Tag / Black Thought

by sweensryche

New Songs to Quarantine To, August 2020

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As we say goodbye to August and look to November, Joe Biden is maintaining his slight lead in the polls. But it should be an 80 point lead. Americans are dying from a virus that our president has ignored, and from racist police officers and vigilantes that our president has encouraged. It makes me wonder, do we really hate each other and ourselves this much? Counterpoint: Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion topped the charts this month with a watershed of a song that celebrated the joy that human beings can give to one another. We do love ourselves! Now we just need to apply all that positive energy to canvassing, and donating, and VOTING.

1. Cardi B (feat. Megan Thee Stallion) – “W.A.P.”

Yes, the world’s reaction to “W.A.P.” included some tired old sexist pearl-clutching from conservative politicians and Fox News types. Yes, it’s annoying that two women rapping about their sexual prowess is still a headline-making event. (Men will be rapping about their boners until the mountains crumble into the sea.) But “W.A.P.” absolutely deserved this level of global attention – because it’s an ebullient feat of pop craftsmanship. Over a three-note bass rumble and an instantly iconic loop of the 1992 Frank Ski house track “Whores in this House,” two of the best rappers alive pack as many hilarious innuendos as possible into three minutes – staking their claim as peerless artists, making it clear that there’s no shame in consensual sex, and bringing some much-needed joy to the world.

2. Bully – “Stuck In Your Head”

Alicia Bognanno’s alternative-nation rocker seems to be about never acting on your feelings, and then dealing with the fallout of that inaction. But its blistering hook will get stuck in your head all the same.

3. Marie Davidson – “Renegade Breakdown”

This bilingual robo-funk banger is so catchy, I don’t even mind when it reads me to filth: “Your cheap headlines, your lazy writing / I wonder how it feels for you to sit around all day.”

4. Machine Drum (feat. Freddie Gibbs) – “Kane Train”

What Freddie Gibbs does to this beat is some gold-medal-worthy gymnastics.

5. Orville Peck (feat. Shania Twain) – “Legends Never Die” 

Shania Twain is indeed a legend, and she sounds as charismatic and arena-ready as ever while harmonizing with old-school country’s most compelling modern torchbearer.

6. Mourn – “This Feeling Is Disgusting” 

I never understood music theory, so I can’t tell you what note this Barcelona pop-punk quartet is playing at the apex of this track’s rollicking lead riff. A seventh? A suspended fourth? I was too busy bouncing around my living room to look it up.

7. MF Doom – “Coco Mango (FloFilz Remix)”

A German producer gives a 2012 MF Doom track a summery piano-jazz makeover.

8. Laura Veirs – “Turquoise Walls”

A ballad about being alone in a room, waiting for a text from someone who betrayed you, that somehow feels like hope.

9. Black Thought (feat. Pusha-T, Swizz Beatz & Killer Mike) – “Good Morning” 

This quartet of forty-something rappers might be over the hill, but holy shit are they gaining speed.

10. A.G. Cook – “Today”

Smashing Pumpkins’ deceptively sunny-sounding classic gets a loving electro-pop makeover from the head of the PC Music collective, bringing out its inherent darkness without blunting its shimmer.

by sweensryche

New Songs to Quarantine To, July 2020

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There is some telling symmetry on my list of the best songs from the past month. Two tracks openly wish death to an immoral man. Two others fantasize about falling in love using amusement park themes. All of them resonated with me during a time defined by crimes against humanity and a yearning for intimacy. It’s a wicked world, but it can’t stop us from singing.

1. John K. Samson – “Fantasy Baseball at the End of the World”

The former Weakerthans frontman uses sports metaphors to confess his death wish for our president, over gentle, sympathetic guitar.

2. Angel Du$t – “Turn Off the Guitar”

This side project for members of the hardcore bands Turnstile and Trapped Under Ice has become an unexpected pop juggernaut – “Turn Up the Guitar” is their boppiest effort yet.

3. Zara Larsson – “Love Me Land”

Love is an amusement park on this gobsmacked electro-pop earworm.

4. Aminé (feat. Young Thug) – “Compensating”

“It’s hard to admit that I’ve made my bed,” this Portland, OR, rapper shares on this track, where a sprightly marimba loop is as refreshing as the artist’s ability to accept blame.

