#MWE, 2023
Every February, a hashtag goes around Twitter: #MWE. It stands for Music Writer Exercise, and the premise is this: For every day in February, listen to an album you've never heard before and review it in one tweet. Now, given that there were rumors Twitter was about to go to a 4,000 character limit, things could've gotten hairy there, but for most users that hasn't materialized (yet), so it's still the exercise of keeping your thoughts to 280.
This is the third year I've participated in it, and I got every tweet up on time! (Some I accidentally posted the night before because I hit "tweet" instead of "schedule"!) Real talk, I did the listening whenever I could get it in because it turns out I've been kinda busy lately, and just posted the tweets when they needed to go out. What you have below are said tweets and more. I usually write more than will fit (sometimes a lot more) and edit it down, so what you're getting in this blog post is all 28 reviews at full length. So even if you were following along on Twitter, there will be new material to read.
I go all over time, space and genre here, so let's get it started with:
DAY 1:
RJD2 "The Fun Ones" (2020)
Backpack-ass funk beats, splitting the difference between instrumentals and rap guest verses. Basically early 2000s throwback underground hip-hop that white people would like (*raises hand meekly*). This is all right, but I don't see myself going back to it much.
DAY 2:
How does this album from 20 years ago sound less dated than the RJD2 one I just listened to from the pandemic? There's three major elements at work here: Luscious string sections (some of which get whole tracks to themselves), late 90s trip hop and big beat, and Rob Dougan's seething anger. Seriously, on "Left Me For Dead" this guy is pissed; he literally seethes the vocal line. He sounds petulant and annoyed on the whole album, which does get grating after the midway point. It's a bit ridiculous, but it's committed to the bit, so overall it works.
(Side note: If you've seen The Matrix, you've heard "Clubbed To Death". You'll know it a few seconds in.)
DAY 3:
70s Prog with a Capital P. It's only three songs, but the shortest one is nine minutes, so there ya go. Album. "The Gates Of Delirium" and "Sound Chaser" are good; "To Be Over" is fine. So all in all it's my favorite Yes album because it's the only one I liked all the songs on!
DAY 4:
Hyper R&B? Lots of pitch-shifted vocals, but the music is kind of Neo-Soul, but also completely forgettable. A tolerable EP, but not my cup of tea.
DAY 5:
Had this one laying around, figured I'd give it a chance. It's...fine. It's a pretty standard hard rock record. It's covers. It's not psychedelic enough to be interesting despite...well "trying to be" is a bit strong of a statement. I can't say it sucks but can't recommend it either.
DAY 6:
The first "Classic Period" Stevie album lives up to the name. Easily better than the other albums I've posted so far combined (and I liked most of them to some degree). "Superwoman" and "Keep On Running" were my favorites.
DAY 7:
Production is very of its time, but it's f***ing Janet (Ms Jackson if you're nasty). Of course it slaps. (Though is it weird to say I kind of preferred Dream Street? Control does one thing really well and Dream Street goes a few different places.) Iconic sounds of the 80s birthed here.
DAY 8:
Holy shit why have I never listened to this band before?!? These songs fucking rule! Though there is a LOT of interstitial, noisy bullshit they could cut in half and it would still wear out its welcome, so...flawed but intriguing nonetheless.
DAY 9:
The Money Store took three tries to even penetrate it, but this I got right away. Apocalypses all the way down from the personal to the technological to the spiritual to the global. Noise rap, aggression, turning music itself on its head. Just another day at the office for Death Grips.
DAY 10:
Paramore have gone from Pop Punk to Pop to 80s Music now to Post Punk. The songs are definitely more about the world at large as opposed to the personal touches of their earlier faire and that feels a lot more relevant than another round of introspection. Excellent edition to the catalog.
DAY 11:
1st EP: Beautiful acoustic afternoon music. 2nd EP: Modern R&B but with weird percussion. 3rd EP: Acoustic crap with dude singing bad falsetto. 4th EP: Chamber ensemble electronically manipulated. 5th EP: Beatles-esque harmonic garage rock. A mixed bag, but the parts that worked worked well.
DAY 12:
Compilations are kind of cheating, but I was looking for something from before 1960 so this'll do. I had fun with it! If you're looking for some lackadaisical big band jazz, you can't really go wrong with Louis. His voice alone is usually enough to bring out the sun. (I also noticed his solos are pretty minimalist; mostly one note at a time. Reminded me of Neil Young in a weird way. They work, but they're...singular in their basicness. If not for the personality behind them, they wouldn't work, but what a personality!)
