#Nimino

[spookyskellysar]

And I only think about u

[daily-coloring]

nimino - 'I Only Smoke When I Drink' (Official Music Video)

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 28/09/2024 (Alex Warren)

For a fifth week, Sabrina Carpenter remains at #1 with “Taste” - it’s been there since release, and shows no real sign of decline. I suppose time will tell, but for now, welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, G-Eazy

Rundown

This is a pretty slow week, and if Alex Warren having the biggest debut doesn’t tell you that, everything else should, but that doesn’t mean nothing happened and of course, we start as always with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after a peak in the top 40 or five weeks within the covered region. This week, we bid a fair adieu to, firstly, a couple songs that really did not kick off and are gone really early like “ALL RED” by Playboi Carti after just a week in the top 40, “Moi” by Central Cee and RAYE, “Nobody’s Soldier” by Hozier and “Pretty Slowly” by Benson Boone, alongside two more seasoned hits in the form of “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone and, thank the heavens, “I Don’t Wanna Wait” by David Guetta and the hacks over at OneRepublic. I have never once said my coverage is unbiased.

Apart from Ariana Grande’s “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” back at #74 and “i like the way you kiss me” by Artemas at #71, just creeping back up in a slow week, alongside Coldplay’s “Yellow” at #62, we don’t have many returns of note, so we can look towards the interesting and relatively significant gains for “KEEP UP” by Odetari at #51, kind of surprised that’s making it higher, “Close to You” by Gracie Abrams at #47, “Who” by Jimin at #40, “Diet Pepsi” by Addison Rae at #37, “Carry You Home” by Alex Warren at #32 thanks in part to the new song which we’ll talk about later and the album next week. Then we have “feelslikeimfallinginlove” by Coldplay at #32, “WILDFLOWER” by Billie Eilish at #23, “Embrace It” by Ndotz taking virality up to #20, and finally, “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan at #15.

And as for our top five, well, it’s mostly stagnant. Sure, at #5 and #4, “Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter swapped places with “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, but our top three stays still: “Espresso” by Sabrina at #3, “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan at #2 and of course, “Taste” at #1. Now to run through our batch of new songs, a small but really mixed bag here, starting with:

New Entries

#73 - “I Only Smoke When I Drink” - nimino

Produced by nimino

Alright, I’ll bite: who the Hell is nimino? And perhaps more importantly, does it matter? This is a woozy, bordering on fuzzy and lo-fi, spin on a house tune from a producer based in London who has been active since at leasst 2018 in EDM but hadn’t broken out with a big single until now. Firstly, here’s a way of telling if someone is more of a real deal bedroom producer finally getting a deserved break instead of an opportunist TikTok viral moment: this is a bit of a deep cut of a sample, isn’t it? R&B singer Rayana Jay released her song “Hangover” in 2019, it’s a smooth jam with just barely over a million streams on Spotify and a post-success feature from G-Eazy alongside the much more unknown and definitely much more talented Beni Moun. It’s not something that stands out to me, but is a cute enough song that closes her album - it’s rough to finish your record with a G-Eazy feature, though. It stood out to nimino though! He takes not the chorus but the opening line I wouldn’t think twice about to make the titular hook, turning it into a mantra unrecognisable from its original context.

This new song has flittering percussion and synths similar to a Fred again.. track alongside the filtered, more typical house drums which all eventually collide into a louder, almost overwhelming melodic blend against the original cooed hook. The main synth may be too loud, actually, but it phases in very well into a chirpy rhythm that really reminds me of the late 2010s with the cute vocal sound effects and one-offs like the kid laughing, the shuttered future bass-esque synth and nice little percussive percs that show a level of detail to the production here. The sound design is top-notch, the drop is not one-note as the second time around, we get a much more filtered rendition that renders everything into pitch-shifted fragments and even new elements from the original sample coming in, before a final lead-up to what seems like a crescendo amongst 2-step drums… and it just doesn’t arrive, which in this case is genuinely disappointing, because the potential is there for a longer song and really impactful third drop. For what it is, though, it still exceeds my expectations greatly and is a neat, fun little jam I wouldn’t be against seeing chart for a few weeks longer. I believe this is what the kids are calling “stutter house” but I may also need to check out more of nimino’s other work to see what he’s been up to outside of this viral hit, and also to see if he ultimately fits into that genre or, like many EDM DJs nowadays, is a jack of all trades. I feel like his late-summer, wavy sound will fit into many different styles. For now, I recommend this… and not really the song it came from.

