MIXTAPE REVIEW: Future (And others)- Future Presents F.B.G.: The Movie
Note: In case the closing moments of the review come across as “Unprofessional”, I apologize. If I were to reword it to sound calmer or more subjective, I’d be taking my emotions and opinions and diluting them. And I love you guys too much to do that. So enjoy.
Future is a rapper that confuses me to no end. His hooks and auto-tuned sing/rap styling sound like he’s drowning in the ocean…but for some reason it works. Everyone seemingly loved his debut album, Pluto, except for me. I see the appeal in Future as a T-Pain type artist, but not much else. I enjoy T-Pain on a ridiculous DJ Khaled track, not a horrendous album where half the material is filler. The same has to this point applied to Future.
Here, Pluto tries to go cinematic, even pointing this out in the title. Intro (Future) straight up says that the song acts as opening credits. Sadly, it feels like a bad omen of what’s to come. The cinematic production feels like we’re about to enter a battle in Lord of the Rings or Braveheart, except instead it has lazy percussion and some of the most annoyingly monotone rap/singing I’ve heard. Future just repeats numerous things that are “On Me”. This would have been a funny 1 minute opener, but then it lasts 4 1/2 minutes. It’s dreadful.
The single-bait track that follows, Fo Real, improves by actually having some form of strong structure. The production doesn’t do anything for me, but the delivery here is inspired, and Drake delivers a serviceable verse. But that’s a problem for the whole album. The best tracks are often nothing more than “Pretty good”. On Future’s tracks, his watery deliver turns from “Fun” to “Alright, we get it” very quickly, with the auto-tune affects becoming grating as soon as the 3rd track. Again, Future is the kind of guy who is suited for singles, not albums. Or mixtapes.
The production on this tape is absolutely uninteresting, full of the same boom-bass and cloud rap influenced beats that Hip-Hop has been inundated with since A$AP and Waka were getting big at the same time. Notice how those two rappers don’t really go together? That’s the production all over this tape, since it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Future tries to mix in “Cinematic” strings and orchestral thrills, but drowns them out with generic bass thumps and clicky percussion. Not a single beat comes across as memorable, and since Future doesn’t really do enough himself to keep things interesting, the tape falls on its face.
Image Courtesy Pitchfork
Now, Future presents a variety of different rappers here, “Actors in the film” (Notice I keep putting these movie references in quotation marks, because I hate them). Aside from Drake, no one really delivers a guest verse worth time. Wale makes himself more detestable on Ceelo, and B*tches Love Me feels like I’m getting sucked into a giant whirlpool, with the watery sound of Lil Wayne and Future’s auto-tune overwhelming pretty much everything. Birdman (for whatever reason) gets a 30 second interlude where he basically does shout-outs and says nothing worth attention. There are some tracks that don’t even have any Future on them. The first of which, Mup*ucka, is TERRIBLE. The two no names, Mexico Rann and Young Scooter, lack charisma and their lyricism is on about the same level of guys like Waka or Chief Keef (And this mixtape is a prime example of why I somewhat resent their influence). Oh, and the beat is horrendous. These no-names (Who are being showcased as Future’s proteges and buddies) lack the skill and charisma required to make them stand out, which ruins basically every track that Future isn’t on.
There are points on the album where I can drop my reservations and kind of enjoy myself. I have a soft spot for incredibly ignorant Trap-Rap tracks that go hard, so needless to say I liked Marc Mcquire (WHO YOU THANK YOU IS!?!?! WHO YOU THANK YOU IS?!?!). But there lies another problem. But what I like in that song relies more on the testosterone and energy entailed in it, not so much the lyricism or production (It’s suitable, but nothing interesting). Plus, the whole “Film” concept is just dropped by track 6, and if it is still there, it’s drowned out by the obnoxious bass.
And even Future’s strong suit, hooks, fall flat here. The staccato drug talk on Karate Chop is too choppy to be remotely enjoyable, and too many tracks just kind of toss together repeated melodies and words just so they have some kind of hook. The worst offense here, however, is the length. I was fatigued at the 10th track. THE WHOLE THING IS 24 TRACKS LONG. THE THEME THAT HE USED TO UNITE THE THING WAS COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN BY TRACK 5. I mean, by the time we get to track 20, almost every track suffers the same exact problems. It just feels like it devolves into loud bass with Future moaning about syrup and women over it.
IT’S EXACTLY WHAT I DON’T LIKE ABOUT HIP-HOP
ALSO, SISQO IS STILL RECORDING MUSIC?
Summary: Overlong, repetitive, monotonous, generically produced, confused, bloated, and severely lacking in the song department, this “Movie” by Future comes across as a Hip-Hop equivalent to a Michael Bay movie.
Choice Cuts: Fo Real, Mark Mcquire
1/5
You can download the tape here.
