Album Reviews: Kanye West - Donda

 by Alex Goode

Let's be real for a moment, you 100% know who Kanye West is. Whether it be from classic tracks like "Heartless" or "POWER", or from his recent shift into more gospel-inspired music, or from any of his crazy off-stage antics, I'm willing to bet that you know who he is in some way. And that's for a good reason, there's no denying the amount of creativity and influence that Kanye West has. Throughout his career, he's proven himself to be a powerhouse of talent and charisma, but you might be surprised to know that he only has a total of nine studio albums under his belt. There's been a few records that he started making and then didn't finish, but yeah. Only nine. Until now, that is. Kanye has returned with his tenth studio album, Donda (the title being a tribute to his late mother, Donda West). After weeks of speculation, weeks of listening parties, weeks of hype, some fans started to wonder if the project was ever gonna come out. And then, unexpectedly, on August 29th of 2021, it did. Kanye posted on his Instagram that UMG released the album without his permission, though. I don't know if that's true, but I still feel like it's worth saying. At any rate, I'm here to talk about it. There's a grand total of 27 tracks (thanks for that), so I should go ahead and get started.

Album Reviews: Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever

 by Alex Goode

Hey, everyone. Stillthony Latetano here, back with another less-than-timely album review. I'm not too off with this one, though, only about four weeks roughly. This time, I wanna talk about the new Billie Eilish record: Happier Than Ever. I'm willing to bet you've heard of Billie Eilish, she's pretty popular. She very quickly rose to fame when her song "Ocean Eyes" blew up, ultimately leading to the release of her don't smile at me EP in 2017. That project definitely has some hits, but I think it's overall a pretty mixed bag. And then there's the case of her debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, which dropped in 2019. I think that LP is very good, a super solid full-length debut. And now, Billie has returned once more with her sophomore album, the highly-anticipated "Happier Than Ever". It released on July 30th of 2021, and I was looking forward to it quite a bit. I thought a lot of the singles from it were pretty good, and I dig the aesthetic of the cover art (especially in contrast to that of WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP). I'm a little late, but now I'm finally getting around to listening to it and giving my thoughts on it. There's a total of 16 tracks on here, so I have quite a bit of ground to cover.

Album Reviews: Danny Elfman - Big Mess

 by Alex Goode

Danny Elfman is a name that you likely are familiar with. Maybe you remember him as the frontman of Oingo Boingo, or maybe you know him from his multiple collaborations with Tim Burton, but, whatever the reason may be, it's very likely that you know who he is. Well, as of October of 2020, he's back. He's releasing original music again, not just film scores! He started releasing a flurry of singles over the course of eight months, starting in October of 2020 and ending in May of 2021, which ultimately led to the June 2021 release of Big Mess, his first solo studio album since 1894's So-Lo (unless you consider that an Oingo Boingo project, like a bunch of people do). I'm a little late to it, I know, but I've been working on projects of my own recently and I haven't had a lot of time for blogs. That's gonna change, though. I'm gonna try and get these out semi-regularly, and I'm starting with a late review of Danny Elfman's Big Mess. There's a beefy tracklist, 18 songs in total, so I better get started.

EP Reviews: Matt Watson - OUCH!

 by Alex Goode

Hey, everyone. Trumpthony Gonetano here, coming at you with another blog where I talk about music that was made by a guy named Matt. This time, it's one of my favorite YouTube personalities: Matt Watson. You've probably heard of Watson, he's one half of SuperMega, he used to edit for Game Grumps, he's one of the funniest people on the entire internet. Well, did you know that he also dabbles in music? Cause he does! He is one of the founders of the Lazy Eye music label, said label sometimes produces music videos for other artists, and Matt also makes music of his own. He traditionally is known for more humorous music: "I'm In Love With My Dad", "No Nut November", the Nathan's Christmas trilogy. Then, he dropped the "covid-19 type beat" track, which showed that Watson is capable of producing unironic bangers from time to time. This paved the way for Matt to maybe release a more laid-back project in the near future, and that's exactly what he ended up doing! On September 3rd of 2020, Matt released an EP called OUCH!, and I have basically hyperfixated on it in the last few months. I guess now is as good of a time as any to properly give my thoughts on it. There's only six tracks, so this probably won't be too long of a review. 

