Mid-Year Round-Up: Top Tracks of 2013 Thus Far

I have made a Spotify playlist of my favorite tracks to have been released in 2013 thus far.

As Spotify didn't have some of my favorite songs, I made a supplementary Youtube list--mostly because "London" "hitmyline" and "Camera" are maybe the 3 best songs of the year and need to be heard.

Daughter "Winter"

And we were in flames I needed, I needed you
To run through my veins like disease, disease
And now we are strange, strangers

 

The Neighbourhood "Flawless"

I just can't wait for love to destroy us
I just can't wait for love 

Rev. Al Sharpton signs to Cash Money Records

Al Sharpton signed a book deal through Cash Money Records. I can't wait to read the foreward by Birdman. Check out the full story here.

Kevin Gates "4:30 A.M."

We have all been there--it is the wee hours of the morning and you are still awake, thinking about the skeletons in your closet. This usually happens after a long bender or a sleepless night, when there is no one else to distract you and nowhere left to go. The only thing left to do is give yourself over to your anxieties and ruminate on past vignettes that you'd love to forget. Kevin Gates channels this intense moment to create "4:30 A.M.", where he relays some of his own haunted past. In two minutes and forty seven seconds, Gates tells two of the darkest stories to come from the American South since Flannery O'Connor.

Magna Carta Holy Grail Preview

I haven't been so excited for an album to drop since back when Kanye dropped Yeezus!

iamsu! "Best Thing Yet"

The Bay Area's iamsu! does his best  "Last Call" impression on "Best Thing Yet" with great success.

Jimmy Fallon/The Doors "Reading Rainbow"

My good friend Dan showed me this clip the other day. It is brilliant.

Volcano Choir "Byegone"

With Bon Iver on hiatus, Justin Vernon has turned his attention to other projects--Gayngs, being the J. Lo to Kanye's Ja Rule, and Volcano Choir. The latter is releasing an album in September on Jagjaguwar and have put out a new track, "Byegone". With side projects like these, who needs a main gig?

Action Bronson "Heel Toe"

Control the whip with one arm like Richard Kimball

Stream the New Daughn Gibson Record

Head over to NPR (by clicking here) and check out the new Daughn Gibson record Me Moan.

Vince Staples - Stolen Youth

The new next-to-blow cat drops a mixtape featuring everyone.

ndeluv - SUMMER JAMZ VOL 2

R & B stoner-extraordinaire ndeluv blesses us with a new mixtape to rock with on those late night burn cruises. "hitmyline" is one of the best tracks of the year--it is also the best song The Weeknd never made.
I hope Kid Cudi doesn't hear this dude, because I imagine he will become obsessed trying to figure out how ndeluv pulls of this style so well. It'll be like the R&B version of The Prestige.

Drake "The Motion" and "Jodeci Freestyle"

"The Motion" is the most Drake song Drake has ever released. It is like he conscientiously made a song to be used when explaining why Drake is popular. It has all the Drake elements--verses that incorporate a litany of cleanly-in-the-pocket punches, slightly off-key singing, emo subject matter and top-shelf production. If it had a mentioned a condo I would have thought it was a ghost-written by someone trying to be Drake.

"Jodeci Freestyle" is that mixtape shit that started his meteoric rise. His wordplay is on point--The whole scheme about caps lock/shift/return is crazy...and the middle finger to the sore spot is vintage Drizzy...and that "hang you with it as soon as I show you the ropes".  Don't look me in the face and tell me dude is wack because I don't like being lied to.

Dylan Ettinger "Pale Mare"

"Pale Mare" from Dylan Ettinger is the sonic equivalent to eating acid and walking through a haunted house.

Mikky Ekko "Pull Me Down" (Ryan Hemsworth Remix)

I somehow missed that Mikky Ekko did a track with Clams Casino that was subsequently remixed by Ryan Hemsworth back back in February. Check it.

