1. Toni Braxton & Babyface - Love, Marriage & Divorce
There's something cool about these two, who sold millions of records together 20 years ago, coming back together, as middle-aged divorcees who no longer have blockbuster solo careers, to pool together their resources and make this wizened, wistful, weathered album of duets about everything they've been through. Babyface's aesthetic just continues to get more smooth and elegant with time, there are parts of this that are practically a Burt Bacharach record. And it really works well to foreground their voices and the melodies, the regretful ache of "Where Did We Go Wrong?" and the love/hate simmering of "Sweat." This and most of these other albums are on my running Spotify playlist of 2014 albums I've been listening to. 

2. ScHoolboy Q - Oxymoron
Q's last independent album, Habits & Contradictions, really annoyed me, and for a long time I kinda wondered why this scuzzy bucket hat-wearing Tony Yayo type dude was being treated as TDE's next big star in the making. But "Collard Greens" and "Man Of The Year" were really dope singles so I started to accept the possibility that I might dig this album, and I do. Maybe his persona comes across better on this album or I'm just more in tune with it now, but the whole thing holds together well, has that classic west coast gangsta rap coarseness mixed with pop polish, some really interesting production touches that build on the aesthetic of Kendrick's album. "Hoover Street" and "Break The Bank" feel like standouts to me.

3. Phantogram - Voices
I didn't hear Phantogram's first album and for years just thought of them as one of the groups that made Big Boi's last solo album kinda corny. But their current single "Fall In Love," as I already wrote, is pretty much the best thing on alt-rock radio so far this year, just a big ominous pop masterpiece of spiraling strings and blown out bass (my friend Jordan Sargent recently interviewed Ty Dolla $ign, who apparently called it "the hardest shit out"). The album doesn't entirely follow through on the promise of "Fall In Love," and the dude in the group sings on a few tracks that are below par, but it hits a nice mid-album groove with "Howling At The Moon" and "Bad Dreams," definitely one of the best neo synth pop groups on the current mainstream alternative wave, whatever that's worth.

4. Rickie Jacobs - Remember To Smile
I was the first blogger to post any music by Rickie Jacobs way back 7 years ago, and now he's on pretty much every site that posts rap music, so I gotta say I'm proud of dude. His music hasn't even changed that much in that time, he's just focused and stayed consistent with it, one of the best rappers coming out of Baltimore these days and really making a name for himself. This one is dope, up there with last year's Beautiful America EP as one of his best efforts to date. I don't really fuck with that dubstep interlude at the end of "Guy Code," though. Listen to Remember To Smile on djbooth.net.

5. K. Michelle - Still No Fucks Given
A lot of people dropped new R&B on Valentine's Day, including pretty good EPs from Ne-Yo, JoJo and Mya, but the standout for me was K. Michelle's mixtape. Only six months after her big debut album, with its second single still on the radio, she just out of nowhere dropped a sequel to the 0 Fucks Given mixtape that really got her career rolling a couple years ago. It's kind of crazy, you think she'd be saving songs as good as "Put You On Game" and "Pain Killa" and "She Can Have You" for her next retail release, instead she's just tossing an album's worth of tracks like that for free along with some mixtape shit talk and versions of records like "I Love It" by August Alsina (which features the lyric "I love your dick, I talk to it/ I wipe it down, get a towel for it/ I'm crazy as shit/ my hot pocket loves music so conduct, pluck her strings/ so treat her like a mic and la la la la sing"). I love the album, but the fact that she just had this much music to put out right after is really impressive. She's over-the-top, but you can't say she's not talented. Check it out on DatPiff.

6. Shy Glizzy - Young Jefe
I interviewed Glizzy a few months ago, and he was really hard to track down and didn't say all that much when we did finally sit down. But he seems like a good dude and his music is dope, really nice to see D.C. get guys like him and Fat Trel in the national spotlight right now. He sounds really at home rapping with Young Thug and Young Scooter or over Zaytoven and Cardo beats, really gives some context to where he could land in the game, although I dunno if this is the tape he really needs to put him over the top, but he's getting closer.

