August 2018: Album Review Roundup

August was an utterly absurd month for new music. As the sun crests over the horizon and we enjoy our final moments of warm weather, it seemed as if every major artist was pushing themselves to get their records out before the season’s end. From long-awaited debuts to big-name collabs, there’s a lot to write home about now that the summer has entered its death throes, so let’s reflect on the greatness we’ve been lucky enough to receive over the past month.

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Travis Scott - Astroworld

While it’s clear that Travis Scott will never again attain the bombastic attention-seeking highs of his early days or the conceptual glitz of his creative peak, Astroworld at least restores hope that he can get close. After the half-effort Birds In The Trap Sing Mcknight, and the aggressively-middling Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho it seemed as if Travis Scott was on an irreversible downward trend. While these are harsh words, they’re only because I know Travis has it in him to make another classic. In fact, I’m such a fan of Travis Scott, last year I wrote nearly 7,000 words lamenting the fact that both he and Drake were so successful they didn’t have to try anymore. Now one year after airing those concerns we have our hands on Trav’s newest project, and it’s… better.

Astroworld is far from perfect, but it at least signals that Travis Scott is taking a bit of a more holistic approach to his music again. Opening track “STARGAZING” is an excellent mood-setter featuring tight bars, a cascading instrumental, and multiple beat switches. It’s a fantastic introduction that leads to the crowd-pleasing “CAROUSEL” where a surprise Frank Ocean feature leads to an unexpected Drake introduction. Similarly, “STOP TRYING TO BE GOD” packs Kid Cudi, James Blake, and Stevie Wonder into one of this year’s most heavenly and star-studded five and a half minutes. While this is all impressive, by the end of the record it becomes clear how much Astroworld has been propped up by features. From “NC-17” onward it’s essentially a plummet straight down into dregs of meandering trap. The album’s back half of barely-conceived hip-hop is punctuated by the album’s final three songs which all feature Travis Scott solo. While “COFFEE BEAN” is a compelling album closer, this ending stretch of songs only highlights the fact that Travis Scott probably couldn’t hold an entire album on his own. Even though Astroworld is a bit of a mixed bag, the loaded front half is so undeniable it ends up elevating the entire thing above some of his more recent offerings. A solid, but lopsided album with scattered glimpses of greatness.

Tides of Man - Every Nothing

Tides of Man went through a bit of an identity crisis in the early 2010’s. After releasing two landmark post-hardcore records on Rise Records, lead singer Tilian Pearson left the group to join Dance Gavin Dance. Rather than embark on a search for a new vocalist, the band decided to move forward without one entirely and threw themselves headlong into the world of post-rock. Having proven their chops on 2014’s Young and Courageous, the group is back with their second instrumental release and defacto sophomore album in their current incarnation. From its first seconds, Every Nothing sparkles and shines with the polish equal to the post-rock greats. Evoking Explosions In the Sky, God Is An Astronaut, and Caspian, this album proves that there’s life after loss. A recovery after an identity crisis. This is the sound of a band sticking the landing after a seismic change that would have dissolved any lesser group. 

Foxing - Nearer My God

Having raved about Smidley’s album last year, I might have entered this album with higher expectations than usual. I’ve never been an enormous Foxing fan, but the singles leading up to Nearer My God all hit home for me. “Slapstick” was fun, “Nearer My God” was a multicultural revelation, and “Gameshark” was a proggy Mars Volta-esque jaunt that felt out-of-the-box. This string of singles combined with the well-thought-out visuals seemed to imply a Foxing album that would finally land with me. While Nearer My God kicks off with the jaw-dropping “Grand Paradise,” the record then quickly devolves into Foxing’s usual brand of “acceptable” emo. Singles and opener aside, there’s nothing else in the album that truly resonated with me. I don’t know if I could tell you one other moment that stuck with me outside of these four songs. Nearer My God would have been a great EP, but maybe this band simply isn’t for me. 

Jesus Piece - Only Self

Sometimes you don’t need beauty. Sometimes you don’t need happiness. Sometimes all you need is destruction, and that’s exactly what Jesus Piece offers on Only Self. The album is a debut long in the making that finds the Philadelphia band blending metalcore and doom for a particularly potent and exponentially-heavy effect. Bearing propulsive drumming, low-swinging riffs, and vitriolic lyrics, Jesus Piece has created something entirely their own and more intense than anything I’ve heard from the genre in years. It’s fighting music. Music that makes you angry. Music you want to lift heavy things and punch back. It’s not an everyday emotion, but when the mood does strike, I can’t think of a single band doing it better than Jesus Piece. Phenomenal.

Young Thug - Slime Language

Young Thug is the rap game’s Joker. Unpredictable, animated, and reveling in his audience’s utter confusion. And this isn’t a role that comes easily; Thug has spent the last few years cultivating his absurdist image while simultaneously upending all of hip-hop’s traditions in the process. From taunting the greats, and rocking dresses to performing the bare minimum required to qualify as enunciation, Young Thug seems to have cemented himself as something that’s sorely needed in hip-hop today: an unknown. 