Twin Peaks "Stand in the Sand"

I have read three different stories about Twin Peaks since moving here. There is a reason why they are garnering so much attention. But don't take it on on faith:

Tree "Devotion"

Further proof that Chicago's rap scene is better than your city's rap scene:

All Moved in to the City of Wind

I'm back like I never left. Did you miss me? Of course you did. Bullet point catch up blog:

• I have finally finished my move to Chicago. (CHICAGO AIN'T LOOKED THIS GOOD SINCE THE BULLS HAD MJ!!) Accompanying me on my drive in was the new Kanye CD which is pretty damn impressive. Nothing that I can say about it will top this write-up by Steven Hyden so click here. I will say that this album puts 'Ye as the hip-hop artist with the best catalog, passing Jay-z. It takes a lot for me to say anything that could be construed as negative about Hova, so take that as the utmost compliment, Yeezy. ( I feel confident speaking directly to Yeezus 'cuz I know the Illuminati track this website and he will see it.)
• In related news, Jay-z is dropping an album in July that will be free to all people who own a Samsung phone because he is Jay-z and he loves guaranteed money. 
• Kanye and Kim named their kid North West. I swear to God. I am not making this up. Be on the lookout for the child's autobiography North by North West.
• I listened to a lot of "Rewind" radio which has now become music from my childhood because I am getting old. A few takeaways about the weird and wonderful late 90's/00s top 40:
• Christina Aguilera sings like a beached mermaid and "Beautiful" is one of the most trite songs ever recorded. 
• Nelly legit used the word "dirty" as a pronoun and people accepted it. As in, "Come here, dirty" and "I know you and dirty got ties for different reasons". What were we thinking, America? We are all to blame for letting that happen.
•  I'm pretty sure Blu Cantrell is the reason why they developed identity theft technology.
• EVERYTHING I LOVED AS A KID AND DISOWNED AS A TEENAGER I NOW LOVE AGAIN
• I am currently in the developmental stages of creating a film with a good friend of mine that is a re-make of Saturday Night Fever. The music will be exclusively from the new Daft Punk record. It will star Zac Effron, Get on board, America. 

Mr. Muthafuckin' Exquire - Kismet

Mr. Muthafuckin' Exquire compares himself to some of the Mount Rushmore of soul music in "Vanilla Rainbows" on his latest mixtape Kismet. While I don't necessarily agree with the comparison, I do agree with his sentiment that he is cut from a different cloth than many of the rappers in the game today. Any doubters need only to give Kismet a spin.
Never shying away from contradictions, Exquire presents a tape that features braggadocio and self-doubt, gratitude and dismissal, love songs and misogyny, boom-bap revivalism and present day production trends.
In other words, Exquire created a mixtape that presumably reflects the contradictions in his own life, leaving you feeling like you have just had a conversation with the man rather than simply having heard a collection of songs by his alter ego. Most importantly, after a single listen, he makes you want to hear more about his life. This, more than anything, is indication that we won't have to wait long to do so.

Pusha T "Who I Am" ft. 2 Chainz and Big Sean

Pusha T drops another crumb on the trail leading to his G.O.O.D Music debut My Name is My Name. On "Who I Am", Push goes in on the grimiest of beats and almost makes up for the lackluster Big Sean and 2 Chainz verses.

Himanshu is My Spirit Animal

They said get a real job only blog weekly
But I don't need blogs, told you blogs need me!

The Replacements are Re-Uniting

The Replacements are re-uniting for a tour this year, including multiple shows in Chicago. Fuck yeah. Check the article here.

Mexican Summer

Mexican Summer is a Brooklyn-based label with a proclivity for signing under-appreciated dream pop, jangle and fuzz-inflected acts. A quick scroll through their Soundcloud yields more than a few tracks that should quickly become staples on the ol' summer playlist:

"1/4 Circle Break" is a lush, infectious 80's-infused pop tune from Jorge Elbrecht. Listen once and have it running through your head all day.

"Hare Tarot Lies" oscillates between dark and euphoric, keeping you nodding your head the whole way through.


Part Time hail from San Francisco and sculpt Smiths-inspired gems such as the one below.

Serengeti "Crush Em"

Serengeti lends his dead-pan delivery to his alter-ego Kenny, a member of the equally fictional Chicago rap outfit tha Grimm Teachaz, on "Crush 'Em". The track sounds like a schizophrenic's conversation with himself in front of a bathroom mirror recorded over a boom-bap loop, which is to say I'm a fan.

Oh, Kanye

In my favorite passage from the recent Kanye West interview with the New York Times, Kanye manages to paint himself as a crusader for justice/dream enabler, equate himself to Michael Jordan, complain about the Grammys, deny caring about the Grammys and ask the world to be more accurate with their statistics-- all in the span of two paragraphs!! It is beautiful.

Yeah — you put me on the team. So I’m going to use my platform to tell people that they’re not being fair. Anytime I’ve had a big thing that’s ever pierced and cut across the Internet, it was a fight for justice. Justice. And when you say justice, it doesn’t have to be war. Justice could just be clearing a path for people to dream properly. It could be clearing a path to make it fair within the arena that I play. You know, if Michael Jordan can scream at the refs, me as Kanye West, as the Michael Jordan of music, can go and say, “This is wrong.”

