Week 14

Animal Collective – Merryweather Post Pavillion

The last time I reviewed an Animal Collective album I found it hard to do. This music is… well, weird. But it is a really good weird. One of the songs on that first album remains among my list of ‘seriously, best song ever’ list. But its a weird one, and I can’t say I am always in the mood for it. That being said, the song sticks.

I was pretty amped to check out another album by them. It didn’t disappoint, but it didn’t blow me away either. Some of the tracks are pretty damn awesome though.

It’s also kind of cool that this is (something of) a local band.  Even the title of this album makes me think “Hey!, I know where that is.”

 

Week 15

XXXTentacion – 17

Sometime I wonder what kids these days are up to. I occasionally peak under the rug of popular culture and I have to admit that it is a pretty terrifying place.  I don’t recall face tattoos being that much of a thing when I was young. And to think we were being edgy with our White Zombie and all their creepy clowns and strippers. Nowadays, that seems so tame I could play it in my grandma’s retirement home and it wouldn’t get much of a reaction.

Scary or not, I can’t help but occasionally dip my nose in. When XXXTentacion died, my natural first reaction was: “Who? What’s his name.” I know enough Spanish to get what the name means (I mean, I think we all do), and I have to admit I got a chuckle out of it. It feels a bit like the kind of name a teenager who war trying a bit to hard would give himself.

The curiosity got the better of me. I googled him and came to the song ‘Revenge’.

God damn was it catchy. I mean really catchy. I liked it. I found myself singing it in one of my classes when a 20 year old Saudi student looked at me and said ‘oh man, that’s a great song’.

Clearly, XXXTentacion and all his face tattoos had some reach. So I put him on my radar and eventually came to this.

This album is short. Oddly short. Noticeably short. That aside, its a damn good album. In my looking into XXXTentacion, I came across an interview where he mentioned that he wanted all the musical influences of his life to come through in his music. They do, and they do really well. There is a pretty obvious reference to Pink Floyd in one of the songs, but most noticeably all the songs sound distinct.

I liked this album. I guess that means that the kids are going to be alright.

 

Week 16

Prince – Purple Rain

This is another album that really represents what I am doing here. I knew Prince was a musician. I am not the dense. But I don’t think I could have hummed the tune to a single Prince song. I had no idea what a Prince song sounded like. I couldn’t even place Prince into a genre.

And yet, Prince is a massive cultural staple.

End up on children’s cartoon type of cultural staple. I often feel like I am the last one to the party when it comes to music like this. I didn’t want my only link to this very famous musician being ‘the guy from that one Chappelle show skit’

So, let’s give this a whirl.

And…

I don’t like this music. I don’t like this genre. I don’t like this time period. I get that this is a lot of people’s bad, but….

Meh.

 

Week 17

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black

Technically, I shouldn’t be listening to this album. I know this album is great, and thus it kind of departs from the spirit of this music challenge. But something happened many years ago and I put it on here as an apology of sorts.

A year or so after this album came out I was out at a bar getting shit faced when some song or the other from this album came on. A friend gave me shit for seeming to enjoy this album, going so far as to incredulously ask “do you like this?”

And, you know, wanting to conform, I said ‘No!’

Funniest part of it was a friend of his immediately called me out on it, in a fairly good humored way. But alas, I had yet to reach that beautiful stage of life called ‘your thirties’, where the opinions of other bounce off you like the feeble attacks of children.

I guess I can justify putting it on here because I am not 100% sure I know every song on here.

In fact, I didn’t know them all. But it still felt like this whole album got radio play. It had that many pretty famous songs on it. And I think I liked the majority of them, though a few of the ones towards the back were pretty forgettable.

Fuck off Zach, this album is great. I don’t care what you think.