My Favorite 13 Albums of 2013

Despite my recent weekly album-reviewing sabbatical, no amount of laziness could ever prevent me from constructing a best-of year-end list, which will almost assuredly embarrass me when I look back on it in a few months.  The Spotify playlist can be found here, and without further adieu:

13) Mayer Hawthorne - Where Does This Door Go

Trading the influences of Motown-era soul for yacht rock types like Steely Dan may or may not have been a good career move for Mayer Hawthorne, but I can respect the desire to experiment, and I've always found Steely Dan underrated anyway.  This album makes me really curious to see where Mayer goes next.

Selection
Her Favorite Song (this song should have been more ubiquitous than it was)

Best Albums of 2013 (So Far)

How's everybody doing?  Personal life has kept me from giving the blog the attention it deserves, but I would be remiss if I did not at least include a list of my favorite albums for the first half of the year.  

15)

My Bloody Valentine - mbv

Following up Loveless was going to be difficult.  Following up Loveless two decades after the fact was going to be impossible.  While this album isn't going to make anyone forget about the band's masterpiece, it is a more than worthy successor.









14) 

Free Energy - Love Sign

Sometimes all rock needs is a bunch of handclaps and "hey hey hey" choruses.  This album sounds especially good coming out of a car stereo in the summer.









13) 

The Mowgli's - Waiting for the Dawn

Sunshine-y folk pop.  I dare you to resist the catchiness.











12)

Guards - In Guards We Trust

Indie rock with big arena-filling power pop instincts.












11)

Telekinesis - Dormarion

Easily the best power pop album I've heard all year, this album is right in my musical sweet spot.











10)

Justin Timberlake - 
The 20/20 Experience

I probably had higher hopes for this album before it was released, but it is still catchy and fun in spots and ambitious from start to finish.











9)

Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob

Tegan and Sara have never been as fun as they are on this fun 80's synth-inspired album.  "Closer" remains a hell of a song to scream the lyrics to while jumping up and down.









8)

The Computers - Love Triangles
 Hate Squares

Reminds me of Jet's first album, but I really do mean that as a compliment.  This album is a lot of fun.











7)

Phosphorescent - Muchacho

This album could have made the list solely on the strength of single "Song for Zula," maybe my favorite song of the year, but the entirety of the album reveals a tremendously talented singer-songwriter.









6)

Charli XCX - True Romance

Everyone knows her for writing "I Love It," Icona Pop's anthemic dance song that seemingly has an inexhaustible life in pop culture, but Charli XCX still managed to save some of her catchy dance-y pop songs for her own album too.

5)

Portugal. The Man - Evil Friends

The combination of Portugal. the Man's psychedelia with Danger Mouse's R&B-inspired production just works.

4)

Chance the Rapper - 
Acid Rap Mixtape

The most unique voice I've heard in hip hop all year.  Sky's the limit with this kid.

3)

Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety

At times reminiscent of Prince, this lush yet nervy album is one of the best in what's become a fairly interesting R&B movement lately.

2)

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

A victim of excessive prerelease marketing hype, this album nonetheless delivered for me.  I wish they would have chose the other Pharrell song as lead single though.

1)

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires
of the City

This eclectic album sounds like a promising band finally achieving their potential.  Alternatively upbeat, beautiful, catchy, and contemplative, the album made me an official fan of Vampire Weekend.

New Music Roundup 4/30/13

The Computers - Love Triangles, Hate Squares

I find this album insanely fun.  The Computers are a British band of Black Flag fans who have managed to infuse their punk music with rockabilly, 60's doo-wop, and other oldies sounds, all led by a lead singer who sounds more than a little bit like Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump attempting an Elvis Costello impression.  That's a lot to digest there, so I'll say that the band's final product ultimately reminds me of the Hives: they rock bombastically, but it's always in service to a bouncy beat and a catchy chorus.  This album is highly recommended.

Selections:
Love Triangles, Hate Squares

Mr. Saturday Night
The Computers – Mr. Saturday Night

C.R.U.E.L.
The Computers – C R U E L

Disco Sucks

New Music Roundup, Special French Robots Addendum

Daft Punk - "Get Lucky (Radio Edit)"

Among a certain demographic, Daft Punk's forthcoming album Random Access Memories is likely the most anticipated album of the year (Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience is probably its only competition), so when the band finally officially releases (after numerous fake fan edits appearing on the Internet) the lead single from that album, they're going to have my attention.