7. Neil Finn - Dizzy Heights
I've always loved Neil Finn's voice and sense of songcraft and haven't really listened to enough of the various records he's made over the years and always mean to spend more time with him. So hey, new album, good time to catch up. Dave Fridmann is kind of a corny choice of producer, but his 'signature sound' isn't too overbearing here, mostly just sounds like Finn being Finn with lightly modern touches. Also the song "Recluse" hit me pretty hard because there's someone in my life who's basically decided to shut out the entire world, including me.

8. The Caribbean - Moon Sickness
I've seen them live and heard their records here and there, but I've never quite been on the right wavelength with The Caribbean to totally get them the way I love a lot of the D.C. bands they're associated with -- Chad Clark (of Beauty Pill and Smart Went Crazy) often produces their records and is really their most enthusiastic champion, always writing things like this that make me give the band a second look. There's an interesting tension between the seemingly mundane pop/rock arrangements and the surreal lyrics and unexpected melodies, as well as Clark's otherworldly Beauty Pill-like production treatments, almost kind of a Steely Dan thing going on.

9. Cex - Manumit Me
After a few years of sticking his neck out as a singer and rapper, Rjyan has kinda retreated in recent years back into the dense instrumental IDM he started his career with, which is only a shame in the sense that most of the personality and ideas that used to spill out of his records are now basically limited to his Twitter account. Still makes pretty cool-sounding beats, though, and this one kinda goes back to basics with a bunch of old school synths and MPCs recorded straight to 4-track, gives the whole thing the kind of texture and tape hiss you rarely get with this kind of music anymore and that, honestly, I really enjoy hearing. 

10. Vertical Scratchers - Daughter of Everything
I was happy to hear that John Schmersal from Enon and Brainiac had a new band, since it'd been over 6 years since the last Enon album. Vertical Scratchers is a guitar/drums duo and kinda strips away all the synths and bells and whistles of Enon while still basically sounding like the jangly pop/rock half of that band's material. Enon's High Society always felt like it breezed through 15 songs pretty quickly, and this album also has 15 tracks but is a full ten minutes shorter, to give you an idea of how short all the songs are here. That also means things often kinda rush past you without getting a chance to leave an impression, and when "Someone" rips out this awesome guitar solo, it makes me wish more songs had moments like that instead of just rushing from verse to chorus and back and then ending.

Worst Album of the Month: Little Mix - Salute
I liked the first Little Mix album well enough, and it seemed like a good sign that they quickly released a follow-up (in the UK last year, and then here this year). I feel like whatever they did well with their retro R&B teen pop schtick to begin with has kind of lost its charm now, or just isn't being executed as well. And "Good Enough" has some of the most laughably over-the-top talent show vibrato I've ever heard.

Complex unveiled its list of the 50 Greatest Rap Albums of the '80s, and I contributed a few blurbs about Run DMC, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, 2 Live Crew and others.

The Short List in this week's Baltimore City Paper.

Last year, I was contacted by the Oxford University Press about authoring a reference article about Baltimore Club Music for the Oxford African American Studies Center, as part of a series of updates dealing with Baltimore.  The article was finally published in February, and although it's generally conceived as a reference work for students, they have made the article available to the public here (the link won't last forever, but if anyone ever wants it put back up after it expires, let me know). It was really an honor to be asked to do this and to try and bring my knowledge about this subject to an academic setting and put it in a larger cultural context.

It was recently announced that Queen's Greatest Hits had become the first album to sell 6 million copies in the United Kingdom (accounting for roughly 10 percent of the population). I was kind of happy to hear that, both because I love Queen, and because I grew up with the American edition of that compilation, which I consider the greatest "greatest hits" album of all time. 14 songs, all of which are five star classics (maybe a couple that you could say are merely four stars), including "Under Pressure," which appeared there before Hot Space, making it probably the best "new at the time of the compilation" greatest hits track ever.