#72 - “TEFLON DON” - Future

Produced by Southside, Topp, Peeb, MoXart Beatz, London on da Track and Desro

So, Future dropped an album. Or mixtape. Or album called mixtape. Either way you shake it, it does not seem like this drop will make as strong a wave of his duo of collaborative projects with producer Metro Boomin, primarily because of how there are no features, and it’s an overall rawer project that spends most of its time in and out of short, hard beats with a lot of decadence and deviance from the main affair and no-one else. Given its shorter length, the lack of other voices does not really lead to it dragging as you’d expect, and outside of other long-time collaborators Wheezy and Southside, there aren’t many recurring producers, and a lot of beats have varied contributions from several. There’s a snappier and more diverse palette of instrumentals than you could have expected as a result. However, that doesn’t translate to sales, and this album debuted at #11 on the UK Albums Chart, with only one song charting - I didn’t expect to discuss MIXTAPE PLUTO at all but I’m sure the last-minute music video helped matters, though it’s also the opener - I assume many tapped out after realising there wouldn’t be any guest stars, but Pluto does hold the tape well on his own. This has a hard trap beat, some operatic textures, and splintering production amongst the other alien loops that find themselves in his mix serving one verse from Future, comparing himself to John Gotti like many a rapper before him and not saying much of interest. Why do I prefer this to many other trap bangers? It’s simple: firstly, the beat has a genuine dark menace with the vocals and strings, but mostly because of Future, whose relentless flow locks him into falsetto vocal cracks and nonsensical ad-libs that add so much more character to this track than needs be. It’s far from my ultimate favourites on the album - “SURFING A TSUNAMI” and “LOST MY DOG” are what I recommend - but it’s a fair opener that primes you into exactly what you’d expect from a decent trap solo tape from the king of the genre.

#70 - “S P E Y S I D E” - Bon Iver

Produced by Justin Vernon and Jim-E Stack

Sure, Bon Iver. We’re just doing whatever the fuck this week anyway, it appears, so why not Bon Iver? Ostensibly an indie folk band around since the 2000s, the catalogue of which I’m admittedly not familiar, Bon Iver is synonymous with its lead songwriter and vocalist, Justin Vernon, who will often use the name when in collaboration with bigger acts like Ye, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott, with the Bon Iver albums themselves also increasingly using outside collaborators, making the name feel closer to, say, Tame Impala, even if they’re yet to be that level of one-man band, though they started out as such initially. It doesn’t appear that any of the band actually play on this one, though, with pop producers Jim-E Stack and BJ Burton helping out for a lead single I also did not expect to chart at all this week.

He has - or they have - got an EP coming out and interestingly, this has less of the folktronica, art pop and R&B influences Vernon has been messing around with for the past decade now, instead going for a stripped-back, conventional singer-songwriter track with some great acoustic guitar playing from Mr. Iver, alongside a falsetto vocal that I have always struggled to distinguish from James Blake if I’m honest, especially since I usually hear him in a poppier context. There’s not even a chorus here, but there is a delightful swell of strings jumpstarted by a floaty, almost flippant falsetto chirp from Vernon, though that same swell has a certain melancholy to it, fittingly when there’s a great deal of despair in the content. Vernon begs at the end of the song for him to be made a man from what’s left of his life, one that he acknowledges as full of mistakes, nothing like how he’d have hoped. He starts to enter the stage of sobering up, realising what’s been wrong by the tail-end, but that’s only after moping about self-sabotage for so long that actually articulating what the problem is seems unnecessary. The last verse’s last glint of hope is not a plea for fixing, but more a rearrangement: he barely even resembles the man he’s supposed, so with whatever remains, make a new one. It’s a sombre ballad, it won’t last on the charts, and there isn’t a particular moment that really resonates with me like a specifically poetic turn of phrase or vocal inflection: there’s little to the song over than vocal, guitar and strings, so it’s not very layered in that front. There’s something missing that prevents me from gravitating to it in a specific sense, outside of the context of the tracks it will be sandwiched between, but it’s a powerful vocal, pleaant listen and downright earnest song that deserves well enough to be here.

