(re-posted from Facebook, edited)
Completed New Music Week 6 through Tidal.
Each Friday release day, I’m going to download 5 albums with the only criteria being name recognition or the best pieces of cover art and review them. These are the releases of 2/8.
- Album: Ariana Grande – Thank You, Next
- Previous Knowledge: All previous material
- Chosen: Name recognition
- Review: Listening to this is weird as I feel like I’m trying to make every song about Pete Davidson. Granted, every song might be about him anyway as she’s miss sassy britches here and in songs like “Bloodline” she does say “Don’t want you in my bloodline / not tryin’ to make you all mine / and no need to apologize / but you gonna have to let this shit go” – is clearly about his inability to move on (well, you know until he somehow, someway landed Kate Beckinsale. Nowhere to go but down from there, Petey boy. There’s more ballads on this one than last year’s Sweetener but weirdly enough, no songs about tiny Korean barbecue grills. Part of me wants to continually hate her but I can’t. I just can’t.
- Rating: 9/10
- Album: Meghan Trainor – The Love Train EP
- Previous Knowledge: All previous material
- Chosen: Name recognition
- Review: Trainor’s third album has been on the release docket at like 30 different points it seems but now is gone completely. Her last album was in 2016, which for someone like her, seems like an eternity. Although I wasn’t a big fan of her retro style pop on her first record, she had a niche carved out for herself that I think she kind of destroyed with her full blown modern dance pop record as the follow up. I don’t think she’s doing herself any favors by pushing back her album unless of course it wasn’t good enough to release. But either way, this is a six song EP and the title says it all. She just got married and these songs are love songs – likely written for or about her new husband. Don’t smother the dude now, Meghan! Or maybe it’s cute. I don’t know, I’m not married to a celebrity. But I take a full point off for “Good Mornin;” – how she wants a good poke in the morning to wake her up. I’m down with that but the song features her Dad on background vocals. Her Dad. On a song about getting some nooky in the morning. Something totally wrong with that.
- Rating: 8/10
- Album: Death Throne – Evasive Gestures
- Previous Knowledge: None
- Chosen: Album cover. A neon colored drawing of a baseball player. Don’t really see that very often on album artwork.
- Review: The cover totally doesn’t scream out metalcore from Norway but that’s what this shit it. Competent, melodic hardcore, more on the hardcore than metal side in my opinion. This doesn’t sound like anything that hasn’t been done a million times before but breaking down hardcore records really isn’t my forte.
- Rating: 5/10
- Album: That Girl Lay Lay – Tha Cheat Code Reloaded
- Previous Knowledge: It’s that girl from Ellen!
- Chosen: Well, it’s the girl from Ellen! Why the hell not see what an 11-year old rapper sounds like.
- Review: By “reloaded” being part of title, I see this is a second version of her album released last year. I suppose last year you get that shit out as soon as possible to capitalize off her Ellen freestyle and then record more songs and release it again later. So this went from 8 songs to 13 now. Still all new to me.
Look, I don’t know what the heck to make of an 11-year-old girl rapping. If hardcore isn’t in my wheelhouse, pre-teen rapping really isn’t. But hell if this isn’t better than most of the rap on the radio today. It’s not terribly different from it, pretty much a basic trap album but I don’t know – there’s just something more enjoyable about this one somehow. Not saying it’s good or anything but compared….
- Rating: 6/10
- Album: John Diva and the Rockets of Love – Mama Said Rock is Dead
- Previous Knowledge: None
- Chosen: Album art. The dude is covered in peacock feathers.
- Review: You can bet your ass that if I search for five records each week and there is an obvious glam rock record that it’s going to be chosen all the time. And this was very obvious. The guitarist goes by Snake Rocket for fucks sake. I think these dudes are German and in their 40s or something. I’ve never heard of this John Diva but on his bio he says he was “involved in the writing” of songs like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” “You Give Love A Bad Name” “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and more – which sounds like total bullshit to me since there are no obvious writing credits attributed to anyone that could be him. Either way, this is their debut – so a glam band debuting in 2019. Crazy, isn’t it? So how does a boy review a glam rock album in 2019? Well, I think it has to have at least a few elements classic to the genre:
A) Shitty ballad in a prime spot on the album (‘Rock n Roll Heaven” as track 3)
B) Song about underage love (“Lolita”)
C) At least three of the following: Revvin’ your motor, slick use of the number 69, fires burning bright, use of “love machine” in at least two different songs or at least one full rip off of a classic glam rock tune.
Based on those criteria, this album should be loved by glam rock fans. But the real question is do we need a new glam rock band in 2019? The answer is a resounding no and that hurts here.
- Rating: 5/10
Albums ranked 10/10 so far in 2019 (in order of release date)
1. Terror Jr. – Unfortunately, Terror Jr.
2. Emily King – Scenery
The Trusty Steed 