MUSIC REVIEWS, 11-14-20

So.

I've had these reviews sitting on my desktop for three plus months now, but due to having to get a new car because of vandalism, releasing an album with The Sketchballs, trying to finish this fucking solo album that just won't die, writing a bunch of songs in preparation of the FOUR albums The Night Howls are working on, doing promo work for said Sketchballs album, working a full time job, looking for a different full time job, ditching my Magic card collection and dealing with the existential dread of the pandemic, the rise of fascism and living in a zombie movie where people are helping the zombies (especially here in Wisconsin) [DEEP HEAVING BREATH] I haven't had time to do music reviews.  

I've been itching to do a video again, but that's about an hour of work per minute of video, so that's right out the window.  What about a blog?

Oh hey.  Yeah.  I used to do that.  I should do that again.

The scripts for the videos are essentially blogs I record, so like...I don't know where this sentence is going.  Aside from one verse of a song lyric, I haven't written anything since early September.  This is me kicking the rust off of my creative apparatus while simultaneously kicking the voice in the back of my head telling me this is in no way creative back into the fucking hole it crawled out of.  (Making coherent sentences is gonna take awhile, isn't it?)

Anyway, here's what I had for reviews over the last few...months, I guess?  It's a reasonable amount of content if you're into that sort of thing.  (I mean, I am.  I wouldn't be here if I wasn't, would I?)

Rating scale from zero to five [ _, *, **, ***, ****, *****].  Let's do this:

RMR "Drug Dealing Is A Lost Art"

• Vocally reminiscent of R. Kelly
• Some of the most cliche lyrics I've heard all year.  Bottles/models, hunned thousand on whatever, trying to paint the richer picture.  
• Goes the opposite route of pop music over the last few years, which trended more to a drop instead of a chorus.  Instead these songs incessantly repeat the chorus over and over to the point where there's no real verses.
• Track 4 has a banjo.  Wonder why...[Old Town Road memey sound cue fade in bkgd]
• "Silence" is the closest this project comes to a song instead of a snippet looped three or four times to fill the track, and even then the synth line repeats too many times.
• "Best Friend": Pussy wet BECAUSE she from L.A.?  Like...I don't know if you know what makes a pussy wet, dude...At least on this song, they're actually talking about drugs, y'know, like the title of the project implies.  Can't believe I'm complimenting a rapper for talking about drugs, but here the fuck we are.  2020, amirite?
• Track 7 is TRACK TWO OVER AGAIN, but with Future and Lil Baby on it instead.  Of course when I typed that sentence, I typed DaBaby because wishful thinking.  This version of the song sounds like what was intended, which makes track two not only redundant, but an unfinished version of track 7.
• The finale slams right in with way less autotune and an acoustic piano sound, and the difference is fucking JARRING.  It sounds like John Legend trying to do a modern country ballad, except it's literally a song where the chorus uses a lot of repetitions of "bitch" and "ho" and says "Fuck 12" about 12 times in a row.  Like...if done better this could've been something, but it just sounds so incongruous it's more "What the fuck?" that "Fuck yeah!".
• This project sucks unwashed taint, it sounds really unfinished, like most of these looped hooks are just placeholders for when they get guest verses but nobody showed up.  It didn't get on my nerves enough to get a negative star rating, but it's shitty enough that it's lucky it's getting off with a zero.

Wafia "Good Things" ***

Reasonably decent, laid back dancy R&B thing here.  Gentrified, to be sure, but good for what it is.  There's some real human emotion that cuts through the tropes here and there, including some real pain at losing a friend and growing apart...until the second verse gets judgy about their new boyfriend and how they don't have her blessing.  Sure, that's a real way to feel, but you don't come across very well when portraying it and singing along with it just feels wrong.  Overall, a solid three stars, better than her last project, which "I'm Good" was the only song I liked from, but still not my first choice when reaching for music like this.

