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These albums are worth a lot of spins

The Best Albums of 2022

Craig JenkinsDec. 7, 2022

The question of how to find peace hung heavily over the year’s most impactful records.

Best of 2022

The best entertainment of the year, as chosen by Vulture’s critics.

Photo-Illustration: Rowena Lloyd and Susanna Hayward; Photos: Courtesy of the Labels

2022 was a rough year. Too many lives were lost. Too much cultural progress was erased. Divisiveness reigned. The music released in this climate struggled to grapple with constricting times. Harry Styles sang aboutthe comforts of home. Kendrick Lamar got into self-help books. The question of how to find peace hung heavily over the most impactful records, from Cali rapper Vince Staples’s dream of his incarcerated friends coming home in “Aye! (Free the Homies)” to the radiant, defiant joy and self-love in releases from Ari Lennox and Sudan Archives. Here’s a survey of the best albums that pushed the cultural dial this year.

10.Meshuggah, Immutable

Easing off the envelope-pushing, polyrhythmic chaos of 2002’s Nothing and 2008’s obZen, the veteran Swedish metal quartet Meshuggah settled into a sturdier sound across its ninth album, in which “Ligature Marks” and “They Move Below” find fun ways to challenge and disorient the listener, by turns serving punishingly straightforward groove-metal and sludgy psychedelia. The virtuosity’s still there; drummer Tomas Haake’s a titan, and figuring out his time signatures will keep you just as busy as piecing together the real-world subjects of his and rhythm guitarist Mårten Hagström’s ominous lyrics. The fearful “The Abysmal Eye” warns of a coming cataclysm in almost Biblical terms: “This is our omega / Factitious nemesis / The great dismantler / Of our dominion.” Delightfully, it turns out to be a spiel from Haake on AI.

9.Sudan Archives, Natural Brown Prom Queen

“NBPQ (Topless),” off the funk-soul polymath Sudan Archives’s sophomore album, is a thought bubble in which the artist born Brittney Parks wonders aloud why the spoils of the music biz can’t be hers: “Sometimes I think that if I was light-skinned / Then I would get into all the parties / Win all the Grammys, make the boys happy.” Prom Queen sees the singer-songwriter and self-taught violinist (as well as producer and arranger) steeling herself for both injustice and exhausting behavior, listing off all the friends she can send over to smack you in the combative “Ciara” and begging an anime-loving boyfriend to turn off Initial D and give up the D during the sultry “Homesick (Gorgeous and Arrogant).” Natural Brown Prom Queen is a playful tour of Parks’s vast talents, a vision of hip-hop soul with a global and historical purview, a celebration of uniqueness thriving despite cultural rot.

8.Nilüfer Yanya, PAINLESS

London-born singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya’s music stretches comfortably across genres in a manner reminiscent of the wily mid-’80s stretch when R&B singers, New Wave bands, and pop stars shared both radio space and aesthetic flourishes as well as that point in the aughts when indie-rock artists discovered dance music. On Yanya’s sophomore album, feathery R&B vocals, tasteful guitar figures, and synth-pop electronics fuse into exciting shapes. The breathy “trouble” bubbles and froths like water; the opener “the dealer” has a palpable Stone Roses swagger. The writing is cerebral, and the grooves are impossibly delicate. The airy acoustic number “company” offers a hushed pep talk: “I can tell you’ve only just begun / I can tell you feel exhausted / I can tell you’re not the only one.” Painless feels … therapeutic.

7.Ari Lennox, age/sex/location

Earlier this year, when singer-songwriter Ari Lennox, a native of Washington, D.C., briefly swore off interviews after a podcast host asked a disrespectful question about her sex life, you got the sense she’d met too many of that sort while moving through male-dominated hip-hop spaces. Lennox’s age/sex/location album attempts to convey the feeling of craving comfort and companionship while tiring of the goofs you have to screen to meet a decent guy, all while dealing with people who don’t respect your time. On A/S/L, power and softness cohabitate. If Ari asks you to “Stop By” for a while, it’s implied you’ll be leaving. It’s telling that the hookup song is called “Waste My Time” and the meet-cute song is called “Boy Bye.” “Queen Space,” a duet with Summer Walker, spells this all out for you: “There’s something I am sure of / I deserve something purer.”

Read Craig Jenkins’s review of age/sex/location.

6.Steve Lacy, Gemini Rights

The second album from singer-songwriter, producer, and guitarist Steve Lacy is a musing on dualities and dichotomies. Gemini Rights takes its name from the twin sign, and twoness is core to its spirit. It’s about a breakup, but it’s also about getting back out there on the rebound. It steeps itself in soul and R&B history — the stately “Buttons” nods to Raphael Saadiq and Ernie Isley (also Geminis) — while gesturing to rock. Lacy is putting on a clinic in the resourceful slipperiness of Black music, serving up timeless R&B nuggets like the Fousheé collaboration “Sunshine” and mixing and matching anachronistic sounds, as the hit “Bad Habit” does, pairing indie-rock jangle and pleading boy-band vocals. “Mercury,” a blend of R&B and Latin jazz, and “Amber,” which evokes Prince and Odd Future, show the songwriter stepping into his greatness.

Read Craig Jenkins’s interviewwith Steve Lacy.

5.Soul Glo, Diaspora Problems

The bong rip and the “Can I live?” at the top of “Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?),” the first song on Philadelphia punk trio Soul Glo’s latest album, Diaspora Problems, are your first clues that the sound of this band is changing. Dive in deeper and you find Soul Glo melding the tunefulness of its earliest songs with the jarring balance of noise, punk, and the odd hip-hop track heard across 2019’s The Nigga in Me Is Me. Singer Pierce Jordan makes the differences between the genres seem negligible, shrieking in a rapper’s cadence about the problems people of color face in modern America and the inertia and disinterest in radical change that stoke division and wealth inequality. This could be morose, heady stuff, but Soul Glo makes it feel like a lively bar debate, a series of short blasts of no-nonsense invective delivered colorfully in the way that some of the best punk rock in history has transmuted political science into everyman rage. “We Wants Revenge” extends the tradition to the generation of listeners shaken into an early awareness of world politics as schoolchildren watching 9/11 unfold on TV: “I want my motherfucking childhood back.”

