Sep 18, 2020

Huge thanks man, I honestly don't consider myself to be a writer in an anyway so this feedback means a lot! For the stuff that isn't Rap, I try to find some kind of parallel since this might sway people that possibly read these reviews to hopefully give it a chance.

Darn a favorite song, aside from the stellar singles it might either be War of the Hearts or Maureen. Both are just remarkable examples of each band member firing at full cylinders with the smooth jazz style, plus dat sax

 

Sep 18, 2020

You have this uncanny knack of capturing my thoughts and summarising them in ways I never would've imagined, but they make a whole lot of sense once read

Favourite song of yours from this sophomore sensation?

 

Sep 18, 2020

@Ordinary Joel

#50: Sade - Promise [8.8/10]​

It's a tall, tall task trying to rank this band's discography. I'd place Love Deluxe at the summit for sure, it has Sade at their most introspective, expressive, inarguably by that point the band had mastered their patented Neo-soul/smooth jazz style that they innovated the industry with. After that it's a marble scramble trying to find the proper placement of each album, the difficulty lies in which direction did you, the listener, find yourself more impressed with. Diamond Life was the quintessential debut where. they showcased their brand of jazz-pop, their 3rd effort Stronger Than Pride was the band taking a quantum leap as musicians and Sade uncovering another frontier of Soul in her voice that lied within. Their efforts in the Aughts are mature slow-burners that embrace their senior presences and while they can be a bit inconsistent, they're still gratifying to listen to since Sade, is well, incredible. That brings us to this...

On their sophomore effort, I can't help but assimilate the similar direction Kanye took with Late Registration following The College Dropout, both cases here are an example of how to expand and refine your signature sound. On Promise the instruments are even more fleshed out in the mixing, there was a point to prove from the band saying "Hey we're more than just our immaculate lead singer!" Everything they did by taking Jazz instruments and turning it into soulful-pop from their debut was amplified considerably on here, it was a signal of their versatility and set off a trajectory of growth with each following album. The A-side of this album is without a shadow of a doubt, the most unapologetically groovy they've ever been, that string of the first three songs is a trip to some smooth island resort paradise. So with the being said, Promise to me is their most important album and for me their 3rd best, just behind Stronger Than Pride, g.d. what a catalog...

 

Sep 13, 2020

@Genysis

#49: Cypress Hill - Black Sunday [9/10]​

We've all had our encounters with bud at some point in our lives. College were both the best years of my life, and by far the most challenging with the loaded schedule that I had back then. Weed was one h--- of a calming presence when I needed it, even if it also put me on knife's edge anytime NCAA doping tests came around. Cypress Hill has nothing to do with that anecdote other than the correlations between their our shared advocation of marijuana for medical purposes. Actually, I do remember this one time I visited my friends at their dorm, they had Mario Kart Double Dash on deck with pounds of loud alongside this album in the background, looked like a scene out of How High. Before we got stoned out of our minds, I do recall my buddy suddenly slow down to a halt on his screen and when I looked over the couch I saw my guy just passed out lmao.

Now this album, is still shockingly impressive even with all the time that has passed by. DJ Muggs doesn't get enough credit for how left-field his production was, only RZA is the other contemporary I can think of that also was able to combine these dusty break loops with samples that they chopped up to be as spooky as humanly possible. Black Sunday makes you feel like it's Halloween night outside, no matter the time or weather, both the screechy instrumentals and B-Real & Sen Dog's cartoonish presences generate that sort of murky, smoke-filled atmosphere that encapsulated why this album is still a seminal record in the genre. It's unabashedly 90s, the sort of rap that could sit comfortably next to punk rock on MTV, which is exactly why they did two songs on the classic Judgement Night OST. Shoutout to B-Real & co as their work earned inner city-raised Mexicans like me hood passes to everywhere.

 

Sep 10, 2020

@awhellno

#47: GASHI - 1984 [8.1/10]​

Now this, THIS...is culture. I had to change my wardrobe while I bumped this, had to rock a powerful vintage suit with a cuban linx on while I daydreamed my living room turned into a raunchy 80's South Beach clubhouse with cocaine spilled all over the floor and some fly chick with a tiger-striped mink just walked by me and winked as she headed to the dance floor. Granted, this was one heck of a direction change from GASHI, he always had aptness for pop-rap, but this completely floored me. He went from being a quietly good tastemaker of hazy Drake-ish Rap/R&B fusions to slowly showing signs of being an adaptable hitmaker, so theoretically I should have seen the signs coming for 1984.

This recent influx of 80's pop music has honestly been satisfying, Abel's made very good use of it and Dua Lipa dabbled into it in a few instances with her monumental Future Nostalgia. GASHI goes even deeper into the synth-heavy/New Wave cues with every song sounding like something that could have inhabited a Hall & Oates or New Order album. Even freaking Sting showed up out of obscurity to bless this album, it's admirable how true to its core 1984 ends up being. GASHI does end up being a passenger on the project in a few instances, blending into the background of the aesthetic rather than commanding it. But it's not necessarily a crippling gripe that takes away from the awesome consistency and flexibly that GASHI emanates, it's a seriously fun and accessible album.