Of course, I've always wanted to love the whole Queen catalog as much as the hits, and I have to admit it's sometimes hard to muster the same excitement for the albums. I remember as a teenager, I began trying buy bands' catalogs in chronological order, but those efforts often only lasted for a couple albums. When I got Queen's 1973 self-titled debut, I fell in love with "Liar," a lesser known single not featured on the hits compilations, but the actual deep cuts didn't wow me to the extent that I felt driven to buy the other albums, although I enjoyed my family's vinyl copy of A Night At The Opera a few times.

Queen Deep Album Cuts (Spotify playlist): 

1. Let Me Entertain You
2. Stone Cold Crazy
3. You And I
4. Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...)
5. Don't Try Suicide
6. Get Down, Make Love
7. Modern Times Rock 'N' Roll
8. Misfire
9. Sheer Heart Attack
10. Funny How Love Is
11. Dancer
12. In Only Seven Days
13. '39
14. All Dead, All Dead
15. Leaving Home Ain't Easy
16. Dragon Attack
17. Fight From The Inside
18. If You Can't Beat Them
19. Tear It Up
20. One Year Of Love
21. My Baby Does Me
22. The Hitman
23. Made In Heaven

Track 7 from Queen (1973)
Track 10 from Queen II (1974)
Tracks 2 and 8 from Sheer Heart Attack (1974)
Tracks 4 and 13 from A Night At The Opera (1975)
Track 3 from A Day At The Races (1976)
Tracks 6, 9, 14 and 17 from News Of The World (1977)
Tracks 1, 12, 15 and 19 from Jazz (1978)
Tracks 5 and 16 from The Game (1980)
Track 11 from Hot Space (1982)
Track 19 from The Works (1984)
Track 20 from A Kind Of Magic (1986)
Track 21 from The Miracle (1989)
Track 22 from Innuendo (1991)
Track 23 from Made In Heaven (1995)

One of the reasons I consider Queen one of the greatest singles acts of all time is that there was never any sense that they were holding back on the songs they released as singles, which ran the gamut from outrageously ambitious 6-minute epics to rockers and ballads to chameleonic genre pastiches in which they remade a wide range of sounds in their own image (as one of my favorite tracks here says, "funny how love is every song in every key"). Every member of the band wrote songs, every member wrote hits, and given that Roger Taylor's contributions were more significant than Ringo's ever were, it's arguable that Queen was as impressive a collection of songwriting talents as the Beatles. Of course, only Freddie Mercury sang lead on the hits, but Roger Taylor has a couple of entertaining lead vocals in the band's catalog, and in making this playlist I found myself becoming a fan of Brian May's voice, and put a little block of songs with May on lead vocals on tracks 13-15 (are his solo projects worth checking out?).

A good number of these songs were live staples despite never being released as singles, and some were heard by the most people on the multi-platinum Live Killers and other concert recordings. The only aspect of the band that was arguably downplayed on the singles was their heavier side, and Queen were an amazing, fearless hard rock band who've influenced more metal than a lot of people would like to admit. Growing up I mostly knew "Stone Cold Crazy" for the Metallica cover and "Get Down, Make Love" for the Nine Inch Nails cover, but those are just flat out awesome songs in any incarnation. I had a funny conversation at a party recently about "Don't Try Suicide," which is just kind of a bizarre and disturbing satire if you listen to the lyrics.

Much like the first Greatest Hits comp ended at Hot Space and their commercial fortunes soon began to fade in America, my interest in the band dims a bit after that point, and so I covered their last 5 albums in just the last 5 tracks on the playlist. Their '80s decline was more respectable than that of a lot of their contemporaries, though, and there are still a good number of impressive songs from that era. One interesting thing is that I had no idea until I even started putting this thing together that Made In Heaven existed -- all the stories I'd heard and seen about Freddie recording as much as he could right up to the end seemed to be mostly about Innuendo, the last album completed before he died. I didn't realize that he'd actually left behind enough vocals for the band to assemble and release a posthumous album in 1995. Of course, in a sign of how much bigger Queen were outside the states, the album sold 20 million copies worldwide, but only half a million in America, so it's no wonder that I never heard of it at the time. The title track is kind of a monster, though.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink

a) The Monuments Men
I had a few hours to kill between jobs the other day, and caught a matinee of this, because if make a caper movie with George Clooney, Bill Murray and John Goodman in it, I am there. It feels like Clooney has picked up a lot from working with the Coens and Soderbergh, and it's not hard to imagine either directing this, especially since it's got actors they often use in it. But having that comparison in mind also underlines that Clooney is not remotely as good a director as those guys are -- I really liked Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and thought it was well directed, but this fell a little flat. Might've been a script problem too, though, for them to have some great character actors around who don't really get that much to work with. It picks up in the second half, though -- a few scenes really got to me emotionally and made me really believe in the mission of the characters, the sentiment of the movie, as thick as they laid it on. It's weird how many period movies now, like this and Argo, seem to be going for a The Great Escape vibe. 

b) Evil Dead
I'm fond of the original Evil Dead movies and apprehensive about remakes in general, but not so hugely reverent that I completely object to anyone making the effort. And I gotta say, this really won me over. It wasn't 100% in the spirit of the '80s flicks, but if you'd told me this was Sam Raimi's directorial follow-up to Drag Me To Hell (which I loved), I'd believe you. There was some really inspired gore in this movie, and it looked pretty modern but was all about in-camera effects and not CGI. Jane Levy is great at comedy on "Suburgatory" but she just totally stepped up for all the crazy shit that a role in a movie like this required and kinda surprised me.

c) The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
There was something oddly (unintentionally?) meta about Steve Carrell playing an entertainer who's losing ground to a newer competitor played by Jim Carrey, in a role reversal of what their actual career arcs have been. The whole thing felt a little thin and underdeveloped, Carrell plays a jerk who redeems himself and neither the jerkiness nor the redemption felt that convincing, and Steve Buscemi was in it more than I expected but never really got to be funny. The only winner in this, I think, is Olivia Wilde, who's better at comedy than I expected.

d) Warm Bodies
This was charming, really committed to the whole weird concept and was funnier than I expected, especially the voiceover moments. Not amazing or anything but it worked.

e) Gangster Squad
I just had this on one night while I was writing and waiting for something else to come on and man it was some garbage. Even Emma Stone couldn't bring it to life. Nick Nolte sounded kinda like Yoda, though, that was hilarious.

f) Silver Linings Playbook
I went into this thinking it would at least be kind of acceptable, charming Oscar bait, like As Good As It Gets or something, and that I might even be able to squint and pretend it's someone besides Bradley Cooper until it seems like a genuinely good movie. But nah, this was just kind of bad, weird in a flat way that's not even interesting, it just barely functioned. J-Law gives a good performance (and looks amazing), but that's about it. The big climactic dance scene practically turns this into Little Miss Sunshine at the end.

g) The Bay
Our storied Valentine's Day tradition, in which the wife and I order Chinese food and watch horror movies, this year featured this movie, which we kind of grabbed at random out of a bunch of recommendations I got on Twitter and then looked up on Netflix. It wasn't until we started the movie that I realized it was the horror movie Barry Levinson directed that takes place on the Chesapeake Bay. I love Levinson at his best, and I love Levinson's movies about Maryland, but it's hard to really place this in his filmography, as diverse as it is -- a super low budget 'found footage' horror flick that really could've been directed by almost anybody. It was pretty well done, though, had a good conceit that allowed them to change perspectives and focus on different characters, which made it a little less monotonous than the usual found footage movie. After a while it got pretty immersive to contemplate the possibility of something like it happening in real life, like Contagion.

h) The Master
This had been available OnDemand and on my mental to-do list of things I wanted to watch before Philip Seymour Hoffman died, so afterwards I finally got around to watching it. I have mixed feelings about Paul Thomas Anderson and hated There Will Be Blood, which this resembled most of all his films, but The Master put that texture and rhythm to much better use, I thought. All the unsettling elements and over-the-top performances, including Hoffman totally just going for it as much as he ever did, really had a cumulative effect and took it somewhere far more interesting than just the 'thinly veiled Scientology origin story' premise. I don't know if it all added up per se, but I liked it.