5. The Chicks – “Tights On My Boat”

Natalie Maines delivers a viciously cathartic kiss-off to her trifling ex-husband, over wink-and-a-smile acoustic strumming: “Hey, will your dad pay your taxes now that I’m gone?”

6. Sylvan Esso – “Ferris Wheel”

Here’s another addictive summertime amusement park romance jam, this one literally pining for the chance to make out at the top of a ferris wheel on a hot August night.

7. Black Thought – “Thought vs Everybody”

In the same month we said goodbye to one of the founding members of The Roots – the perennially underrated rapper Malik B – his old foil Black Thought dropped an intense, chorus-less rap exercise that makes me believe he could battle the world and win.

8. Widowspeak – “Plum”

How is it that a simple chord progression, strummed in just such a way, can make me want to go for a drive in the country? This song was made for watching rolling fields go by, and feeling grateful for every one.

9. Kylie Minogue – “Say Something”

Ray of Sunshine #1: Pop legend Kylie Minogue has made an album called Disco. Ray of Sunshine #2: Its lead single heals through dance music in classic Kylie fashion – “Baby, in an endless summer, we can find our way.”

10. Pallbearer – “Forgotten Days”

The progressive doom cosmonauts in Pallbearer have returned with a new single, with the kind of giant, lumbering riff that could casually destroy your town.

11. Bill Callahan – “Another Song”

Bill Callahan just keeps on reveling in romantic domesticity, and it just keeps on making me cry: “As the shadows of the leaves on the wall / Grow and dissolve / Almost in time to our chests’ rise and fall / As we lay on the bed wanting for nothing at all.”

by sweensryche

The Top 25 Songs of 2017

So you’ve read my Top 20 Albums of 2017 and find yourself wanting more. Here you go, person who doesn’t exist! It’s my Top 25 Songs of 2017. My all-time favorite songwriter is on here. A segment from a radio show is on here. And Fergie is on here? Yes, Fergie is on here. There’s a full playlist below, after I’m done yammering.

25. Fergie ft. Nicki Minaj – “You Already Know”

Over a dynamite interpolation of Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock’s “It Takes Two,” Fergie catches fire, outrapping her legendary guest against all odds.

24. Laura Marling – “Soothing”

“I banish you with love,” croons Laura Marling over one of the grooviest bass lines of the year. Getting dumped never sounded so good.

23. Young Thug – “Do U Love Me”

This preternaturally melodic rapper sings a love letter to himself over a sprightly dancehall beat, teaching us the difference between ego and self-confidence.

22. Randy Newman – “She Chose Me”

If you’re lucky enough to know how it feels to have a partner you don’t deserve, this stark ballad from our greatest living songwriter hits hard.

21. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – “Continental Breakfast”

Two brilliant slacker/songwriters, singing about their intercontinental friendship over a loose, rolling groove. Should be played in lieu of presidential speeches to the UN from now on.

20. CupcakKe – “Barcodes”

This sex work empowerment anthem is a blast of exuberance from a Chicago rapper on the rise. “Pay the damn price or go home to your wife,” CupcakKe demands, backed by the funkiest horns we heard all summer.

19. Bebe Rexha – “I Got You”

A pop song about building trust, with a chorus that feels like falling into somebody’s arms.

18. Brockhampton – “Gummy”

We get a few seconds of lush, harp-trilling Disney music before the plug is pulled, the feedback squeals, and rap’s most energetic crew takes off.

17. Kreator – “Side By Side”

The loudest anti-fascist music in 2017 was made by Germans. The pealing riffs and pummeling drums of “Side By Side” are almost as explosive as the rallying cries.

16. Offset & Metro Boomin – “Ric Flair Drip”

Metro Boomin beats don’t hook us. They mesmerize us. So while Offset unleashes his masterful triplet flow on “Ric Flair Drip,” it’s the producer’s dark, pinging synths that linger on in our memory.

15. Carly Rae Jepsen – “Cut to the Feeling”

On paper, lyrics about breaking through the ceiling, dancing on the roof and playing with the angels are pretty cliché. But when paired with the sonic equivalent of carbonated helium, they’re perfect.

