Quick Hits, Vol. 23 (Pusha T, Ghostface, Jessie Ware, Ed Sheeran)

I feel like I am running across more and more things that are not on Spotify, which makes me sad.  No AC/DC or old school Def Leppard.  No new Dylan, Bjork, Jose Gonzalez, or Steve Earle.  No Taylor Swift or the new Black Keys.  C'mon internet.  Help me out here.

Pusha T - Lunch Money single.   I don't know if you ever listened to the old Clipse albums, but they had crunchy awesome beats with Pusha T firing off grimy stories of cooking rocks and winning the game.  Crazy future beat here.  This is a brag-fest about how rich he is, over a strangely-paced, bubbling, ringing, clicking beat that morphs into the Jean-Jacques Perrey/Fatboy Slim sample from those mid-00's Mastercard commercials for a bit before zoning back out into space.  Money!

And because the original (er, remixed) tune is pretty dang fun:

Ghostface Killah and Badbadnotgood feat. DOOM - Ray Gun. This beat is freaking sickness.  Slick 70's funk guitar and scat drum for the first half, and then some ominous horns and strings jump in to make a solidly bad ass gangsta funkified Bond theme track.  Sadly, they just leave that part instrumental, but if Ghost would have written two more minutes of lyrics, this would be a killer track.

After looking up Badbadnotgood, thinking that might be the other rapper who is on this track, I found out that they are actually a jazz trio from Canada who must have actually made the track for this song as live instrumentation, not samples.  Even better!  I tried a few of their other songs and they are chill-ville fodder that would actually work pretty well with rap.  This new Ghost/Badbad collaboration that is coming out soon may be pretty cool!

Random Link to a Funny Story. All about how heavy rappers lose their abilities once they slim down.  Rick Ross is a great example, and holy hannah loogit him and Paul Wall.  Totally different people!

Jessie Ware - Tough Love.  Another falsetto-draped singer over electronic music.  Not sure how I've found the treasure trove of these ladies recently, but I feel like I'm losing a connection on which one is Tove Lo, FKA Twigs, Banks, and this gal.  That being said, I like the majority of this album. "Keep on Lying" sounds like I made it on my Casio 2000 in 7th grade, but "Tough Love" starts out like "When Doves Cry" and then goes through a solidly sad love song.  "Cruel" brings a dance-able beat and more clever lyrics about love and relationships.  And "Say You Love Me" turns off the falsetto to showcase a really fine voice.  This is a nice album, but its just outside of my zone.  I doubt I'll keep it around.

Ed Sheeran - X.  Holy crap.  I knew this guy was one of the most popular artists around in the past few years (he literally has four songs on his 2014 album with more than a hundred million listens on Spotify - one has over two hundred freaking million listens), but I had never actually sat down and listened to his music.  This whole time, I would have bet a million bucks that these songs were by that little Jason Mraz dude!  Seriously, I had heard a few of these songs on the radio and just though they were more blandly nice pop songs with occasional spoken-rap moments from the big Mraz-ster! Seriously, how is this guy so insanely popular when his schtick got really old on adult alternative radio years ago?  However, after a few listens, I realize that he's got some good songs on here, even if they are Mraz-esque.  "Sing" and "Don't" are both pretty sticky pop earworms - I kept singing "Don't" in my head all afternoon yesterday.

A few other songs are good enough to stick around, but the majority of the rest of the album is pretty damn bland acoustic pop or quasi-rap or super-recycled beats ("Shirtsleeves" seriously still using the funky drummer?).  Amazing for him that he has become a top tier star, but I don't see it.