Yeah, even higher than Pablo, for fuck's sake! Which I MIGHT agree with on a strictly song by song basis simply because of Pablo filler like "I love Kanye", but I do think it's a stretch. Coloring Book is to Pablo what Pusha's MNIMN was to Yeezus. I don't think we'd have the album as it sounds or exists without Kanye's to set the tone. Also, I don't think this album has anything that's as musically extraordinary as Famous, Real friends or (especially) Fade.

Still, that's gotta be the highest rating they've ever given to a "mixtape." Correct me if I'm wrong, but not even golden era Wayne (Dedication, Draught) came close to scoring so high.

Whatever though. S'all good.

And yeah, they definitely overrated A Moon Shaped Pool a bit/lot. Both TLOP and Coloring Book are much better. Radiohead should have been given an 8.1-2 at best. Just my opinion.

What the hell was p-fork thinking when they wrote this pullout, though?


Ok... Where to begin. With the comma splice? The reference to the project as an album? The clunky phrasing? ("Mix of spiritual and grounded..." what, chief? Dying to know, over here.) Or the fact that this tagline run-on sentence ends with a *fucking* preposition?

To be fair, I understand what the writer is saying in that last bit; that, essentially, you don't need to be religious to be moved by the album. But it sounds like he's saying that you can "catch the Spirit" (that should be a lower case "s," boss, unless you're referring to the Holy Spirit, which, last I checked, was not contagious) to the record. As in, while listening to the record.

I think he means that we can all appreciate the artistic spirit of Chance's new music. But it sounds like he's talking about a fucking dance called "Catch the Spirit" that can be done to the "album."

Long story short, this is really lazy, bullshit writing. I should know. I do so much lazy, bullshit writing every day. But this would never make it past a proofreader, or even a grammar check, in my world.

Obviously, I should put my money where my mouth is, and submit some reviews to Pitchfork to see if I can do any better. But that's probably not going to happen. I'd rather write for Newsarama. For free.

Anyway, Coloring Book is not an album, but it's my second favorite album of the year so far. I have so much more to say about it. I thank the lord that there's another hip-hop record that's strong enough to get me jacked the fuck up about music this year. I thought my load had been blown for me early on.

Hahahahahaha!

"Tryna turn my baby mama to my fiancée. She like music, she from Houston like Auntie Yoncé."

I have Coloring Book, Lemonade and We Are KING on top of 2016 right now. I love every single song on those albums and consider them perfect. Then there's Malibu which is nearly perfect as well but Anderson .Paak is still relatively new and his best is yet to come, so I'd like to give him one or two more albums to fully evolve. And then there's Blackstar which I find incredible but extremely sad due to the circumstances so I can't listen to it often.

Oddly enough, untitled unmastered. is out of my top 5, although Kendrick is my favorite rapper and To Pimp a Butterfly killed 2015 for me. It's still a great project, it only goes to show how dope 2016 has been.

looking fwd to Coloring Book hitting non-Apple services.

Kanye
Chance
Beyoncé
Polly Jean
Pampa vol. 1
Kendrick
Moderat
Radiohead
Big Ups
Kaytranada

I actually think this year's been pretty motherfucking slow all things considered. Especially in hip-hop. But this handful of high quality releases is holding my attention pretty well. Blackstar too.

Kinda slow in terms of hip-hop, yes, but R&B has been blessing me.

It's pretty crazy that the main 3 hip hop artists of the decade: Kanye, Kendrick and Drake all put albums this year, yet no one of them made it to my top 5.

I dedicate hit em up to my grad advisor who is the first person i have sincerely loathed with a spiteful and sinful passion since my partner in crime robbed me ten years ago

Fuck her. Glad I'm done. Good riddance. And yes, i will be filing several official written compaints with the university. God willing someone will finally reprimand this bitch.

"Dishes smashed on my counter from our last encounter
Pictures snatched out the frame
Bitch, I scratched out your name and your face
What is it about you that I can't erase, baby?"

anyone can freestyle using slant rhymes.

WACK

Those were Beyonce lyrics, not a rapper's. And I feel like my heart is stabbed repeatedly when I listen to that song. But anyway, honestly who cares about rhyming anymore? If I was looking for that in rap music, I'd be listening to Eminem all day. Great rappity raps for the sake of rapping, yes, but he's still an uninteresting artist who talks about nothing on his songs. Hip hop has changed and people don't rap the same way as in the 80's or the 90's or even the 00's, deal with it.

Hey congrats man! You're done with grad school? Fuck yeah, bro!

And grad advisors are the worst.

have you heard the new alexandria ep on awful? produced by and featuring a bunch of those guys, even better than her earlier full-length and ep from a couple years back. like a more club-geared aaliyah, fuckloads of sub and alexandria floating on top of it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT7t5fIVH48

Yes. Three weeks

Fucking serious congratulations, my friend. Respect.