On Slime Language Young Thug offers up nearly one hour of outsider hip-hop from someone who’s spent years rising through the ranks yet still remembers who he is. Even when the words themselves are covering well-trodden hip-hop topics, the way he says them is never the same. You will find yourself listening closely just to see what Thug will do next, and I think that’s exactly what he wants. From a scratchy velcro octet of tire onomatopoeia on “Ardemaur” to a dexterous chorus on “STS,” everything on Slime Language feels fresh in a way that only Young Thug can do. Within any one song his inflection, voice, and flow can change from one word to the next, and it’s absolutely enchanting. Infectious and enigmatic. A hip-hop cult of personality. 

IDLES - Joy as an Act of Resistance

Having produced one of last year’s best punk albums (and one of the decade’s best debuts), IDLES have returned with a follow-up that’s equal parts gnashing and emotional. After losing his daughter last year, lead singer Joe Talbot publicly grappled with what that meant on both a cosmic and personal level. Joy as an Act of Resistance is the outcome of this meditation. Slow-building tracks that mount with dread until they erupt into thrashy punk explosions. Tonally different than last year’s Brutalism, but just as hard-hitting. A sonic reckoning in the aftermath of a sudden car crash of an event. The ebbs and flows of grief and loss. Sound and fury that lead to eventual recovery. 

Justin Vernon & Aaron Dessner - Big Red Machine

Helmed by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and The National’s Aaron Dessner, Big Red Machine represents a meeting of the indie minds the likes of which we rarely see anymore. With both artists coming off award-worthy, career-defining albums, the two find themselves collaborating at the perfect intersection as they find mutual ground in downbeat electronic soundscapes. From unexpected vocal deliveries that border on rapping (“Lyla”) to haunting, gospel soul-searches (“Forest Green”) every song on Big Red Machine hits just as hard as you would imagine. Turns out combining the wine-drunk sadness of The National with the snow-covered sadness of Bon Iver is a recipe for something even more emotional than the sum of its parts.

Mitski - Be the Cowboy

Existence is tiring. Other people are frustrating, relationships are messy, and even your own thoughts can be confusing. This sort of millennial malaise and caustic confusion is exactly what Mitski is capturing with Be The Cowboy. Like a diary transposed to music, the album traps Mitski at its center, shines a blinding spotlight on her, and then lets her writhe in agony for 32-minutes until both she and the listener collapse from exhaustion. It’s humanizing, flawed, messy, and isolating, just like all of us. Be The Cowboy is the exact kind of consolation you need after a breakup, hookup, or whatever falls between. An entire existence recorded to music.  

Quick Hits

• Mac Miller - Swimming: The the continuing story of the Pennsylvanian teen who has moved out, broken out, broken up, and grown up before our eyes.

• YG - Stay Dangerous: Flashy gangster bangers and not much else.

• Trophy Eyes - The American Dream: Effortlessly-catchy pop-punk that’s forward-moving, deeply-comforting, and soul-affirming.

• The Ocean Party - I.B.O.: Six musicians. Two songs apiece. One minute per song. A musical sketchpad of flexible artistry.

• Choker - Honeybloom: Emotionally-devastating post-Blonde RnB.

• Shy Boys - Bell House: Hard-cutting instrumentals that fall away for moments of stark honesty that shimmer like a lost Beach Boys song.

• Iggy Azalea - Survive The Summer: Remember “Fancy,” guys?

• Bad Bad Hats - Lightning Round: Songs about being a deeply-flawed and inherently-fucked up human. A therapeutic soundtrack to life.

• Moses Sumney - Black In Deep Red, 2014: A three-pack of groovy left-field RnB tracks with masterful multi-layered instrumentation and rich vocalization.

• Erra - Neon: Progressive and mathematical metalcore that rapidly alternates from airing saccharine sentiments to violently lashing out.

• Nicki Minaj - Queen: An album who’s messy rollout, subsequent controversy, and surrounding beef is more entertaining than the music itself.

• Trippie Redd - Life’s A Trip: At least it’s got a cool cover.

• Beach Bunny - Prom Queen: Charming and compulsive indie rock that’s not afraid to be emotionally-bare.

• El Ten Eleven - Banker's Hill: Engaging post-rock that occasionally explodes into math, metal, and electronic diversions.

• Aminé - ONEPOINTFIVE: Jokingly labeled as an “EP/LP/Mixtape/Album,” the newest release from Aminé finds him mixing humor, trap, and personal experiences to a great effect.

• Death Cab for Cutie - Thank You for Today: Ethereal, moody, and mature indie rock from the group that seems to have become masters of those feelings.

• Animal Collective - Tangerine Reef: A psychedelic audiovisual album about the havoc we have wreaked on the environment and the damage still to come.

