I have noticed that a lot of people who really disliked them before have actually been fairly positive about "Black Beatles", so it's maybe not that cut and dry. I haven't heard the whole thing but I thought what I heard was pretty OK.
I will never stop appreciating Todd's unironic and deep appreciation for Kris Kross
Kriss Kross have some genuinely good songs and are indirectly responsible for "Streets Is Watching (Freestyle)" which is one of the best songs on a DJ Screw tape.
In I go! Time for pithy one sentence to one paragraph comments on the songs and on Todd!
Don't read this if you haven't seen the vids yet
Daya - "Sit Still, LOOK PRETTY", this is one of those songs I've heard like four times and thought each time "that was alright". Seems like a weird one to single out but :shrug: "Scars To Your Beautiful" (mentioned in the segment) is leagues worse.
Drake & Future - "Jumpman", yeah that's fair
Ruth B - "Lost Boy", I have literally never heard this before but it sounds awful. I hate plastic piano ballads and why Peter Pan?
Machine-Gun Kelly f. (I didn't see the lady's name) - "some song", what is this (also Todd this is an interpolation). Kelly has gotten thousands of times worst since he was an XXL freshman. The drums in this song are fucking horrendous.
Zay Hillfiger & Zayvion McCall - "JuJu On That Beat", I still have no idea how an okay freestyle over "Knuck If You Buck" charted.
Shawn Mendes - "Treat You Better", this is one of those songs that I find too innocuous and vapid to really hate. The weird yelp is really funny but that it's the song's only notable feature says a lot
The Chainsmokers & Daya - "Don't Let Me Down", this is actually the worst piece of music ever recorded. I actually don't understand why it exists, who could listen to it and enjoy it, and in what possible context.
Zayn - "Pillowtalk", yeah
Gnash ft. Olivia Brian - "I Hate U I Love U", this is another one I am pretty sure I have literally not heard before. Who is this man? What is this? I actually laughed aloud when Gnash started ' ' r a p p i n g ' '. This is horrendous.
Nick Jonas & Tove Lo -"Close" what is this
Charlie Puth - "eh I didn't catch the title", Puth is one of those guys that I hear people talk about how they hate him all the time but I have literally never heard a Charlie Puth song in the wild. He is the single most douchey-looking person I've ever seen though
P!nk - "Fire", NO.
Justin Bieber - "Love Yourself", I actually kinda like this one
G-Eazy & that one other lady - "Me Myself & I", eh
The X-Ambassadors - "Unsteady", I don't understand this song. It's just a disembodied chorus.
Lukas Graham - "7 Years" man, I had almost managed to forget this existed.
for the record this is what Machine-Gun Kelley used to sound like. He wasn't good back then either but he was alright (and had the benefit of being on one of the worst XXL Cyphers ever*)
*HopSin, Roscoe Dash, Machine-Gun Kelly, Future, Danny Brown, Kid Ink, Macklemore, Don Trip, Iggy Azalea
I just rambled about this awhile on Twitter, but it occurred to me this morning, having watched that list before I went to sleep and with it fresh in my mind, that "Don't Let Me Down" is so riddled with weird breakdowns and drops that it's structured less like a pop song or a dance jam than it is a Job for a Cowboy-style deathcore track, and I think that similarity might be intentional.
When I first heard snippets, I thought it was a metaphor implying that the narrator's real life sucked and that s/he felt trapped and wanted to live in that storybook and never grow up because growing up meant something scary to them for personal reasons. In particular, I was wondering if the weird tension between the implied gender of the narrator and the female singer had some significance. Unfortunately, the lyrics don't really seem to give much room to that implied darkness, and are just incredibly clumsy to boot, which would work if the child narrator thing were clearer but it just winds up in this grey area of lots of vague implications without even subtle payoff. It's sort of like the lyrical equivalent of how every Sam Smith tune that isn't a dance banger collab is all slow burn and no release to the point that it stops being sexy and heartaching and starts to get monotonous and irritating.
On the subject of Gnash, though: What he's doing isn't so much rapping as that post-hardcore fragile speak-singing thing that a lot of emo frontmen do during quiet, introspective sections of their songs. You hear it in everything from Slint to American Football to Ion Dissonance. The issue is threefold here: He's trying to force it into a rap flow, which can work in theory but tends to sound listless and metrically shapeless in practice; he's not a very compelling emo vocalist or rapper to begin with, with too little mic presence and minimal emotional intensity, not letting his venom or sorrow sink in because he can't deliver it effectively; and, finally, the lyrics are horribly catty and mean-spirited braggadoccio which the aforementioned lack of swagger can't carry as appropriately arrogant and the lack of real pain or self-awareness can't carry as confessional "I'm such a shitheel" gut-spilling. He seems to be aiming for both, Kanye-style, but he falls miserably short, so he winds up sounding like just another casually misogynistic teen preener.