It's probably not a good sign that the album is still several weeks away and I'm already tired of the increasingly deafening hype surrounding the album, but I'm going to attempt to divorce myself from that and judge the single on its own merits.

And those merits are numerous.  Personally, the whole artificial robot sound that is so integral to Daft Punk's aesthetic, while occasionally interesting, tends to leave me a little cold, which makes this song's mid to late 70's R&B and funk influences so inviting.  Nile Rodgers plays guitar on the track, and as usual he's awesome, bringing that warmth of sound that is sometimes lacking with Daft Punk.  This is unquestionably a good look for Daft Punk, and the song makes you want to dance and gets in your head nigh instantaneously.  Here's hoping the rest of the tracks on the album will continue to examine similar musical veins.

My only complaint (barring the omnipresent hype) is with Pharrell's vocals.  I think he performs serviceably when in the higher register required on the chorus, but he sounds a little flat on the verses.  In some ways it makes him sound slightly detached, which can be a noticeable problem when singing over such vibrant musical backgrounds.  He doesn't ruin the song, but it's hard not to imagine what a truly accomplished R&B vocalist, like Justin Timberlake, Miguel, or Mayer Hawthorne, would have been able to do with the song.

New Music Roundup, 4/16/13

Ghostface Killah - Twelve Reasons to Die

There was a 0% chance I wasn't going to like this.  Combining one of the most inventive rappers working today with the bombast of Adrian Younge, the producer behind the Black Dynamite soundtrack and the previously covered Delfonics album, is a strategy that just works.  This album is actually the first concept album Ghostface has ever done, and the hyperviolent story of a mobster who returns from the grave to exact revenge upon his murderers is given a grimy, grindhouse-influenced aural backdrop by Younge.  Here's hoping these two continue working together.

Selections
Enemies All Around Me

I Declare War

The Sure Shot (Parts One & Two)

New Music Roundup, 4/9/13

The 1975 - Facedown EP, Sex EP, and Music for Cars EP


Currently there exists within rock music a tremendous lack of ambition.  This lack of ambition is not of an artistic nature - as should be glaringly obvious from this blog, plenty of good bands are doing plenty of good work under the auspices of rock music - but rather of a commercial one.  It has been widely reported that each year rock music moves further away from the zeitgeist with diminished album sales and popularity, and though there are a myriad of reasons for rock's decline, one reason that probably isn't brought up enough is this lack of commercial ambition by today's rock bands.

Simply put, very very few rock bands openly pine to be the most biggest band in the world anymore.  Contrast this with hip hop, which is seemingly driven solely by want: the want of material possessions, the want of a multitude of sexual partners, the want of alpha dog credibility and status.  And though there have been other points in rock's history where movements have sprung up that were not interested in mainstream popularity (punk being the easiest and most obvious example), today's current indie/rock environment is unique in that its "big" bands are totally and completely divorced from the mainstream, neither striving for nor reacting against it (as punk and its brethren did).  Rock and the mainstream are not even operating in the same universe.

This current vacuum is what makes Manchester band The 1975 so tantalizing.  Though no formal album has yet been released, the band has already released three EPs worth of material in a little under a year, and those releases show a supremely confident band with an arena-ready sound.  The best way I could describe the band's sound is like a British version of latter-day Kings of Leon (which may mean Kings of Leon mixed with the Kooks): they're not afraid to write sprawling to-the-rafters type anthems that feel modern yet obviously indebted to U2, and on the song "Chocolate" they even show a bouncy catchy upbeat side.  It feels too early to guarantee success for this band, but the work they've done thus far is very very strong, their full-length debut will be essential listening whenever it's released, and it doesn't take much imagination to see this band as an incredibly successful rock band, whatever that may mean in 2013.  And hey, if they want to reintroduce rock music to the mainstream (which is a preposterous expectation for a band that hasn't yet released an LP), that'd be cool too.

Selections
Sex

Chocolate

The City

New Music Roundup, 4/2/13

Guards - In Guards We Trust

This is the debut from a very interesting new Brooklyn band.  Led by Richie Follin, the brother of the lead singer of the underrated indie band Cults, Guards is attempting to combine the crowd-pleasing power pop hookiness of 70's bands like the Raspberries and Big Star with what is considered traditional indie music of the 2010's.  The end result are a batch of guitar-driven hook-y songs with vocals that sound like they were recorded at the end of a long hall which manage to achieve a very nice balance of being more or less instantly accessible while still sounding fresh; it's traditional yet modern.  I'm reasonably certain this is my favorite album of 2013 thus far and would encourage everyone to give it a listen.

