T-Pain : "On Top of the Covers"

Keep in mind before pressing play that this album has been four years in the making. It became his passion project after being on the show" the Masked Singer". He wanted to prove that he could actually sing and was not just hiding behind "auto-tune" . Not that auto-tune is the first tool the record industry has used to hide singers weakness, it just became the easiest to use. These songs are supposed to show that he is capable of doing more than the type of music expected from him. The album starts off with his take on Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" . Should he have sung it in a lower key? Sure , he is straining for sure, but it also gives his voice some character in order to pay proper tribute to Cooke's version. It is one of the better songs on this album, though closer to his wheel house than the bulk.

He only leaves the auto-tune behind for the first song as it is back for his attempt of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin". He does not try to match Steve Perry and defaults to runs going down the scale, and safely away from any of the songs higher notes. The main problem that becomes noticeable here, is the backing track sounds like something you would here at a bad karaoke bar in the suburbs. The patter of the drum machine is pathetic, the guitars are largely replaced by midi sounding synths. Remember this is an album 4 years in the making. Never in those four years did he stop to think it would be a better quality product if he hired session musicians to sit in. His net worth is 12 million, he could afford it. But no he was ok with just selling his fans inferior product. 

I think the best song on the album is his cover of Dr Hook and the Medicine Show's "Spending the Night Together". It works for his voice and the ghetto rigged instrumentation compliments the cheesy 1978 production value of the original yacht rock classic. There is a pretty pointless instrumental thrown in here. Then comes he rendition of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me". Vocally it works, there are lots of layers of harmonies to bolster him. The only draw back is the piss poor production in terms of the feeble backing track. His cover of Chris Stapleton's "Tennessee Whiskey" highlight's the problem with this album . If the purpose is to prove you can do other kinds of music, then do country when you cover a country song. Instead he goes gospel with it. Using vocal layering where Chris just belted it out from his diaphragm. T-Pain belts it out too just not in the same place Chris does , so he does not have to measure up to the better singer. He begins veering from the original more liberally by the end of the song. 

His cover of Frank Sinatra's "That's Life" sounds like if Cee-lo Green had covered it. It once again goes more gospel lacking the swing and swagger of the original. The drums sound like a metronome. He does similar with "War Pigs' that closes out the album. When he needs big drums the most, is where he fails the worst. He could have just sampled  drum loops, or isolated tracks, as there are tons of drummers on Youtube, who would have cost little more than a Starbucks order, but no we just the worst programming of drums I have heard by a professional artist. He uses layers of organs to cover up that this is a guitar driven song. No Geezer Butler or really any bass, and heavily effected vocals, that hide his voice as much as auto-tune, I imagine this is similar to how Lenny Kravitz might sing the song. I will give this album a 6.5, it is not all total garbage, as when he is closer to his wheel house it works, there are three strong songs that make up for a great deal of it , but he fails to prove his point, maybe just sticking to what he does best might prove more effective. 

Frank Ocean : "Blonde"

So "Endless" was a false alarm as he continues to play games with the way albums are released. The Munchkin effects that shift the pitch of his vocals on "Nikes" ,  are a little weird , but compared to what he did on "Endless" this is an improvement. It's good to hear that Frank hasn't forgotten how to write a song on "Ivy", there is a more free floating style to the verses. His only accompaniment is a guitar on this creating a more organic feel. There is a more conventional r&b feel to " Pink + White". His melody wraps around this song in a much more comprehensive fashion that will please fans of his first album. There is less of a thump to the groove and retains the more organic direction he was headed on the previous song.

"Solo" is more minimalist when it comes to the backtracking, leaving the weight of the song to rest of on Ocean's voice. His verses begin to transform into more of a hip-hop flow. I think the melodies on this song would have benefited more from having more support from a beat. Things are almost more stripped down on "Skyline". It makes me think the remixes for this album will be better. I think the melodies are more interesting on the previous song . "Self Control" features help from Yung Lean. This is another balladic song, even with the experimentation that finds this perhaps overly reflective beginning to drag a little. The harmonies owe more to Brit-pop here than soul. "Nights"  is oddly over the beat. Andre 3000 takes over on the reprise of "Solo" it's not his best verse. Distortion and noise drowns the beginning of "Pretty Sweet" making the song a little obtuse.


There are many moments that are not the most original, though in hip-hop this is called sampling, so "Close to You" makes use of Stevie Wonder's cover of the Burt Bacharach song "Close to You", "White Ferrari" contains some of the Beatles' song "Here there and Everywhere" and an Elliot Smith song is sampled for Seigfried. "Close to You " is only a minute long, so there is not any time to develop from being much more than an idea for a song. With "White Ferrari" he doesn't sample it but put his lyrics over the Beatles vocal melodies. He only uses Elliot Smith's guitar when it comes to stealing from him. I guess the problem with this song and many other's is this is r&b, yet there is little rhythmic or bluesy to it, while the genre has become more urban pop, this album is very slim on the pop hooks.

There is a turn to a more gospel feel on "Godspeed" which finds Ocean on more sure footing."Futura Free", opens with a piano , where lyrically he takes a look at where he is as the music swells up behind him. There is more of a hip-hop feel to the evolving flow of the song which bears a similar arrangement to "Pyramids", but falls flat of capturing that song's mojo. I'll give this album a 6, because when you compare it to " Channel Orange" it proves his more minimalist experimental song writing syle is not as effective when it comes to making an enduring album. This offers a little redemption from "Endless" , but still was not worth the wait.