4.The Smile, A Light for Attracting Attention

Every time Thom Yorke lands on a signature sound, he smashes it to bits. In Radiohead, he pivots from heady art rock to chilly atmospherics to baroque acoustics; in his solo projects, he does dance music but also foreboding drones. This all makes the Smile a shock. Forming a trio with longtime bandmate Jonny Greenwood and the London jazz drummer Tom Skinner seems to have nudged Yorke back into an older, harsher version of himself. But maybe it’s just the year. A Light for Attracting Attention, their debut studio album, thrives on physicality and dizzying band interplay, particularly in songs like “The Smoke” — which juggles sultry grooves and technical playing and comes out sounding a little like “Talk Show Host” but a little more like Beefheart — or the rowdy “You Will Never Work in Television Again,” on which Yorke razzes Silvio Berlusconi with all the piss and vinegar of The Bends’s “Just.” The jitteriness of “We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings” was the feeling of being alive in 2022 distilled into song.

Read Craig Jenkins’s review of A Light for Attracting Attention.

3.Bad Bunny, Un Verano Sin Ti

Bad Bunny keeps global streaming charts in a chokehold not just as an emissary of the intercontinental appeal of reggaeton but as a prodigious writer of love songs and a restless musical aesthete. Un Verano Sin Ti, the fourth solo album from the Puerto Rican superstar, spends nearly two dozen tracks drilling it into your head that Bunny understands not just the breadth of the intersecting audiences he’s playing to but also the generations of developments that make his career possible. Early on, “Después de la Playa” signals an interest in playing with conventions; as you wait for a beat to drop under the synths that open the track, Bunny hangs a left into a spirited, live-sounding merengue detour. “El Apagón” gives a tribute to Puerto Rico a blast of infectious EDM. He’s having fun. He’s showing off. He’s making history.

Read Gary Suarez’s review of Un Verano Sin Ti.

2.Vince Staples, Ramona Park Broke My Heart

After the claustrophobic sonics of Summertime ’06, the abrasive dance music of Big Fish Theory, and the brutal, compact tunes on FM! and Vince Staples, you’d be excused for being under the impression that Vince Staples doesn’t give a shit about what you expect from him. It was trippy, then, for the rapper and actor to deliver his most accomplished and streamlined release over a decade after his first appearances on Odd Future records. Ramona Park Broke My Heart, Vince’s fifth solo studio album, stops flailing and embraces regionality, diving into the musical and sociopolitical history of Southern California. It’s a worthy scion of the gangsta-rap tradition preceding it. The writing is vivid, achingly tired but steadfast, never more so than on “When Sparks Fly,” which anthropomorphizes a gun better than Nas’s “I Gave You Power.”

Read Craig Jenkins’s review of Ramona Park Broke My Heart.

1.Beyoncé, Renaissance

The wait for the seventh proper Beyoncé album was as long as the finished product is great. Like the best Bey releases, Renaissance feels as if it’s been in the oven for ages, but it’s come out at just the right time. It’s an achievement on multiple levels, an effortless excursion into half a dozen permutations of dance music, a seamless playlist, and a loud reminder that Black auteurs and their experiences tilled the foundation the art form grew from. It’s a face-melting display of vocal excellence, full of flawless runs and perfectly placed harmonies. Every beat delivers a musicology lesson: Closer “Summer Renaissance” draws a line connecting Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s “I Feel Love” to video-game music and ’90s house; “Virgo’s Groove” touches on the beefy French house of Daft Punk but also Tame Impala’s psychedelic dance-pop. While it’s managing all of that, Renaissance pays tribute to queer Black performers across decades in a year marred by anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and acts of violence in and outside community spaces. Its technical excellence will be studied, but its comfort in honoring queer history while singing about heterosexual monogamy in marriage deserves every bit as much scholarship.

Read Craig Jenkins’s review of Renaissance.

Honorable Mention

The Weeknd, Dawn FM

Photo: Vulture

Weeknd songs have a unique, refined aesthetic — a little bit John Carpenter, a little bit Aubrey Graham, equally concerned with doling out suspenseful discomfort andblending hip-hop and R&B with elements of popular genres beyond the pale. Following the breakthrough of 2020’s After Hours — where Abel Tesfaye tapped the ambient producer Oneohtrix Point Never to beef up the textures bolstering his darkly enthralling songwriting — Dawn FM expands the artist’s sound while honoring the syrupy sonics of beloved releases like House of Balloons, dipping slick 21st century R&B in a vat of expertly curated 20th century nostalgia. It’s still incredibly catchy but eerily urgent, ill at ease in its debauchery, like a horror-movie party scene.

Read Craig Jenkin’s review ofDawn FM.

FKA Twigs, Caprisongs

Photo: Vulture

Recorded during the unexpected solitude of quarantine amid pangs of nostalgia for nights out with friends, Caprisongs — singer FKA Twigs’s first mixtape and the follow-up to her exquisite 2019 studio album Magdalene — accomplishes with sound what the star couldn’t manage in isolation, conjuring vital global nightlife scenes as it balances crystalline electronic music, bedroom R&B, U.K. drill, dancehall, and Afrobeats. Working with Spanish musician El Guincho, hip-hop beat-maker Mike Dean, Venezuelan artist Arca, U.K. rappers Unknown T and Shygirl, and vocalists Jorja Smith and the Weeknd, FKA Twigs checks in on friends across continents, finding everyone pining for the same simple, communal comforts.

Earl Sweatshirt, SICK!

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While his Odd Future mates Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator spent the past decade working toward the cinematic majesty of sprawling releases like Frank’s Blonde and Tyler’s Call Me When You Get Lost, Earl Sweatshirt receded into the confines of his own mind. On I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside and Some Rap Songs, he rapped capably about grief, depression, and failing coping mechanisms over insular beats. With this year’s SICK!, a tacit reaction to an emotionally taxing year, Sweatshirt tries again to lift himself out of the doldrums. The music is a little lighter, though no less weary, a lot closer in its scope and mix to the pained narratives and surprising crispness of the rapper/producer’s 2012 major-label debut, Doris. It’s a trip watching a master of his crafts working out how accessible they need to be.

