While I definitely appreciate the genre, R&B is somewhat inaccessible to me and hard to get into, especially if it is more retro-throwback tinged. Thankfully, K. served this incredible R&B album, keeping it super current without sacrificing quality. My personal favorite is "Going Under" which is an extremely progressive and hard to not love. K.'s vocals soar over the entire album, and she sounds literally ***flawless in every got damn track. The quality is also very consistent through the whole album, I **** with every track "Judge Me" through "Bulid a Man". However, I don't really use "Drake Would Love Me", which is ok, but leans on the uninteresting and too-slow R&B I talked about not being a fan of, although the content of the song is intriguing to say the least. I also don't care for "God I Get It" which is just entirely cheesy, drab, and unlistenable to me. Overall, however, 'Anybody Wanna Buy A Heart?' is an amazing album, I'm so happy it smashed (first week) like it did, and I love K. and can't wait to see what she does with the rest of her career.
The Essential Tracks: "Love 'Em All", "Going Under", "Something About the Night", "Miss You, Goodbye", "Build a Man"
Out of all of the cornball acts in pop, these two easily take the cake. That being said, for some reason I love Karmin and find myself always rooting for them! While they apparently had a rough year, getting dropped from their label and releasing a flop album, 'Pulses' is actually completely solid. the title track is an anthem and the singles "Acapella" and "I Want It All" are both aces despite fizzling on the charts. "Night Like This" is your typical pop radio party song, but its executed well and its a jam. "Neon Love" is a cute little ballad that showcases Amy's pipes -- which are amazing if you didn't know -- and "Gasoline" adds an island flare to the album. As I said, I know these two are cheesy as all get out, from the glee-club-esque vocal quirks that litter the album and Amy's odd, BEYOND white girl drunk at a New Year's Eve party rapping skills (mama can flow, tho), which keeps the album from being accessible to certain people, and I definitely get that.The album is also a little dated, a song or two on here have some extremely late dubstep influences, like... do better hennies. Even with that, 'Pulses' is definitely an album to check out if you don't take music super seriously all of the time and can enjoy a platitudinal, although well made and very catchy pop album. I also really love the cover for some reason but idk.
The Essential Tracks: "Pulses", "Night Like This", "Neon Love", "Hate That I Love You", "What's In it For Me"
Young Money (Tyga, Nicki Minaj, & Lil Wayne) - "Senile"
If there was an urban KNOCK this year it was this song right here. I obviously love Nicki and Tyga and Wayne are whatever but the real star of the show here is whoever produced this BEAT! Literally so good, icy and HARD. Woo. It's the original, better "Only" and I'm still bopping.
I LOVE this song so much. First of all, omg let's get into the PRODUCTION! It's so immense and heavenly and Calvin really hit it out of the park. Also the singer's voice fits SO perfectly and he sounds amazing. There is a certain kind of bliss and euphoria that only a Calvin Harris production can bring you and it hits hard here. I think I kinda done ****ed around and out this song a little too low cuz now listening back I'm realizing I like it a lot more than I thought I did.
I won't even front and act like Iggy isn't the main reason I use this song, but honestly I do love "No Mediocre" overall. T.I. does his thing or whatever but Mustard gave this song an amazing island-y beat and it's almost addictive. But yeah like I said I love Iggy here and think it's probably her best guest verse. "But I need a bad boy, rest in peace Whitney but I don't think none of these bitches ****ing with me" >>>> The video is also amazing and the Queen of Rap looks BEYOND in it.
Various Artists - 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Pt. 1 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'
I love love love The Hunger Games books and film series, but oddly enough with how into music I am I never really paid much attention to the soundtracks to either of the first two movies. However, after it was announced that Lorde was curating the album and seeing the AMAZING line up, I knew I had to check this out. Out of the artists I was previously familiar with (Charli XCX, Tove Lo, Lorde, Miguel, Ariana Grande, etc.) I was so completely blown away by the quality of songs they offered up, particularly with Charli and Tove, as "Kingdom" and "Scream My Name" are some of the best songs in their discographies. I also was introduced to Chvrches with this soundtrack, where they submitted "Dead Air", another great song. Although there are so many different artists contributing to the album, its a very cohesive piece of work that rightfully matches the dark and moody tone of that of the movie it represents. A few of the songs on here are duds for me (Bat For Lashes, Grace Jones, and Raury's entries) so I couldn't rank the album super high, but as I have said, overall the album is very strong. Another thing that makes it hard to judge and rank a soundtrack is how situational and brief the excitability of the release is, for example I probably won't be spinning this much longer since the movie has come and gone already, but still that doesn't detract its greatness. I can only hope that Mockingjay Pt. 2 is supported by an equally amazing soundtrack.
The Essential Tracks: "Meltdown", "Scream My Name", "Kingdom", "All My Love", "Animal"
One of the first tracks to spark the DJ Mustard flame this year was also one of the best, and it's this icy bop. The beat is hotter than hell and the chorus is soooo good. B.o.B. isn't an artist I usually care for much but he slays his verse as well. The music video adds another layer to the song like any good video should. Idk if we'll ever hear much again from Ty $ but at least he served us one of the smoothest hip hop baps of 2014.
"Problem" is a cute liddo song by two artists that I love, but at the same time it's not AMAZING to me. It's great, but doesn't really excel in any one area... It's catchy but the hook isn't phenomenal, the beat is alright, the video is a stinker and Iggy's verse doesn't really add much to the song. All of that said, it's still an extremely fun pop song and I'm happy it was a SMASH because it really helped launch both of my sisda's careers.