Todd's best of list prediction: The Sound by The 1975 will either be #1 or on the honorable mentions with the caveat that if it had charted better, it would have been #1
Todd's best of list prediction: The Sound by The 1975 will either be #1 or on the honorable mentions with the caveat that if it had charted better, it would have been #1
Correct. Maybe it would have charted better if its parent album didn't have the worst title of the year.
Since he's putting old songs that somehow charted in 2016 on his list, I'm surprised that Empire of the Sun's "Walking On A Dream" wasn't on there.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
The fake Pokemon names on these cards are hilarious
I think this stung for me more because I had already been falling out of love with her for some time before that, so this was just sorta a final confirmation for me.
I think it's easier to brush off smug maundering about "anti-critical fait accompli" than it is to confront the fact that you fucked up in a small but glaring fashion because the former is essentially empty flame bait but the latter can make you feel really small and stupid and worthless. That's obviously not your fault, and I'm sure she was just having a bad night all around and that was just the cherry on top, but I get why *that* would be it.
Comments
Genuinely disappointed that 21 Pilots wasn't on here
Don't read this if you haven't seen the vids yet
Daya - "Sit Still, LOOK PRETTY", this is one of those songs I've heard like four times and thought each time "that was alright". Seems like a weird one to single out but :shrug: "Scars To Your Beautiful" (mentioned in the segment) is leagues worse.
Drake & Future - "Jumpman", yeah that's fair
Ruth B - "Lost Boy", I have literally never heard this before but it sounds awful. I hate plastic piano ballads and why Peter Pan?
Machine-Gun Kelly f. (I didn't see the lady's name) - "some song", what is this (also Todd this is an interpolation). Kelly has gotten thousands of times worst since he was an XXL freshman. The drums in this song are fucking horrendous.
Zay Hillfiger & Zayvion McCall - "JuJu On That Beat", I still have no idea how an okay freestyle over "Knuck If You Buck" charted.
Shawn Mendes - "Treat You Better", this is one of those songs that I find too innocuous and vapid to really hate. The weird yelp is really funny but that it's the song's only notable feature says a lot
The Chainsmokers & Daya - "Don't Let Me Down", this is actually the worst piece of music ever recorded. I actually don't understand why it exists, who could listen to it and enjoy it, and in what possible context.
Zayn - "Pillowtalk", yeah
Gnash ft. Olivia Brian - "I Hate U I Love U", this is another one I am pretty sure I have literally not heard before. Who is this man? What is this? I actually laughed aloud when Gnash started ' ' r a p p i n g ' '. This is horrendous.
Nick Jonas & Tove Lo -"Close" what is this
Charlie Puth - "eh I didn't catch the title", Puth is one of those guys that I hear people talk about how they hate him all the time but I have literally never heard a Charlie Puth song in the wild. He is the single most douchey-looking person I've ever seen though
P!nk - "Fire", NO.
Justin Bieber - "Love Yourself", I actually kinda like this one
G-Eazy & that one other lady - "Me Myself & I", eh
The X-Ambassadors - "Unsteady", I don't understand this song. It's just a disembodied chorus.
Lukas Graham - "7 Years" man, I had almost managed to forget this existed.
On the subject of Gnash, though: What he's doing isn't so much rapping as that post-hardcore fragile speak-singing thing that a lot of emo frontmen do during quiet, introspective sections of their songs. You hear it in everything from Slint to American Football to Ion Dissonance. The issue is threefold here: He's trying to force it into a rap flow, which can work in theory but tends to sound listless and metrically shapeless in practice; he's not a very compelling emo vocalist or rapper to begin with, with too little mic presence and minimal emotional intensity, not letting his venom or sorrow sink in because he can't deliver it effectively; and, finally, the lyrics are horribly catty and mean-spirited braggadoccio which the aforementioned lack of swagger can't carry as appropriately arrogant and the lack of real pain or self-awareness can't carry as confessional "I'm such a shitheel" gut-spilling. He seems to be aiming for both, Kanye-style, but he falls miserably short, so he winds up sounding like just another casually misogynistic teen preener.
I've heard about most of these movies, and wanted to see most of them, but have only seen two of them
Since he's putting old songs that somehow charted in 2016 on his list, I'm surprised that Empire of the Sun's "Walking On A Dream" wasn't on there.
I think they still live together, though.
I think this stung for me more because I had already been falling out of love with her for some time before that, so this was just sorta a final confirmation for me.
Anyway:
Dan-O hittin' it out of the park, yo.