Kanye West was on quite a run heading into 2013: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010, Watch The Throne in 2011 and Cruel Summer in 2012 showcased his skills as a producer, a lyricist, a curator of different talents and a hit maker.
So when Yeezus came out and was anything but radio friendly, it was a head scratcher. Not because Kanye wasn’t one to switch his style up — he had done that plenty before — but because it’s rare to see any artist intentionally steer away from the sounds that had clearly been working and successful so recently prior to the switch.
Yeezus was void of warmth, filled with brash noises that echo back and forth across a sparse soundscape, with subwoofer hits so intense you can hear the vibrations, and samples so choppy it felt like you were standing under a propeller. Club beats were replaced by abrasive, whirling mechanical sounds. Big-name guest features were replaced by brief contributions by more indie names. And his frequently clever lyrics were abandoned for crude imagery, darker tropics and overindulgent metaphors.
It all created a captivating mix of minimalistic layers and over-the-top noises, which was in contrast to the luxurious, grandiose production of Kanye’s past. Nothing felt like an obvious hit like “Power” or “All of the Lights” or “Paris” or “Mercy.” Nothing was as lushly produced as “Runaway” or “Devil in a New Dress.”
From its opening moments, the album is constantly challenging the listener. Fuzzy synthesizers become confrontational staccato computer bleeps and bloops. Songs abruptly start and stop with character-changing samples thrown in with little warning. There’s plenty of silence between the notes and phrases.
The cool, electronic based production — unlike anything heard outside of U.K. Grime or maybe the very best of Shabazz Palaces — keeps you intrigued. The guests and samples draw you in. The over-the-top vulgarities force you to keep your distance at all times, or at least forces you to realize you’ll put up with a level of Kanye West’s insanity if it means enjoying Justin Vernon say “Star fucker” over and over again on top of pounding drums.
West doesn’t get all the credit for creating the new sound. A lot of the darker production was influenced by Travis Scott, still an up-and-comer at the time and a co-producer on a few tracks. The glitchy, more dramatic moments show off Arca’s handiwork. The mechanical, electronic loops are courtesy of Daft Punk. No I.D. helps on “Bound 2,” the soulful and more conventional closer. And West’s longtime co-producers Mike Dean and Noah Goldstein return to lend guidance here, as well as Rick Ruben.
Hey, if you don’t like Yeezus because of either the dumb album name or the disappointing lyrics, or the untraditionally production, I get it. Yeezus was also the beginning of Kanye’s slow decline into…well…whatever it is he’s doing now. Still, it has a lot of catchy songs, highly compelling production, memorable moments and Kanye’s signature brand of humor, even if it is more crass than the albums that came before it.
In 2013, respected by at-the-time essentially forgotten hip-hop veterans Killer Mike and EL-P joined forces to form Run The Jewels. Together, they created an album that felt 100 percent authentic to them and was sonically different from the trappy club and R&B hits other hip-hop acts were making at the time.
The personas they were able to create were a shot of adrenaline. El-P’s in-your-face beats could knock you out. Killer Mike’s verses were equal parts funny, personal, clever and political. And as a pair, their call-and-response rapping style — highlighting their New York and Atlanta roots — perfectly built from one line to the next with almost comical amounts of bravado in their voices.
The album is energetic, funny, self deprecating at times and serious at others. But the best part of RTJ’s debut is that Killer Mike and EL-P genuinely sounded like they were having fun, which rubs off on the listener. They knew they had unlocked something special and were having the time of their lives making the music they wanted to make.
Euphoric is a perfectly manicured, synth-driven album of mid-tempoed dance-pop tracks.
Georgia brings the charm and best electronic elements from the indie pop acts of the early 2010 like Robyn, Lorde and Chvrches, and mixes them with some modern, mainstream dance trends. It’s not exceptionally groundbreaking, and despite the personal songwriting there isn’t too much depth lyrically, but every song’s fun, well put together and a joy to listen to.
The two lower-energy songs — “Keep Going” and “So What” — are probably the album’s weak points, and both tracks coming near the very end of the album stalls things a bit near the finish line. But these softer moments — as well as the opening two tracks — do let Rostam Batmanglij’s production shine through, with ethereal strings and synth in the distance and Vampire Weekend-styled piano melodies sprinkled in. At 36 minutes, the album is a breeze even with the slight slow down.