I wrote an essay for Complex about how 21st century tech advances have affected music.

This week's Short List. Viva la Baltimore City Paper.

1. Paramore - "Ain't It Fun"
Sometimes you get an album, and you have an instant favorite song that you know should be a single, know will be a single, and get all anxious for that to happen and wait for months and months. It's actually happened to me with pretty much every Paramore album, previously with "That's What You Get" and "The Only Exception." And "Ain't It Fun" was an immediate standout on my #1 album of 2013, but it took forever to come out because the previous single had such a long lifespan of digital sales finally fueling pop radio airplay and "Still Into You" finally becoming a hit. So we just got the "Ain't It Fun" video, nearly 10 months after the "Still Into You" video, and to be honest the video and the single edit, which slices a full minute off the song, are a little anti-climactic. But man I'm excited at the prospect of hearing this song on the radio even though for nearly a year now I've been playing the album in my car over and over and screaming "don't crying to your mama/ 'cause you're on your own in the real world." On a musical level it's a monumental jam but it also just feels like a rallying cry for me, given all the real world shit I've been struggling with. Here's my favorite 2014 singles Spotify playlist that I update every month, by the way.

2. Beyoncé - "XO"
Dropping that album right out of the sky was exciting in and of itself, but one thing that's been really interesting to watch with this whole Beyoncé project is which songs become hits and how the singles campaign flows. "Crazy In Love" aside, she's always had kind of back luck with first singles, they never seem to become the most popular songs from the albums, and I suspect that was a big part of why they delayed the album all year and eventually had the idea to release it with no advance single, just to sidestep that headache. Initially, "Drunk In Love" was the urban radio single and "Blow" was the pop radio single, and the former was an instant smash while the latter was quickly switched to "XO" -- but already, "Partition" has taken off as the next urban radio single, while "XO" has had kind of a cool reception. That bums me out, because I adore "XO" -- watching the video, I kind of marvel that I can enjoy something produced by Ryan Tedder and directed by Terry Richardson this much. The whole carpe diem, love in the face of mortality vibe of the song, it hits me very deeply, it's such a gorgeous song with so many interesting wrinkles in the vocal performances and the subtly harsh production. 

3. Young Thug - "Stoner"
Young Thug has always been a divisive figure, and early on I was not a fan, putting 1017 Thug in my "worst album of the month" spotlight a year ago. Now the battle lines are really being drawn as his buzz escalates, and I haven't really been too interested in taking sides again one way or the other, especially since I didn't really hear the appeal of "Danny Glover" or  "2 Cups Stuffed." This song really snuck up on me, though, I'd hear DJs drop the beat and instantly love it, then it would take me a second to realize who was rapping, and by that point I was like oh shit, this is great. There's so many individual sections strung together that are all individually catchy as hell, "I feel like Fabo" is practically a hook by itself, and it's crazy to hear gratuitous shoutouts to Fabo on a hit song in 2014.

4. YG f/ Drake - "Who Do You Love"
Doing the 20 best DJ Mustard tracks list recently was fun, partly because I'm not really that into most of the R&B-flavored Mustard tracks on the radio at the moment and it was good to kind of dig in and remind myself about the tracks I really love. These 'monthly report' posts are a Drake-free zone most of the time, but sometimes I make an exception, usually on songs where he's just a guest with a decent second verse and doesn't take over the whole song, like Meek Mill's "Amen." I'm pretty curious how the YG album turns out, he's got a lot of jams at this point and having so many Mustard beats on one album kinda gives him a huge head start.

5. Yo Gotti f/ Rich Homie Quan - "I Know"
This was an immediate standout on I Am, and I'm glad it's finally getting play as a single, after that damn song with J. Cole had its little moment. Having Rich Homie Quan sing over the "I Got 5 On It" beat is some sacrilegious shit, but it sounds so great, especially with the sample slowed down from its original tempo to this dark eerie crawl.

