1. Gucci Mane - Mr. Zone 6
Since I’m friends with some of the biggest, most obsessive Gucci Mane fans in the world, I can usually rely on them to let me know when I need to check out something from him. The enthusiasm seemed pretty low everywhere for Burrprint 2 so I never really listened to that, but this one has generated a lot of excitement. And I gotta say, at first I didn’t really get it; I’m not very into “Normal” and it’s not as immediately appealing as the first Burrprint was last year, Gucci’s vocal presence seems a little more restrained or maybe his voice is just lower in the mix, I dunno. But it’s growing on me as I realize that a lot of my favorite tracks are buried in the second half. Gucci’s never had the best choruses but “Socialite” and “Makin’ Love To The Money” have great hooks.

2. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
The ‘59 Sound was pretty great but it was also one-dimensional in that way where you get the sense this is a band you don’t really need more than one record from. But I got the album and EP that preceded it anyway, and now I can throw them all in a shuffle playlist with the new one and barely be able to tell the difference. There’s worse flaws than consistency, though, and for all I know I might end up liking this one more than The ‘59 Sound eventually. The big charging um, anthems like the title track don’t do it for me quite like stuff like “The Diamond Church Street Choir” and “We Did It When We Were Young” where they change up the tempo a litle.

3. The Roots - How I Got Over
I’m a pretty big fan of the darker tone of the couple Roots albums before this, especially Game Theory and in general the more studio-oriented records like Things Fall Apart, so their return to sounding more like a jazzy live hip hop band isn’t particularly exciting to me. All the indie rock singers I’ve never heard before guesting on here don’t really bother me since I wouldn’t be able to recognize them and there’s been some kinda indie shit on the last few Roots albums anyway. I wish I heard the mood/arc people keep saying this album has, though, the tone doesn’t really draw me in, but there are definitely some good songs here. I really dig what they did with John Legend's song.

4. Rasputina - Sister Kinderhook
I heard some of these songs at their Ottobar show in April and on the live CD recorded last year that I got at the show, but so far I’m still slowly getting into the album proper, which I definitely don’t like as much as 2007’s Oh Perilous World but isn’t without its charms.

5. The-Dream - Love King
My line on The-Dream has always been that I don’t particularly like him as a singer or songwriter, but tolerate him because his producers, Tricky Stewart and LOS Da Mystro, make great beats. So it complicates matters for me that they only worked on half of Love King, and The-Dream produced the rest completely solo. And though it’s tempting for me to play it off like oh I can tell, the fact is I would have had no idea if I hadn’t looked at the credits, the guy is a sharp understudy. I will say that musically this is definitely his weakest album, though, there are still lots of hooks but they aren’t quite in as great supply. The guy’s personality comes across more loathsome than ever, though, especially since a beautiful woman just divorced him while his current single basically says it’s OK to cheat if you buy your girl a nice purse to make up for it.

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