December used to be a big album release month thanks to the Christmas retail boost to CD sales, but now it's really started to become a ghost town of deluxe editions and live albums and stuff like that, I feel like it's a good opportunity for me to take more time to check out artists I haven't listened to before. And I'm really glad I checked out the Austin band White Denim's latest album. The opening track "Light On" is partly in the 5/4 time signature and the lead singer recorded a Little Feat cover a couple years ago, so immediately I was like oh, these guys are right up my alley, some psychedelic southern rock with really creative arrangements. I've started to check out some of their earlier stuff but so far 12 is what I've enjoyed the most. I posted my top 50 albums of 2024 already before I really listened to any December releases, otherwise this would've been on it. 

BossMan Dlow has a formula that he doesn't deviate from too much -- you can see it right in the tracklist of this album, which includes the titles "Dlow Curry," "Dlow Flintstone," and "Dlow Gucci." It's a strong formula, though, and there's some nice variation in the beats, I love the horn loop on "Like Dat." This stuff might get old if he's still doing the exact same thing in a year or two, but for now it's still hitting. 

Robbie Liberati, one half of the Baltimore duo Day Gone, worked as an engineer on one of my records once and he's a talented guy, I like their stuff. I didn't realize Day Gone had released a few records since the last one I heard, I need to catch up. But At The Movies is really beautiful and atmospheric, kind of eases into the songs with vocals in between these eerily beautiful instrumental passages. 

I kind of roll my eyes when aging rappers do "sequels" to one of their best early albums. But Redman is so consistent, most of this album sounds like it could've been made at almost any point in his career. It's 81 minutes long and a little meandering at times, but his ear for beats and his goofball charisma have held up really well. There's a pretty stupid narrative track involving Barack Obama and Donald Trump but it's buried in the back half of the album so it doesn't really spoil the vibe too much. 

I have to admit, Snoop and Dr. Dre reuniting for a Doggystyle sequel called Missionary is clever as hell, I love that. Most of the stuff Dre has produced in recent years has felt really sterile and charmless to me, I particularly disliked that recent Marsha Ambrosius album that people raved about. Missionary sounds good, though, maybe it's all the co-producers or maybe it really is that old Death Row era chemistry. 

I have pretty mixed feelings about K-pop, and sometimes the English-language stuff more explicitly aimed at the U.S. market has such an unpleasant uncanny valley quality to it, like "that's what you think we like, that's what you think American pop sounds like?" is what I think when I hear some of this stuff. I really liked Rosé from Blackpink's 2021 debut solo single "On the Ground," though, and while I'm kind of on the fence about "APT." with Bruno Mars, her first album is really just stacked with enjoyable songs from some of U.S. pop's best producers and songwriters. Rosé's voice has really grown on me, too, though, it reminds me a little of early Demi Lovato. "Drinks Or Coffee" is probably my favorite song so far. 

I love that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have become not just extremely prolific film score composers but also an extremely versatile team that tailors their work to each project. I thought maybe since Queer is a period piece they might go heavy on acoustic instruments like the great Mank score, but Queer is a little more of a hybrid where there's a lot strings but also some more noisy digital Nine Inch Nails-ish stuff. It always feels funny to listen to soundtrack albums months before I'll get around to watching the movie, but it sounds good without the cinematic context. 

A concert with a really amped up crowd can be amazing, but sometimes I get weary of audiences that sing a long with every word at the top of their lungs, almost drowning out the singer onstage. Maybe it's a quirk of the mixing on Zach Bryan's second live album, but the audience is so loud it irritates me a little. Still, I like hearing how his band pulls this material off onstage, and I'm glad they captured good live recordings of Bryan doing his collaborations with Kacey Musgraves and Maggie Rogers. 

Fat Joe's always proudly said the n-word, something that's gotten more and more negative attention in recent years, so I happily added fuel to the fire a couple weeks ago when I tweeted the ridiculous shit Chris Rock says on Joe's new album. For about 20 years Fat Joe made better albums than most people gave him credit for, but he really just sounds hoarse and depleted now, probably should've retired when he said he was going to a few years ago, or at least switched up from these stale Cool & Dre beats.