Quick Hits Vol. 109 (The Beaumonts, Red Fang, The Weeknd, The Rolling Stones)

The Beaumonts - Letting Go of the Dial.  A friend gushed about this band on Twitter a few weeks ago, so I figured I needed to give them a look.  Kind of an odd sound, like slow ska. What would that be called?  According to a website, which I assume is related to this band, they are a country band from Lubbock.  And this review of their 2013 album in the Chronicle seems to think they are joking country goons as well.  This new music is not that music, heavy on sax and strumming, not twang and rude Toby Keith lyrics.
Not a single one of the songs on this album has more than a thousand listens, so its hard to even know which one might be the most popular.  And I can't seem to find any of them on YouTube either.  Did I fall for Fake Music or something?  Dammit!  First that Facebook article on how drinking pickle juice will increase my memory, and now this!  I'll say that this is mildly pleasant relaxing ska-ish music, but I won't listen anymore.

Red Fang - Only Ghosts.  I love the 2011 album these Portland dudes did, Murder the Mountains, for its pounding, sludgy anger.  "Wires" gets me fired up any time of the day, and "Dirt Wizard" is right there behind it.  But this album is less appealing to me, a little less approachable, maybe?  It has the same sound, pounding drums, thudding bass, unhinged singing/yelling, and crushing/slashing guitar. I don't know that I can put a finger on the difference, but I just feel it.  The top track is the album opener, "Flies."

Only 414k listens for that track, while some of the other top songs by the band go over a million, but that actually seems like quite a few for a song that is so damn hard.  This album is another good experiment in my theory about track plays falling off on albums that are weak.  I've talked about this a bit before, but it seems interesting to me when the first song on an album is, by far, the most popular track on the album.  Seems to show that people go check out the album to see what they think, hear the first song, and then decide against listening to the rest.  In this album's case, the listen count goes like this (as of today, of course):

1. 414k
2. 135k
3. 79k
4. 84k
5. 123k
6. 84k
7. 59k
8. 78k
9. 48k
10. 73k

It isn't a perfect line down from the start, and this could just be that "Flies" got listed on some playlist of new metal that gets a lot of listens, but it feels indicative of people losing interest after a few tracks.  Either way, while I generally enjoy this style of stoner rock stuff, I probably won't hold on to this album.

The Weeknd - Starboy.  I have a hard time believing that this album will be anything nearly as popular as the last one.  I didn't like the last album much, but I could definitely appreciate the fact that "Can't Feel My Face" was an undeniable jam and "The Hills" even had some appeal.  But this just sounds so very generic and uninteresting to me.  The big hit, which literally is crushing it on Spotify and the radio, is the title track, which has 466 MILLION streams so far.

And another 500 million YouTube views.  Holy criminy, man.  Now look, you don't find me out there trying to make music like this, so maybe it is super hard, but that beat really sounds just like the generic stock beats that my Casio 2100 made when I was a kid, plus some falsetto singing and a boring chorus.  This doesn't make me want to crown him as the Future King of Pop, just makes me want to change the radio station my kids always want to hear.  I also think that the album starts off slow, the first half is pretty uninteresting, but then you get a Kendrick Lamar verse, a few danceable tracks in "Love to Lay" and "A Lonely Night."  Maybe the one that sounds like a Disclosure b-side - "Rockin'" - is a little better? But, 18 freaking songs, man?  Come on, man.  I won't keep this one.

The Rolling Stones - Blue & Lonesome.  Surprisingly solid collection of cover tunes from the Stones.  Most of these are way down deeper in the blues canon than I know about, so they might as well be awesome originals as far as I'm concerned.  And this is the way that the Stones have always been best to me, when they are leaning hard on the Keith Richards guitar and traditional blues sound updated with a bit of rock and roll.  I don't know about you, but I've always thought that "Tumblin' Dice" was one of my favorite Stones tracks, or "Let it Bleed," "Sympathy for the Devil," or "You Can't Always Get What you Want," and those that stick in that traditional sound.  I don't really want to hear "Satisfaction" or "Jumpin' Jack Flash."  So this one hits the right notes for me.  The top track is the album opener, "Just Your Fool," but this one ("Hate to See You Go") is the one with a video, so let's play it instead.

Mick's voice still has the perfect sound for this type of music, rough around the edges, but it doesn't sound like he's got one foot in the grave either.  And his harmonica playing is freaking solid stuff. This one feels like an update to the Exile on Main Street track "Shake Your Hips," kind of the same rhythm and licks.  I like this album enough to keep it around.