We have to admit: we kind of slept on Lizzo until early this year. The pop powerhouse – born Melissa Jefferson, stage name Lizzo – has been active for a few years already. Her first two albums, Lizzobangers (2013) and Big Grrl Small World (2015), were followed by a well-received EP entitled Coconut Oil (2016). But it was this year’s album, Cuz I Love You (2019), that broke Lizzo into the mainstream – and thankfully into our playlists.
Eagle-eyed readers will be aware that Lizzo first caught our ears with her lead single “Juice”, just around the time that an interview with Ellen brought her international attention. Happily, though, despite its irresistible beat and playful lyrics, “Juice” isn’t the only great track on the album – far from it, in fact.
At her essence, Lizzo is self-confidence in all aspects – personality, body, relationships and so on. And it’s when that self-confidence takes center-stage on Cuz I Love You that the singer really shines.
Take, for example, “Tempo”, an excellent collaboration with living legend Missy Elliott. “Slow songs, they for skinny hos / Can’t move all of this here to one of those / I’m a thick bitch, I need tempo” the duo declare. Sure, it’s an anthem for body positivity, but don’t overlook the killer beat or Missy’s seamless inclusion. “Exactly How I Feel”, her collab with Gucci Mane, showcases the wholesomeness of her positivity over funky, bouncy beats. “Can’t hold back my tears, that would be a crime / ‘Cause I look pretty cryin’, oh, they ain’t tell you?” she sings in her glass-busting voice, and ironically you can’t help smiling along.
But there are of course more layers to Lizzo. On the eponymous opening track, she talks about a man that she can’t quite forget: a memory that shatters her otherwise perfect poise. “Got me standing in the rain, gotta get my hair pressed again / I would do it for you all, my friend, ready baby? Will you be my man?” she wonders, before breaking out into an earth-shattering, introspective wail: “I’m crying ‘cause I love you”.
If there’s one negative to this album, it’s that it is too short yet not tight enough. There are some flatter songs on the album, which naturally stand out on the short ~34 min runtime. On the whole, though, Cuz I Love You is a great entry into the annals of this decade’s pop music. Lizzo is on her way to becoming a pop star (Doing SNL! Those red-carpet looks! Twitter friendship with Obama!) and there’s so much more that we can expect from her in the future.
This is undoubtedly the catchiest album that I’ve heard all year. Burna Boy just has that ear for it that you cannot replicate. This is an album that puts you in undeniable motion.
The combination of African sounds and the Nigerian patois that run through it mix cleanly with the just-as-prominent modern pop and rap sounds to make something at once of the future and deeply connected to its roots.
In particular, “Anybody” and “Wetin Man Go Do” pull all of the pieces together perfectly. It’s a sound that’s excitingly novel in all that it brings to the table and again, it’s just very catchy.
It’s a fun album. “Killin Dem” is compulsive and “Omo” is infectious. This is, more than anything, the reason to try it out. “Secret” has the kind of chorus that sticks in your ears long after you’ve pressed pause.
It is hopefully also the sign of Burna Boy’s emergence. This is an album with impressive features. Unfortunately, neither Future nor YG show up that well. Both are just out of place on this and that dissonance is hard to break from. Jorja Smith is excellent though. “Gum Body” has a great verse from her as well as a stand-out chorus and an absolutely wonderful little sax lick in the middle. Similarly, “Secret” has a fantastic chorus and the features help an already great track stand out.
The album does lose pace somewhere around the middle and a few sounds drag for too long, but this is still the most enjoyable album that I’ve heard all year. Also, it has a fascinating aside about colonialism in Nigeria and that kind of thing automatically bumps an album up a rung.
Fontaines D.C. are a punk band from Dublin, Ireland, whose five members met over a common love for Irish poets. On their debut album, Dogrel, every piece of that one-sentence biography rings loud, clear and omnipresent.
Dogrel does for Dublin what the Arctic Monkeys’ debut did for Sheffield: pulling back the curtain for a laddish, working-class look at a beloved hometown. Run through Dogrel from top to bottom, and you almost feel as though you’re right there in Dublin with the boys.
There are so many great elements to the album that it’s frankly unbelievable to think that this is a debut. The most striking element is, of course, the high-energy instruments. Fontaines D.C. never take more than a few seconds to catch the listener’s attention, whether it’s the driving riffs on “Sha Sha Sha” or the wall-of-bass on “Hurricane Laughter”.
Another stand-out element is singer Grian Chatten’s vocals, blaring out blustering one-liners (“My childhood was small / Oh, but I’m gonna be big!”) in an unmistakable, irreverent and totally unapologetic Irish accent. In many songs, it’s this phrasing itself that takes center-stage. “If you’re a Rock Star, Porn Star, Superstar / Doesn’t matter what you are, get yourself a good car, get outta here,” Chatten proclaims on “Boys in the Better Land” – every word pronounced more authentically Irish than anything you’ve ever heard.