You’ve won a lot of Grammys.

“[My Beautiful] Dark [Twisted] Fantasy” and “Watch the Throne”: neither was nominated for Album of the Year, and I made both of those in one year. I don’t know if this is statistically right, but I’m assuming I have the most Grammys of anyone my age, but I haven’t won one against a white person.

But the thing is, I don’t care about the Grammys; I just would like for the statistics to be more accurate.



Later in the interview West delivered what I consider to be the greatest single sentence in human history by saying  

"The longer your ‘gevity is, the more confidence you build"

Absolutely.

Loretta Lynn

I first heard Loretta Lynn through the speakers of my mom's mid-90s Buick Regal driving through the backroads of Kentucky, in one of my adolescent summers that have been blurred together due to substance abuse or otherwise repressed by my subconscious desires.  That moment shared with Loretta Lynn, however, has not lost its definition, and no amount of self destruction or self-preservation will ever make it fade from memory. Her voice seemed to be designed to further punctuate the surroundings of the rural landscape just as her lyrical content seemed to be created  to lessen the blow of the oppressive heat. "You ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man) " was pumping through the dashboard, along with an A/C unit that had seen better days, as I sat in the front seat on our way to God knows where.

I remember my mom doing her trademark mannerism of joyful recognition when she found the song on the dial--cocking her head back and to the left slightly--followed by her yelping out  "Aw! Loretta Lynn! How 'bout that!" and turning up the volume. To be honest, it was my mom's excitement that probably got me excited about this first experience with Loretta Lynn in the mid-90s, as kids love to pretend to love what their parents actually love. But my excitement hearing Loretta Lynn again in 2013 was anything but contrived.

My girlfriend and I popped in a Greatest Hits CD while driving through the Bluegrass early last week and Loretta again sang to me from behind a dusty dashboard in a car past its prime. The stifling heat and winding backgrounds took me right back to my younger days in my mom's beat-up Regal, but my fifteen extra years on this earth took me to a brand new place of appreciation for Ms. Lynn.

A hallmark of any good writer is that they have a style so unique, so decidedly their own, that it is immediately recognizable to even the casual listener. Loretta Lynn is at the top of my list in this regard. Few other writers, country, female or otherwise, will ever write lyrics that are simultaneously so brazenly regional, effortlessly universal, warts-and-all biographical and laugh-out-loud funny.Songs like "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "Fist City" are as funny today as they were when they were recorded, and tracks like "The Pill"  prove even more important with the virtue of hindsight, as we are still struggling with women's roles in art and society today.

The notes of this particular greatest hits collection gave some interesting facts about the pride of Johnson County. Lynn was born a coal miner's daughter, married at the age of 15, was a protege of the great Patsy Cline, had 16 number one hits and had a song banned from radio play for "lewd" content. The rags-to-riches biography and the undeniable talent is the reason why she is one of the most recognizable names in old-time country. It is also the reason she was sought out by Jack White for their collaboration that led to her comeback and subsequent Grammy in the 2000's for the album Van Lear Rose. There is little doubt that there is a more deserving person to hold the title as The Queen of County Music.

Hearing Loretta Lynn sing country music is like hearing Miles Davis play jazz or Nas rap; they are the perfect embodiment of their genre, endowed with the unique ability to create music that transports you to the time and place where it was recorded, or anywhere else they desire to send you.

Muddy Waters "Champagne and Reefer"

Bring me champagne when I'm thirsty
bring me reefer when I want to get high
Well you know when I'm lonely
Bring my woman, set her right here by my side

Miley Cyrus "We Can't Stop"

Miley Cyrus gets the Mike Will Made It treatment.

Action Bronson-Saaab Stories

Action Bronson released his latest EP collaboration with Harry Fraud. It is better than I could have imagined. Bronson is as quotable and funny as ever (I'm bout to buy an alligator for my birthday!) and Fraud makes a case for being the best producer out right now (and probably would be if Mike Will Made It didn't just make a Miley Cyrus song that slaps).

This is music to have fun to. What separates it from other music of that ilk is that it is actually fun to listen to.

 Check out one of the singles below:

Washed Out "It All Feels Right"

From the upcoming LP Paracosm, out August 13

Close my eyes

Think about the old times

What's it all about? 

The feeling when it all works out.

Casino and Riff Raff "White" Remix

Riff Raff goes full Riff Raff on this Casino track.

