Tag: Albums

Is it just me or does this new Kanye West snippet from ‘Donda’ not sound too great?

The leaks from Kanye West’s new album feel really meh.

Okay, look. Full disclosure, here. This opinion is coming from the guy who called Yeezus trash. This is an opinion that I stand by, too. So, maybe I’m not the best judge of Kanye West’s post-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sound.

With that being said, though, I can’t be the only one who hasn’t been excited about the snippets from his new album ‘Donda’ that have made their way into the ether.

We got our first taste of the new album’s sound in a Beats commercial of all places. We saw Sha’Carri Richardson lining up for a race with headphones in and Ye’s new single from the album “No Child Left Behind” was playing.

This was…alright?

There’s no way to really have an opinion on this because it sounds like we just got a section of the track on a loop for the entire minute.

Obviously, Kanye is sticking to the new Christian Rap sound he adapted for 2019’s “Jesus is King.” It sounds like church organs are playing and the lyrics “He’s done miracles on me” keep looping.

Alrighty. Cool. This is alright. Nothing worth going crazy over, certainly. But this is fine. The next snippet, though? This is probably where the disappointment comes from for me.

One would think when you have two absolutely generational producers like Kanye West and Mike Dean in a room together they’d make some sort of mind-melding, incredible sound that shatters music.

But here’s what we got.

It sounds like some sort of attempt at creating a Christian drill song? Which, without thinking about it, sounds alright! But in execution? Fam. This is not it. This beat is plain. Ye doesn’t sound the greatest over it. What are those random, awful screams in it? What’s going on here?

This just doesn’t sound the greatest. And it doesn’t feel all that creative, either. If it’s one thing we’ve known Kanye West to do it’s completely shift music. Whether it be with a new sound, a new feature, some sort of rhyme scheme. He always comes with something different.

But this sounds like Kanye chasing a sound that’s already there. A sound that isn’t his own or one that he created. Despite my strong aversion to Yeezus, even I have to admit that Ye at least tried different things with it. And though they didn’t work for me, I can appreciate the attempt. This snippet doesn’t sound new at all.

That’s the thing, though. This is a snippet. There’s still an album to come. And it will probably (hopefully?) sound much more like a buildup from the first snippet rather than a continuation of the second.

And then, maybe, I’ll finally buy some Yeezys.

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FTW’s top 20 albums of 2020

Counting down our 20 favorite records of 2020, from artists like Waxahatchee, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Bad Bunny, and more.

In a year when an entire globe was forced to be cooped up at home, music took on a new importance in many of our lives. Stuck in place, scared, with a global pandemic raging, many of us turned to music to comfort us, to give us a distraction, to give us something that we could turn all the way up and scream along to, if only, for a moment, to escape our own thoughts.

Below is a list of our 20 favorite albums of the year. Our rubric was laughably imprecise — we simply asked music fans on staff to share what albums meant a lot to them this year, and write a few sentences about what they meant. Cobbled together, we got our 20 for 2020. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Everything you need to know about Taylor Swift’s surprise new album: ‘evermore’

Everything you need to know about the surprise new album from Taylor Swift, including release date, order information, tracklist and more.

On Thursday morning Taylor Swift stunned her fans by announcing that she was dropping yet another new album, this one in time for the holiday season. The album will be called evermore and is available for digital pre-order right now.

It’s a stunning amount of output from Swift, who already released folklore this year, which I reviewed (very positively) earlier this year. Couple that with the long pond studio sessions, a Disney+ film that showed her performing the songs off folklore with collaborators Aaron Dessner, Bon Iver and Jack Antonoff, and it has been a very busy few months indeed for Swift.

Swift announced the track list and shared the cover art in a tweet on Thursday morning:

Considering the collaborators noted (The National, Bon Iver, and Haim) and the somewhat similar album art, it would seem this record is a natural extension of folklore, and perhaps all these songs were recorded in a flurry of activity during the pandemic. (Update: In another tweet, Swift made clear this was a “sister” album to folklore. There you go.)

evermore again is available for digital pre-order now, and appears will be released as soon as midnight tonight. Fans can purchase the digital edition for $9.99 and will receive an exclusive digital booklet as part of the order.

