Tag: album review

The Year Thus Far: What You Might Have Missed

The passing of a new year for most signifies a time of change– well-intentioned resolutions are made as we wave goodbye to the previous 365 days and undergo the ritualistic purging of meticulously catalogued year-end movie, music, and video game lists for a fresh start with a blank slate come January 1st

Albums That Don’t Suck As Much As I Once Thought

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While on a music-deletion rampage sometime last week, I realized that a lot of the albums I downloaded legally purchased ages ago only had roughly 2 or 3 songs on them that I recognized/ever listened to.  I gave some of these albums that I originally didn’t like more of a chance to woo me, and on most accounts I was pleasantly surprised.  

One Direction Goes From 5 to 4 Members, 4 to 5 Albums

Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, and Niall Horan Courtesy of KEVIN MAZUR/BMA2015/WIREIMAGE and People.com
Courtesy of KEVIN MAZUR/BMA2015/WIREIMAGE and People.com

March 25, 2015 was a tumultuous time in music history—it was the day Zayn Malik left One Direction.

Whether you’ve been a One Directioner since the inception of the band, a casual listener, indifferent towards the group, or a staunch opponent of all things good in life, you probably remember the uproar on the Internet in reaction to the news that Zayn was headed in a different direction. Fans lamented the loss of one of the more favored members, and worried about the future of One Direction. How could the group of boys who had been through the X-Factor, four albums, and world tours suddenly be splitting apart? How could the band possibly go on without arguably one of their strongest singers?

Kendrick Lamar's third album, 'To Pimp a Butterfly', is monumental

Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly is a confrontational affair, and the initial response from the general public reflected that. As one of the most commercially successful and critically lauded rappers of the 21st century, looking to follow up 2012’s classic-in-its-own-right Good Kid M.A.A.D City, Kendrick Lamar bravely ensured that To Pimp a Butterfly was too dense to take in with just a listen or two. Infinite tweets, reviews, and “thinkpieces” have attempted to pick this piece of art to the bone, but not a single one will do this labyrinth of cultural and personal meditation justice.

Kendrick Lamar's third album, To Pimp a Butterfly, is monumental
Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ had a surprise early release last week

The Dodos / Individ

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Indie rock is a fickle playing field, rivaled only by rap perhaps, in terms of its endless hum of hyped artists rising up only to evaporate into the void. So in terms of indie longevity, The Dodos are doing pretty well it would seem. With six albums and almost 10 years of experience touring, recording, and writing music, Meric Long and Logan Kroeber have led a confident path of exploring the ranges of their own sound, while also releasing excellent music. 2013 saw the release of Carrier, a quiet stunner of a record, one that grappled with the death of Christopher Reimer, former guitarist of the terrific and now defunct Calgary band, Women. Reimer had joined the Dodos and his influence on the band can be heard in Carrier‘s precise electric guitar lines and its understated melancholy.

Joey Bada$$- “B4.DA.$$”

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B4.DA.$$ is a record made for rap purists, which is a welcome change of pace in the era of personalities and quotability (see Shmurda, Bobby) taking the genre’s center stage. However, as a result, the record can get uncomfortable when it leaves Joey’s comfort zone of self-exploration and braggadocious wordplay over boom-bap beats. Joey’s natural flow and mastery of the craft of hip-hop over meticulously-crafted laid-back beats makes for an album with a definite confidence and direction, even if the 90’s rap sound feels disingenuous at times.

I first discovered Brooklyn rapper Joey Bada$$ with “95 Til Infinity” off of his 2012 mixtape “Summer Knights.” The most jarring aspect of the song was the reference to his birth year, 1995: the same year I was born.

The Decemberists – “What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World”

We know, we know, we belong to ya.
We know you built your life around us.
And would we change? We had to change some.

And with that, the Decemberists begin their 7th album with a knowing wink, a sad and insightful look at the relationship between a band and its audience. And sure enough, the Decemberists have changed: What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World” is their poppiest, most buoyant album yet. Unfortunately, it’s also their least ambitious and exciting.