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“Long.Live.A $ AP” after 5 years
Long.Live.A $ AP, released exactly five years ago, is an extremely rare example of how a young promising artist managed to sit on two chairs at once. Usually, guys like Rakim are faced with the following problem – the greedy fat A & R of a large label hangs over them, and he already has a clear album structure in his head that should target everyone – boys, girls, backpackers, dandies and ghetto blacks. For each segment of the audience on the album should have its own song, for the most solvent – a single for TV, radio and clubs, the intro should be ambitious, and the outro should be soulful. Naturally, with such initial conditions, the album cannot turn out to be solid and authentic in sound, and in the zero years this formula (by which 90% of the records were released) destroyed a large number of interesting artists who had to play by the rules of their owners. Continue reading
Top foreign nonformat albums
A bit late, but still publish our top for 2017 from the best foreign releases that do not have (or have a minimal) relation to hip-hop and are usually published under our regular column #Neformat.
Gord Downie – Introduce Yerself
October 17, died Canadian musician Gord Downey. His death did not come as a surprise, because back in May of 2016, he was diagnosed with brain cancer in an advanced stage. A week after the death of the artist, his latest album “Introduce Yerself” (“Imagine Yourself”) was released, and he began working on it with the frontman Broken Social Scene after learning about the impending death. As it becomes clear from the introductory part – the disc is entirely composed of elegies, so that depression and melancholy come through from every line, every word and chord. Continue reading
Silent Digest: Main Albums
Since the beginning of the year, CupcakKe, Car Seat Headrest, U.S. received high marks from Pitchfork and the status of the “best new album”. Girls and these guys. You met them through the Black Panther soundtrack, where SOB x RBE, along with Kendrick, performed the rather strong Paramedic! Number, remembered by the audience as well as their sound, and the poignant panchas, like “New baby chop, let it sing, it’s a Drake nigga. ” Unlike many rap newbies, SOB x RBE do not try to exploit the trap sound and draw inspiration from the southern music of the nineties. Each of the participants perfectly manifested itself on the aforementioned “Paramedic!”, But on this album the chemistry between them is not felt.
Rating: 6/10 Continue reading