Taylor Swift ‘folklore’ instant review: A stunning accomplishment

Taylor Swift ‘folklore’ instant review: A stunning accomplishment

‘folklore’ is a stunning statement from Taylor Swift, at a moment when it’s entirely necessary.

On Friday morning Taylor Swift dropped folklore, her new album that came as a bit of a surprise. The album has a feature from Bon Iver, and credits to the National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner, and Jack Antonoff, among others.

Looking at the cover, which was released earlier this week, and seeing that producer list, it was clear before a song was released that this was going to be Taylor’s “escape to the woods” album, a quiet, reflective indie piece that would show a stripped-down side of Swift.

It’s more than that, though. At first listen, at least for me, it’s her best album since 1989, and right up there with the very best work of her career. It’s also a record I’m excited to spend time with. It feels like it can only grow from here.

Other pop stars have attempted this “escape to the woods” album, and most have failed (ahem, Justin Timberlake). But Swift’s songwriting has always made sense to be pared down; she started as a girl with an acoustic guitar, a hell of a voice, and a notebook full of capital-F Feelings.

Now she’s taken that and added the best of indie rock production, and what she’s achieved, at first blush anyway, is staggering.

The album begins with “the 1” and from the first notes, all sultry piano, you’re struck. I had one word in my notes: “confidence.”

Even the song sounds confident, with Swift not returning to the woods to feel sorry for herself, but rather to reflect on what could have been with a knowing and mature candor. She swears freely and easily, not for affect, like she has done in the past (“look, I cuss now, like an ADULT!” she almost seemed to say), but with a worldly understanding that sometimes a dirty word is the only way to get a point across.

“It would have been fun, if you would have been the one” she sings, a lover looking back fondly, and a little sadly, at a lost relationship. Over her voice, lush production swells. Taylor has had several re-inventions in her career, but this is the first one, to me at least, that felt real, and earned, and not put on for affect. It had only taken about 30 seconds, but here I was — a believer.

From there, she settles into a wonderful rhythm. “When you are young they assume you know nothing,” she sings on “cardigan,” before singing to the glory of youth – romps through the rain, getting regrettable tattoos, all of the stupid stuff we do before we know better. It’s not overtly political, but it packs a punch beyond one of just pure nostalgia — she understands that the stupidity and innocence of youth has its own power.

The album is 16 tracks, and while a few get lost in the shuffle, she never loses focus. There are ballads, and a few more ballads, and a few rockers. She manages to channel Bruce Springsteen (!) at times, notably on “the last great american dynasty,” a song about privilege in Rhode Island. (Just listen to it.)

Later on, “epiphany” is nothing but strings, a piano, and the layers of Swift’s voice. It at once channels Enya (I mean this as a true compliment) and some of the middle-era Bon Iver. The track builds, and builds, then at one stunning moment, Swift’s voice cuts out, and is replaced by … a lone french horn, which plays out softly in the background. I started cackling with joy.

This is confident music. For years now, Swift has found success in bringing in big pop producers to fill out her sound, adding layers upon layers to achieve outrageous pop maximalism. At times it can truly succeed — see all of 1989 — but at other times it could feel a bit like the producers added a coat of lime green paint and 20-inch rims to an economy car.

Here, Swift has the confidence to get rid of it all. Well, most of it all. These songs still are produced fantastically, warm and inviting, but it’s just what’s needed. A touch of static here. A stark piano chord there. A lone, haunting french horn.

Some tracks hew to old Taylor Swift formulas — “betty” could have been placed on her first album and wouldn’t feel out of place; the from-the-get Swifties will surely love it — but for the most part this feels new, and right.

It feels of the moment. She said her time in quarantine sparked something creatively in her, and it sure seems to have. This is an album for solitude, for being alone, but it isn’t despondent. It’s one of hope. It sounds spectacular. I’m eager to listen again.

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