Category: reviews

audio review : Venom ( album ) … U-God

audio review : Venom ( album ) ... U-God

The best beats here are produced by Green Lantern. Epicenter, one of the few songs not bogged down by lame breaks, has the DJ channeling a young Rza. Most of the others are comparatively inept.

It’s called Venom because that’s what U-God thinks he’s spitting. I disagree; his wordplay is unexceptional to me; but, for what it’s worth, he is one of my favorite members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

my rating : 3 of 5

2018
 

NAME_NOT_RETURNED :

I think something is wrong with your eardrums if you think that the best beats on the album is Epicenter. In fact U-God has proven that he still has the exact flow from the early 90’s on epicenter but he also transcends his unique and versatile flow into this new age era Hip Hop. This dude recreates himself so many times. That’s how he’s able to stay relevant for twenty-five years! And let’s not forget that the fans started crying that Wu-Tang’s flow was too difficult to decipher. Therefore, most of them dumbed down their lyrics for the exception of critics like you in. This album is very inspirational and a Hip Hop classic! And those tracks with Jackpot Scotty Wotty?! Fire bro! With all due respect sir.

audio review : Dangerous ( album ) … Michael Jackson

audio review : Dangerous ( album ) ... Michael Jackson

What’s Dangerous, at least to the career of Michael Jackson, was his decision to leave producer Quincy Jones after three hit albums. This one isn’t trimmed as tight as it probably would’ve been if he were still around; it’s 77 minutes long; but the way that time is utilized made it a risk worth taking. The set immerses itself in New Jack Swing; gritty dance grooves produced by Teddy Riley; before dwindling the tempo down for an eclectic assortment of ballads.

Gone Too Soon matches poetic similes with soaring orchestration. It’s a beautiful lament. Then the music fades to the thumping pulse of a nightclub. In it there’s a girl. She’s vindictive, conniving, sexy and divine. Could it be the return of Dirty Diana? Perhaps, but this album is better than Bad. Every one of its fourteen songs is either good or great. It’s Jackson’s best album after Thriller; the more ageless soundscape of which does wonders for its classicity.

Dangerous dates itself with overactive sound effects and unwelcomed guest rappers; some songs go on too long; but Michael Jackson’s vocal style has never sounded so magnificent. Unlike most singers, he doesn’t just sing. He takes on a riled staccato that almost sounds like melodic rap. He snaps, grunts, hiccups, hees and hoos like never before. Even when the ad-libs don’t match the words, as on the peak of Will You Be There, you’re too enthralled to give a damn.

my rating : 4 of 5

1991

audio review : Sex And Cigarettes ( album ) … Toni Braxton

audio review : Sex And Cigarettes ( album ) ... Toni Braxton

This album is far from being as edgy as the title and cover photo suggest, but it should be. When Toni Braxton wanders out of her comfort zone, as on a bitter breakup ballad called Fuck Outta Here, her sentiments are engaging.

Most of these songs are “sad love songs” that deal with being cheated on or otherwise done wrong by “you”, but the short 30-minute set, satisfyingly decent during the first half, goes up in a vapid cloud of smoke during the second.

my rating : 3 of 5

2018

audio review : Chloraseptic ( song remix ) … Eminem + Phresher ( featuring 2 Chainz )

Phresher and 2 Chainz reportedly recorded their verses during the original song session. Why those verses weren’t included on the Revival album is a mystery to me. This remix version, even with Phresher’s verse placed in the middle when the hook guy should be first or last, is much better. That’s partly because Eminem scraps his previous raps for a much better one.

It’s also a new one because he uses it as a pre-response to the many negative reviews of Revival, which would be way less if he rapped more like this on it. 2 Chainz nearly matches Em with less effort though, à la style over substance. “Ferris day off,” he says, “F-12 same color as Kate Moss…” Even if he didn’t say “arm”, he should pretend he did because that would be classic.

my rating : 4 of 5

2018

audio review : Chloraseptic ( song ) … Eminem ( featuring Phresher )

audio review : Revival ( album ) … Eminem

audio review : Chloraseptic ( song ) … Eminem ( featuring Phresher )

The title simile isn’t as fresh as Eminem seems to think it is. He’s “at your throat”, in lyrical attack mode, but this Chloraseptic isn’t Maximum Strength. It’s the weak generic version that has him spitting more like Wale than that battle rapper from 8 Mile.

Still the “geyser” part, in which he Relapses into a knife-wielding slut-killer for four bars, is creative. Other quirky tidbits include him giving an off-beat compliment to a girl with the “prettiest thighs” and wooing like Ric Flair after ripping a condom in two.

my rating : 3 of 5

2017

audio review : Revival ( album ) … Eminem

audio review : Spacetime ( song ) … Tinashe

“I see God when you eat it,” Tinashe says to the guy, or girl, she’s in sinful lust with. She carelessly refers to that feeling as love, but it’s because she’s caught up in the moment of getting her pussy sucked in the back of a lavish vehicle with tinted windows. Perhaps that’s what’s giving the night sky a “sapphire” tinge.