I remember listening to Random Access Memories the night it came out in 2013 and being blown away. One of the most acclaimed electronic groups of all time — in putting out one of the most anticipated electronic albums of all time — decided to rely more heavily on real instruments (or at least high-quality digital instruments), real vocals, and loops of pianos and strings.
The album starts with an explosion of vibrant sound — pianos, electric guitars, swelling keyboards and building drums — that transitions into a funky Nile Rodgers guitar riff that’s played over a flawless bass line and chiming keyboard. The synthesized vocals singing “Let the music in tonight, just turn on the music, Let the music of your life, give life back to music,” works as a perfect thesis statement for the entire album.
“Georgio by Moroder” is a clinic in how to construct a song, how to add in layers and create different variations on the same theme. What starts off seeming like a goofy little interlude with Giovanni Giorgio Moroder telling a story switches to a simple little electronic disco theme. Then they add in soft pulsing electric organs and some jazzy keyboard notes. Then the theme returns in dueling octaves, then with an added bass line, and then a guitar before the beat switches to more of a dance construction. The song transitions to an orchestral section, a section with DJ scratches and a heavy, funky base, and then a classic rock section where the scratches are replaced by a drum kit and the stings are replaced by guitar, before it’s all finally brought back together at the very end.
“Within” is a somber piano ballad. “Instant Crush” is a sad indie track that’s carried by Julian Casablancas. Pharrell and Nile Rodgers’ contributions on “Lose Yourself to Dance” and “Get Lucky” bring some soul, some funk and some heart to the record. Panda Bear’s hypnotic “Doin’ it Right” is repetitive, but warm and lovely. The upbeat “Fragments of Time” is probably the closest you’ll get to Discovery here, with its friendly vocals that remind me of “Face to Face” or “Too Long.” And “Touch” — with its bouncy piano, swelling violins, joyous trumpets and clarinets, and theatrical vocals — feels as if a Broadway show tune was hidden into the middle of the record.
Is it a perfect record? No. “Beyond,” “Motherboard” and “The Game of Love” fall flat compared to the other highs on the album, and for all the lush production on some songs, others are a little sparse and lose some steam. And, like with all Daft Punk records, the lyrics and vocal performances are intentionally a little corny or over the top (half their albums are sung by two robots after all). But every track reflects on people’s relationships with music and each other, creating one of the most human albums of the 2010s.
It’s fitting that Disclosure’s debut album came out less than three weeks after Daft Punk’s final album. Disclosure’s Settle is, I think, as close to perfect as a house record can get, while Daft Punk, one of the genre’s titans, put out Random Access Memories, one of the most artistic, least electronic sounding electronic albums of all time.
Both albums are undeniably linked in my mind, with Daft Punk paying homage to their dance influences of the past and Disclosure fully refining the indietronica sounds of modern dance music.
Settle is a non-stop disco. Pounding, funky bass lines, metallic high-hat hits, swelling club synths, chopped up samples and sensual, energetic vocal performances are present across the board. Every time those club synths hit and the songs start to build, I’m hooked.
While “Latch” enjoyed commercial success over a year after the album’s release due to Sam Smith’s sudden fame, the reality is there are probably seven other tracks on the album that are just as catchy, feature similarly skilled vocalists and are maybe even better songs overall. Those vocalists — the fabulous Jessie Ware, Jamie Woon, AlunaGeorge, Edward MacFarlane, Sasha Keable, Eliza Doolittle, London Grammar and the aforementioned Sam Smith— are the keys to how memorable the record is. Where lesser house records of the past could wear out their welcome by being too repetitive or robotic, Settle’s performances enhance every song, add a level of human emotion and give you not only a melodic hook, but lyrics to latch onto while the English electronic music duo does their thing — bending notes, syncopating rhythms, chopping samples and dropping the bass out from under you.
When it’s all said and done, I know Songs for the Deaf will go down as Queens of the Stone Age’s crowning achievement, a breakout album filled with edgy riffs, sometimes operatic vocals, and raw, hard rock energy with the polish of perfect alternative radio rock. Songs like “No One Knows” and “Go With The Flow” will forever be radio station and playlist mainstays and are rightfully ingrained in the genre’s history, both for their success as hits and the part they play in shaping parts of 2000s’ music.
