“Once upon a time

That’s the moral of the story”

Excess is the game here, as Wayne grips onto his gold for as long as he can before his life runs out, which sounds like it’ll be any minute. “Dreams” is a goofy brag but implies that nothing can stay. And the track’s breakdown into a ramshackle R&B swell (“I had a dream I was a foooool”), left after a series of frantic changes, captures it perfectly. Wayne is restless. For the most part, his presence on a track is a series of imprint flows, one remarkable mouthful after another. Precise without being robotic. With its short tracks, the colors shift constantly, and even when a concept or sound is just sort of there rather than complete and alive (I can’t describe “Get Outta My Head” in any more detail than “it’s like XXXTentacion’s edgier aesthetics concentrated”), Wayne offers some pocket of experimentation that’s at least interesting (his first verse on the aforementioned track is ugly, popping with dark cartoon imagery). In other words, the listening experience never drops straight down. The “Funerals” and “Mahoganys” and “Hardens” of the album are the sort of obvious masterpieces, but in the treasure room (dapples of rubies, diamonds and gold), all trinkets coexist. 

Justin Bieber’s Changes begins with three spacious, understated tracks that settle the listener in. You might imagine yourself in a mood-lit lounge surrounded by Bieber’s disembodied voice. The atmospheric effect is reflected in the title of the first track, “All Around Me.” Then the shades are lifted and sunlight hits with “Intentions,” which features Quavo. As I wrote in a previous post, Bieber is smooth, Quavo fits in well, and, I should add, the track is quite effective both as a single and as part of the album. “Yummy” follows—it’s a good track, although it’s hard to get past the hypnotic repetition of “yummy, yum/That yummy, yummy…” (All lyrics via Apple Music)

I’m less enthusiastic about the series of tracks that make up the album’s third quarter. Although similar to the first three tracks in their understatement, they are less effective, despite contributions by artists like Post Malone and Travis Scott. 

However, most extraordinary about Changes is the succession of lean tracks that make up the latter portion of the album, beginning with the title track. Against an acoustic guitar backing, Bieber sings, “Though I’m going through changes/Don’t mean that I’ll change.” My favorite track on the album is the joyful “Confirmation.” With synth orchestration and a simple piano loop, Bieber affirms,

All you ever really want/All you ever really need is at home/We got the rest/Got the rest, got the rest of our lives

“That’s What Love Is” features a fingerpicking acoustic guitar and urgent vocals including the exaltation, “God bless your maker.” “At Least For Now” is a satisfying sendoff—though Changes isn’t quite done. A remix of “Yummy” with Summer Walker, which is better than the original, returns the listener to the lounge where they began and caps the album. 

“Pussy Monster” (you can start from any track) is a midway between noodling and flirting; its naturalistic structure forms a believable late night night club alleyway story. It’s the culmination of moments like these which display Wayne as a bard, sharing his imagine epic. He sees power in stories, and so when he calls himself “the greatest rapper alive,” it’s an attempt at speaking things into existence. 

The heights of escapism give life to the work — which is undeniably great — and discredit it. “A Milli” sees Wayne rapping in tongues, in complete fealty to his form, forging a touchstone of style and ability (“I will smith”). “Got Money” constructs a pop-up parade, a wonderful, hedonistic height of pop rap, and Wayne’s sloppy presence is just one example of his life-affirming abandon. With his recognition that the hooks and fanfare are his album, Wayne does no less than form perfect harmony with them and as a result nothing feels incidental. In “Let the best build,” he shows off his prowess in verses, then sings along to the bass drum, giving himself over to it. Improvised and systemic rhythms maintain equal stock. It’s a sensory load; Wayne is the kind of artist to give and take from his instrumentals in a bouncing smorgasbord, to push eyes towards eyebrows.

And the songs are ambitious. “Mrs. Officer” builds on a series of sunny fancies, a winsome bassline holding it together. “Lollipop” simmers from beginning to end. “La La” is a jagged statement, a rappers’ paradise amid pop bangers. “Tie My Hands” actually means to soundtrack New Orleans post-Katrina.

But when he sings a pun referencing the famous assault on Rodney King by police (Why?) or in the hook of “Lollipop” seems to thank his status and drunkenness for the head he receives (“shawty wanna thug; bottles in the club”), seemingly unaware of anything he’s saying, it’s time to come back to Earth. And man is it a drop. 

But to end on a positive note, because I love it:

“I’m rare/

like Mr. Clean with hair.” 

