Here are six reviews for six albums that I had close to zero interest ever listening to, and would have absolutely chosen to never listen to them if I didn't set self-imposed goals for Record Club's upkeep. It... actually could've been a lot worse.
Released: September 20, 2024
Follow-up to: Teenage Dream, Week 270
I'm not as amused at the act of writing extremely negative reviews about pop stars' efforts as I once was. I do think that Katy Perry, of all past-their-prime female pop stars working today, deserves it the most, what with the tone-deaf space flight and the obscene hypocrisy of working with a sexual abuser in the studio. But it just doesn't seem as fun to me anymore. I'm listening to 143, which is not good, but hey, man, it's not really a trainwreck or anything, either. I don't feel compelled to defend it in any way, I'm just saying that this is typically the kind of album that I would relish the opportunity to write something very critical and hopefully funny in its criticism, and I don't feel that joy anymore. At least not with Katy Perry. What's the point? For some songs, she's following the blueprint set by RENAISSANCE, just a couple years late, and for others, she following other more generic pop strands of the 2020s. It's fine. I would rather drink my own piss than listen to this voluntarily, but not that RC f/u is forcing me to listen to it, I think it's fine. The song with Doechii was actually bearable.
I just don't think we need to go long on such a mediocre-to-bad effort. It's not fair. Again, I'm not defending her, but I also think at a certain point, the blame needs to be pointed at the self too. Katy Perry is obtuse, but she's that way because of us. She was shielded for so long because she put out an all-timer of a pop album and that fucks with your brain, when society treats you the way it does in the wake of such bonkers commercial success. I really just can't blame her for being a wacko, or for making a terrible album. What other choice did she have?
If you listen to this because you like her present-day music, you're misguided, but if you're listening to it because you get pleasure out of listening to something very bad, then you're just as much of a sicko as her fans. Get some help, all of you. And get me out of this review.
GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5 (-1.0 pukes from original review)
Released: August 16, 2024
Follow-up to: Hollywood's Bleeding, Week 54
I've come back around on Post Malone. I thought his music sucked around the time I gave it an honest effort for Record Club's sake. The years following that convinced me that, hey, this here's a fine fella, cool to share a beer with, who cares about the music, let's celebrate the artist, a stand-up guy. But then he turned toward country, and I am back to where I started. Fuck this guy. Fuck this fucking charlatan. Fuck this motherfucking leech, this craven profit-driven shell of an artist. Fuck this artless, gutless fuck.
Everyone says they want to share a beer with George W. Bush. Bush is a war criminal who killed millions. What I am saying is that Post Malone is the George W. Bush of pop music.
When I listen to F-1 Trillion, my eyes are opened to just how much "pop" is in "pop country." I hear these eighteen songs and I can see the songwriting algorithm in real time, written in mathematical equations in the air in front of my eyes, like that meme with a lady who apparently isn't Claire Danes?! There is boilerplate, and there is this. So fucking simple that apparently some face-tatted white-rapper asshole can do it! Well, him and six of his huckster buddies, anyway!
I don't need Post Malone to rally against bad pop music. You can get that anywhere. But I do think that it's fucking rich that Beyoncé, a Black woman, rankles the country vanguard so thoroughly at her turn toward this genre, while some fucking white dude can pretty much play whatever he wants and everyone shrugs and bids him welcome. If you think that Post Malone is being any more authentic than Beyoncé Knowles, then you are being willfully obtuse. This is all cheap stucco facade, and I FUCKING HATE IT.
These were supposed to be brief reviews, so I'm cutting it off now. If I have anything else to say, it'll be elsewhere. Fuck this fucking loser and fuck every single asshole who features on this piece of shit—and yes, that include Dolly Parton. FUCK DOLLY PARTON, and fuck her in advance for her inevitable defense of Morgan Wallen, a little fucking racist dipsit who Parton truly believes with her big ol' country heart is gonna be joining her in heaven someday, with all the angels, holding hands with all the other white racist country stars.
GRADE: 0 pukes out of 5 (-0.5 from original review)
Small Changes by Michael Kiwanuka
Released: November 22, 2024
Follow-up to: KIWANUKA, Week 45
If I hear a Michael Kiwanuka song on WXPN (which happens fairly often), I can definitely tell you that it's him. But I've listened to KIWANUKA plenty of times, including last year for its RC@5, and right now, I could not hum a single song that the man has ever made (and that includes the Big Little Lies theme song, I've stuffed that whole fucking debacle of a show down the memory hole for good). So to say that his music doesn't make an impact on me would be an understatement. I think it's pretty good, and I also think it's pretty forgettable.
I don't know why, but seeing the genre listed as "psychedelic soul" got me to listen to Kiwanuka's newest album, Small Changes, in a new light. That's what Wikipedia called KIWANUKA too. And I wouldn't say that the dude has made any significant changes to his sound in the five years in between albums (besides maybe the synths in "Follow Your Dreams," which seems like something new he's trying out). But instead of hearing it as public radio coffeehouse shit, I was able to hear it as a descendant of classic soul music from the 1960s. I think it works better in that context.
What it should be is "folk neo-soul" or something, mainly because I don't hear much in the way of psychedelia (again, besides those "Follow Your Dreams" synths, by far the most interesting part of the album) (oh, and also maybe the guitar solo in "Stay by My Side"?). But it's soul music in that it's beautiful music about human emotions. It's "neo" i.e. "new" because there's no focus on harmony or falsetto. It's folky because, well, you know, you're hearing it.
