THE BEST:
‘Killshot’ – Eminem
There’s
been enough beef in hip hop this year to put McDonald’s out of business. I can
hardly keep up with it all.
The
latest and most unprecedented is the Machine Gun Kelly/Eminem feud - a couple
weeks ago Machine Gun Kelly thought it wise to release a diss track titled ‘Rap Devil’ aimed at Eminem. It was a valiant attempt with some good jabs, but now
Eminem has responded with a track titled ‘Killshot’ and the result is a
slaughter: ‘This is it, as big as you’re
going to get, so enjoy it/ Had to give you a career to destroy it’. It’s
absolutely brutal. Just goes to show, ‘you don’t wanna fuck with shady’.
‘Venice Bitch’ – Lana Del Rey
Several
years ago, the prospect of a nearly ten minute Lan Del Rey track would have
made me gag, but she’s matured so much since then and so has her style. ‘Venice
Bitch’ starts as a nostalgic end-of-summer ballad and then goes off on a hypnotic
War-on-Drugs-esque seven-minute outro featuring loopy organs and psychedelic guitars.
The song refuses to end and yet it remains captivating.
‘Full Moon’ – Gator
Gator
describe themselves as a ‘swamp metal’ band. Their latest single has a carnivalesque
Scooby-Doo vibe, featuring trippy largely spoken vocals over distorted guitars.
It’s the kind of music I didn’t realise I needed in my life.
‘Heaven’
– Charly Bliss
Before
this song was even over, I wanted to sing along to the chorus: ‘Now that I’m in heaveeen’. The mean and grungy guitars give it a badass feel
that prevents it being a soppy love song (which is what it is). It definitely
makes me eager to hear more from this New York band.
‘Swimming Underwater’ – Django Django
This
is yet another track with a deliciously catchy chorus (Django Django seem
incapable of writing a chorus that isn’t catchy). A punchy snare helps to give
it a mean groove, whilst the synths have a nice retro feel. In fact, I struggle
to find anything I dislike about this song.
THE WORST:
‘Tranz’ - Gorillaz
Meanwhile,
this has to be the most uncatchy chorus I’ve heard in a while – what’s up with
Damon’s vocals. The song seems to be about drugs (or so I assume from the music
video’s creepy ending), so I guess he’s trying to make the vocals sound druggy,
but it just sounds like a garbled mess.