6. J. Roddy Walston & The Business - "Heavy Bells"
Ever since they moved to Baltimore from Tennessee a decade ago, J. Roddy Walston & The Business have been really beloved around here, and now that they've gone mainstream they're probably the first local-ish band to be in heavy rotation on both 98 Rock and WHFS since, I dunno, SR-71? Jimmie's Chicken Shack? I guess that doesn't sound very impressive. But it is great to see these guys succeed, they're an amazing live band and Essential Tremors is solid album. "Heavy Bells" isn't even my favorite song on the album by a long shot, but it's grown on me, and it being on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart for the last 19 weeks means it's definitely gonna have follow-up singles.

7. Shakira f/ Rihanna - "Can't Remember To Forget You"
I like how even when she makes her most overt plays for U.S. radio, there's still something about Shakira that is not just fundamentally foreign but also fundamentally herself. Even something seemingly destined for crossover success like a Rihanna collaboration feels kind of quirky and not quite meant for American radio, in a good way. The song is kind of slight, but in a charming way, and they both seem to really enjoy digging into that melody. Also the video is amazing, obviously.

8. Brad Paisley - "The Mona Lisa"
I'm kind of amazed that when I did my Brad Paisley deep cuts playlist right after Wheelhouse came out, I totally slept on "The Mona Lisa," it's such a great goofy little power pop song. Songs where Paisley is in awe of his wife always come off really charming and sincere, but it helps if there's a funny lyrical conceit to back up the sentiment.

9. Bruno Mars - "Young Girls"
Unorthodox Jukebox is full of great pop songs, so I'm glad they're still spinning off singles, especially now the opening track. Don't know why he didn't try to push it harder by at least playing it for a minute during the Super Bowl halftime show, but I guess it wasn't uptempo enough for what he was going for.

10. Pitbull f/ Ke$ha - "Timber"
This song seemed to arrive custom made to offend people, and at first I bought into that. But the whole fun of Pitbull nowadays is how utterly shameless he is, and this might actually be the best Ke$ha has ever sounded, it's just a great hook, so I've given in, I'm not even mad that this was #1.

Worst Single of the Month: Aloe Blacc - "The Man"
"Wake Me Up" was already one of the worst pop hits in recent memory, a Swedish EDM producer teaming up with a former Stones Throw rapper and the guitarist from Incubus for some kind of terrible country song. Now Aloe Blacc is back with his boring monotone soul man voice and has made a song even dumber and more melodically drab than "I Need A Dollar." This fucking guy.

In my first article for Noisey, I tracked down Semi, known for putting 6 second raps on Vine, in Edgewood, Maryland for his first interview ever.

In this week's Baltimore City Paper, I wrote a Rap Sheet column, with news about Rome Cee and others, and The Short List.

I've written a couple things that have run on Complex recently:

- A list of the 20 best DJ Mustard tracks, with David Drake also wrote a chunk of

- A piece about how to sound smart talking about rap beats

1. Against Me! - Transgender Dysphoria Blues
I feel like such a rock critic for taking an interest in this album mainly because it feels kind of important -- a few years ago, when the band had one or two radio hits, I'd kinda dismissed them, somewhat ironically because I thought the singer had an unpleasantly macho punk rock dude voice. And then Laura Jane Grace became the first transgender rock star, or at least the first one who was well known before coming out, and it'd be dumb of me to just stick with my kneejerk first reaction of the band when here's a good opportunity to hear them in a whole new context. Setting aside all the context, though, this is a really amazing and beautiful album -- I had to listen to the title track a few times before getting into the rest of it, just because that song bowled me over. And seeing them perform "FUCKMYLIFE666" on Letterman was pretty amazing. I love hearing a rock album that feels like a really complete artistic statement but gets over with in just 28 minutes, but more than that I love how tangled and idiosyncratic it is, brimming over with ideas and emotions besides just the ones that you already know the record is about. 

