Welcome to the first-ever newsletter edition of Five Albums Five Thoughts! This series will come out every Tuesday, providing five quick reviews on music (four new albums and one throwback release). This will be the one consistent part of the blog. Other projects will be seen on and off at other times as well. Anyway, housekeeping aside let’s talk music.
The Weeknd - Dawn FM
16 Tracks - 51:49
The Weeknd leaned even more heavily into his synth-pop styles for the nostalgic Dawn FM, providing the perfect sequel to the 2020 release After Hours. The daring production matched with the incredible vocals of Abel Makkonen Tesfaye made for a chilling 50-minute listen.
The ebbs and flows of this album show a clear vision for what an album should be. The album never takes sharp turns that feel like an artist shifting from one of their singles to the next.
Many have praised this album for its transitions from track to track. This is aided by the numerous interludes, which are attached to the end of some songs or standalone tracks themselves. These interludes helped maintain a theme, keeping the somewhat generic idea of a radio host carrying you through an album.
There’s an interesting angle to this album about how The Weeknd feeds into a nostalgia that people haven’t really experienced. His target demo, teenagers to young adults, didn’t really live through the 1980s to 1990s nostalgia eras that he caters towards. Matter of fact, there’s a level of retrospective nostalgia in place, imagining things that don’t properly emulate the times back then. This is seen in sampling Tomoko Aran’s 1983 track “Midnight Pretenders,” for example. This song comes from the Japanese genre of city pop, which has seen a recent rise in popularity in the West despite not being big in its heyday. When writing about this phenomenon in her 2021 article, Cat Zhang said “[city pop] is familiar enough to be comforting, but implicitly exists at a slight remove.” People feel this 1980’s nostalgia from city pop, but don’t have that first-hand reference point to go back to. A similar sentiment can be expressed for the entire project of Dawn FM, which keeps its image consistent throughout.
While lead track “Gasoline” remains the fresher song in people’s ears, an older single “Take My Breathe” continues to be the best song on here. The chorus feels like it really lives up to the title of the song for a moment - after The Weeknd shouts the line: “The My Breathe,” there’s this pregnant pause that almost freezes you. But following right after is glaring synths that pull you right back with the line “And make it last forever.”
This album doesn’t feel incredibly different from The Weeknd’s previous album. Despite this, he finds a way to remain intriguing throughout and at times surprising.
Gunna - DS4EVER
19 Tracks - 54:54
Gunna’s ascension up the rap game has been fun to watch. He got his career off the floor just five years ago, putting out the breakthrough Drip Season projects from 2016 to 2018. He then went commercial with Drip Harder, a milestone project in his and Lil Baby’s careers.
It was interesting to see things grow. However, we have a problem. The plane taking off was quite a spectacle, but I’m afraid we’re stuck in auto-pilot now. The criticisms that could be put on the 2020 album Wunna can similarly be placed on DS4EVER (Drip Season Forever).
The only interesting songs on here are when Gunna is working with someone else. Lead single “pushin P” with Future and Young Thug is fun. Another song with Future, “too easy,” was bound to be a hit as it has been on TikTok for ages already. 21 Savage and Lil Baby outdo Gunna in their respective features.
Gunna was able to get people’s attention with the mysterious and certainly meme-able usage of the “P” emoji. On many tracks he describes things as being “P.” If there’s one thing that has helped promote this album (and help get it to #1 on the Billboard 200 this week, pulling off what many have called an upset), it’s the campaign Gunna has run that utilizes internet culture.
There’s nothing awful about DS4EVER. There are some fun songs and certainly a few that will get saved and added to playlists. But there’s nothing beyond that, sadly.
FKA twigs - CAPRISONGS
17 Tracks - 48:10
It should be appreciated that every project from an artist is taking a risk. Every song is someone putting themselves out there knowing at least somebody will have something negative to say about it. One step further, it’s worth appreciating when an artist tries out a style different from what they have done before. Last year, Lorde got eaten alive for that - but hey, that’s the game you play I guess.
FKA twigs tested out a new sound on the recent mixtape CAPRISONGS. In a much more lively and energetic mode than the stand-out 2019 album MAGDALENE, the mixtape makes itself a distinct shift in her direction as an artist. Jumping from genre to genre, twigs makes herself heard on dancehall tracks, a drill beat, and more. And she’s joined by a strong cast, including many U.K.-based acts like Shygirl, Jorja Smith, and Unknown T. You might not love this album if you like twigs’ older work, but it’s certainly worth a play at very the least.
