Tag: music

audio review : Brilliant Classics music : Viotti [ Flute Quartets Opus 22 ]

audio review : Brilliant Classics music : Viotti [ Flute Quartets Opus 22 ]

Viotti was Italian, as is the Quartet covering him on this Brilliant Classics set, but it’s an old oil painting of Westminster Bridge that sets the scene. The composer, the liner notes tell us, resided in England when this opus was probably written.

The music, which goes from placid (Andante) to lively (Allegro) over the course of nearly an hour, sounds pleasant enough to my unchambered ears. It would certainly serve as a fitting backdrop as one paddles back in time to early 1800s Europe.

my rating : 4 of 5

2020

audio review : Between Da Protests ( album ) … KRS-One

audio review : Between Da Protests ( album ) ... KRS-One

KRS-One refers to this as his twenty-third album. I don’t know. It depends on which ones you count. Not that it matters much when you’ve been dropping them for this long. KRS-One; remember he started with Boogie Down Productions; is a real pioneer in the world of rap music. The fact that he’s still doing it all these years, decades, later is a testament to his love for hip-hop, which he uses not just to boast about his own rap skills but to Teach his students (fans) about the ways of the world, particularly when it comes to society and race.

Today’s lesson has to do with Da Protests that peaked with the 2020 killing of George Floyd at the hands, or knee, of Da Police, which the race-obsessed automatically attribute to racism, even when the cop is black. The Teacha is no exception; PowerPoint the Ghetto Music album cover; but he deserves some credit for calling out democratic politicians and the media for being the hypocritical opportunists they are. “Black Lives Matter now; they all wanna use it,” he observes, “What we seeing is the corporate co-optive of another black movement.”

Boom is one of too many songs dampered at the breaks though. The album actually starts off surprisingly fresh because the first two songs showcase the “lyrical legend”; he indeed still has the skills to outrap most of these “young’uns”; without any (stale) hooks to bring them down. Perhaps he should do a whole album just rapping to the beat, which he sort of just did at his Block Party with Kid Capri. The Invaders isn’t included again, which is a relief, but at least that’s a good song; something that’s been a rarity on KRS-One albums for a long time.

my rating : 3 of 5

2020

audio review : Music To Be Murdered By [ Side B ] ( album ) … Eminem

audio review : Music To Be Murdered By [ Side B ] ( album ) ... Eminem

Whether this is a new album or the other Side of what was supposed to be his previous album is the question. It’s presented as the latter; Eminem albums don’t begin with random “love” songs; but it’s actually more of the former. Unless you include Infinite and unless I’m stretching it too far to consider the existence of Kamikaze a response to the negative reviews of Revival, which isn’t bad to me, there is no Eminem album that doesn’t conceptually connect with another.

While he should’ve upped its sixteen tracks to twenty to even it out, this Side B; a nostaglic reference to cassette tapes from the 1980s and 1990s; is aesthetically on par with side A. That means more so-so songs with verbose verses. Eminem’s quick-paced expert-level rhymes, laced with some clever but several corny similes and metaphors, are a real chore to listen to these days, though one of the album’s best songs; Alfred’s Theme; forgos a chorus. Killer is another minor standout.

Framed was a quirky Relapse, but Eminem hasn’t tapped into the “old Shady”; the one whose skills I’d put against any rapper alive or dead; for a whole song since Underground. He came damn close on that pleasantly surprising Shady XV introduction, but he’s too scared, or too politically democratic, to even call people “faggots” now for fear of being “canceled” despite bravadic claims of the contrary. He actually puts a disclaimer after a line about Migos and apologizes to Rihanna.

It’s good to hear Dre rapping again though. He also helps make a couple of these beats. Rhapsodic music fits the theme of Discombobulated, but the song should’ve kept his initial production. I would’ve also liked to hear Eminem on a beat from DJ Premier; speaking of hip-hop legends; who does provide a funky-fresh scratch epilogue to Book Of Rhymes. The rapper has a lot of those, but it seems he’s long forgotten that it takes more than rhyming words to make a good rap album.

my rating : 3 of 5

2020