#66 - “Heavy is the Crown” - Linkin Park

Produced by Mike Shinoda

Well, I suppose with all the controversy floating around, you’d want to move quickly and release some good songs to shut everyone complaining up, right? Well, potentially, that method will work - given the YouTube comments and the tour on the way, with pretty much guaranteed sales, I don’t doubt it will. It won’t work on me, though, primarily because this song sucks. I liked “The Emptiness Machine”, but this feels pretty transparent in its approach: let’s recreate “Faint”. From their 2003 album Meteora, the single starts with an eerie strings sample before dropping into the distorted guitars and a jungle-adjacent drum sound, as co-lead Mike Shinoda raps slightly awkwardly with his characteristic digital stutter, before Chester Bennington crashes in for not just the anthemic chorus but a guttural screech for the bridge. It peaked at #15, but this isn’t a direct sample, instead just a very similarly-structured song which could be a decent thematic song, but it feels a tad lazy when Shinoda is referencing his own rhyme schemes and newly-hired Emily Armstrong also does a long scream in reference to Chester’s iconic one from “Given Up” that really just does not hit the same: technically impressive, but it doesn’t feel as “real”, especially with all the electronic, reverb-heavy production that has flattened this song in terms of having the impact it wants to, including that gross Auto-Tune pre-chorus and the unnecessary echoing. More than actually creating new and interesting music with their new members, this song feels more like a corporate-requested Linkin Park compilation of revisited ideas in a song that’s not even three minutes, squashed into some promo link with League of Legends. Yes, really. I appreciate that since they’re in a genre where sounding like you care is kind of required, they can’t go fully into autopilot, but this has erased some of my hopes for that new album, given this is completely a retread, very transparently, and nothing else.

#35 - “Burning Down” - Alex Warren

Produced by Adam Yaron

You know the stomp-rock revival is really coming to a head when we’re giving Alex Warren, who barely really has the one hit with “Carry You Home”, a serviceable folk-pop tune but nothing special or distinct, a second hit… and an album this week! Maybe we’ll see how that does to see if he can join Noah Kahan in being the figureheads for a really unexpected turn in pop - rock? - music, but for now, he’s got a new single to promote it, it’s debuting over trap legend Future on one of his many peak runs, a Bon Iver lead single, and megastar band Linkin Park’s video game crossover marketing launch, so there must be something to it. There must be. There’s not. Okay, I suppose, the gospel organs are a tad unique, even if it’s moreso just bringing the Christian imagery that’s often subtext in folk songs to a more explicit angle, reflected in the choral vocals and a tone from Warren that resembles David Kushner - yikes - over a dark atmosphere leading into the song that completely flails into a swinging tune by the time the chorus hits. It’s a nasty post-breakup piss-off, but it’s not fully unlikeable given the smug tone has some more genuine drama, with the backing vocals doing a lot of heavy work there, and the chorus being genuinely catchy helping a great deal too. I do find Warren’s vocals here actually pretty shit, generally, he sounds dull on the verses and I have no idea what emotion he’s trying to convey the rest of the time, not sure he does either. In fact, given the mediocre writing that doesn’t really give much detail, he’s the weakest link in a song that sounds more professional than the breakout track, but also in a variation of this genre I don’t have much patience for. It’s once again serviceable, and I appreciate that there is much more character to this than “Carry You Home”. The problem is that I don’t really like that character, and whilst it’s not as immature as a Benson Boone, at least he sells that unlikeability factor in a really uniquely stressful way. This is just unremarkable.

Conclusion

That word does tend to summarise the week, both chart-wise and with the quality of these songs, though most of them remain on a pretty positive edge of the spectrum. nimino, whoever that is, grabs Best of the Week for “I Only Smoke When I Drink”, with Bon Iver just cutting Future off for the Honourable Mention with “S P E Y S I D E” - if it were another track, he could have ran away with it. I can only give one bad title here, Worst of the Week to Linkin Park’s “Heavy is the Crown”, but it’s not as offensively bad as much as it just being utterly see-through. As for what’s on the horizon, expect Kylie Minogue and JADE to land their new bops onto the chart, then maybe something from Alex Warren and Lady Gaga’s soundtrack companion album… and then The Weeknd and Playboi Carti following up their faltering singles with an immediate collab that will probably debut pretty high. I can’t say I’m excited for all of that, but we’re entering the end of the year, with just two months of non-Christmas chart-reviewing, so I suppose we’ll have to see. For now, thank you for reading, long live Cola Boyy and I’ll see you next week!