The music, intergalactic erotica produced by a rock-hard Stephen Spencer, sets the mood, but it’s Tinashe’s songcraft that soars. Some of her lyrics are juvenile, almost to the point of cringeyness, but the chorus is indeed quite lovely. “Lost a little piece of my mind,” it goes, “floating somewhere off in spacetime.”

my rating : 4 of 5

2016

audio review : Nightride ( album ) ... Tinashe

audio review : Cryin Through The Night ( song ) … Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonders why he has the blues. It’s because he lost the best woman he’s ever had to a friend. That means his friend; a guyfriend; stole his girlfriend.

Colloquialisms aside, it’s another case of romantic heartbreak, so instead of sleeping, all this sorrowful ex can do is weep all night “like a weeping willow”.

The music is a little too zesty for the theme, which seems to suggest a slow ballad. The best parts though are the way the horns go soaring through the bridge.

my rating : 4 of 5

1987

audio review : Characters ( album ) ... Stevie Wonder

video review : The Hitcher

video review : The Hitcher

The first several minutes are creepy and intense. Early one rainy morning, a young driver named Jim Halsey makes the foolish decision to pick up a hitchhiker. That man, who says his name is John Ryder, turns out to be a psychopathic murderer.

The movie could go interesting places from there but doesn’t. The claustrophobic driver/passenger concept is abandoned for what becomes a grueling game of cat and mouse, marked by unlikely set-ups and a silly Bonnie-Clyde-like subplot.

my rating : 3 of 5

1986

audio review : River Of Dreams ( album ) … Billy Joel

audio review : River Of Dreams ( album ) ... Billy Joel

The first three songs are adequate enough. If nothing else, they show that Billy Joel still has a knack for songcraft after all these years. The River starts to go downhill from there. He’s swimming hard; All About Soul is backed by what sounds like a full gospel choir; but about half of this album will drift you off to sleep.

my rating : 3 of 5

1993

audio review : The Stranger ( album ) … Billy Joel

audio review : The Stranger ( album ) ... Billy Joel

The way this album ends would match the way it begins if Anthony’s Song were moved (Out) from the first slot. It’s a good song, most here are, but it should go after the title theme. It’s also a story not just about a grocer named Anthony but a sergeant who moonlights as a bartender; two characters who have no business at the start of a Billy Joel album. Perhaps that’s the point. “We all have a face that we hide away… and show ourselves when everyone has gone,” the singer insists, “They’re the faces of a stranger, but we love to try them on.”

With that, the set can be taken as nothing more than imaginative fiction. Whether Billy Joel is serenading his beloved wife (Just The Way You Are) or trying to seduce a Catholic virgin (Only The Good Die Young), he’s merely playing the role of someone else. It’s a former schoolmate of Brenda and Eddie for Scenes From An Italian Restaurant. “Brenda and Eddie were the popular steadies and the King and the Queen of the prom,” he explains on the rhapsodic epic before going on to flashily outline their marriage and sequential divorce.

my rating : 4 of 5

1977

audio review : Man Of The Woods ( album ) … Justin Timberlake

audio review : Man Of The Woods ( album ) ... Justin Timberlake

Boomy beats and flashy synths conflict with the concept, which suggests a minimalist soundscape led by acoustic guitars, but this is the kind of music you’ve come to expect from Pop singer Justin Timberlake. Producers The Neptunes are back at the helm. Timbaland, who handled most of the previous “20/20” project, is reduced to just a few songs, the best of which begins the album with a Filthy funk groove.

Other standouts include Higher Higher, Montana and the album title track. Midnight Summer Jam might be just that, but winter comes quick on Flannel, which vibes like a Christmas hymn. The album could do (better) without pretentious interludes from wife Jessica Biel and real-life clips of the couple playing with their Young Man are more annoying than cute, but the set is decidely decent on the whole.

my rating : 3 of 5

2018

video review : The BFG

video review : The BFG

This Disney adaption of The BFG, a 1982 children’s book by Roald Dahl, might have been big fun if director Steven Spielberg had taken more liberties with the plot. The first few minutes, in which a giant old man snatches a little orphan girl in the dead of night, are somewhat intriguing, but the story doesn’t really go anywhere interesting from there. The dream catching bit is silly and the Giant’s bombastic lingo is annoying, though scenes in which he hides her from Giant Country villains offer playful suspense.

my rating : 3 of 5

2016