nik's super cool album roundup - 11 / 11

Yooo guess who’s back

It’s Nik back for his second installment of whatever this series is called, somehow my first blog didn’t scare off the people from WIDR!

There really hasn’t been a solid string of albums I could critique and shittalk, it’s been kind of boring! So I kind of just picked out some big names in the past couple weeks that dropped stuff and kind of just ran with it!!!!

First up: Black Eyed Peas’ ELEVATION

I am extremely upset with myself for staying up to listen to this. I try to listen to at least one new album per Friday right after midnight, but nothing else caught my attention except for a new project from the Black Eyed Peas.

As someone who hasn’t listened to the Black Eyed Peas since 2010, imagine my shock when I found out that the group hasn’t changed their sound since! I was honestly shocked they still made music. They threw in some reggaeton, but that’s all they did to change it up.

This is an incredibly boring album littered with features from Daddy Yankee and other people I haven’t heard of, and a collaboration track with Shakira and David Guetta to cap it off, which is actually a deeply terrifyingly bad and severely outdated idea. It’s even worse in concept!

There’s some really corny and bad stuff in this. If a collaboration from hell wasn’t enough to sell you on this album, there’s a track with an awful interpolation of “Scatman” by Scatman John.

I am incredibly concerned that they’re actually trapped in 2010, and probably thinking about how one of these songs is gonna make a sick level in the next Just Dance game for the Wii.

Rating - 2.5 / 10 (Actually Really Bad)

Second: Yung Gravy’s Marvelous

This is the first full album I’ve heard from Yung Gravy, and I’ve heard his music 2018 or 2017, long before he got his TikTok boost, and it seems like another case of where he hasn’t seemed to grow as an artist.

It’s one thing to hear these tracks individually as singles, they’re a lot more tolerable that way, and it doesn’t feel as overbearing. However, when you have to listen to the exact same “I want to have sex with your mom” joke 15 times straight throughout the span of 40 minutes, it’s an absolute pain to sit through.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s incredibly charming, but his music and charm really only seem to be digestible for incredibly short amounts of time. It can be slightly amusing, and “C’est La Vie” is a really strong standout single from this, but if he continues doing the same schtick he’s been doing since 2017, I don’t see him staying around for much longer.

Rating - 4.5 / 10 (Not Very Good)

Third: Drake & 21 Savage’s Her Loss

God what a cover

The rollout for this album has been very weird. Mentioning it’s being made a week or two before release, making fake Vogue covers and an NPR Tiny Desk performance and almost immediately getting a lawsuit in return, and Drake posting hentai on his Instagram story a few hours before release.

I found it really difficult to enjoy this. My main issue was that it’s extremely boring, especially since it clocks in at a full hour and offers nothing interesting. A lot of people seem to believe this is the return of Drake, going back to his Nothing Was The Same and Take Care-era of music, but it’s not. I feel like it’s more of a result of the fact that his two past albums, Certified Lover Boy and Honestly, Nevermind, were so incredibly bad that people treat Drake when he’s just okay as if it’s the second coming of Christ.

Outside of a Travis Scott feature, I remember nothing about this album.

Check it out if you hate yourself ig

Rating - 5.0 / 10 (Boring)

Fourth: Joji’s SMITHEREENS

"Glimpse of Us” is one of the best singles to come from this year so far, so I was looking forward to this album a lot.

It was extremely disappointing.

The album feels unfinished, and I really don’t know if it was supposed to be longer or not, but a 24 minute runtime is kind of ridiculous.

It’s split into two discs, one side with “Glimpse of Us” and a few other, fairly forgettable ballads, and the other side with a quality to it that I can’t describe other than thinking it’s unfinished, most likely because the songs are labeled as demos and freestyles. How are you going to have an interlude between four songs?

I don’t know if he was contractually obligated to make this “album” or if he felt like he needed to throw something out there, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed by the result.

Rating - 6.5 / 10 (Okay)

Fifth, and Finally: Quadeca’s I Didn’t Mean To Haunt You

Finally, the LAST album I wanted to talk about, from a rapper off of YouTube that I didn’t pay attention to until the rollout of this album.

But wow, this was right up my alley. It’s got a folktronica sound to it, which I didn’t expect from a YouTube rapper, but on top of that, he got two features that caught me by surprise. Danny Brown, the rapper behind my favorite album of all time Atrocity Exhibition, as well as Swans’ Thor Harris, another incredibly good band with a similar sound to this album.

It’s a very moody and emotional ride, and I left speechless by the time it ended. Songs like “born yesterday” or “fantasyworld” take you on a rollercoaster, and the production on those tracks, and the whole album, envelops you in these stories he’s trying to tell.

I can’t really recommend it enough, I was surprised by it, the music community was surprised by it, and it may surprise you

Rating - 9.0 / 10 (Incredibly Good!!!)

Honorable Album Recommendations:

Changes - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

SEE YOU THERE - Matt Watson

De Todas Las Flores - Natalia Lafourcade