Quick Hits, Vol. 381 (Big Red Machine, A$AP Rocky, Rhett Miller, Mavis Staples)

Stinkin' Google is yet again unable to play along with YouTube links.  Very annoying when that feels like an important part of this blog to me.  So, I am publishing this anyway, but if I figure out how to make it work correctly, I'll come back and fix it.  Sorry.

Big Red Machine - How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?  An odd supergroup of sorts that came to me because someone in my Music League used one of their songs.  It can be really good!  It also can be deeply annoying!  Made up of Aaron Dessner (the mopey The National guy who has been producing a lot of Taylor Swift's recent music) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), and then adding in a lot of guest vocalists - Taylor Swift being the most well-known, but also Anais Mitchell (who has an amazing voice and wrote Hadestown), the Fleet Foxes guy, Sharon Van Etten, Ben Howard, and others.  Where I get bogged down is that some of these songs are pretty boring, and then some add autotune BS on top of the boredom, and its very offputting.  But, like, the first six songs are all a nice little indie pop piece.  It helps that the third song, "Phoenix," just sounds like a Fleet Foxes tune with nice harmonies from the other folks, and then you get two TayTay songs that could have been on Folklore.  But "Hoping Then" starts to get a little annoying, and by "Easy to Sabotage" I worried that I was listening to a Kanye West song about Nazis that I couldn't understand.  I know it will shock you that the Taylor songs have lots of streams, but "Renegade" is the top streamer with 184.2 million.  For context, "Easy to Sabotage" has 1.1 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_wr-9X47ao

Like I said, just feels like a Taylor song where Dressner decided to do some backup vocals along with his production.  Sort of sounds like that one from folklore about the "last great american dynasty."  Much of this is not offensive, its just uninteresting.  "Magnolia" or "June's a River" just noodle on by without anything to remember them by.  There are some pretty moments, and this reminds me to go back and listen to Anais Mitchell some more, but I will be glad to delete this disc.

A$AP ROCKY - Don't Be Dumb.  I have said it before and will say it again - I don't think this guy has it.  I know he is fashionable and knocked up Rihanna, and I believe that his earliest stuff with Clams Casino was very enjoyable, but nothing in here works for me.  "STFU" is awful.  "PUNK ROCKY" is very cringe.  I will give "HELICOPTER" props for the brawny beat sounding tough, and "STOLE YA FLOW" has some of that too.  But the rhymes are completely forgettable.  But then "FISH N STEAK (WHAT IT IS) pops up, and I start grooving with it, and I think there could be some nuggets on here.  I just wish everyone would leave the freaky Tyler bits out of their rap albums and just do the good stuff without the "I can be emo and rage and quirky look at me!"  Top track is "STAY HERE 4 LIFE" with 29.9 million streams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxKA0NnNJeo

Blurg.

Rhett Miller - A lifetime of riding by night.  You may know Miller as the lead singer of the Old 97s.  He also has a few good solo songs ("Question" is a beaut).  But this album is sooooooo freeaaaakkkking booooooooooorrrrrrring.  I just jumped in here to fart out a quick review so that it will stop coming up in my new music playlist.  Go away, Rhett.  Also, now that I look at the playcount, no one is listening to this.  The top song has one of the Turnpike Troubadours guys on it.  "Come As You Are," with 49k streams.  Most of these are in the 4 digit range of streams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y3PCXek_Iw

Sure, very pretty strumming.  Nice harmonies.  Cool VW vans on stilts.  But I am getting rid of this album right now.

Mavis Staples - Sad and Beautiful World.  I really want to be able to be like - this album is amazing, what a great victory lap for a classic artist! - and instead each time one of the songs pops up while I am shuffling, I want to skip it.  It is not terrible at all, she still has a good voice (albeit nothing like her 50 years ago voice, but she still holds power in there) and these songs are built to showcase her slow-moving grace and messages of love and peace and the difficult world we live in.  But I also don't really love it anyway.  Top song is the title track, which is definitely a bummer of a song.  1.1 million streams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZGQG3yHNo

"Sometimes I get so sad, sometimes you just make me mad, It's a sad and beautiful world.  Sometimes I just won't go, sometimes I just won't say no, It's a sad and beautiful world."  Jeez.  Stuff like "Beautiful Strangers" or "Satisfied Mind" are much nicer, but also, I do not need to hold on to this disc.