Top 50 Continued: Featuring asides on the omission of Culinary Art School 2 and Spin missing the point on their album of the year choice

I planned to ride to work on Monday and listen to the Panda Bear album, but my roommate’s car battery died and I had to give him a ride. We decided to listen to the Drake album because he still listens to Kid Rock and putting on Panda Bear would not have been well received, so I had to wait until after work to continue my pitchfork listening adventure. I eventually put it on later that night while I played Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I liked it more than I thought, but I couldn’t get passed endurance mode on novice level, even with Noob Saibot, so that ruined my vibe a little. I’ll probably keep a couple tracks off this one though.

Tuesday I listened to the first nine tracks off Fucked Up’s album on the way to work. Spin named this as their album of the year, but I guess my limitations as a punk rock critic made it difficult for me enjoy it let alone see how it was a major music magazine’s AOTY. (I’d also like to take a moment to point out Spin has a separate list for rap albums of the year… didn't white people agree to stop doing this kind of thing like 50 years ago?) I’m assuming Spin rated it as such because it's an abrasive punk record that provides catharsis for an angsty generation of youth that has been marginalized and overlooked, but I’m gonna have to go ahead and call bullshit on that. Our generation has adopted chillwave/dream beat/bliss pop/whatever as its sound because we just don’t really give a fuck about things and we’d rather listen to the sonic manifestation of not giving a fuck., Fucked Up might be the rallying cry for the minority who prefer catching beat downs from the Oakland PD, but that’s not the reality for most young people… I mean we have iPhones that can talk to us and Snooki lost like 25 pounds, how are we supposed to muster the collective motivation to recycle punk rock angst as the emotion du jour... But I guess if Beavis and Butthead can make a comeback why not punk rock angst? And full disclosure, this is all coming from a dude who thought Culinary Art School 2 was one of the more underrated albums of the year, so the opinions expressed above may not represent the majority view

I finished the rest of Fucked Up on a run after work and moved on to Sandro Perri. As was the case with most of the list to this point, I had no real expectations going in, so it was a pleasant surprise to a hear a more straight forward guitar player/singer songwriter sound. It dragged on a little and there was a ten minute track where he’s singing about a wolfman or something, at which point I began to question the quality of an end-of-the-year album list that contains an album with a ten minute song about a wolfman. The album was pretty weird, but not terrible. I moved onto Iceage during my drive home and it was Kate Bush-level off putting, just in goth/punk rock form. Pitchfork’s capsule calls it "near perfect" while at the same time only dedicating one sentence to its description of the music itself… thanks for keeping me in the loop on the latest teen goth rock buzz band, but this shit was broke as a joke. Deleted.

Now, it could be that my plebian mind just can’t wrap itself around the nuanced genius of some of these albums, but with twenty down, minus the ones I’d already listened to this year (Cults, Toro y Moi, Araabmuzik, and Lykke Li) it’s starting to look like I wasn’t missing out on much during my indie rock hibernation, but I press on...

Pitchfork Top 50 and My Weekend

This week of the year has usually been pretty important to me because it was the weel Pitchfork release its top 50 albums and top 100 songs of the year. Historically it had given me the chance to compare my personal favorites with the albums on the list and if they were similar then it meant I was good at listening to music or something. This year, I've spent the vast majority of my diminished musical appetite downloading mixtapes off datpiff with varying, but pretty enjoyable results.

So anyway, the list came out this week and I didn't recognize like half of things on there, and hadn't heard one song off the number one album. This meant my indie rock listening legitimacy was on the line. So last night began the massive wave of often dense, unapproachable, sometimes boring as fuck, but more often pretty damn good music. By the time my first set of downloads was done, it was around 9 on Saturday night, plenty of time to bang out three or four before I went to bed. So I cooled out to some Youth Lagoon while I ate bean and rice burritos. I was relaxed post-burritos, so the eerie but mostly chill album was a winner. I put on Wild Flag next, mainly because they had the coolest name. It was punk which I thought was pretty cool, but it sounded like a live album and I re-read Pitchfork's review and listened to one of the sample songs and none of them were live recordings, so I thought "What the fuck this is lame, but it's not worth the effort to mess around the intewebs all night looking for a better copy, I'm already 4 songs in and I don't even like punk rock that much" so I rode it out. It actually sounded like it would've been way better on a studio album, but the live version was decent enough. I think I turned on the TV or started texting this tease chick, but I was still in the mood to chill on the couch by my fake Christmas tree, so I put on SBTRKT. I listened to the sample and liked it, plus I always tell myself "I want to get into dubstep more" but never do, so I was pretty hyped to listen to this one. It was fucking awesome and "Trials of Past" is one of new favorite songs. I was pretty amped after I heard that song, and I started craving chocolate, so I transferred my iPod to my headphones and hit the street for 7-11. The rest of SBTRKT bumped accordingly.

