Frank Ocean is about to return with a followup to his landmark debut channel ORANGE, and I felt like I needed a reminder of why we’re all so excited. After all, it’s been four years. That’s an eternity in pop years, and even longer on the internet.
So I turned to the my favorite old song and looped it. There’s nothing like this type of tune.
Freetown Sound is one of the biggest surprises of 2016, and I’ve felt tongue-tied every time I listen. This album is a violent rush of pop mastery, the kind of cultural explosion that’s rarely matched with such slick and catchy production. It’s difficult to talk about.
What I do know is that Blood Orange has somehow conjured the urgency of Kendrick Lamar’s American dystopia and the defiant fantasia of Beyoncé’s Lemonade while sounding like no one but himself.
I only mention current events in these weekly posts to give context to the words I write and the music I share. The circumstances in which we listen are important. Music might help buffer the hardness of the world, but he world informs it all the same.
That being said, I don’t even know what to say about what’s happening in America lately. Everyone seems to have lost hope. I know it’s not true, but dark attitudes are in the wind. I’m doing my part to remind those around me that things can and do get better. The fact that there’s always beautiful new music is enough proof for me.
This week I’ve only got two things to talk about, but they’re really important to me: Sade and the new Miles Davis biopic, Miles Ahead.
In the grand scheme of things, Animal Collective’s fever-pitch impact on the internet music world of 2009 isn’t much of a blip, but to my friends and I, living and breathing and freaking out on last.fm, it was the event of an age.
Nite Funk arrives after years of hot anticipation, fully living up to the cloistered hype that a handful of us have fostered ever since a seemingly one-off single was dropped in 2010. It was a beguiling, dusky pop tune from one of the most unlikely duos in modern music, this perfect forgotten gem, a single song that held the spark of so much untapped potential. This little EP proves that they knew it too.
I’ve said it before, but Orange Milk is one of the most exciting music labels out there right now. They’ve published some of my favorite albums of the past few years, from Giant Claw, Nico Niquo, and more, so I’m always on the lookout for what’s next. This week, my eyes fell upon the cover of NV’s Binasu and I knew I needed to listen right away.
I was never a Beyoncé fan. Not really. Sure, I enjoyed some of the big singles, recognized her A-level game, but never actually enjoyed a full album. I’d honestly tried with Sasha Fierce, but her energy always felt constrained and compromised across the length of an album, only fully erupting on a song or two. I was never completely blown away by her artistry and passion.
Until now.
Optimistic Underground 