Cozz for all the hip-hop heads out there.
Kintaro and Anderson Paak for the hip-hop heads + soul lovers.
Borns with a pop jolt. Check out his album!
Mild High Cub for the psych stoners out there.
Ark Patrol for some EDM.
Luke Temple for the delicate songwriters in all of us.
Jaws of Love to hear one of the Local Natives solo album, a beautiful track.
Happy Monday!
Albums make music permanent. Albums are the story to the chapters, the theme of so many thoughts. Albums are what make songs something more.
This year has provided so many albums - to the tune of 1,457 artists, 6,426 songs, and 100 thousand minutes of music that I’ve listened. And I listened to and loved nothing more than Tame Impala’s Currents.
As I wrote in my album review, Currents is a wonderfully freeing musical expression and acknowledgement of adaptation for the sake of Parker and no others. One of the coolest things I noted was that Currents is so different than its two top notch predecessors, yet it eclipses both.
"Yes, I'm changing," Kevin Parker sweetly serenades the critics, haters, and trolls, "Yes, I'm gone / Yes, I'm older / Yes, I'm moving on / And if you don't think it's a crime / you can come along with me / Life is moving / can't you see?"
My love for Natalie Prass is evident if you read this blog. It all started because of her debut album. I did not write a review, I just enjoyed the many, many instruments and Prass' vocals delicately absorbing the wind and strings to harmonize above it all.
It’s been the best year in rap in many many years. Six rappers made it onto my list, and three of them - Drake, Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick Lamar - in the top six! Each album was completely different.
Read MoreWelp. I just wrote a ton and it got deleted because the page tried to reload. That sucks. Let's try this again.
A number of solid albums have been released in the past few weeks that have reached into my Top 25 Albums of 2015.
Borns has released one of the best Electro-Pop albums this year. He (yes, that's a dude singing!) tackles somberness like Beach House (as the guitar shows in "The Emotion") yet provides upbeat and lighthearted jams throughout (as his falsetto indicates on "Dopamine") that remind me a bit of Passion Pit and MGMT's first album.
I first heard C. Duncan because he was nominated for the Mercury Prize - the award given to the best album of the year from the UK or Ireland. The prize ultimately went to Benjamin Clementine, a man with a mountain of a voice and a piano at his palms. But C. Duncan's album has intrigued me. I feel lost in a forest of folk, whistling tunes like he does in "For." The only guy I could think to compare him to is Bibio.
I don't know how I found Sea Ghost, but they're unadorned rock by a singer with a voice no one would write home about, yet that sincerity is exactly why it works. The xylophone doesn't hurt either on "Cowboy Hat."
Julia Holter vibrates in strings of instruments with an ethereal aura about her. She reminds me of Andrew Bird. Very cool album worth a listen!
I wasn't overly impressed with Metric's album, but I thought this was a pretty powerful electro song.
The first half of Pure Bathing Culture's new album is really good but then it drops off a bit. If you like this track, check em out!