Selections
Ready to Go

Heard the News

Silver Lining

New Music Roundup, 3/27/13

The Strokes - Comedown Machine

My book on the Strokes has remained remarkably consistent: I dig their vibe but have trouble listening to their albums the whole way through.  There are always really great individual moments on every Strokes release, but there are also inevitable slogs.  Comedown Machine actually seems a little better at avoiding this: the album is probably more balanced than anything since their debut.  Still, I think almost all my favorite moments occur in the first half.  Comedown Machine shows the band reaching back more to the New Wave 80's on some tracks.  It's a move that seems jarring upon first listen but eventually makes a certain kind of sense.  This album doesn't feel like a radical departure, a triumphant comeback, a tragic misfire or anything else used to describe albums released by well-established bands; this is just another solid addition to a fairly consistent career.

Selections
Tap Out

All the Time

One Way Trigger

Wavves - Afraid of Heights

A thought experiment:

Assume for a second that reincarnation is literally true, and that upon his death in 1994, Kurt Cobain did not in fact attain nirvana (get it?) but was instead reincarnated into a new person.  Assuming soul turnaround time within this hypothetical scenario is fairly quick (I have to confess a decent amount of ignorance on most doctrines of reincarnation, but Live's "Lightning Crashes" at least led me to believe that it was fairly instantaneous), that new person would have entered young adulthood by now (the 19th anniversary of Cobain's death is this April 5).

In other words, he or she would be just entering an age where were they so inclined, their artistic ethos would begin manifesting itself.  Now (and I'm fairly certain this is not a part of reincarnation), what if this young person had the exact same angst, the exact same alienation, and the exact same need for self-expression that Cobain had?  What if he or she similarly turned to music to address those issues?  If Kurt Cobain was born in 1994, what would his band sound like today?

I won't presume to definitively know the answer to that question - it probably merits its own article's worth of consideration, or at least a good protracted drunken argument with a few friends - but one thing that seems quite likely is that this hypothetical band would sound quite different than Nirvana sounded on Nevermind.  They likely would not detune their guitars, they likely wouldn't fall into what we classify as grunge, and they likely wouldn't rely heavily on soft-loud-soft song structures (at least not as much as Nevermind did).  True, the next Nirvana won't sound like Nirvana because the public craves uniqueness (or at least the appearance of uniqueness) within its cultural phenomenons, but perhaps more importantly, the next Nirvana won't sound like Nirvana because the sonic blueprint they established will not be sufficient for the next iterations of Kurt Cobain.

I bring this thought experiment up because it seems to suggest two fairly self-evident truths that apply to the new album by Wavves released tomorrow entitled Afraid of Heights, which owes a huge debt to Cobain and Nirvana.  The first is that a band's impact is more than the sum of the notes they play on albums or in concert, i.e. The "Even When They Say It's All About the Music, It's Never All About the Music" Theory.  The second, related truth is that context always matters.

Wavves itself has a fairly interesting context.  Formed in 2008 in San Diego by notable slacker Nathan Williams, Wavves garnered a great deal of buzz at an incredibly early point in the band's history from hundreds of music critics whose opinions I don't respect and one or two whose opinions I do.  Before I had listened to a single note of theirs, I was familiar with Wavves as a hipster band: there was the aforementioned early buzz from places like Pitchfork, the name itself (and perhaps even more annoyingly, the fact that one of their albums is called Wavves and another Wavvves), Williams's public relationship with Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino, and there was Williams's projected indifference to just about any and everything.  Wavves acted more or less like you would expect a hipper-than-thou band to act.

New Music Roundup - 3/20/13

Lest I be accused of solely focusing solely on Justin Timberlake's album, an album that everyone was likely going to listen to anyway, here's some other interesting recent releases:

The Delfonics - Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics 

Adrian Younge is a fascinating guy, something of a Renaissance man.  Back in 2009 he helped edit the incredibly underrated blaxploitation send-up Black Dynamite while also handling producing duties on the film's soundtrack.  An instrumentalist himself, he formed the group Venice Dawn, which released an album in 2011 titled Something About April that was primarily inspired by psychedelic soul of the 60's (for the record, both the Black Dynamite soundtrack and Something About April are totally awesome).