• The Oh Sees - Smote Reverser: One of the last bastions of jammy, proggy, nerdy rock music. As dexterous and eclectic as it is complete and exhaustive.

• Ariana Grande - Sweetener: It’s pop music.

• Fredo Disco - Very Cool Music for Very Cool People: Say Anything-esque tales of charging headlong into personal relationships, getting too high, and inheriting jeans.

• mewithoutYou - [untitled] e.p.: Slow-building orchestral emo that imparts the feeling of floating through a dream world that barely resembles our own.

• Field Medic - boy from my dream: Four hazy, sleepy, and slightly-out-of-focus folk songs from an artist that I love dearly.

• Rubblebucket - Sun Machine: A surprisingly-dancy indie record that’s packed with confessional slice-of-life dioramas all backed by lavish beds of woodwinds and brass contributions.

• Lemon Twigs - Go To School: The Lemon Twigs’ sophomore record is a concept album about a monkey that is raised by humans, goes to school, and discovers himself along the way. A whimsical reverse-Tarzan of a musical that commandeers your attention and charms your pants off.

• White Denim - Performance: Fuzzy T.Rex-inspired throwback tunes send in from a parallel funk dimension.

• Whitney Ballen - You’re A Shooting Star, I’m A Sinking Ship: Heartfelt songs of precious relationships, emotional turmoil, and the inescapable feeling that you’re less than everyone else around you.

• Blood Orange - Negro Swan: Pensive RnB that revels in sexuality, race, self-doubt, and anguish.

• WSTR - Identity Crisis: Defiant fist-clenching pop-punk.

• The Kooks - Let’s Go Sunshine: No longer Naive, The Kooks navigate the lovesick waters of adulthood in an hour-long Britpop expedition.

• Wild Nothing - Indigo: Dream pop with a retro 80’s twist.

• Troye Sivan - Bloom: Immaculately-produced pop that seems chemically-engineered to burrow its way into your brain.

• Iron & Wine - Weed Garden: Sleepytime music for sad hipsters.

• Mogwai - Kin: It’s not technically a new Mogwai album, but I’ll take their brilliance wherever I can get it.

• SahBabii - Squidtastic: Low-gravity RnB beamed in from another planet.

• Eminem - Kamikaze: After stumbling a bit with Revival, Eminem seems to have broken his downward trend of pop-hop and snapped back into full-on rapping for this surprise release.

In August we also heard new singles from This Will Destroy You, J Cole, Father John Misty, Saves The Day, Joyce Manor, Mick Jenkins, Courtney Barnett, DRAM, Mac Demarco, Logic, Soccer Mommy, Boygenius, Lil Yachty, Mr. Sister, 6Lack, Toto, FIDLAR, Kurt Vile, Bryson Tiller, Gucci Mane, Empress Of, and Kanye West.

Rewind

Finally, here are a handful of albums from earlier this year that it took me until this month to discover.

• The Growlers - Casual Acquaintances: Laid-back yet precise indie rock produced by Julian Casablancas. Created for late-night leather-clad bar hopping followed by ungracefully stumbling home.

• Stella Donnelly - Thrush Metal: Hard-hitting and intimate songs of Donnelly’s innermost thoughts and conflicts. Confessional and confrontational, “Boys Will Be Boys” may be one of the most important songs of the year.

• Knuckle Puck - Shifted: The melders of pop-punk/hardcore rework five songs from 2017’s Shapeshifter into pensive electronic-infused ballads with the same level of heart.

• Indigo De Souza - I Love My Mom: From forecasting your eventual demise to the social bartering surrounding ghosting, I Love My Mom is a journey of exploring your own emotions like a pioneer.

• Retirement Party - Somewhat Literate: Punchy and meaningful pop-punk that’s hit me harder on first listen than anything else this year.

Issa Grocery List: Every Reference to Food on 21 Savage's Issa Album

21 Savage is a man of few words, even fewer topics. Like most mainstream rappers in 2017, his songs tend to revolve around the modern day rapper’s delight: money, drugs, jewelry, and women. Of course, the only way to talk about these subjects with any sort of uniqueness is to discuss them in in a Tamarian-like language of punchlines and similes.  

On his latest release Issa Album 21 Savage uses food as a common reference point for many of these tropes. For a guy that makes “murder music,” he seems to have an affinity for common grocery store items to the point where it’s almost jarring. Issa a fantastically-produced album that’s full of bangers and exciting to listen to, but these lines stuck out like a sore thumb on first listen. I’ve compiled every food reference on the album here for your enjoyment.

#1

For those unaware, “cookie” refers to marijuana. A quality play on words and subversion of expectations by 21 here.

#2

Despite some criticism that Pringles aren’t produced or sold individually, this line acts as more of a reference to this common “dad joke” rhyme.

#3

An aggressive allusion to the fact that 21 Savage will unflinchingly shoot you in the head. Either that, or he’s a cartoonish high school bully dumping the nerd’s sodium-laden lunch in the cafeteria.

