(re-posted from Facebook, edited)
Completed New Music Week 9 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 3/1.
- Album: T-Pain – 1UP
- Previous Knowledge: All his singles.
- Chosen: I’m on a boat man.
- Review: So T-Pain dropped a new album on 3/1 just days after his Monster won The Masked Singer. On that show he talked about getting a new start and he did nothing but sing in his normal voice on that show – no auto-tune. So, I was totally expecting a fully sung record with no-auto tune at all. And that’s not this. This is like all the other T-Pain records, some sung, some rapped, all auto-tuned. I really don’t fucking get it. I mean, I know it’s his style and all but it’s not like he’s a shit singer at all and he specifically mentioned many times on the show about getting a fresh start. This is not a fresh start. But, it is good. Not great, but solid enough to be a good record. But a full point off for not ditching the autotune after preaching about getting a bad rep.
- Rating: 7.5/10
- Album: 2 Chainz – Rap or Go to the League
- Previous Knowledge: The Singles
- Chosen: Name recognition
- Review: The executive producer of this album is Lebron James. I just wanted to point that out, since it absolutely makes no sense. This is only 2 Chainz’s 5th album but it feels like his hundredth and the dude is 41-years old, so he’s not the young trap dudes of the day – therefore, you’d hope for a little more substance and style… and you get it here. This isn’t all trap, as it’s mixed with hip-hop quite a bit and even the trap beats aren’t the same shit cranked out for every 19-year old rapper out there. And due to his status, he gets bigger stars to guest on this, like Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott and even Ariana Grande. This is actually a damn fine record, so it took nine weeks to find a trap record I really liked but at least it happened.
- Rating: 9/10
- Album: Bryan Adams – Shine a Light
- Previous Knowledge: All releases
- Chosen: It’s Bryan Adams!
- Review: Bryan Adams will be fucking 60 this year. Sixty years old. My lord, it helps remind me that “Summer of ‘69” was released nearly 34-years ago. It’s true – my decade is now oldies. And my artists from the 80s are part of the senior circuit now. And this album belongs on that circuit. He hasn’t gone standards yet at least but this really isn’t a relevant record in 2019. It’s all over the map in terms of sound, with pop, rock, blues, electronics and a rootsy cover of “Whiskey in the Jar” – it’s as if he didn’t know what direction to take with the record, so he took them all. At least his last record (Get Up) was just like 30 minutes of pure rock. This has no real identity at all.
- Rating: 5/10
- Album: Masked Intruder – III
- Previous Knowledge: None
- Chosen: The cover, like a cheesy 80s horror flick.
- Review: Pump your fists baby! Super hooky pop-punk is here! This is such an interesting band. They wear colored ski masks so no one knows who they are, are called Masked Intruder and write pop-punk love songs. Nothing makes sense and yet everything works! Intruder Blue, Green, Yellow and Red make super fun music. Love love love it all.
- Rating: 9.5/10
- Album: Bus – Never Decide
- Previous Knowledge: None
- Chosen: Album cover – Gigantic chickens destroying everything!
- Review: I was expecting stoner rock and I got it! This Greek band mixes stoner rock, with proto-metal riffage to faithfully harken back to the sound of 1978. Like really, right back to the late 70s – creepy, rockin’ and a stoner delight.
- Rating: 9/10
Albums ranked 10/10 in 2019 (in order of release date)
- Terror Jr. – Unfortunately, Terror Jr.
- Emily King – Scenery
- Good Fuck – Good Fuck
The Trusty Steed 