Arrangements that ring of obscurity (they can be read as choppy, but I think it’s more so hazy) usher in moments of surprising beauty, around certain corners truly moving sounds. Here she’s a complete ghostly presence lilting in her own small world, which lightly melds with reality. Initially the album threatened to be overly sheer and the songs were hard to pin down, but over time its quirks seemed like simple, effective, natural conclusions. For instance there’s “Symphonia IX,” a vocal lost in time accompanied by floating dark matter; at first it seemed a bit nondescript but it easily grew on me, enveloping and eventually undeniable. 

Pretty obscurity and nocturnal disco noise are perfect for her lyrics here, stream-of-consciousness that tries to capture some purity of little-spoken feeling. There’s a part in “vowels = space and time,” which sounds like the percolation of an ‘80s dance-pop hit, where she tries speaking for this person, little described except for Grimes’ stake in him: “I could be a better man.” Such moments of ambivalent clarity are touchstones as the album builds in weight and texture (the last batch of tracks starting with “Nightmusic” are hefty bliss and represent some of Grimes’ most potent songwriting). 

I was familiar with two tracks—“Still Into You” and “Ain’t it Fun”— from Paramore’s 2013 self-titled album before listening to the whole thing recently. Both are excellent, and it’s more than worthwhile to give the complete album a listen. 

Paramore has a rocky beginning, with “Fast in My Car” and the musically not-very-interesting “Now.” But the album quickly settles in. “Grow Up” features a punchy, succinct hook and an interesting bridge that serves as a counterpoint. “Daydreaming” is a standout track built on the dream of leaving home. “I wanna get out and build my own home/On a street where reality is not much different from dreams I’ve had” (All lyrics via Apple Music).

“Interlude: Moving On” is the first of three interludes that feature a ukulele. Next is “Ain’t it Fun”— lyrically pessimistic but musically invigorating, the song is united thematically and sonically by a sense of defiance. “You’re not the big fish in the pond no more/You are what they’re feeding on.”

Forming the emotional crest of the album are the tracks “Part II” and “Last Hope,” both standouts. “Part II” is a cry in the dark that employs the soft-loud technique to great effect. “Where once was blazin’ light/Now there’s a tiny spark.”

“Last Hope” begins: “I don’t even know myself at all/I thought I would be happy, by now.” But it reaches a hopeful chorus, providing resolution to the dilemma of “Part II”: “It’s just a spark/But, it’s enough, to keep me goin’.”

Out of the whirlwind, the listener reaches “Still Into You,” whose uncomplication feels thoroughly deserved. “I should be over all the butterflies…”

“Anklebiters” is a satisfying straightforward pop-punk song, while the anthemic chorus on “Proof” is irresistible. The ballad “Hate To See Your Heart Break” provides a change of pace, highlighting Paramore’s versatility. “(One of Those) Crazy Girls” uses syncopation to heighten tension for this melodrama. “Be Alone” is a homebody anthem that has suddenly become rather appropriate.

Paramore’s closer, “Future,” begins stripped-down but switches mid-way to a hard-rock sound with drums and screaming electric guitars. “So, I’m writing the future/I’m leavin’ a key here/Somethin’ won’t always be missing.”

It’s a great song for the first five minutes but doesn’t require the fade-out and fade-back-in that brings the track to nearly eight minutes. 

The tension between hope and despair, home and away, moving forward and looking back—these are the themes that animate much of rock music. But, on Paramore, Paramore’s take is one of the most enjoyable. 

Conjuring both the sensation of loss and the general groundlessness of life, Beck captures something special here. Highlights include “Uneventful Days,” a dramatization of boredom, the joyful “Die Waiting” (with Sky Ferreira), and the sublime “Stratosphere.” However, the album is most satisfying when taken together as a whole. An exploration of liminality, Hyperspace is an adventure worth taking.

These pop loops are analogous to dance grooves, dependent on the interplay between repetition and variation as a separate machine of depth and drama. The scope of this project’s sound, along with doses of lyrical melodrama, is emphasized moment-to-moment in shifting forms; loose and occasionally haphazard structures give way to Grimes’ energy as a looming presence. She continues to fold pop into her aural image, which grows deeper into a sleeping, floating atmospheric palate. 