Yeah she's cool.

Wait, louder, fucking DRAKE is your #3 favorite hip-hop artist of the past decade? Really man? What about Rocky? What about Danny? What about Push? Or Killer Mike/Run the Jewels? What about CHANCE for that matter?

I know we're all prone to flipping and flopping a bit over time, but as a guy who actually does appreciate some of Drake's music, I still can't fathom how or why anyone would prefer him to these guys.

Also, what's up untitled unmastered. falling out of favor? It's really not a true album. It's a mini-LP to tide us over, and I think it has moments that go just as hard as TPAB.

No no no man, you got it all wrong. I said he's one of "big 3" overall. I wasn't talking about my own preference. If you ask everyone about their favorite rapper of the current decade, most will say Kendrick or Drake or Kanye, you know how it is..

Drake is far beneath Chance's level of course, but most people don't acknowledge it yet, sadly.

And untitled unmastered. is much better than VIEWS of course.

Kendrick's first verse on Untitled 05 alone is better than that album:

Hey louder, Kaytranada's 99% is out of this world. I just love it. It's like a mashup of Dilla, Daft Punk in a world where "Get Lucky" wasn't awful, and MIA, with some slick verses from Vic Mensa and Anderson Paak scattered throughout.

It's really, really good. I was expecting it to be a more traditional hip-hop album. But it's more like Prefuse 73 — electronic at heart with enough hip-hop to appeal to that audience.

I'm really solidly impressed by it. Probably my favorite electronic release this year, having already surpassed Moderat and Underworld. Currently it's threatening Bey's position in my favorite albums list. A very welcome new release by a promising new player. I just fucking love it.

Yes it is a dope project! Kaytranada produced All Night off Coloring Book too. ;) He has a bright future ahead of him.

WTF? New Ariana Grande is on Spotify... but only the 4 singles are playable. Every other song you get an error msg that says it can't be played.

^ Looks great. Those features!!

Hey, Estelle!!!
You guys remember Estelle? Fucking Estelle!!!

Even before I liked Kanye, I LOVED "American Boy." One of the best singles of the '00s. No idea where she's been since then, but she was dope.

Looking forward to this. Smell the DA.I.S.Y. was a solid little album that I ended up overlooking in the long run in 2014, but it was good shit.

American Boy was legit.

Yeah that's a classic collab.

Travis just announced a new tape titled "Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight", coming soon.. which will be followed by an album titled "AstroWorld."

"My next album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight is basically about all my friends and growing up here [in Missouri City]. I'm not saying that it's a trap -- we not in the f---ing projects but it's like a social trap," he explained. "It's a social connection trap from what you want to do and how you want to express yourself. I feel like everyone just gets constricted by their parents or just, life."

New Travis Scott, huh? Sounds ... pretty cool! I maintain that he's a strong voice in hip-hop.

Hey, speaking of that whole crew, I just remembered how absolutely morherfucking insanely good Pusha T's "PAIN" (feat. Future) is.

I heard it at the end of the last episode of Silicon Valley (which pretty much always has dope ass hip hop tracks in the end credits), and I was like, Daaaaamn that shit holds up!

Who's with me?
Pusha T - PAIN feat. Future; official music video (YouTube, 2013)

SFAD, I think even you would like this one. Give it a listen. Yeah it's old, but My Name is My Name is having a resurgence in Severianland, and I want you all to be a part of it.

Is there a better song i should check out from that album like one that actually raps on it? Speaking of rap i was getting off the Metro visiting my priest and i was listening to Kid A when i finally realized National Anthem is hiphopAF

That moment you realize its been an entire decade since your own favorite decade for rap!

My decade begins with e-40 In A Major Way and ends with The Game Doctor's Advocate.

Im comfortable with this, but i hadn't realized it had actually been ten no twenty years for me

30 years if you count me singing NWA tracks as a preschooler in the backseat of my auntie's 84 Celica with 12" pioneers and a kenwood tape deck ;)

My fav

Having been exposed to so much gangsta and hood shit in my formative years might just explain a lot about me. It definitely explains my bad mouth!

Pusha's entire verse is rap. Everything is rap but Future's hook. Thought you'd appreciate it because, relatively speaking, Pusha T is pretty "gangsta" by current standards. There's Pusha, there's Freddie Gibbs, there's Vince Staples (kinda), and the rest is barely related to gangsta rap.

I just think the beat is hard as fuck, the sample is insane, and the gunshots give it some umph.

My favorite decade of rap used to be 1993-2003, but I realized later that most of that shit was shit except for tried and true faves like Tribe, Wu, Jay, Madlib and so on.

Now my favorite "decade" of rap is the 12 years Kanye's been rapping. Hah.