And of course, there’s the matter of the lyrics themselves – slice-of-life, working-class beat poetry about Dublin life. On “Liberty Belle”: “You know I love that violence that you get around here / That kind of ready-steady violence, that violent ‘How do you do?’”. On “Too Real”: “The winter evening settles down, the bruised and beat up open sky, six o’clock / The city in its final dress, and now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps”. With Dogrel, the lads tip their hats to Yeats, Joyce et al in talking about their city – all set to cheeky punk rock. (Unsurprisingly, the album takes its name from doggerel, a jagged style of spoken-word poetry.)
Finally – and this is the most impressive one – the greatest part of Dogrel is that it is chock-full of hits from top to bottom. There are honestly decades-old bands that haven’t mastered the ability to combine authenticity, killer tunes and timeless lyrics into one package, and Fontaines D.C. did it on their first try.
Dogrel is perhaps the best debut of the year, and we highly recommend you give it a listen.
Best tracks: “Big”, “Boys in the Better Land”, “Sha Sha Sha”
This album is not shy about its strengths. Right from the strong but sincere “Sinners Prayer” and its bluesy groove, you know that you’re getting into something good. By the time you get into the Prince-like “The World Is Drunk” and excellent neo-R&B of “Something Keeps Calling”, there’s no doubt left.
It finishes with fully the same strength. “Glory To The Veins” is the standout track with a dark, pulsating beat and Saadiq shows expert restraint with his voice here. For all of that though, it just grooves. “Rikers Island” moves well and the redux adds some needed profundity in an album which, while very heartfelt, is not quite original in its lyrics.
However, the album itself is just a little muddied. There are great moments in there, like the chorus of “Something Keeps Calling” or the little bit of playful piano in “Glory To The Veins”, but the whole fades a little easily, a fault exacerbated by the weak middle.
It’s still no doubt a very good, if not quite great, album. There are faults, but if you’re looking to see present-day R&B at its best, this is where you should start.
In a world dominated by global pop sensations (see: Ariana Grande, K-pop), it can often seem like rock and roll is about to doze off at the wheel. Sure, you have the occasional saviors, like Royal Blood or the more derivative Greta van Fleet, but there aren’t too many active and prolific rock and roll artists today.
Except, of course, for the Black Keys.
The Black Keys, comprising of Dan Auerbach on guitar / vocals and Patrick Carney on drums, is as lean and mean as they come. Their songs are – and have always been – loud, effortless, rollicking, and whatever-is-the-opposite-of-pretentious. They are, simply put, a good time through and through.
What’s more, this sound has largely been dependable over the band’s extensive history. The band’s first five albums – The Big Come Up (2002), thickfreakness (2003), Rubber Factory (2004), Magic Potion (2006) and Attack & Release (2008) – were released in quick succession and to moderate fanfare. But it was soon after that they really started to take off. Brothers (2010) and El Camino (2011) would top the charts of any best-of-decade blues rock albums, spawning still-ubiquitous hits such as “Tighten Up”, “Howlin’ for You” and “Lonely Boy”. While Turn Blue (2014) could be considered a slight step down, it was still a great rock album – and that’s our point. There are few, if any, other artists today with such a long-standing, consistent and beloved rock discography.
And all that back-story brings us to the ninth Black Key album “Let’s Rock!” (2019). Coming after a scary five-year gap (“Will they ever get back together?” wondered fans everywhere), the album is sturdy, no-nonsense and catchy as all hell.
It’s also, reliably, packed to the brim with top-notch bluesy hits. “Shine a Little Light” opens the album with about twenty seconds of anticipation, before kicking into high gear with a hard-hitting riff. By the time Auerbach gets to the swashbuckling chorus (“If evil lays its hands on me, shine a little light on my soul / Show me things I cannot see, shine a little light on my soul”), you know what you’re getting for the rest of the album – good old-fashioned rock and roll fun.
And it’s pretty much non-stop from there. “Eagle Birds” is bluesy perfection, equally appropriate for an exuberant road-trip or a raucous dance party. “Lo / Hi” could, and probably will, soundtrack an advertisement for a Cadillac, or a leather jacket, or a motorcycle (or maybe all of those things) – pure swagger and confidence from head to toe. “Go” is an instant rock classic, with a single-word chorus (yep, the word is “go”) that perhaps no other band could really pull off.
In between these hard-rock hits, a few songs provide some welcome contrast. “Walk Across the Water” features gentler vocals with laidback, Hendrix-like riffs – a catch of breath in the otherwise relentless first half. “Sit Around and Miss You” is rockabilly meets Revolver-era Beatles, with warm riffs, old-timey “oohs” and “aahs”, and simple-as-they-get vocals.
