2010s Music Diary

[NJ]

Madvillainy by Madvillain - This album has been in my queue for a while now, being one of the most beloved hip hop albums of the 2000s if not simply the most beloved. I like the idea of a bunch of short songs making up a whole work, and at less than 50 minutes this is a really concise album, which is really nice. It's certainly unique in its tone and style. It's rather humorous and silly, which I enjoy a lot in records. The rapping by MF DOOM was incredible and Madlib's production was extremely unique and fit very well with what they were trying to achieve. But I'm just postponing the inevitable. I didn't like it. Like, at all. It just completely and thoroughly bored me throughout. I feel that objectively it's a solid record and I should have enjoyed it. It's not like it did anything poorly - quite the opposite, in fact. But I didn't enjoy. I'll listen to it again sometime, but for something that's as short as it is, I just didn't enjoy it at all, which is really disappointing. I almost feel like apologizing for not liking it, which is silly, but whatever. I guess that ends my streak, which is unfortunate. Maybe I'll take a break from hip hop for a while.

[NJ]

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Lauryn Hill - I said I was gonna take a break from hip hop for a while, and I was planning on listening to some alternative guitar rock or something, but I couldn't think of anything that interested me, so I decided to listen to this since it's really only half a rap record. Anyways, I loved this record, and it made me cry (in a happy way), probably because of my dumbass love problems, but it was a rather empowering record. I can't only like depressing shit I guess. Lauryn is a great MC and a great vocalist and she switched up rapping and singing enough to make the record consistently fresh. It was still rather long, and not every song was great, but as a whole it is an amazing record. Hopefully it'll be the start of another streak, we'll see. I still plan on giving Madvillainy another chance sometime, mostly because I found out it's one of my closest friend's favorite records.

[NJ]

ye by Kanye West - I'm just gonna go through his whole discography. I also listened to Yeezus and MBTDF again today (and I've been listening to random tracks from TCD daily). I was thinking of checking out The Life of Pablo as per Mercury's recommendation, but I'm tired, so I listened to this cause of the short length. I'll check out TLOP tomorrow. Probably. I'm pretty bad at keeping to schedules, but whatever. Okay, the mini-review: the first 5 songs were alright. I didn't really care for All Mine and I thought Wouldn't Leave was probably the best song among those first five, but nothing stood out as particularly great or bad or anything. The last two songs, on the other hand, were excellent, especially Ghost Town, which is easily one of the best songs he's released. I had to go back and listen to it again immediately after finishing the album. Those two tracks were so great that I really have to question the fact that Kids See Ghosts is so much more beloved. It is a better record, but they're pretty comparable, in my opinion. And they're both pretty backloaded, though KSG is more consistent. It certainly never reaches the heights of Ghost Town, though. Not at all. Anyways, I liked this album, but it's way too inconsistent considering its short length. You'd think a seven-song album of only 23 minutes would be super concise and every track would be solid, but that was not the case. Those last two tracks pretty much made up for those shortcomings, though. It's definitely my least favorite of his records thus far, but really not by that much. It's still really good, and once again I think it's silly that KSG overshadowed it so much.

NOTE: After relistening to Yeezus and MBDTF, my opinions on both have changed a bit. I enjoy Yeezus much more on relisten. I really like every song except I'm In It, but 9/10 is still a great ratio, perhaps the best of any of his albums. I believe it's moved up to #2 behind TCD for me. MBDTF, on the other hand, I just had a hard time enjoying as much. I only like about half of it, maybe 60%, and while I don't outright dislike anything, as a whole it just doesn't really come together very much. To be honest, I've attempted listening to it about three times prior to this and shut it off after about three songs, and the first three songs are amongst the best on the album. Plus almost every song drags out way longer than they need to. I still think it's a solid record, and it definitely contains his best material, but I just think it's less enjoyable and fun and charming than his earlier works I've listened to and less consistent and concise than Yeezus. The poduction is great, though, and despite my complaints about track length and dragging stuff out, I still think Runaway is a contendor for song of the decade, and easily his best material. Overall, though, I'd move it second-to-last just above ye so far. They're all really good, though.

[NJ]

The Life of Pablo by Kanye West - I didn't care much for this one, unfortunately. Like all of his albums, I'll be relistening to it sometime, but this is easily my least favorite so far. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me to be his most inconsistent album and it's over an hour long. It's not nearly as charming and well-written as TCD and LR and it's not nearly as well-produced as MBDTF and Yeezus, and it doesn't have a song like Ghost Town that elevates it at all like ye does. Waves and Fade stood out because of their strong prodution, but certainly not their lyricism, and St. Pablo was easily the standout track for me, because it's the only song I feel can stand alongside his other works in terms of songwriting, but it's still no Jesus Walks or Ghost Town. The vast majority of this album was no better than the worst song on TCD (Breathe In Breathe Out), so I don't quite get its love, but maybe it'll grow on me after I listen to it again. I don't know. For now, though, it just seemed like it dragged and wasn't up to par with the rest of his records I've heard in any regards.