But … Like Clockwork is the band’s magnum opus. Where Songs for the Deaf sometimes feels long, … Like Clockwork is crisp and keeps moving. Where Songs for the Deaf has a few tracks that feel redundant and uses a similar sound pallet throughout, … Like Clockwork continuously evolves.
It’s the best pure rock album of the 2010s, relying on electrifying guitar riffs, pounding drums, and memorable hooks supported by detailed harmonies. On the surface, every song is good, dramatic, raucous alt-rock fun, but the more you dive in the more you discover an entire underworld of intricate phrases, echoes, sound effects and personality.
Haunting harmonies and whispers by guests like Trent Reznor, Elton John, Mark Lanegan and Alex Turner are scattered across the record, mixed in with the clanging of metal chains, the shattering of glass, the creaking of doors and boat hulls, and the buzzing of distant violins and cellos. Even the slightly weaker tracks—like “I Sat By The Ocean” and “Vampire of Time and Memory”—have undertones that flow with the rest of the album really well. Josh Homme’s stellar performance — which exudes a nonchalant, drunken confidence that’s equal parts cool, sexy and pathetic — binds it all together and keeps it all grounded.
But what makes the record truly stand out from the rest of Queens of the Stone Age’s discography are the softer, poetic, piano ballads. “Kalopsia” and the title track capture moving artistry found in classic rock reminiscent of Zeppelin’s “No Quarter.” Even the quieter, more subtle verses on “If I Had A Tail,” with it’s “Give Me Shelter” styled guitar work and soft-to-loud sound structure show a level of craftsmanship that hadn’t been there before, allowing the epic moments elsewhere on the album, like “I Appear Missing,” and “My God Is The Sun” to really shine to their fullest potential.
A really appealing aspect of listening to Travis Scott albums for the first time is that he doesn’t note who his guest features are on the tracks when you listen on streaming. It makes the experience a journey, because you don’t know who is going to pop up where, who had their hands in the production and how the album’s going to move. Because of this, I thought it would be fun to jotted down my instant reactions going through UTOPIA for the first time.
If you want to just skip on to the more traditional review, scroll past the (very long) track-by-track rundown. Otherwise, here’s how it felt going through an interesting, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes cool but also frequently perplexing first listen.
HYAENA
Pretty safe to say this is the worst opening track on a Travis Scott record to date. The vocal intro is a little weird, and the “Rest My Chemistry”/“Float On” sounding guitar chords don’t really do anything for me. It’s a fine song but a little weird.
THANK GOD
Ok, so far this sounds a lot more Kanye than I expected and a lot less Travis Scott.
Cool sounding song. The uneven beat switches, the different style synths and horns make the song work.
MODERN JAM
“This is how we do it!”
Except, maybe not because this song stinks.
What is that guest verse? Not good. (Apparently it’s Teezo Touchdown.)
There sounds like there’s a dying cat in the background fading in and out.
MY EYES
Justin Vernon time! This song feels very 2016, like “White Ferrari” on Blonde or the Vernon/James Blake collaboration “I Need a Forest Fire”
And Sampha (briefly)!
We’ve got a cool beat switch too. This song is great! It’s a little out of place this early on the record but it’s really really good. Early contender for best track.
GOD’S COUNTRY
We’re back to a darker, more traditional Travis Scott sound, but it’s really boring and undynamic. It definitely feels like a Donda B-Side.
SIRENS
That vocal intro and the drums early feel like a Danger Mouse sample flip.
A non-autotuned song with a pretty hollow beat. It could have used more frantic energy or bass to kick it up to a higher gear.
Was that a clip of the Weeknd talking in “The Idol” at the end? (Nope, it turns out it’s just Drake being weird.)
MELTDOWN
And here’s the Drake verse. It’s not a good Drake verse and this beat is really lazy.
The synths and horns before Travis comes in makes the song feel a bit more like a Travis Scott song. I don’t know why we have the Star Wars blasters/seagull noises in the background though.
