1. Juicy J - Stay Trippy
I already said most of what I have to say about this in my City Paper review, but this really is just an incredibly listenable record in the classic Three 6 Mafia mold a lot of the time. Even the guests don't really fuck up the flow too much, it's not like Wale or Wiz Khalifa is any worse than Crunchy Black or Lil Wyte, just a little further out of the HCP aesthetic than I'd like. I hope this record has a ton of singles, "Scholarship" needs to be on the radio. Here's my running Spotify playlist of 2013 albums I listen to, btw.

2. Superchunk - I Hate Music
After geeking out on Superchunk's back catalog it's nice to have some new songs that already feel like future mixtape staples. Mac's raspy autumnal aging punk later Portastatic songwriting style locks together with the Superchunk sound a little better here than it did on Majesty Shredding, and it still all kind of zips by in that lighter-than-air way their albums usually do, no matter how weighty it gets. "Breaking Down" is probably my favorite at the moment, although the advance singles "FOH" and "Me & You & Jackie Mittoo" just keep sounding better and better. Jon Wurster remains one of my favorite drummers in rock music.

3. K. Michelle - Rebellious Soul
Also reviewed this album, although I think I spent so much time on the big picture context of the record that I didn't talk enough about the songs on here, which are pretty great, "Pay My Bills" and "Sometimes."

4. Weiss / Cameron / Hill - Drumgasm
As a rock drummer nerd who doesn't necessarily think rock drummers need to do anything outside of a rock band context, I was cautiously interested in this project, where three of them just go nuts in an all-percussion improv freakout. But I've always been a big fan of Matt Cameron and Janet Weiss as drummers, and I've never really cottoned to any of Zach Hill's projects but he's clearly talented, and this really turns out to be a fun indulgent feast of rhythms and textures. I just wish you could watch them recording this and really pick up on who's playing what and how the dynamics between them worked.

5. Jay Wyse - Wyse Thoughts Wise Journey 2
I already wrote about this a little but Jay Wyse is a local Baltimore dude who I think has some potential, this has a pretty mainstream of-the-moment sound but he really puts a personal spin on things without getting boring or Drake-y.

6. Height With Friends - Height With Friends Versus Dynamic Sounds
Height is another Baltimore rapper, who I've known and interviewed many times, and last time I sat down with him he told me about this album he had in the works that sounded really interesting. The 3 previous Height With Friends albums all kinda have the same sound, but this one is just completely on some other shit, kinda mimicking classic live tapes of early hip hop performers, lots of old beats and breaks and call-and-response flows with 'live' vocal reverb. It could easily have been kinda cheesy or overcooked, but I feel like they did just enough with the concept to make it unique and not just a pious retro move. It's not totally factually faithful, either -- "Baltimore Highlands PAL Center '78 Part One" samples a Billy Squier track that wasn't released until 1980 and he shouts out a bunch of fast food chains that didn't exist in the '70s on "Pinecone Park '79." But that kind of shows how they're just having fun with the idea and not trying to just recreate the past.

7. Speed On The Beat - Songs For... (The Rebirth and Evolution of the Modern Male)
I wrote about the lead single from this Baltimore dude's album a few months ago, without really being too familiar with his previous work. He has a whole 'no-fi' angle which I find interesting, I tend to like when music has a cheap or distorted sound that's deliberate and stylized, but he really goes to such extremes with it, right down to the vocal takes being really sloppy and rough, that it can get to be a little hard to take over the course of an hour. Some cool moments here and there, though.

8. Jinxxx - Authentic Exposure
More Baltimore rap! Jinxxx is a female MC who sent me some e-mails about her stuff, definitely will check for her stuff in the future but hopefully later she'll have better production values, some of the beats on this just sound dated and generic. And while she has a good voice, the actual vocals sound like they were recorded on the worst mic ever, and not in a way that sounds like a stylistic decision that enhances the music at all. "Hello" is a good joint.

9. Rico Love - Discrete Luxury EP
Rico is one of those R&B songwriter dudes who never seemed that driven to have a career as an artist instead of just writing hits for other singers like The-Dream or whatever, so I was surprised to see that Bad Boy released a solo EP. He raps on a lot of it in a very deliberately Ma$e-like voice and cadence, which is pretty goofy, but overall the tracks sound pretty good. I wish Tiara Thomas's guest spot wasn't just her rapping too, but I'm curious to see what her project turns out like since he signed her.

10. TGT - Three Kings
Speaking of hilarious rapping by R&B singers, the first track on this album 'features' Tyrese's alter ego Black Ty. I guess these guys are kind of doing a throwback to LSG, but in the modern day context it's almost like an R&B Slaughterhouse to pool the resources of these guys who aren't individually as big a draw anymore. R&B posse cuts are kind of weird, though, and while I'm a fan of Tank's solo hits, his shortcomings as a vocalist kinda show up more when he's next to Tyese and especially Ginuwine, who just spazzes out on every song. Not a great project but probably better than it has a right to be.

Worst Album of the Month: AlunaGeorge - Body Music
I am generally pretty good about staying away from critically celebrated quasi R&B because that shit is just not for me and I know it. But after a critic I generally trust on R&B called this the best R&B album of 2013, I decided to try and give it a shot, and nope, nope, not having it. It's even worse than a lot of a lot of other wannabe Aaliyah stuff out there because the singer basically sounds like Ellie Goulding, maybe with even less soul. If it was just marketed as the offbrand Kylie Minogue kinda thing it really is, though, I probably wouldn't mind it as much. But they just keep working the R&B angle, and there's a bonus track where they cover "This Is How We Do It" that is basically my idea of hell.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 12:08 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.