June Catchup

While I was out of the country for 3 weeks, a lot went down in the music world. Let's get caught up!

First and foremost, we witnessed the sixth coming of our lord Yeezus. I saw Kanye perform "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" on SNL last month, and I was immediately so excited for his new album. It sounded like Kanye had been listening to a lot of Death Grips. Kanye brining Death Grips' sound to the mainstream is essentially my wet dream. Yeezus is an awesome album. It's catchy when it wants to be, and grating when it wants, too. The lyrics definitely won't blow you away though. I enjoy the lyrics on this album in the same way I enjoyed watching the third Twilight movie. You know, the one where a vampire bites a baby out of Bella. It's also the movie where a grown(ish) man falls instantly in love with a baby the second he lays his eyes on her. The same hilarious-train-wreck is all over the lyrics on Yeezus. My favorite lines:

"You be ballin' in the D-leagues, uh / I be speaking swag-hili"
"In a French-ass restaurant / Hurry up with my damn croissants!"

Lyrics aside, this album is straight awesome. I also just found out that Arca, who released my 8th favorite album of 2012: Stretch 2, helped produce 4 tracks on here! All of the songs on here are spastic, erratic, yet still have that woe-is-me-soulfulness that Kanye is so great at. Yeezus will surely end up in my top 5 favorite albums at the end of the year.

Kanye West - New Slaves

The other big music news I missed was the release of a Fuck Buttons single titled "The Red Wing", off their forthcoming new album. This song is AMAZING! It sounds like the Fuck Buttons thought to themselves "ok, we made our devastating album (Street Horrrsing), and our victorious album (Tarot Sport), let's make one that sounds fun for a change". This song is really hard not to overplay. I would hate to be tired of it by the time the album comes out at the end of the month.

Fuck Buttons - The Red Wing

I also missed a free(!) release of a Killer Mike/El-P collaboration titled Run the Jewels. I haven't had time to download it for myself, but I heard it this past weekend and it BANGS! As if I needed to tell you that this duo (the creators of my 9th favorite album from 2012) were a match made in R.A.P. heaven.

Also, it looks like this Thursday will see the release of a new Jay-Z album, Magna Carta Holy Grail.

I am so glad to be back in the states!