Loop interactions, the reification and development of ideas that crash into each other, reveal the best the album has to offer. “My name is dark” sounds truly nasty, destructive, and as the turbulent hook gets more and more worn and unhinged, even rusted, the bridge turns gears: the guitar strums which had been pasted to the background  (engaging in a drum pattern) come forth to reign things in. “Delete Forever” is a folk singer-songwriter approximation, which makes tender turns and depicts a grand scale. “IDORU’s” synthetic outdoorsy cycle serves a wonderful bounce. 

Not every diary entry lyric hits, but overall the project is haunting. Expressions like “I see everything” come from a low, lonely place and they echo. Grimes charts a widening distance from her fellow humans, culminating in the fantasy of “IDORU,” where, in some dream, a lover finally understands her, and will accept her, gloominess and all. 

Thematic companion movie: Lucio Fulci’s Aenigma

Each moment feels like a moving tapestry, the album’s strange colors (of blown-up punk rock, heavy electro, whatever else) contributing to some enigmatic whole. It sounds purposeful, and/or big for bigness’ sake: snares splash and create showers, rhythms resolve slowly, synths shoot from the atmosphere to the dirt (see: “The Powers That B”). A series of monoliths that are still hard to fathom. 

Ride’s never been more intoxicating and beckoning. On “Turned Off” (altogether a propulsive masterpiece) his flow roils and twists, then is shattered into place by the chorus into an underground anthem machine. It’s jagged bliss and larger than life. His voice has a narrative progression on “On GP,” in which he seems to open up; atmospheric guitars bath him and his implied surrounding. This constructed stage allows him to shine like the gross star he is. 

I’m Remembering Las Vegas, where Death Grips eventually migrated from California and which some of the sounds on this album vaguely remind me of: specifically lights pointed at a programmed fountain show against one of its gaudy buildings on The Strip at night. But then there’s images of the flea markets: a crucified Chucky doll over the doorway of a wooden guerrilla structure, unrelated to the shop’s product; the wireframe t-shirt box, exclusively selling ones printed with cartoon characters mean-mugging and dripping with heavy jewelry (currently trying to reconcile all of these things). 

If you listened to Apple Music’s “Today’s Hits” playlist on the evening of February 26^th (EST), you would have heard Sam Smith first. Smith’s “To Die For” is solemn but catchy, and well-constructed. It features some standard pop love song hyperbole, but seeps into your heart anyway.

Pink lemonade sippin’ on a Sunday/Couples holding hands on a runway

“To Die For” was followed by the tableau of romantic contentedness “Intentions” by Justin Bieber featuring Quavo. Bieber is smooth as you like in this mellow earworm and Quavo’s part fits in well. Fifth on the playlist was The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” an upbeat drama anchored by an 80s-style synth. Next is the irreverent banger “ON” by BTS. Combining Korean and English, I caught the sound of ‘90s boy bands in the lines:

“Rain be pourin’/Sky keep fallin’/Everyday oh na na na” 

Eighth on the list and rounding out the tracks that jumped out at me on the first couple listens was “Know Your Worth” by Khalid and Disclosure. Khalid’s sincere vocals are backed by a warm-bright synth and a periodic yelping sound effect which is much more effective than you might imagine. 

If aliens landed on Earth and got their hands on nothing but an iPhone, a pair of earbuds, and these tracks, I think they would be impressed by humanity’s creativity and passion. As we begin a frightening new decade, pop music’s masters undoubtedly provide solace. But maybe they offer something more as well—reason for (p)optimism.

It’s an album of standouts. These fluid tracks open up in ways that push them to some outer limit, all with a poppy sense of anticipation. Juke-y “Pop” eventually emphasizes the dancehall slap on every “3,” so that the song is restructured into a slouching death dance to look forward to. “Bass Rattle Stars Out the Sky” is a messy banger that could easily fill the space of an outside venue. The hook of “Hunger Games” is undeniable as it slides. “No Love” is “No Love.” 

“Come Up and Get Me” (wherein low synths are muted to a forcefully swinging effect) is special in offering a semi-clear storyline, where Ride holes up in an abandoned building evading a Nazi police force who he admits he can’t name. He’s an unreliable narrator who grazes in an underbelly and overflows with schizophrenic violence. This is the sucking-in point, and Ride’s words going forward spiral down, sometimes incomprehensible; ugly poetry (“feel me climbing under your stomach”) and antisocial shouts (“Fuck it!”). They’re what comes after being consumed by the corner pocket. 

It seems to work like this: You’re at the entrance of a cave, and Ride shouts for you to look away from whatever gross thing he’s doing. But you want to go further, and you want to join him, because if this sick beat is wrong then who would wanna be right? 

-taggedbypea