Kids See Ghosts Review

Kid Cudi and Kayne West released a new album.

If you went to high school anytime from 2008 through 2014, these words are enough to send tingles down your spine.

Kid Cudi was able to connect to a generation of moody teenagers with classic albums like Man on the Moon and Man on the Moon II. These albums featured songs that bared Cudi’s raw emotions and darkest insecurities plain for the world to see. Cudi’s openness packaged with the slick production and guidance of Kayne West ensured the staying power of their music. Unfortunately, after a period of mental illness, Cudi’s music descended into mediocrity and with culminated with the 2015 atrocity Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven.

Now I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Kids See Ghosts proves the duos were and remain a force for making emotionally driven art and music.

Here are my three favorite things about the album.

1. Brevity. At only seven tracks and 23 minutes long it is easily digestible in one sitting. Like an effectively edited essay, Kids See Ghosts trims the excess away and delivers its message in a lean and punchy format. Themes of alienation, loneliness, despair, and triumph shine through the music. The typical generic rap trappings of wealth, sex, and meaningless violence are not present to water down the album's focused vision.

2. Emotional Immediacy. The duo is open about their struggles in life and they leave no trauma unrevealed. Lines like, “And nothing hurts anymore / I feel kind of free” remind me of "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd.

3. Raw Sound. This album is dissonant, which works well with the subject matter. Kid Cudi’s trademark off-key singing emphasizes the aforementioned emotions. The rough edges are intentional. Kayne is a notorious perfectionist, so for better or worse, every sound on this album is meticulously placed.

However, this album has weaknesses.

Some songs are aimless. Songs like “Free” and “Feel the Love” lack clear structure and direction. While this is may not be a negative for some people, I found myself lost amongst verse and chorus, wondering when the song was going to end. Without defined rising action and climax these songs became disorienting.

The album falls into the common trap of romanticizing mental illness. Cudi and Kayne are open about struggling with depression and Bipolar Disorder, respectively. However, instead of portraying these illnesses as the debilitating disorders they actually are, the duo seems to use them to feed into the “tortured artist” trope. 

Conclusion: This album is as flawed as the two men who made it. Give it a listen anyway.

Wide Awake Review

Damn, I like this album.

The band first caught my ear with their 2016 album Human Performance. The singles "Berlin Got Blurry" and "Dust" were constantly on my Spotify rotation last summer. "Dust’s" fat, droning guitar sounds and chanted vocals provide a hypnotic listen. The spaghetti western guitar licks and witty lyricism of "Berlin Got Blurry" make it one of the most unique rock songs of the decade. I consider it an instant classic.

Parquet Courts occupy a unique lyrical space on this Wide Awake, dangling between seriousness and silliness, walking the tightrope between those emotional extremes.

The album tackles pertinent topics such as income disparity, violence and our polarized political climate without devolving into preachy sloganeering. The perfect example of the silly/serious duality comes off Total Football, which contains the political commentary, “Collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive”. They also say “Fuck Tom Brady” on the same track. While the first lyric may be perceived as shallow, the second example shows that this band is truly at the height of their intellectual prowess.

The band’s punk roots shine as strong as ever in Wide Awake’s sound. "Almost Had to Start a Fight/ In And Out of Patience" starts out as an amateurish sounding punk song, but halfway though kicks into gear, developing a groove strong enough to spawn a mosh pit.  

"Mardi Gras Beads" reminds me of Mac DeMarco. I hope you forgive the overused comparison. The hazy vocals and reverb-drenched insurgents are reminiscent of the popular indie rocker. The style works well in this song. What really stands out to me on this track is the solo. While not technically dazzling, the phrasing is magnificent and the interplay between the rhythm instruments and the lead guitar effectively sum up the emotions of the song without the need for words.

The band reaches out from their punk and indie roots on this album. They have been listening to funk, and it especially shows on cuts like Wide Awake. The track is so groovy it blurs the lines between dance music and rock. I would be hard-pressed to even call it rock music. Like funk and disco music, the song lays primarily on the multilayered percussion section and the baseline. The baseline is funky enough to make Bootsy Collins blush.

Further drawing comparisons to classic Funk music a la James Brown is the simple and repetitive lyricism. The vocals act as another instrument in the mix, adding vocal timbre instead of telling a story or expressing complex emotional statements. This, of course, is not a criticism, the lyrics are masterfully executed and more complex lyrics might serve to ruin the songs spotless groove.

Conclusion: Damn, I really like this album. 