Album Reviews: Matt Martians - The Drum Chord Theory

 by Alex Goode

Hello, everybody! My name is Barely Awake, and welcome back to another album review. This time, I'm taking it back a few years and not talking about a new release. I asked one of my friends for a suggestion as to what I should look into reviewing, he recommended this, and so here we are. This is The Drum Chord Theory, it was released on January 27th of 2017, and it was the debut solo studio album by Matt Martians. Let it be known that I am not too familiar with Matt's work outside of his contributions to Odd Future. Listening to this album was my first experience with Matt's solo work, so I guess there's no better start than by checking out his debut. It's a few seconds shy of being 42 minutes in length, and there's just twelve tracks, so this will be a much smoother experience than doing Music to Be Murdered By was. I'm very interested in checking this out, so let's get to it.

Album Reviews: Eminem - Music to Be Murdered By (Deluxe Edition)

 by Alex Goode

At this point, I don't think Eminem needs an introduction. He's widely regarded as the greatest rapper of all time, he's one of the biggest-selling artists ever, you definitely have heard of him. Irregardless of whether or not you like him, I know you've heard of him. Well, he's back with yet another surprise release. I'm just gonna be honest and say that it's getting a little predictable. It was pretty cool with Kamikaze cause it made sense. The title, the themes, it was a good idea to just drop it without announcement. After three of those, though, it's getting a little stale. But whatever, that's besides the point. This new album is a deluxe edition of Eminem's eleventh studio album, Music to Be Murdered By. The original was released on January 17th of 2020, and this deluxe version (title Side B) dropped on December 18th of 2020. Side B keeps all 20 of the original album's songs, and adds on 16 more, which rounds the tracklist out to a whopping 36 tracks. The average Eminem fan is probably going crazy right now, but I am in a different boat in the sense that I'm not a fan of his. Not a superfan, at least. I like some of his songs, but I'm not crazy about most of his discography (especially the newer stuff). I missed the chance to review MTBMB when it first came out, so I figured I'd use this time to talk about both discs on this new deluxe LP as opposed to just the new tracks. Who knows, maybe this album will turn me into a Stan! I doubt it very highly, but we'll see. This is the longest album I've ever reviewed, so let's just get this over with.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Worst to Best

 by Alex Goode

Hello! I have just accepted my role as the resident Anthony Fantano ripoff at this point, so I've decided to go back to a blog idea I had in November of 2018. Remember that blog I did where I ranked every Fall Out Boy album based on my personal preference? Yeah, I'm gonna do that again. This time, however, I'm gonna rank the studio albums of my current favorite band: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Nick Cave is a criminally underappreciated artist, so I'm hoping that this blog will help get some of my friends and family into his music. I will be ranking all seventeen Bad Seeds studio albums in order from my least favorite to my most favorite. I'm opting to omit albums released by Grinderman or The Birthday Party, as well as Cave's soundtrack albums and that Distant Sky live EP, because there's already a lot to cover when we're just talking about Bad Seeds albums. Maybe I'll do the rest of them some other time, but I'm deciding to only focus on the studio albums for right now. There's seventeen of them, like I said, so I better go ahead and get started. Remember that this is just my opinion. It's not like many of my friends know who Cave is anyway, but still keep in mind that this is just my silly personal preference. Let's begin.

