Passion Pit

Lately I've been getting into a lot of Synth Pop, and for me, in modern day Synth Pop Passion Pit tops the board. They've made two successful albums in a row and the group has a good fan base. Everyone in a high school knows who Passion Pit is. The futuristic sounds and falcetto singing of Michael Angelakos is a trademark and when someone hears those samples and singing they know exactly who it is. Also, Passion Pit are melody masters. They find a way to make anything catchy or find a way to always make a good hook. Consider me a big fan of their latest album Gossamer. It's a perfect album if you want to find out who Passion Pit is. The hit on the album is weird, (it isn't really the Passion Pit style.) "Take A Walk" is an alright song, it's just I'm more of a fan of "Carried Away" and "Constant Conversations". Those songs to me describe Passion Pit perfectly.

Take a listen. "Carried Away"

"Constant Conversations"

Nine Inch Nails

Listening to that sucked so much I'm not even gonna spend a long time on this. It was really weird music (which I like weird different stuff most of the time) but that just sounded like poppy bull crap. It sounded really heavy pop bass and the drums were kind of good I guess. The singers voice wasn't really impressive at all. Then I heard Nine Inch Nails on the radio later and again I wanted to barf. 1 out of 10 for me.

Paul's boutique Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys is a group I haven't really gotten into yet. But Paul's Boutique was pretty badass. Some of te samples used are so advanced and it sounds like an album way ahead of its time. The bass is so much more powerful than that of NWA and Public Enemy, also the fact that they play real instruments is more impressive. Ill need to listen to it again so I can catch the lyrics more clearly.

Frank Ocean: Nostalgia, Ultra

Frank Ocean is the future of R&B and hip hop. I already wrote about his Grammy award winning album "channel ORANGE" but now I'm writing about his first album/mixtape that might be better than channel. I'm talking about what got him discovered by many big names including Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Usher, and more. I'm talking about "Nostalgia, Ultra"


"Nostalgia, Ultra" is a collection of songs which I think describe Frank as a person. It contains covers, originals, remixes, badass beats, guitars, orchestras, meaningful lyrics everything I would want in an album. This isn't a typical R&B album. R&B most of the time is based around love and Frank tends to step away from love often in many of his songs.

 The album starts with the sound of Frank putting in an album in a cassette player and the album is underway. Right away you here illuminating tones of a guitar playing and you think, "Wait, did I accidently put on a Coldplay album?" But no, it's Frank Oceans cover of "Strawberry Swing" by Coldplay. Which I didn't really find a good song until Frank did it. Coldplay seems to agree with me since they produced it for him and said, "Hey, when you do it that good, consider it yours man."

Next is the hit song "Novacane". Frank really told a beautiful story in this song. The sounds of a drum with futuristic tones cue in a genius with the lyrics, "I blame it on the model broad with a hollywood smile, stripper booty with a rack like wow. Brain like Burkley. Met her at Coachella, I went to see Jigga, she went to see Z-Trip. Perfect." and continues to tell stories of how he met a girl who is like a drug and numbs the pain for him. This girl gives him drugs of all sorts (probably pain killers) and it's just a great story of a girl in the porn industry and Franks relationship with her.

In the song "We All Try", every person is able to pick out a line or two they believe in as well. This ballad shows Franks struggle in faith in all things. He doesn't know what he believes in, but he believes in something. I think everyone has this conflict within themselves in their lives at one point. Really a great song.

Another little snippet of a Frank Oceanesque skit on this album. And it really got my hopes up. I thought "Is this guy gonna sing Radiohead???" Then you just hear this girl he trying to impress say, "What's a Radiohead?" and changes the track as Frank sneers, "What ever." But it's cool because he transitioned into another really fun and good song. This is definitely the more poppy side of Frank Ocean as he sings about how he sings to get at girls. At least he's honest about it. And what's different it doesn't seem as if he's bragging. Just telling the conversations he's had about this topic and how he's tried to lie about it and be truthfull about it and it never pleases anyone. Fun Song.