[muchpreferredcustomers]

Tycho - Small Sanctuary (nimino Remix)

[djohnhopper]

FRIDAY NIGHT VIBE:

nimino - 'Nothing Perfect' (Official Audio)

[thebowerypresents]

Nimino – Racket – November 16, 2024

Nimino started his North American tour on Saturday night with a sold-out show, the London DJ-producer thrilling Racket with house- and hip-hop-influenced electronic music.  

Photos courtesy of Hillary Safadi | @hillasafadi

[wurm-food]

song of the day! 🌸

[lazorcrab]

Finally Friday | New Yearz Mix 2025 (Part 2/5)

Part two of the five part Finally Friday New Yearz Mix 2025 keeps the party going!

Listen to part one: https://www.tumblr.com/lazorcrab/771253191276953600/finally-friday-new-yearz-mix-2025-part-25

Jump ahead to part three: https://www.tumblr.com/lazorcrab/771333687908368384/finally-friday-new-yearz-mix-2025-part-35

Watch the visualizer for this and all my past and future mixes on YouTube or listen on SoundCloud, and be sure to subscribe or follow to join the Finally Friday Gang!

Tracklist: 1. Taylor Swift - Fortnight (feat. Post Malone) (BLOND:ISH Remix) 2. ANOTR & Erik Bandt - How You Feel (feat. Leven Kali) 3. Nelly Furtado, Tove Lo, & SG Lewis - Love Bites (Don Diablo Remix) 4. Bad Bunny - Monaco (WILL K Remix) 5. Eric Prydz & Empire Of The Sun - We Are Mirage 6. Armin van Buuren & Moby - Extreme Ways 7. Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up (DJOKO Edit) 8. Busta Rhymes - Touch It (Kwal Remix) 9. ROYAL INTENTION - EASY RIDER 10. Black Eyed Peas vs. Jack Wins & SQWAD - Rock That Body (Even Steve 'Us' Bootleg) 11. The Chemical Brothers - No Reason (Chris Lake Remix) 12. Jamie xx - KILL DEM 13. David Guetta & Alesso - Never Going Home Tonight (feat. Madison Love) 14. Nicky Romero & Émilie Rachel - Holy 15. HUGEL, Topic, & Arash - I Adore You (feat. Deacolm) (Argy & Mor Avrahami Remix) 16. J Balvin & Skrillex - In Da Getto (Chris Lorenzo Remix) 17. Adam Port & Stryv - Move (feat. Malachiii) (SSORBEATS Remix) 18. Cloonee & Greg (BR) - Still My Baby 19. GORDO - Kill For This Shit (feat. Young Dolph) 20. Kaleena Zanders & Shift K3Y - V I B R A T I O N 21. Swedish House Mafia & Alicia Keys - Finally (Steerner Remix) 22. Ginuwine - Pony (Drew Dapps Edit) 23. Brandy - Angel In Disguise (Wave City Bay Remix) 24. Stace Cadet - Body Overload 25. nimino - I Only Smoke When I Drink 26. John Summit & HAYLA - Shiver 27. Eminem - Houdini (Dunisco Remix) 28. The Weeknd & Playboi Carti - Timeless (KREAM Remix) 29. El Alfa, CJ, & Chael Produciendo - La Mama de la Mamá (feat. El Cherry Scom) (GORDO x REDTAPE Remix) 30. Tinlicker & Felix Raphael - Where Did I Go 31. RÜFÜS DU SOL - Music is Better (Club Edit) 32. HUGEL, Topic, & Arash - I Adore You (feat. J Balvin, Ellie Goulding, & Deacolm) 33. Kaskade vs. &ME & Black Coffee - Angel On My Rapture III (Kaskade Mashup) 34. The Weeknd - Dancing in the Flames (Deezy W Extended Version) 35. Fred Again.. & Joy Anonymous - peace u need 36. Maroon 5 vs. REMIND - One More Night vs. Look Around You (ACNØR Edit) 37. Tiësto & Soaky Siren - Tantalizing 38. Rivo & Armin van Buuren - In And Out Of Love (feat. Sharon Den Adel)

[1five1two]

nimino - I Only Smoke When I Drink (Live in London)

[jimpjin]

nimona nimona nimino mimn min mmmm mmmmmmmm

[canong]

Bringing my heart back home.

