Love and fun in the time of anhedonia
Little Brother – May the Lord Watch (Image Nation, 2019)
Phonte and Big Pooh have always kept their long-running collab casual and chill. So chill, in fact, their eight-year hiatus was the result of mere disinterest instead of any sort of beef. Galvanized by Phife Dawg’s sudden death, the pair rekindled their dormant friendship and the group that will define them both. At just 37 minutes and filled with a bevy of radio-play sketches, such brevity would otherwise make this reunion feel like a cop-out. Instead, it renders their rhymes more pressing and as earnest as they’ve ever been. With age hasn’t come wisdom, but certainly perspective and a sense of humility that comes with appreciating the simple act of breathing. It’s why Pooh rejects cynicism and wants a better world for his son while Phonte knows materialism leads to nothingness. The centerpiece is “Black Magic,” a love letter to their people and an affirmation of Black labor. “Black skin, Black faces, Black people make Black magic / So pay me every fuckin’ dime and add taxes.” But I’m equally smitten with “Goodmorning Sunshine,” a warm, humorous tribute to the domestic life. Pooh’s “Let me chase you ‘round the room, be on some love shit,” always makes me giggle. Their optimism and good humor aren’t misguided. They’re necessary balms to survive the terrible year that is 2020 or any future time in human history. I thank them for their service. GRADE: A-
Injury Reserve – Injury Reserve (Loma Vista, 2019)
Why this Tempe trio (now duo) is classified as experimental rap is beyond me. They’re far too formal, beat-savvy and human to deserve such a dubious distinction. Alterna-rap? Absolutely. Both Jordan Groggs and Nathaniel Ritchie possess the sort of impassive delivery and dry humor more reminiscent of Das Racist and Odd Future than any young impresario climbing up the Billboard charts. Credit producer Parker Corey, too, for consistently bringing the groove you expect while simultaneously anchoring and indulging Grogg’s and Ritchie’s more abstract tendencies. Nothing on this debut is as abstract as the meta intermission of “Rap Song Tutorial,” a playful how-to wherein Siri lays the blueprint of scoring a hit. The better tech-centric jam and instant banger is “Jailbreak the Telsa,” in which the Bentleys-and-bitches cliché is subverted and twisted with glee. But there’s brains and some depth to this group, too. Groggs, who passed away in June at 32, routinely references the alcohol addiction and depression that plagued his adulthood and desires only to be a better father to his son. Ritchie shuns wealth and is happy to just pay the bills and have a roof over his head after putting in his hustling dues. How he and Corey proceed in the wake of Groggs’ passing remains uncertain, but even if they quietly dissolve, they’ll always have the tender finale, “Three Man Weave,” a fitting tribute to their friendship that gave their lives purpose and direction. GRADE: A-
Her voice has always leaned sluggish and sleepy — a distinct drawl from her Louisiana home. At 67, her pipes have soured further, making her voice as rough and rocky as the gravel road that cemented her place in Americana two decades ago. Likewise, the music has grown increasingly weary, dragged slightly more ass, resembling a dusty squeezebox. Chalk it up to awful fortune, an artistic renaissance or a coincidence of the two, but America’s acceleration toward fascism has reinvigorated the piss-n-vinegar lyricism that’s her trademark. Her songs have long been awash with gothic hues, part of the great Southern lore inherited from her literature professor father. Here, Williams’ dread turns national and bites like an angry mule. Grievances are targeted at You-Know-Who, “A man without truth / A man of greed / A man of hate,” an “Abomination of all that’s good.” Her leathered voice adds to her disdain, cracking and quivering with equal parts rage and pain. The music — a cocktail of cheap whiskey and red dirt — rumbles like distant thunder and is as unrelenting as the negative headlines that keep Williams up at night. The best example of said synergy is the opening fuck-you of “You Can’t Rule Me.” Notice how the bouncy twang of the main riff matches Williams’ unbeatable gusto. Then notice the echoing serenity of “Big Black Train,” wherein she vows to stave off the fate that awaits us all for as long as possible. With this much fight left in the tank, long may she live. GRADE: A
Every new Dylan record is treated as a totem and given the deference of Bill Shakespeare. This is partly because critics routinely swoon for his long, strange trip through Americana and partly because he’s Bob Fucking Dylan. His first album of original songs in eight years mostly quells reasonable suspicions regarding the state of his songwriting and 79-year-old larynx. Where he sounded particularly froggy and aged on 2012’s 
Another dynamo country grrrl that won’t get near the pub or praise she’s owed by the Nashville machine. Oh well, I suspect this “Maine’s Got Talent” winner already knows as much and is content to hustle as far as her ambition takes her. She made a small viral splash four years ago with “Fight Like a Girl,” a well-meaning mini anthem released a few months before Hilary Clinton failed to break the country’s highest glass ceiling. This full-length debut further explores her sassy side and displays perceptive songwriting chops reminiscent of early Taylor Swift singles. Sassy side first: “F U Forever” is a punchy and humorous send-off to a manipulative ex that doubles as a testament to her self-esteem. “You hated when my dreams came true / ‘Cause they were better as just dreams to you / But what you really hated was yourself.” A worthy entry in the feminist country catalog, but her primary objective (and greatest talent) is turning hyper-personal songs into moving vignettes about the working poor. In Shorr’s America, small towns are meant for leaving, a front porch swing signifies financial security, and Mama and Daddy are hooked on Billy Graham and pot. And while “Vices” is the obvious addiction song, the real kicker is “The World Keeps Spinning,” about her sister’s heroin overdose that juxtaposes a picturesque day with devastating heartbreak. She’s easy to cheer on, and I hope she puts a few of the bros out of business. GRADE: A-
