1. Boogie - Everything's For Sale
I hadn't given Boogie much of a second thought in the 3 years since his only minor radio hit, "Oh My," and had no idea he'd since to Shady Records until he got a release date for the first Shady album from a new rapper in nearly a decade. So it's a bit of a pleasant surprise that such a good album came from the label where rap music usually seems to go to die in a sputtering puddle of strained wordplay and monochromatic beats. The way Boogie vividly paints growing up in Compton, complete with audio verite interludes, reminds me of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, which is not a comparison that would wear well on many young MCs, but Boogie's voice and delivery are too different and distinct for him to sound derivative (although the guy who actually reminded me of Kendrick so much that it detracted from my enjoyment of his album, JID, does make a guest appearance). Everything's For Sale is often solemn and sad and soulful but Boogie has a self-deprecating sense of humor and ear for melody, and a flair for brevity, that makes a potentially heavy album go down easy. Here's the 2019 albums Spotify playlist that I fill with all the new albums I listen to.

2. Maggie Rogers - Heard It In A Past Life
I managed to miss the original viral moment that first brought Maggie Rogers fame, where Pharrell Williams teared up reacting to her song "Alaska" when visiting her NYU music class. So I stumbled on her songs "Fallingwater" and "Give A Little" on my local college station last year, before the press coverage of her ramped up again for the release of her debut album, and I got to kind of feel excited about her music in a relative vacuum during a lull in the media hype. I don't find the hype offputting, though: she's got a lovely voice and a nice understated melodic sensibility, and on some subconscious way I think of the hundreds of times I've driven through sleepy Easton, Maryland, where Maggie Rogers grew up, when I hear her earthy folky songs filtered through a modern digital aesthetic. I was a little surprised to see production credits from big name Top 40 guys like Greg Kurstin and Ricky Reed -- I'd be interested to hear a whole set primarily produced by Roggers and her "Alaska" co-producer Doug Schadt. But the established producers seem to have known to follow her established aesthetic well, I was just praising Kurstin for his versatility last week and he does some wonderful stuff on this record as well. I feel like this record will either slowly become huge and win Grammys next year or it'll be judged harshly by cool kids for being this big budget version of quirky introspective bedroom pop, but I think that's precisely what makes it interesting. I hope it does sell boatloads.

3. Dawn Richard - New Breed
After a few years of getting progressively spacier and more experimental with each album, New Breed is a shorter and more digestible album, dedicated to her hometown New Orleans with tracks like the funky "Shades" and the reggae groove of "Jealousy." But New Breed also very much exists in the kind of epic EDM R&B world that Dawn Richard created on previous records, she really has a melodic sensibility that's all her own.

4. Future - The WIZRD
The modern mixtape rapper business model actively works against the expectation that every release is going to a big distinct ambitious statement. Some of the albums a guy like Future is going to make are just going to be 'a bunch of songs with a bunch of different producers,' including some of his very best records like DS2. And part of the fun of doing my Future deep album cuts playlist recently was just appreciating how many great songs he's cranked out without really worrying about making perfect albums. But I've always hoped for certain records from Future, and in the last 2 years I've gotten to check a few off my wishlist to varying levels of satisfaction (an R&B-heavy album like HNDRXX, a sequel to Beast Mode, a duo album with Young Thug), so at this point short of still holding out for the project with Mike WiLL, there's not much I can really ask for than Future doing a bunch of songs again. And in the absence of any kind of particularly new narrative, sound or subject matter, The Wizrd is really good. It's not DS2 but it's closer to that level than treading water like EVOL. And it's not completely devoid of new wrinkles -- the previously unknown ATL Jacob anchors 1/3rd of the album impressively, "F&N" has a great subtle beat switch, "Overdose" dissolves into radio static before the 2-minute mark, and "Servin Killa Kam" brings back the absurdly gravelly voice from "Group Home." "Promise U That" is the standout for me, though, it's like HNDRXX level melodic Future.