14. Nnamdi Ogbonnaya – “Hop Off”

The dive-bomb bass and chirping synths are fun enough on their own. Then one of the most elastic voices in hip hop jumps in, and we reach a whole new plane of party.

13. Thundercat – “Tokyo”

An electro-jazz-yacht-rock bass virtuoso sings about how a great vacation can bring out the kid in us: “Gonna eat so much fish I think I’m gonna be sick / Gonna blow all my cash on anime!”

12. Power Trip – “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)”

The headbanger of the year, with a riff that chugs like a locomotive from hell, and a chorus that demands to be shouted at top volume, like a bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts.

11. Big Boi – “All Night”

The still-underrated half of Outkast made this year’s anthem for the blissfully monogamous. “Hit you with your bonnet on by the nightlamp,” he raps, over a big toothy smile of a piano loop.

10. SZA – “Drew Barrymore”

This devastating breakup song was inspired by Drew Barrymore’s insecure character Josie Geller in Never Been Kissed. There’s no Hollywood ending here. But when the strings swell, so do our hopes for one.

9. Black Thought – “Hot 97 Freestyle 12/14/17”

Sometimes, nothing is flashier than stamina. Like when the voice of The Roots hopped on Funkmaster Flex’s radio show and unleashed 10 minutes of fiery, perfectly crafted bars. By the end, he was sweating. And so were we.

8. Feist – “I’m Not Running Away”

I can’t shake this tune. Bold declarations of loyalty are held up by little more than Feist’s stark, bluesy guitar. She finds a kind of rhythm that drummers can’t reach.

7. Drake – “Passionfruit”

Over a swirling dream of a dancehall groove, a narrator mourns a fading long-distance relationship. It’s emotional and entrancing – in other words, a signature Drake summer smash.

6. Jeremih – “I Think of You”

Jeremih seriously flirts with MJ status here, making sunset references sexy again over an utterly joyful, marimba-inflected beat.

5. Julia Michaels – “Uh Huh”

This accomplished pop songwriter has apparently saved the best material for herself – especially this starry-eyed acoustic gem that crescendos to an instant high of a chorus.

4. Calvin Harris ft. Frank Ocean & Migos – “Slide”

A smooth-as-ever Frank Ocean sings about moments when “whatever comes, comes through clear” over a breezy disco groove from Calvin Harris. Corona wishes they could bottle this.

3. Haim – “Little of Your Love”

Our finest purveyors of ’80s adult contemporary singalongs serve up a chorus so effervescent, it made this especially heavy year feel lighter.

2. Kendrick Lamar – “DNA”

Over the levitating sitar n’ bass rumble of the year’s best rap song, Kendrick Lamar brags about his ability to reach nirvana in yoga class. As his rapid-fire syllabic mastery carries us away, we get a real idea of what he’s talking about.

1. Kesha – “Woman”

The New York Times ran a story last July about the health benefits of cursing – including stress relief and higher pain tolerance. The best song of 2017 definitely backs up these findings. When Kesha sings “I’m a motherfuckin’ woman!” punctuated by the profoundly funky Dap Kings horns, the combination of positive vibes and disregard for pop norms is exhilarating. Unlike the way our president talks, “Woman” is not vulgar. It’s defiant, and important, and very, very good for us.

Honorable Mentions: 2 Chainz – “Sleep When U Die”; Bob Dylan – “Braggin'”; Nick Hakim – “Cuffed”; Hus Kingpin – “Wave Palooza”; Jonwayne – “TED Talk”; Kamiayah – “Dope Bitch”; Kesha – “Hunt You Down”; King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – “Crumbling Castle”; Kendrick Lamar – “Element”; Aimee Mann – “You Never Loved Me”; Migos – “Slippery”; Frank Ocean – “Chanel”; Angel Olsen – “California”; Pallbearer – “Thorns”; Syd – “Got Her Own”; TT the Artist – “Real Bitch Problems”; Tove Lo – “Disco Tits”; Ulver – “Nemoralia”; White Reaper – “Eagle Beach”; Your Old Droog – “Grandma Hips”