Bottom line: “Let’s Rock” is straightforward, old-fashioned, and just plain fun. If you’re looking for something deep or ground-breaking, you’d best look elsewhere. If not – you’re in the right place.
It’s immediately apparent that this is the album after the death of Nick Cave’s son. The melancholy is beautiful and everywhere. It’s much more of an ambient album than is standard for him and, if anything, benefits from the move outside. It does however also suffer a little from what becomes a slightly unvarying sound as a result though.
However, the grief comes through poignantly throughout. In particular, the retelling of the Buddhist parable of the house that knows no death in “Hollywood” is heart-rending. It’s a touching, beautiful album and one that you will not leave unmoved.
Earl Sweatshirt has built a solid pocket of rap for himself. He makes muddy, complex, punishing rap in a way that no one else even really attempts. FEET OF CLAY however may have taken it too far.
His muttered, submerged raps are as awe-inspiring as ever. He puts together sounds and words in a way that’s simultaneously muddy and evocative, like scrying in a swamp. It’s singular and cohesive and often somewhat punishing as a result. He has such complex bars with lyricism as unique as it is skilled.
The punishment was always sort of the point, but this is the one where it feels a little unjustified. The album is just too dense and lacks the reward of a “Chum” or a “Grief” to really pay off the effort. If you’re an Earl Sweatshirt fan, then you already know that you should give this album a couple of spins, but if not, this is not the place to jump in.
In May of this year, indie pop-rock mainstays Vampire Weekend released their fourth full-length album, Father of the Bride. We are aware, yes, that we are a little late with this review; but with the end of the year coming up fast, we thought it best to close the loop on some albums that we haven’t gotten around to reviewing just yet.
Vampire Weekend burst onto the scene, almost literally, with a sparkling, eponymous debut album about a decade ago. Their sound was a mystifying mix of mainstream and hipster – think clean-cut prep school kid with surprisingly deep life experiences. That first album had songs like “Oxford Comma”, literally devoted to a grammatical element (but a hipster one!), and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, a juxtaposition of idyllic New England summers and Congolese dance.
The next two albums, Contra (2010) and Modern Vampires of the City (2013), had a similarly well-traveled mishmash of sights and sounds, with hits like “Horchata” and “Diane Young”. Although their sound was a little more grown-up, the essence remained intact. Things are now different, though, with the departure of one Rostam Batmanglij.
Vampire Weekend, in its original iteration, was a four-piece consisting of vocalist / guitarist Ezra Koenig, guitarist Batmanglij, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Tomson. Koenig and Batmanglij had a great song-writing partnership. Batmanglij’s wildly creative, global influences provided, in our minds, the X-factor to the band’s otherwise tidy sound. In January 2016, Batmanglij left the band to pursue solo projects – and this is the first Vampire Weekend album without him.
Vampire Weekend without Batmanglij essentially becomes an
Ezra Koenig project. That’s not necessarily always a bad thing. For one, Koenig’s
ability to write a great indie pop song is perhaps unrivalled today. Also,
Koenig now has a celebrity status (see: has a child with girlfriend Rashida
Jones, has a Netflix series and an Apple Music radio show) that allows
him to pull together a galaxy of musical guests onto the project. The end
result, however, is pleasant, charming, polite – and ultimately a bore.
Our readers may be surprised by this assessment; we have, over the past year, done our fair share of gushing over the album’s singles (see here and here). When all the pieces are put together, however, Father of the Bride paints a different picture. It’s the soundtrack to your child’s pastel-themed second-birthday-party. It’s the backdrop to the flowery end of a romcom. It is the sound of entering your mid-thirties considerably less cool than you were in your twenties – albeit armed with a sensible savings account and a postcard-perfect house.
Father of the Bride is packed with fantastic, beautiful songs that deserve to be heard. There are some truly beautiful riffs on here, from the bright “Sunflower” to the deft “Harmony Hall” . Danielle Haim of HAIM joins Koenig for three pretty duets, most notably on the folksy opener “Hold You Now”. It’s a great album – just don’t expect the old Vampire Weekend.
Best songs: “Harmony Hall”, “Sunflower”, “This Life”
FKA Twigs has long made some of the most interesting pop out there, but MAGDALENE is a full step above her earlier work. It’s easily her best album to date and one of the best albums of the year. She’s sharper, she’s more cohesive and this album just bangs.
There are the obvious parts, “holy terrain” works very well with the Future feature. The trap beat plays nicely against her voice and Future is perfectly understated. The heart of the album is in the thousands of little moments. There’s a beautiful vocal fragment to end “mary magdalene” and the pulsations of “fallen alien” are consuming and intense.