5. Say Anything - Oliver Appropriate
Writing a bunch recently about Say Anything, and reading Max Bemis's whole 15-page letter about their latest and possibly last album and his great interview with Craig Jenkins had me feeling kind of emotional and sentimental about this sometimes frustrating but often wonderful band. And I felt a little of my excitement immediately puncture by the album opener which is called "The Band Fuel" and namechecks Julian Casablancas. Of course, Bemis has taken pains to note that his snarky scenester lyrics are often done in character, particularly on Oliver Appropriate and the album it serves as a sequel to, 2004's ...Is A Real Boy, but pubk/emo scene satire is still just not my favorite mode of Say Anything song. But the album is really growing on me, it's mostly acoustic but way more high energy than, say, the Max Bemis & The Painful Splits record, "Ew Jersey" and "Send You Off" are definite standouts.

6. Marc Mac - All Power To The People
4Hero always stood out to me as one of my favorite UK drum'n'bass/jungle acts, partly because they seemed so much more tapped into the music's connections to soul, jazz and hip hop than a lot of their contemporaries. So I wasn't too surprised to realize recently that one half of 4Hero, Marc Mac, has been doing solo records of instrumental hip hop, and this latest album, All Power to the People, is 'a documentary on wax' about the Black Panther Party where he sets lots of news reports, speeches and interviews from/about the BPP to breakbeats. It's an interesting way to kind of soak up the history via music, really cool idea executed well.

7. Jumbled - Padre
This record by my friend, Baltimore producer John Bachman, is kind of similar to the Marc Mac record in that it's a crate-digging mix of instrumental hip hop punctuated with spoken interludes. But Padre is a much lighter record, where the voices are famous standup comics doing routines about fatherhood, kind of a cool way for Bachman to thread together beats he's made since he became a father.

8. Dreezy - Big Dreez
I really enjoyed Dreezy's major label debut No Hard Feelings, but its R&B-leaning singles kind of established her more as a singer than a rapper. So I'm glad that she's back 18-months later with a lean 10-song record with hard Southside and Pi'erre Bourne and London On Da Track beats to kind of recalibrate and get her some of the respect she deserves as an MC (although "Ecstasy" with Jeremih and "Showin' Out" are still great on the R&B tip).

9. Alice Merton - Mint
"No Roots" was a great debut single, so immediate and kind of neatly packaged Alice Merton's voice and aesthetic and personal story right off the bat. The other singles and EP tracks she released in the year and change since then didn't set the world on fire as much, but the fact that she's gotten this far on an independent label is pretty impressive nonetheless. Mint has been kind of slow to grow on me but it seems to get better every time I hear it, I particularly like "Homesick."

10. President Davo - Undeniable
President Davo trended on Twitter in Baltimore this week. But it didn't really have anything to do with the album he released a couple weeks ago, it was all about his beef with Dee Dave. The consensus after they both released diss tracks in the last few days is that Dee Dave won, which makes sense, he's more of a battle rapper and Davo has a more melodic flow, I think he's more skilled at writing original songs with hooks. So maybe Dee Dave will get more buzz off this, but I still think President Davo is pretty good at what he does and has a better career at the moment, "Solar Power" is probably my favorite off this record. There's also a folky acoustic track, "What Love Do," that works surprisingly well.

The Worst Album of the Month: gnash - We
I remember the first time I heard gnash, three years ago, when I had to write a capsule review of his Us EP, before its single "I Hate U, I Love U" became a double platinum pop phenomenon. I cringed as soon as I heard this kid's voice, and I've never stopped. As fond as I am of the Nav review that described him as sounding 'like Siri made a rap album,' but I think gnash actually sounds more like Siri than Nav does. He only raps part of the time, but his sung material is possibly worse, just impossibly cutesy and insufferable, sometimes vulnerable about his emotions but usually kind of off-puttingly clever about the slam poetry way he describes them. He's kind of like a mini-Mike Posner, and Posner also released an album this month that I thought was kind of insufferable, but Posner at least has a shred of talent that gnash doesn't.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 01, 2019 at 11:07 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.