2015 is Insane So Far

Drake - If You're Reading This It's Too Late
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Action Bronson - Mr Wonderful
Dance Gavin Dance - Instant Gratification
Earl Sweatshirt- I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside
Tyler the Creator- Cherry Bomb

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. 

Album of the Year

Hello no one,

I'm gonna do my album of the year sometime soon. It's a tough award to do. It's hard to get into things especially the year they come out. It's tough cause when 2012 hit, I was still hanging on to 2011 stuff. In fact, Drake's Take Care album is the one I've listened to the most of this past year, and that was a 2011 album. So, I've put up a list for 2012 potential albums of the year, and I'll get to the pictures soon. If you think I'm missing something, let me know!

I'll do the write up for best 2012 Album near the end of the year, and I'm also planning on doing a little revision to the 2011 album of the year, just to sorta revisit and see how things went, and how those predictions and opinions held up for. I may go back to 2010 as well, but let's not get ahead of our selves

Heroes

So Far Gone

Drake raps over the ending section of "Say You Will" (Kanye) in his song "Say What's Real". I have mad respect for him for that. Then he says stuff like this (in relation to the title of the CD):

The whole tape extends from one of my closest friends Oliver. One night we were having a discussion about women and the way we were talking about them, it was so brazen and so disrespectful. He texted me right after we got off the phone and he was like, 'Are we becoming the men that our mothers divorced?' That's really where the cover comes from, too. It's just this kid in pursuit of love and money. We're good guys, I'm friends with some real good people and for him to even text me after we got off the phone it just showed we have a conscience. But sometimes you just get so far gone, you get wrapped up in this shit. The title has a lot of meanings—as the way we carry ourselves, the way we dress, the way people view us, not to sound cocky, it's just that feeling that we're just distanced in a good way. You’re just elevating past the bullshit and past all the shit that you used to be a part of and you're not that proud of, you're just so far gone.

He might be arrogant and cocky some of the time, but who isn't? Our moods and feelings change throughout the day and throughout our life. There's room to be cocky and humble. I always felt Drake walked that perfect line of being self-consciously optimistic, but also very grateful. He likes that he has made it, and doesn't seem to think its because HE did it. He worked hard, but it was also luck. He also explores negative aspects to fame, which is something only Kanye West really does too.

Hip Hop is seeing a glorious time, Imma call it right now. This time period is the stuff of legends
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Kanye's New Songs

Theraflu (Far Too Cold?) and Mercy fucking slay. So good.

He's got this amazing way to make me feel way cooler than I am. And that's the point of rap, right?

Well, this is more r&b hip hop but you get the point.

The bass lines in both songs are incredible, at least for me. I suppose that would explain why I like them so much? I mean, I like Justin Beiber's new song because its got bass. I'm just easily sold by a heavy bass. I almost like Emmure because of it. Almost

And Drake just stands for Do Right and Kill Everything

Incredibly good