A Mini Review, Another Mini Review, and More: Fanboy Roundup #7
November 24th, 2020: Fanboy Roundup #7
11/24/20
DISCLAIMER: The "more" in the title is implying more mini reviews, not more interesting and important topics of discussion.
Topic #1: boy pablo - Wachito Rico (Mini Review)
Indie artist boy pablo has been producing hits about teen love with a wonderful and specific style, and despite how controversial this next statement is, it's starting to get somewhat old. His fans haven't seen much of a change in his style or an evolution in a long time, but his fanbase continues to praise his music like he is the literal Messiah. Every modern-day teen probably likes him, or at least this genre, at some point in their younger lives. I did for a while myself, but even I thought his style got old eventually maybe two years ago when I stopped. His past is reflected in the first four singles released from this project, and they're things you swear you had heard before from boy pablo and many artists like him. Though, in a decent majority of what follows these first five tracks, it suddenly picks up and each song becomes very creative with this overall style. The one problem that consists in nearly every song is the basic and half-hearted lyrics that sound lazy, uninspired, and overused; not only for this artist, but for everyone else making the same kind of music he is. At least with other indie artists like this like Oliver Tree, he has a distinct and unique style just to himself that hides the repetitive lyrics while blending in with them well. While there's no doubt that boy pablo's style and his lyrics mesh well, so many of his ideas never really feel innovative, new, or even true to his own personal feelings. That's not to say that this album doesn't have its fair share of well-produced bops that shit on everything else this genre and style have to offer outside of boy pablo himself. My favorite track is "mustache", and my least favorite track is "i hope she loves me". Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 6/10 with a five-word description of: "same fun, same everything else".
Topic #2: The Alchemist - The Food Villain (Mini Review)
It's pretty hard to feel qualified to review an instrumental hip-hop album as a rapper and as someone who really understands how much vocals add to this genre especially. On the other hand, I'm also a trained producer, so it seems to even itself out somewhat. It was especially hard to score this because of how much I love Alan The Alchemist's work and perfected style backing other amazing rap songs. This album, however, does not feature a single rap verse, but is rather instrumentals with an added layer of nicely-chopped skits over every track, some with dedicated rappers as speakers. The most important thing to judge in an album full of beats is, shockingly enough, the beats. The production itself is astonishing; the samples are chopped and played with in a very cool and unique way through every track. The beats themselves are honestly pretty great, but a decent handful being virtually incomparable to his previous work; on his own or with other artists. There aren't a whole lot of creative ideas here in the production, but when there are, they truly shine. This entire underground alternative soul-sampling style is something that works out so well in a mixtape format, but not very well as an album with a decent feeling of progression. Take Westside Gunn's debut album back from mid-October "WHO MADE THE SUNSHINE". I commended this album for being absolutely brimming with great lyrical ideas and instrumental changes, with the only real problem with it being its lack of feeling or progression. Starting an album with the word "intro" in it, and pretty much finishing it with a track along the lines of "goodbye" or "goodnight" isn't what makes an "album". Aside from this, you have the subpar skits, which I thought could have their potential, but ruined the beats in a lot of cases with their constant repetition. I could've sworn I've heard the voice clip "he's a villainous person" fifty times in the first ten minutes of the album. My favorite track is "Lamb Sauce", and my least favorite track is "Skeptical About Goat". Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 6.5/10 with a five-word description of: "some great ideas, executed decently".
Topic #3: Emmitt James - Cornbread, Collard Greens, and Backshots (Mini Review)
After listening to Emmitt James' "Cuffin' Season" about twenty thousand times, I heightened my expectations and hopes to practically no end for this new tiny rap artist. That EP was lush, smooth, intimate, beautiful, and catchy as all hell; making one of the greatest rap projects this year that I've discovered thus far. I never enjoyed James' older music nearly as much as I enjoyed his most recent EP. So when I heard on his Instagram that he was making an entirely new EP, I figured with his modern style and all, my expectations were sky high for "Cornbread, Collard Greens, and Backshots". Alas, it failed to meet a lot of ridiculous expectations. Firstly, the album didn't have nearly as much meat to it as his past EP did. It came complete with six tracks, two of which being an intro and an interlude, and the other four full tracks never really left me satisfied. It might have been a different story if the tracks themselves were up to par with modern rap and R&B masterpieces such as "Maybe: Jayne" and "Toes" from his last project. Though, the tracks here were not only held up to a different standard of quality, but were also under a slightly different style. Some things were under a more trap-like influence that, in many cases, failed to mesh with Emmitt James somewhat wacky and funny rap style. In fact, the only song where the lyrics truly meshed well with the instrumentals was in the more serious "Seasons": a great song with a catchy hook. Even though it may not have matched James' previous joking yet sexual style to contrast the more intimate and smooth hooks, it still worked out to be a great song with some amazing bars. The other songs, however, somewhat failed to even come close to the standard of quality we saw in some of the best work from April's "Cuffin' Season". Perhaps comparing two albums with somewhat different styles is a little unfair, but all of our taste in and opinions on music are based on prior experiences to compare new things to. My favorite track was "Seasons", and my least favorite track was "Wagon". Giving this EP a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this EP a 5/10 with a five-word description of: "the style never matches itself".
Topic #4: Chris Stapleton - Starting Over (Mini Review)
Chris Stapleton's most notable achievements in the music industry is undoubtably bringing the modern country music genre away from its current structure and sound back to its roots. With this new album, however, Stapleton was claiming to rebrand with its new name "Starting Over". Alas, like most things that exist, it was simply a marketing ploy, and this album brought with it the same Chris Stapleton goodness we've seen in his prior albums. If anything, this album might be somewhat worse, only because its songs can be categorized so specifically and in such a random order. Comparing each style to a popular song from his debut album "Traveller", you start out with the sweet and slower acoustic love songs like "More of You". Then come the more deep-sounding and rugged songs, some which include his wonderful belt-out singing style, like "The Devil Named Music". Finally, you have his more upbeat rock songs akin to "Parachute". While there are some dividing lines in his past couple of albums, there has never been such clear and distinct lines between these styles as there are here. Aside from this, though, and it's somewhat random progression, the album does a great job at delivering great songs in the Chris Stapleton style. This style still hasn't gotten old yet after repeating for this many albums, but I'm nervous to think it might get old faster. Stapleton himself probably did not take this into consideration when he had the chance to completely rebrand with this project. While I do have a few gripes with some of the song writing and production on a few of these tracks, nothing really exceeds being too minor to be worth mentioning. My favorite track is "Joy of My Life", and my least favorite track is "Worry B Gone". Giving this album a 1-10 using half numbers, I give this album a 7/10 with a five-word description of: "minor flaws in amazing country".
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