Quick Hits, Vol. 241 (Post Malone, Pip Blom, Willie Nelson, Fontaines DC)

Post Malone - Hollywood's Bleeding.  Can't stand this guy.  Not sure why I subject myself to the music, other than just to make sure that I know what is going on.  "Allergic" sounds like a very shitty Blink 182 song that contains a 50's doowop chorus.  Also, something I'm not sure that I ever really noticed before listening to this whole album a few times - what up with all of the vibrato he puts into his voice sometimes?  It's almost cartoonish, the amount of shake he adds to his sustained notes, like he's doing the Woody Woodpecker laugh in the midst of a note.  And the majority of these tunes/beats are just plain and bad.  "A Thousand Bad Times" is just the simplest drum beat with some flat synths smearing around in the background.  There is a freaking garbage song on here that features Ozzy.  17 songs, and while its somehow less than an hour on runtime, it feels like an eternity.
Just going to note that "Sunflower" has ONE POINT THREE FUCKING BILLION STREAMS!!!  This is insane.  "Wow." is, by comparison, a failure at only 819 million streams.  That is freaking wild.  "Circles" brings up the rest of the pack, at 587 million streams.  Which is insane.

I mean, the production values on that video are top notch.  Too bad all they could get for the backing music is a generic Soul Asylum b-side they decided not to use during their Grave Dancers Union sessions.  Now that I'm being really critical about the tunes behind these songs - that might be the worst part of it all.  I mean, it also sucks to hear him sing, but that could be forgiven if there was some dope beat that was jamming out in the background.  Most of these don't even have a mediocre track in the background.  Bad music.

Pip Blom - Boat.  Not sure where I found this one, but it's solid.  Kind of a Courtney Barnett vibe to the tunes - loose, raw, lo-fi guitar rock and unremarkable vocals (although apparently from Netherlands, not Australia, which had been my guess).  No song on here really steps out as the obvious hit or song for radio, but the overall vibe of the album is very good.  Feels like an unearthed gem.  "Ruby" has 346k streams.

Kind of a Parquet Courts/The Strokes vibe - a couple of bored Brooklyn kids noodling around on some instruments before Pip (actually her name?!?!) pipes up to voice her indecision and anxiety.  Catchy, poppy, but definitely rooted in rock and guitar, I enjoy the album.

Willie Nelson - Ride Me Back Home.  So good to hear Willie sounding really good again.  You just never know if we are at the end with Willie yet, but his voice sounds solid (although he's not really pushing it much) and the original tunes on here are good.  His Guy Clark cover, of "My Favorite Picture of You," is beautiful and perfectly paced.  Not so sure about the Billy Joel cover ("Just the Way You Are") as that song just screams schmaltz and cheese to me, but it doesn't sound horrible or anything.  It's his 69th studio album, which is damn ridiculous.  That CLark tune is the top streamer, at 965k, so here you go.

So nice.  The whole album is the same - kind of jazzy, nothing hard or loud - but a good capture of the latest stages of Willie's time in the studio.  I can't imagine that he makes it much longer = although I'd like to go try to see him one last time before its all over.

FONTAINES D.C. - Dogrel.  When this one starts up, I keep thinking it is IDLES, who I saw rip stuff up at ACL this year.  But no, totally different band (who also sings crushing punkish rock songs) with kind of funny and weird lyrics.  Like the moment, with no context that I can comprehend, where he sings that a "cabby pissed on the wheel of his own car."  I just went and read the lyrics to that song, and have no clue what any of it is on about.  "Too Real" has a good, driving beat and guitar work - a little cleaner, a little more radio ready (if anything on this album could ever be radio ready).  But "Boys in the Better Land" is the current streaming winner at 4.7 million, so you'll get that one.

Good tune - another one of those that seems more like a random stream of consciousness than any sort of message-bearing group of lyrics.  And I like his Irish accent.  This album overall is fine - I like it and enjoy bashing around to it, but nothing on here is so memorable that it sticks to me afterwards.