Sometime after this, Younge became enamored with the idea of combining early 90's RZA type hip hop production with the sweet Philadelphia Soul sound of the 70's characterized by the Delfonics.  He struck up a friendship with William Hart, the Delfonics' lead singer and primary songwriter, and the two began to collaborate together.

This album is the result of that collaboration.  Though I think it highly unlikely any true Delfonics fan is going to read this review, it is important to note that Younge changes the Delfonics sound fairly significantly.  The Delfonics made their bones on multipart harmonies and smooth sweeping orchestral arrangements that melded 60's soul with 70's funk.  This album has much sparer production, and Hart is the only member of the Delfonics to participate, so Hart's falsetto if featured far more often on this album than it was on traditional Delfonics ones.

Nevertheless, the combination of Younge and Hart produces some absolutely fantastic soul music, and Younge really is able to capture the sound of some other early 70's soul acts.  Had I not been aware of it being new before listening, I would have likely placed the recording date to be sometime between 1970-1972 but by some obscure soul act I had never heard before.

Selections
Stop and Look (And You Have Found Love)

Enemies
Adrian Younge – Enemies

I Can't Cry No More

New Music Roundup - JT Edition

Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience

Well, I suppose if I'm being true to the ethos of this blog, the only relevant question I should concern myself with is whether or not I enjoyed listening to this album.  The answer to that question is probably best summed up as, "Yeah, sort of."  This album is not nearly as disappointing as I had feared it would be when I first heard a handful of songs weeks before the album's release.  Despite a relative dearth of immediately accessible hooks, the album is consistently interesting to listen to, and a couple of the songs manage to lodge in your head almost in spite of themselves.  Timberlake doesn't do anything on this album to challenge your preconceptions of him as a recording artist, but maybe that's entirely the point.

Some of the problem with the album is undoubtedly its context.  JT is unique (and ultimately important) as an entertainer because he is the rare figure in our current Internet age whose appeal transcends nichification.  He's the one guy seemingly everyone has agreed is ok.  Saying I like him as an entertainer (which is an important distinction: his appeal is not solely as a recording artist) doesn't really say anything about me or my tastes, beyond maybe placing me in a fairly expansive age range.  Similarly, saying you don't like him is similar to the dismissal of countless pop stars by any number of outcast groups, from punks to metalheads: rejecting JT is rejecting a mainstream sensibility that we have been told ad nauseum no longer exists.

Because of that, and because he had been away for seven years, there was undoubtedly expectation that The 20/20 Experience would be a massive cultural event.  Here was the last entertainer with truly widespread popularity; surely he would reclaim pop music as it had been twenty years ago.  If ever a Thriller could exist in 2013, now was our chance.

New Music Roundup, 3/5/13

Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety

For all I care, everyone else can spend time talking themselves into Justin Timberlake's new album; I'll be off listening to this fascinating R&B/soul record from Arthur Ashin, who records as Autre Ne Veut.  At different points funky, soulful, and expansive while being just off-kilter enough to be unique (but consequently likely incongruent to radio), this album plays as either a more jittery Miguel or a less comatose Frank Ocean.  Either way, I like it.

Selections
Play by Play

Counting

I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Autre Ne Veut – I Wanna Dance with Somebody

New Music Roundup 2/26/13

Travel and illness prevented me from writing the past two weeks but today this blog is back and as mediocre as ever.  We have a lot to cover.

The Shout Out Louds - Optica

This is the fourth album by the Swedish indie pop band who knows how to write themselves a strong hook.  It seems like I've been saying this quite often in the past year or so, but this is another album of electronic pop with some pretty noticeable 80's synth-y influences.  In general, I would say that the thing that separates The Shout Out Louds from other 80's-phile bands is that they have a bigness to their choruses, making them not just singalongably enjoyable but also anthemic.  The album is a little front-loaded (although album closer "Destroy" is not to be missed), but this album is worth a listen.

Selections
Illusions

Blue Ice

Walking in Your Footsteps (Jazz flute alert!)

Drunk on Old Music

Album: 16 Lovers Lane

Band: The Go-Betweens

Year: 1988

Background: Something of an obscure critical favorite in the 80's, the Australian band the Go-Betweens deserve strong consideration for currently being one of the most under-appreciated bands of all time. Principle songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan met  in college and started playing music together in 1978, eventually adding several other members and releasing a string of solid New Wave-inspired and increasingly poppy albums throughout the 80's.  16 Lovers Lane is the band's sixth album, the last one with their original lineup, and it is without a doubt their masterpiece.