#4

A crass reference to fellatio. While I imagine “gumbo” is meant to be a clever reference to meat, I would personally find a comparison between my genitalia and the southern comfort food less than flattering.

#5

21 Savage is known for being a true street rapper with a troubled past. In contrast to many of his peers in the genre, his personality stems from experience while others tend to merely put up a facade of savagery.

#6

In one of the more braggadocious food-related similes on the record, 21 compares his style and essence to the freshest garnish in the kitchen: mint.

#7

A surprisingly-veiled and localized lyric referencing an Atlanta-based prison where 21 (presumably) consumed a great number of meals consisting of soup.

#8

I’m not even sure what this one means.

#9

A shoutout to this bakeware brand whose glassware is commonly used in cooking crack cocaine (or wrapping up leftovers.)

Thanks for reading

Artistic Integrity and Commercial Success | Part 4

This is the fourth, final, and most speculative in a series of four posts on the combative relationship between artistic pursuits and commercial achievements. View the first post here, the second one here, and the third here.

Features Aplenty, Featuring Apathy

Unlike Drake, Travis Scott has yet to release an album in 2017. As a result, the final entry in this four-part series will now shift from a post-mortem into (admittedly) premature evaluation. While Drake isn’t quite out of the woods yet, he’s it at least trending upwards artistically. Meanwhile, Travis Scott has been trending upwards in terms of sales and popularity, but I feel like I’ve seen the inverse in his music. And because he hasn’t released a full project yet, all we can do at this point is look at some of the features and individual songs that Travis has worked on since the release of Birds.

Most recently, Trav dropped a trio of loosies on his SoundCloud: “Butterfly Effect,” “A Man,” and “Green & Purple.” Truth be told, none of these songs did anything for me, and for the most part, they feel just as devoid of life as Birds. Reading shitty comments online is what originally prompted me to think about this intersection between artistic purity and commercial success, but this recent drop of songs really inspired me to start getting my thoughts out on paper. If these songs are indicative of what Trav has in store for us on his 2017 album, I’m genuinely concerned.

But the bigger topic here is “what comes first: art or success?” I think most people would say the first one, and then those creations go on to achieve success (however you define that). However, once you reach a certain point, I think you can start creating from the other end of the spectrum and just let the money be your guiding light for creation. That’s the battle.

But maybe this is all just Travis Scott Fatigue at this point, so let’s look beyond the man’s own tracks at some of his 2017 features. If there’s anything that sparks inspiration, it’s working with other artists and jumping into some more varied sounds, right?

Even without an album drop, 2017 has been a banner year for Trav. With guest appearances on everything from Major Lazer to SZA and everything in between, it seems you can’t officially be a part of the music scene in 2017 without a feature from Travis Scott. One of the weirder tracks is the collaborative effort “Go Off” from the Fate of the Furious Soundtrack. Sure, it’s generic as fuck, but it’s hard to judge anything based off a watered-down lowest-common-denominator platform like Fast and Furious.

Even still, the most offensive Travis Scott feature (and quite frankly my tipping point) was his appearance on Migo’s CULTURE at the beginning of the year… but before breaking that down, I’d like to give some additional context on ad libs.

Get Hyped or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ad Lib

For those unfamiliar, ad libs in hip-hop are distinct phrases that rappers interject within individual lines of their own lyrics. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an ad lib-loving hypebeast (you have to be to start a Desiigner subreddit.) It’s nearly a facet of my personality at this point. Ad libs just get me fired up, and I love how much rappers have been utilizing them lately.

Adlibs are typically used to emphasize a point, excite the audience, or flex after a particularly impressive rhyme. Some artists like Migos use adlibs after nearly every line just to add context and extra texture to their bars. Meanwhile, other people like Chance The Rapper have developed their own repertoire of noises that act as a calling card.

As explained by Pigeons and Planes, ad libs at worst represent “a space-filler, a moment that allows for a word to be repeated, emphasized, or followed by an “uh-huh” or some other bland affirmation.” and at best act as “an opportunity for unique self-expression, a brief moment outside of the lyrics themselves to show character, expand the meaning of the song.”

One of my favorite examples of ad-libbing is Young Thug’s “Halftime” in which he drops a lung-collapsing 12-second “SKRR” forty-four seconds into the track. The prolonged cry lies relatively quietly beneath Thug’s yelped rhymes and just above Kip Hilson’s booming bass-drenched beat. After that, Thug goes on to discuss his eccentric fashion choices and throws off his own rhyming couplet by dragging out the syllables of “recycles” to which he laughs. He’s keeping the listener on their toes. Immediately after that subversion, Thug “winds up” into an increasingly-speedier set of overtly-sexual bars, each of which is punctuated by a series of escalating ad-libbed interjections which Thug himself then interrupts with a reserved “no” right at the rhyme’s climax. The fact that this is all happening in between rapped lines makes the track a treat to listen to and rewards repeated listens. Thug is literally his own backing track. On top of that, this barrage of ad-libs is surrounded by hilariously over-the-top lyrics like “suck my dick like Beavis no, Butthead” and “I just want that neck like a giraffe.” It’s an intoxicating display and one that all happens within the space of a minute on a single verse. Blink and you’ll miss it, but “Halftime” is an absolutely flawless example of ad libs flirting with (and improving) a song as a whole.