I woke up with silent tears swelling and filling up my eyes, seeping over as my eyes flutter, down my cheeks to my hair then finally reaching and soaking my pillow while I lay on my side. Mind is swirling, still drunk from the lingering memory of the smell of you. I have to take a moment to gently smile, empathize and nod at myself with tender love and understanding as if to give myself a long hug. We should have taken that drive. Me in the drivers seat. Ocean Drive would have been bomb with the windows down and the cool breeze blowing through our hair. Thanks for playing it in your car for me.

Today marks one week from our first sunrise.

Safely tucked away in my thoughts, a secret place I hide from judgement of loving friends, I find myself often revisiting that memory in warmth and comfort staying there in your apartment, you holding me and I you, and listening to songs that we listened to together that night, and those that now make me think of you that I wish I could send to you. I never received the ones you promised to send to me. But we know you’re flakey like that. We joked and laughed about how Westerners say shit like hey let’s get lunch sometime and it’s a saying they throw out they don’t really mean it and it 99% never gets scheduled. One of our last conversations you invited me to a festival and I asked you to make sure there is space for me. Did you know I got my ticket? But now I think maybe you were just asking me to get lunch sometime with that invitation. That’s why I called you out for being unreliable, irresponsible. I let you fck me (over) again, waiting on you. I guess that makes me the irresponsible one actually.

I’m ready to take one step out of my mind, my memory, and into the present.

Whenever I revisit that memory, this is how it will now go….We are in your living room, on your sofa and I’m laying on top of you. I ask you to stand and I give you a warm embrace, a kiss on your forehead , and turn towards the door. At the door, every fiber of my being wants to turn and steal one more glance at you but I don’t hesitate, my stride doesn’t change and I end up at the elevator, now I’m heading down the lobby and past the security, and finally I’m out of your building and into a Lyft, heading to the airport to come home, back to me, my heart in my hand, I slide it back into my chest.

It hurts today and that’s okay. I give myself grace. I give you grace as well. And I send you peace, love, light to be with you always.

Rinse and repeat.

[zachcollins]

Take Off Everything - Dwells (nimino Remix) by nimino https://ift.tt/6CsBYaz

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 07/12/2024 (Christmas Garbage)

If you were sick of me talking about Christmas-themed double A-sides from the incredibly long special feature earlier this week… I have bad news. There are two debuts and one of them’s Rudolph. Gracie Abrams is at #1 on the UK Singles Chart for a fifth week with “That’s So True”, otherwise, it’s all merriment so have a wintry welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: death

Rundown

Okay, so once we’re fully in the Christmas weeks, time isn’t real, structure is gone and we may as well have fun with it, so let’s start the rundown with the top five instead, and in reverse order, because why not? Gracie Abrams is at #1, sure, then we have “Last Christmas” by Wham! at #2, “APT.” by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars at #3, “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez at #4, “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #5, and whilst we’re here, I won’t talk about all the Christmas gains simply for how many there are – just returns, new peaks and the top five – therefore shout out to Brenda Lee at #6 with “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”.

With that out of the way, let’s plunge right into holiday music, as in December, the rundown is “what came back?” and “what left?” nearly exclusively. We shall bid a very informal welcome back to the late Frank Sinatra’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” at #75, Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe” at #66, Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” at #62, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas” by Perry Como, the Fontaine Sisters, Mitchell Ayres and his orchestra at #60, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love at #56 (one of my personal favourites), “Carol of the Bells” by John Williams at #53, “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter at #51 (not sure how that one snuck in the stocking, but it returned too), “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade at #50, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by… oh, don’t make say it – John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir – at #49, “I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard at #46, “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis at #45, “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney at #44 and “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano at #40, as well as new peaks for last week’s Amazon originals, “Christmas Magic” by Laufey at #39 – she also has a new peak for “Winter Wonderland” at #24 – and “It Can’t Be Christmas” by Tom Grennan at #25. Oh, and our only notable gains outside of festivities are “The Days” by Chrystal at #38 because of new remixes, I’m pretty sure, I’ve yet to hear them, as well as “Messy” by Lola Young at #35.