ALBUM/MIXTAPE REVIEW: The Rosebuds- Love Deluxe (The Rosebuds Perform Sade)
I actually have seen The Rosebuds live. In July 2011, they opened for Bon Iver on the opening night of the national tour. They were fine enough, they had some nice folk vibes and some catchy tunes. I enjoyed them enough, even if they didn’t exactly stick out. Then a few days ago, they released this free album, a cover of Sade’s Love Deluxe. A smooth soul album. Needless to say, I was a bit confused. And even after listening, I’m still rather confused.
They covered the entire album, front to back. Now, folk has earned a lot of R&b influence as of late (Thanks to Bon Iver). However, this seemingly pushes the trend to a ridiculous extreme. The opener, No Ordinary Love, doesn’t really change the instrumentation enough from the original to make it interesting (Save some slightly louder percussion). Lead singer Ivan Howard’s singing on this track (And pretty much every other one) comes across as a bit awkward and forced.
In fact, this whole tape comes across as a bit awkward and forced. The “Whoa-ohs” and “Uh-huhs” at the beginning of Feel No Pain nearly made me gag. This is less of a fully realized project and more of a drunken Karaoke night. Except the only songs you can singer are from Sade’s The Love Deluxe. And the only people singing is your awkward white friend from accounting.
Even a lot of the instrumentation here feels really out of place. The guitars on Feel No Pain are very odd for the group, as are all the synths thrown around throughout the album. Plus, there’s no emotion anywhere to be found on this tape. They’re just playing the notes. It’s as if Howard is just singing random words. Which isn’t how it should work, because Sade’s music is just jam packed with emotion. This rendition is jam packed with cheese.
Some of the tracks are alright. Couldn’t Love You More sounds pretty good (if not a bit repetitive). And the sax on Bullet Proof Soul sounds alright. But outside of that, this entirely nonsensical project just comes across as awkward and forced. A tribute gone wrong. Influences over-influencing. It’s just mediocre.
This tape might just be some kind of a throwaway, but that doesn’t matter to me. Regardless of whether it’s a real project or just a fun little side thing they did because they were bored, it’s still pretty awful. I’d rather just listen to Sade’s album. and just leave The Rosebuds to their usual (Not R&B) style.
Summary: The Rosebuds’ cover of The Love Deluxe is influenced a bit too much, and comes across as more awkward and forced than earnest and smooth
Choice Cuts- Couldn’t Love You More, Bullet Proof Soul
1/5
You can stream and download the entire tape below.
ALBUM REVIEW: Christina Aguilera- Lotus
And now, 50 ways to make a really mediocre album:
- <—- That album art
- Using a trap rap style bass on a song that isn’t a trap rap song
- Clearly modulating your voice for a non artistic effect
- The spoken word on Lotus Intro
- Blocking some pretty sounding strings with loud bass and mediocre background singers
- Relying on whispered, quiet singing when a singer’s clear forte is exaggerated singer.
- Trend hopping (The Deadmau5 garbage on Army of Me)
- That 80s guitar they put on Army of Me seriously doesn’t make any sense.
- Use a gross hook like the “Oooooo” on Red Hot Kinda Love
- The “Na Na Na” on Red Hot Kinda Love
- The talk-singy percussion on Red Hot Kinda Love
- The generic and bland beat on Red Hot Kinda Love
- The exaggerated voice that she uses on the bridge of Red Hot Kinda Love
- Pretty much every element of Red Hot Kinda Love
- The 80s Hip-Hop beat on Make The World Love
- “Turn Up The Love, Turn Down the Hate”- Ugh…
- The Crazy In Love bridge on Make the World Love makes no sense in the song
- Using the incredibly talented Cee-Lo for practically nothing
- Titling a Christina Aguilera song Your Body at this point in her career
- The Katy Perry chorus on said song
- The bland beats on that song
- Making Your Body too slow
- The sudden change in beat at the end of the song that isn’t naturally realized at all. It just kind of jumps to it. It really ruins the song.
- Relying too much on choruses and ignoring verses
- Making the relied on choruses too boring.
- Making a song called Let There Be Love that A) Isn’t a Great American Songbook version and B) Sounds like a shitty David Guetta track.
- I’ll just say “Trend Hopping” again
- Repeating a chorus 3 times before getting to a 10 second verse…and then going right back to the repetitive verse again.
- The uninteresting synth solo
- “Let Me Live Let Me Live” I think?
- Gunning a bit too hard for club play.
- Making a nice piano ballad with a sequenced beat over it.
- Sticking too many words into a line of a song.
- Putting way too much emphasis on instruments
- Or putting way too much emphasis on Aguilera
- The 80s key change on Sing For Me
- For being a “Jubilant” song, Sing For Me is pretty boring and unexciting.
- The “Vocal Masturbation” at the end of Sing For Me
- Having only one solid track (Blank Page) on your album.