I’ve always been a fan of Travis Scott’s adlibs. From the hype-building Straight Up! and It’s Lit! to his trademarked La Flame! He’s made a career (and a name for himself) out of expertly-deployed soundbites. So imagine my surprise when I found myself listening to Migo’s world-conquering CULTURE at the beginning of the year and made it all the way to the album’s penultimate track “Kelly Price” which featured Travis Scott.

I entered hesitantly, given how fresh in my mind Birds was, but I remained optimistic since Travis and Quavo have had a near-impeccable track record up until that point. The song starts with a haunting beat and a hook that finds Quavo running down the typical Migos list of favorite things: Cars. Money. Drugs. Women. Pretty standard stuff so far. Then Travis Scott comes in.

He lazily floats the track by sputtering two words: Flash. Dash. and then drops a “straight-up” adlib. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe I shouldn’t be as offended at this as I am, but I was amazed that this dude just hopped on a track, said two words that barely rhymed and then dropped an ad lib as if he’d just spit some world-shattering bars. It called to mind “Biebs in the Trap” off of Birds in the Trap where Trav opened a verse in an almost identical, but even lazier way. The verse in question reads more like an unrelated grocery list of things that kind of rhyme but just sound cool when thrown together over a particular beat.

As mentioned before, I don’t go to Travis Scott for lyrical bars. So it feels weird to criticize him for verses like the two above… but at the same time, they’re just so far below his already-low bar for lyricism. I’m mainly surprised that he seems to be regressing towards such a simplistic style. One in which he relies almost entirely on production and v i b e s to carry him and his lack of personality or technical skill.

It’s also disappointing because I loved Days Before Rodeo and Rodeo so indescribably, yet I haven’t fully enjoyed anything that he’s put out since 2015. This all ties back to the first post in the series, because right now I’m just bitching that I don’t like the direction an artist is taking.

I Guess That’s It

I guess if there’s any theme to this series, it’s been about expectations, disappointments, and hope. I was expecting a lot from both Drake and Trav in 2016, and they both let me down in different ways. Since then Drake has really bounced back in my eyes, but Travis seems to be continuing down a different path. I know I started this series complaining about people online wanting to dictate artists art… so I won’t do that. All I can do is hope. Hope that he has something grander and more experimental in stock for us.

I believe that Travis has it in him to create more albums on par (and better than) Rodeo, but he could also continue down the “easier” path that’s already laid before him. And I realize it’s a shitty thing for a fan to just say “their old stuff was better.” You can’t expect an artist to just keep remaking an album forever. To do so is to wish stasis and artistic malaise on someone that you’re supposedly a fan of. It’s also hard when Rodeo and DBR are tied to such positive memories in my past, and Birds has no comparable equivalent, but it’s unfair of me to judge an album based on something external to itself.

Earlier this year I actually saw Travis Scott live at Portland’s Moda Center. It was a pretty great show (even if I wasn’t able to snag floor tickets) and oddly relevant to this topic since Drake made a surprise appearance at that show. It was a wild show, but the difference between Travis’ old and new material was night and day. It’s odd because he wanted Birds to get “straight to the meat.” The album was created with stadium tours in mind. According to Scott he quickly learned what songs from Rodeo did and didn’t work live, and that influenced his creative process while making Birds. Maybe I just like the more “intimate” feeling of Rodeo as opposed to the “broad” nature of Birds in the Trap.

Never Taking a Break

Even more recently, Travis Scott did an interview with SHOWstudio. HotNewHipHop had an interesting take on the interview, positing that he would “take a break” from music after the release of his upcoming third album. Travis Scott personally replied to the speculation on Twitter claiming “Nigga I’m never taking a break.”

Reading this exchange filled me with different emotions. First, honestly, a pang of sadness. Despite the recent perceived decline in quality, I would have been extraordinarily sad to see Travis take a break from touring or new material. At the same time, the more I thought about it, maybe a break is just what he needs. I mean, he’s released an album every year since 2013 with one (technically) scheduled for 2017 as well. On top of persistent touring and features, that output has to take a toll on even the most prolific of artists.

Working so tirelessly can be draining. I’ll be a fan of Travis till the end. The man can put on a hell of a show, and he’s released two albums that are absolute classics in my eyes. A true fan is along for the ride no matter what. The albums may vary in wildly in quality, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Even Weezer still has fans, and in 2016 they released their best album since Pinkerton. I’m not saying Travis is scheduled for a 20-year stretch of disappointment, but I’m just hoping he carves out a niche that inspires.