So, what left to make room for all that? Well, most of it’s going to com back but you know the jist by now, no one new to this blog will read this of all episodes as a first read, but still: notable dropouts. UK Top 75. Five weeks. Peak in the top 40. ‘Tis what I cover, and ‘tis the season. This week, we bid farewell to “Juno” by Sabrina Carpenter, “St. Chroma” by Tyler, the Creator featuring Daniel Caesar, “labour” by Paris Paloma, “I Only Smoke When I Drink” by nimino, “Burning Down” by Alex Warren, “Heavy is the Crown” by Linkin Park, “Somedays” by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D, “Close to You” by Gracie Abrams, “Move” by Adam Port, Stryv, Keinemusik, Orso and Malachiii, “Kisses” by BL3SS and CamrinWatsin featuring bbyclose – wow, all the EDM-pop ensemble casts exiting today – then “HOT TO GO!” by Chappell Roan, “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen and ��Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” by Dasha. I could have easily missed some here, but if I did… I don’t know, go watch Spectrum Pulse, let’s talk about a reindeer.

New Entries

#72 – “Run Rudolph Run” – Mark Ambor

Produced by Mark Ambor, Parker Sundby and Alex Mak

If you didn’t like Amazon Music originals – I don’t either – how about “Spotify Singles”? No, this isn’t a dating site for Clairo fans, this is a series of singles Spotify has been pushing out for years, and this is the “Belong Together” guy’s recording of Chuck Berry’s jovial Christmas classic about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The original 1958 recording is a fun rock and roll ditty that is fully in Berry’s wheelhouse and features very high praise of Rudolph being the “mastermind” of the other reindeers, as well as some cute dialogue between Santa Claus and some stereotypical kids of the age. He also completely makes a reindeer up – “Randolph” is not usually included in the list, but I feel like Berry ad-libbed in an early take that was used as the final recording, and it just stuck. This version first charted in 1964, peaking at #36 whilst The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, a Christmas #1 I discussed in that last special episode, was topping the chart. It returned in 2019 and has thus far reached as high as #49 on the annual Christmas flush. This new version from Ambor is cute enough and you can tell a lot of fun was had recording it, but it may ramp up the bubblegum a bit too much with those coy backing doo-wop harmonies and a very gentle, faceless delivery that is really far away from Berry’s original, richer recording. Part of why old 50s and 60s Christmas music that sounds straight out of a Claymation special works is because of the warmth of their performers that can sell the charm of the ridiculous fantasy characters but not overdo the saccharine children’s story elements, which are always present but often not the focus since the songs are performed with some degree of subtlety or awareness. This is not, and that’s fine – neither is “Underneath the Tree” and I like that song – but this feels like pure bubblegum novelty instead of anything worth returning to over the original.

#55 – “Empty Out Your Pockets” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Nick Mira

For Christmas dinner, we’re feasting on a five year-old corpse. Whoever at Interscope in charge of Juice WRLD’s masters has pumped out a presumably final posthumous album, The Party Never Ends, compiled of mostly useless, demo-esque leftovers that have been scrapped together and “cleaned up” partly in post by Cashmere Cat, benny blanco, etc. with a few tracks just kept relatively untouched from their leaks. Given this is one verse and solely produced by Juice’s frequent collaborator Nick Mira, I assume this can be included in that, but it doesn’t make it particularly good, or give it any reason to justify its release. Juice had a knack for catchy freestyling, but there is no structure to this, I don’t think there ever was intended to be until the lines were punched in for a vaguely cohesive flexing verse that still derails into a repetitive bridge before returning to the copy-pasted chorus. It’s basically a recording of Juice doing word association fragmented together into a “song” over a decent enough piano-led trap beat. Clearly unfinished, clearly laying there and placed on the album with little effort for a late-year release, I’m just glad this newest record isn’t proving nearly as successful so maybe the dead man’s vault can stop being raided for so-called grails.

Conclusion

Let’s be real: who cares? What song’s better, everyone – posthumous Juice WRLD leftover slop or a milquetoast cover of a children’s song that a corporation made the guy record? Can I give any of this “Best of the Week”, really? If there even is a week to speak of, what’s the point of crowning the best of the two? It’s like choosing between foot-and-mouth disease and… it’s the Christmas chart in two weeks, no idea what’s going on next week if anything, but I’ll see you then.

[djohnhopper]

THURSDAY NIGHT VIBE: 'I only drink when I overthink...'

nimino - 'I Only Smoke When I Drink' (Official Music Video)