Yena - SMiLEY
5 Tracks - 16:36
The run that some K-pop survival show groups go on is quite unique. The groups usually gain massive amounts of popularity, but exist for short periods of time as talents are only being lent by entertainment labels to another. In football terms, survival show groups are like loaning a player to a club.
Like their predecessors Wanna One and I.O.I, 12-member group IZ*ONE was incredibly successful. But also similar to those aforementioned groups, they only existed for a few years. Riding the momentum of their success, most-if-not-all members will debut as their own acts now. The latest to do so is Choi Yena, who made her debut this week with five-track EP SMiLEY.
You never *really* know how an artist will do on their own for the first time. Sometimes they’re great, other times it can be a disaster. Yena proves to be the former on this release, providing a short package of catchy songs. Title track “SMILEY” is a colorful, energetic track with BIBI. But later b-side songs like “Lxxk 2 U” and “Pretty Boys” are also quite interesting.
Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt
15 Tracks - 59:16
This review is coming from a more personal perspective than the others. To me, a 20-year-old Canadian, Jay-Z has been an odd celebrity throughout my life. I’ve always known who he is and how big of a deal he is. In my mind, he was recognized as one of the biggest names in hip-hop, but if you actually asked me why I might have frozen. Since I was 10 years old, he hasn’t put out a lot of music. Apart from features and singles, he has only released two albums in that decade of time.
Looking back, it’s quite obvious that prime Jay-Z was something I missed out on. I haven’t listened through his discography (and before you yell at me, know that will change soon), but by the looks of it, his run in the late 90s to early 2000s was quite strong.
Anyway, in an attempt to get a grasp on how he was back then, I recently listened to his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. Listening through, it’s quite impressive how thorough this album is. 15 songs and almost all of them are quite great. The album starts especially strong with “Can’t Knock The Hustle,” which has a great beat and an impressive vocal performance from Mary J. Blige. Later songs like “Brookyln’s Finest” and “Dead Presidents II” are amazing listens as well. The song quiets down later on but it didn’t have me getting impatient at any point - which is saying something when an overall playtime is near an hour.
I didn’t miss Jay-Z’s older stuff because it isn’t good. Rather, I missed it because nobody ever pointed me in the right direction afterward. This album gave me a taste of what early Jay-Z sounded like, and certainly will make me listen to more older projects later on.
10 More Thoughts
Here’s some quick-fire K-pop takes: If you don’t love WJSN CHOCOME’s “Super Yuppers!” then you probably aren’t much fun. No offense.
I didn’t watch Girls Planet 999. I’ve been burned by the Produce 101 scandals before and don’t really care for survival shows anymore. However, the group that has come from that show, Kep1er, kinda rule. “WA DA DA” is a club banger that is a frontrunner for song of the month in the genre.
fromis_9 returned Monday with Midnight Guest. That’s their third release over the past 12 months. It’s likely a welcome change of pace for Flovers (their fanbase), who have had to endure long breaks in the past.
Okay, that’s all the K-pop takes for this week. The Jay-Z review is the tip of the iceberg for 1990s hip-hop that I discovered this week. I also listened to Organized Konfusion’s Stress: The Extinction Agenda, Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Big L’s Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous, and more. So much great stuff here.
More retro-talk? My mother recently gave me a collection of vinyl records to try out. Last night I listened to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad. Both stellar albums - one more so than the other. Great time, except about one-third of “Beat It” was skipped over due to an issue with the record. Oh, to listen to music before the digital age.
Incredibly biased note: my favorite artist ever (yes, really!), iri, dropped a song today. It’s super good. Watch “摩天楼.”
After two years away, Coachella is a thing again. Swedish House Mafia is also still a thing, and for some reason got a bigger billing on this poster than anyone else. Cool lineup, though.
One for my sanctioned violence crowd: Entertainment agency LDH is planning a half-music half-MMA event for April called “POUND STORM.” Wondering if this is going to be like when Doja Cat and Justin Beiber performed just before Jake Paul knocked out Ben Askren.
One of my favorite podcasts, WSJ’s “The Journal,” recently did an episode about online concerts. Worth a listen.
Thanks for reading!
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