Content Farming

  The artist currently known as Ye (but still releasing under the name Kanye West for commercial purposes) is back again like backstreet. Chances are if you've found yourself in this internet backwater that is my blog, you're online enough to be aware of the myriad controversies the man has been mired in. From wearing MAGA hats to divorce to publicly stating his love for Hitler to getting cut from the Adidas roster, dude's been putting feet in his mouth more than Tarantino. The last time Kanye's controversies were this impactful, he released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an inarguable hip-hop masterpiece that launched careers and changed the culture and conversation around hip-hop itself. This time round, Vultures 1 is here to make amends. The first of an announced trilogy with Ty Dolla Sign (or Ty$ if you want to get economical with language), it features an all-star cast of artists and producers on board. Let's be clear though, this is a superduo in name only...

  Welcome back to Revisitation Nation, a series of posts where I talk about band's lesser-loved work and consider whether it deserves a revisit. So far it's a series of one,  starring The Killers . No more will that post be lonely, as today I will discuss Modest Mouse's follow-up to "the album with Float On", We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. To be honest, if I can speak on the future of this series, it's gonna have a lot of the flowchart below going on.  Band floats under the radar in the indie scene releasing critically acclaimed work > Band has a breakout work that actually hits the charts > Band tries to follow it up with mixed results from the public. Unlike Wonderful Wonderful however, I am not writing this with curiosity in mind. I am not writing this with doubt that this is a project perhaps not worth embarking on. I am writing this with full throated praise. If Good News For People Who Love Bad News (aka the album with float on on it) is t...

Who are Mr Morale and the Big Steppers? Out of all the questions asked online about this album, out of all the discourse surrounding the varied choices, I believe this is the most important question to understanding this incredible double album from Kendrick Lamar. Released on Friday the 13th (my birthday, thanks kung fu kenny), Kendrick's latest covers a wide range of topics, such as the grieving process, wealth and it's corrupting influence, cancel culture, rap culture, toxic masculinity, and love as retribution for the sins of the past. Did I mention that's just the first 5 tracks? Mr Morale is a dense album thematically, but at no point do we ever get a clear answer for who Mr Morale and the Big Steppers are. Well, kind of. We'll get to it. Before we can properly examine this album, we must first look at the prequel track, "The Heart part 5". Here, Kendrick essentially presents a thesis statement/abstract for the album. It's a dense 5 1/2 minutes, cove...

The Killers are usually defined as a singles band. The Las Vegas based band's debut Hot Fuss produced indie classics "Mr. Brightside" and "Somebody Told Me", among others. Their follow-up. Sam's Town, was seen as a stronger record overall, with the track "When You Were Young" becoming a staple. Day & Age was less well received, but still produced a huge single in the memeable "Human". Battle Born however, possessed little of note on the charts and critically. After this, the band took a 5 year hiatus, returning in 2017 with Wonderful Wonderful. Since it's release the band have gone from a singles band to an album band, with follow-ups Imploding the Mirage and Pressure Machine receiving glowing reviews, strong sales, and exceptional fan responses. Wonderful Wonderful, in the context of the band's trajectory as a whole, reads as an abberation. Sure, Battle Born had no hits and wasn't particularly well reviewed, but it's ...

Alvvays have always reminded me of Beach House. Of course, every dream pop band for the next twenty years will be compared to Beach House, and Alvvays have been time and again. To me, they are not particularly similar in sound, however. Alvvays are far less hazy and dreamy, feeling more propelled and direct. Rather, the reminiscence comes from the relative lack of self-insertion in their work. Aside from a specific self-referential moment on Antisocialites ("Molly Mayhem") Alvvays have maintained a distance. Much like beach house and other contempories in the dream pop genre, they keep their lyrics general enough to apply to any listener, but specific enough to relay the emotion they want people to feel. On Blue Rev , Alvvays break through that barrier, getting more specific and personal lyrically, while also getting stranger and more personal in sound. Even the strange title "Blue Rev" is a personal touch, referencing a brand of Canadian beer. The a...

The Beach Boys are a curious artifact. Despite Brian Wilson's excessively brilliant songwriting, they are often seen as markers of an Americana gone by. They suffer from cultural cringe, respected enough in their time to inspire Sgt. Pepper, but trapped enough by that era that listening to them in 2022 feels outdated. Their barber-shop melodies coupled with the awkward stage presence of Wilson leaves them feeling like a relic. So why go back to their 1971 album? Put simply: it rips. Being an Australian, I am well familiar with cultural cringe. Our biggest export is Crocodile Dundee, still the highest grossing Australian film. While Paul Hogan has damned me to a lifetime of hearing "shrimp on the barbie" while traveling in the US, The Beach Boys have given me some incredible songs so I suppose it evens out. Surf's Up is an elegaic mediation on climate change, at a time when climate change wasn't even considered a real thing. The opening track "Don't Go Nea...