Lav's Music Corner

Here is a quick summary of all the records I reviewed this month. With some major production issues and a lack of true highlights Shadows  is one of the most inconsequential rap albums of the year Review After a long break fro releases under the Caribou moniker Dan Snaith returns with a bright, catchy and relentlessly sweet series of glittery electronic songs that sound so refreshing this year. Review The biggest fault on Changes  is that no part of who Justin is as a person or an artist makes into any of these generic focus-grouped contemporary pop tunes. Review Eternal Atake  may have sounded cool in 2017. But three years past Uzi's peak the record is bloated, behind the times and is filled with songs that sound like nobody involved even tried. Review The Uzi record that did a much better job at living up to expectations was his surprise second release. Filled with great features, much improved beats and a newfound swagger in Uzi's delivery LUV ...

Four Tet is one of the monikers of British music producer Kieran Hebden who has been releasing records since the late 90's. He has released ten records to date but with a trio of singles and some promotional material it feels like Sixteen Oceans  is one of the biggest releases under the name in years. Review By Lavender: I've always enjoyed the music of Four Tet and when he gets it right he makes some of the most sincerely excellent electronic music of his time. Records like There Is Love In You  and Rounds  prove that at his best under the Four Tet name he is capable of incredible things. But more often than not there are some strong concepts or sonic experiments that dominate the records he releases and my enjoyment of them usually depends on my admiration of its concepts. After hearing some huge variety in the singles and seeing promotional campaigns for this record I anticipated it being his most significant release in years, and at 54 minutes and 16 tracks it ...

Megan Thee Stallion is a Texas based rapper who blew up last summer with her "Hot Girl Summer" catchphrase and a series of viral hit singles, all coming from her debut mixtape Fever . After popping up for a number of features and contributing to some movie soundtracks over the last few months she surprised announced a new 9 track 24 EP that followed in line with her first two official releases. Review By Lavender: Megan Thee Stallion mostly won me over last year, while I thought her debut mixtape was solid and nothing to incredible she proved to be fantastically consistent. When she finally teamed up with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign to turn her marquee phrase into a song it was one of my favorite singles of the year and went even further to establish herself as one of rap music premiere bad bitches. On Suga  she goes even further to prove that she may be unmatched when it comes to crafting sexually charged bangers, but she also shows some lack of versatility on numer...

Childish Gambino is the long term moniker of the extraordinary multi-talented Donald Glover. He was worked as an actor, comedian, writer and producer on TV shows and even a short film of his own. But one of his most popular ventures has been the music of Childish Gambino which began in the early 2010's as a snarky wordplay heavy rap persona but evolved as Glover got older. The last Childish Gambino studio album abandoned hip hop altogether in favor of a more funk and soul inspired sound om Awaken My Love . The last time Gambino made a major splash with a release however was in 2018 with the mega hit single This Is America  which fuses the worlds of hip hop with politically charged messaging and numerous instrumental switch-ups. Review By Lavender: Pretty much everybody my age grew up with Donald Glover. In middle school we all watched his stand-up comedy and downloaded DatPiff files of his early mixtapes and debut record Camp . In high school everyone started watching him on...

Allie X is a Canadian pop singer who has been around for quite a long time for this to be only her second studio album. She released CollXtion   II  in 2017 but Cape God feels like more of a proper introduction, though its releases seemed to be over-taken by a number of other popular records and singles. Review By Lavender: I've never been the biggest Allie X fan in the world save for a spare single here and there. I didn't even properly review her first record because I heard it a ways after she first released it and it just didn't click with me. Given that this feels like a more proper record, and surprised me with both Troye Sivan and Mitski features I thought I should give it a proper listen. But not only did I find Allie X completely drowning in the wake of other pop stars sounds, but not even doing so particularly well. The record had only one proper single that I actually did catch back when it came out, and I should have known how predictive it would be of ...

The Weeknd AKA Abel Tesfaye is a Toronto based R&B singer who rose up as a member of the Drake headlined OVO collective in the early 2010's. While his first three mixtapes were massive critical successes and have become fan favorites he really made his mark commercially with back to back mega hit records in 2015 and 2016. Beauty Behind The Madness  and Starboy  not only became huge hits in their own right but fully solidified Abel's massive influence over modern R&B, and so many who have emerged in the genre over the past decade owe some big time influence to his sound. Review By Lavender: There's no way I could possibly hide my long running love for Abel's music as The Weeknd. I called House Of Balloons  my 22nd best record of the entire last decade, and its title track House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls  my #9 song of the entire last decade. Not to mention Starboy , The Hills  and Call Out My Name  getting big spots on previous year end li...