Katy Perry "Smile" *** and 1/4

• "Daisies" still a contender for top 20 songs of the year.
• "Harleys In Hawaii" is dumb as hell, but not the worst thing I've ever heard or whatever.
• Wish "Small Talk" was on this album, because it would be the second best song on it.
• "Never Really Over" is a song I want to like, but the chorus is just way too stabby.  I feel like I'm being emotionally and auditorially shived every time it comes around.  Can't stand it, even though there's...something in there, but it's buried under the spikes.
• Second track doesn't do anything for me.
• Putting "Smile" right after "Not The End Of The World" wins the tonal whiplash crown for 2020 in music.  "Not The End Of The World" is lyrically a "pick yourself up off the ground and dare to move forward and enjoy life" type of anthem, but musically it's one of the saddest things on a maudlin project, and as a result it might be one of the most 2020 songs possible.  And then "Smile" is the most genuine attempt at brightness here, and the difference almost snaps your neck.  
• "There it is, Katheryn" on "What Makes A Woman": Katy talking to herself about getting over depression and getting her smile back.

Tori Kelly "Solitude" ***

Good, but more painfully white than Qveen Herby, who if you didn't know were an early 2010's pop group that got a record contract off a viral video of [singer's name here] rapping Busta Rhymes's verse from "Look At Me Now", then re-branded when trap got big.  Yeah, more painfully white than that.

But still good.  "Don't Take Me Home" in particular.  

Cloudkicker "Solitude" **

Oh hey, look: This is the first time I've had two projects with the same name in one review.  Huh.

Anyway, this one's good on paper, it has a pulse, parts of it rock, but the textures are really mushy on this one.  Nothing really stands out or has any distinction to it.  All the songs kind of blur together too.  I wanted to like this, and it's not terrible or anything...I was gonna give it two and a quarter, but as the album dragged on and it felt like one giant song made out of goop, I had to drop it to two.  Just not feelin' it.

All Them Witches "Nothing As The Ideal" ** and 1/2

Y'know how karaoke DJs will put reverb on the microphone to make the drunk, unskilled singer sound at least palatable?  I think the producer of this album tried to do that to this entire band to make them sound interesting.  It doesn't work; it sounds kind of like we're listening to this underwater and it takes anything that could have made All Them Witches distinct and throws it out with the bathwater.  The songs aren't bad, but they're kind of unlistenable now.  And that comes from a guy who loves St. Anger, so take that from whateve angle you wanna take it.

From track four on, the songs get kind of shitty, overlong and actually boring, so I don't feel quite so bad for the lost potential.  "See You Next Fall" does not need to be nine minutes.  "The Children Of Coyote Woman" is some by the numbers indie folk to a painful degree, but then "41" sounds like...well, kind of like St. Anger a little bit.  St. Anger by way of Highly Suspect, I guess, but it's got this chug that with the muted production sort of reminds me of that maligned set.

Then the album pokes its head out of the water for "Lights Out", and starts sounding like the Venn-Diagram of Mastodon, Mutoid Man and Aeges.  I'm really not sure what to make of this album now.  Its quality level varies wildly, its ideas don't coalesce into a whole, but there's enough decent to good parts that if this were 2002 and I had time to go back to this to admire those patches, I could get into this down the line.  But it's 2020 and there's too much.  I guess I'll split the difference and go with a two and a half.

Elle King "In Isolation" *** and 5/9

Strong Bad "Hooked On Decemberween" ** and 1/2

Qveen Herby "EP 8" *** and 1/4

If you're nostalgic for the halcyon days of the pop music of 2003 to 2006 through more of a modern trap lens, this is your hookup. 

E-40 "The Cub Commentator Channel 2" *** and 2/3

E-40 gets real on here.  Income inequality, systemic racism, how the drug game is a quick way to become the police's indentured servant,

Dua Lipa "Future Nostalgia" *** and 9/16

Neil Cicierega "Mouth Dreams" ****

Holy shit.

The Vapors "Together" ***

• First album since December of 81
• Honest portrayal of being human
• Not over the top
• Like Kaiser Chiefs' dads started a band, but with none of the snark or sarcasm
• Kinda stopped listening after track 8; everything else blended together, unfortunately.

That's what I've got.  Year end lists are still a go, but who knows when or where.  I'd say "Expect The Unexpected", but the last four years have sucked all the fun out of surprises, so...expect them at some point?  Sure, let's go with that.