And when I say “inspires” I’m talking about both himself and fans.

I could just be “aging out” of his music, but I hope not because even through the darkness and malaise of Birds he still dropped “Pick up the Phone” and “Goosebumps” which were some of my favorite tracks of the past year and ones I still spin on a near-daily basis.

I’m a fan. I want the best for Travis. Both commercially and artistically. The hard part is maintaining both without losing yourself.

Artistic Integrity and Commercial Success | Part 3

This is the third (and most negative) installment in a series of four posts on the same topic. This was originally intended to be the last, but I wrote more than I expected, and I wanted to end on a more positive note. View the first post here the second one here, and expect one more wrap-up coming soon.

The New Scott

Before I fully dive into Travis Scott, I feel like it’s important to give some personal context. I can’t decide if that’s because I think memories are important, or because I’m retroactively embarrassed at my own fandom given recent developments, but either way, here’s a quick rundown:

As previously discussed, Trav has released some of my favorite hip-hop albums of the past few years. His 2015 debut Rodeo is one of my all-time favorites, and one of the handful of albums released that year that made me “believe” in hip-hop as a genre. That’s a powerful notion. And even if the album has some wack bars, it’s production, aesthetic, and sonic approach are all so impeccable that I’m willing to overlook a handful of goofy lyrics.

As great as Rodeo is, it (and Travis Scott as an entity) are prime examples of style over substance. And don’t get me wrong, there are some legitimately great songs on this album, but as a whole, Rodeo undeniably relies on textures and production to make up for its lyrical shortcomings. I’ve already made it clear that I don’t think lyrics are music’s end all be all (even for hip-hop), but I can totally see how someone approaching this album from a traditional rap mindset could leave Rodeo disappointed if they came in looking for clever writing.

But this is all me preemptively addressing valid criticism. I personally think that every track on Rodeo is great for one reason or another, and my positive memories associated with the album are more powerful than any objectivity I can ever offer up. In fact, I loved Rodeo so much that the next summer I ventured further back into Scott’s discography and found myself spinning his prior release Days Before Rodeo. I listened to the mixtape more times than I ever would have expected, and it ended up becoming my second-most played album of 2016 and currently sits at my 7th most played album of all time on last.fm. So yeah. I like that album quite a bit too.

Many of the same criticisms of Rodeo could also be applied to Days Before, but (again) I’m willing to overlook those shortcomings for the overall experience of the tape. So as I ravenously devoured these two albums I found myself rapidly advancing up the next step of my obsessive fandom staircase. I collected everything Travis-related that I could get my hands on. From tracking his features to obsessively compiling my own B-sides album it was safe to say I was in full-on hype mode.

Now is when crushing reality sets in. I’ve already linked to this reddit comment detailing the history of Travis’ broken promises in the lead-up to his second album, but I think it bears repeating. Delays and false release dates are nothing new for Travis, but this timeline highlights the absurdity of this particular album’s cycle. As someone following Travis very closely at this time, it was disheartening to have nearly weekly promises that ended up broken and eclipsed by yet another revised “announcement” the following week.

Things began to look up in June of 2016 when Travis dropped the Young Thug and Quavo-infused “Pick up The Phone.” Already a known quantity for months at that point, and fraught with last-minute legal troubles, it was a relief simply to have a fresh Travis song. I won’t get too deep into it here, but PUTP was one of my favorite songs last year and more recently has gone on to become my most listened to track of all time on last.fm within a year. It’s a breezy, ad lib-riddled summer banger. The syrupy bass line filled with intermittent 808 taps and distorted steel drums combines into a drugged-out soundscape that serves as the perfect backdrop for the three artists sharing the track.

“Pick up the Phone” felt like a positive sign to me. I couldn’t stop playing it, and it became my summer anthem within a matter of weeks. If this is the type of stuff Travis had in store for us on his next album, then maybe all the delays will have been worth it. And according to Travis, all his singles and loosies up to this point weren’t even on the album, because he wanted to give listeners a ‘fresh experience’ on their first listen. So if “Pick Up The Phone” wasn’t even good enough to make the cut, then I was officially hyped.

Travis followed that single up weeks later with a small feature on G.O.O.D. Music’s “Champions” another summer anthem that celebrates the return of Gucci Mane and showcased a rotating cast of hip-hop’s current stars and up-and-comers. Champions specifically brings to mind memories of my graduation which happened around the time of its release. In fact, my nostalgia for this track is so strong that I’ve even downloaded the version ripped from the radio because the drops evoke waves of nostalgia in me. I still remember sitting underneath Portland’s Moda Center in a cap and gown surrounded by friends and checking my phone in between conversations to see the explicit version of the track had been officially released. This comment thread specifically made me laugh so much that I still have the screencap of it saved in my phone.