Saba, Few Good Things

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In the spirit of spooked, satirical songs on Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly like “Wesley’s Theory” or “For Free,” Saba’s new album pokes at the pitfalls of prosperity. The Chicago rapper has finally attained the financial stability you could hear him hungering for in early 2010s mixtapes. Now the game is to never slip, because there are toomany mouths to feed and no safety net protecting against failure. Few Good Things is about waiting for the other shoe to drop and freaking out over the prospect of things going well. The songs are deceptively sweet and tuneful but beset by incredible anxiety. A less experienced writer might have found a way to make these worried new-money anthems grate; a lesser rhymer and vocalist might have spun out on the sharp turns from psychedelic soul to bubbly pop rock to drill rap. It’s a testament to Saba’s talent and versatility that Few Good Things is a smooth ride.

Big Thief, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You

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For years, you could surmise what a Big Thief record might sound like before you ever pressed play: cosmic country-rock descended from ‘70s Neil Young classics, rustic remembrances from singer-songwriter Adrienne Lenker, a shroud of ambient room noise. For this winter’s Dragon New Warm Mountain, Big Thief’s fifth album, the band shook up the process, recording on the east and west coasts and scenic spots in between. The same sound is there, but it’s evolving, growing more complex in its arrangements, zipping from pure country to indie folk, from eccentric arrangements to straight-up alt-rock. These songs take chances, and Lenker’s writing remains intense and impressionistic. “What’s it gonna take,” she asks in the genteel and reflective “Spud Infinity,” “to free the celestial body?”

Read Justin Curto’s interview with Big Thief.

Beach House, Once Twice Melody

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Once Twice Melody, the first double album from dream-pop vets Beach House, was rolled out over three months in four installments, easing listeners into its easy-going sprawl a few songs at a time. Once Twicemakes admirable use of its 85-minute running time as it ushers the listener across surrealistic vistas and scenes of lovers breaking up and making up. Producing themselves for the first time, the duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally explore massive dance-pop tunes in the spirit of M83, jangling indie-rock jams recalling past successes like “Space Song” and “Lemon Glow,” and stately folk songs, steadied here as much by Legrand’s spectral vocals and mystical lyricism as by Scally’s hazy, enveloping accompaniment.

Blood Incantation, Timewave Zero

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Colorado death-metal quartet Blood Incantation excels at winding, hellish compositions with daring twists. The punishing “Hidden Species (Vitrification of Blood, Pt. 2),” off the band’s 2016 debut Starspawn,turns into a shoegaze jam halfway through; “The Giza Power Plant,” from 2019’s acclaimed Hidden History of the Human Race, spends seven minutes devolving from chaotic blast beats into a long, psychedelic coda. On its third album, the band torches its own playbook. March’s Timewave Zero, named after philosopher and psychotropic explorer Terence McKenna’s unified theory of history, trades relentless riffs and abrupt changes for braying synths and heavy silence. Two sidelong compositions, “Io” and “Ea,” move with an almost wraithlike delicacy, conjuring a trek across a desert or a dive into the alien landscapes of Metroid.

Vein.fm, This World Is Going to Ruin You

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Boston punk quintet Vein.fm is lightening up … a little. On This World Is Going to Ruin You, there are more peaceful clearings breaking up the thickets of forbidding screamo and mathcore the band built a name on over the 2018 debut Errorzone. There’s a big hook from Thursday singer Geoff Rickly to release tensions building in the single “Fear in Non Fiction”; the late-album metalcore confection “Magazine Beach” could actually fit on a Thursday album. Slower, more atmospheric tunes like “Wherever You Are” and “Wavery” that sit alongside the brute-force riffs and breakdowns of “Lights Out” and “Inside Design” give This World Is Going to Ruin You a dynamic tension previously hinted at in the 2020 remix album Old Data in a New Machine. The addition of turntablist and samples guy Benno Levine nudges Vein’s sound ever closer to nu metal, and it’s fun to hear the band balance this sound with the hardcore punk it pulls from elsewhere in the album. This isn’t necessarily the textbook “pivot toward accessibility” we see sometimes when a band wants to lure new fans in. It’s more like Vein is looking for more tools to smash us in the head with.

Charli XCX, Crash

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After a decade’s worth of forward-thinking albums that almost certainly gave her peers big ideas, British pop singer Charli XCX swan-dives into the ’80s revival on Crash, her fifth album. The big hooks and slick textures of the new album are a far cry from the delightfully eccentric homemade miniatures featured on her 2020 album How I’m Feeling Now. Crash feels built for dance floors in the same way How I’m Feeling Now seemed built for living-room dance parties. Production is plush and intricate; even the keyboards in the Eurythmics soundalike “Good Ones” seem beefy. The balance of cold synthetic textures and hot funk at the heart of songs like “Baby” and the syrupy robot pop of “Lightning” and “Every Rule” are convincing as replicas of the sound of ’80s radio hits, but also savvily in step with the time-traveling energy of recent Hot 100 phenomenons like Justin Bieber and the Kid Laroi’s “Stay” and the Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears.” Crash gets what those records got: Give us a cool vocal and a dab of heartbreak, and we fall every time.

Rosalía, Motomami

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Motomami — where Spanish singer-songwriter and producer Rosalía completed her transformation into an international música urbana star following high-profile collaborations with heavyweights like J Balvin, Ozuna, and Bad Bunny — is a toy chest full of jarring and gibing sounds and concepts. It slays on songs that play it straight, like “Candy” and “La Combi Versace,” two airy spring radio hits waiting to happen. It’s most intriguing when it’s fucking with convention, playing with the sound of the singer’s incredible voice and pulling from offbeat source material. “Diablo” plops a stately James Blake appearance in the middle of a track where the main artist is otherwise hosting a playful duet with her own sped-up vocal. The title track features production from Pharrell that borders on Nintendocore; “Hentai,” another Skateboard P team-up, is a sex ballad that sounds like the home around the bedroom’s being blown away in a hurricane. Study the credits even closer, and the presence of players like Michael Uzowuru and El Guincho (whose collective body of work includes production on records by Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, and FKA Twigs), and it starts to feel like Motomami is out to forge a kind of many-armed sound-straddling international scene. The questions about ownership that this raises are sensible. The optics are iffy, but the sonics are pretty.