The album even works in the much slower “mirrored heart” and it fits expertly. The feedback in it adds a surprising heft and her lyrics are cutting. Coming as this album did, after a major break-up and a major surgery, it could have easily been a sledgehammer of an album, but her restraint makes the moments that reference the turmoil all the more powerful. Her finesse here is astonishing.
There are a few missteps in “home with you” and “daybed”, which just don’t do enough, but there is much more of note, like the beautiful and clever “sad day”. This is an album from an absurdly talented artist at the height of her powers and an album you don’t want to miss.
It’s a given now that a new Kanye album is going to be something of a production. Albums are promised and due dates come and go and you’re never sure what you will get until it comes. With Jesus Is King, what you get is a lot of truly excellent music and one of the more interesting albums that Kanye has ever made.
Coming in, I thought it would be a full gospel album. I expected “Ultralight Beam” extended into a complete album. Instead, although there is a very substantial gospel theme, the album as a whole is surprisingly diverse. There’s a heavy religious bent and the album is very cohesive, but my concerns about monotony proved entirely unfounded.
The album opens with a straight gospel track though, performed by the Sunday Service Choir that Kanye has toured with of late. It’s a good choir and a good way to open the album. It functions as a statement of purpose and a way for the listener to enter the mindset that the album asks for. It’s ablutionary.
It’s followed with “Selah,” which opens with Kanye rapping, but the centerpiece of the song is that same choir. Kanye has a couple of good lines (I like his biblical double-entendres), but the song is completely overpowered by the choir. It’s weapons-grade material to put into any song and it animates the song to such an extent that Kanye’s rapping after it feels completely subsumed by the echoes of that choral work. It makes for a powerful effect and one of the strongest songs of the album, but I feel that there’s space there for a better melding.
From there though, we go into “Follow God,” which really showcases Kanye’s ability as a rapper. In this and in “Hands On,” you can see technical rapping in a way that it feels that the earlier Kanye was just not capable of. He teases the chorus a couple of times in the middle of the song just to bull through it without taking a full breath and it’s dazzling. Even more interesting though is the center of the song, Kanye fighting with his father just to be told that it’s not Christ-like. The reality of spirituality is that it will be tested, and this struggle is one writ especially large with Kanye’s turn to God here. Kanye is famous for his emotionality, for his quickness to react, for his inability to think before he acts, and to see him address the struggle is valuable as it’s rare to see someone be honest and personal about how difficult it can be.
“Closed On Sunday” has a bit of the same. The Sabbath is a sacrifice as much as a respite and you can see the intent behind referencing Chick-fil-A’s decision to stay closed on Sunday out of respect for their faith. The production is sober and quiet and Kanye’s rapping is muted through most of it, which gives the music a heft that plays well with the theme and the wariness of the first verse, which then translates well into the second, often-shouted verse.
The Chick-fil-A association still leaves gristle in the teeth though. The company is far more famous for homophobia than for Sundays and to not only repeatedly reference them, but to end the song with a screamed invocation is overtly provocative. You have to expect that with Kanye, it is what he does, it gets the people going, but nevertheless I would have really liked it if he had backed it up a little. He explains “I Thought About Killing You” over the course of the song and that is why that piece is so strong, but here he simply provokes and runs, and it feels less than it should as a result.
The middle is a bit forgettable. It’s reminiscent of some of the more forgettable parts of TLoP to me, but I actually really like “God Is.” It’s just earnest and that’s nice to see. Earnestness is another of those things that’s critical to any understanding of religion, but it’s also one that people are often reluctant to center a song on just because of how uncomplicated it is. Uncomplicated is not the same as inferior though, and I like to see something straightforward every now and again.
For all of that though, “Hands On” calls out the Christians. It’s a necessary part of an album like this, it’s a good reminder that the struggle for spirituality is personal and not just subsuming yourself into a crowd. As above though, it’s also got strong rap from Kanye. His change of pace here is very clean. Again, it’s just nice to see how much Kanye has developed as a rapper. It was never his strongest suit, but his ability now unlocks a lot of musical space.
“Use This Gospel” helps close out the album well. Clipse are acceptable on it, but Kanye is great and bringing in Kenny G for a moment is very unexpected, but remarkably well done. It’s exactly the perfect sax interlude. The actual closer, “Jesus Is Lord” finishes right as it gets started, but that works well. It’s uplifting and beautiful and ends on exactly the right note.
Jesus Is King is not a masterpiece like MBDTF or Graduation and not as groundbreaking as 808s & Heartbreak or Yeezus, but this is possibly the most unique album that Kanye has ever made. I’ve never experienced anything that has quite the same thing to say about religion or Christianity. It’s sincere and honest in the way that only Kanye can be and the result is as personal as a fingerprint. It’s very good music and there’s plenty here to provoke thought, no matter what Kanye himself may have intended to say. It’s not without flaws, but it’s also just excellent music and it’s the album this year that I’m most glad to have heard.
Top Five Records 