Album Reviews: Goode - Goode Grief

 by Boris Fishpond

Hey, everyone. Ripthony Offtano here, coming at you with a review of an album I found on Spotify that I wanted to share with all of you because I thought it was interesting. The album is called Goode Grief, and it was released on October 9th of 2020 by a small-town indie experimental artist that goes by the name "Goode". Not much is known about Goode right now, except that he operates under the Bell Garden label. Goode Grief, the release of which was foreshadowed by the "Rivers Cuomo" and "End of the Road" singles, is actually his debut full-length project, and you can find it on just about any streaming service. I like giving attention to up and coming artists, and so I figured I should bring this new album to more people via this review. There's only nine tracks, so this shouldn't take too long.

Album Reviews: Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets to My Downfall

 by Alex Goode

Having gotten Nectar out of the way, I will now move on and talk about the new Machine Gun Kelly album. MGK is a name that, let's face it, you most likely only know from either Bird Box or the Eminem beef from a few years ago. There's much more to him than just that, though. The Cleveland-born musician has been at it since 2006, releasing a plethora of smash hit tracks like "Wild Boy", "Let Me Go", and (more recently), "I Think I'm OKAY". His 2019 album Hotel Diablo is one of my favorite LPs ever, featuring songs like "Candy", "Glass House", "Floor 13", "Hollywood Whore", and other songs that I would rank as MGK's best work to date. To say that I was excited for the release of this new record, Tickets to My Downfall, would be an understatement. His quarantine musical antics have been really enjoyable, my favorites being "Pretty Toxic Revolver", his "What's Poppin" remix, and his cover of Rihanna's "Love On the Brain". I've enjoyed the random covers, non-project singles, and other fun material he's been putting out lately, so perhaps a full album that is made under those same circumstances would be good? It's time to buy a ticket and enjoy the show. It should be worth noting that I'm talking about the 15-track first edition that came out on September 25th, not the deluxe edition or the Target version. Just to clear the air before I get started.

Album Reviews: Joji - Nectar

 by Alex Goode

First off, stream my new single "End of the Road", please and thank you. Secondly, hi. It has been a while since the Oliver Tree review, and I'm sorry about that. I've been away working on an album, which will be out on October 9th, but I've decided to come through with new blogs for a special occasion. Two artists that I really like, Joji and Machine Gun Kelly, released new albums on September 25th, the same day I released my new single. Joji dropped Nectar, and Machine Gun Kelly dropped Tickets to My Downfall. These are two albums that I was highly anticipating, so I decided I'd take some time and review both of them. I'll start with Nectar, because that was the one I listened to first. Plus, it's the longer of the two, so it's probably better to do this one first anyway. Let's take a dip into Nectar.

Album Reviews: Oliver Tree - Ugly is Beautiful

by Alex Goode

Hi! I bet you forgot this website existed! I personally didn't, I swear. Recently, the desktop that I've been using for every single one of my projects died. There was a thunderstorm, all the power got knocked out for a split second, everything came back on except for the desktop, and I haven't spent the time since then feeling absolutely horrible because of it. Not at all. But anyway, I now use a laptop that runs Linux for the time being, so it's back in business for Throw The Harpoon! I have several larger projects lined up, but I wanted to come back with something simple: Oliver Tree, one of my current favorite musical artists, aka the boy who cried album, has finally released Ugly is Beautiful. After a series of delays, which I'm not gonna hold against Tree himself, it started to look like we wouldn't be getting the album for a while, but then it finally dropped on July 17th of 2020. It's been in the works for five years according to Tree, and he recently confirmed during an interview with Anthony Fantano on Twitch that he'd be retiring from music now that this album is here. He's cited him battling his label for nearly half a decade as his reasoning, and I honestly can't blame him. That sounds immensely frustrating. But, at any rate, Ugly is Beautiful is here at long last, and so it is time for me to give my thoughts on it to the maybe four people I'm friends with that will actually care about it. Was it worth the wait? I'm gonna answer that from my perspective. Maybe people will like what I have to say, but probably not!