 

Sep 10, 2020

Huge thank you brother, I’m honestly shocked at far it’s come!

Yesssss!!!! Love this album, can’t wait to get there. Always appreciate the kind words my brudda, your thread been a blessing to me too, let’s keep carrying MusicSXN!

 

Sep 7, 2020

@Donkey Kong Cuntry

#42: Suicide Squad: The Album [4.5/10]​

So Fire Squad reviews Suicide Squad (the soundtrack), beautiful. I am no film connoisseur but I do love DC Comics, like most fans that saw this film, it was a mixed bag of a movie. There were a couple of big screen debuts for some beloved characters that were either portrayed appropriately or downright atrociously. Taking that into mind, it's important to establish how much music can accentuate movies; imagine Tarantino flicks without his eclectic selections of songs or what if Prince was convinced to not mold an entire movie out of his music. Heh, I could only wish this whole experience was as good as Purple Rain.

This was a soundtrack of diminutive peaks and bottomless valleys to say the least. Much like the movie itself, it's chaotic and all over the place, it's bombastic for the sake of being bombastic and truthfully I'd rather take a baseball bat to the skull (via Harley Quinn) than to ever listen to a Twenty One Pilots song ever again. I don't know in what A&R's imagination would you ever think it's a great idea of placing Imagine Dragons, that biracial loser Logic & Lil Wayne into a song together, for all I know he probably has a portrait of Fred Durst hanging in his living room. Why is Panic! At the Disco covering Queen? Why is Fortunate Son on a superhero flick that doesn't involve the Vietnam War? I think the only semblances of joy I had were listening to the Action Bronson song and vintage goofball Eminem. I get it, it isn't a bad idea of tacking popular sounds and artists together in hopes to generate a buzz, but at least take into mind the various elements that make a soundtrack good: cohesion, balance & more importantly, a lack of Twenty One Pilots.

 

Sep 6, 2020

am your write ups are something else! Absolutely love them just as much as I enjoy the album in question!

 

Sep 6, 2020

Bumping it right now, gonna have the review in a couple! Forgot how much I loved how this dude rapped, late 90s Rawkus was a goldmine for intricate rappers

 

Sep 6, 2020

At least you've got Pharoah before that!

 

Sep 6, 2020

I usually do this chronologically, the worst part is I gotta get through Suicide Squad ST & a f---ing Flavor Flav album before this heals my eardrums

I'll keep you posted though!

 

Sep 4, 2020

Comptons Most Wanted - Music to Driveby

 

Sep 4, 2020

There was a LOT of incredible music that dropped last year but the more time passes, the more I settle on this being my favorite album of 2019. And Denzel's best overall. Insane energy, flawless front to back.

 

Sep 4, 2020

@Ordinary Joel

#38: Hermit and the Recluse - Orpheus vs the sirens [8.6/10]​

To sum up New York rap in the 2010's would be a tall tale of confusion, homogenization and lately tons of hubris. The giants of the past were still mainstays, but we had a ton of revelations that either poked at superstardom (Nicki, Rocky, Cardi, *sigh* 69) or became talented niche artists (Joey, Roc Marciano, Zombies, Griselda). Ka, falls right into the latter category; a mysterious, elusive, almost sinister poet that lurks from the Brooklyn shadows like the boogie man. He's had a number of remarkable projects with Descendants of Cain & Honor Killed the Samurai coming to mind, all of them are stunning demonstrations of elite penmanship and abstract story-telling. Just when you think Ka couldn't raise the stakes any higher, he dropped this colossus of a project...

I have no idea who the heck Animoss is, but the stuff he cooked up for Ka is jaw-dropping. This isn't a conventional hip-hop album as much as it isn't rhyming in rhythm, there are extended stretches where there are zero traces of drums and most of the time you just have to bear with Ka's sleek vocals. Conceptually this was executed flawlessly, taking greek mythology and threading it with growing up in NYC takes one heck of an imagination and it's presentation is reminiscent of what Deltron once did. In half an hour, you'll be done with this project and will want to embark on a God-slaying arc like Kratos but instead your roaming the streets of Brownsville, it's incredible that this album actually worked and it's another fine piece of Ka's peerless catalog.

 

Sep 1, 2020

Thanks for the warm welcome! This forum seems like a great place for real discussion as opposed to some of the other message boards, so I'll be sure to stick around. Great review, the Big Country edition intrigues me - I need to get my hands on a link. City in the Sky might be one of my favorite Kanye joints. 8 out of 10 seems like a fair shake.

 

Sep 1, 2020

valerie cooper’s her name. def need a solo album