My Grammy Picks

Posted on by
2

Lady Gaga & Bradley CooperBest New ArtistHere are my picks for the catagories i am invested in; who i think will win and my personal favorite.

1. Record Of The Year

THIS IS AMERICA: Childish Gambino (My prediction & personal pick: for being the most impact)

2. Album Of The Year

INVASION OF PRIVACY: Cardi B (My prediction because of the cultural dominance she had, general good critical reception, and because shes a woman)

DIRTY COMPUTER: Janelle Monáe (Personal Pick because it is the best album on here critically and for me too)

3. Song Of The Year

THIS IS AMERICA (Same thing from record of the year)

4. Best New Artist

H.E.R. (My prediction because of the critical acclaim)

CHLOE X HALLE (Most talented out of all these options, even if they are all bad)

5. Best Pop Solo Performance

GOD IS A WOMAN Ariana Grande (My prediction and pick; because this is the only song on here with a non-laidback singing voice besides lady gaga’s which is not as popular, and im going to cry if Havana wins)

6. Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

SHALLOW Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper (My prediction and pick, because of the cohesion between the two and every other song is garbage water)

8. Best Pop Vocal Album

SWEETENER Ariana Grande (My pick and prediction, every other album on here is an example of why mainstream pop has died)

22. Best Rap Performance

SICKO MODE Travis Scott (Prediction because mo bamba)

BUBBLIN Anderson .Paak (Least generic, most fun, and unique song on this roster)

Best Rap Song

SICKO MODE (Prediction and pick; most popular; and although i think its severly overrated, i will credit its mind warping asthetic and for changing trap again for the second time since rodeo)

25. Best Rap Album

INVASION OF PRIVACY Cardi B (Prediction; critical acclaim, dominance on the charts, 4 times platinum, and a woman)

DAYTONA Pusha T (My pick; not the best but the best on this list)

 

Stay tuned for more of AntLaB22’s Music Reviewer Reviews!

 

WORST Album of 2018! – “Skins” by xxxtentacion (‘s management) – Critic Album Review

Posted on by
3

I called it.

This album sucked and i don’t even have to explain it; but i will anyway.

Sonically, this album, as predicted by the singles and track length of ten songs for 17 minutes, is an absolute mess of nothingness and terrible production. Songs barely start before they are finished, the production is ringtone worthy, and sounds like someone recorded it outside and purposely downed the bitrate. The songs are despondent, barely recognizable, and there is nothing gratifying about listening to this. The lyrics don’t tackle anything at all, and it seems like this album has no purpose.

Although this music is absolute garbage, which even die hard x clout chasers will admit is awful, i cant put the responsibility on the artist himself, but the blame goes to his greedy label. Unfortunately (another thing i called), the labels are using this as a cash grab and even after the outcry to let him rest and the critical consensus being very negative, Empire has 2 or more albums for x planned in the upcoming years.

Oh nonono.

TheNeedleDrop 2/10

Pitchfork 3/10

antlab – 1/10

Stay tuned for more of AntLaB22’s Music Reviewer Reviews!

lil14

Earl Sweatshirt – “Some Rap Songs”: Critic Album Review

Posted on by
Reply

Earl sweatshirt dropped a nice blend of lo-fi avant garde jazz and dark hip hop lyrics to make a sound of his own in the current realm of experimental hip hop.

Earl sweatshirt is considered an underground legend. His two albums, Doris and I Don’t Like S**t; I Don’t Go Outside; are critically acclaimed, pitchfork considers them some of the best hip hop albums of the decade. The main great appeal of Doris and IDLSIDGO is how raw Earl’s music is, and natural and unforced the meaningful lyrics about his mental health, being affected by his upbringing, parent’s divorce, and depression although his life.

Earl tackles even more challenges on this album, from new topics like the death of his father, pleasing other people, leeches, fake friends, depression and the cancelling of his 2016 tour and break from music due to depression. This appeal of rawness comes in full form with these lyrics, on his most beautiful production yet. On songs such as “Eclipse” and “NoWhere 2go”, rapping about how trapped he feels in the current rap and his own social landscape; “The Bends” and “Veins” rapping about his relation with his parents, and his dad’s passing. The most experimental and emotionally provoking song is “Playing Possum” where earl chops in samples of his mom speaking about the things she is most thankful in life while a sample of earl’s dad is played in a “call and response” type format where the dad shouts out about the dark and bad things in life. Whether or not you like the format of the talking side of music, it will definitely provoke some sort of emotion, as strong as it might be.

The production on the album is another main selling point on this album. The production is airy, lo-fi, and has a strained-but-smooth aesthetic to it. While it would seem the slightly uplifting production on this album would clash against the dark lyrics, it instead works perfectly to produce the main selling point of this album- how natural, casual, and scarily non-forced aspect of the topics of this album.

The easy going, natural, laid back approach to how he talks about mental health is scarily eery. When he talks about not trusting his own family on “Nowheretogo” followed behind with lo-fi electro-synth chords in the background, it all seems so real and you can actually feel what he is saying in his words, as miniscule as he makes himself appear. Earl undersells the project (with the album cover, name, and tracklist being short), but provides us with the realism of his mental health.

