1. Hammer No More The Fingers - Pink Worm EP 
As I've written about a few times, a really high number of the best out-of-town bands I've seen play at clubs in Baltimore have been from North Carolina, to the point that it's kind of an obsession of mine. These guys are one of those bands, and I know they're friends with one of my favorite Baltimore bands, Gary B. & The Notions. I never got around to hearing the full-length they dropped last year, but this 5-song EP is a great listen, they have a knack for very comfortable, familiar guitar pop but they throw a lot of interesting little rhythmic wrinkles and arranging decisions into the mix to keep it unpredictable and compelling.

2. Waka Flocka Flame - Triple F Life: Friends, Fans And Family
This album has gotten pretty terrible buzz even among the people who know Flockaveli was the shit, and I remember even when that album dropped people kind of seemed to instantly presume that Waka wouldn't make another album worth hearing and he had already done as well as he ever would. So I was surprised by how much I liked Triple F Life at first, and kept listening to make sure I wasn't tripping, but nope, it's pretty good. Not a patch on Flockaveli, of course, but I can honestly say I don't dislike any song on here besides the annoying Trey Songz single, even "Get Low" and "Fist Pump" are alright with me, even if they'd be easily improved by removing the Tyga and B.o.B verses. "Triple F Outro" is even better than "Fuck Dis Industry" and "Rooster In My Rari" and "Let Dem Guns Blam" feel like a good continuation of mixtape Waka. "Lurkin'" even does a mixtape-style pullback to the intro! Plus, I just love that the follow-up to the crunkest album of the decade is a celebration of friendship.

3. Reverend Dollars - UEP
This is weird beat music by a guy I like to talk music with online, much like the Chants record I mentioned last month, and in fact there is a Chants remix on this. Anyway I'm probably out of my depth as far as some of the influences on this, but it sounds cool. Love the triangle pattern on "UKnwDmnWll," I am tempted to taunt him by saying that Usher used the same concept already for 8701 (originally titled All About U), though.

4. Usher - Looking 4 Myself
Oh yeah, speaking of Usher. It's kind of sad that this album's cynical idea of "adventurous" is actually gaining traction with people who generally don't listen to Usher albums, when it actually isn't even as good an album as Here I Stand. The whole first half is kind of a wash, "Show Me" is the only song I really like, but from "Dive" onward it actually gets pretty damn good.

5. Wordsmith - King Noah
Wordsmith is a really prolific, hard-working rapper from Baltimore that I've always respected more for his grind than I've connected with his music. But he released an album right before Father's Day, which I didn't realize until after I did my Father's Day playlist is basically a concept album about fatherhood, so I was really in a mindset to feel what he was talking about and it's a pretty solid, engaging album.

6. Big K.R.I.T. - Live From The Underground
My reservations with Big K.R.I.T. are mainly that he's so slavishly paying tribute to a specific era of southern rap. But more than that, he has this weird mentality that the style of music he's doing is still 'underground,' that it didn't have a pretty huge commercial peak 5-10 years ago, that he's the guy that will make it "Cool 2 Be Southern" as if that didn't happen eons ago. That said, for someone with very few ideas of his own and no real personality or charisma, he's a pretty solid producer and songwriter -- this album basically has all the strengths and weaknesses of the J. Cole album, except it's a tribute to UGK instead of Kanye.

7. The Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania
Although he may aim elsewhere, Billy Corgan mainly pisses all over his own fanbase and legacy, which really doesn't personally bother me so much, at least until it means no more Jimmy Chamberlin. When I saw the band two years ago, it was kind of painful watching the new guy on drums butcher "Cherub Rock." So it was surprising to me that the drums don't bother me so much on Oceania that I can't listen to it. Billy's voice sounds kind of off on a lot of the album, though, like he's trying to be less nasal and piercing and ends up actually more annoying in the process. It has its moments, though, "The Chimera" is great.


8. R. Kelly - Write Me Back
Although Love Letter grew on me, and its title track is a minor classic radio jam,this whole phase R. is going through kind of bums me out. In the past he'd been so adept at making his old school influences shine through his more modern work, but now that he's overtly paying tribute to the '60s and '70s, he's kinda half-assing it with these canned arrangements. The singing is beautiful, and the songwriting is occasionally inspired, but a large part of the appeal for me of those old R&B records is the playing and production of the bands, so the drum machines and synths just sound chintzy and lightweight. Anyway "When A Man Lies" is sublime, and the MJ nods on the bonus track "You Are My World" are really fun.

9. Jimmy Fallon - Blow Your Pants Off
I've always had limited tolerance for Fallon, and memories of "Idiot Boyfriend" gave me a kneejerk negative reaction to news that he got to release another album. But when I will grudgingly admit the charms of his overrated talk show, the musical bits are definitely one of its greatest strengths, and it's kind of nice to have the best ones collected here. "Scrambled Eggs" with Paul McCartney is just incredible.

10. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana
I am not part of the Neil Young cult and may never be, even if I love a lot of his music and eventually will probably listen to all of his albums. So the appeal of him and Crazy Horse doing sloppy rocket-powered versions of fucking "Oh Susannah" and "This Land Is Your Land" is kind of lost on me as anything but a forgettable novelty. It's fun, but it'd be more fun if those Jimmy Fallon-as-Neil versions of "Whip My Hair" and the "Fresh Prince" theme were on it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 at 12:50 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.