#165 Jay Som, Everybody Works (2017)
Rating: 4
Love this. Relaxed and confident sound - love what she does with her voice, from an isolated "old radio mic" sound right up to layered harmonies in choruses, but almost always breathy and maybe Yo La Tengo-like? I read that this is lo-fi “bedroom pop,” a reference to where the music was produced, not where it’s listened to. The artist, Melina Mae Duterte, grew up in the East Bay - she writes, performs, and produces all the music herself, which is always inspiring to me. The vibe is indie from long ago. More focus on melodies and a more traditional song structure & chord progression (see “Baybee”). On one track, that twangy reverbed guitar sound & synth from 80s emo like The Cure (“Everybody Works”), then another track all fuzzed out like Sleater Kinney (“Take It”). Strong Silversun Pickups in the buzzy chords and harmonies of “1 Billion Dogs.” The content is singer-songwriter stuff, pensive. Really like “For Light,” a gauzy Floyd-like windup to a long record-ending refrain. Already bought this one - will definitely be in rotation
Pitchfork writers:
Duterte’s vocals, hushed and conversational, hold everything together: Even when the arrangements plant a sly toe in near-funk territory, it sounds small enough to fit in your pocket and large enough to change your world
#164 Hop Along, Painted Shut (2015)
Rating: 4
Whoa! Who the hell are these guys? This is great! Honestly, finding these things is the main reason I do these lists. Their first studio album. Struggling to nail a comparison - but here are some thoughts - Courtney Barnett without the accent (“I Saw My Twin”), Metric's poetry (the acoustic ballad “Happy to See Me”), some grunge. Foo Fighters fronted by Hayley Williams (“Sister Cities”), Regina Spektor and the Heartbreakers (“Powerful Man”)? Somewhere in "Waitress" it occurred to me, wait, am I actually listening to U2? Vocals are mixed back into the fold behind the guitars but somehow crystal clear. There’s pain in the storytelling, there are no party songs. And there’s nothing spectacular in any of the instrumental performances, it's just a damn good female-fronted rock n roll record. I'm a sucker for when her voice cracks (and it does, a lot)
Pitchfork writers:
All the while, the rest of the band meets Quinlan’s sharp turns with their own clear-eyed intensity: Her brother Mark Quinlan takes cues from the simple but forceful percussion of grunge drummers like Dave Grohl, while the enthusiastic yet angsty guitars channel classic indie and pop-punk alike. In a decade where the lo-fi solo project often dominated indie music, Hop Along made a strong case for honest-to-goodness rock bands, one pummeling performance at a time
#163 Meek Mill, Dreamchasers 2 (2012)
Rating: 1
Just tiresome. Not his fault, the genre is just tired now. This is for you if you like booming bass with rhymes about Gucci and what I'm wearing and what I'm driving and oh yes I'm also having lots and LOTS of sex with so many women. The first line of the record: “Face down. Ass up….” He ruined the Fugees' Ready or Not, talking about drinking purple and stuff. "When it comes to bread, fuck the slice, I need a loaf" And I kinda think calling out the name of Rick Ross’s label ("Maybach music!") 20 times across all the songs wore out with Snoop and Dre. "Hos and bitches" should have, too. Look, I know there was a lot going on with Meek Mill and a middle aged white guy listening to this is like starting a TV series with Episode 42 because there are stories and beefs and stuff to understand, and he’s got a role — but I’m just listening to the record. “I need my n*ts licked?” Yawn.
Pitchfork writers:
But even on a project this victorious, legal woes haunted Mill. His contemplative rework of Drake’s “The Ride” devotes many lines to Philadelphia assistant district attorney Noel DeSantis, who would face off against him in the courtroom seven months after DC2’s release, when Judge Genece Brinkley prohibited Meek from traveling outside of his hometown to perform. (Brinkley’s decisions on Mill’s legal problems would only grow more troublesome.) To the hip-hop world, DC2 made Meek untouchable, as powerful a star as he’d ever been. But inside the criminal justice system, he was at the mercy of others, forced to fight like he’d been doing since he was a teenager