Sunday, December 15, 2013

Finally Get It


Trying to get my thoughts together about why I think this album is so genius. 

It's different. Very different. In the very beginning of the cd he says "the isn't for the radio. But they play it anyway, that's just the way it goes".  He took that to heart. There aren't many radio bangers on this cd. Started from the bottom is a really sparse and chill beat to be the lead song. Most of the songs on the cd are very grating upon first listen. "Worst behavior", "305 to my city" and "connect" were awful at first. After several listens, they have so much character that they are among my favorites. 

Lots of trap influence on this cd. The symbols on "started from the bottom" have this really cool crash pattern where they don't quite resolve during the chorus and it ends up sounding string out. 

This cd seems to have drug influences on it. On one song he even says "im peaking im peaking". But the whole thing sounds like its for ears that have a couple to drink  and took a couple blunts to the done. It's that scattered and tweaks feeling that shows itself a lot on the cd, including all the high hat symbol hits, and the fake ones. 

He is more drake than other CDs. He's croony and audacious at the same. But this is the juxtaposition we have in life. Good isn't good unless there's bad to compare it to. "Worst behavior" is sandwiched by the most tender songs on the cd, maybe that he's ever done. 

"The boy" is drake, but it may be more accurately how he wishes he could be. Nothing was the same is referring to how he can't be that person anymore. That there's stuff that's happened that he can't change. "Nothing was the same" the title has several different meanings in this light. Knowing drake, it's simultaneously good and bad. It's great he's famous. He loves it. But it comes a price. This album is his mostly positive reflections on fame but how he can't stop what he's set in motion. 

Maybe the nothing that is the same is his music. Maybe he's telling us he's done being the same. And I commend that. This cd is different than his others and this is an indication it'll keep changing. 

He had the good idea to make this cd another deep cut. Part of my favorite aspect of take care was the length. It allowed us to meet drake and reall yet to know him, even of it took a while. That's because he's not simple. 

The album art is part of why has stick with me about the cd. It appears as of its a reference to biggie's"ready to die" cd. A baby on the cd has a lot of implications because of other CDs that have had babies on it: biggie, illmatic and more recently, Kendrick. The look skyward, looking at what's coming, not paying attention to everyone watching him, only his goals(what he's looking up to). He was face on in his first cd, slightly askewed on take care and now he's a portrait. He's had a transformation. He's not the same. But we already knew that. 





Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Really Good

Didn't expect to like it that much.Thought I was over them, but not. God damn can Jeremy McKinnon write a pop punk song.

I think it helps that it felt like a real genuine album. Not Produced, but right from the heart. I think ADTR has always been about that, but it really shines through on this album.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Didn't think I'd like this that much

Really mature, introspective, and thoughtful. The music is spacey, sparse and airy, but still very refined. It's got a hazy, drug induced mental fog feeling to it, but one that has lead to inspiration, clarity and an epiphany.

My favorite line is still "and my experience with touching my epiphany in color form"

Favorite songs: Star Room, I'm Not Real, Bird Call, I Am Who Am, Objects in the Mirror, Red Dot Music, Watching Movies, Suplexes Inside of Complexes and Duplexes, Aquarium, Youforia, Goozebumpz and O.K.

If I had to chose one song to die to, "Youforia" ranks up there as a contender.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Album of the Year for 2012

It took a while (mostly cause I'm lazy lol) but I've finally picked a winner for the album of the year award, from this list of candidates.

Kendrick Lamar's "Good Kid. Maad City".

I don't think I have to talk to much about why this CD is so good. I have written my thoughts down here, which I will continue to update as I think of more stuff.

Runner Up

idk. There are a lot of CDs I like, but I think this technically the "best" one that I know a lot of. Channel Orange was good, but it didn't stick with me that much. Granted, I don't listen to this much anymore, and I listen to Cruel Summer still a lot, I think this is a better CD. Simliar thing with the Parallax. I'm sure its better than this one, but I know this CD almost back to front because its so good.

