Sick Music

GREAT ALBUMS FROM THIS YEAR (SO FAR)
Today I'm going to be listing my favourite albums of this year so far. You might not completely agree with me here.

8. Aesop Rock - The Impossible Kid
First track that I heard off this record was my least favourite track off this album, Kirby. While I do love the instrumental of this track, Aesop's performance here was really obnoxious to me. And that's what kept me away from this album. Later on, I came back to this, and I listened to the track Dorks. That's when I realised that I loved this album. It is a very fun listen, and Aesop comes as very entertaining as well.
Rating: 8.0/10

7. The I.L.Y's - Scum With Boundaries
The passion project by Zach Hill and Andy Morin from Death Grips released an album that is much better from their previous record, I've Always Been Good At True Love, and a much more memorable album, as well. When this first got released, I had only listened to "Stop Yelling in the Museum" and "I'm Gonna Have Sex", both really funny, borderline ridiculous tracks that came as really catchy and memorable to me. However, yesterday, Anthony Fantano from theneedledrop made a review of it and the album was released on Spotify. So I immediately saw his review, listened to the album, instantaneously put the tracks that I listened prior to its release on Spotify, and took my own conclusions. This came out as a really raw project, and it is essentially very rough around the edges. But that's the entire essence of this album. There's some gold in that album, and something for Death Grips fans as well.
Rating: 8.5/10

6. KAYTRANADA - 99.9%
Heard of the project via the comments section of theneedledrop when there was a certain hype between reviewing this and Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book. A lot of hype. I skipped over this. Even when it was reviewed there, I still hadn't paid much attention to it. One day, this curiosity came over my head, and I decided to listen to it. I was pleasantly surprised. Basically KAYTRANADA offers some instrumental tracks (one particularly caught my attention for using a weird vocal sample, LITE SPOTS), and some tracks with guests singing or rapping over them. Reminded me a little bit of some Flying Lotus stuff for some reason, in which he gets a guest to rap or sing over his instrumentals. KAYTRANADA is pretty promising from what I heard, and I'm keeping an eye out for his stuff. You should, too.
Rating: 8.5/10

5. Death Grips - Bottomless Pit
This is one of my favourite Death Grips albums. The catchiness of The Money Store is there, but Death Grips has spiced things up by adding some elements from The Powers That B, specially elements from Jenny Death. From the start to the end of this album, it's a romp. The album starts off with a chilling female voice who keeps saying "I keep giving people good ideas", which is some sort of strange mantra. It is one of the few times in which there is a female vocal contribution in a Death Grips song, and it continues with great tracks such as Hot Head, Spikes, Warping, Eh, Bubbles Buried in This Jungle, Trash, Houdini, Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood and Ring a Bell. This album features some of their best songs to date, particularly a fan of the first five tracks, Three Bedrooms in a Good Neighborhood and Ring a Bell. And it is a perfect album to those who want to start listening to Death Grips, since it is really accessible. If you want to get into their music, listen to The Money Store first, then go into this album. If you liked what you are listening so far, you may proceed listening to whatever else they bring to the table. Overall, some tracks were on point, some where a bit underwhelming and some were hard to get into (took me about five listens to actually get into Trash). This thing is great.
Rating: 9.0/10

4. ScHoolboy Q - Blank Face LP
This album is honestly my favourite Q album to date. While I'm not really a fan of Habits and Contradictions and of Oxymoron (even though there were tracks in it that I liked, this album wasn't THAT great), this album showed me progress for Q. A lot of progress. He's made tracks that are really catchy (THat Part featuring Kanye West and Big Body were tracks that stood out to me in terms of catchiness), tracks that are grimier, that you would normally expect from Q (such as Groovy Tony and Dope Dealer) and many others. This was one really entertaining listen. He shows a lot of energy here. The lyrics are, as I mentioned, extremely catchy, and Q's delivery of these lyrics is fantastic as well. Can't really complain about this album that much, since it offered me of what I wanted to listen from a ScHoolboy Q album. However, some tracks are boring, thus, bringing once again a trouble that I had previously with his albums. Some tracks felt like a chore to go through, and finishing these tracks feels like "I finished the biggest chore ever. Now let's see if I can get something out of this". At the end of the day, this is a great album. Listen to it already.
Rating: 9.0/10

3. Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
When I listened to "The Life of Pablo" for the first time, I remember pressing the play button as quickly as possible because I was extremely excited to listen to it. And when I listened to its first track, Ultralight Beam, I was sort of surprised that I liked it. I am a person who does not like normal gospel music, but I liked this track a lot for some reason. And when this album by Chance the Rapper, I wasn't expecting that much, honestly. I liked his contribution to Ultralight Beam a lot (in fact, he provides my favourite verse in the track). When I listened to the first track, it definitively gave me a throwback at Ultralight Beam, in fact, it reminded me a lot. And it was a great feeling to listen to this track. Not just because of the auto tuned Kanyes singing in the background, not just because of the Children's Choir in this track. It is because everything blended perfectly in this track, and the result was a track that made you feel good about yourself. At least this track made me feel good about myself. The entire album is great. It is a very light listen from beginning to end, and the tracks here make you feel good, really good. Not saying this because I am a person who is religious (but I am not that extremely religious, and I don't think that religion will prevent me from enjoying certain things and etc. But I do believe in God), but I am saying this because of the way that these tracks are made makes you feel really good. This is easily one of this year's best albums in my opinion.
Rating: 9.5/10

2. Swans - The Glowing Man
Swans is a long time experimental rock band, formed way back in 1982. Swans stopped being active in 1997, and in 2010, they came back. Ever since they came back, they came with a new sound. Their best albums of their current incarnation start with 2012's excellent The Seer and end with this year's The Glowing Man. The Glowing Man felt to me like a trip in the skies, its first two tracks are, respectively, Cloud of Forgetting and Cloud of Unknowing. As you should expect from Swans, this album has long, long tracks. This album has three tracks that are longer than 20 minutes, and oh man, in these twenty minutes, you'll be feeling things that you've never felt before. This album is two tracks shorter than To Be Kind and three tracks shorter than The Seer, having only eight tracks. But if it had ten or eleven tracks, this project would have more than three hours. And it'd be a really tiring project. The Glowing Man feels like a goodbye note that reads "We are drifting away, but we'll be back to you soon". Tracks here have some really depressing overtones, some both instrumentally and lyrically and some lyrically. The final track, "Finally, Peace", stood out to me because it is relatively happy instrumentally speaking. It does not feel depressing or anything. But that's when you take context for the instrumental part of this track. When you take out the lyrical context of this track, you'll see that it is somewhat depressing and surreal. And it feels like a great album closer, too. It starts off with this light piece of instrumentation that gently fades away once Swans frontman Michael Gira kicks in the track, and it felt like the band is slowly going away, saying goodbye, whilst describing these odd scenes which come off as really... metaphorical, symbolic, if I were to choose some words to describe them. Some of these tracks also have these weird descriptions of events, such as a person floating in the title track. It's a pretty interesting experience, and it is definitively worth your time. Listen to it already.
Rating: 9.5/10

1. YG - Still Brazy
Remember when I said that catchiness was one of the greatest aspects of Blank Face LP? Well then, catchiness IS the greatest aspect of YG's Still Brazy. While it does have some flaws (it is not a flawless album, and it's not a perfect album as well), such as the somewhat unnecessary interlude tracks, this album for me has some of the best, catchiest tracks from this year. Don't Come to LA, Who Shot Me?, Twist my Fingaz, Why You Always Hatin?, World is Bond, I Got A Question, Bool Balm and Bollective, She Wish She Was, Still Brazy, FDT (which stands for Fuck Donald Trump), Blacks and Browns. These were my favourite tracks off this album, and believe me or not, most of these tracks are in my head right now. They are very catchy. This will please the old school hip hop fan. If you like G-Funk and West Coast Hip-Hop, you are in for a treat. If you like classic G-Funk albums such as Doggystyle (Snoop Dogg) and The Chronic (Dr. Dre), you will like this album. The tracks here display a lot of humour, personality, and YG here does a great job in being extremely entertaining to keep up with as this album flows. FDT is this album's stand out track for me. Yes, it might be tongue in cheek, but this track displays a lot of personality and humour. A lot of it. YG's comments on why you should not vote for Trump are extremely funny. It'll piss you off if you support him, but if you don't like him at all, you are going to like this track. Bool Balm and Bollective reminded me a lot of some tracks off from Doggystyle, and it is also catchy. You might want to play this on repeat for the rest of the day. It shows YG in a hard day, in which he is trying to keep cool, calm and collective. Notice how he changed the c's in the track with b's. And in the title track of the album, and in the album's title, too. This album feels like I am watching episodes of a show that does not follow a strict storyline, and instead, has a new story every episode. In this case, the show is the album and the tracks are the episodes. Essentially, YG does a great job in this album. It is honestly my favourite album so far. Go listen to it right now, go, ya fool! Go!
Rating: 9.5/10

HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Kendrick Lamar (untitled unmastered), Kanye West (The Life of Pablo), Radiohead (A Moon Shaped Pool), Clipping (Wriggle EP), Gorguts (Pleiades' Dust) and finally ANOHNI (Hopelessness)*.

*Just putting ANOHNI here because she's a myth. This album didn't click with me that much but she's a myth.

Thanks for reading. Your opinions?