The Weeknd – House Of Balloons

Damn, these dudes are blowing up right quick.  The only thing I know about them is that they’re an R&B group out of Toronto and that they apparently worked with that dude 40 that Drake shouts out in every other verse (usually he’s giving Drake advice or rolling his blunts).  Damn yo, I miss that camaraderie.  I don’t remember the last time I texted a friend just to tell them they got next.

I’ve been reading that The Weeknd sounds like Drake and The Dream which is accurate but unfair – the group has mastered the syrup-slow 808 sound that the aforementioned artists only hint at.  I’m sure it’ll be polarizing, but for fans of that sound, it absolutely hits.  First Frank Ocean, now the Weeknd?  Is this an R&B revolution for white people?  Strange enough, these are probably my two favorite albums this year.

Grab the whole album for free from their website.

DL:  The Weeknd – Morning (320 kbps)

DL:  The Weeknd – Coming Down (320 kbps)

Similar:  Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra

Toro Y Moi – Elise

My favorite song on the album besides “Still Sound.”  I was a little underwhelmed by the album until I put in the car this past weekend – absolutely gorgeous spring music.  A note to all concert-goers this summer:  please ingest something or swing back at the fat guy next to you or secretly listen to M.O.P. in your headphones or something during the show – that video above ^ has the worst concert crowd I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve been to every whiteboy faux real-hip hop show you can imagine.

DL:  Toro Y Moi – Elise (320 kbps)

Similar:  Toro Y Moi – New Beat / Still Sound/ Talamak

Ellie Goulding – Lights (Shook Remix)

The amount of Ellie Goulding remixes floating around are on the precipice of over-saturation, but shit like this makes up for it.  Shook (?)  gives the track a lounge feel and the result is dope dope dope dope dope dope.  The most pleasant track I’ve heard all year.

DL:  Ellie Goulding – Lights (Shook Remix) (128 kbps)

Similar:  Ellie Goulding – Lights (Bassnectar Remix)

Thom Yorke, Burial & Four Tet – Ego

I know you’ve been listening to that stupid fucking Rebecca Black song all day, so please excuse yourself from FB and get down with the sickness.  I owe it to myself to listen to more Four Tet.  Hipsters: you need to buy stock in Burial, he’s like the English electronic version of Pavement historically.  Or something.  AND THEN THE FUCKING PIANOS KICK IN.  Whoa, “Mirror” is real dope too.  No clue what these three are working on together.

DL:  Thom Yorke, Burial & Four Tet – Ego (Mastered) (320 kbps)

DL:  Thom Yorke, Burial & Four Tet – Mirror (Radio Rip) (128 kbps)

Similar: Burial – Archangel

Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra

Sometimes I feel like the Rick Reilly of whiiite hip-hop bloggers because of my constant bashing of easy scapegoats as “the bad guy”: unintuitive A&Rs, white rappers, the ongoing “death” of hip-hop, Dr. Luke, radio stations, major labels, etc… and praising independent revolutionaries like Lil’ B, Odd Future and Big K.R.I.T.  But seriously, right now I feel like working in the hip-hop section of a major label has to be the easiest job ever.  Basically, don’t do anything that any major label has done over the last five years.  While hundreds of rappers have fallen by the wayside, that’s fine – everyone misses out on prospects from time to time.  The worst is that there have been seemingly dozens of hip-hop acts who have been rejected or shelved by major labels, only to come out with their album as intended months or years later (Saigon, Big Boi) OR release the intended material on their own and have it blow up (Freddie Gibbs and now Frank Ocean).

Earl Sweatshirt- EARL

The web has been going nuts since Tyler, The Creator dropped Yonkers.  Tyler, the Creator is apart of the OFWGKTA (odd future, wolf gang kill them all) collective.  The web has been going nuts since Sandwiches was performed by odd future on Jimmy “I will never be relevant” Fallon.

However, before everyone was praising the very good rapper in Tyler, the Creator, there was Earl Sweatshirt.  A 16 year old who rapped so disturbingly, his mom made him move away from Tyler, The Creator so he could remain clean and not take pills and skateboard.  Earl and Tyler’s style reminds me of if Cannibal OX met Necro and decided to focus their style.

EARL is a great album from 2010 that has been slept on.  Dark lyrics, eerie beats, disturbing sounds and most importantly, dope fucking rhymes.  So many rhymes are intricate and pertain to the OFWGKTA family.  I.E. in Yonkers, ” bitches in my room” refers to a member in their crew who is 5’7 and pulls the most chicks.  I hope people take these guys seriously and understand that they are for real and not some fad for hipsters to latch onto.  Anyway here are some dope tracks from Earl Sweatshirt, who is magnificent.

