BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 18/03/2015: Tame Impala, Death Grips, Muse and more...

This week Death Grips trade electronica beats for psychedelic rock whilst Tame Impala trade psychedelic rock for electronica. Meanwhile, big names such as Muse and Kanye West also have new singles out (plus Kendrick Lamar and Earl Sweatshirt, although I didn't deem either good or bad enough to make this week's selection).

THE BEST:

'Let It Happen' - Tame Impala

This kaleidoscopic seven-minute electronica adventure sees the Australian five-piece rock band dropping their guitars for epic synthesizers. The entire second half is practically one big ever-evolving outro. I'm particularly liking the broken-record looped part in the middle and Animal-Collective-flavoured vocal harmonies towards the end.

'On GP' - Death Grips

The experimental hip hoppers have surprised everyone yet again by going down a new sonic avenue - psychedelic rock. By Death Grips standards the track is fairly soft. MC Ride also offers some depressive and unexpectedly human lyrics. The song is set to be the ninth track on Death Grips' up-and-coming semi-album, Jenny Death, which may or may not be released on March 29th.

'Psycho' - Muse

The lyrical message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer and the Full-Metal-Jacket-drill-sergeant-skit-thing could ideally be cut out, but sweeping all that aside this is a hefty and badass rock song from the UK trio with a riff that makes me want to beat my chest and smash furniture up and generally act like a psycho. The absence of operatic warbling and wubs is also a plus.

'Reflections' - Django Django

Like Tame Impala, Brit rockers Django Django seem to going more synthy. There's a real bounce to this track and the out-of-the-blue saxophone section is really cool.

'Never Awake' - Drenge

This new track from Derbyshire duo, Drenge, seems to be a step into cleaner production, which is worrying considering the rawness of their debut was half their appeal. Fortunately, the instruments are still sounding primal even if the sound quality isn't, and the lyrics are still top notch.

THE WORST:

'Awesome' - Kanye West

Another week, another new Kanye song. This time it’s a cheesy auto-tuned ballad dedicated to his bae, Kim. Lyrically, it's not his best work, lines like 'I'm gonna cook, you'll be dessert' coming across like bad chat-up lines. He even manages to dedicate a few lines of the love song to himself towards the end: ‘I’m also awesoooome!’. He just can't help himself, can he?

Review of 'Rebel Heart' by Madonna

There are few fifty-six year old pop stars that would dare to sing over a dirty Diplo-produced trap beat. There are also few fifty-six year old pop singers that would dare to sing about drugs, cunnilingus and the art of being a bitch in such explicit detail as can be found on this album.

It’s admirable that after all these years Madonna is still making music that’s current and controversial. Back in the eighties, songs such as ‘Like a Virgin’ were pushing the sexual boundaries of pop music. By today’s standard such a track is tame. In fact it’s hard to make a genuinely shocking sex song in 2015 and yet on Rebel Heart, Madonna somehow manages it – the Kanye-produced ode-to-oral-sex ‘Holy Water’ containing lines as outrageous as ‘Yeezus loves my pussy best’.

Kanye produces several of the beats on this record.

It’s crude. It’s hilarious. It’s embarrassing. It’s commendable. The ageist part of me thinks that she’s simply too old for this shit. However, the more liberal part of me respects her for not doing what every other middle-aged musician does. Quite frankly, it would have been too easy for the pop icon to do a folksy right-of-passage album about her life lessons. Similarly, it would have been too easy for her to jump on the eighties-revival bandwagon and continue churning out retro hits like Duran Duran and more recently Kylie.

Instead, Madonna has gone the hard route and tried to play catch-up with the edginess of today’s divas – the Mileys and Kanyes of this world. The result is an album that’s semi-ridiculous in its arrogance and shock value. Containing track titles such as ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ and an entire song dedicated to the illuminati, Rebel Heart is a diamond chandelier of gimmickry. Half the songs make you think to yourself ‘did that just happen? Did Madonna really just do a song with Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson? Did Madonna really just dedicate an entire track to her ladyparts?’

Yep, Mike Tyson is on this album. lolwot

Known for taking herself rather too seriously at times,  one could argue that a lot of the songs' boastful and outrageous moments prove that the Queen of Clubs does in fact have a sense of humour. Indeed, I too could believe this if it wasn't for the equal number of bland and forgettable sincere moments interspersed into the tracklist, moments so bland and forgettable that they're just as offensive.

'Ghost Town', 'Joan of Arc' and 'Living for Love' tackle Madonna's own fame and take the format of cookie-cut radio-friendly electro-ballads that feel more like attempts to fit in with today's pop crowd rather than stand out amongst the crowd. Some people may remember 'Living for Love' in years to come if only for it's unforgettable Brit performance, and even then this will forever be for all the wrong reasons.