Listen to: Led Zeppelin Three

Listen to Led Zeppelin 3.  If you hate Led Zeppelin you will find sounds that are totally different from what you are expecting from the Zep. If you love them, you will only find more to love.

I’m a huge Led Zeppelin Fan. They are the zenith of Rock and Roll. They strike the balance between accessibility and musicality. They sound hard, need to put on a satanic show to prove it. They’re technically complex, but they never reached the self-indulgence of progressive rock. Some would consider Zepplin grandfathers of both genres.

The band is often criticized as overly bombastic and meat-headed. This may be true.  Don’t get me wrong, Led Zeppelin is dad rock. But goddamn do they rock.

Many people have only heard their big singles, played over and over by their local classic rock radio station. If this describes you I would recommend a dive into their discography. The four of five songs you have heard on repeat for the past twenty years fail to do their music justice.

Most people recommending a Led Zeppelin album would point you to their fourth album. It contains the bands most iconic songs like "Stairway to Heaven", "Rock and Roll" and "Black Dog".   

These songs are incredible, but if you’re anything like me, they are tired to your ears. Years of repetitive play have stripped them of their magic.  "Stairway" is 8 minutes long and seems to lack any actual lyrical content.

Enter Led Zeppelin 3. Out of the bands six classic albums, it is the most underappreciated. I would say it is criminally underrated.  The only cut off the album to receive any radio play is "Immigrant Song."

The album's sound from a typical 70’s rock album to an acoustic odyssey.  Robert Plant’s voice and John Bonham’s driving drum beat create an unmistakably Led Zeppelin sound. The lush instrumentation of the album takes Led Zeppelin in a new of sonic direction while never fully diverging from the bands classic sound.

However, I think the real treats of the album are the folk songs like "Tangerine", "Gallows Pole", and "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp". These songs are masterpieces in their own right. I think these songs specifically showcase the band's musical range.

"Tangerine" is my favorite song on the album. This song is the furthest thing from the typical lewd sex, drugs, and noise of Led Zeppelin. It is clearly the tenderest song in their catalog. Despite only having 12 lines of lyrics, the lush acoustic guitar and instrumentation of the track encapsulate the feeling of being in love on a hazy spring day. The gorgeous pedal guitar solo adds to the track's psychedelic feeling.

"Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" is a blast. Like many other of the songs, It draws inspiration from English and American folk music. Instead of focusing on the mournful or poetic elements of folk, it draws from the celebratory side of folk music. It conjures images of a small, late 19th-century town coming together to celebrate in the town center. "Stomp" has one of the strongest downbeats I have ever experienced in rock music.  This song makes me want to stomp my feet into the dirt. The beat is best explained as a “hoedown” style groove.

"Gallows Pole" has the most interesting history behind any Zeppelin Song. "Gallows Pole" is a traditional English folk song that existed in some form prior to the seventeenth century. The song describes a man’s desperate attempts to save himself from being executed.  As the song increases in tempo and lyrical desperation, a mandolin 12- string and banjo accompany the guitar. In the cruel and final verse, we hear from the hangman himself. Despite taking the bribes, he decides to kill the condemned.

Oh yes, you got a fine sister, she warmed my blood from cold,She warmed my blood to boiling hot to keep you from the gallows pole,Your brother brought me silver, and your sister warmed my soul,But now I laugh and pull so hard to see you swinging on the gallows pole.

The final song on the album, "Hats off to Roy Harper" is trash. Don’t listen to it.

Led Zeppelin 3 is worth listening to because it shows the maturing of a band from a purely hard rock outfit into a unit that could effectively perform songs that span the range of insturmentation and human emotion. Even if you dislike Led Zeppelin, I implore you to take an hour of your life and listen to this album.    

The History of Trap

The History of Trap

Trap rap is a dominant force on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which showcases the most popular songs in the United States. Chart-toppers like Childish Gambino’s This is America, Drake’s Nice for What and Post Malone’s Psycho share sonic characteristics that come from Trap.

If you know what trap sounds like, the music needs no introduction or explanation. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll explain myself.  You have probably already heard the trap sound I’m referring to, but haven’t identified those sounds as a coherent musical idea.

I’ve enlisted my omnipotent friend Wikipedia to provide a definition of Trap for us to use.  

Trap music is defined by its ominous, bleak and gritty lyrical content, which varies widely according to the artist. Typical lyrical themes portrayed include observations of hardship in the "trap", street life, poverty, violence and harsh experiences that artists have faced in their urban surroundings.

