Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Ariana Grande Review

My review of Ariana Grande's latest is up at RapReviews. Why am I reviewing a pop/R&B album? Partially because me and my kid sort of like "Bang Bang" and "Problem." Partially because I feel like I should review more high-profile stuff. And partially because Ariana Grande doesn't totally make sense to me. So there you have it. Originally posted at RapReviews.

At 21, Grande is already eight years deep into a career that has spanned singing on cruise ships to singing in a Broadway musical to staring in a Nickelodeon show to releasing a debut album and touring with Justin Bieber in 2013. "My Everything" is her second album. Grande's main attribute is her voice, which is somewhere between Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey. (The fact that she is good-looking doesn't hurt either - there aren't any plain female pop stars, after all.)
I get the sense from the music and marketing for Ariana Grande's "My Everything" that she and her handlers don't quite know what to do with her. Is she a teen pop idol or a dance diva or an R&B singer? Is she the squeaky clean Nickelodeon star or is she a sexy sexy grown up? Does she let the focus be on her singing chops, or does she hide her range with layers of Auto-Tune and EDM? ÊThe approach seems to be to try and maintain multiple conflicting images at once, even when they are contradictory. It seems to be working for her, but it's confusing.

To start off with, Grande is old enough to drink but doesn't look old enough to vote. Her barely-legal looks give a creepy sheen to her sexed up image. She's posing in lingerie and heels on the album cover and she's wearing a miniskirt and high-heeled boots in most of her marketing material and videos. Yes, Grande is a grown-ass woman and can dress however she wants to dress and get as sexy as she wants to get, and no, she's not nearly as trashy as Miley Cyrus or "Dirrty"-era Christina Aguilera. However, while it seemed like Miley and Xtina's hyper-sexualized image was driven by the artists themselves, with Grande it just feels like a management-imposed marketing strategy. They are trying to get her to land somewhere between girl next door and high class call girl. Sexy enough to differentiate her from her Nick days, but not sexy enough to scare any of those fans (or their parents) off. Her sly, coquettish looks to the camera in "Problem" are stiff. Her hip-grinding is desultory and phoned in. It all feels as scripted and test-marketed as a Hollywood blockbuster starring an actress who is fulfilling a contractual obligation. Her visual presentation doesn't seems to be connected with who she actually is.


Grande's voice is ostensibly why she is famous, and to their credit the producers give her room to show off her impressive chops. She gets to do some full-on belting on ballads like "Just A Little Bit of Your Heart" and "Why Try." They don't trust her enough to actually let her voice carry the songs though; the metallic fingerprint of Auto-Tune is all over "My Everything," even the vocal trills that start off the album. I understand correcting the pitch of an artist who isn't a strong singer, but why mess with the vocals of someone who can actually sing?

Speaking of producers, "My Everything" assemble a huge international crew. All the songs but the intro have more than one producer, and "One Last Time" has five. No song has less than three songwriters listed, and "Break Your Heart Right Back" has six. That's a whole lot of chefs to craft a three minute pop song. The benefit of having so many people involved is that the end product is well-position to acquire maximum market share across multiple platforms with significant cross-promotional potential. A song like the A$AP Ferg track "Hands On Me" has the snaps and whistles of club rap with some big EDM synths to smooth it out and prevent it from appealing only to the Urban market. "Love Me Harder" has the indie R&B/chillwave thing going courtesy of the Weeknd, but given a pop makeover so that it isn't too weird for the Walmart crowd (who get exclusive bonus tracks when they buy the album from the mega-retailer). This song-by-committee approach pays off, to a certain extent. As much as I might dis "My Everything" for its lack of sincerity, it's not a bad album. In fact, I kind of like some of it. "Problem" is a perfect combination of hip-hop sass and Mariah Carey worship, "One Last Time" and "Break Free" are big dumb dance songs done with style and class, "Bang Bang," which is available on some deluxe versions of the album, is a great song, although Jessie J. and Nikki Minaj are the ones responsible for its greatness. Ariana Grande's music may not be my cup of tea, but it doesn't suck.

The same can't be said for the rappers who accompany Grande on the mic. Iggy Azalea, Childish Gambino, A$AP Ferg and Big Sean all share verses with Grande, and they all fall on their faces. They fail in a few different ways. Azalea's verse would almost be good if it wasn't her rapping them. I've always admired how Australian rappers adapted the music to their own idiom and slang, so it's a shame to see that the most well-known Australian rapper sounds like she's doing an impression of someone from Brooklyn. Big Sean's verses on "Best You Ever Had" aren't bad, but he's having to deliver them as ballad rap which makes them clumsy. Childish Gambino and A$AP Ferg both sound neutered by having to give PG-rated raps. Listening to them is like watching an episode of the Brady Bunch directed by Quentin Tarantino. They are playing far outside their strengths and most of their standard vocabulary and subject matter are off-limits. You can tell Ferg would really, really like to clearly state where he wants Ariana's hands on him, and if the song was just aimed at hip-hop radio he would.