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Greatest Generation

The sadness of the greatest generation:

They were the greatest. They fought Hitler. They defeated the Axis.
They lead us against the Soviets
and now they are dead and old like everyone else

Man Wonder Years just fucking kill it. Every CD is a classic

Saturday, April 13, 2013

WOLF

Tyler the Creator's newest album WOLF is a superb album. It's also a concept album. In the previous albums, Goblin and Bastard Tyler has had been in therapy with Dr TC, who is revealed to be Tyler's imagination at the end of Goblin. In Wolf, it starts out by introducing the listener to Sam, who is aggressive and violent. Sam is introduced to Wolf, who is shy, artistic and introverted, by Dr TC. All of these characters are at Camp Flog Gnaw. However, I believe that Camp Flog Gnaw is actually all in Tyler's head.

One of the best lines comes at the end of the album WOLF when Tyler (who is probably Sam in this song) says, "If you think I'm fucking koo-koo, Try talking to my shrink then" (which is a reference to the albums Goblin and Bastard) and then Dr TC goes "hey", like saying "what's up? why did you say that?" to which Sam responds, "Bitch" and Dr TC says, "I'm right here" (reminding Tyler that Dr TC is at Camp Flog Gnaw) and then Wolf asks, "Yo who's that?" (which is a very clever turn, because we dont know if Wolf is talking about Dr TC or Salem. We're not really sure that any of these people are real, so this may be Tyler's egos finding out about each other), but Sam responds, "Thats Salem, That's my girlfriend, You stay the fuck away from her alright?". But We're not sure that Salem is real either. Iff Camp Flog is Tyler's imagination, a world entirely in his head, then the characters in it are all himself as well. That would mean Salem would be based off of someone, but its entirely his own construction. This would mean he's making up this girl, and he's basically worshipping someone who doesn't exist.

He's conflicted about these parts of his life knowing about each other and interacting. They're all different sides of Tyler's personality, they all embody him in some way. That's why every song is from a character's point of view, but has Tyler's own personal life intertwined with it.

Favorite songs are either Rusty, Slater or Bimmer. But Jamba, Cowboy, Domo23, Pigs, Tamale, and even Trashwang are really good as well. Just a winner of a CD,

Friday, March 29, 2013

Good

How active is Kendrick in the gang banging aspect of his homies? How much does he suggest, how much does he go along with it? Does he object to what his friends do? How much does this change how we think of him?

Specifics play a big part in the aesthetic of the album. His mom says "you won't pass on to the next grade" but then takes a point to stop and go back and say, "the 11th grade.". How does that change our perception of the album? It creates a concreteness to the album. We know the kid in the 11th grade. A kid "in the next grade" isn't as real to us. His dad asks for "Dominos", not pizza. When they hop out of the car at the end of "drank", you can hear the door ajar noise in the background as K-Dot and the other kids shoot at others, and its a stark moment of contrast. It draws a direct juxtaposition of the normal door ajar sound with the abnormal gunshots. "Me an my niggas, four deep in a white toyota. quarter tank of gas, a pistol and orange soda". He creates an image in your head with that description. He nonchalantly refers to a pistol, in between the mundane "quarter tank of gas" and "orange soda". It's an image that in conjured in your head, but it neither portrays it positively or negatively. It just is. That's one of the strong points of the album: the ambiguity of it. He doesn't say he's awesome for having a pistol, nor does he say he's foolish. Its just what is happening. Lamar allows us to decide for ourselves, and without authorial guidance, that decision isn't easy to make.

What effect do the lapses in continuity affect the album? Are the skits foreshadowing, or are the songs the emotional preludes?

His parents' voices are a constant grounding effect on him. They call and he remembers that he's not just him and the homies in the world.

Good art doesn't have to be aware of the context it exists it. It is often a product of a larger socioeconomic cultural trend and a well developed piece of art can be an embodiment of certain aspects of that culture. This CD lives in a time after gangster rap. A time after NWA. It's ghosts haunt this CD, as little homages creep up here and there to remind us that a false golden city had been constructed by Edgar Wright and O'Shea Jackson. They made it up. Not that life wasn't hard, but the way of life they glorified didn't exist. But it became a cultural idol, promoted by white people to sell records that fetishized violence. Now, that violence has been internalized into the poor community, uneducated enough to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Good CD

Maybe it's just where I am, but I am really digging these guys. It feels really heartfelt.

And they're from Walnut Creek.

So

Bonus
Favorite tracks:
Roam
Quicksand
Mt. Diablo
Four Years
Placeholder

Monday, February 4, 2013

Fall Out Boy is back

This isn't a reunion



 Because we never broke up

Monday, January 7, 2013

Tyler the Creator

Tyler the Creator is really smart.
He may not agree, but i think so