Danny is a real American Black weirdo, the latest in a long line, and I think of all the names around here, he is the most purely commited and commitable rhymer. His flow isn’t better, phrasing not as good as Lamar and neither is his voice but his rhyming is impeccable and the two albums I’ve heard are both simply and undoubtedly fabulous albums
Mathematics – Mos Def – “You want to know how to rhyme you better learn how to add” Mos Def advises and he makes his point on this classic whose rhythmic hook has showed has shown up ever since, on the flip side of his biggest song – A
Half of this list are new this week, proof, as is Rick Ross, whose sales are down by 25% from his last album, that the album charts are a bewildering wonderland of medium cool bands here today and gone tody and all the real action is on the singles chart.
After moving over a million units the first week, and half a million the second week, Beyonce has been on the charts for the entire year and counting. 11 weeks? Which makes it the album of the year so far. Meanwhile… the Schoolboy Q and the Kid Cudi have their moments FYI.
Paul Simon? The boy with the thorn in his side. The thorn’s name? Sting , of course. The thought of these two together at last fills me with some unnamed and unknowable dread. It is a horrifying concept of finality, death, despair, the great unknown
“Wild Wild Love” is stickier than toffee apple in a three year old girls curls, and the rest of this includes two quasi experimental performers going mainstream and a garage band from the 1970s still doing t to tremendous effect in 2014. The past two weeks have been easily the best of the year.
It is like grunge without the loud/soft stuff and with much more sonic pounce in its step, but also without the sense of a scene to make sense of it, unless you consider former members of Male Bonding a scene – B+
The least weird song on the album is still pretty weird, a dance number but it sounds like Robyn on a jittery caffeine high but suffering a fit of manic depression and she just can’t shake it until in a wild rhythmic breakdown she pauses and regroups none the better – A
Country boy Dierk is good where nearly everybody else isn’t because he has a great voice for this but also because he plays country rock with backbone and intricate clicked in arrangement, maybe because he isn’t a boy any more If he was better lyrically he’d be blowing Brad Paisley away, just the way he did when he opened for Brad at MSG – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – B+
Everything we’ve heard from Beck’s Morning Phase (his self professed follow up to Sea Change) have been excellent; there is nothing to choose between “Wave”, “Waking Light” and “Blue Moon”, they are first rate return to forms. Otherwise, Schoolboy Q, St. Vincent, Neneh Cherry, maybe Wild Beasts.
