Music Reviews
The Blueprint - Us Vs. Them - D Block Europe
On October 9th 2020, the rap duo released their new album "The Blueprint - Us Vs. Them. It has 29 tracks and fautures other artists such as Stefflon Don, Aitch and Raye. The duo even have their own solo songs with Young Adz having three and LB having two. What I love about this album, first off, is how catchy every single song is. If you're a fan of DBE and know the style they do when it comes to making catchy songs, especially the ones they make to dance to in a night club, then this album is perfect for that. Their chilled, funny and wavy personalities really show through on the songs they make. It starts off with "Destiny," rapping and singing about their come up in the UK music game. Also "We Won," which is about how they won the rap game, making some of the most catchiest and popular songs today and how big it's got them. Also with "UFO," a song that features a famous UK rapper from Manchester, Aitch. This song is the perfect songs for clubbing. It's pretty much a song about how waved they are on alcohol and drugs and how they party. Another song featuring a British singer, Raye, is another catchy song pretty much about how they're going to treat their women by taking them out to expensive shops, buying them all sorts of handbags, jewellery and designer clothes. My favourite songs on the album are the ones that are more deep and personal. Young Adz goes solo on the track "Proud" which is about how he's using this song to talk to his baby daughter for her to listen to and understand when she's old enough to. Adz never gets to see his daughter often and he uses this song to express his feeling on how hard it is not seeing her a lot and he feels the mum is taking her away from him. This is from the lyric "Your mum's friends and sisters probably see you more than me." He also mentions how depressed he got going through this stage of not being able to see her, taking drugs and alcohol to try and forget about it. The lyric saying "I miss your hair I miss your smile, I drink about it all the time." This song is really deep and well made and Adz even said he cried while writing the song. This album is very versatile with a lot of themes about the rich rap life, addiction and loneliness. The album debuted at number 2 on the UK Albums Chart and number 1 on the UK R&B Albums Chart.
thank u, next - Ariana Grande
Thank U, Next is the fifth studio album by American singer Ariana Grande, released on February 8th, 2019, by republic records. It was released six months after her fourth album Sweetener, created in the midst of Grande's personal struggles, including the death of her ex boyfriend and famous rapper, Mac Miller and breaking off an engagement with Pete Davidson. Grande began working on the album in 2018, enlisting writers and producers such as Tommy Brown, Max Martin Iiya Salmanzadeh and Andrew Wansel. With the album, Grande began to gain more creative control over her music and distanced herself from a traditional album release cycle compared to her previous albums. Musically, Thank U, Next is primarily a pop record with trap and R&B elements. I love how personal the album is and how Grande uses her music to speak to us, as the listeners, about her feelings and what she's going through.
Thank U, Next was preceded by two singles, the title track and "7 Rings", with both debuting atop the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, becoming Grande's first and second number one singles in the United States, respectively. "Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored" became the third single on the day of the album release, peaking at number two on the hot 100. The last artist to ever hold number one, two and three spots in history was "The Beatles."
Psychodrama - Dave
This long awaited album came out on 8th March 2019. The album features guest appearances from J Hus, Burna Boy and Ruelle. It was produced by both Dave and Fraser T. Smith. The album features Dave's piano playing, while Smith assisted with Baroque influencers, including strings, brass, harps as well as more contemporary music through the use of drums and the synthesiser. Psychodrama follows the narrative of a therapy session, primarily detailing the impact of Dave's elder brothers' prison convictions, along with his struggles with mental health, strained relationships, and the tough social conditions that confront poor black youths. The album was supported by four singles "Black," "Streatham." "Location" and "Disaster," all reaching the top 10 on the UK Singles Chart. Psychodrama debuted at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart and received widespread acclaim from critics, being hailed by some as one of the best albums of the year. It became the most streamed first week British rap album in the UK with a total of 23.6 million streams. It was definitely my favourite album of the year. The storytelling was so cleverly written from start to finish. It's a classic deep rap album about someone opening up and getting everything off their chest, as if us, as the listeners, are his therapist listening to him.
