Every Run the Jewels album cycle be like "you wouldn't think these guys would be friends...but they are!" and "it's crazy that this album came out in a moment when I was concerned about current event"
Seeing these guys cover the Dawson's Creek theme song at Pitchfork last year was one of my favorite live music moments in recent memory (and for the foreseeable future I guess). Going into this one more optimistic than I've been in the past with their music.
Feel like you could compose a list of 10 completely different songs and it would more or less still be valid. One of the more exciting, rewarding artists to follow this last decade.
As a No Shape partisan, I'm indignant on behalf of like half the songs from that album that didn't make the cut ("Otherside" and "Alan" especially).
Definitely her most accessible release, and I guess that uptick in directness is itself a revelation. It's also special to hear her assemble a universe of like-minded artists on the album after being such a generous collaborator on other artist's releases over the years.
I like this record a lot, but I'd push back somewhat on the idea that this is a "revelation" or significant advance beyond Arca's (impressive) body of work to date. That sorta commentary feels, to me, characteristic of audiences who don't seem inclined to celebrate experimental electronic music except when there are vocals atop it.
A bit of a grouch comment, I guess - I just think if lyrics/their delivery were the main thing worth discussing when we celebrate music, then a lot of what makes music singular and special to me is getting lost.
This one's up there for me with Kid A and Stankonia as an album that really ushered in this new millennium in earnest - fatalistic in a way that was contiguous with what had come before but also somehow new. And "Third Planet" has gotta be one of the best songs ever released, right?
Astounding record, my AOTY of 2018 and definitely one of the best albums of the decade. Don't see how they can possibly top this record's maximalism - "all end" feels like such a fitting capstone for this outward-growth phase of their career - but I never would've guessed that it was possible to create a well-paced eight-hour album where none of it feels redundant. I trust them completely and will be along for the ride forever, I suspect.
Mid-Year Top 10 for 2020
1) 2017-2019 // Against All Logic2) Shrines // Armand Hammer
3) Fetch the Bolt Cutters // Fiona Apple
4) Notes on a Conditional Form // The 1975
5) Descendants of Cain // Ka
6) Purple Moonlight Pages // R.A.P. Ferreira
7) NO DREAM // Jeff Rosenstock
8) Heaven to a Tortured Mind // Yves Tumor
9) Blizzards // Nathan Fake10) Empty Country //Â Empty Country
I hope everyone who makes up this online community that I really enjoy reading and occasionally contributing to (if not nearly as often as I'd like) is staying safe, and doing what's within their power to bend the moral arc of this shitty country towards justice. I'm freaked out these days, candidly, but I take some small solace in knowing that I'm not alone in that, and that rage about our present moment can translate to an online space as seemingly unmoored from time and geography as a music blog and its comments section.
Strongly recommend checking out the last Liturgy and Fire-Toolz albums, both of which are fronted by trans ladies and whose music bends/progresses in unpredictable ways while still delivering a lot of characteristically metal pleasures.
Amazing stuff, a very worth follow-up to Paraffin (probably my favorite rap record of the last couple years). This strikes me as somehow both denser and more diffuse than their previous work, with coded rhymes stacked on top of coded rhymes and occasional sunlight peering through these blown-out hellscapes that sound like if boom bap was buried in the dark under trash for too long. These guys' distinct approaches compliment each other so well, and all the guests more than hold their own (feel like it must've been a thrill for Earl and R.A.P. Ferreira in particular to finally appear on an Armand Hammer album).
What's the contradiction? The thing people are - correctly - calling Del Rey out for is for sharing un-blurred videos of people protesting/looting, which could allow them to be identified and pursued. Given how many Ferguson protesters have died under mysterious circumstances in the years after those protests, it's a completely justified concern.
Thinking about how like every critic was calling Lana Del Rey "the poet laureate for our troubled times" or whatever less than a year ago lmao, life really comes at you fast.
This is really disappointing, especially coming from someone whose music literally samples the MLK speech about riots being the language of the unheard (and, frankly, someone whose public profile was boosted by the Ferguson riots in 2014). I have some concerns about gatherings of people contributing to our ongoing health crisis, but also people can't be expected to take this shit any more and I'm glad that sentiment is being expressed in terms this stark.
The 1975 and Ka - two wildly divergent approaches to music and album architecture that have both managed to quiet my mind, if briefly, in their own distinct ways.
New 1975 album is fantastic, a step up from Online Relationships IMO. They really nailed the art of making an album for the streaming era, where the pacing feels indebted to playlist mentality and flows very fluidly between genres without my even necessarily noticing it (reminds me of Life of Pablo/More Life in that way). Also appreciate Matty dialing down the meta elements of his lyrics and doing more lyrical character studies - not sure there's a standout "Love It If We Made It" moment, but the overall consistency feels higher.
A truly incredible album - ahead of its time in more ways than one, and a "lightning in the bottle" moment that I can't blame the band for never quite recapturing again. Just a front-to-back classic, no duds to be found.
Also, bonus points for "Crown on the Ground" being deployed to great effect a few years later in the opening scene to Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring (music comes in ~1:20):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eelseaF0ib0
I generally have a pretty high tolerance threshold for unpleasantness in art, but "Kim" has got to be one of the nastiest songs I've ever heard and I never want to hear it again. It shouldn't have been made or released.
1. Sound of Silver
2. American Dream
3. This is Happening
4. LCD Soundsystem
They're all great, tho. Hope we eventually get another album to put up alongside them.
Yet another "fuck, I'm old" album anniversary that'll just keep coming more and more often, I guess. Remember playing this album on repeat while working on my AP US History thesis paper.
LCD Soundsystem remains one of my favorite bands ever, but something about Murphy directly ripping off specific songs written by his influences on this album has kinda turned me off in the years since its release. I appreciate the approach he took on American Dream more, i.e. more or less writing his own Talking Heads/Joy Division songs.
Only a third of the way through, but I'm enjoying this more than the usual auto-pilot streaming behemoth Future album. Flows/beats just a little more varied and interesting than WZRD IMO.
Future is really the master of serving up low-nutrient meals that leave me unsatisfied but still wanting another in like a year.
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