There's a couple of well-worn paths ahead of Grande. Since we love to tear down artists, and especially female artists, a backlash is inevitable. At some point she is going to have to shed her teeny bop image for once and for all. I don't think she could pull of Taylor Swift's whole "every girl's best friend" thing, which even Taylor is having trouble maintaining. She could go full slut like Christina and Miley and Brittany, start dry humping things, make out with Madonna, maybe date a woman for a minute, but that doesn't seem like Grande's style either. She could have a public meltdown like her idol Mariah, then try and make a comeback, maybe in an unflattering acting role. Personally, I see her having a hit with a big anthem from a Disney movie and then going back to Broadway, which is where her voice seems most suited.

I was at a wedding recently where a twelve-year-old girl jumped up onstage when "Bang Bang" came on. She danced and lip-synched to the entire song, putting her hand on her ear when Grande's part came on, like a singer checking her monitor. I may not love Grande's music, and I am definitely not her target audience, but seeing a young girl connect with it was a heartwarming experience. Grande's music and image may make no sense to me, but it's connecting with millions of people to whom the lines between R&B, hip-hop and dance aren't as rigid. That is no small feat.


Thursday, September 18, 2014

Live Like You're Dead Review

Castle and Has-Lo
Live Like You're Dead
“Live Like You’re Dead” is a collaboration between South Carolina MC/producer Castle and Philly MC/producer Has-Lo. Their previous collaboration, “Return of the Gasface,” was Has-Lo remixing Castle’s music. “Live Like You’re Dead” has both MCs on the mic. It is in the vein of “Run the Jewels,” only with more loops and less cartoon violence and drug use. You may remember Castle from his solid 2013 album “Gasface,” which walked the line between being goofy and serious. Has-Lo’s “In Case I Don’t Make It” is a heavy album full of suicidal thoughts and rumination on life, loss, and God. Has-Lo and Castle aren’t the most likely collaboration, but “Live Like You’re Dying” is an excellent album.

The album has a looseness, like the two went into the studio and knocked this out in a few days. You can hear them having fun with their rhymes, but also pushing each other to go harder. In my review of Gasface, I described Castle as “Redman if Redman had gone to college instead of doing hallucinogens.” After listening to this album, I’m revising that statement to say he’s like if Redman combined with Aesop Rock. He’s got some of the just-don’t-give-a-fuck sense of humor as Red, but some of the tangled lyricism of Aesop. His verse on “Good Feelings” illustrates what I’m talking about:

“Question: Can you call it morning wood when you wake up post meridian?
Afternoon wood doesn't have a ring to it
Dumb questions that are posed ad infinitum
It's the mary jane iron and the wrankles in my brainum”

Has-Lo can be too subdued as an MC at times. Castle livens him up, and he sounds energized on this album. Whether he is rapping about big booties in general on “The Big Ole Ass” or big booties in yoga pants on “Yoga Pants,” Has-Lo shows a sense of humor that I didn’t catch on “In Case I Don’t Make It.” 

That isn’t to accuse “Live Like You’re Dead” of being frivolous. Sure, there is some lusting and shit-talking, but the title of the album comes from a Malcom X quote that starts off the album. Much like Open Mike Eagle’s “Dark Comedy,” “Live Like You’re Dying” is all about laughing to keep from crying. On “My Uncle,” Castle raps about losing faith and advice he’d give his younger self:

“Check, lost my faith on the path to enlightenment
That was feeling confused and feeling vexed
I hear that socially awkward's the new sexy
Goddamn, I was born in the wrong decade
My high school years might have been less of a headache
Ill, but I try not to let that shit perplex me
If I could travel time I would cheat the system
Leave my young self lotto numbers and some wisdom”

Has-Lo combines manages to work through his issues while bragging on “Stubborn Vice”:

“I don't work how I should, work like I ought to
They say to be a novelist you should read a lot of authors
I really don't
 I kinda think I know it all
I'm cold
I'd much rather never be involved
I'm not selfish, I don't aim to hurt a person”

Production is handled by Has-Lo and Castle. The one guest is Arcka, who riffs off of “Bring Tha Pain” for “D.L.S., “ one of the album’s stand-out tracks. The beats are mostly built around sample loops, although “The Big Ole Ass” has some dirty synths as well. It’s a little Madlib, a little Dilla, a little A Tribe Calle Quest. Those are pretty solid influences to have, and the album has a soulful, low-key feel. 
Much like Run the Jewels, there aren’t a lot of stakes with “Live Like You’re Dead.” It feels like the product of two friends who got together to make some music. Like Killer Mike and El-P, Has-Lo and Castle’s rap and production styles compliment one another. Has-Lo brings gravitas and introspection, and Castle brings the humor and head-nodders. The resulting album showcases the best of what both artists have to offer, which makes it well worth listening to.