I'm just gonna skip to another great song because I'm running out of time here. "Swim Good" You hear the classic BOOM CLAP BOOM BOOM CLAP. And what's amazing about this song is that Frank really is a melody genius. No one I've heard since Stevie Wonder has made melodys just flow so naturally like that. Pharrell Williams calls him the "Black James Taylor". Really a beautiful song. I still don't fully understand the song cause that's just how complicated it is.

Now this album has a lot of great stuff but I just named my personal favorites. He has songs of how he is secretive, covers of The Eagles and a remix of MGMT's smash hit "Electric Feel", he makes it into more of a sexy nature thing with "Nature Feels". And ends off the album with a beautiful ballad "Pyrite." I'm not giving anymore away. Listen to it. You won't regret it.

Tyler, The Creator

I know, when people think of Tyler, The Creator they think of a rapper who just wants attention and does stupid shit and says the most innapropriate stuff. But I see a rapper that has a lot of potential to have a long career.

First off, his lyrics are kind of repetitive. He says shit about fuck this and fuck that and he's a fag. But he's a human diss machine. And that's something we haven't seen in rap since Eminem. And also I like how he stays true to what he does, he doesn't really care who he's around or what station he's or even who he's around. And he's not a rebel because of drugs and shit. He stays away from that because he thinks it'll distract him from his music. "While ya'll smoking doobies, I be in my bedroom scoring movies" (a lot of his music inspirations comes from film). Also his no limits dissing is awesome to listen too and other artists react and that's what he wants from them. He wants the big names in music to come out of their superstar shell and become human. "Rihanna haircut, Somebody tell Chris Brown to fuck me up" and "I'll beat the fuck out ya bitch anonymous Ike Turner" are lines that people did not take kindly to. How he got his name out in the world is through his diss track "Yonkers"

Second is his production skills. The beats he makes on his albums are just rediculous. He learned from the great Pharrell Williams and Pharrell said himself, "That guy is crazy, literally and he already is better than me." Tyler said in an interview that he thinks, "I'm a better producer than a rapper. Hopefully I can become a better rapper but I don't want to stop producing. I'm learning guitar and shit so I can have more harminous sounds and shit that make this bitches swoon." On his first album Goblin, the beats were awesome. And also he showed hints of a real artists in songs like "She" and "Nightmare". But still a lof of room for improvement. Now on his second album Wolf, his production skills have grown incredibly with more piano hooks and appropriate bass use. And also on Wolf his rhymes got more sophisticated, although he was still the human diss machine who will drop the F-Bomb at any time. His track "Colossus" is a perfect example of his growth in rapping. I think 2 major lable albums in and he's doing this??? This guy might change hip hop for the future.

Tyler is really a great artist. He has a lot of room for improvement but I think when it's all said and done he's gonna have a successfull career. Odd Future maybe filled with a bunch of friends who fuck around and make music who people accuse for homophobs.... which doesn't make sense since Frank Ocean is in it. Tyler actually said in a song "I'm a homophob, but Frank is in like 10 of my songs??" His group Odd Future as a whole is seeing more and more success. People are discovering Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean is maybe the future of R&B. And you can always count on them being in the news causing some controversey.

Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere

I didn't know what to expect of this album. Never really heard any Gnarls and the album cover is bananas. The more I look at it the more it fits the album. Futuristic rap with nowadays R&B. And I realized when you listen to the album full way through, the hits on the album really hit you hard and you realize how good of a song that is. Like "Crazy" really is a beautiful song.

And Danger Mouse and his beats really are the best part of this album. They match perfectly with Cee Lo's voice. I would qualify this album as hip hop. My favorite song on it is "Who Cares". Some of the lyrics that Cee Lo spits are awesome. "Everybody wants to be somebody, but nobody wants to be themself" That's like poetry to me.


Here is "Who Cares"