- Having a haunted chorus that would sound great acapella, but then throwing a throbbing ugly synth over it.
- Using Aguilera’s weird non-gorgeous singing voice (All throughout Cease Fire)
- The seemingly forced verse to choir movement
- The modulated voices on that song
- “All Around Around Around” is an incredibly annoying hook
- The bland percussion on Around the World
- “We’re We’re We’re Makin’ Love”
- The military drumming on Best of Me
- The unnatural chorus on Best of Me
- Using a weird country style on Just a Fool
- Ending with the awkward duet.
Summary: It’s not offensive. But it is pretty awful.
Choice Cuts- Blank Page
1/5
Lotus is out now on RCA
ALBUM REVIEW: No Doubt-Push and Shove
No Doubt is a Pop/Ska Rock group from Anaheim California, one that blew up in the mid-90s. After the release of their Diamond Certified Tragic Kingdom album in 1995, the group really blew up. They also brought in yet another revival of the ska-sound in Rock. After releasing their 5th studio album, Rock Steady in 2001, the band went on a bit of a hiatus. And by “A bit of a Hiatus”, I mean an 11 year hiatus. The most active member of the group during this time was Gwen Stefani, who of course released two solo albums, and the forever-irritating single Hollaback Girl. Push and Shove is the groups first album post-hiatus, and the results show that the group is a bit rusty.
Revisiting their pat albums before reviewing this album, I can safely say that I don’t see the greatness in the group some people do. They’ve got some good singles and Tragic Kingdom is actually a very solid album. Outside of that, they have a sound that doesn’t exactly appeal to me. I do like Ska music, but I like it with an attitude. The further you go through the albums No Doubt has released, the less attitude is there. With 12 years between their last, kind of distant-feeling album; it makes a lot of sense that Push and Shove is nothing but a mindless, boring pop album.
The first thing that sticks out is how over produced this thing is. The production makes everything glossy and crisp, which takes away from whatever miniscule attitude and vaguely ska-punk feeling is left in the music. The album is made like any other major-label pop album out there, and thus it kind of makes it sound very ordinary. Since none of the hooks or melodies are really ear-catching, the whole album just kind of melts into a giant, boring cesspool.
Then you get some songs that just sound like boring Katy Perry ballads, like Undone. That song does absolutely nothing interesting, with an overly crisp guitar, some bland percussion, and some of the most synthetic sounding strings I’ve ever heard. Plus, Stefani’s voice lacks both charisma and emotional resonance, which really makes the entire track an ugly lost cause. There are actually a lot of songs where Stefani sounds like she’d rather be elsewhere. Every song just feels forced and sad.
The percussion here, while something that I might not notice on all albums, does stick out in a negative way. All the rhythms and fills are all things that have been done to death elsewhere. Since the album is mixed in a weird way, the drums really come to the front of the mix. They come off as generic and bland, thus throwing a negative effect into the rest of the song. There are also some synths scattered on songs like Heaven and Dreaming The Same Dream that, while they aren’t awful, do feel very dated. I mean, if there’s one way to date something with a heavy Ska-influence, it’s 80s synthesizers.
The guitars, for the most part, are the one thing that kind of feel alright. On the previously mentioned Dreaming the Same Dream, they kind of steal the show with their crisp and spacious sound. There are other parts where, oddly enough, the guitar really shows up both percussion and Gwen Stefani. So, in that regard, there are some good things going on here.
Then the Ska elements that actually are still here fall a bit flat. There’s a horn solo on Sparkle, but the instrument just sounds a bit constrained and bored. Then there are some trumpets backing on Heaven, but they’re so far back in the mix that the uninteresting lead vocals and percussion just kind of swamp everything up. It’s just kind of sad. Really, these songs sound more like a Katy Perry rarities collection than anything remotely resembling a rock album. I mean, the beat on Looking Hot feels like it was directly lifted from a Katy Perry song. They just sprinkled some boring trumpets in to make it “Different”.
In fact, that sound also reflects some weird influences here that just shouldn’t be on a No Doubt album. First of all, the sugary-pop backing beat I previously mentioned from Looking Hot. It just removes any semblance of the ska genre from the song. Then, there is some almost Hip-Hop bass beats on Easy, along with some more dub elements. It just doesn’t make sense with the song, especially since it has an ending that kind of sound like a power ballad. And while album highlight Push & Shove (Produced by Major Lazer, with some nice vocals by Busy Signal) does match the Ska sound we’ve been looking for, it suffers from a out-of-place chorus.
Even if one were to judge this as a pop album, it still falls a bit flat. The melodies are forgettable, the hooks either annoying or generic, and the chances of any of these songs getting ingrained into your skull are low. This album just feels like it’s been done a hundred times before by a hundred other bands. There’s nothing that’s “Awful”, it’s just that everything is “Mediocre”.
