Monthly Report: October 2022 Albums
1. The 1975 - Being Funny In A Foreign Language
The running theme of the advance reviews of Being Funny In A Foreign Language was that it seemed like the first album by The 1975 that nobody was calling their favorite by the band. That, and the presence of the producer everyone loves to hate, Jack Antonoff, had me braced for some kind of underwhelming disappointment. But The 1975 have never made a bad album, and they're not starting now. Matty Healy wrote a lot of songs about sex and relationships on their previous albums, but it seemed like the closest thing they had to a straight-up love song was the one that was actually about his addiction to heroin. Being Funny In A Foreign Language has several almost disarmingly direct love songs, though, rendered a little bittersweet by the fact that Healy and FKA Twigs broke up a few months ago. I do miss the messy sprawl and variety of their other albums, but I think they did a good job of just kind of playing down the center for once and just capturing the sound of the band, "Oh Caroline" is one of their best songs ever.
2. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Changes
The Australian sextet King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard is one of those acts whose defining feature is how much music they release -- they've averaged 2 albums a year for the past decade, and in October alone they released 3 (bringing their 2022 total up to 5). The last album of the October bounty is probably my favorite, Changes feels very relaxed and groove-driven, it's almost their Steely Dan record. There are lots of showcases for drummer Michael Cavanagh, particularly on "Change" and "No Body," and "Astroturf" has a great flute solo from frontman Stu Mackenzie.
3. Tove Lo - Dirt Femme
Tove Lo's profile in the U.S. has steadily declined since her platinum debut, and she's now an independent artist. But I thought her third album Blue Lips was a masterpiece, and her fifth album Dirt Femme is pretty far up there too, all the advance singles were killer and "Kick In The Head" and "Grapefruit" are great songs too. Even when she goes outside of her synth pop comfort zone with the acoustic "I'm To Blame" it sounds pretty good.
4. Lil Baby - It's Only Me
It's still a little mindblowing to me just how big Lil Baby's 2020 album My Turn was. It went 4x platinum, which, even given how streaming skews things and makes it difficult to compare plaques in different eras, puts him in rarefied air. The only Atlanta rappers with quadruple platinum albums are Outkast and Lil Baby... that's the whole list (for perspective, Luda and Future went triple, T.I., Jeezy, Lil Jon and Migos went double). It's Only Me did good first week numbers, so he's not experiencing a sharp dropoff like Roddy Ricch or DaBaby did on their last albums, but there's a definite air of disappointment or indifference around the album. Lil Baby's top 4 on Spotify right now, less than a month after the release, is all old songs, including "Freestyle," the 2017 song that experienced a big surge in popularity this year, and the single Baby put a lot of promo behind, "Heyy," is nowhere near his top 10. I think it's a solid album, though, "Not Finished" and "Pop Out" are early standouts, hopefully people aren't too fickle to let this record grow on them. It's a pretty one-dimensional album, but so was My Turn, he never really had a whole lot of depth or variety even at his best, he just does certain things really well.
5. Quavo & Takeoff - Only Built For Infinity Links
This album was released just 3 weeks before Takeoff died, and while I think everyone would've loved to see Migos united to the end, I always thought Quavo and Takeoff had an especially great dynamic within the group, and his final album is a good one. I'm generally not a fan of big recognizable samples, but it's fun hearing these guys rap over tracks associated with Outkast and Dipset on "Bars Into Captions" and "Two Infinity Links," respectively. Takeoff was still experimenting with his flow and delivery on songs like "Not Out." And "Chocolate" is awesome but it's a little tough hearing Takeoff, Young Thug and Gunna on a great song together in 2022, knowing what the year had in store for them.
6. The Soft Pink Truth - Is It Going To Get Any Deeper Than This?
The Soft Pink Truth released the Was It Ever Real? EP in August, and it felt like a substantial enough release in and of itself that I reviewed it for The Baltimore Banner. But the full-length album is really a feast, proud of my friend Koye Berry for his work on this. Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak's vocal on "Wanna Know" is incredible, she could do a whole dance record, and the last few tracks take the album in some surprising different directions that I love.
7. Taylor Swift - Midnights (3am Edition)
Taylor Swift has done big traditional rollouts for most of her albums, and surprised drops for Folklore and Evermore. Midnights was something a little different, two months of promo that consisted of things like unveiling song titles but not releasing any actual singles that gave an indication of the musical direction of the album. That was probably a smart commercial move, resulting in Swift's first million-plus first week since Reputation, but I also appreciated the suspense of not knowing exactly how it would sound. And I don't like the murky midtempo beats on Midnights that much, but it's an interesting halfway point between Folklore and her big pop albums, it gives her some breathing room to do somethings she's never done before. I'm specifying the deluxe edition because the 7 bonus tracks on there definitely include some of the best songs from the entire project, I found "Bigger Than The Sky" particularly affecting even before I saw the fan theory that it's about a miscarriage. But I like "Mastermind" and "Karma" from the main album a lot, too.
8. Sloan - Steady
I'd seen that they'd released a single here or there, but I didn't have any idea Sloan was releasing a new album until I woke up last week and it was out, which was a nice surprise. The last three albums since The Double Cross have been merely good rather than great, but Sloan's debut is 30 years old and there aren't many bands who've been this good for this long with no breakups, hiatuses or lineup changes. I think Jay Ferguson is the MVP of this album, "She Put Up With What She Put Down" and "Dream It All Over Again" and "Keep Your Name Alive" are all stellar. And Patrick Pentland's "Simply Leaving" is beautiful, I feel like he's thought of as Sloan's go-to arena rock anthem guy, but he writes great ballads too.
9. Babyface - Girls Night Out
As far as men writing songs for women to sing, there are few in that lane better than Babyface, as evidenced by the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack and countless hits. So Girls Night Out is a pretty smart project for him, duets with a dozen younger stars, I'd love to hear him do more with Ari Lennox and Tink and Baby Tate and Doechii after this album.
10. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushroom And Lava
I'm not dissing King Gizzard's one October album not listed here, Laminated Denim, which is by far the shortest of the three, but has two long tracks that both do cool things with guitars playing 5/4 riffs over 4/4 drums. Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushroom And Lava is the proggy sci-fi side of King Gizzard, full of lyrics about the topics in the title, some kind of primordial soup of fungi and volcanic activity. I don't much like the slightly reggae-ish opener "Mycelium" but the rest is very good. Their longer tracks are often their best and the 13-minute "Hell's Itch" has a killer extended jam.
The Worst Album of the Month: Yung Gravy - Marvelous
Almost every successful white rapper since Eminem has gotten by on some degree of self-aware self-deprecation about the cognitive dissonance of their identity, if not an outright "ain't I a stinker" attitude about their privilege. But Yung Gravy is such a blatantly talentless clown that he makes me miss moderately talented clowns like Riff Raff or Lil Dicky. Gravy has been scoring minor hits since crawling out of Soundcloud 5 years ago, but he recently notched his first Hot 100 hit with a fucking Rick Astley sample. And the companion album is just completely loathsome, "Run Me My Money" and "Where They At!" are arguably just as horrible as "Betty (Get Money)." And just hearing him say "I hit that shit to some Elliott Smith" on "Steppin On The Beat" makes me so angry, leave Elliott alone, man.
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