Quick Hits, Vol. 104 (Sarah Jarosz, Logic, Death Grips, Childish Gambino)

I'd never really listened closely to the lyrics to "Baby, It's Cold Outside" until watching the Bruce and Kelly show the other night at the Paramount.  Why in the world do we have a weird date-rapey song used as one of our classic Christmas tunes?  She's trying to make an excuse to leave the guy for the night, and he is giving her more to drink and telling her not to "hold out."  Creepy.  Reminds me of myself one time, after a fraternity party at TCU, where I was trying to finagle a place to sleep for the night from a young lady by singing Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" to her.  Needless to say, that did not work out.

Sarah Jarosz - Undercurrent.  Jarosz might seriously be one of my favorite vocalists in the world.  Something about her honey smooth voice and inflection, I'd just keep listening to this album for the rest of the year.  My favorite Pandora station at home is based on her music, which is kind of a folky bluegrassy indie.  This album is more of the same.  The top song, cranking out 2.4 million (which is impressive for a bluegrassy indie gal), is "House of Mercy." Here is a nice live version.

Is that an eight string guitar?  Is that a thing?  Huh, yes, apparently so, and some dude from the Kingston Trio apparently used those as well back in the day.  No, it is apparently called an "octave mandolin," which is kind of neato.  And I love the fact that guitar nerdy nerds just spent pages of comments going back and forth over exactly what instrument this is while also correcting each other and bragging about their own instruments.  The internet is funny. AND, that freaking instrument is $5,800 new!  Holy hannah!  Anyway, all of that aside, this album is more excellent stuff that I am going to keep listening to.

Logic - Bobby Tarantino.  I've been on board with this guy since hearing his last album and digging the speed of his smooth flow.  I also watched a long video about the making of the album that was endearing, in that his gangster ass dad and brother were kind of clowning him for rapping like he's a tough guy, when really he's just telling stories.  The one bit on here that I could do without is the 3 minute long interlude called "A Word from Our Sponsor" that is not that funny and just takes for ever. Other good stuff?  He has Pusha T on a guest spot ("Wrist") and keeps that sweet speed move up on all of these tracks.  The most popular track is pretty large, with over 40 million streams on Spotify, but as you listen, just know that nothing useful happens until almost 2 minutes in.

Its literally like one short verse of rapid fire and then 3 other minutes of him saying "Oh my God" over and over.  Which he also does on "Super Mario World," and that is starting to wear me out.  But the kids seems to like it!  I'd tell you to listen to "Wrist" or "44 Bars" instead if you really want to hear the guy do work.  This album is not as cool, overall, as The Incredible True Story or Under Pressure, but its still a good sound.

Death Grips - Bottomless Pit.  Oh, wow.  This music really sucks.  These guys came onto my radar because they played Sound on Sound, and the Chronicle reviewer absolutely savaged them.  In turn, several people absolutely savaged the Chronicle reviewer guy (seriously see the comments to that article).  So, that makes me nervous to say this album sucks, because the Death Gripper Army will also come after me (but then again, none of them will even know this exists, so I'll probably be OK). Hard to describe what this sounds like - angry, messy, glitchy synth and beats with angry bark rapping and anger.

If I was ever able to travel into the past, after gambling on sure things and making my millions, I'd take this video and show it to people and end America right then and there.

Childish Gambino - Awaken, My Love!  This album is cool as hell.  Like George Clinton (see especially "Boogieman") sat down with Prince (see especially "Redbone") and Andre 3000 (see "Riot") to see what they could come up with together.  And the result is funky and soulful and classic sounding.  The killer jam so far is "Redbone," which is all sorts of soft-core 70's porn music, with a guest appearance by Gambino's best Prince impersonation, which is actually damn solid.

Damn, son.  I can't decide if I want to curl up in a bathtub full of warm honey and fur coats or if I want to make sweet love, or both, but this song is a damn jam.  The second thing there that I'm considering doing is likely because this beat reminds me of the track used for NWA's "I'd Rather F--k You," which is, not surprisingly, about making sweet love.  There really isn't much of the traditional rapping on here, as would be expected after Gambino's last album, but instead these are all these kind of old school musical collages that take cues from Funkadelic.  Maybe "California" sounds more like rap, but its still majority singing.  It is weird, I've not enjoyed the new Frank Ocean or Solange fully because I'm not that in to R&B, but this album is hitting the right notes for me.