And we get a beat switch! The back half of the song’s better and Travis sounds good, but it ain’t “Sicko Mode”
FE!N
Uhoh, this synth intro sounds just like “Just Wanna Rock.”
And that sounds like Playboi Carti squawking. He’s definitely trying to coast on the Lil Uzi Vert “get hype” stadium aesthetic here.
I honestly can’t tell who’s who on this song. The energy is fun but that last verse by Carti (I think?) is rough. And it sounds like they’re saying “fiend” but the song is called “Fe!n” so I’m not sure what’s going on.
There’s not much substance here. I love “Just Want to Rock,” and there’s literally no substance to that song so I shouldn’t criticize this one really, but it just isn’t as hype. That said, the synths and bass feel a lot more intense and makes me realize how much it’s been missing on this early part of the album. WHERE’S THE ENERGY ON THE ALBUM?
DELRESTO (ECHOES)
Ahh, this is the Beyonce song that came out a few hours before the record dropped.
There are some odd vocal effects here, but it’s a pretty cool song. Dancy, but not really a dance track, and it has a nice, kind of dark groove to it. I wish it was either a little more energetic or a little more mysterious, but I think it works.
Justin Vernon again! What a treat. I don’t think he’s ever been on a song with Beyonce before.
Travis Scott comes in for the first time 1:53 into the song.
I was NOT expecting a “Coldest Winter” interpolation on this album. That caught me off guard but was instantly recognizable. Nice arpeggiating synth part during Travis’s verse too.
The Travis Scott portion of the song is fine, but now we’re back to Beyonce and Justin, and this section is just better. The song’s building nicely.
Travis Scott is hardly in this song, but the whole package works and it’s probably the second best song I’ve heard on the record so far.
I KNOW ?
The lullaby/music box piano, the darker auto tuned vocals and the adlibs. Now this sounds like a Travis Scott song. It’s an average Travis Scott song, but this is what I came to the album expecting to hear more of. This really is only the second song to capture that other than track 2.
TOPIA TWINS
This song is bad. Very bad. “Twin bitches” is cringe to the most extreme level, and that opening verse is tough to get through. I don’t actually know who it is.
21 Savage tries his best to save the song. He doesn’t miss as a featured artist.
The second Travis Scott verse isn’t that bad, but that chorus is still rough.
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
I don’t get these vocal intros that Travis has on the album. They feel random.
I know this can’t be a “Black Skinhead” sample, but it’s just about the closest thing you could get to a “Black Skinhead” sample. And those synth horns make it sound like it’s trying to be “N95.”
The Weeknd brings it up a level at the chorus.
I’m not sure what he and Beyonce are talking about with the “echos” imagery on this album, but it’s there.
The synths mixed with that drum beat make the song feel more like a Weeknd pop/dance track than a hip-hop song, but Travis does add some edge. Even if it’s a knockoff, modernized Yeezus song I dig it. This was a fun one.
PARASAIL
A slower, softer song that reminds me a little of the Frank Ocean aesthetic. Kind of random but it’s not bad.
SKITZO
A pretty standard Young Thug feature.
I like the bass here leading up to the beat switch, and the second half sounds solid.
This song was fine but didn’t have to be 6 minutes long, even with the multiple beat changes.
LOST FOREVER
Boo-boo-boo-boo-boom! Gotta love Westside Gunn and James Blake.
The production is glitchy and messy but the song works.
LOOOVE
Another upbeat dance floor song. It’s weird because it’s definitely a dance song but it’s not that energetic (apparently that’s a recurring theme on this album). I can’t imagine someone jumping out of their seat to dance if this one came on at a party, but I think that’s what they’re going for.
Travis sounds a lot like Kanye here, as do the sound effects. It’s kind of like “Fade” on The Life of Pablo.
Finally, we get Kid Cudi. It doesn’t feel like a Travis Scott album without him.
It’s good but the song feels a little basic overall.
K-POP
The Bad Bunny single featuring the Weeknd is pretty good. It doesn’t feel like a Travis Scott song, although he’s done lighter songs like “Pick Up The Phone” and “Sweet” before.
This song’s fun. I like the Weeknd.
TELEKINESIS
I think that’s Future. Yup, it sure is!