Read Craig Jenkins’s review ofMotomami.

Koffee, Gifted

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Skimming across the surface and taking in the slight, bright hooks and the soulful acoustic-guitar tunes at the root of Gifted, the debut album from Jamaican singer Koffee, you might mistake the record for a more upbeat affair than it actually is. Koffee has a gift for catchy, feel-good melodies (and an ease in adopting and augmenting the flows and cadences of American hip-hop and R&B) that counterbalance the chaos addressed in her verses. Lean in, and you hear harsh truths coated in pop sensibilities. The pain bleeding through songs like the bubbly single “Shine” — “Sun’s out, it’s a siren / Gun violence tiring / Rise up, it’s a crime scene” — speaks to the space between perceptions and reality, to the troubles plaguing a nation the rest of the world sees as a vacation destination. Koffee wants to be happy, find love, and keep her friends close, as she explains in cuts like “Run Away” and “Lonely.” But as often as it addresses the singer’s pride in where she grew up, Gifted wonders why the peaceful world Koffee dreams of isn’t the one she lives in.

Billy Woods, Aethiopes and Church

From top: Photo: VulturePhoto: Vulture

Listening to Aethiopes and Church, back-to-back full lengths by veteran independent rapper Billy Woods, you’re whisked across continents and back through time, pulled into the enigmatic artist’s intercontinental, time-displaced worldview. One minute, you’re marveling at the efficiency of the mom-and-pop weed shops sprouting up across Morningside Heights; later, you’re peering down at sugar-cane fields on fire through an ancestor’s eyes. Working with Baltimore producer Messiah Musik on Church, Woods processes faith and loss, juggling grim New York stories and discomfiting traumas. On Aethiopes, with Yasiin Bey and KA collaborator Preservation, Woods combines Caribbean folk tales, historical tragedies, and fragments from his own family history. “Asylum” juggles paranoia and regal splendor: “I think Mengistu Haile Mariam is my neighbor / Whoever it is moved in and put an automated gate up.” There is a chance that the rapper, the son of a Jamaican English professor and a Marxist writer and activist from Zimbabwe, isn’t kidding there.

Redveil, Learn 2 Swim

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The decade hip-hop collectives like Odd Future, Dreamville Records, and Top Dawg Entertainment have spent bridging the gap between old-school boom bap and new-school trap — and between heady indie rap and catchy, immediate mainstream music — is synthesized in the growing catalogue of Maryland producer and rapper Redveil, whose records imbue painful, earnest, soul-searching lyricism with easygoing melodies and beats balancing samples and trap drums. With May’s Learn 2 Swim, his third album, the 18-year-old artist has made something good enough to contend with his elders. Over lush, cinematic sounds, Redveil wonders why he couldn’t enjoy the carefree adolescence every kid deserves, delivering heart-wrenching lines like these from the hazy, reflective “Shoulder”: “I face regret for my formative years / The debt that I hold is close to my heart still / Nevеr let my heart spill / A n- - - - nevеr got to play, but played my part still.”

Pusha T, It’s Almost Dry

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As half of Virginia rap duo the Clipse, Pusha T shared chilling tales of cocaine salesmanship set to jarring, minimalist production from the Neptunes. Navigating a solo career since Malice, his brother and partner in rhyme, took a break from the game, Push has worked extensively with Ye. It’s Almost Dry, Pusha’s fourth solo album, brings both Pharrell and West to the table for a collection of songs that seat sinister, skeletal Skateboard P beats like “Call My Bluff” and “Open Air” alongside a batch of Ye tracks that run the gamut from bare-bones sample chops like “Diet Coke” to grandiose productions like “I Pray for You,” rare gems in a year where the rapper-producer wrecked almost everything he touched. Push is at ease in every setting; It’s Almost Dry benefits from decades of history and refinement. The beats are cold, the performances are delightfully villainous, and Malice contributes a great verse to “I Pray for You,” a best-case scenario for an album from this dream team.

Miranda Lambert, Palomino

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Last year’s The Marfa Tapes was a bit of a curveball, an album full of gorgeous campfire recordings from the normally more polished Miranda Lambert, the voice and pen behind aughts country chart hits such as “Kerosene” and “Gunpowder & Lead.” Singing out in the desert with longtime friends brought the East Texas star back to her roots as a singer-songwriter who learned to play guitar in order to not have to cut schmaltzy records written for her by committee. Lambert brings Marfa’s spirit of change, and a few of its songs, to Palomino, her ninth solo album. The new tracks ache and shake and strut. “Country Money” and Marfa holdover “Geraldene” blend country phrasings, soul syncopation, and dueling guitar leads; “Music City Queen” invites the B-52s to a country-soul groove while Miranda makes damn sure to point out the similarities in the career journeys of Tina Turner and Dolly Parton. She knows what she’s doing.

Toro y Moi, Mahal

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Chaz Bear makes music that sounds the way the summertime feels in his slippery, unpredictable flagship project, Toro y Moi. The breezy chillwave beats on his 2011 debut, Causers of This, evoked sweltering heat; recent cuts such as “Ordinary Pleasure” and “Freelance” thump like euphoric club nights. On this spring’s new Mahal, the seventh Toro y Moi album, Chaz is still working through the psychedelic-rock moods of 2015’s What For? but also plotting new moves. The sedate “Goes By So Fast” sounds like the theme song for a ’70s sitcom from another dimension; “Postman” and “The Loop” revel in this rocker and dance producer’s formidable chops as a funk/soul player. Impressively, he’s playing most of this music by himself.