But I’m getting horrifically off-topic. All signs were pointing towards a great release as Trav continued to promote his upcoming album. As mentioned above, the lead up to Birds was essentially a weekly string of broken promises and unfulfilled blue balls. And I get that it’s selfish to “expect” an album, but when you repeatedly say ‘my album is coming out in X days’ or “tonight” I’ll start to get pissed after the third or fourth time.

In early August Trav ended up droppings two loosies on his Apple Radio show: “The Hooch” and “Black Mass” they were both cool… but I was glad they were just loosies he was tossing off on his radio show. Weeks later, September 2nd he finally dropped his sophomore album Birds in the Trap Sing Mcknight.

I remember I was on vacation at the time and without a music streaming service. It agonized me that I couldn’t listen to the album until I got home. All I could do was enjoy my vacation *shudders* and read comments online.

They were exceedingly negative.

How could this be? I’d seen this happen before. In some ways I was glad. Whenever the internet mob preemptively lowers my expectations like this, I’d come out the other side enjoying what they were bitching about far more than I would have otherwise (see: Mass Effect 3, and Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book.) But I saw the bright side. I knew that when I did get back home and sit down to listen to the album, I should lower my expectations. If your expectations are low enough anything can exceed them, right?

Right?

The Problem With Birds

Birds In the Trap feels like drab, dark, and lifeless background music. That’s not to say I don’t like dark albums, there’s a time and place for them… but it just feels so incomplete and half-hearted here. Birds is devoid of life. It is (intentionally?) poorly mixed, lacking of substance, and the album art looks like an edgy Myspace background circa 2006. Look. I’m not saying Rodeo was high art or that it even had anything new to say, but it’s far more substantive than Birds ever tries to be. What Rodeo brought to the table was a metric fuckton of different ideas and sounds that were all produced impeccably. It commands attention and each track sounds different from the last. We ended up with the polar opposite on Birds.

As a person that talks about music, it feels like a cop-out to just link to someone else’s review, but The Needle Drop’s dissection of Birds is a pretty spot-on breakdown of what feels wrong with the album. Going back to the idea of an album’s substance, Birds feels like the album equivalent of an item off the McDonald’s Value Menu. It’s about the lowest of the low (even for fast food) but it still qualifies as “food” on a technical level.

At the risk of making a horrific pivot (or just to take a break from negativity), check out this video about True Detective. If you can’t watch all eleven minutes skip straight to 2:40 and watch the section on Rogue One. I can’t tell if this is a hyper-specific example, a universal one, or just something that I’m trying to crowbar in because I’m in the mood to rewatch True Detective, but this video felt oddly poignant. Specifically, the line “when the plot is motivated by a writer or director’s aesthetic needs instead of character motivation, something just inevitably feels missing.” To me, this describes Birds to a tee.

As mentioned ad nauseam, I do not go to Travis Scott for hyper-lyrical bars, so I didn’t expect that from Birds. What I did expect was thick production, varied textures, and (at the very least) some competent song structure. I ended up receiving very little of anything. It felt like Travis was chasing some aesthetic desire and forwent anything else that made his work interesting previously. And don’t get me wrong, I like some songs off of Birds, but in the year since its release, I’ve realized that it has become symbolic of him not trying.

The single standout from Birds is “Goosebumps” a Kendrick Lamar-collab with a drowsy bloop-filled beat accompanied by one of the most infectious hooks I’ve heard since “Pick up the Phone.” And speaking of “Pick up the Phone” the song ended up on the album. This is after Trav promised that Birds would be “all new material.” After he had already released the song three months prior in June. After it had already been included on Young Thug’s JEFFERY as a bonus track in August. Similarly, the sparkly weekend collab “Wonderful” ended up on Birds as the album’s closer after having already been released as a Soundcloud throwaway at the end of 2015. And that was the album’s closing track.

The whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. Alongside these repurposed tracks were songs like “SDP Interlude” that just come off as half-finished, under-developed scraps of songs that Travis just decided to toss onto the album. It was underwhelming in every sense of the word and didn’t clear my already-low expectations. But maybe this was just a sophomore slump. A byproduct of constant touring combined with the monumental task of following up an excellent predecessor.

This is truly my hope, but with each new piece of music emerging from Travis’ camp, I become less and less hopeful in a return to form anytime soon. I’ll dive deeper into my thoughts on Travis Scott’s current output and future in the fourth and final post coming very soon.

Read Part 4 Here

Hip-Hop and Musical Adventurousness

I never thought I’d be a hip-hop guy. I first became musically-conscious in my early teens and pledged allegiance to “rock” early on which, in my mind, meant swearing off everything that I perceived as mainstream. The classic rock that was so revelatory in middle school expanded my horizons and led me to grunge, metal, and stoner rock phases throughout my late teens. By the time I entered college I’d never genuinely been a fan of a single hip-hop artist apart from the now-defunct comedic hip-hop duo Das Racist… I suppose I did like Eminem, but being a white suburban teen, that was more out of obligation than undying fandom. I was still aware enough to realize I was missing out on something, but the juvenile punk rock mentality I had developed kept me from “giving in” to what I perceived as a lesser form of music.

