Pusha T - DAYTONA (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

If Kanye West did one good thing this year, it was the 7-track rap album. This album clocks in at 21 minutes and it's a beaut, killers from beginning to end, book-ended by two absolute classics - "If You Know You Know" and "Infrared". The latter, of course, with its thinly-veiled jabs at Drake, set off the beef of the year. I thought at the time Drake shouldn't even bother responding - let's face it, ghostwriting jabs are nothing new, dude's gonna have to live with them his whole career, whatever, just move on. But nope. Classic cranky Drake, rushed to the studio like it was Meek Round 2, put out "Duppy Freestyle", and was promptly annihilated so hard with "The Story of Adidon" that he's spent the whole summer in damage control mode. Does anyone even remember what "Duppy Freestyle" sounds like anymore? But alas. I bring up Drake because this album also presents an interesting juxtaposition between the two - DAYTONA, ultra lean at 21 minutes and one of the best reviewed hip hop albums of the year, compared to Drake's flabby double disc that, despite setting streaming records, has earned a collective yawn critically speaking. I just find the differences interesting. Back to DAYTONA - Kanye's production is phenomenal. Sample-heavy in the classic Ye style, yes, but dark and nasty and perfectly suited for Pusha's equally venomous flow. I could've done without the Ye feature on "What Would Meek Do?" (especially the "poop scoop" reference) but I digress. A stunner otherwise. And that album art is sublime too. Whitney Houston's bathroom? Unreal. Yuuugh.

Comments

Nachtmystium/Leviathan - In the Valley of Death, Where Black Metal is King: An Homage to the Roots (Ascension Monuments Media, 2018)

What the fuck is that title. Okay I get the first part is a Judas Iscariot tribute, but did we really need "an homage to the roots" in there? Hey wouldn't it be funny if these were actually covers of the band The Roots? Anyway. This album was supposed to come out 10 years ago, but it was blocked by the bands' respective labels. Now I guess they've figured out a way, or Blake Judd needs money for drugs so he's figured out a way, to put this out. The Bandcamp version has 8 tracks, 5 from Nachtmystium and 3 from Leviathan, but I've seen a 10-track tracklisting elsewhere. On the version I have, we have Nachtmystium covering Judas Iscariot, Ildjarn (twice), Von and Burzum. Leviathan tackles Ildjarn (twice) and Von once. I seem to be missing Leviathan's Judas Iscariot cover ("Where the Winter Beats Incessant") and one of Nachtmystium's Von covers ("Von"). Weird. Wonder if there were some licensing issues or something. All four Ildjar

Sunburned Hand of the Man - Get Wet with the Animal (Manhand, 2018)

I keep up with Sunburned only intermittently these days, they seem to be taking a more rock-ist approach lately. Like this one. Each track is about 4-5 minutes of pretty ramshackle, jammy, funky, boogie rock...almost spoiled by the throaty, beery vocals shouted over the top of each one of these tunes with nonsensical platitudes. I almost shut it off after a couple tracks but I stuck it out and kinda came around on some level. I was oddly reminded of My War era Black Flag sludge punk. The band sez "these Holy Grail fueled recordings are a mix of iphone and zoom recordings run through garageband, reaper and some plug-ins. We're still working on the much more listener-friendly Black Dirt session..." and point taken, listener friendly this ain't.

Kanye West - Ye (GOOD Music/Def Jam, 2018)

For no real reason other than I guess the fact that he felt he had to put an album out, Ye was cobbled together in a month. And it shows quite plainly. As much as I praised the Ye-produced DAYTONA for making a fully formed album out of a mere 20-odd minutes, here Ye sounds like an odds-n-sods compilation - it literally sounds like a snapshop of a month in the studio with Kanye. Look, I have a lot of time for Kanye('s music). Yeezus is one of the best hip hop albums ever, to say nothing of the classics that preceded it. Obviously most people look at Yeezus as the dividing line between New Kanye and Old Kanye, but I still love it. The Life of Pablo was a little more dicey - it was slipshod, haphazard, scattered, bloated. I was hoping with this new 7-song limit we'd get back to Yeezus-style tightness. Not so much. You can count the good things on this album on one hand - the hooks on "Yikes" and "All Mine", "Ghost Town" which sounds like the only ful

Tips Zum Selbstmord

Search This Blog