[I'm gonna be spending this week catching up on some releases from earlier in the year. Let me know in a shout or a comment if you have any recommendations]

There was a good amount of praise for Alan Palomo's solo effort but I was surprised to not see more. It was one of my favorite albums of the year. I've found a lot of the synth pop in the last few years to be pretty lazy and uninteresting, probably the last time I enjoyed an album that could be put in that genre was Mac Demarco's This Old ... read more

[I'm gonna be spending this week catching up on some releases from earlier in the year. Let me know in a shout or a comment if you have any recommendations]

What can be said about this album that hasn't already been said? Lyrically, it's unhinged, terminally online and all over the place, so much so that I'm tempted to whip out my college-educated pretensions and call it 'postmodern'. Instrumentation-wise, the production is heavy as hell, chaotic and noisey. It's the production I'd imagine ... read more

Dina Ogon is a Swedish soul group that burst onto the scene in 2021 with a dreamy, nostalgic debut that masterfully melded sould, folk, Jazz and R&B to craft a beautiful and distinct pop sound. In their own words, they are "a love child between Fleetwood Mac, Eric B & Rakim, Khruangbin and obscure Motown b-sides" and surprisingly, you can hear many of those diverse influences coming through (although admittedly I have a hard time hearing the Eric B & Rakim influence ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #477

Overrated/Underrated?: Underrated

Howlin' Wolf's debut album perfectly captures the dour mood of the blues as well as the gritty sound that Wolf brought to electric blues. Wolf's vocal delivery will certainly not be for everyone but his harsh rasp feels as though it could anticipate heavy metal and hardcore punk by 20 years or so.

In my review of the Muddy Waters Anthology, I noted that I think the decision to downgrade the ... read more

Is it the inaugural Shit on Trippie Redd day??

Well, if it is, I don't want to miss out on the festivities but I don't have a ton to say about this album. Lazy production, every song sounds the same, painful bars, boring vocal delivery. Pepe Lit is borderline unlistenable (particularly the part where he screams "LIT LIT LIT LIT LIT LIT" for *way* too long) and hardly any of these tracks are much better.

I guess this is what happens when you starve a bunch of music nerds of quality ... read more

Interesting collection of noisy, abrasive Jazzy-punk rock instrumentals. Both of these artists can really kill it on their respective instruments, Tash in particular tears up the drumkit on this EP. I loved the very cerebral closer, ATM, which flipped from blaring guitar choruses to a lonely and wandering saxophone cry on what you might call a verse-chorus-verse structure before the band blows the whole thing apart in a messy wall of noise. That last track goes hard as *hell.*

Fun EP and I'll ... read more

Bland alt rock from your Dad's version of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. The LP depends too heavily on rock tropes and doesn't have interesting enough lyrics to get away with it. There weren't really any memorable tracks and somehow the songs with relatively short runtime still managed to plod along as if they were 10 minutes long.

Listen if you like: the Foo Fighters, the late career albums of a rock artist who used to be great

Fans of Kurt Vile will no doubt find a lot to enjoy here. As for me, Kurt's rambling yarns just don't have enough content on this EP for me to maintain interest in it.

Highlights: Another good year for the roses

Listen if you like: Kurt Vile's other music

ALBUMS THAT I WOULD HAVE PLACED ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 LIST: #6

In my review of the Weight of These Wings by Miranda Lambert, I detailed the collapse of what I have labelled 'The Luke Bryan-Florida Georgia Line Fuckboy era' of country music (I know it's a mouthful but I kind of like this name), since I generally think the very publicized divorce of Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert was a significant event in the end of that era. I generally think 'Metamodern Sounds in Country Music' ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #479

Overrated/Underrated?: Appropriately Rated

It took me awhile to appreciate Selena's music. In my first listen, I really thought I was going to thrash this album. The instrumentals seemed to lack any semblance of subtlety and the lyrics were kind of childish.

But once you've embraced the simple, magical world that Selena creates in her lyrics and sonic pallette, it's kind of irresistible.