What's so special about this album: Do you like traditional melodious guitar-based pop music?  Of course you do; everyone does.  As such, you really owe it to yourself to check this album out.

I wasn't the first to note it, but this album really is the 80's equivalent of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours; there are so many parallels.  It has the same relentless focus on pop perfection, the same subject matter of the thrill of a new relationship and the heartbreak experienced once one falls apart, and the same melodious accessibility masking complex lyrics that are both more melancholic and bittersweet than one would originally expect.  Heck, McLennan was even dating multi-instrumentalist Amanda Brown at this point as well, so like Rumours it has that same dynamic where the lead singer is occasionally singing songs about another member of the band.

New Music Roundup, 2/5/13

Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse

Thus far into their career, Frightened Rabbit has been remarkably consistent, and that trend continues with Pedestrian Verse, their fourth studio album.  Simply put, if you liked Frightened Rabbit's previous albums, this album is going to work for you: the band manages to sound distinctly like themselves while not repeating much from their earlier work.  While it may prove true that Frightened Rabbit will never be able to match their masterpiece The Midnight Organ Fight (which I believe belongs in the conversation for greatest breakup album of all time), this album represents an important step for the band by subtly moving the band into more interesting territory.

First though, a quick digression about sad music: I find mopey wallowing music to be incredibly worthwhile, but only in the proper place and time.  Misery music is a lot like Vicodin: when you're in pain, it can be of great use, but limiting its consumption is vital, as that shit is addictive as all hell, and it certainly isn't healthy to be on it all the time (another similarity between the two: when each is combined with alcohol, unpredictable results occur).  Because of this, I am much more inclined to listen to happy music much more often, and the artists who trade exclusively in misery get pulled out of the proverbial CD case very very rarely (thankfully).

The Midnight Organ Fight definitely skirted toward misery music territory, even if it never outright crossed the line (I put it into "sadly beautiful" territory and point to "Heads Roll Off", an ultimately life-affirming song about contemplating one's mortality, as the linchpin keeping the album from falling into self-indulgent wallowing).  While there was no denying the quality of that album, I did wonder if their extreme competency at it meant the band would be stuck playing depressing downer music for the rest of their careers.

Pedestrian Verse is most encouraging because it shows the band attempting to stretch themselves out of the misery corner.  It's important to note these changes happen in the margins - lead singer Scott Hutchison still does let his sadsack cynicism come through at times, and it's not like the band is covering "Walking on Sunshine" or anything - but it is nice to see the band enjoying some growth.  This can be most readily seen in the lyrics, which seem to be taking aims more at the universal than the navel-gazing personal, and the music, which at times has more spring in its step than ever before.

I posit that the best example of this new approach is the album closer "Oil Slick," which actually starts off with what could be considered a first for Frightened Rabbit, an actual groove (although those finger squeaks on the guitar strings irritate the hell out of me), before building to their characteristic anthemic cathedral rock in the coda.  It is both familiar and yet novel, and the whole thing even ends with birds chirping.  Here's hoping this new Frightened Rabbit gets the acclaim they so rightly deserve.

Selections
Oil Slick

The Woodpile

Late March, Death March

New Music Roundup, 1/29/13

Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob

I'll get the suspense out of the way: I love this album.  Lead single and album opener "Closer" is probably the best song on here, but what a song it is: a bouncy peppy song that makes you want to jump up and down and shout out the chorus at the top of your lungs, never mind who may be in earshot.  It taps into a vein that is pop music at my most favorite.

The remainder of the album is in a similar style, never straying too far from the catchy accessible pop path.  Oh, and synthesizers; there are a lot of synthesizers on a few of the songs.  Despite their presence, few of the songs seem overly 80's-ish, and even the ones that do still have very strong choruses to anchor them.

Anyway, I recommend everyone listen to this album.  Hopefully this represents a mainstream breakthrough for the band: I could see something like seven or eight of the ten songs receiving radio airplay, and really, there isn't a whole lot of sonic difference between this album and some of the acts currently dominating the top 40 (Ke$ha's latest in particular, which shares a producer with this album).  I hope the album doesn't get pigeonholed as indie; it is pop through and through, and a heck of a lot better than a lot of recent pop releases.

Selections
Closer

I'm Not Your Hero

Drove Me Wild

How Come You Don't Want Me
Tegan And Sara – How Come You Don't Want Me

New Music Roundup, 1/22/13

You're getting this a day early, because I am going to be out of town tomorrow and was able to find a couple of streams of albums coming out tomorrow.  If anything comes out tomorrow that absolutely needs to be addressed, I may add an addendum some time tomorrow or Wednesday, but I'm pretty sure I got a chance to listen to the most prominent releases.

