DMX - Exodus
This is DMX’s first posthumous release after passing away early in April due to a drug overdose. In February, he was doing interviews where he was talking about having a completely finished album with some insane features, but judging from the lack of Pop Smoke on here, there were some changes made after he passed. The first thing that stands out here is that every single track has a feature, which leads to some inconsistent performances. “Bath Salts” shows Jay-Z and Nas redeeming their recent DJ Khaled track together with some great verses, but a track like “Skyscrapers” with Bono just feels cringy. “Hood Blues” with the three Griselda founders is another incredible posse cut where all three members show up for their track with a legend. Of course, DMX was also able to bring the extremely heartfelt track with “Letter To My Son”, which features a heartbreaking verse where X apologizes to his son and reaches out to rekindle their relationship over a beautiful violin solo. This is clearly a flawed project and stands nowhere near his classics, but there’s enough here to love and appease fans wanting to hear more music.
Joy Oladokun - In Defense of My Own Happiness
Joy came onto my radar recently with her track with Jensen McRae “wish you the best,” and In Defense of My Own Happiness was released a few months later as her debut album. She stays in the indie folk/singer-songwriter sound for the entire thing, which includes lots of ballads, arguably too many. That’s my main complaint about this project as well, which is that the sound is too bare bones and generic for the 46-minute runtime. It does make the listener focus on her words more, which is helpful, since that’s where she shines. Her subject matter ranges from worrying people in church camp finding out her sexuality, to the current state of the United States. Joy’s clearly a talented artist, and especially as a songwriter, but I think that she needs to adventure out a bit more sonically on her next release because there’s too many people that use this sound more effectively than she does.
Poppy - Eat (NXT Soundtrack)
Poppy is now completely separated from her abuser and former creative partner, Titanic Sinclair, and this is her first musical project that’s not connected to him at all. Even though it seemed like there was a clear direction she was going in, there was a chance for a switchup, but this project delves deeper into her metal influences. Eat is easily the most aggressive project she’s ever released, which works well for the short length. Instead of her previous project where the heavy instrumentals were paired with mainly her pop vocals, this one has Poppy screaming her way through most of these verses. In contrast, the choruses tend to have her airy vocals, which helps them really stand out among the intense sound of this project. The instrumentals on here are really dense and change constantly throughout the track. The biggest example is “Say Cheese”, which goes from a quick paced thrash metal track to a quick jazzy piano breakdown for the bridge, and then back to the metal outro. The instrumentals are honestly the highlight for me, along with Poppy’s ability to still write a fantastic pop hook into a metal tune. I’m glad that she’s now completely separated to make whatever music she wants, and this project continues her trek into something completely different.
Bo Burnham - Inside (The Songs)
There hasn’t been a more talked about comedy special in 2021 than Bo Burnham’s Inside. The entire 90-minute special was directed, written, shot, edited, and produced all by Bo himself. As anyone who knows Bo comedy knows, his material revolves heavily around music, so much so that all the songs in the special were able to be released as a 53-minute album. It’s separated into two discs, the first being more lighthearted material, and the second diving deeper into his depression and mental health issues. While songs like “How The World Works” and “White Woman’s Instagram” are both hilarious pop hits, “All Eyes on Me” and “Goodbye” pull at the heartstrings way more than any comedian should be able to do. In my opinion, the incredible centerpiece to the album is “Welcome to the Internet”. Throughout the multifaceted track, he personifies the internet into an evil villain and goes in on about the effects of exposing children to this insane thing at an extremely young age. To quote Facebook’s photo review system, “I’m in this photo, and I don’t like it,” and this is definitely how I feel about this track. Everyone can find one track on here that will relate to that feeling.
KennyHoopla & Travis Barker - Survivor’s Guilt: The Mixtape//
It was only last year that KennyHoopla started making ground with his brand of electronic-infused punk music, and now he’s got a full tape with Blink-182’s drummer Travis Barker. Travis has become the go to producer for pop punk, and is almost single handedly helping this revival get off the ground. Now, this isn’t always for the best, as a lot of his material has been pretty bland. Even this project with Kenny, it was obvious what it would sound like even before pressing play. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as there are quite a few anthemic pop punk bangers on here, but the uniquenesses of Kenny’s previous EP are gone. The project starts out on a high with “silence is also an answer//”, “estella//”, and “turn back time//” all being upbeat, easily enjoyable anthems. The latter especially is a nice change of sound, even if it’s a minimal one. But even at 20 minutes, this project starts to run dry by the end. It just becomes sonically stale and worn out by the last couple tracks. I will say though, after seeing Kenny’s first ever headlining show last week, this project did grow on me a bit. An entire crowd singing these songs as loud as possible works a lot better than listening by yourself on headphones. It’s still a bit behind his previous EP, but there’s enough here for any pop punk fan to love.
Migos - Culture III
Migos finally released the third installment of their Culture series after more than a three year break. The first album in 2017 is now considered one of the great trap albums of the last decade and had incredible hits like “Bad and Boujee”, “T-Shirt”, and “Casting Call”. A year later, Culture II came out as a 24 song, 100 minute long slog with way more misses than hits. There was no telling how this project was going to turn out, but it ended up somewhere in the middle. There is still way too much filler on here to be fully listened to more than once, but most of the songs on here are at least decent. The production clearly had a lot more thought put into it, as most of the beats are good versions of what’s currently popular in trap. A song like “Avalanche” shows them slightly venturing out into new territory, but most of this is directly in their wheelhouse. Songs like “Modern Day”, “Straightenin”, “Malibu”, “Roadrunner”, “Vaccine”, and “Picasso” will be in rotation for a good period of time, but the entire project fails to recreate what the original Culture had.