History: Past, Present and Future, Book 1 - Michael Jackson
This album is the ninth studio album by American singer Michael Jackson, released on June 20th 1995. It was the fitth Jackson album released through Epic Records, and the first on his label MJJ Productions. It comprises two discs: History Begins, a greatest hits compilation, and History Continues, comprising new material written and produced by Jackson and collaborators. The themes include environmental awareness, isolation, greed, suicide, injustice, and Jackson's conflicts with the media.The album debuted at number 1 in the US and UK, among other countries. Six singles were released: "Scream/Childhood," "You Are Not Alone," "Earth Song," "This Time Around. "They Don't Care About Us" and "Stranger In Moscow." "Scream/Childhood" debuted at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first song to debut in the top five of the chart. "You Are Not Alone" debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 which made it the first song to debut at number one on the chart.I love this album, as well as pretty much every other Jackson album, because the songs on here are just classics. Listening to these songs bring back so much memories from when I was younger and I was introduced to his music from my family who were also massive fans.
Positions - Ariana Grande
AM - Arctic Monkeys
AM is the fifth studio album by English indie rock band Arctic Monkeys. It was produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton. The album was promoted by the singles "R U Mine?", "Do I Wanna Know?", "Why'd You Only Call me When You're High?", "One For The Road", "Arabella" and "Snap Out Of It". It features guest appearances by Josh Homme, Bill Ryder-Jones, and Pete Thomas. AM draws inspiration from a wide range of genres, including psychedelic rock, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal, desert rock, soul, and most notably the band's first venture into hip hop, The band took a different approach to recording the album in comparison to their previous album, Suck It and See, with more emphasis into creating a "studio album" according to frontman Alex Turner. The band incorporated new instruments on the album, including piano, organ and vintage drum machine. To be honest, this was the first time I fully listened to an Arctic Monkeys album. I knew the song "Do I wanna know?" by them, which also features on this album, but it wasn't until Spotify recommended me a few of their songs from the album that I got to liking it.
Huncholini the 1st - M Huncho
Huncholini the 1st is the second studio album by Britsish rapper M Huncho. It was released on 31 January 2020 via island records. It features guest appearances from D Block Europe, Headie One and Nafe Smallz. The album debuted at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. It spawned three singles: Quincy Tellem produced "Thumb" and "Bando Ballads" and ADP/Payday produced "Pee Pee", which peaked at numbers 30, 78 and 32, on the UK Singles Chart. I like M Huncho as an artist but I was interested to listen to this album when it first came out as D Block Europe had already made songs with Huncho before and I liked them.
Astroworld - Travis Scott
Astroworld is the third studio album by American rapper and record producer Travis Scott. It was released on August 3, 2018, through Cactus Jack Records and Grand Hussle Records, and distributed by Epic Records.
The album features guest vocals from Kid Kudi, Frank Ocean, The Weekend, James Blake, Philip Bailey, 21 Savage, Swae Lee, Gunna, Nav, Quavo, Takeoff, Juice Wrld, Sheck Wes, and Don Toliver, among others. Production was handled by mutiple producers, including Scott himself, Mike Dean, Allen Ritter, HitBoy, Wondagurl, Tay Keith, Tame Impala, Frank Dukes, Sony Digital, Murda Beatz, and Thundercat.
The album title is named after the abandoned theme park Six Flags Astroworld, which was located in Houston, Texas before it closed down. Scott, a Houston native, aimed for the album to sound like "taking an amusement park away from kids". He also described the album as a continuation of his debut album Rodeo. Asreoworld is a hip hop album, incorporating elements of trap and psychedelic music. I remember listening to this album for the first time when I was at college and I loved the trippy style and sound effects it had on the songs.
More Life - Drake
More Life is a mixtape by Canadian rapper Drake. The artist describes More Life as a playlist but I've heardit being called a mixtape. But mixtape, playlist or whatever you want to call, it's a great album I loved listening to. It was released on March 18th, 2017, by OVO Sound, Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records and Republic Records..
