I’ve been listening to some more music on my gramophone this
week and here are my findings. Enjoy :) You can check out last week’s track
reviews here.
THE BEST
'Oh My Darling, Don’t Cry' - Run the Jewels
Oh my! Get a straightjacket on this beat, because it’s
insaaaane! This band released my album of the year in 2013 and, hearing this
single, I’m getting pretty psyched for their next release scheduled to drop in late
October. The acrobatic flows from El-P and Killer Mike here are amazing and I
can’t get enough of the instrumental. The beat change at the end is so intense!
'Emitter' - Gulf
This hazy indie breakup anthem is so beautiful you can taste
the nostalgia. Those sunny reverb-soaked guitars, the groovy bass and the dude’s
voice almost have a New Romantic feel that I’m digging. Apparently, this band are
still yet to play live, so it will be interesting to see whether they can replicate
this sound outside the studio.
'Kind of
… Sometimes … Maybe' - Jessie Ware
UK singer, Jessie Ware, romps up the sexiness on this new slow-grinding
pop single. I haven’t been too enamoured by her previous material but this
track offers some serious feels.
'Lemme
Freak' - Lil Dicky
The video helps a lot with this song, a comedy hip hop track
that tells the story of one guy’s quest to ‘freak’ - I’ll let you work out what
that means ;) . I’m not sure if the message of this track is to keep being
persistent or whether it’s just a satire of men’s sexual frustration. Whatever
the case, it had me entertained. “Look, I
just turned off The Departed for a movie about a bee”
THE WORST
'Pull it to the Side' - XO Man
I struggled to find bad tracks this week, until I came
across this new club grime song by curly-moustached, 7ft tall UK rapper, XO
Man. The beat’s alright, but the lyrics … ‘Can
I make your body shake like a rattlesnake?/so I made your body shake with my
rattlesnake’. It’s the dumbest innuendo I’ve heard and way too similar to the
hook on Nicki Minaj’s latest single: ‘my
Anaconda don’t want none unless you’ve got buns hun’. Honestly, why the
snake fetish in hip hop all of a sudden? And why hasn’t DJ Cobra cashed in yet?
Lullaby – Professor
Green ft. Tori Kelly
The chick does a good job with the chorus but then Professor
Green comes in and lays down some dull verses that had me falling asleep. I
suppose I shouldn’t complain given the track is called ‘Lullaby’.