Big Freedia Review

Big Freedia
Just Be Free
Originally reviewed on RapReviews

I found out about Big Freedia the way most white people found out about her: through her connection to the LGBTQ community. A few years ago I typed in "is there any gay hip-hop" in a search engine and the first hit was a 2010 article in the New York Times about gay bounce artists in New Orleans with Freedia and transgender artist Katey Red at the core. The fact that Freedia and Katey Red were not only queers in hip-hop, but gender-bending AND making women-friendly ass-shaking music made a lot of people outside of New Orleans take notice. In just a few short years Freedia's gone from playing grimy clubs with all-black audiences in sketchy parts of town to festivals teeming with white hipsters. She has toured with indie pop acts Matt and Kim and the Postal Service, she's played at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and she's played the late-night talk show circuit. She's been written about the Times and Vanity Fair. She has a reality show on Fuse. She's writing a memoir. And she's finally released her first proper album, "Just Be Free." The album is a reminder that what makes Freedia worthy of attention is not her sexual orientation or her gender identity, but the fact that she can make asses move.

For those not familiar with bounce, it's a New Orleans take on hip-hop that is frenetic, bass-heavy, and usually centered around the Triggerman beat and raunchy call-and-response lyrics. The music got a little mainstream love fifteen years ago when Cash Money was blowing up, but for the most part has been an underground, regional phenomenon. Then Freddie "Big Freedia" Ross, the 6'2" self-proclaimed "Queen of Bounce" set out to bring it to the world. (According to her Wikipedia page, Freedia isn't transgender, and considers herself a gay male who answers to he or she. I've only seen her referred to as a she, so I'm sticking with that.)

It may seem a little unexpected that the person to make bounce music mainstream would be a queer artist, given that there are very few queer mainstream artists, but it makes a kind of sense. Freedia makes the sexual aggression and raunchiness of bounce safe for women. Her shows provide women with a safe place to get freaky and shake their asses without feeling like they are going to be groped or judged. The music becomes more celebratory than predatory or demeaning. There isn't the edge of misogyny or loaded heterosexual politics in her shows or her lyrics. It's more like "We're all ladies here, now bend over and start shaking that ass." I'm not saying that lots of women don't love music with an edge of misogyny and loaded sexual politics (just watch a dance floor blow up to "Blurred Lines" or "Low" or "Ain't No Fun"). But there is also an audience out there that is hungry for music that is sexy and raunchy without all the bullshit. That's where Freedia comes in.

"Just Be Free" also improves on the sound of bounce, or at least what I've heard coming out of the scene Freedia was part of. If you listen to the mixtapes by Katey Red or Freedia, you'll hear a lot of enthusiasm but not a lot of technological know-how. A lot of it sounds kind of janky, and most of it works with sampled beats, and I don't see the Jackson estate okaying "ABC" being used in Katey Red's "Punk Under Pressure." Freedia worked with her longtime producer BlaqNmilD as well as a guy who had worked with Madonna to craft beats that would avoid sample issues, and also evolved Freedia's dabbling in house and EDM.

The beats hit hard, there is none of the tinniness that often accompanies the genre, and she expands on the sound. To a point. The songs are still built around hyper beats and chanted, repetitive lyrics. If you want lyricism or depth, look elsewhere. This is party music, pure and simple. Freedia also tones down the subject matter, keeping things relatively profanity-free and avoiding sexually explicit references. I mean, sure there is a song titled "Mo Azz," and "Explode" could be read to have a sexual meaning, but there are no lyrics along the line of "jump on that dick and ride it like a bicycle." Also, if you are looking for gay anthems, you are going to be disappointed. With the exception of "Where My Queens At," there aren't many references to Freedia's sexuality or gender identity. She's not here to make message music, she's here to have a good time.

The album is ten songs and a little over thirty minutes, and that is enough. There are only so many relentless booty-shakers with barked lyrics that a person needs. "Just Be Free" never drags and doesn't wear out its welcome. Freedia gets in, goes hard, and leaves you wanting more.
Whenever women/gays/trans/disabled/non-white people demand a bigger voice in culture, the old white males complain that including those voices will be the death of sci-fi/video games/hip-hop/etc. I'm here to tell you: relax. Big Freedia is not going to kill hip-hop. Having a big gay dude with a purse making rap music is not going to ruin rap music. People making shitty rap music will kill rap music, and Freedia does not make shitty music. "Just Be Free" is not hipster music, and it's not gay music. It's music for a good time, no matter what gender your partner is or what pronoun you use.

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