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#1 SONG REVEALED|Kang his best of 2015 reloaded the re-up
ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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Drake/Future was coool its much more bop-worthy than his solo one although I listened to If You're Reading This... a lot more
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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Currently browsing: 4 members
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Member Since: 1/6/2014
Posts: 21,185
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yeah i haven't listened to blur as well even tho i want to
pageant material was lowkey a stepdown from stdp but still very enjoyable from most part
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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shiiiiiit this brewing controversy 
*types*
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is a good album! Not my favorite from Florence, but I liked it.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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shots, shots, now let's ****in' party
shots, shots, now let's ****in' party
shots, shots, now let's ****in' party
shots, shots, now let's ****in' party
34. Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife
No one ever really cared about swag-rap, so it all fell upon the Brothers Sremm to prove its validity as something that could survive and thrive over a length of time equivalent to that of a TV drama episode, aand...well they Swae'd me and I'm sure enough others too. It just sounds like these boys had the time of their life making this album but that they took it on as a super serious task at the same time. They get some help from a couple famous friends but for the most part it stays something like a solo (well duo) mission and still never drags a bit owing to the energy and charisma they bring to the table. but like not even a verse Nicki?? Every one of these songs could've been its own type of HUGE but even the fact that so many of them actually were really says everything that needs to be said.
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it took so long for me to see it
hope’s a burden or it sets you free
wandered through the void of you
wandered through the void of me
i've grown afraid of everything that i love
33. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love
There was always something keeping me away from this band (Portlandia funny as **** though) but after FINALLY listening at the end of the year I was pretty shook at the all around tightness of the playing, singing, songwriting, structuring, just everything on display here and I think I now owe myself another look around their past. I don't know how much I'm really equipped to say without much of a clue on what the lyrics are about or where everything stands in relation to all the albums that came before this, but yeah mainly just a slick as **** straightforward rock record, and if you were on the fence about ever listening the way I was then please don't be.
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i was gonna kill a couple rappers but they did it to themselves
everybody's suicidal, they ain't even need my help
this **** is elementary, i'll probably go to jail
if i shoot at your identity and bounce to the left
stuck a flag in my city, everybody's screamin' "compton!"
i should probably run for mayor when I'm done, to be honest
32. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Ayyyyyyy, so yes if you're one of the several people I've tried to engage in conversation with this year about this album then you've probably picked up how I have more negative things to say about it than I do positive, but that's what happens when you don't take the easy way out. Disregard all the issues I took with TPAB, small and big, and what you have left is a master of his craft operating at a very very high level. It's funny if you came to me a year ago and told me Ken was on the move towards more of a OutKast/FlyLo/D'Angelo/Badu school of jazzy thought then I would have been more hyped than anything. What we actually got was...not what I wanted, but then maybe this is the album that some other people who were not me actually needed. But either way (and mind u, i've a tendency to be very, very almost scarily right) I can appreciate that through some of TPAB's lifelessness and dumb ass repetitive poetry and rapist idolization, it's an album to be wrestled with, to be thought about even at the times I have no interest in listening to any of its songs. Cuz that's something we don't get a lot of these days in rap music, but then sweet sweet Kendrick is in a lot of ways more than a rapper. Just wish he did a better job of buffing things up to the quality of the absolute best songs here, because damnnn. Some of themmm.
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 24,463
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TPAB is amazing in many ways 
Rae;s album was pretty fun for a couple of listens.
Sleater's was also great.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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Great set! I love all three albums! Especially the Sleater-Kinney comeback, so worth it... they're probably my favourite band now
I figured TPAB would be a bit low on your list but I see what you mean about why! I love the album
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 4/3/2014
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Great picks for TPAB 
Never really gave that Rae Sremmurd's album a chance. 
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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Quote:
Originally posted by lovesong
Great set! I love all three albums! Especially the Sleater-Kinney comeback, so worth it... they're probably my favourite band now
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What else do you like a lot from them?
The thing I hear is how all their albums are so different from each other, that leaves like... a lot of paths to get into things
Quote:
Originally posted by Vapour
Great picks for TPAB
Never really gave that Rae Sremmurd's album a chance. |
It's a really easy one to listen to! But probably one where if you didn't like a couple songs/the singles then the rest won't be much for you either lol
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kang.
What else do you like a lot from them?
The thing I hear is how all their albums are so different from each other, that leaves like... a lot of paths to get into things
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Their last album The Woods is the best!
I also enjoyed Dig Me Out a lot and The Hot Rock.
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 13,978
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Sleater Kinney definitely came through with the most consistent album of the year, not a bad song on it.
Florence surprised me with their album, revived my liking for them a bit.
Aaaaand TPAB. I think the bottom line for me with that album is above all things I just loved the actual music of it so much, and I think it's so infectious, personally. But it's just one of the few albums I had to come back to every day for a long period of time, and something that just rewards you with multiple listens to get into the lyrical content and stuff like that. I can see how certain things in it can get old like the repeating poem and interview and all that, but it's just not as big of a deal to me. But yeh it's different for everyone!
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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you'll see lightning cascading
pronouncements of our love
of our love
tell me, why do i feel you running away?
31. Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness
Dreamy and prettyyy. You can just tell a lot of work went into this album. There's this total orchestral vibe and it's brought to life by super well thought out arrangements that over the course of all the songs bring a ton of moods together, so that 45 minutes in when you're wrapping up your time inside this little world you feel like you've really been on some kind of crazy ride, and you may or may not come out exhausted from it. In a good way. It's just paced so well, + of course narrated so effectively by our guide Julia. Cuz she doesn't really function as a protagonist at all here; this album feels like the one below it on this list (this comparison has never been made before) where every song is its own story, but without too much information ever provided for us, neither us nor she ever feel like direct participants in the environment. So we're just along for the ride, but maybe for our own good, since for all we know it's all we'd be able to handle.