Summary: Push and Shove suffers from some misplaced production and a lack of drive, thus giving us another generic major-label “Rock” album.
Choice Cuts: Push & Shove, Dreaming the Same Dream
1/5
Watch the video for Push & Shove (Song) below. Push & Shove (The album) is out now on Interscope
ALBUM REVIEW: Green Day-¡UNO!
In case you were unaware, Green Day is a Pop Punk group from East Bay, California. Consisting of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool, the group blew up after the release of their Reprise debut, Dookie (An album I’ll admit is particularly solid). In the years following, they released several popular (albeit more and more commercial sounding) albums, including Nimrod, Warner, 21st Century Breakdown and their blockbuster 2004 album American Idiot. In the past few days, however, Green Day (specifically lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong) have had a few…unfortunate events. I’ll let you get up to date briefly (Warning: The Meltdown video has some harsh language).
Billie Joe Armstrong also reportedly entered rehab for substance abuse. Now, there’s a lot one can interpret from these events. Some may say that it’s just an understandable breakdown (I’d be mad if my set were cut in half, too). However, doesn’t all of this seem a bit convenient for Armstrong to lose his cool onstage at a (clearly well recorded) festival just days before his band’s album dropped? Also, with ¡UNO! being somewhat of a return to an older Green Day sound, doesn’t it feel like these actions are trying to illustrate Armstrong as a bit more…punk? And if they are “Punk”…why the hell are they signed to Reprise records?
Either way, Controversy or none, we still have the album itself to look into. Sadly, without the stage tirades and rehab, it’s not nearly as interesting.
One thing I’ve noticed since Dookie is that their sound has veered further and further towards the “Pop” edge of their genre. It makes sense, since that’s clearly a sound that would appeal to a wider base (I’ve never really seen punk bands as having much more than a somewhat niche appeal). However, with their change in sound came a change in style. By the time American Idiot came out, their albums felt more like Pop-Rock efforts that one could get easily anywhere else. 21 Guns off of 21st Century Breakdown is basically a slower rock song.
¡UNO!, their first album in 3 years, kind of marks a return back to their older sound. However, it feels as if they’ve forgotten what punk really is. First of all, the album at least has a “Punk” format. Most of the songs are (mercifully) short, and the album isn’t entirely cohesive. Outside of a general style of sound, it feels like more of a collection of songs than a thought out album (Something that American Idiot at least of kind of had going for it).
However, a ton of these songs (AKA all of them) have problems sticking out. The opener sounds like the third track which sounds like the sixth track…and so on. Every track has a bunch of power chords, bland percussion, and Armstrong saying F**k a lot (I will return to that element). American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown, while I didn’t care for either, at least managed to present some interesting ideas. Here, not much is brought to the table. If Green Day had more going for it sonically and musically, we’d be fine with the low concepts here. But…they don’t.
The percussion always feels buried underneath all the guitars, and even when you can hear it, it’s rather repetitive (Loss of Control shows this off pretty well). Then the guitars just chug out some power chords that lack any substance or interesting elements. Then Armstrong’s lame vocals (Something about the band that I dread) are thrown in, and they don’t react well with the instruments. The one time that his vocals aren’t absolutely unbearable is on Troublemaker, and it’s only because there’s some nice harmonies on there (Which, I point out, have been done better in many places before). The little hook on that song is awful, as well.
The lyrics are Green Days worst offender. Most of them have nothing interesting to say, which violates normal rules for punk. In Punk, if you’re going to sing, have something interesting to stay. Armstrong never has anything worthwhile to say. Kill the DJ is repetitive and doesn’t really get any sort of message or feeling across effectively (Other than apparently Armstrong doesn’t like DJs). He also throws in a nearly superfluous amount of f-bombs, which I think he adds because nothing else about his lyrics stick out.
¡UNO! has Green Day return to their original sound (kind of), but it doesn’t do so effectively. This album really shows the “Punk Band”‘s age, with boring hooks and a seeming lack of energy. The lack of energy is even weirder since the album sounds like there’s more energy there, but that’s just because there aren’t any dreary ballads to bring the pace down. Then the production is just glossy to a degree that it’s angering. With all of these problems, Armstrong’s tantrum makes sense. When you’re a Punk Rock band that’s made the horrible decision to sign to a major label, and you’re still stuck making uninteresting, uninspired music past the age of 40, maybe the only thing left to do is throw a fit. That or he’s just a prima dona, forgetful of his music from 25 years ago; looking for more money. I’ll take the latter.
Summary:¡UNO! manages to show Green Day’s age and blandness through uninspired songs, derivative riffs, and a loss of the meaning behind their music.
Choice Cuts- I kind of like Oh Love
.5-1/5
The video for Kill the DJ is below. ¡UNO! is out now on Reprise. Their two follow up albums (…) ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! will be out later this year/early next year
Vantage Point Music 