I doubt that I will remember much about this album eight months from now, but while listening, I had a pleasant experience. I was folding laundry. Pretty good folding-laundry music. Yes, that is both a compliment and a criticism.
GRADE: 2.5 out of 5 (+0.5 pukes from original review)
Released: January 5, 2025
Follow-up to: Un Verano Sin Ti, Week 214
Not sure what else to say about this dude at this point. Yes, we've gone over it before—I don't know whether all of his songs sound the same, or if this is one of those instances that I don't know the genre well enough to distinguish between different examples. Probably the latter, but what the fuck am I supposed to do? Go back in time and force my parents to give birth to me in Puerto Rico? It's too late. All I hear is the same beat over and over and over. That dembow. I listen to a Bad Bunny album once and then for the next seven weeks all I can hear when I lie down to sleep is that goddamn dembow.
Credit where it's due. DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS feels, to my gringo ears, like a conscious attempt to rope in many more Latin American sounds. I'm not haunted by the dembow as much this week. A song like "Café Con Ron" is more more samba than dembow. I like bongos and congas, so I appreciated this song, and others like it. But I still wouldn't say that I like it because it was "new" to my ears; it was nice because I recognized it as a style of music that I like more than what Bad Bunny typically plays.
I will hand it to this man. It's very clear to me now what he is doing. He has a corner of the market cornered. He is a Drake-type in that he is releasing so, so much music in order to flood the algorithm and force as much of it as he can into the ears of streaming service slugs. But the music authentic. He knows what he's doing, both musically and commercially. There is no one making this type of music who is more popular than him, and more is more when it comes to fucking Spotify, so why not force PoYB's insane Record Club editor-in-chief to listen to over an hour of new music every year for the rest of his life?
GRADE: 2.5 out of 5 (+0.5 pukes from original review)
Released: October 29, 2024
Follow-up to: Mirrorland, Week 183
Damn, they had me in the first few songs. I thought this was going to be some anime-influenced chillwave shit or something. There wasn't even really much rapping in those songs. EarthGang had my attention! But then, by the time RC alumnus T-Pain showed up, we were back to business as usual. There were a few songs that had that sort of hazy psychedelia thing going, a liquidy slowed-down beat, like "Blacklight." But otherwise, EarthGang is just kinda riding the algorithm.
I don't even know if a non-rapping album from this rap duo would've been good, but it would have at least been interesting. I wouldn't say Perfect Fantasy is interesting. I don't really remember what I had to say about Mirrorland. I remember The Wiz being brought up. We know, from these two albums, that EarthGang is at the very least attempting to tell a story, build narratives, bring something new to the genre. I don't know if pop rap is the best genre to attempt any of this, though.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5 (same as original review)
Released: November 1, 2024
Follow-up to: Cat Heaven, Week 10
Time can do a number on ya. Back in 2019, ten weeks into a little album-of-the-week club we had only just cooked up, I figured that Roy Blair was a fun little punching bag to get some frustrations out of my system. That album was stinky, and it still is, but maybe not as much as I wanted to believe at the time, ya know? And now here, six years later, I find myself feeling weirdly fond feelings about Roy Blair's place in my life. I want the little guy to succeed. I am not angry anymore. He's just some fucking guy trying to make art. I wanted his new album to knock shit out of the park. Seriously!
It's not that. No artist can make such a high leap, it's just not possible. But at the very fucking least, Chasing Moving Trains is both better and more interesting than Cat Heaven. Look no further than "Panavision," which doesn't sound anything like the shit we reviewed in Record Club. Blair is rapping, but he's not really doing the "white boy rapping" shtick anymore. More importantly, he's doing his thing on top of a wild drum-and-bass beat, with smooth saxophones in the mix too. I don't love it, but I like it, and I am fascinated that this is the same Roy Blair. It's a level-up. He's levelling up from the basement, but it's a level-up nonetheless.
The rest of the album is fine. Nothing is embarrassing, nothing is revelatory. It's all very relaxing electronica that your R&B type might gravitate toward in the algorithm era, something akin to a 1975 interlude that they base on some niche British genre. I imagine that Roy Blair wanted to make some High Art, and I appreciate the attempt on his part, even though it's not for me. I want this for him instead of whatever bullshit trend-chasing his predecessors are doing (see above: Posty on that dumb country shit). There's a whole generation of kids who crave this rainy-day Vibes music, and I think it's great that Roy Blair wants to give it to 'em.
The rest of the album is fine. Nothing is embarrassing, nothing is revelatory. It's all very relaxing electronica that your R&B type might gravitate toward in the algorithm era, something akin to a 1975 interlude that they base on some niche British genre. I imagine that Roy Blair wanted to make some High Art, and I appreciate the attempt on his part, even though it's not for me. I want this for him instead of whatever bullshit trend-chasing his predecessors are doing (see above: Posty on that dumb country shit). There's a whole generation of kids who crave this rainy-day Vibes music, and I think it's great that Roy Blair wants to give it to 'em.
So: this is not for me. But hey, neither was Cat Heaven, and yet here we are anyway. I'm happy to have the opportunity to know this artist.
GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5 (+2.0 from original review)
NEXT TIME: This was good. Let's do this again. I'll pick four more albums and bang them out after one listen, akin to ripping off a band-aid. I'll write a little something for Halsey, Cordae, Ethel Cain, and Cheekface. (I'm also deleting Cunningham Bird by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham from the list, because I've decided that I'm not going to do cover albums in RC f/u, especially for albums that cover songs that I'm not familiar with already.)
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