And that’s SZA. What a nice climax at the end of the song with those pulsing “Lift Off” horns. If last year Travis Scott traded one feature on SZA’s album to get her to return the favor here, it definitely paid off, because she really steals the show.
The production here feels a lot more textured than the rest of the album has. It’s still not as ominous as Travis Scott’s other records but it’s a nice sound with the horns, the rumbling bass and the strings.
TIL FURTHER NOTICE
Here’s a really nice James Blake sample flip and feature with the Metro Boomin drum programing. A nice, smooth beat that’s perfect for a Travis Scott record. Where was this on the rest of the album?
That “Alright, alright, alright…” sample is kind of overdone at this point, and feels just thrown on top of an otherwise really cool sounding track. It doesn’t ruin the track but is an example of a lot of rogue noises scattered throughout the album.
21 Savage again, and he’s really bringing it.
This is a really nice final track, and the back third of the record kind of turned my feelings on it around a bit.
Overall, UTOPIA is a fine album that has some cool highs (“MY EYES,” “DELRESTO (ECHOES),” “CIRCUS MAXIMUS,” “LOST FOREVER,” “LOOOVE,” “K-POP,” “TELEKINESIS” and “TIL FURTHER NOTICE”), some pretty lame lows (“MODERN JAM,” “GOD’S COUNTRY,” “SIRENS” and “TOPIA TWINS”) and a lot of in between songs that you could take or leave. Usually, if you come away from an album liking eight tracks it’s a positive experience, but at 19 songs long and about 1:15 in length, the album definitely could have used a trim.
What this album lacks is the cohesiveness that pulls all three of Travis Scott’s other records together. I listen to Travis Scott because of the layered production, the haunting synths, the dark, thundering bass notes that overwhelm at times and show off his attention to detail at others. The occasional summer pop tracks work great when juxtaposed to the more serious, epic and sinister sounds. But most importantly, Travis Scott’s voice — auto tuned, heavy, present and attention grabbing — works like an instrument that can’t be replicated elsewhere.
Take those synthetic elements in the vocals and production out of the equation, and Travis Scott gets hung out to dry. His vocal contributions to UTOPIA are an afterthought, and he consistently gets overshadowed by his guest stars.
The whole package feels like it’s missing that key element that makes a Travis Scott album sound and feel like Travis Scott. Even if the dance songs are solid, I didn’t come to dance. I don’t want Travis Scott to pass on wisdom or sick lines. I want to feel like I’m being buried under the weight of synths or sneaking out a window in the middle of the night.
The thing I kept thinking about while going through this album was Yeezus (as well as Donda to a lesser extent because of its modern influences), which makes some sense. Travis Scott had a hand in creating that record’s sound; you could feel his influence everywhere. But Utopia adopts some of Yeezus’ shortcomings and leaves behind a lot of the experimentation that made the 2013 album interesting.
Some of the booming drums he adopted from “Black Skinheads,” the Bon Iver/Kid Cudi backing vocals, even the Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo production are welcome. But he also takes some of the noisier elements, like blaring horns, weird vocal samples and static electronics that sound intentionally grating on Yeezus but haphazardly scattered and out of place here. It makes the whole album feel disjointed and uneasy, even though the songs aren’t too complex overall.
To me, Yeezus also marked the start of the decline of Kanye West as a lyricist. Sure, he always had some corny lines, but they were clever or creative or fun. On Yeezus, a lot of his punchlines started to be too comedic or reliant on, while most of the attempts at thoughtful moments end up building by not landing (“Unholy matrimony,” as the payoff line after the buildup on “Blood on the Leaves” always comes to mind).
Travis Scott has never been a standout lyricist, so I don’t go into his records expecting greatness or enlightenment. But — going back to that idea of his vocals being used more as an instrument than a messenger — by using auto tune a lot less and not having that dark, booming layer of sound, it really takes away the grandness of his style. The natural, unaltered voice makes you focus a little more on the lyrics, which isn’t exactly a strength.
It’s a shame there’s so much I can say to criticize UTOPIA, because some of the good moments really are good. I wish there was more “TELEKINESIS” and “TIL FURTHER NOTICE” and less generic “SIRENS” sounding tracks.