Trap music employs a heavy use of multilayered, hard-lined, and melodic synthesizers, crisp, grimy, and rhythmic snares, deep 808 kick drums, double-time, triple-time, and similarly divided hi-hats, and a cinematic and symphonic utilization of string, brass, woodwind, and keyboard instruments to create an energetic, hard-hitting, deep, and variant atmosphere.

Listen for the lyrical nihilism, rapid hi-hats and deep bass in Post Malone’s Rockstar.

We also need to define what the word “Trap” means. “Trap” refers to anything related to dealing narcotics. It can be a noun or a verb. One can sell drugs out of a trap house or simply “Trap.” One can also “Trap” or “be trapping” referring to the act of dealing drugs.

But where did this bleak, heavy style of music come from and why is it so popular?

A logical guess for the genesis of trap would be Atlanta rapper, T.I.’s landmark 2003 album Trap Musik. The name and the city check out, but we immediately run into numerous objections.  Gucci Mane, known to some as the godfather of trap, would likely disagree. Gucci, also from Atlanta, has been cutting records about trapping since 2000. His numerous stints in prison hint there might be a bit of truth to his music.

I think looking for a rapper is the wrong way of conducting our search. Trap did not begin with a man. Trap began with a machine. Specifically, the Roland TR-808 drum machine.

The story of the 808 is ironic. The drum machine was a commercial failure, yet it became the most successful rhythm machine in hip-hop, the most commercially successful musical genre in history.

When it was released, drum machines were still finding their footing in popular music.  The 808 machines were criticized for sounding artificial compared to competitors with more realistic sounds. It failed to capture a market share in the dominant genre of rock. This failure relegated it to dusty pawnshops and secondhand stores.

Early hip-hop producers, who lacked professional studios or funding from record labels, found the 808 drum machine at these pawn shops for highly cut rates. The machines signature deep kick bass sound and tinny hi-hats became staple sounds in early hip-hop music.

Now established as the predominant drum machine for Hip-Hop, the 808 spread across the country along with hip-hop music. It quickly migrated south, where southern rappers created their own unique sound.

By the early 2000’s Atlanta had established itself as the capital of southern hip-hop. As I mentioned before, early 2000’s Atlanta was where the sounds of southern rap mixed with hardcore gangster lyrics, culminating in the creation of proper trap rap, typified with 2003’s Trap Musik. Grimy synthesizers, machine-gun hi-hats and of course, rap about the drug dealing lifestyle are present in the album. T.I. certainly did not invent trap music, but Trap Musik represents all elements of the Trap sound in one cohesive musical package.  By 2009, Atlanta hip-hop had become so culturally ubiquitous that the New York Times referred to the city as “hip-hop’s center of Gravity.”

Here’s where my experience with trap begins. It’s 2010 and Wocka Flocka Flame releases the hit album Flockaveli. Lex Luger’s ice-cold beats and Wocka Flocka’s manic energy propel the album to the top of the charts and into my earbuds. The album included classics like Hard in Da Paint and No Hands. Hard in Da Paint makes the listener feel like he or she has the ability to run through a brick wall, which put it on every workout playlist from 2010 to today. No Hands was the catalyst for entire gymnasiums of high school students to start shamelessly grinding on each other during school dances.

The Album’s success made Luger the most in-demand producer in the rap game. Like a bee, Luger traveled across the country with his signature sounds and spread his production methods to the nation's most popular artists. Rappers like Rick Ross and Kayne West began releasing trap songs. Mellow stoner rapper Wiz Kalifa released the hard-hitting and violent track We Dem Boys while pop star Miley Cyrus released the distinctly trap track 23. These gross genre examples of trap show just how far the genre spread its influence.

Trap’s star has not ceased rising even to this day. Trap producers are still in high demand. Metro Boomin’ and Mike Will Made It consistently are behind hip hops smash hits.

Some of hip-hops biggest stars, like 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert and Future continue to rap over Trap beats. Most noticeably, rap’s new generation of rising stars, termed Soundcloud Rappers have distinct trap influences in their music.  This new generation of rappers is taking the raw abrasive sound and lyricism of Trap rap and cranking the sonic and emotional distortion up to eleven. Trap has been a part of Hip-Hop’s DNA since the beginning of the genre, yet its distinct sonic palette and lyrical nihilism set it apart from the mainstream crowd. Even though the Trap ethos has been part of rap since the beginning, the new generation of rap stars ensures it is not going away anytime soon.