'El Chico del Apartamento 512' is a ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #478

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

This is probably going to be my first controversial review on this list. I'm not a particularly big fan of the Kinks and amongst Kinks albums I think there are much better records that could have taken this slot (how the hell was Arthur skipped for this list? And where's Lola vs. Powerman??). I was actually surprised to find that this is a favorite for many Kinks fans because I had such a lukewarm ... read more

Frog sounds almost like a band ripped out of the 90's indie scene. Particularly 'U Should Go 2 Me' emulates a lot of the old school indie rock bands (they even reference the Butthole Surfers). But unlike a lot of the indie rock bands from that era, Frog's sound is incredibly expansive. On tracks like '420!!' the band produces a massive wall of noise that is primarily acoustic guitar.

Frog also has a much more diverse sound. The funky rhythm in 'Black on Black on Black is damn near infectious ... read more

Danny Brown's midlife crisis captured in an dark, moody album. I really loved the heavy and noisy instrumentals on this album, particularly on tracks like 'Tantor' and 'Jenn's Terrific Vacation' (which is one of the best hip hop tracks I've heard in quite awhile). And while Danny's best stuff definitely comes on those tracks that are really dirty and heavy, some of the lighter instrumentals also play pretty well. 'Shakedown' was definitely a standout for me in this regard.

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #480

Overrated/Underrated?: Overrated

2016 was one of the last years of a very dark time in country music. I generally refer to it as the Luke Bryan-Florida Georgia Line fuck boy era, but for brevity's sake, most people refer to it as 'bro country' which is probably just as good a name. In 2016, this subgenre of country music was falling off. Florida Georgia Line's sales were collapsing rapidly and artists were beginning to look for ... read more

An instrumental hip-hop jazz record. There just wasn't enough variation here to keep my attention. Also the drum machine weirdly seems to take the forefront on a lot of these songs with the jazzy instrumentals sounding like they're played 100 yards away.

The result is a pretty boring listen. Great background music. Not good for much else.

Listen if you like: Nujabes, BADBADNOTGOOD

ALBUMS THAT I WOULD HAVE PLACED ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 LIST: #5

I noted in my first review of the Rolling Stone 500 that the 2012 list was one of the ways I originally discovered a lot of classic albums. And in that old list and this new one, there was one glaring and gigantic omission: Bad Brains.

I mean, come on, is this hard?? This LP is a classic punk masterpiece and, dare I say, the greatest American punk album ever made.

The mix of reggae with breakneck speed punk songs and, tracks ... read more

ALBUMS THAT I WOULD HAVE PLACED ON ROLLING STONE'S 500 LIST: #4

So, I kind of lost track of this side piece of my review of the Rolling Stone 500 list. But the Black Flag album I gave a generally negative review to a week or so ago brought to mind several punk albums that I was disappointed to not see on this list.

To say that I was disappointed to not see this Rites of Spring album on the list is not to say I wasn't surprised. Rites of Spring is consistently overlooked in conversations ... read more

Reviewing Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: #481

Overrated/Underrated?: Appropriately Rated

With 20 reviews down on the Rolling Stone list, I'm 4% of the way through (Jesus Christ I'm going to be doing this for a long time...).

If You're Feeling Sinister is the pinnacle of twee pop. Imagine if someone turned a quirky English major at a small liberal arts college in the US and turned their personality into an album. But, to be clear, we're not talking about the cool, hip ... read more

What's left to do when you're Andre 3000, you were a part of the greatest hip hop duo ever and you haven't made music in quite some time? The answer, apparently, is you create a spiritual ambient record that could be placed up against the best that Brian Eno or William Basinski have to offer.

There were definitely tracks that failed to hold my attention such as 'The Slang Word...' (these song titles are way too long bruh lol) and I'd say in general the first half of this album is a bit less ... read more

This experimental piece by Patrick Shiroishi was apparently recorded in a parking garage at 1 am and you can really hear that eerie, silence and profound emptiness in every echo of every jarring saxophone blast on this record.

It's haunting and Shiroishi plays with silence and space pretty effectively on this record. Tracks like 'the soil that things grow from' is actually music straight out of my nightmares.