 

Frank Ocean : "Endless"

I need to pretend this first song didn't song happen. The guitarist for Radiohead is on the second song. Which is a cover of the Isley Brothers. He raps more on this one. There is plenty of false hetro swagger on this song. So we have waited four years for this? The album is littered with interludes there are 7 real songs. Very ballad heavy there is a strange stark feeling in the production. I was released as one track streaming on iTunes, so it is often hard to tell where the real songs begin and end. The question to ask when listening to this album is how does this stack up against "Channel Orange"? So far almost half way into this 44 minute disjointed work the answer is not at all.

"Slide On Me" is the first song that's good. I like the almost dance hall cadence to his vocals. But as a whole he already wasted half an album just fucking around. Ocean versus the Weeknd, finds Frank getting slaughtered when it comes to songwriting. He is not in a genre of music that allows for random bits of ambiance. It's fitting that Greenwood is on this album because it feels like the same way Radiohead gave their label the middle finger with "Kid A" , but there were actually good songs on that album, here it's pieces of ideas not fully fleshed out.  "Sideways" wants to be more of a rap song, but it's unfocused which is the plight of most of these songs. There is jabber that this is not the real album, but a preview of an album to come. If you commit 44 minutes of music then you made an album. It might be a hard pill to swallow that Ocean could be a flash in the pan.

If Death Grips tried to make a r&b album the results could be very similar. There are little blips of falsetto crooning that don't fall anywhere near a beat or melody. When the beat does come in on "Death Wish" it's pretty week. Before releasing this Ocean said he had been influenced by the Beatles and Beach Boys, by Beach Boys it's obvious he meant the more experimental "Pet Sounds".  "Rushes" really fails to deliver in it's initial moments. His vocals have plenty of re-verb on them to keep things more disconnected. Finally a beat shows up, by Ocean is obviously too high to do more than watch it pass him by. This is a horrid disappointment. I'll give it a 5. If this is really not an album and just a taste of what is come then I don't want it.



5.2/9

Report to the Dance Floor : The Weeknd's "Beauty Behind the Madness"

I think we know that pop music is my favorite palate cleanser to start the day off with before I spend the rest of the day listening to blacksludgepostdeathcrust metal. So my interest in Abel Makkonen Tesfaye should not be a great surprise as he is darker than your average r&b singer  and has been known to sample both Siouxsie and the Cocteau Twins, his drug use might explain for this taste in music, but whatever the case since it's time to look at the years best pop/electronic albums of the year, we need to give his 2015 album a glance under the sonic microscope. The album opens with a very passionate wink to another addict...Michael Jackson. The fuzz of the guitar being run through the intro sets things apart from the Great Gloved One, but the cadence of the melody would not sound out of place on the "Bad" album, carrying a similar steamy power as "Dirty Diana" but with less rock aspirations. British singer Labirinth joins up to take the second verse of "Losers" which doesn't get really dancey until after his verse. Which brings up one element of this album that bears mentioning, thanks to Swedish pop producer Max Martin, the arrangements on this album veer from the typical pop formula. The other part of the equation in as to what draws me in for repeat listens is the smart gangsta slant to the lyrics that works for me where his idol R. Kelly failed. "Tell Your Friends" leads the pack in this regard, where is "never rocking white he's like a racist" the idea of a party is "dropping dope dimes on some coke lines, getting head all night cumming four times" but being a gentle man he does ask his play mate if she would like to smoke a pound and do an ounce before getting dick and telling her friends about it. But delivering this in a very sensitive Michael Jackson really knocks this out of the park. Another more NSFW ode to what he does "Often" follows this one it has some drugged out witch house tones haunting it. "the Hills" is the song that got me onboard happens to be the same song he is getting sued for sampling from a horror, so that makes perfect sense as to why I would like it. Some of the more sappy elements of r&b even when filtered through his hyper sexual lense still can bog down songs like "Acquainted" which even after a few listens to see if it would grow me doesn't have the power found in some of the albums other hooks. The big radio hit "Can't Feel My Face" has it's merits even though being a little too happy for me with its funked up disco swagger. "Shameless" is one song I haven't really spent much time with, the vocal is strong, but like a few of the other songs it can be a little repitious and the track backing it doesn't have the same experimental darkness creeping into the corner of its eye. Lyrically its one of the album's bi-polar moments, either he's a pimped out playa or hopeless romantic, while I'm getting married in a few weeks going to show conversions can happen, in the tug of war his pimp side is lyrically more interesting.Like Ellie Goulding , whose album I have but don't feel it nesscessary to review, he also earned a place on the 50 Shades of Gray soundtrack, if you are familiar with my lifestyle work in Cvlt Nation, you can understand why I would think the movie is a joke, and yes I read the book before passing judgement. The string driven waltz is well done, I don't think's the album's strongest moment even though I like the falsetto passage. The very MJ influence "In the Night" still works on today's pop radio and I would like to hear a stronger dance remix, even though the chorus to this song gets the job done. "As You Are" is more of a ballad even with the beat behind it. Lyrically we are back to the bi-polar tug of war, he has handed in his pimp card for this one, in someways it reminds me of Twin Shadow. Things get real on the blues tinged "Dark Times" that Ed Sheeran" who looks too much like Bilbo Baggins for me to take seriously if I was going to watch play this song live, but I did not know what he looked until I heard the lyrics, it hits home for me as it reminds me of many a morning after during by drug days, so I applaud the writing. "Prisoner" might have Lana Del Rey on it , but is not any more compelling than a Dido b-side. The ballad"Angel" closes out the album and is another song I haven't give a ton of time, I do like the big 80s feel to it. Even if it's not the song that has the Cocteau Twins sample it does have a hint of their sound. Maty Noyes adds vocals to the song as well. Its easy for me to round this one up to a

13.7