Colby Ferrin vs Unkle Adams - Who Won?

by Alex Goode

So, I'm scrolling through the YouTube home page in late July looking for something fun to watch while I ate dinner that day. Something unusual catches my eye, a recommended video with a relatively interesting look to it. It's a video by a man named Colby Ferrin, and it has the words "diss track" in the title. That immediately peaks my interest, because I love a good rap beef. So, naturally, I dug a little deeper into Colby, as I hadn't heard of him until the video popped up in my feed. Colby is a Mormon rapper from Utah, and his songs/videos (keeping in mind that I haven't watched all of them as of the time of writing this) have very positive, spiritual vibes to them. I like that, it's a good feeling. Generally speaking, Colby is a good artist (and he seems like a good person on top of it). Going back to the video that YouTube is pushing onto me, the person Colby's dissing is a man by the of Unkle Adams. Now, that is a name I've heard of. Albeit, it's mostly from Anthony Fantano and Chris Ray Gun making memes out of his "Original" song, but I do know about the infamous Unkle Adams. I've heard a couple of his songs, they're pretty enjoyable. I'm not a staunch fan, I'm definitely more of a casual viewer. I wasn't caught up on the Unkle Adams lore as of the time Colby's diss track dropped. Since the release of Colby's diss, however, both him and Unk have made videos talking at length about the beef between the two, which is very good for people like me that didn't know anything about the situation. Colby's is a livestream titled "Let's Talk About Unk", and Unk's is an episode of his At Least a Million series that was called "Colby the Ferret". You can watch Colby's here, and you can watch Unk's here. I highly recommend you watch them both before you read this, especially if you aren't caught up on what went down between them. As of the time of writing this, there have been two songs between them. Colby initiated the rap portion of this beef on July 30th, and Unk responded on August 10th. Almost two weeks later. If any more diss tracks drop, I will edit this blog to put them in, but I doubt that Unk will make a follow-up. He seems pretty adamant that he destroyed Colby. At most, this could be another Mac Lethal vs Tom MacDonald situation. So, yeah. Let's get into this, I'll throw my hat into the ring and give my thoughts on who won between Colby Ferrin and Unkle Adams.

Mac Lethal vs Tom MacDonald - Who Won?

by Alex Goode

In my last blog, I reviewed a song by a YouTube rapper known as Crypt called "YouTube Cypher Vol. 2". In the song, Crypt bands together twelve other YouTube rappers (with himself tagged on at the end to make it 13) and they all take turns boast rapping for a solid 12 minutes. Among this set of rappers was a man named Mac Lethal. Simply put, Lethal is a legend in the YouTube rap community. He made a name for himself via battle rap back in the day, his YouTube channel has over 229 million total views, and he usually likes to rap extremely fast in his videos. All in all, as an artist, I'm a fan of Mac. He's in my top five as far as rappers go. A few months ago, Mac got into a little bit of a beef with an artist named Tom MacDonald following a couple vague Tweets Mac put out. Tom thought they were about him (and, frankly, so do I), they went back and forth on Twitter and Instagram, and then Tom took it to YouTube by dropping a diss track on Mac. There were three tracks, two from Tom and one from Lethal, and then it ended. Yes, it's been a few months since the beef happened. Yes, I probably should've covered this sooner. I gave it a few months cause I was waiting to see what else would happen, and, given how both of the artists have released new, non-diss-track songs, I think it's safe to say that now is the right time to cover this beef. If you're unfamiliar with Tom MacDonald, he's a rapper that is mostly known for his songs "WHITEBOY" and "Straight White Male". Needless to say, those songs are very politically charged, and he's garnered a bit of controversy for making them. Personally, I prefer his music when it isn't stuff like "If I Was Black". I understand the points he's trying to make, I just don't think he's making the points all that well. Tom certainly isn't a bad artist at all, though. I like his voice, his aesthetic is nice, and the production quality on his videos is good. But, anyway, Mac Lethal vs Tom MacDonald. We got three songs to look at, so it's best if we just get straight to them. This website won't let me post the videos themselves, so I'll upload still frames from each video and then link you to the songs underneath. Sound fair?