Obongjayar, Some Nights I Dream of Doors

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Splitting his formative years between the Nigerian port city of Calabar and Norwich University of the Arts in the East of England, 28-year-old Steven Umoh learned to love rap, rock, and Afrobeat, and to despise unjust power structures. These interests coalesce in the music Umoh makes as Obongjayar. Following a tantalizing string of EPs and appearances on excellent albums from lovable Detroit oddball Danny Brown and U.K. rapper-singer Little Simz, Obongjayar shines on his debut, Some Nights I Dream of Doors. With a voice like a Swiss Army knife and a pen game every bit as sharp, he sings of love and death with equal fascination, criticizing corrupt doctors and state officials in a coarse, gravelly tone in “Parasite” and “Message in a Hammer” and slipping into a smooth falsetto for “Sugar” and “I Wish It Was Me,” songs of faith and devotion. Doors drifts through hip-hop and Afropop in its ceaseless quest for personal peace.

Quelle Chris, Deathfame

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Veteran Detroit rapper and producer Quelle Chris is a brilliant satirist and a beat-maker capable of creating intriguing loops from unlikely source material. Deathfame, his eighth solo project, wrestles with a daunting question: How do you attain the universal respect showered on rappers when they die … without crossing over to the upper room? Deathfame explores fame’s paradoxes, sometimes with a smirk and sometimes in earnest, clowning musicians who’ll leverage their integrity for a paycheck in one breath, and in the next lament the feeling that the spoils of success are rarely enjoyed by people who legitimately deserve the win. On the title track, Quelle Chris offers grim advice for prospective rappers on the come-up: “Life move like light moves, fast, so bankroll cash / Or hope to spend it, something splendid ’fore they break yo’ ass.”

Ravyn Lenae, Hypnos

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Chicago vocalist Ravyn Lenae cut her teeth on songs with local stars like Noname and Smino, eventually opening for SZA’s 2017 Ctrl tour and releasing the promising Crush EP in 2018. The 23-year-old reveals new gifts on Hypnos, her debut album, where gossamer vocals fall gently on intricate productions the way a light summer rain envelops city skyscrapers and sidewalks. Over beats from Phoelix (Noname’s Room 25), Monte Booker (Lenae’s Moon Shoes and Midnight Moonlight EPs), and Steve Lacy, Lenae delivers a gorgeous collection of bubbly, intimate songs about finding peace and letting new relationships breathe.

UMI, Forest in the City

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Tierra Umi Wilson sings about the tiny, private moments that unite lovers and the imperceptible rifts that pull them apart. Forest in the City, her debut album, is full of songs about matching energies and missed connections. “Whatever U Like” pledges to stop fighting a growing attraction; later, “Hard Feelings” steels itself through a romance fizzling out. Guiding us across these peaks and valleys is UMI’s pen, which is self-assured except when it needs to be soul-searching and meek; her voice, which can be powerful but also diminutive; and a raft of airy, watery productions that evoke the juxtaposition of nature and city living touched on in the album’s title, a reference to the vocalist’s move from her native Seattle to Los Angeles.

Angel Olsen, Big Time

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Progressing through lo-fi folk songs, boisterous indie-rock romps, and bold synth-pop jams in a streak of accomplished and creatively restless studio albums, the St. Louis–native singer-songwriter Angel Olsen garnered a reputation as a sojourner, a musician committed not only to self-expression but to challenging herself. But last year’s tumult proved daunting even for a longtime trailblazer: Olsen came out as queer and lost both her parents in quick succession. She poured her feelings into music and gravitated to country. Big Time, Olsen’s sixth album, processes pain by pulling remaining loved ones closer and embracing lacerating truthfulness. “The world is changing, you can’t reverse it,” Olsen sings in the volcanic “Go Home.” “The truth is with you, you can’t rehearse it.” The music underfoot gestures to ’60s Countrypolitan ballads, the Cowboy Junkies’ The Trinity Session, and the Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground, which turn out to be great fits.

Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever

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Sophie Allison and Daniel Lopatin are unlikely collaborators; the Nashville singer-songwriter’s work as indie-rock performer Soccer Mommy and Lopatin’s ambient records as Oneohtrix Point Never might be worlds removed in sonics and scope, but they’re both writing their own rules. Lopatin’s synths made their way into Weeknd records; Soccer Mommy also bucks tradition, eschewing Music City’s biggest export for pained rock songs that could fit into archival 120 Minutes broadcasts as is. Sometimes, Forever, Allison’s third studio album, lets Lopatin go for broke; she writes the aching songs about love and sadness, and he buttresses her band’s solid rock foundations with stacks of shimmering, clattering, beautiful guitar noise.

Flo Milli, You Still Here, Ho?

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Two summers ago, on the chipper, conceited Ho, why is you here? mixtape, Mobile, Alabama, rapper Flo Milli seemed to arrive fully formed, proving there was much more to where the smirking, arrogant 2019 gem “Beef FloMix” came from, as songs like “Not Friendly” and “Scuse Me” rounded out a half-hour serving of the kind of music that plays as a bump in the club becomes a brawl. This year’s You Still Here, Ho?, Flo Milli’s debut studio album, flaunts impressive growth and dimensionality over a batch of beats that allow her to shatter expectations as she balances modern southern and Midwest flows, ’90s Miami bass and ’00s pop-rap grooves, R&B ballads and rock songs, and comedic cockiness and emotional earnestness.

Read Tirhakah Love’s interview with Flo Milli.

Chat Pile, God’s Country

God’s Country, the debut album from Oklahoma City sludge-metal quartet Chat Pile, emulates a handful of ’90s noise-rock touchstones — Pure-era Godflesh in the more sluggish, hellish moments and Drive Like Jehu’s Yank Crime when it picks up the pace and takes a break from smothering its melodies in clattering, forbidding sound. But the sensibilities on display in the lyrics singer Raygun Busch shouts from the middle of the mire feel distinctly like assessments of 2022. “Why” is a sarcastic spiel about how preposterous it is to have a homelessness crisis and a lot of empty office space, “Anywhere” ponders the terror of escaping a mass shooting in progress, and “The Mask (2022)” and “Tropical Beaches, Inc.” look in on lesser-known 20th-century crimes, like Netflix docs. The carnival of pain Busch’s protagonists occupy, the slasher-flick narratives and the stories about addiction, fits the weaponized hiss and fuzz of these songs hand in glove.

