song. Oh, wait, they don't show him on the horns. What a hack! Something about his jamming those drums makes me very happy. His voice isn't as strong as it once was, but it still mostly does the trick. There's definitely an odd song on here too, called "Lavatory Lil," that I thought is about some lady who wants to bone in the bathroom. But that was incorrect. Despite the name, Paul has said its just about someone who screws you over - he drew on his dislike of her to make her into a song character. Silly little tune, not great. To me, the only song that is a thorn in my side on the album is the semi-rap-ish "Deep Down," which reminds me that Paul was on that track with Rihanna and Kanye that sucked and I get annoyed all over again. But this one definitely has a bunch of nice moments.
Weezer - OK Human. I always get sucked back in on the Weezer train, man. They made like two good albums in my formative years, and now I'm always expecting more of the Blue Album. Instead, I just keep getting this mediocre dreck. This one has a lot of classical influences - violin and cello and harpsichord and horns - to go along with lyrical references to all sorts of ancient junk like Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick and a "french noir flick." But then he also bitches about everyone staring at their screens all the time in the aptly titled "Screens." Also, several of the songs seems to just use the same chord progression throughout. Like he heard one DeBussy song and decided that would be the inspiration for the whole album. The top track is "All My Favorite Songs," which is, true to it's lyrics, both slow and bad. Er, was it supposed to be "sad," I can't recall. 1,.8 million streams.
I wonder if he got paid for shouting out Hey Google. I'm gonna guess yes. Very pandemic-y video to go along with that tune. And more commentary on liking our phones too much. "Weak" is a funny word to use for this, as though I need to hear some sort of strength from this band, but it also feels right. Like they used to use steel in their music and this one is all wool instead. "Playing My Piano" just sounds like Cuomo whining for two and a half minutes. I think saying I hate this disc is too strong a word, but I certainly don't care to hear it anymore. 98% sure I'll never think about one of these songs again. I wonder if he got paid to include a repeat shout-out to the Audible service for books on tape?
Madlib - Sound Ancestors. Saw this one in the new music thing and remembered that he was one of Madvillian's collaborators for the kick ass Madvilliany. Thought I'd give it a spin. Kind of an interesting thing, like a hip hop album missing it's rapper. But tracks like "Road of the Lonely Ones" is really nice even without Ghostface throwing down a verse about fishscale and pyrex. And then some just don't work for me, like "Loose Goose," all abrasive squeaks and squiggles that grate on my nerves. And some feel a little too full of disparate elements fighting for the limelight - like "One for Quartabe." I think I just like the laid back ones. "Two for 2," "Right Now," or that one I mentioned earlier, which happens to be the top track on Spotify with 2.1 million streams.
I can literally hear Ghostface kicking off a verse with a staccato "Yao!" Great groove, really cool sound in that song. Don't love the album as a whole, but that piece is good.
Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs. Not sure I've ever heard anything quite like this before. Vocally, it sounds kind of like the dude in IDLES in a heavy English accent, but less his screaming tone and more when he kind of sort of raps/barks ironic things and observations. So maybe more like The Streets doing raps. The music is extremely basic, like a drum machine on it's demo setting with a bass doing something funky and repetitive over the top. I was just starting to think to myself that this album is giving me a headache, and then "I Don't Rate You" came on and I started dancing and thinking about LCD Soundsystem. Makes me think of some Guy Richie movie - like if halfway through Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Bacon just broke into an Austin-Powers-esque-fourth-wall-breaking rap-dance-boogie-party with Eddy randomly jamming on the bass behind him. The top track is "Mork n Mindy" with an inexplicable 864k streams. That is so many streams!
Hear that drum machine doing it's demo mode? And then this cockney bra just starts talking about something dumb happening in his house. This one at least features a mullet lady singing a hook, which is a plus? Feels like a song you would only truly vibe with when really stoned and trying not to show it, standing in the crowd at someone else's show, while you're waiting for the roadies to switch the stage from the opener to the main act. I'm sure this is one of those discs that Pitchfork is going to give a 9.8 to an call the greatest new music of the modern era, but I'm good.
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