King Krule is a London based singer songwriter who has found success blending together genres like post-punk, indie and electronica. Man Alive!  is his fourth record and the follow-up to his most successful record to date 2017's The Ooz . Review By Lavender: King Krule is an artist I've long been waiting to finally fall in love with. His unique vocals and depraved post-punk sound palette are haunting on their own. But when it all comes together I have been bored or confused by the final product far more often than not with his music. When The Ooz  came out a few years ago and was met with a ton of critical acclaim I was excited to dive in but what other people described just didn't translate to me. I was hoping that a new record and a few years to re-align his sound would make King Krule appeal to me, but while Man Alive!  is better, some of the same problems persist. The records first two singles were decently strong and I still enjoy them on the record. (Don'...

Jay Electronica is a New Orleans based rapper and producer who became one of the first in the rap game to truly blow up just based off of independently released internet singles towards the end of the 2000's. After a decade of loosey singles here and there features and rumors of an oncoming album his debut record is finally here. The album was announced shortly before its release and had very little promotion, which is why many were so surprised to see that this record features just as much Jay-Z as it does Jay Electronica. Review By Lavender: I am in the boat with many other people who have been anticipating this debut record for a long time. It feels like Jay Electronica just let hype build and build for a decade to the point where when his debut finally arrived it would be impossible to live up to the hype. So for the record to come in at under 40 minutes and basically be a collaboration album with Jay-Z there is certainly reason for some long suffering fans to be a littl...

Despite the fact that synth pop and new wave were some of the most popular genres of the 1980's, it felt like "cool" was reserved for the jamming hair metal bands that lingered on from a rock heavy 1970's. Where synth pop was too emotional and new wave too corny, the 90's immediately brought a change of pace. When some of the 80's most potent heartthrobs re-emerged with dark sunglasses and tight leather jackets it marked the day that synth pop officially became cool, and Violator  was born. The record is a slick set of winding synth pop songs with effortlessly smooth production and a distinct edge that separated it from the synth pop of old, while keeping the fundamentals in tact. The album is most remembered by its four singles, the first of which is the timeless lambasting of the status quo Personal Jesus . The hard blues inspired riff of the track served as a call to arms when followed by lyrics denoting the weak immediacy of the modern world, and tho...

Best Coast is a Los Angeles based alt-rock duo consisting of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno. The duo blew up in the beginning of the last decade with their simple, catchy and indie infused take on alternative rock. It's been a long five years since the bands last studio record but they released a pair of singles from this record that proved there was still interest in the duo's sound. Review By Lavender: While many critics and burrowed indie music fans tend to turn their noses up at Best Coast and their simple sound I have always had a soft spot for the bands music, especially their debut record. While I think they have gotten a little more derivative as the years go by I was mostly just hoping for Always Tomorrow  to contain some simple and breezy California alt-rock songs. And that it does. The record had two singles released in the lead up to its arrival and I'm split on them. Different Light is the records opener and I think its pretty good, with tight catchy...

Lil Uzi Vert is a Philly born trap rapper who developed a cult like following off the back of his come-up, culminating in his 2017 debut studio record Luv Is Rage 2 . Since then he has been on numerous features and continually delayed the release of his previously announced follow-up. But now Eternal Atake  has arrived a week ahead of schedule, and just as fans were beginning to digest the record Uzi surprised dropped the sequel to one of his most loved mixtapes LUV Vs. The World 2  on the original announced release date for Atake . Review By Lavender: Lil Uzi is one of the artists I have always received a ton of hate for not blindly following. I gave an admittedly tough review to his debut studio record that I still can't really stand to this day. And I've always liked his big singles and marquee features much less than his fans do, with the exception of Shoota  with Playboi Carti. I was always interested in what Uzi would do next and how he would push his sound a...

Ten years is a long time, you'll realize that as you stumble upon records on this list that you vividly remember when they were released, and suddenly feel very old, I know I did. But ten years adds a lot to a record, we can see how albums become influential, or forgotten in the wake of the trends they either pioneered or rode in on the tail end of. Had I made a list like this in 2010 I'm sure it would have looked very different from top to bottom, and there are almost no records that we all view the same way today that we did in 2010. But for the sake of retrospective I poured through every album in my catalog from 2010 and even many more that I hadn't heard in years and assembled the 50 albums that sound the most fresh, influential and captivating today.  50. Crazy For You  - Best Coast The debut record from Best Coast isn't going to wow you with compositional density or instrumental complexity, but its attitude is impeccable. From the surf rock riffs t...