The Mountain Goats, Bleed Out

Photo: Merge Records

A songwriter by trade, John Darnielle approaches his art like a scientist, a specialist studying a petri-dish culture. His albums examine their subjects on a granular level. He might reflect on a wrestling match he attended as a child and end up with a concept album about luchadores and kayfabe. During the process of writing what would become this summer’s stark, sinewy Bleed Out, the 21st album from John’s band the Mountain Goats, the artist sat down with his favorite 20th-century action and vigilante films, and they imparted their wiry pacing and themes of dissatisfaction and revenge on songs like “Extraction Point” and “Need More Bandages,” where the emotional cost of the ultraviolence in staples like Death Wish is tallied. You can overthink Bleed Out and philosophize about the idea behind examining the relationships between real and fictional violence, or you can receive it as a string of quick character studies humanizing the miles of meatheads in Rambo films, or you can appreciate it as a slick late-career left. Its lean rock riffs feel both surprising and totally natural for this act, like the synth embellishments in Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man.

Read Craig Jenkins’s interview with John Darnielle.

Roc Marciano & the Alchemist, The Elephant Man’s Bones

Photo: ALC

As kindred spirits from opposite coasts who share a taste for gruff lyricism and inspired sample work (as well as a number of industry friends), Long Island producer and rapper Roc Marciano and Cali polymath the Alchemist probably ought to have made an album together years ago, piggybacking off the incredible chemistry on display in songs from Marci’s Reloaded album and Action Bronson’s Rare Chandeliers mixtape. This summer’s The Elephant Man’s Bones finally delivers an album-length pairing of Marci’s gangster chronicles and the Alchemist’s expert sample chops. As usual, Marciano’s tough talk entices, but the ragged triumph of the title track sticks out: “My aura an essence, it’s fluorescent / That’s why I belong, this all was destined, the story was epic.” He seems at ease amid the somber piano loops, muted drums, and verses from Bronson and Boldy James.

Freddie Gibbs, $oul $old $eparately

$oul $old $eparately, Indiana rhymer Freddie Gibbs’s Warner Records debut, is an achievement that took almost 15 years to land. In the mid-aughts, Gibbs was signed and rather abruptly dropped from Interscope Records, which put a damper on the debut studio album he’d been working on. Gibbs took the long way back to the majors, connecting with Atlanta rapper Jeezy’s CTE World imprint and later making a string of critically acclaimed indie albums with veterans such as Madlib and Alchemist. $$$ finds the artist at the peak of his power, pulverizing a versatile batch of beats from hitmakers including DJ Dahi (Kendrick Lamar, ScHoolboy Q) and Boi-1da (Drake, Nicki Minaj) and auteurs such as James Blake and Kaytranada. Gibbs’s perfect timing, earnest verses, and diabolical boasts hold this collection of enticing sample chops and live-band embellishments together, teasing fresh melodies and cadences out of familiar tunes, as “Too Much” does with R&B family band DeBarge’s 1982 hit “All This Love,” and revisiting painful memories, as Gibbs does in the melancholy but resolute “Rabbit Vision”: “A lot of shit, it broke my heart, but it fixed my vision.”

Read Craig Jenkins’s 2021 interview with Freddie Gibbs.

Titus Andronicus, The Will to Live

In the decade and a half since the release of their acclaimed 2008 debut album, The Airing of Grievances, tristate-area rockers Titus Andronicus have melded anthemic body music, heady themes, and historical allegories to disorienting effect. Grievances muses on the loneliness of Albert Camus’s The Stranger, and 2010’s The Monitor juxtaposes 21st-century American strife with the dreams of the nation’s forefathers. Big swings pay off for Titus, and this year’s The Will to Live hits hard, pondering questions of morality and faith while gesturing to punk, progressive rock, and Irish fight songs — sometimes inside of a single tune, as is the case with “Bridge and Tunnel,” a seven-minute trek from warlike scenes to a cathartic coda. The pithy “An Anomaly” delivers a coarse reminder that “it was God that made the Devil”; “Give Me Grief” and “(I’m) Screwed” process pain and death with defiant grit. The Will to Live is a concept album about what to do in times of chaos, about what keeps us going when luck doesn’t cut our way. It’s both a reaction to the sudden loss of singer-guitarist Patrick Stickles’s best friend, cousin, and musical collaborator, Matt Miller, and a snapshot of how it feels to be alive right now. This year feels a little like hell set loose on Earth, a string of nightmare scenes coming painstakingly true. The Will to Live stresses that we win by sticking together.

Read Craig Jenkins’s interview with Titus Andronicus singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles.

Björk, Fossora

Fossora, the tenth studio album from Icelandic singer-songwriter and producer Björk, makes plays only a tenth album could, moving confidently across musical territory the singer charted on earlier releases. The diced-up vocals of “Mycelia” and the choral harmonies of “Sorrowful Soil” recall the experiments with the human voice attempted on 2004’s Medúlla; the intricate arrangements of “Allow” and “Fungal City” seem informed by the orchestral flourishes of 2017’s Utopia, while “Ovule” and “Ancestress” revisit the chaotic dance music of beloved albums like 1998’s Homogenic and 2001’s Vespertine. Fossora rearranges these ideas into new shapes as Björk muses on love, family, and the wisdom inherited from ancestors, making music that feels both fresh and familiar nearly 30 years on from her breakout single “Human Behaviour.”

Read Jason P. Frank’s guide to Björk’s Fossora.

Broken Bells, Into the Blue

Super producer Danger Mouseand Shins frontman James Mercer had just come off of the 2014 tour for After the Disco, the second album from their collaborative side project Broken Bells, when work began on a follow-up. But then life happened. Mercer got wrapped up in his flagship outfit’s Heartworms album, and Danger Mouse pecked away at several different projects. So Into the Blue, the new Broken Bells album, had a years-long gestation period that feels crucial to the relative ease with which the songs zip through subgenres, dabbling in the bubbly psych-rock of Elephant 6 on “Saturdays,” smooth soul in the slow burn of “Love on the Run,” and the Cure’s gothic glumness in closer “Fade Away.” The result is a trek through half a dozen permutations of psychedelic music, the kind of record only these pop-rock elder statesmen would think of. Broken Bells’ 2010 self-titled is a delightfully effortless pairing, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; Into the Blue is a soufflé, an airy delicacy that takes careful planning to pull off.

