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.
MIXTAPE REVIEW: Captain Murphy- Duality
Who is Captain Murphy? That’s a great question. The guy(s…?) has been releasing tracks all summer after debuting on Flying Lotus’ Adult Swim single Between Friends. It’s widely debated who “Captain Murphy” is, since his flow is constantly pitch shifted throughout all his tracks. Some people think that it’s simply Flying Lotus rapping. Others think it’s Tyler, The Creator. A few people think it’s actually legendary rapper DOOM. But no one really knows. My money’s on Tyler, but I can’t be for sure. So here we are with a mystery man who is actually quite the rapper (And if he produces this stuff himself, then quite the producer as well) and this mixtape.
I don’t know if Flying Lotus is involved at all with this tape, but I almost suspect that he is, since the production here is fantastic. It’s full of old soul samples, some fantastic guitar samples, and a really mysterious psychedelic feel to it. Plus the mixtape is full of dialogue samples of psychiatrists and such. It really feels like Goblin. Except better. Some of the tape does rely a bit too much on samples. Some of the songs (Which I can’t really name since it’s all just one big 30 minute track) are interrupted by dialogue samples that interrupt the beat somewhat unnaturally. But for the most part, the samples are well executed and don’t take away from the overall quality of the tape.
Between Friends does appear on the tape, and it fits in just fine (Which continues to lead me to believe that Flying Lotus did in fact produce this tape). In retrospect, it totally represents the psychedelia of the tape. The beats are absolutely enthralling and absorbing. Really, I have no complaints about the production.
I do like Captain Murphy’s voice. It is rather strange with the modulation, but you can still see that (Whoever this is) has a nice aggressive flow. I did notice that there are a few points where it’s hard to tell what he’s saying, but you can always tell that his flow is intricate and off-kilter. It has some sort of resonance to it, regardless of what pitch he uses. Despite the intricate and wonderful production, Captain Murphy manages to not be swallowed by the wild sounds he raps over. And that’s something I don’t think a lot of rappers would be able to do.
I Thoroughly enjoyed this tape. I mean, the production is just amazing. Murphy has a nice flow (plus he has some great lines). And the whole tape just had a really nice linear feel to it. This shows that Murphy is less of a one time trick and more of an actual artist.
Summary: We may not know who Captain Murphy is, but with production, flow, and sampling this good…does it matter?
Choice Cuts- N/A
4.5/5
Stream The Killing Joke below. You can download the mixtape here.
MIXTAPE REVIEW: Action Bronson- Rare Chandeliers
Action Bronson has released a lot of material in the past two years, so it’s been kind of hard to keep up. First there was that Dr. Lecter album that came out in June of 2011. Then he released a bunch of mixtapes, including this year’s really good Blue Chips mixtape with Party Supplies. Now, he’s dropped yet another mixtape, this time with legendary producer Alchemist.
While I’ve liked most of Bronson’s past material, I’ve never really loved his work. He has a booming and nasty flow, but his lyricism sometimes gets in the way. He veers between talking about his food (Which I’m cool with) and graphic sexual talk (Which I’m not as cool with). He also normally has production I like, but it’s never really memorable. Here, I was hoping that a few of those little nit picky issues would change. Bronson has really matured over the past couple of projects, and it’s shown. Plus Alchemist is a fantastic producer. The man had the power to salvage that mediocre Domo Genesis EP earlier this year.
The tape does immediately show promise. The beat on Big Body Bes Intro is just lush and bold. Then Bronson immediately goes hard on Rare Chandeliers, using a fiery flow over the James Bond-esque beat. The samples that Alchemist uses in-between Bronson’s verses are absolutely wonderful, adding a sense of more old school Hip-Hop to the tape. Which I really like.
Really, the thing that sticks out here isn’t Action Bronson, but Alchemist. Each beat sounds like its been tended to with the greatest care. Everything sounds just perfect. Plus, it shows that you don’t need SBS (Southern Boom S**t) beats in order to sound aggression or tough. I mean, Bronson is a big fluffy fat guy who has a thing for fine cuisine, and on this tape he sounds absolutely mean. In fact, Alchemist’s beats sound even better than much of his own past work. While his beats on No Idols did improve that tape, the beats were a bit one note and boring. Here, they live and breath, being exciting without taking too much attention away from Bronson. I mean, the saxophones on I Deserve You are absolutely great (along with the soul samples). In fact, this tape really feels like some early era Kanye West production. And I’m totally cool with that.