New Okkervil River Record Coming Soon

Per Pitchfork, New Hampshire's finest, Okkervil River, is dropping a new record on September 3. It is apparently called The Silver Gymnasium but otherwise, this album should be brilliant.
For those that need convincin':

CFCF "Camera"

Stunning new CFCF. Hard to describe how much I feel this song.

George Pelecanos, Nick's Trip and the Music Therein

George Pelecanos has great taste in music and it bleeds through his work. Along with writing The Wire and Treme, the dude pens taut crime novels that are soaked in D.C. insider knowledge and music savvy.
I highly recommend his Nick Stefanos trilogy (which I finished this last week) not only for the entertainment value but also for the great music discussed.

Equally comfortable citing deep cuts in classic rock, funk,  rap, college radio, R & B and soul, Pelecanos mentions the music playing in a given scene to enhance the mood and/or for the reader to gain further insight into the characters. Reading his books has turned me on to some great artists and some overlooked tracks.

Below are a collection of such songs culled from Nick's Trip and What it Was.

Purgatory and the Accompanying Music

I am stuck in Purgatory. The map calls it Fort Wayne, Indiana but I know better.
Having traveled from Boston to Niagara Falls to Fort Wayne to Chicago to Fort Wayne to Jasper to Louisville to Lexington to Louisville now again to Fort Wayne in the last week and a half, I can say with conviction that this is the weigh station of the after-life. Nothing happens here and every action is judged (I'm staying with in-laws). It isn't the worst thing but it sure ain't the best.

The apartment I wanted in Chicago went to other renters and I am now in the process of getting another. Hopefully, our paperwork will go through and we can be moved in to our Midwest heaven by the end of the week. However, as I have found out again recently, the devil is in the detail. All I can do is hold my breath and bide my time.

IN OTHER NEWS

While in Lexington, I stopped by my favorite CD store to pick up some music. CD Central is one of the last brick and mortar bastions and it is being kept alive by young people. Located on the most popular street for UK students, it is surrounded by a fantastic pizza place, a campus bookstore, an incensed-soaked independently run bookstore/head shop clearly opened in the 60's and an all night eatery for those marathon drinking study sessions.
The moment Louisville's beloved Ear Ecstasy shut its doors, this spot became the best record store in the Bluegrass. My return trip was the first of its kind in three years, and stepping into the cramped space found me drowning in a  wave of nostalgia.

---Flashback time--- *Twinkling chimes and gentle string music*

As a freshman in high school, I saw The Black Keys perform at CD Central, along with about sixty other people who knew what the fuck was good.  I will never forget how LOUD this duo seemed, how cool I felt seeing them be so loud and how cool I thought Dan Auerbach was when I asked him to sign a CD for my sister's graduation gift.

Fifteen minutes after the Keys had ripped through a righteously raucous blues-rock set, I approached the lead singer for a John Hancock. He and the drummer had both signed copies of another disc for me during the designated signing session but I had purchased another album at the last minute to give as a gift to my older sister, who had first told me of the band.
Intently focused on the CD's he was rifling through, Auerbach didn't notice me as I approached but couldn't have been happier when he spotted me. He thanked me numerous times for coming out to the gig and gave some sage advice about autograph signing: "Whenever in doubt, just sign it 'Wish you were here'."
Thus, my elder sibling has a CD signed: "To Leslie, Wish you were here", and I have a moment I will never forget.

---Return to present---

I was in the market for a few records I had been listening to a lot recently but had neglected to purchase, along with some country classics--I was particularly interested in buying some Dolly Parton.
I snagged the new Wild Nothing EP and the Kurt Vile record that I had been wearing out. I also picked up Warren Zevon's Excitable Boy from the $5 rack because I was on a road trip and you have to have Excitable Boy on a road trip. You just do.
Alongside the Zevon record was Springsteen's Nebraska. I scooped that up along with The Dramatics' greatest hits and Sonic Youth's Goo.
To my surprise, CD Central had no Dolly Parton. It wasn't that they didn't have sections designated for her--they did--they were simply out of stock. It seems Ms. Parton is as popular as ever in Kentucky. As a consolation prize, I settled on Loretta Lynn's greatest hits, which turned out to be the disc played the most on this trip. Funny how life can go.
I will get around to making a playlist for these records in the near future and I will post it here, along with a review of the content.

For now, I have to go eat breakfast in silence.
Did I mention there isn't even a radio in this house?
Am I sure this isn't hell?