DL: Earl Sweatshirt- epar (feat: Vince Staples)(305kbps)

DL: Earl Sweatshirt-Kill(295kbps)

“Faggots wear prada”

Bedouin Soundclash f. Coeur de Pirate – Brutal Hearts

For fans of interracial Canadian rock-reggae.  Actually, I’m a big K-OS fan.  If he came out a few years later, he would have rightfully blown up amongst the blogger crowd, but he’s kind of an afterthought now.  He’s about 3000% better than K’Naan.  I saw him open up for Handsome Boy Modeling School (namedrop???!!???) back in the day and he was absolutely fantastic.  His first three albums had some serious fucking songs, and I liked that OC single too.  Shit, he could even rap well.

ANYWAY, found these clowns out of nowhere on the machine of hype.  What you say…Jefferson Airplane meets Lykke Li?  Really enjoyed this one.

DL:  Bedouin Soundclash f. Coeur de Pirate – Brutal Hearts (320 kbps)

Panda Bear – Last Night At The Jetty

The new(ish) jawn from ya boy.  Altho certain publications like to consider him the White Jesus, I feel like his voice is definitely an acquired taste and not for everybody.  These songs have the same dreamlike quality as AC, but I feel like they’re not as musically intriguing as the best Animal Collective songs.  All growers tho.  I remember I once called “Comfy in Nautica” the “best song I ever heard”, but I was in no state to drive a car at the time and haven’t felt that way since.  I do owe Person Pitch a listen sometime soon.  Tomboy out April 12th.

DL:  Panda Bear – Last Night At The Jetty (320 kbps)

Bonus:

DL:  Panda Bear – Tomboy (320 kbps)

DL:  Panda Bear – Slow Motion (320 kbps)

James Vincent McMorrow – If I Had A Boat

It’s only fitting that after a Big L tribute we give you the sweetest track I’ve heard all year.  While Big L is giving every cutie in the city AIDS, James just wants to sail to his wifey and hold her ever so gently.  If Big L was alive, they’d probably have a collaboration in 2014.  This juxtaposition is ridiculously obnoxious, but it’s the perfect microcosm for the entire underlying thesis of That Whiiite.  Since every type of music is so readily available, people are able to consume several different genres and styles without fully regarding their context, so they do so in an extremely detached manner.  It’s not even an ironic detachment really – I think people actually like the music they’re listening to/putting up, but without any sense of the culture, they’ve created this new and weird casual vague culture that routinely celebrates arbitrary mashups and rappers who smoke weed with no real regard for context and history.

I hope that we can deliver you some sort of insight beyond that when we give you music, but maybe not.  Either way, enjoy y’alls free downloads.  Mazel tov.

DL:  James Vincent McMorrow – If I Had A Boat (320 kbps)

 

Grammy Jawn: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Perennially, the Grammy’s are the elephant shit in the punch (gin) bowl that is music (what?), with nominations so bad that even Rolling Stone writers and white bloggers shake their heads.  I consider myself fairly learned in music, so it’s fairly insulting (or something) to me that this is the first Grammy album of the year that I’ve heard in SEVEN YEARS.  The Grammy voters must have realized that they turned what should have been a celebration of music into literally the worst award show there is* and that maybe they should stop rewarding artists in their sunset years for subpar albums.  If Robert Plant is so good, why did Led Zeppelin NEVER WIN A GRAMMY?  Obviously 95% of the awards and nominations were still terrible**, but most marginally-interested people in music consider (or should consider) this award win a victory.

ANYWAY, this album is fucking fantastic.  80s babies lamenting on the empty hope of American culture in a concept that’s fully formed and actually works, with a retro-feel that perfectly reflects the analog nostalgia evoked by the album cover.  Even though the belly of the album falters a little, it’s bookended with anthem after anthem and both vocalists are great.  One of the few recent albums that actually feels like an album rather than a collection of songs.  Great songwriting and their use of strings is always awesome***.  Recommended to all.

BTW, this is wonderful.

DL:  Arcade Fire – Ready To Start (320 kbps)

DL:  Arcade Fire – We Used To Wait (320 kbps)

DL:  Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (320 kbps)

*  The 2006 Academy Awards are a close second.  The AVN’s are obviously the best.

**  Gotta shoutout my girl Gaga.  How the fuck did both her album and the re-issue of her album get nominated for album of the year???

***  Dope beats, dope rhymes, what more do y’all want???