Read Craig Jenkins’s interview with Danger Mouse.

Open Mike Eagle, Component System With the Auto Reverse

Photo: Vulture

A Chicago native who fell in with the word wizards in Project Blowed when he moved to Los Angeles, rap polymath Open Mike Eagle is a pliable artist, both a gifted humorist and a purveyor of great tearjerkers, a natural melodicist but also a lyricist whose comfort with shuffling syllables suggests decades at the post. His eighth album is a showcase for that versatility. “79th and Stony Island” and “Crenshaw and Homeland” reconcile an Illinois upbringing with the SoCal present. “Burner Account” and “Multi-Game Arcade Cabinet” bounce bars off indie-rap luminaries such as Billy Woods and R.A.P. Ferriera, while “For DOOM” and “I Retired Then I Changed My Mind” reckon with the loss of a hip-hop hero and the cancellation of Mike’s Comedy Central show, The New Negroes, in cerebral solitude, each time pushing forward because the love of the craft and the people it touches won’t allow him to quit.

Mavi, Laughing So Hard It Hurts

Photo: Mavi 4 Mayor Music

“Good days is a double-edged blade, Ginsu,” 23-year-old North Carolina rapper Mavi says on “Doves,” off his sophomore album Laughing So Hard It Hurts, an earnest attempt at processing the roller-coaster ride of the last few years. He’s steeling himself for more jarring twists, seeking understanding amid life’s peaks and valleys. “My Good Ghosts” takes the macro approach: “Maybe we just depressed because the trees depressed / And the seas depressed, the only thing we see is death / And so the weed the best, the only hope, reprieve from that.” “Hemlock” is more personal: “I keep a blick but can’t escape the thought of what get left behind / The news got me the type of sick I get when mother and I fight.” Keeping you afloat in this maelstrom of career wins and pangs of grief is the writing, florid and heady but never overbearing. These songs come and go like fast-approaching storm fronts, leaving you stewing long after they’ve blown over.

Taylor Swift, Midnights

Midnights is a quintessential Taylor Swift gesture, an album that scores massive hits circling memorable moments in the singer-songwriter’s back catalogue such that it makes a great excuse to go out on the road and revisit the old erasalongside the new music. It’s a calculated return to the biting, romantic synth-pop of Swift’s mid-2010s commercial run in form and subject matter, but a work that benefits from her decade and a half on the job, with hooks as big as harvest moons and bars stuffed with vivid imagery and biting bon mots: “I gave you my world / Have you heard that I can reclaim the land?” “My town was a wasteland / Full of cages, full of fences / Pageant queens and big pretenders.” Lesser performers might collapse into self-parody traipsing through their creative and romantic pasts. Swift handles it with factory-like precision.

Read Craig Jenkins’s review of Midnights.

R.A.P. Ferreira, 5 to the Eye With Stars

Photo: Vulture

Rhyming under the name Milo in the 2010s, Wisconsin rapper and producer Rory Ferriera wielded words like brushstrokes in an impressionist painting, taking great care in constructing phrases that might, from a distance, seem designed to confound. If you stuck with the material, Ferreira’s writing revealed itself as a flowering of disparate interests, a nexus connecting the intersecting appreciations of art, music, literature, and politics swirling around inside the artist’s head. 5 to the Eye with Stars, Ferreira’s fourth album under his government name — not many rappers can say “R.A.P.” is in their initials — juggles abstract wordplay, personal reflections, and nods to modern poets, NBA legends, and characters from The Wire. The twists never distract from the message. “Ours” is a potpourri of internal rhymes but also a stinging obit for 2022: “I was a beekeeper in a time of arson and pillaging / Motherfuckers was barking, swearing they building.”

Weyes Blood, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow

Photo: Vulture

The fifth album by folk-rock singer-songwriter Weyes Blood and the second in a proposed trilogy that began with Titanic Rising, her mythic, orchestral 2019 album, feels like a state-of-the-union address for the overwhelmed masses. Lyrics often address a weary “we.” “We’ve all become strangers.” “Oh, we don’t have time anymore to be afraid.” “We are more than just the pain.” The artist born Natalie Mering — whose flutelike vocal tone often draws comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Aimee Mann but whose bombastic new album is, aesthetically, more like Carole King getting into psychedelics — is trying to figure out what in the disintegrating world is still worth her attention and how better to devote her time to it. Spoiler alert: The balm for our pain is companionship. “Hearts Aglow” sort of spells it out: “It’s been a death march / The whole world is crumbling / Oh, baby, let’s dance in the sand.”

Want more stories like this one? Subscribe now to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the December 19, 2022, issue of New York Magazine.

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4voisper · 7 years ago

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happy birthday to our talented, hardworking, caring, and thoughtful maknae, ungjae! ♥ ♥ ♥

#ungjae #imfact #underratedboysedit #boyidoledit #mgroupsedit #na ungjae #happyungjaeday #just a disclaimer but! this is my first time making a gifset like this jfdgbjgf w the solid color background so!!#theyre rlly crappy njfkfd im sorry #i tried!#anyway! back to the main topic: ungjae.#the literal physical light of my life #on every lightbulb i see i tape a pic of ungjae on it #the sun? u bet ur ass has a pic of ungjae on it #fire resistant ofc #today is gonna be the best day to ever happen bc it's his bday! sorry i dont make the rules #hes so good to all of us:( we dont deserve him and yet here we are #im always like wow there's no way my heart can hold any more love until i see a pic of ungjae whether it's new or not #our wonderful songwriter/producer/rapper :((((#i lvoe u so mcuh :(((((#🌸💝💘🌹❣❤✨❤🌸💕🌺💖🌺💖💕💗💕💞💖💕🌹💘❤❣❤💝💝💕#he;s so!! handosme too!!!#and adorable!!!#i love how he takes all his selfies from angles that would look terrible on literally naybody else #thus making it impossible to have cute matching selfies kfjngjdgf #u know what i miss?? his group selfie phases gjfdngkjdgnd #god when he would somehow manage to cover his face in Every Single group selfie??? iconic!#im glad he went on the unit bc yes it was annoying for ppl to reduce him down to just the ship w jungha but!#thru their friendship + the song missions ppl got to see how kind and hardworking he is and how meaningful music is to him :')#na ungjae aka the inventor of hair and music and puppies