It wasn’t until I saw a reddit thread announcing the premature release of Kanye West’s Yeezus that I realized I was missing out on something. The excitement was palpable, and the title (“So uh… Yeezus leaked.”) was intriguing enough to lead me to search the album out. I was so out of the hip-hop loop that I didn’t even realize this was a Kanye West album until I Googled it. I figured what did I have to lose? I downloaded the album, listened to it twice and didn’t get it. I knew Kanye was one of the biggest artists in the game (especially after his monumental 2010 album), but Yeezus on its own didn’t reveal to me to see what others saw in him.

Ironically, that same summer I had also gone down the rabbit hole that is Ween and discovered the beautiful insanity that is John Frusciante. Perhaps through those two artists I’d built up a tolerance to “dissonant” music because I ended up revisiting Yeezus during a vacation later that summer and fell in love with the record. The song “Bound 2” specifically hooked me early on and ended up being replayed constantly over the course of the trip. Everything from the sample, to the delivery, to the punchlines, to the way that Kanye twisted his words over the beat was amazing to me… and it was something that only that song did. Everything else on my iPod was rock, Yeezus was the only album within those 120 gigs that sounded anything like that. That same trip I heard “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and took it as a cosmic sign I needed to give Kanye a chance and check out the rest of his discography. I downloaded the rest of Kanye’s studio albums and figured that would be that. He was the only good hip-hop.

A year and a half later at the beginning of 2015 I found myself balls-deep in college, chipping away at a handful of remaining courses as I entered one of my last years of school. While I’d enjoyed my trip through Kanye’s discography, that journey didn’t lead me any deeper down the rabbit hole of hip-hop, instead I’d thrown myself deeper into rock and the genre was beginning to lose its luster as I found myself listening to more and more podcasts. Ironically, inspired by two separate reddit posts: one for Lil Wayne’s mixtape Sorry 4 the Wait 2, and a second (now deleted thread) for Drake’s surprise album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late both inspired me to give those releases a listen. Once again the excitement and experiences of complete strangers led me to albums I never thought I’d be listening to. Both Lil Wayne and Drake were artists which I had previously written off as musical fast food, yet they were both single-handedly inspiring hype and excitement the likes of which I had rarely seen online.

Between the epic history of Wayne’s Tha Carter V and the thinly-veiled shots both he and Drake seemingly took at Birdman on these releases, I realized I was missing out on something. That’s not to mention all the excitement, hype, and inside jokes that comes with the territory of hip-hop. These two releases opened the floodgates.

Based on how pumped Sorry 4 the Wait 2 got me in the gym, I was led to Young Thug, one of many rappers heavily-inspired by Lil Wayne. I’ll never be able to articulate why I love Young Thug as well as some of the articles written by professionals and music journalists, but things like this Instagram and this website speak for themselves. Young Thug is a creative force who has dismantled the previous boundaries established by the genre of hip-hop and created a sound rooted in upending the listener’s expectations. He’s a gangster who wears dresses. He’s a cold-blooded killer who calls his best friends “bae.” He’s a man who has written absurd lyrics like “I'mma ride in that pussy like a stroller” and made it sound so fucking natural.

If Lil Wayne and Drake opened my personal floodgates to hip-hop, then Young Thug removed the hinges and turned me into the type of hip-hop head that there is no coming back from. A month later, Kendrick Lamar dropped To Pimp a Butterfly, an album widely-considered one of the best since Kanye’s MBDTF. On the opposite end of the hip-hop spectrum Travis Scott released Rodeo which quickly became one of my favorite “less lyrically substantive” releases of the year. Both of these releases showed me that hip-hop can’t be placed in a single box, it’s more than drugs and women (though they are still discussed often). That summer Vince Staples released Summertime ‘06 and Future released DS2. These releases ended up serving as a perfect “sample platter” of what the genre could do. These albums along with the infamous Drake/Meek Mill Beef made me feel like I was a part of something not only bigger than myself, but more exciting than any other genre I’d ever been a fan of.

2015 represented a sea change in my musical perspective. Hip-hop is now my primary genre and I visit boards like /r/hiphopheads every day. It’s a scene that’s ever-changing in the most exciting ways. I’m just glad my eyes were opened when they were and that I’m now no longer missing out on an entire world I didn’t even know existed. It was childish to withhold an entire genre of music from myself, and I’ll never make that mistake again. As much as I wanted to pretend that I was musically-diverse, you’re still only as adventurous as you want to be, and if a lack of adventurousness means missing out, then you’re doing music wrong. Music should be fun, enjoy what you enjoy, but don’t ever close yourself off to something, because it just might be your next obsession. That’s a lesson I’ll carry forward for the rest of my life, and I owe that all to a guy who compared his teeth to toilet paper. Sometimes brilliance can come from the most unexpected places.