Monday Mixtape, Vol. 151
Good Morning this Monday all! Hopefully, you all have a day off and can blast this music while enjoying yourself in the outdoors and reminding yourself this day who real agents of positive change in our history were.
So we have to start with Georgia. Seeking Thrills was the first album of 2020 that I hear, and I can guarantee this album is already cemented in the Top 10 albums of the year, if not Top 5.
Georgia has made an album that’s an amalgamation of my favorite female pop albums of the past decade. The comparisons to Robyn will be endless as “24 Hours” makes abundantly clear. There’s also Carly Rae Jepsen sounds (“About Work the Dancefloor” and “Till I Own It), Tegan and Sara (“Never Let You Go”), Purity Ring (“I Can’t Wait”), Grimes (“Feel It” and “Mellow” and “The Thrill”), MIA (“Ray Guns”).
You even get an homage to one of the greatest movies of the 1980s, the classic “The Goonies,” with the eerie and reverbed “Ultimate Sailor.” Just listen to the first 5 seconds, you’ll know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Then she sounds exactly like Robyn the rest of the song.
Now, a critic of Georgia would say she’s just cribbing the best pop artists of the decade and making songs that sound a little too much like them, which I think is a fair critique. I don’t think this album is some NEW thing, but I’m impressed that it takes some of the best stuff from these artists and packages it all into one very cohesive album. I’ve been listening to it non-stop, and it will definitely be the life of the party. So, like the reference to “The Goonies,” the album seems like a homage the artists that came before her who were all cribbing sounds from the 80s.
It’s a great album regardless. So let’s just love it.
I also just started listening to Compton CA’s, Roddy Ricch, a guy you would swear was from Atlanta or the South by hearing his Future inspired sound. But he’s taking a lot of stuff and making his own little sound with it. “The Box” is his best track and then “Peta” with Meek Mill is another one that bumps.
So I haven’t even listened to the new Kanye album. That’s where this guy is an artist to me now. The SAME guy I defended back in 2015 but could care less for at this point. SAD! Anyways, I heard “Follow God'“ on Spotify’s Rap Caviar, and I loved it. I thought his new album was all gospel-like, and I’m pretty tired of all that thanks to Chance and Kanye’s last album, but this is just Kanye rapping (well) on a great beat. Good stuff.
Bombay Bicycle Club just released their fourth album (I don’t count Flaws), the oddly titled, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong. They’re a band I put up there with Young the Giant and Two Door Cinema Club, a band that I’ve listened to an INSANE amount over the past ten years. All of their albums have been really enjoyable, each with some phenomenal tracks. They’re upbeat and fun and totally have their own sound.
Anyways, I’ve been enjoying their new album, though I need to listen to it a lot more to give it a full thought. BUT I keep listening to “Good Day,” and I’m not sure exactly why. It seems so slow and simple, but maybe it’s Jack’s deep vocals, what I think is the lowest register I think he’s done on record. Whatever it is, I love it.
Finally, I never listened to Juice WRLD while he was living. He died a couple months ago, but I just started listening to him a bit. He reminds me a lot of Post Malone. “Bandit” is one track that stuck out to me. RIP.
Happy MLK Day.