H.E.R. - Back Of My Mind
Even though this is her debut album, H.E.R has already accomplished almost everything in the industry. She’s won multiple Grammys, including Song of the Year earlier in 2021, won an Academy Award for her song “Fight For You”, and has released over 50 songs before this album. Now, it’s pretty clear that H.E.R has unconditional support from the industry, but she’s still an extremely talented artist who puts on a fantastic live show filled with awesome instrumentals! So after all these things, I was really excited to see what she brought out for her official debut album. Unfortunately, it’s another overstuffed project filled with lots of empty tracks. There is about every type of R&B that you can think of on here, which she all does well, but she’s not the best at any of them. The sound she does best is the timeless, older-style R&B tracks with loads of live instrumentation. Songs like “Hold On” or “Don’t” are gorgeous and build beautifully throughout their runtimes. But for each of those tracks, there’s a snoozer like “Lucky” that is monotonously slow and empty. There are some really incredible features on here, like Thundercat and Cordae, but there are also headscratchers like Chris Brown and DJ Khaled that actively take away from their songs. And the runtime at just under 80 minutes is insanely too long for the type of songs she writes on here. Back Of My Mind is nowhere near a bad project, but for someone with the talent of H.E.R, this is another disappointing project that falls significantly beneath her talent level.
Various Artists - Liberated/Music For The Movement Vol. 3
A Juneteenth release, this project is a collection of five new tracks from prominent Black artists and there’s too much good music on here to miss it. Cordae and Common open it with an introspective dive into life itself and even though Cordae originally released it a couple years ago, Common fits in really well. Chloe from Chloe x Halle shows up on here to cover Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” and she not only did it justice, but updated it for 2021. After a poem by Black-ish and Grown-ish star Yara Shahidi, Kamasi Washington closes it out with a new 8-minute long track “Sun Kissed Child.” This one sounds more in line with his Becoming Soundtrack from last year than it does his other jazz epics, but it’s still a really great jazz-fusion track. The instrumental here is so full and lively in a way that makes it perfect for summer days, and the vocalist adds to the track nicely as well. Hopefully they continue to release these shorter projects, because new tracks from all these artists are always more than welcome.
De’Wayne - Stains
De’Wayne is another artist I just heard of in the past week or two, and he’s another artist that goes into the bucket of “genre-less” music. There are moments that sound like punk music, some that are industrial hip hop based, others that are straight up rock tracks, and there’s lots more I can’t even describe. I will say, I’m not sure he’s on the same level as the top people in this sound, but he’s for sure someone to keep an eye on. The industrial noise provides a lot of edge to a track like “I Know Something”, but he somehow still manages to provide an entertaining chorus. The one that originally caught my attention was “Super 8”, which illuminates his raspy vocal tone and ability to layer harmonies perfectly. It’s not one of the most experimental tracks on here, but it’s a jam that will bring people into this project. “Money” is also another highlight that proves he doesn’t always need an extremely aggressive track to be entertaining. De’Wayne is someone to keep an eye on in the next decade to keep putting out innovative music.
MonoNeon - Basquiat & Skittles
MonoNeon is someone I’ve just come across in the past couple weeks. Judging by the album title and cover, it’s easy to see that this guy’s super unique and kinda crazy. After doing a bit of research, it looks like he puts out music almost weekly on his Youtube channel, and then just brings it all together in albums for streaming services. But what I didn’t expect in the research is that he’s played for some legendary artists. MonoNeon was actually the last bassist to be hired to Prince’s band before he passed away. He’s also worked with Mac Miller, Ne-Yo, Nas, and more. You can hear the talent in the music easily. Especially for this being his third album of the year, the funk on here is extremely reminiscent of the 80s. The subject matter and titles are actually hilarious, including the opener, “Life Is a Glitterly Fu¢kery” and the Steve Arrington assisted, “I Got a Gold Chain with a Bad Name.” The big problem with this project is that it sounds like it was mixed in a garbage can. For example, the production here isn’t that much different from Ian Isiah’s Chromeo produced project AUNTIE last year, but that project was mixed to glittery perfection, while this one sounds more compressed than a zip file. But for fans missing the older funk sound, MonoNeon is here to fulfil your needs for the rest of time.
Ambar Lucid - Get Lost In The Music
Ambar Lucid came back onto my radar earlier this year with her feature on the new Kenny Mason album, and this 5-song EP is her first release since then. It was preceded by the title track as a single, and it’s still easily the best song on here. The instrumental here is so lush with a fantastic bassline and keys that help it stand out against the average indie-pop track. Her voice is pretty powerful on this track and has an old school feel to it. For the rest of the songs, her voice is easily the standout aspect. It can shift from that old school pop style to an airy beauty that reminds me of Kali Uchis’s voice. Ambar even sings an entire song in Spanish on here called, “Un Animal (Divina Existencia)”. “Lizard” even shows her doing her thing over an atmospheric trap beat. Hopefully Ambar continues to keep improving and perfecting her sound with her future releases.
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