Crypt - YouTube Cypher Vol. 2 (2019) Review

by Alex Goode

Crypt is a YouTube rapper that started putting out videos on the site back in 2012. Since then, he's put out a fairly wide variety of content, which includes gaming videos, diss tracks, rap battles, vlogs. But the thing that put him on the map is his rapping ability. The dude is a great rapper, full stop. The first song be released that wasn't a diss track in any way, shape, or form was a collaboration he did with Kiwiz called "Soldier", and, since then, he's only gotten better with time. Personally speaking, my favorite songs of his are "Bad Habit", "The Devil Went Down to Hip Hop", and his Dax diss, called "Eulogy". Those three are the best of the best, if you ask me. On March 24th of 2019, Crypt dropped a nine-minute song called "YouTube Cypher", which featured himself and a bunch of other YouTube rappers doing what they do best. These features were Joey Nato, Duane Jackson, Hi Rez, DizzyEight, CHVSE, FabvL, BLINDSIGHT, Vin Jay, Scru Face Jean, PFV, and Randolph. The cypher was awesome! Everyone held their own remarkably, and Crypt himself came in at the end to deliver the final verse. Since then, all of his friends and fans were curious as to when/if Vol. 2 would be released. Well, our prayers were finally answered when "YouTube Cypher Vol. 2" hit Crypt's YouTube channel on July 27th of 2019. Clocking in at just over 12 minutes, this is easily the longest song I've covered in these music reviews. Yes, I know I'm a little late getting to it. I've been a little caught up in the dramas of life, so I apologize for the lack of content as of recent, but I promise I will get back into the swing of things after this. Anyway, if you aren't aware of Crypt (or maybe you do know who he is, but you just haven't listened to his music), I highly recommend checking him out. Crypt is awesome, and so is this cypher. So let's get into it. This website won't let me add the video for some reason, so I'll link it here. You can listen to the song, then come back for my thoughts on it.

Captain Marvel (2019) Review

by Alex Goode

Captain Marvel, released on March 8 of 2019, is the twenty-first installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. More specifically, it's the nineth chapter of Phase 3 of the MCU. Phase 3 is set to end in April with the release of Avengers: Endgame. This movie acts as Captain Marvel's origin story and is meant to familiarize the audience with the character before we see her fighting in the Endgame conflict. It was directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and it was written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet along with Boden and Fleck. It stars Brie Larson in the title role, which is a casting choice that proved to be pretty divisive to say the least, but I'm not here to talk about the politics behind the film. I saw a movie, so I'm gonna talk about a movie. Simple as that. Also among the cast is Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Anette Bening, Clark Gregg, and Ben Mendelsohn, among others. As Avengers: Endgame quickly approaches, how does Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel fare in her first solo bout? Let's talk about that. This is your official spoiler warning.

Album Reviews: Weezer - The Teal Album

Weezer is an awesome band that formed in California back in 1992. The band consists of Rivers Cuomo on lead vocals and lead guitar, Patrick Wilson on drums, Brian Bell on backup vocals and keyboards, and Scott Shriner on bass. You might know of this band from such songs as "Say It Ain't So", "Buddy Holly", and "Hash Pipe". Well, they're back. They dropped a surprise album on January 24th of 2019. It's their fifth self-titled album (as well as their twelfth album overall, but, given the color of the artwork, it's adopted the name The Teal Album. The biggest shock, in my opinion, is the fact that this is a cover album. The Teal Album features ten songs, ranging from ELO to Black Sabbath. Was it worth the surprise? Well, let's find out.