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 oh caroline, stay away from the light
cause people never make it out alive
so come on down because you're going too high
(but she heard)
don't be scared, start living your life
30. Jazmine Sullivan - Reality Show
She was actually supposed to be so many spots lower but every time as I started to sample the album around to write about it she just kept jumping up and up and up, I guess quality always wins. Anyway Jazmine is back after a FourFive year break, and as hinted in the title a lot of her songs this time around are structured as these kind of character sketches that always come around to illustrate whatever message she's really trying to push through the track, nn in that way they're kinda like LOST flashbacks. I just love the perspective she's taken up here; in the past she's played jealous, vengeful etc. etc. really really well, but here she's moved on to a much more self-loving, empathetic state of mind but still one that has absolutely no time to put up with your ********. Jaz was always one of the best singers around but I feel in her time off she's only grown stronger and more refined in that department. It doesn't even matter if she has though because she 100% without a doubt stands out a BUNCH more in today's musical landscape than she did right when she first debuted. It's like she's surrounded on one side by this new crop of ghosty ~alt-R&B~ singers and on the other by the bleeps and bloops and all the assorted **** that urban radio has turned into (both sides have their charms) and she has no interest in conforming to either and comes out sounding fresher than a huge majority of both for that reason. Yeah so I wish I listened to this album more throughout the year because I'm sure it could have been growing on me for all that time instead but it's cool all that matters is that it's the real deal.
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liquidate the dreams so they can find somebody else
exasperate the means
it's all about wealth
choose to represent me like a dick caught in zipper
ally i be on my own marching through the champs-élysées
i’m easy
29. Young Fathers - White Men Are Black Men Too
So the Brits have more rap for us, except this time it's waay more in the vein of like, TV on the Radio than the picture I have in my mind when I think about hip hop of any kind, no matter how 'experimental' I trust the group making it to be. But it's good! I genuinely don't know how to write about this music because there's so much going on in it, but, the way eye see it possibly, these guys are dealing with e•motions and other dark stuff, and maybe those things just come out easier when you're yelping and howling and mumbling than they do when you're consciously working to mold your feels into bars. Not that they don't come out and spit when the time is right; sometimes these are the moments that hit the hardest and make you think about how some of our own rappin could be structured differently for a better effect. Also the way I see things, the title kinda feeding into this -- is that a lot of these songs come as a reaction from across the pond at some of the ****ed up **** happening in our own country (u.s), like as a big musical '...wyd!' Through the darkness comes out a very very pro-human feel. Then in the music too; they go from vulnerable, tender to LOUD and abrasive and scary (Dare Me) and LOUD again, there's a lot of loud! I love the noise. But what I love the most is how there's always something going on and you can fumble your way around in the dark looking for ways to explain in it like I just did, or you can just enjoy and wait for the light to come on.
And they **** all over Death Grips
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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I need to check out Rae Sremmurd's album! They have some bops 
Kendrick Lamar 
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Member Since: 10/3/2009
Posts: 35,844
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Julia Holter - Have You in My Wilderness. There you go, another album to consider for next year's YECD.
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Banned
Member Since: 1/1/2014
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Rae Sremmurd
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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TPAB is super super flawed but that's sort of its appeal for most people right?
SK's album 
Have You in my Wilderness slays, glad u Enjoy.
Couldn't get into Young Fathers for some reason.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 13,761
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hm, i disagree that tpab is 'lifeless' (or that there are elements thereof in the album), in fact i'd say the exact opposite, but at least it's somewhere
reality show is good too
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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we ARE the new africana
28. Mbongwana Star - From Kinshasa
Lol I noticed this cuz it had a super high score on Metacritic and I may have slotted it a little high after my first couple listens the same way I did with some other albums I only got around to in November/December but it's gonna be ok!!! The shtick here is polyrhythms, like the actual authentic African kind just with a lot of electronics mixed in, as opposed to the kind of stuff Talking Heads used to do which I still also loved. Boiii I don't even know what language these lyrics are in but the huge crazy walls of sound that get built up in each track are more than enough to hold my attention.
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 with a yell, as you've won against the deep
laugh the chasm
27. Panda Bear - Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
It Prettyyy .. Pretty Grim !!!'1! I think this was like the first big release of the year, so instead of holding it to the ridiculous expectation of keeping me entertained all year long I'm really just feeling good about it sounding as tight now as it did all the way back then. You might be able to tell this is a very death-fixated album, but not in the way that I feel some of his others have been, spurned by some specific event happening in his life. Nah his perspective through the songs here (from what I can gleam from them) is closer to how I expect any aging young parent would feel on the subject, some weird mix of weary, curious, protective, etc. etc. and the music does a great job of communicating all this at the appropriate times. Just a big ass kaleidoscope orgy With A Side Of .. Strawbry Jam.
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to the depths and you're wet
so your tank explodes, so get it out
send your body to flight
everybody got a target tonight
26. The Chemical Brothers - Born in the Echoes
You can go and fill in most of this write-up with the stuff I wrote in Sleater-Kinney's re: my ignorance, late adoption + such. Just swapping out "slick as **** straightforward rock record" with "slick as **** slightly creepy dance bangers that don't let up until the Beck collab comes to shift the axis at the last minute."
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Yesssss I love two of these. Maybe I'll check the other one out do You think I would like it?
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