[NJ]

Jesus is King by Kanye West - TLOP's run as my least-favorite Kanye record was very short-lived. On the one hand, I will give this album credit for its strong production, which is excellent, as per usual for Kanye. On the other hand, despite being only 27 minutes and none of the songs being even 4 minutes long, it seemed to really drag on, unlike ye or KSG, which were much more successful at this EP-length thing he's been doing. The main problem with this album, however, is the lyricism. Kanye's not the greatest lyricist in the industry by any means, but he is still solid as a songwriter for sure, and this is just disappointing. I will admit that I am very much not religious, but I am a religion minor at a Christian university, so I really don't have any problem with religion, and it can be very interesting when people are using it to say something, like he did in his masterful Jesus Walks. That is, unfortunately, not the case here. This is just boring and bland and really isn't saying anything. Gospel music can be really fun, obviously, but it never really worked here. Nothing was outright bad or anything, and again the production was phenomenal, but as a whole it just feels purposeless, like Kanye just doesn't know what he wants to do with his current style, which, while he's not always made perfect music, has never really been the case before. I'm glad he's (hopefully) using this newfound religious bond to get himself out of the dark hole he's been in for a while, but hopefully he can make better music with it next time.

[NJ]

Graduation by Kanye West - This is pretty similar in quality to ye, maybe a bit better. Which is nice, the last two albums have been a bit of a disappointment. Compared to his previous two albums, this has just as many "filler" tracks, but less great ones, so I don't like it as much. The lack of skits is decent, but in hindsight they kind of acted as a nice break between large sections of music. The middle of this album was pretty bad (Barry Bonds and Drunk and Hot Girls are just not good), but it has a very strong start and a pretty good finish. Good Morning and Champion were great, and Stronger is an absolutely amazing track. The Glory through Big Brother are all good. The real highlight is Flashing Lights, though, which is just so excellent and catchy. Easily one of his best songs, and enough to elevate this album in the same way Ghost Town does for ye. I guess there's only one album left in his solo discography for me to check out, I'll be doing that tomorrow. For the sake of completion, I'll be listening to Watch the Throne as well, though.

[NJ]

It's been a bit more than a week. I only have one solo Kanye album left, but I'm not quite in the mood for that. I wanna listen to some queer-oriented records for pride month, so I'd appreciate any recommendations. That's not what I did here though.

Ferris Wheel on Fire by Neutral Milk Hotel - I was wondering whether it'd be worth it to review an EP, but technically How to Leave Town was an EP and I reviewed that, so whatever. I was in the mood for some NMH and not a full album. This was alright. I loved the first two songs, but the rest was only okay. It definitely didn't have the magic of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which is my second favorite album of all time, so this did have a lot to live up to. it didn't, though. The record, other than the last track, was much cleaner. I never really thought of ITAOTS as lo-fi like a lot of people label it, since it's always sounded fine to me, but comparing it to this the lower production quality is much more obvious. While Oh Sister got me excited for the rest of the EP, it just didn't hold up too much. Kind of disappointing, actually.

[NJ]

Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood - Since this has been competing with Igor for the top of the 2019 chart for a while, I thought I should probably actually listen to it. To quickly address how it compares to Igor: it doesn't. It is a great record, and I'll get into its merits by itself in a moment, but it's not particularly fresh, musically or lyrically, especially compared to Igor. I simply don't see how it's supposed to be as good an album. It is great, but so is Igor, and the latter stands out quite a bit more. That being said, I loved this album. It has commonly been compared to Joni Mitchell and The Carpenters, and I'd say I hear some Carole King in here too, and I love all those artists. With the exception of Mitchell's Blue, I'd say this album compares to the best of any of their albums, too. All the songs here are excellent, and the lyricism, while not my favorite of any modern release for sure, were still a strong suit of the album. It's biggest problem really is just kind of being bland, but even though it sounds 40 years old, outside of some minor production, I do think it would've held up extremely well back in the early 70s during the boom of female singer-songwriters.

[NJ]

The New Abnormal by The Strokes - Considering how much I love their debut, I have no clue why I haven't listened all the way through any of their other records. I'll probably listen to Room On Fire soon. Anyways, this was a great album. I thoroughly enjoyed 7/9 of the songs, and the other two were still solid (those two being Bad Decisions and Why Are Sundays So Depressing). The top songs were, to me, At the Door, Not the Same Anymore and Ode to the Jets, which stand alongside the best of their debut, though overall this isn't quite as consistent or excellent. That being said, for the most part Casablancas seems to have stepped up his lyrical game since 2001, and though it's certainly still not the best lyricism in the game, many moments on this record are quite emotional and profound. Also, I love his voice. So much.

[NJ]

Whoops, I maybe was so busy with listening to Twin Fantasy for the 10,000th time that I forgot to listen to any new music. My bad...

Peaceful As Hell by Black Dresses - A phenomenal album. I absolutely loved it. I love all the songs, I love the style, I love the vocals, I love the lyrics. Easily my favorite album of the year I've heard thus far (I'll listen to Fetch The Bolt Cutters soon). Maybe a tad bit long, but I don't mind at all. Just a great album. It's stupid that they had to disband because of shitty fans. I have no problem with spending $10 to support them on Bandcamp, but it's incredibly disappointing to me that they won't be making any more music. Luckily they have quite a bit they made in 2018 and 2019 for me to listen to.
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"Those are you've got some nice shoulders, I'd like to put my hands around them."