Arcade Fire’s first three albums would win head to head against almost any other group’s opening run of records, and The Suburbs in my mind is the best of the bunch. Fusing together the childlike wonder and imagination of Funeral with the grand, anthemic triumphs of Neon Bible, and adding in more mature themes and sounds, Arcade Fire reached the peak of their creative and artistic abilities on The Suburbs in 2010.
I’ve always felt the band’s growth could be easily seen on album’s second track “Ready to Start” which almost works as the inverse of “Keep the Car Running,” Neon Bible’s second song. Both tracks are practically the same tempo, have similar drum beats and are rhythm guitar driven, but while one swells up with optimistic sounds, vocals and resolving phrases, “Keep the Car Running” is more dissonant, grounded in reality and frantic.
The darker, minor tones on songs like the title track, “Wasted Hours” and “Deep Blue” feel more personal than ever and add a seriousness that was missing on earlier records. Some of the humorous moments still remain on tracks like “Rococo,” the youthful energy of the past can still be found on “Empty Room” and “Month of May,” and the long instrumental builds on Neon Bible are matched by the more subtle and emotional builds on “Half Light I,” “Suburban War” and “We Used to Wait.”
But the true standout elements of the record are the more varied volumes, the addition of more stings, the introduction of keyboard synths and the fantastic performances by Régine Chassagne, who is a pleasure throughout and absolutely steals the show on “Sprawll II.”
It’s cliché, but the record does, by design, feel like a journey through the suburbs— the highs, the lows, the history, the friendships and the realization that what once was is always changing and will never be quite what you remember.
In a predictable but disappointingly safe move, The National opted to conform to the trends of modern indie music by creating a more stripped down, soft and slow style on First Two Pages of Frankenstein, the band’s ninth album and first record since 2019.
After the success Aaron Dessner saw producing Taylor Swift’s two 2022 mega albums – Folklore and Evermore — and the elevated status the band received being featured on one of Swift’s tracks, I was scared the band would be drawn to continue down that creative road a little too much.
It’s a smart move on paper to try to capture the attention of the ravenous fan base that follows everything Taylor Swift is associated with, as well as the diehards of other indie folk artists like Phoebe Bridgers who thrive on a similar sound. But it’s a different vibe when 20 and 30 year old women talk about heartbreak and millennial experiences over dreamy instrumentation compared to weathered veteran musicians in their 50s trying to relate to a more youthful crowd. And in doing so, the band completely abandoned any of the edge they had as a once pioneering band of the 2000s indie-rock movement.
Did percussionist Bryan Devendorf’s arms fall off before they recorded the album? Where are the traditional driving drums and accented percussion notes that gave so many of The National’s best songs energy? Instead, it’s almost all programmed beats and electronic sounding production elements.
“Tropic Morning News” a standard, upbeat single, but where are the others? “Grease in Your Hair” I guess is supposed to be the “rocker” on the album but is so subtle it hardly gets you moving. And “Alien” is too boring for too long to enjoy the upbeat payoff at the end.
The lyrics throughout are a cut under their usual high standard as well, with tracks like “Eucalyptus” leaning on repetitive imagery that paints pictures without much meaning or emotional attachment. The result is an album that feels redundant and tired musically and thematically.
Some of songs are strong, like “New T Shirt,” and “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend,” but when the entire album is made up of acoustic tracks and piano ballads, it’s hard for the good moments to stand out like they usually do for The National.
Which means the standout element is really supposed to be the contributions from the featured artists: Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers and Sufjan Stevens. But the trio seems to be included for name recognition only instead of bringing something refreshing or unique to the mix.
There’s no reason not to add three stellar artists to an album if they’re wanting to be a part, but they easily could have been substituted in with no-name backup singers with little change in quality to the record. If you’re going to have Taylor Swift or Sufjan Stevens featured on the song, let them do the things only Taylor Swift or Sufjan Stevens can do. Instead, we get these fine, B- quality contributions that are more cool to have exist than interesting to listen to.
I hate to give this 2 stars because I love The National and there isn’t anything that’s specifically bad on the album. But sometimes it’s worse to be offensively boring or disappointing than to just make bad music.
Fresh Out The Deli 