2. Timothy Bloom - Timothy Bloom
I don't really have much of a clue who Timothy Bloom is, but some of the R&B heads I know swear by him, so I checked this out. Apparently he wrote songs for Usher and Chris Brown and has been signed to Timbaland and/or Polow Da Don for a while, but this is an independent album that isn't remotely clubby and doesn't seem to have much in the way of commercial aspirations. It's pretty good, though, mostly mellow southern soul with these modern wrinkles and interesting psychedelic touches. "Rivers Run Deep" in particular is pretty crazy. You can hear most of these records on my running 2014 albums Spotify playlist, to which I add any album I listen to throughout the year.

3. Algebra Blessett - Recovery
Recovery's lead single "Nobody But You" caught my ear big time a few months ago, and continues to sound fantastic and not get as much airplay as it deserves. The rest of the album isn't so immediately catchy, but it's I'm enjoying it, some nice varied production and Blessett's got a charming, limber voice. 

4. Greenspan - Stairway To Heaven
It was cool to go to the listening party and hear this album a couple times and then interview Greenspan, I've been following him in Baltimore and showing him respect for a long time and I'm happy that he finally put out a retail album that really makes good on the potential I'd been seeing.

5. Sun Club - Dad Claps At The Mom Prom EP 
These guys are a Baltimore band who I've always been impressed by whenever I've heard their stuff and this record just sounds fantastic, big hooky rock songs with interesting production, and weird song titles like "Beauty Meat" and "Repulsive On Chocolate."

6. DJ AngelBaby - Get Pumped Vol. 2
I already wrote about this a little bit, but it's really a great collection of Baltimore club music, might be better than the first one. One track I didn't mention before that's incredible is DJ C-Him's "Thong Song" remix, which loops up those classic ad libs where Sisquo is just yelling "your thighs! your knees! your breasts! your FEET!" Check it out on DatPiff.

7. Blaqstarr - The Blaq-Files (2002-06) EP
I got to break the story of this EP (supposedly the first in a series) when I interviewed Blaqstarr last year. I've been a huge fan of him for a long time, and the songs from this era are really the reason why, and it's cool to hear some of my favorites from that era like "Feel It In The Air" and "Slide To The Left" re-recorded and remastered. I was a little skeptical about him re-doing the tracks and maybe losing their magic, and their are little ways that I can tell the difference and prefer the originals, but these work pretty well.

8. Mt. Royal - Mt. Royal EP
I've followed the band's Mt. Royal sprang out of (Big In Japan/Lake Trout and Celebration) for a long time, and this particular collaboration has been a long time coming. I was at a 2009 Big In Japan show where they were joined by Celebration's Katrina Ford sang three songs, and I saw their first show in 2011 billed as "Big In Japan with Katrina Ford" before they settled on Mt. Royal as the name of their group together, and they definitely played at least one song that ended up on this EP, "Mockingbird." This is almost exactly what you'd expect based on the members' previous projects, but I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm a fan and this sounds great.

9. Height With Friends - Versus Electric Rockers
Height stays releasing albums and the last one was only 5 months before this one, but the last couple in particular have been really interesting and high concept and fun. You can stream the new one on Stereogum. "The Television Rap" is a kick.

10. Veli Smallz - The Tester
There's always a ton of good street rap coming out of Baltimore but a lot of it's from people who are familiar to me by now, so I'm always glad to see a new face in the game like Veli Smallz who's got some promising music, "Been Wrong" is really dope. Check it out on Band Camp.

Worst Album of the Month: Bruce Springsteen - High Hopes
I love Bruce, and I'm so glad he's still going and have enjoyed bits of the last few albums, but his increasingly gruff studio vocals and the modern rock Brendan O'Brien sheen has just gotten worse and worse. And while I appreciate his effort to try and break things up and do some releases that aren't just normal collections of new songs and raid the vaults a little bit, this odds'n'sods collection just feels kind of pointless, and the Tom Morello bits just sound bad in this context.

I wrote a quick blog post for the Baltimore City Paper site about the announcement that J. Cole will headline the Johns Hopkins Spring Fair this year.