This Waldron, Arkansas parvenu has more to do with the bygone genre of heartland rock than the eternal spring break that has become country music. It’s why her previous record referenced John Mellencamp and why her casual every-woman drawl recalls Trisha Yearwood instead of Carrie Underwood — although she shares the latter’s propensity for over-singing. In general, McBryde’s music feels largely homespun with a dash of schmaltz thrown in for good measure. No coincidence she’s prone to cliché and unironically features a rawkin guitar solo on every track save the bluegrass throwback of “Velvet Red” and dead brother elegy, “Stone.” The improvement on this record is songwriting that’s sharper and less mushy compared to its predecessors. “Hang in There Girl,” empathizes with poor dreamers everywhere, “One Night Standards” knows cheap sex serves a function, “Shut Up Sheila,” tells a Bible-thumper to go to hell, and “First Thing I Search For” is about the last thing she needs. Each one lined up neatly in a row and as effective as the last. I believe her on the title track when she vows to never play nice with the Corporate Nashville Monster, but that doesn’t mean the faux-rock of “Voodoo Doll” doesn’t give me swamp ass. I also wish the boozy finale of “Styrofoam” wasn’t there. Not because I dislike fun, but because such subject matter seems so beneath her. GRADE: A-
Sigh. Where to start? When this Broadway megahit about a bastard orphan son of a whore who became our first treasury secretary crossed over in 2015, I abstained on the sidelines. I did so because I a) don’t make showtunes part of my auricular diet and b) believe the visual impact of musicals is just as important as the songs and didn’t dare divorce one from the other. When the live staging appeared on Disney+, I made a night of it with my mom (she’d seen the real thing) and enjoyed this messy piece of pop culture for what it is. Those who take umbrage with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s whitewashing of history and Alexander Hamilton’s dealings with slavery have a right to gripe 
More than 15 years after Billie Joe Armstrong enacted what would be rock’s final mega-statement, I still don’t hear the political throughline that supposedly made this album (sorry, opera) the career-saver gatekeepers and PR reps sold it as. Sure, the title track is antifa all the way and the anti-war “Holiday” is also anti-Dubya, but those anthems feel like cutaways from the band’s overarching plot about two punks gone mad in an America gone belly up. My rule for these songs is the same as it ever was: Don’t get bogged down in the particulars. Searching for a tidy narrative or a lyrical couplet that sums up their political rage is a futile exercise because Armstrong never put them there. If these songs are supposed to reflect a nation, they miss the mark badly. There’s no mention of race or sex, and their anti-war proclamations lack the specificity a worthy protest anthem craves. What these Berkeley punks pull off, however, is conveying the messiness and fears of growing up. Broken homes, mental illness and drug use undercuts the polished veneer of suburbia, the loves songs burn with a hopeless romanticism befitting of the genre, and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” is a stirring ode to Armstrong’s dead father that doubles as remedial education in vulnerable songwriting for all those insufferable emo twerps. Armstrong briefly reinvigorated rock’s dramatic grandiosity and pushed over four million units in the process. Then, when the market dried up, he moved to Broadway. Shameless 
Every Taylor Swift album is a statement record by way of the space she occupies in the culture. As fans are continually fractured into
It was only a matter of time. Country-pop wunderkind conquers the world, ditches her guitar, glams up and graduates from the prom to stadium tours. She had been one of the five largest acts in the world for nearly a decade up to this point, employing an assembly line of pulverizing hooks to turn her tabloid love life into personal anthems for millions of young girls who could only dream of seeing John Mayer’s penis. But this album, a moody mess that relies on EDM gimmickry to a fault, isn’t concerned with utilitarianism. Rather, it’s the sound of a young woman isolated by fame, incubated by wealth and preoccupied with her KimYe Twitter beef. Her songs have always been about being Taylor Swift, but here her qualms are especially superficial and largely relevant only to the auteur. The phony femme fetale of “Look What You Made Me Do” remains D.O.A. and the Future/Ed Sheeran colab is beneath her. So what’s notable about these 15 songs to justify these 264 words? The choruses. Along with Gaga’s knack of monster jams, there’s not a pop star who breathes that routinely cranks out anthemic hooks with equal levels of heft and heart. And for all of the garish synths that don’t mesh with her pristine soprano, all the social media baggage this record comes with, I find myself routinely humming the hooks long after I’ve moved on with my day. There are good bones here. It’s her identification with status that’s the problem. As damning a condemnation of capitalism I’ve yet heard from a big-ticket pop star. GRADE: B+
Sound 'Round 