DAY 13:
This is an album I'm glad I didn't dive into right away, because to judge it fairly I needed to be removed from the shock of its existence and the inertia of its hype cycle. It's a novel entry into Lil Boat's catalogue, indisputably, but are the results equal to the mountains of acclaim heralding it? Eh, not quite, but there's definitely something here. It's a raw exploration by an artist trying to break into a new genre and Yachty commits fully; that's why it works. The results are stratospheres beyond Lil Wayne's Rebirth, though still a tad patchy. If Lil Yachty keeps in this lane, I think the next one will be a real motherfucker.
DAY 14:
It's only fitting, given how fucking atrocious this year has started, that the first project I'd stumble across would be a strong contender for worst of the year.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. When I saw Rap Critic's review on "Munch" last year, I wasn't blown away, but I thought maybe Ice Spice could have potential. I didn't like it, I didn't hate it. But putting it at the end of this EP exposes it and the artist for what they are: A No-Trick Pony.
None of these lyrics mean anything, Ice Spice's whole thing is not giving a fuck as hard as humanly possible, the beats do not exist (except maaaaybe "Princess Diana", which has guitar plucks that were noticeable landmarks poking above the surface of Ice Spice's vocal slosh, though I wouldn't call them good) and every single track is exactly the same.
There are two clickbait songtitles, "Princess Diana" and "Gangsta Boo". Neither of theses songs have a goddam thing to do with either person; it's just Ice Spice rapping about how fly and sexy she is while doing a really bad Pop Smoke impression.
Also, Gangsta Boo died January 1, 2023. This came out January 20th. Fuck you.
DAY 15:
"True Men Don't Kill Coyotes" and "Get Up And Jump" are still fun, but wow is the rest of this rouuuugh. I tried to make allowances for white guys doing rap 40 years ago, but this got bad in a hurry. After track four, hit stop.
DAY 16:
The Imogen Heap we have at home crossed with 90's adult contemporary and dance music. That's not a diss, this slaps like a New Japan match.
DAY 17:
Picked this one after a friend showed me the first two tracks on vinyl. Not what I expected from The Cure musically; the songs have a lot more attitude than usual. But Robert Smith is why I've never been able to get into this band. He's okay on a few of these, but spoils the rest. (His performance on "Dressing Up" is particularly rancid.)
DAY 18:
I liked "Good Enough", "Why Can't This Be Love", "Dreams", and "Summer Nights" but the rest is kinda rough. The production is pretty dated and Alex Van Halen feels like he's not quite on beat in spots; like he's playing too loose. (There's something I never thought I'd say.)
DAY 19:
Released within a month of his former band Van Halen's 51WHOA HOLY SHIT THAT COVER. Yikes, Batman. And like...this album sounds better than 5150, but none of it really sticks. So even if it's "better", I still don't like it more. And since 5150 was "ehhhh", take what you will from that.
DAY 20:
This is cool, but wish I'd heard it before Call Me If You Get Lost, because I think he's just gotten better with each album since this one. Then again, I wouldn't have been ready for this in 2017; my tastes have shifted a lot since then. Glad I heard it now after all.
DAY 21:
It's amazing how King Giz puts out a thousand records an hour and they're all decent. I heard K.G. (2020) & L.W. (2021) first, so this isn't mindblowing for me but it damn sure measures up.
DAY 22:
The one Ghost album I hadn't heard yet, and supposedly their best. And it is. I get why y'all are mad now; once dude left the band ain't been this good. Lyrics are cringe too; all the Satan instead of Jesus shit turned me off their first album; not as much here, but bruh.
DAY 23:
A nice vibey time with 60's-esque music hall reverb and like...sort of proggy soul? They use more odd time signatures than you would expect and quite a few jazzy chords, but it's not like you'd notice if you weren't paying attention. Tasteful, y'know?
DAY 24:
In the original tweet, I said I had way more than I could say in 280 characters, so I'd put my thoughts here. Well, now's the time.