The guests here sound pretty good. They all have voices that match the feel of the tape, which is something that normally doesn’t happen. I especially like the track with Black Hippy’s Schoolboy Q (Someone that always sounds better on guest verses than his own tracks). For the most part, Bronson does his best here. His flow is fiery and his lyrics aren’t disgusting to the point of me wanting to turn off the tape. The lyrics aren’t particularly interesting, which is a little gripe I have, but they aren’t bad. I’m just glad he’s not graphically talking about vaginas and celery in the same verse as much. And if he does, I was too distracted by the fantastic production and the sound of his voice on the beat to really take notice.
Summary: Rare Chandeliers is Bronson’s best project yet, with some fantastic production, a bold flow, and some solid guests.
Choice Cuts- Rare Chandeliers, Demolition Man, B***h I Deserve You,
Also, that Mixtape Cover is fantastic.
4/5
Stream the entire tape below. You can download Rare Chandeliers here
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: Green Day- ¡Dos!
So, if you remember like two months back, you might be thinking to yourself “Man, Sam isn’t going to like this at all”. Well, guess what? You’re right and wrong.
Despite some slow down in Green Day’s touring and such, they decided to move their trilogy up a few weeks so that the second installment would come this week. With three albums in less than a couple of months, you’d think that Green Day would be releasing pretty much everything they recorded, resulting in low quality albums with little memorability. ¡Uno! proved this in flying (falling) colors.
However, for some reason, it seems that ¡Dos! makes up a little for that false start that ¡Uno! presented. ¡Dos! manages to pack more interesting ideas and songs into a shorter amount of time, which may be the only reason I do think this is a big improvement from ¡Uno!. The first album in this trilogy was jam packed with songs that all sounded the same, with little shift in style or tone. Here, we get somewhat of a stylistic change, opening with an acoustic song that lasts more or less a minute. While the song isn’t incredibly groundbreaking or memorable, it does present something different from the first go-round rather than rehashing the same tired idea over and over and over again.
OF course, this album suffers some of the same exact problems as ¡Uno!. A lot of these songs are full of the same cliches- lame hooks, bland riffs, derivative solos- that their last effort was riddled with. However, for some reason, this album comes across as bit less forced when it is guilty of these late-career tropes. Maybe it’s because they are less forced. While a lot of songs on ¡Uno! went too hard to either appeal to their old punk audience or to be accessible to a grander pop audience, the songs here feel slightly more earnest and more easy going in their direction. Sure, some of it is still a bit contrived. But it’s not as painfully obvious as it was before.
The subject matter and lyricism is still non-revolutionary and a bit too plain for me to enjoy. I mean, the second track F**k Time is incredibly blunt, but it isn’t funny enough to make up for the tastefulness boldness. They’re still liberally throwing around F-bombs and talking about “Crazy Parties” (Even though Makeout Party sounds pretty tame for a punk band…it might be pretty hardcore for some Radio Disney punk bands…if those are even a things. I digress). The lyrical hold backs are less evident due to the reinvigorated guitars and drums on this album (Seriously, the guitars on ¡Uno! that I hated so much have shown a ton of new energy on this album).
I’d go more into specifics, but there’s really no point. All the points from¡Uno! review remain, except the stuff hear is much more inspired and less monotonous. I didn’t really have a hard time listening to this like I did during ¡Uno!. Hell, some tracks made me tap my foot a little bit. But, there still are some tragic missteps (What the hell was Nightlife???), especially in the second half. In a way, it’s a huge step up, but there’s still a lot more ground this group could potentially cover.
Summary: ¡Dos! is a huge improvement from its predecessor with improved instrumentation and just some better sounding songs; However, it still has the same contrived lyricism and rehashing that made ¡Uno! so aggravating
Choice Cuts-See You Tonight; Stray Heart
2/5
You Can stream the album here. ¡Dos! is out now on Reprise/Warner Bros.
Vantage Point Music 