Album Reviews: The Greatest Showman Reimagined

by Alex Goode

The Greatest Showman was a musical movie that was loosely centered around the life of P.T. Barnum (more specifically, the creation of the now legendary Barnum & Bailey Circus). It was released in 2017 and starred Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Zendeya, and a bunch of others. You've most likely seen the movie by this point. Personally, I liked the movie. Yeah, it portrayed Barnum as a decent human being (which he was not), but I can't help but love Hugh Jackman. He was electric, the actors portraying the "freaks" absolutely nailed it, and those musical numbers were awesome. They're easily the best part of the movie, with some of the greatest choreography I've ever seen in a musical. The soundtrack was so popular that, according to Hugh Jackman's Instagram account, the songs will go on a global tour in 2019. That's some pretty impressive staying power, I gotta admit. Because of this, I'm gonna take a look at the Greatest Showman: Reimagined album that was released on November 6th of 2018. In it, the original soundtrack gets re-recorded by artists such as P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Panic! At the Disco, and many more. Yes, I know I should've covered it when it first came out, but it's too late now, isn't it? Better late than never.

Ranking Every Fall Out Boy Album

by Alex Goode

Fall Out Boy is a band that was formed back in 2001 and is comprised of lead singer Patrick Stump, drummer Andy Hurley, bassist Pete Wentz, and lead guitarist Joe Trohman. Over the years, they've had quite a number of hits over the course of their rather lengthly discography. Under the FOB belt, as of the day this blog was released, is seven studio albums, seven extended plays, a live album, a compilation album, and demo album. Thoughout the band's existence, they've garnered an equal number of fans and haters. As for me, I like them. I think they have a lot of enjoyable tunes. I like Patrick's voice, I think Joe is a great guitarist, and a good number of their songs are legitametly well-written in my opinion. They aren't the best band in the world, not by a longshot, but I do consider myself a fan of them. Because of this, I'd like to take this time to go through all of their albums and rank them in order of my least favorite to my favorite. Not "best to worst" because that's subjective. If I rank an album low on this list, it doesn't mean I think it's a bad album. Just gotta make that clear before we continue. I plan on doing this with other bands I like, so I figure that Fall Out Boy is a good place to start. Please keep in mind that these are just my opinions.

Album Reviews: Imagine Dragons - Origins

by Alex Goode

Imagine Dragons is an American rock band, most known for their songs "Radioactive", "Demons", and "Thunder". The band consists of lead singer Dan Reynolds, lead guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Platzman. Their musical career began in 2009 with the release of their self-titled EP, with the release of their debut album, titled Night Visions, happening in 2012. And, now, they've come back with the release of their fourth studio album Origins on November 9th, 2018. Not sure why "Origins" is the title of their fourth album instead of their first, but whatever. I'm a moderate fan of their work. I like enough of their songs to call myself a fan, but I haven't heard all of them. I like their style, and Dan's voice (when he isn't screaming at me), so I was decently excited for the release of this album. And, now, it's here. There's twelve tracks to go over on this record, so let's get right into it.

Album Reviews: Poppy - Am I a Girl?

by Alex Goode

Poppy, formerly known as "That Poppy" is a YouTuber, musician, and all-around very creepy person. This is normally the part where I'd give you her real name and a couple other details about her, but she's become infamous for being very secretive about her personal life, defending this by stating that she'd rather have people talk about her message above anything else. Her musical career began in 2016 with the release of her debut EP Bubblebath, which was followed up in 2017 with the release of her debut album Poppy.Computer. And, this year, on Halloween no less, she released her second album Am I a Girl?. This album tonally is very different from her other releases. Bubblebath was mostly a straightforward record with themes you'd typically see from up and coming artists. With Poppy.Computer, she started to amp her character's robotic undertones, with tracks like "Interweb" and "Bleach Blonde Baby" all but explicitly saying it. This new album, Am I a Girl?, features more adult themes, like gender identity (according to Poppy herself), but a couple of these tracks have a very apocalyptic feel to them in my opinion. There's fourteen tracks on this record, so we have a lot of ground to cover. Let's get into it and see how this album lives up to her other releases.