I want to start off by saying this is the first time I've hit play on a Sonic Youth album. Late last year I saw a clip of them performing "Silver Rocket" on some talk show in the 90s, and that was the first whole song of theirs I'd ever listened to, despite knowing they exist since 1992. The band's reputation precedes them, and rightfully so. Daydream Nation was considered important enough to be preserved in the Library of Congress, and I agree with that decision for reasons I'll get to in a minute, but I've gotta be real:
Every single band in Milwaukee has sounded like this for at least 15 years.
I imagine this experience would be like listening to the first Jazz performance. The first marching band. Something that was world changing, revolutionary for its time but...now it's just a marching band.
That's how I feel listening to this. Looking forward from this inflection point, given its reputation and the literal tens of thousands of imitators...this is THE Indie album. Everything from the denizens of noise rock to the dreamy bedroom pop side of indie all owe a lot to the song structure, the note choices, the texture, the attitude -- the DNA of Daydream Nation (or maybe just Sonic Youth in general; I am a neophyte here) is in every left of the dial band since it permeated the culture.
But that seems to be the consequence. Listening to it for the first time in 2023 makes for a frustrating sit. Not only does it sound like a million things you've heard before, it's seventy minutes. And like, if I go see one of the bands aping this style, I might at least know one or two of the people in the band. It's a blueprint that's been copied so many times that yeah, it's neat to open the case and look at the original, but on a functional (or this case enjoyment) level, it's just as well to leave it in the case.
DAY 25:
Pleasant yet inessential mid-80's pop rock. ("Walking On Sunshine" still slaps, though.) (Also: would've never guessed they were British.)
DAY 26:
Steely Dan are the most frustrating band. I hear the craftsmanship, I hear the quality, I hear what they're going for and they get there, but I feel absolutely nothing when I listen to them. Countdown To Ecstasy is no exception.
And to make it worse, there are points where it threatens to succeed. The opener "Bodhisattva" rips! There's a fucking PULSE! It still sounds like a Steely Dan song but it makes me FEEL. That's what makes Countdown so damn exasperating. There's proof right there that they can elevate beyond their too cool for school vibe they're locked in and make some kind of meaningful connection with me. But then "Razor Boy" and "The Boston Rag" just sink back down and to boot they're not even as good as their usual faire, just prototypes for what would come later.
"Your Gold Teeth" on the other hand...that one grabbed my attention. It's further evidence that they could have some sort of emotional resonance. And it's followed by perhaps the band's most annoying song "Show Biz Kids". The "lost wages" refrain sung for five plus minutes with nary a pause really gets old fast and it wasn't good to begin with. "My Old School" sounds a cut or two above "The Night Chicago Died" or somesuch, which came out about a year later. "Pearl Of The Quarter" is schlock country rock very much of its time.
But then "King Of The World". This song has a little of that country rock in the chorus but the rest of it is...aesthetically its a mess and kind of dated, but if you're into the period its adds charm to this combination of clean tone noodles and electric piano and harmonized vocals that click into place like few other Steely Dan songs I've heard. It's like...an outlaw country jazz fusion song.
Countdown To Ecstasy is a profoundly mixed bag. It has some of their best, most interesting work, some of their dirt worst of the 70's (I hope; I've only ever heard Can't Buy A Thrill and Aja) and a few songs that are lesser prototypes of what they would do in the not-too-distant future.
DAY 27:
The IDM equivalent of Steely Dan. I liked it, but except for "Rumble" & "XENA" it comPLETELY bounced off me on first listen. (Looking forward to second listen, tho.)
DAY 28:
Oh, I get it now. Madlib is the new millennium Bomb Squad and Doom is the Nega-Chuck D, rapping about a bunch of shit you're not supposed to do, being abstract instead of concrete and is laid back instead of forceful.
Years I covered by Decade:
n/a (1940s-60s)
1972, 1973, 1974
1984 (x2), 1985, 1986 (x3), 1988
2002, 2004, 2005
2012, 2015, 2017 (x2), 2019
2020 (x2), 2021 (x3), 2023 (x5)
So yeah. I called an audible with this one. I started to make Spring Hit Mix 2023 last night, but there's so many damn songs I don't know if I want to keep them all (but I don't know what I would cut) and making the order is proving to be frustrating, so I figured I'd use the last few hours of #MWE going around Twitter to boost engagement or whatever. Hit mix should be coming in the next few weeks. Keep on the lookout.
Onward and Upward.
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