Madonna during her Brit Awards performance of 'Living for Love', accidentally being yanked off stage by her cape (yeah, I had to mention it in this review) 

Overall, Rebel Heart sways from being overly obnoxious to not obnoxious enough. The only track that really sits anywhere in the middle is 'Devil Pray. It's lyrics about sniffing glue and doing E are edgy, but not pushed to outrageous extremes. Meanwhile, the instrumental isn't a tuneless Diplo synth-squeal, nor is it a boring electro-ballad. Instead we get a guitar-strummed beat that's memorable for the simple fact that it sounds good.

Perhaps that's what's missing most from Rebel Heart - feelgood melodic songs that don't rely on gaudiness to get engrained in your head.
★★☆☆☆

TRACK TASTER:

Review of 'The Mainframe' by Joker

The other week I praised Sour Soul for sounding like a movie, but this largely-instrumental electronic epic, The Mainframe, really could be a Hollywood movie score. 

It’s creator is Joker, a Bristolian producer and a pioneer of a music genre called purple – a melodic take on dubstep that blends bassy abrasive wubs with nostalgic 90s-inspired synths.

Purple derives it’s name from the effect it has on some music listeners with chromesthesia – a cool psychological condition that causes people to associate certain sounds with colours. Different genres of music, keys and tones allegedly cause people to see different colours. Artists such as Kanye West, Stevie Wonder, Frank Ocean and Pharrell Williams all claim to be magically gifted with the condition.

A colour chart made by people who can not just hear but also see musical notes.

Joker’s second album, The Mainframe, sees the artist expanding on his signature purple style. It feels less purple this time round and more rainbow (can that be a new genre?). The sounds and contrasts are more diverse and more intense. There are orchestral strings this time round and every synth texture imaginable. Subtlety has taken a backseat. In fact, subtlety has jumped ship completely. Instead, the listener is given stark extremes. One minute you’re been wrapped up under a warm blanket of soft, soulful electric pianos and next moment you’re diving headfirst into a shrill dubstep drop fearing the sudden movement in your bowels.

Sometimes, it does feel like Joker is throwing slightly too much at the listener without giving you a chance to breathe. His songs refuse to sit still the same way the camera does in a Michael Bay movie, each scene shaky and packed with an equal amount of explosions. This busyness and excessiveness is frustrating at points. However, more often that not it’s what makes the album as exciting as it is.

There’s never a dull moment on this record because it’s so fast paced and so chock-a-block with ideas. Joker shows all the impatient playfulness of a child but all the cohesiveness of an adult, constantly going off on different stylistic tangents but always keeping the album flowing (every track on this record segues neatly into the next). There some truly creative moments such as the Peruvian synth panpipes on ‘Scene 3 (Spirit Ruins)’, the catchy and melancholy groove on ‘Mahogany’ and the cold and industrial introduction of ‘Fuzz Bop’. Perhaps the only idea that really falls flat on it’s face is ‘Lucy’, a track featuring a vocal feature from Sam Frank in which the white artist sings rather cringeworthily in falsettos ‘Let me be your little honky boy’. I’m usually inclined to skip this track, but otherwise the tracklist’s pretty solid.

The Mainframe definitely won’t appeal to EDM fans who like their music minimalist. Overall, its more of a showy album, but one that has a charm to it. These aren’t dense Oneohtrix-Point-Never-style tracks full of cold and skittering bleeps and bloops and ever-changing time signatures. Despite the density, the tracks have a real sense of melody and an element of fun that overall outweighs any pretensions. 

★★★★☆

TRACK TASTER:

BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 11/03/2015: The Prodigy, Sun Kil Moon, Mumford & Sons and more...

Soko and Ariel Pink are sounding like the Human League, Mumford and Sons are sounding like Coldplay and M.I.A. is sounding like PSY. It’s equal parts smiles, equal parts frowns this week.

Review of 'Dark Sky Paradise' by Big Sean

‘Baby, I want you to take me serious’ is the hook on the fifth track of this album, which basically sums up Big Sean’s intentions here.

Review of 'Rose Mountain' by Screaming Females

New Jersey punk trio, Screaming Females, are priviledged to have such a badass vocalist. Whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to call her style ‘screaming’ as the band name suggests, it’s definitely a step up in intensity from your usual average rock chick vocals - a kind of manic, blood-pumping wail of sorts more similar to Siouxsie Sioux or that dude from Glassjaw (forgive me if I’m just listing off random names. It’s how us music bloggers work).

BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 04/03/2015: Action Bronson, Toro y Moi, Kanye West and more...

Congratulations. You all survived the winter. Now we’ve entered Spring, the season of rebirth. The leaves and the bees and wild Kanyes are all re-emerging and everyone’s happy and frolicking in the streets because 2015’s going to be the best year since 2014. I CAN JUST FEEL IT.

Anyway, here are the best and worst tracks of the week.