This album is a good slap in the face to the fake depressed rappers such as x or lil peep who over exaggerate their state which just at the end comes as disingenuous to the people who actually have mental issues and more of just appealing to that group of people.

Overall, this may be one of the best albums of the year if not the best, and other reviewers agree.

Pitchfork- 8.8/10

TheNeedledrop- 8.5/10

Metacritic- 8.6/10

antlab22- 9/10

Stay tuned for more of AntLaB22’s Music Reviewer Reviews!

Lil Yachty- “Nuthing 2 Prove”: Critic Album Review

Posted on by
3

Lil yachty fell off hard.

To give a brief history of lil yachty’s come up; Lil yachty first starting turning heads with his breakout tape “Lil boat”. This tape got decent to good critical reception, but is known for starting a whole new wave of trap music, one with auto-crooners and letting the silliness of the music shine through instead of the music. Many people credit him to starting to popularize mumble rap, and undoubtodly he started his own wave. LIl yachty released 2 projects afterwards, which were some of the worst each year. Both “Summer Songs 2” and especially “Teenage Emotions” felt overblown, lazy, underwritten, and over polished. The charisma of lil yachty’s tape “Lil Boat” was gone and what was replaced was a label driven pop rap fiasco. Luckely, lil boat mostly made a return to form on lil boat 2, but instead of auto crooning, dark spacey beats allowed him to again, carve his own lane.

But what lil yachty did on his latest project “Nuthing 2 Prove” sounds like he fell behind on his own wave he started.

The main flaws with this project is that he sits in the backseat of each song and lets his features do most of the work. If it is your project, you should be the main focus of the project, not letting your adversaries outshine you.

Another huge flaw is that nothing sounds unique on this album. He sounds lazy and like hes not even trying, on the wave he started himself. A pioneer of the subgenre fell behind while other artists went ahead of him, and that’s what is happening on this album.

Theneedledrop noted that he also thinks hes not trying at all.

Pitchfork noted that the only thing that is good about  this album is his singing, and his rapping sucks. I disagree and think the overuse of autotune on this particular record was was more obnoxious than his previous albums.

 

Theneedledrop-2/10

Pitchfork- 5/10

Antlab-4/10

 

xxxtentacion – “Bad” and “Falling Down” – Track Critic Review

Posted on by
3

What labels are doing to the recently passed is cruel and people don’t realise it.

If you don’t already know, rappers xxxtentacion and lil peep have passed in the past year, xxxtentacion being shot and lil peep from a drug overdose. These are very unfortunate and sad things to happen. But both artists, statistically, have gotten a lot of attention from those events.

Labels are trying to capitalize from the attention that they are getting by releasing these two songs for xxx, and both artists are posthumously releasing an album in 2018.

The reason why these labels releasing these tracks and albums is disrespectful and greedy is because the tracks are clearly unfinished, unmastered, and are purely snippets. On the latest track “Bad” you can literally hear the microphone popping because it was probably recorded as an idea or freestyle.

Xxxtentacion and lil peep piggybackers that go crazy for him and think he is the goat will gobble this music up even though the tracks are pure trash, and the labels know it.

I cant wait to listen how bad the next albums from them will be considering the emo folk music they both put out in the past were awful and now the labels are releasing unpolished emo folk.

Way to end the year with a bang!

Russ -“Zoo” Album Critic Review

Posted on by
Reply

Zoo by Russ is probably one of the worst hip hop albums of the year.

This album is bland in almost everything, from his beat selection, which he annoyingly praises that he makes his own beats, which no one really cares; to his self centered lyrics and boring flows. Russ album sounds like a zoo of bad music.

Theneedledrop reviews noted that Russ ironically raps about other people being self centered, and how he thinks beefing with people is petty, as if Russ had the right to talk because he has beef with literally everybody. He also pointed out that Russ tries to act like he is tough in the street life that he was never a part of, and he even had goons beat up smokepurpp for only saying that his music is trash as a joke.

The daily debraskan noted that his staccato flows grow tiresome the for the whole album.

The musical hight says that the album starts and ends with boring

Theneedledrop – 3/10

Musical Hight 2.5/5 stars

AntLaB – 2/10

 

How My Blog Is Formatted

Posted on by
3

Hello Readers,

Welcome to AntLaB22’s Music Reviewer Reviews!

You may be asking, what does that super cool but confusing title mean?

Well have you ever wanted to know a general critical consensus of popular albums, but never feel like reading through many different sources of different opinions?

Well you’re in luck, because what this blog aims to do is collect the main points of several music critics such as but not limited to: theneedledrop, Pitchfork, MetaCritic, AOTY, Shaun Cee, Spectrum Pulse, maybe even myself, etc, and have them organized into a blog as seen here.

Albums will be averaged out to a score out of ten, and a variety of albums will be reviews from hip hop to electronic to pop to noise.

Stay tuned for more of AntLaB22’s Music Reviewer Reviews!