Free Energy - Love Sign

How many Loverboy songs can you name?  How you answer that question may go a long way towards how you react to this album.

Free Energy is a band from Philadelphia with what appears to be a completely unironic love of 80's middle of the road rock.  That means this album has no shortage of cowbells, double tracked guitar solos, hand-claps, whoa oh ohs, and singalong choruses.  All of this should be right up my alley, and in some ways it is.  

What gives me some pause in recommending this album is that the production is a little too dead-on in its 80's-ness, which leaves the whole thing sounding a little too sterile.  Everything sounds vaguely nice but also can skirt into boring territory.  This is likely all intentional: whereas the first Free Energy album was produced by LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy, this new one is done by John Agnello, a long-tenured producer who actually has produced albums for The Hooters and The Outfield (to his credit, he also has tons of non-80's cheese on his resume as well).  Assuming it was their goal to sound as if they fit right in on the classic rock channel, Free Energy undoubtedly hit their target; I just question a little bit how worthwhile of a target it is to hit.

Still, there's an earworm-y nature to several of the songs that cannot be denied, the very Cars-ish "Girls Want Rock" being the prime example (it's also possible that this is a summer album being released when it's 10 degrees outside; that will be something to monitor going forward).

Selections

Girls Want Rock

Electric Fever

Hangin'

Drunk on Old Music

I'm back with another underrated album that more people should know about.

Album: The Stone Roses

Band: The Stone Roses

Year: 1989

Background: The Stone Roses officially formed in 1983, when Ian Brown and Johnny Squire started a band with several other musicians from the Manchester, England area.  They would spend the next several years in obscurity, changing lineups several times and writing songs, several of which would ultimately end up on The Stone Roses.  By 1987 the lineup had been set, with Brown as lead singer, Squire as guitarist, Gary "Mani" Mounfield on bass and Alan "Reni" Wren on drums.

In Manchester at this time a music scene was beginning to form, and The Stone Roses would prove to be central to it.  Ultimately called Madchester or baggy, the scene was influenced by both English bands from the 60's as well as contemporary acts such as The Smiths and New Order and ultimately came to incorporate aspects of 60's British Rock, psychedelia, college rock, and dance music.  The sudden prevalence of ecstasy in the area probably also did not hurt the genre's popularity.

The Stone Roses would prove to be this music scene's Nevermind, at least in terms of its genre-defining nature.  Unfortunately for the band, the album would not prove to have the chart-topping success of Nevermind: despite having solid reviews from several British magazines, sales were low initially.  As the British press began to pay more attention to the Madchester scene, The Stone Roses would gain more popularity in England, but mainstream success in America would ultimately prove beyond reach.

New Music Roundup, 1/15/13

Guess who's back?

I got keys

Comin' from overseas

Cost a - (This seems like an appropriate time to raise the question: am I allowed to use the n-word if quoting a rap song?  No?  Ok, then.  Moving on...)

Anyway, as that aborted rap verse indicates, after a several month-long hiatus, the new music roundup is making its - if not exactly triumphant, then at least enthusiastic - return.  Not all of this is technically new music, but it's all new to me, so you'll just have to indulge me.  I swear to god, fictional audience, sometimes you can be so picky.

Emile Sandé - Our Version of Events

This is one of those older albums I only discovered the past couple of days.  I'm a little unsure when the album was released in the US, but it was released in the UK almost a year ago.  If my Sirius Radio listening experience is any indication, Sandé is starting to get a lot more exposure over here in the past couple weeks, and with good reason: if I had to succinctly describe what Sandé sounds like, I'd go with "Alicia Keys on steroids."  This isn't meant to be a knock on Keys, who's perfectly acceptable, but I think Sandé has the more powerful voice of the two, and she is at least Keys's songwriting equal.  Like Keys she's comfortable working across a couple different genres, mainly R&B, hip hop, dance, and soul.  I'm honestly surprised this record hasn't gained much traction in the United States to date, listening to it I thought it could very easily be in the same vein as Adele's 21 and think it deserves something approaching that ubiquity.  If nothing else, if you haven't yet heard the song "Next to Me," I'm fairly certain that will be rectified in the coming months.  

Selections

Next to Me

Heaven

Read All About It (Part III)

My Kind of Love