American Teen - Review
For a first effort, American Teen is undeniably impressive. It is a simple, soulful music built on repetition that catches your ear and makes you want to keep listening. But by virtue of this style, it is restricted in some way. It is not deep, but it means something to the 19 year old who made it. It is music about being an American Teen. Finding your place in life, exploring the world and experiencing all of its ups and downs that come with it. He compares it to a rollercoaster in “Coasts” and while the metaphor is apt, it’s far from original.
SweetSexySavage - Review
After the success of her mixtape, You Should Be Here, overnight R&B hit Kehlani is back with her debut studio album SweetSexySavage (all one word of course) which luckily fixes many of the problems that I had with the mixtape, and manages to deliver a solid, if unimpressive set of tracks. It is a pop/R&B album, heavy on the pop, and it does a good job at being easy to listen to, but it doesn’t go anywhere special or break any new ground while it does it. I hate to call something generic, but as I coasted through song after song, I couldn’t help but think that I had heard this all before.
"Awaken, My Love!" - Review
I'll be the first to admit that I am not the biggest fan of Donald Glover. He's "Childish baby, Mr. talk-about-his-dick-again,” and I felt like he floated a little too close to "meme rap" for my tastes. I've listened to all of his projects so far, and I've been waiting for it to click with me, where I would start to like it like everyone else appeared to, but it just never did. So when he announced that his newest project would be something different, I was ready. It has been a hell of a year for music creativity, and Glover has had a pretty great one too. Because the Internet was certified as gold, he was cast in Spider-Man, hosting a giant listening festival, and releasing the show Atlanta, which has been fantastic. So my hopes were high for “Awaken, My Love!”
Starboy - Review
It is hard to capture lightning in a bottle. Even harder is to do it more than once. With Starboy, Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, tried to follow up the smash success of last year's Beauty Behind the Madness, but amidst his ruminations on fame, sex, and drugs, he forgot what made the last project so great. Starboy is, at it's heart, stagnant; a too long collection of well-produced, pop/electrosoul tracks that fail to go anywhere new in their quest to make more chart topping hits. You can clearly see the Daft Punk influence, and the appearance by both Kendrick Lamar and Lana Del Rey stand out as highlights. The songs sound good, but they have lost some of that raw, emotional quality that felt so great, and instead take on a more manufactured feel that brings the album down.
HERE - Review
Positivity can be easily forgotten. When things are looking down, we need a different message. And the last few months have been very negative. Hate is always just round the corner for all of us. And it is here where HERE shines. It is, essentially, a conversation about identity and self in the new America. About figuring out who you are, your anger, your insecurities, your hopes, and your fears, and thinking about how you are now. How you are stronger and more beautiful for the presence of all of your flaws. “Stretch marks are your beauty scars.” It is a different kind of positive message than the sickly sweet bubblegum pop that we have too much of. “When a girl can’t be herself no more / I just wanna cry, cry for the world.”
blond - Review
It’s been years since Channel Orange, and fans everywhere have been eagerly awaiting the next project from Frank Ocean. Perhaps a little too fervently. But in the last few years, the world has changed. Music has changed. And I don’t know if any of us quite expected what we got. Blonde is simultaneously somber and rich, a eulogy for the childhood of his past. Ocean is growing up, coming to accept himself for who he is. It is melancholic and drawn out, forming only one part of an experience toiled over for years. There’s Blonde, a free magazine, and the visual album Endless that all come together as a part of his grand vision of who Frank Ocean is today.
The Healing Component - Review
Love is a powerful force. Tackling it is a difficult proposition, but that does not stop Mick Jenkins from trying to talk about what makes love, how we love, and why we should love in his debut album The Healing Component. For a first venture, it is an ambitious one, as he delivers a high concept album on how love has the ability to drastically effect a life. To him, love is The Healing Component, and through an application of loving each other, and a fair amount marijuana, he thinks we can all become better people. He builds this idea through conversations broken up and peppered throughout the album in which we learn more about his idea of love and his experiences with it as a young woman interviews him. “Have you ever loved someone differently?” she asks, calling up vivid memories from him, and from the listener as they work their way through what love really is.