I put on the Kendrick Lamar album and walked south on Western. I decided to go the 7-11 that's farther away because I felt like walking outside and I was in a good mood from listening to new music. Kendrick Lamar was pretty tight and I'm mad I slept on this guy. He's definitely an indie rapper because he's more socially aware and doesn't rhyme about stunting and Scarface, so that's definitely why I didn't hear about him via datpiff, and in that a valuable life lesson provided by the pitchfork top 50. I got peanut butter M&Ms and and mountain dew, and at the M&Ms on the way home, but not the Mt Dew. The walk home felt shorter and and I was about 3/4 of the way through the album. I just left my headphones on and drank a Coors Light because that was all we had in the fridge besides the homebrew we made, but we were waiting until the next day (today) to debut them. After the rest of Kendrick Lamar, which lost a little steam towards the end, I put on Liturgy. I haven't listened to a metal record since I bought Rob Zombie and Korn when I was in 6th grade, and I don't even think that counted as metal. Anyway, I listened to Liturgy and watch a show about airplanes and Sportscenter back and forth. The metal was cool and got caught up in some of the visceral rage and started throwing the football across the room onto the futon next to the christmas tree, but that got old, as did listening to metal with nobody else around watching some boring ass airplane show on mute because it was the only interesting thing to watch without sound. So I made it about 8 songs through Liturgy, but I'm gonna keep it on my iTunes in case I start going on coke binges or having cage fights in my house, or both.

I woke up this morning with my mind on this mission and put on the Colin Stetson album. It was a pretty brutal listen, kind of like stuff my band teacher probably hopes I'm appreciating right now, and most likely what the kids who really really were into band in high school are listening to, and I respect that, but I wasn't feeling it at all. I put the Frank Ocean mixtape on next and listened to it on my iPod in the car on the way to the gym, which I know is illegal, but I see people doing it all the time, and you don't really need to hear when you drive anyway. It lasted about half way through my workout and there was really nothing too exceptional about it, but I liked "American Wedding." Still though... two songs on Watch the Throne for this guy? I'm missing something.

I put on Katy B for no reason other than that being the first new one I found in my iTunes scroll. Great album, I'm keeping it for sure. It ended when I was driving home so I put on Kate Bush using the same system mentioned above. I had some optimism since I like "Suspended in Gaffa" but "Suspended in Gaffa" this album was not... I could go for a long time about how I feel about this album, but instead I'll direct you to the track called "50 words for snow." It totally killed my post-workout buzz and sapped me of all will to bargain shop through Aldi, so I just got the basic necessities and bounced, although my bill of $19.86 was both under $20 and my birth year, both things I believed were signs of good luck in the upcoming business year.... then I realized I was leaking brain fuel because of the Kate Bush album, so I turned off my iPod, put away my groceries and took a nap. I woke up and put on Sepaculture which took me three tries to download. It lost me after three tracks so I took a shower and listened to the rest of it as I read newspaper articles and Twitter. I thought I was pitchforktop50'd out for the day, but I took a three hour break and put on the "War on Drugs album while I wrote this. It's my second favorite of the day after Katy B. Has a neo-Petty/Springsteen feel... borderline keeper

Myke G learns a rapper named Mike G exists, is impressed, slightly saddened that one of his potential rapper names is now off the table

It's been a little while since I put my music thoughts into writing, so I have a good amount of opinions to espouse. I've been listening to predominantly hip hop this year, and I'm happy with the direction the genre is currently moving, so the next couple weeks I'll go over my thoughts on what I've listened to this year.

Earlier today, I stumbled across Award Tour EP, a six song tape by a rapper called Mike G. Mike G is a dude with a tight name and one of a massive amount of dudes in Odd Future. I'm not that into OF, mainly because I haven't caught up with all their output yet, not for any specific dislike of their sound.

Anyway, mainly because this dude's name is Mike G, and he was a dude in OF who I had never even heard of before today, I gave the tape a spin. I downloaded it here, and the file came with a bunch of race car image files corresponding with the six songs on the EP, which ends up being kind of ironic -- and I'm like 99% in an unintentional way - as most of its tracks are roomy synth beats that belie a sound that would best be acommanied by 2009 Toyota Yarises, or at least some old school pimped out Caddies since it's a hip hip EP and putting pics of Yarises would not be G at all.

Much like a Yaris, Mike G mantains a steady, fuel efficient talk-rap flow against Neptunes-inspired synth and drum machine beats. His flow plays well off the beats, but his rhymes are average. He plays with some of the ultra violence Tyler the Creator deals in heavily, but he doesn't stick to it, so when rhymes randomly pop up about Jeffery Dommer and burning down his family's house, it's more bizarre and out-of-place than anything else, at least to one who isn't familiar with Odd Future.

The EP is co-hosted, Ghostface Killa on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx style, by some dude named Vince Staples, who spits with a nasally, uptempo style. He's mostly forgettable but stays out of the way of the beats enough to tolerate. The only other guest spot is by something called SPEAK, who, other than dropping a Hacksaw Jim Duggan reference, is pretty weak.

The beats are all solid, the dude has the same name as I, and it's good background music at minimum, so it'll be in my iTunes for a while.

Rating: Better than Kreayshawn