t.w.i.m.: 11/14-11/20

Full Albums:

• Bar-Kays, The Best of Bar-Kays
• Beyonce, 4
• Childish Gambino, Campfire¹
• Drake, Take Care²
• Jay-Z and Kanye West, Watch the Throne
• Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
• Left Lane Cruiser, Bring Yo’ Ass to the Table
• Porcupine Tree, The Incident³
• Spoon, Gimme Fiction
• The Weeknd, House of Balloons

Random Excellence:

• The Wu-Tang Clan, “Da Mystery of Chessboxin'”
• The xx, “Intro”
• Van Halen, “Unchained”
• Spoon, “Take the Fifth”
• Raekwon, “Wu-Gambinos”

Songs of the Week:

• Them Crooked Vultures, “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I”⁴
• Bar-Kays, “Too Hot to Stop (Part One)”
• Yelle, “Tu Es Beau”
•  Mayer Hawthorne, “No Strings”
• Ladyhawke, “Back of the Van”

Reviews:

1. This was kind of a delight. It’s a little graphic and dark, but it also has some pretty great lines on it. Production is literally leaps and bounds ahead of his first EP.

2. This one’s like the third-grade class clown who keeps getting bullied: Sometimes it’s the center of all the attention, spitting out jokes and puns left and right, then it just got punched in the kidney and it’s crying in the corner by itself. But the worst part seems to be that his bullies are the girls he was just entertaining. I think that’s it. He’s in some kind of loop where he seduces every woman in sight, gets caught, then feels sad, works off the sadness, and goes back to the seduction. A vicious cycle of sadness where he’s the only reason he’s sad. But I’m not sure that’s the case; what I can definitively tell you is, it’s a spotty album where I’ll skip a bunch of songs because he’s crying again. I just want the jokes, funny man. I think you can couch your jokes in your sadness, but wallowing is probably too much. Get to a psychologist so you can take proper care of yourself.

3. This is a really difficult album to stomach. It’s a lot of really dense music paired with some simple songs. I actually had to take a break from it because it’s so big and so diverse. I didn’t realize, until doing some research for this, that it was originally packaged in two CDs. That should probably give you a better understanding of what I’m saying: I think most LPs (no more than, say, 30 minutes) aren’t enough and most double albums (pretty much 65 minutes or more, though CDs fit about 80 minutes) are too much. The way most people seem to listen to music demands switching from album to album after 45 to 55 minutes. And when an album mixes so much quiet, peaceful music with so much rock, it’s going to be a challenge. That said, it’s a difficult album–not a bad one.

4. What a bridge, am I right? I can feel my face melt a little every single time.

Comment:

Sometimes I have this recurring nightmare where I’m the teacher in what I think is some kind of haunted school. It scares the crap out of me and always make me wonder if I’m being haunted when I wake up. Things will always happen differently and I never really remember my students’ names, but they seem to always be the same.

This time around, I saw one of the students by the bus stop. I decided I needed to show him an app on my phone. I realized while displaying it, I could neither remember which part I needed to show him nor why I thought he’d be interested. He told me it was okay, then dropped a nickel down the water grate to his right. I apologized again and told him I was now sorry he’d lost his nickel, too. He wasn’t concerned.

Then a car raced past and crashed around the corner. I dropped my things and sprinted over. The car had flipped. I unbuckled the driver and pulled her out. I ran around and unbuckled the passenger. I carried him away from the leaking car and laid him down next to the driver. Someone else had called for help, so I started to ask the operator for advice on their vitals.

Then I woke up.

My workout routine and my work researching websites and apps appears to have become more stressful than usual. I look forward to taking some time to  just catch up with my family. Yes, I can only barely wait for Thanksgiving.

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