Production of More Life was handled by a variety of record producers, including 40, Frank Dukes, BOI-1da, Murda Beatz, T-Minus, Nineteen85 and Kanye West, among others. With guest vocalists also appearing, including Young Thug, Giggs, Skepta, Quavo, Travis Scott, 2 Chainz, Kanye West, Jorja Smith, Sampha and PartyNextDoor. The songs on More Life feature a broad range of genres, including hip hop, R&B, dancehall, grime, trap, afrobeat and hop. It was supported by five singles: "Fakelove", "Passionfruit", "Free Smoke", "Portland" and "Glow". More Life debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, becoming the seventh consecutive number one album, while also breaking several streaming records.
Cool Music Videos
No Tears Left To Cry - Ariana Grande
The bigger the artist, the bigger the budget for music videos and Ariana Grande's music video for her single "No Tears Left To Cry" proves that. The whole video is so cool the way it's filmed. It involves a parallel world with tall, futuristic building on the ground, but also hanging up-side down from the sky and on the sides. I love the optical illusions that was used to make the trick possible. In a behind the scenes video I watched, the director, Dave Myers, explains how they filmed the scene of Ariana walking around a hallway that's spinning around. The idea was taken from Fred Astaire when he first used this illusion in a comedic way. They also show how the revolving hallway rotates and the camera tricks they use to achieve this illusion without having to use post or cuts.
Myers describes the concept of the video as being like "the disorientation that you go through in life... and how you find the ground again." He also mentions whether you need to find the ground in life no matter what you're going through or whether the ground is what you make of it. I remember as a child I use to wonder what it would be like to have cities in the sky above ours and people defying gravity by walking up-side down in the sky so to see it being brought to life in this video was really cool to me.
Highest In The Room - Travis Scott
With the trippy title meaning Travis basically being the "highest" person on drugs in the room, as he's known for smoking weed recreationally, the music video did a great job at portraying that. Displaying Travis as physically being the highest in the room as he walks on the tallest sky scrapers while smoking his joint.
The song alone already has a "wavy" and "trippy" feel to it, so the music video fitted so well as it also had a bunch of trippy effects. Like Travis' face squeezing through other people's squashed faces and the way the video starts with the camera panning into his mouth as he exhales the smoke from his joint. The camera doesn't actually zoom into his mouth but actually stops on his face and cuts to CGI where an animated version of inside his mouth is shown. This allows us to see the teeth expanding and the tongue moving in a weird way as the camera pans to inside.
Lovely - Billie Eillish, Khalid
This is one of them music videos I have to watch carefully in order to fully get the idea behind it and how it links to the song. The song is basically about what it's like to be alone in the world. I see it as no matter who you are, introverted or extroverted, popular or not, rich or poor, you are an individual in this world who still feels lonely at certain points of your life. Everyone goes through dark times and may know what it's like to be eaten up inside by negative thoughts, depression or anxiety. Nobody has your back like you do, nobody knows you as much as you do because nobody spends as much time with you than yourself. People may see you as a confident, happy person who has no struggles or worries in life, but only you know deep down you are going through things others don't. This has been proven many times with the lack of awareness to bad mental health. People look fine on the outside and even their family members assume they're alright. But they're not. And when they don't get the help others don't assume they need, they could even go to the extreme of taking their own life. Then that becomes a shock to the people they thought they knew everything about them and were closest to.
You also meet a lot of people in your life time, they come and go all the time. They can be really close to you or just a by passers in your life. Even if you get married and start a family your partner will no longer be with you one day. The only person who will stay with you till the end is, of course, yourself. So learning to love yourself and stick by yourself is kind of how I've interoperated my own meaning to the song. Especially with the line in the chorus "Isn't it lovely, all alone."
Billie and Khalid actually wrote this song based on their personal struggles with depression. The music video is so cleverly done, fitting so well with the theme. We see the pair being trapped in a glass box. Nothing but darkness and a giant, gloomy rain cloud that hovers above them is there. The rain then turns into ice which freezes onto the box. This also gives it that cold, icy and dark theme. Them being trapped in a box represents them being trapped in their own mind filled with negative and depressing thoughts and how they cannot escape the feeling of loneliness and anxiety as Khalid says "trying to find a way outside." They want to escape these feelings that are eating them up inside but can't. Just like how they can't escape the glass box in the video.
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