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90363462 · 2 years ago

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Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize just shows how far hip-hop has taken us

Jazz, rock and R&B all help us define who we are and show that ‘times are a-changin’

Jeff RiversApril 23, 2018

When Kendrick Lamar, a 30-year-old rapper, won the Pulitzer Prize for music, it was as if the millennials had followed the baby boomers in having one of their defining philosophers venerated in an unexpected way. In 2016, Bob Dylan, a bard for baby boomers — and, we like to think, for the ages — won the Nobel Prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” He was the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in the literature category.

And earlier this month, Lamar won a Pulitzer Prize for his DAMN. recording, the first hip-hop artist to win in the music category.

Dylan’s surprising Nobel Prize win changed the conversation and the definitions of what could be considered literature, just as hip-hop and rap have challenged many notions about music and art.

Still, when I think of it, I heard a vague inkling of rap’s rise to primacy, if not Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize, in a Hartford, Connecticut, barbershop, although I didn’t know what I was hearing. Here is what happened.

Years ago, a man I think of as “Conscious Bob” led a conversation about music at a Hartford barbershop where he worked. I think of the man as “Conscious Bob” because Bob was his name and he once told anyone and everyone in the shop that he didn’t watch BET because there was nothing on the cable channel for a “conscious brother.”

As Bob talked, the 30-something government worker and barber brushed his shoulder-length locs from his shoulders. He was tall and thin, tightly coiled like one of those skinny cigars that cowboys smoked in 1960s Italian westerns.

Bob acted as the music conversation’s conductor, pointing his clippers at the participants when it was their turn to talk, even me.

I don’t usually talk in black barbershops; through the years, I’ve learned so much by listening. Black barbershops span the generations and our economic and color spectrums. Barbers, patrons and folks, just passing time, drop knowledge on everything from surviving bad bosses to surviving too much of a good time.

Consequently, when that barbershop conversation turned to music, I perked up. I like to think I know a little about music. Besides being a great fan of pop, rhythm and blues and the Great American Songbook, I’ve also written about jazz and classical music as a newspaper journalist.

But this conversation, though erudite, passionate and quick-moving, never landed on anything I knew much about. A baby boomer, I was about 10 to 15 years older than the other guys in the barbershop.

So nobody said a word about Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. Nobody said anything about Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions or Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. And not a word was spoken about Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys,the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, all celebrated masterworks, especially by baby boomers.

According to the consensus in the barbershop, the greatest albums (showing my age with that term) were all produced by rap artists, especially Nas, especially illimatic. I was out of it.

Damn.

In those days, I did little more than sample rap and its scandals and feuds, just enough to be current in a very surface way. But the barbershop conversation long ago announced to me that my generation’s grip on what was hip was loosening with time; the hip-hop generation was replacing the rock and soul generation’s bards, philosophers and gods. Nas and those who followed him would be venerated the way my cohorts had celebrated, even worshipped, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Marvin Gaye.

Indeed, since my Hartford barbershop revelation, hip-hop and R&B have replaced rock as America’s favorite genre of music. The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Hamiltonhas used rap to cast a multiracial and multicultural gaze upon the nation’s founding and its founders. And Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, a baby boomer with millennial tastes in technology and music, has put rap on his playlist and the nation’s, including “Humble” from Lamar’s DAMN. recording.

Some lament the change that the rise of hip-hop and rap represent. They look backward to a time when America and the world danced to an American Motown beat or sound or a British Merseybeat or sound.

But no generation, no race, no single worldview can be the sole arbiter of what is hip, what music is serious and whose artists are important, at least not forever. The world makes no apology for that.

Damn.

A young Bob Dylan once told all who knew how to listen in the ’60s, the times are changing. It’s time to celebrate change.

DAMN. winning the Pulitzer prize signals a change that has been happening all around us for decades.

Today, hip-hop and rap, rippling crosscurrents, are broadening and deepening the mainstream in the arts and beyond, just as rock and jazz did before it.

Kendrick Lamar wins the Pulitzer Prize, and it is just the latest and most salient evidence of the change Dylan, now 76, once heralded: the change that always comes before most people know they need it.

A graduate of Hampton University, Jeff Rivers worked for Ebony, HBO and three daily newspapers, winning multiple awards for his columns. Jeff and his wife live in New Jersey and have two children, a son Marc and a daughter Lauren.

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quokki · 3 years ago

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ok no surprise for your bias ask game i'm gonna talk about our beloved jisung <3 (i mean i have others but like He)

why you bias who you bias

i guess i'll start with the story of why i came to start to bias him?? one of the first skz things i watched was that interview where they translated a bunch of skz-related phrases through google translate a few times and then asked the members to figure out what they were supposed to mean. and that moment where it's the baby photos/stray kids translation and jisung just starts singing baby baby baby ohhh~ was kind of the moment where i was like "oh he's funny i like him." and the more skz content i watched the funnier he got.

on top of being just being absolutely hilarious (intentionally or otherwise) he's also super humble. like the other day on bbl when he was talking about the kid that started calling him uncle and he was saying something to the effect of the kid was too young to call him a personal idol and that pororo and tayo are better idols at that age. and i just thought it was sweet.

also when he gets on stage!! like i know that he's a rapper first, and he always delivers there, but i've never heard a moment from him when he's singing that he didn't deliver too!! and don't even get me started on his dancing!!! i'm not a dancer personally (unfortunately bc of medical reasons) but i've admired dancing for such a long long time even before i got into kpop and his movements are always so fluid and aesthetically pleasing to watch and he always looks like he has fun on stage. and my GOD his facial expressions. i could write an essay about those alone tbh.

fave dynamics within the group and why

my gut reaction to this says 3racha. and mostly bc i love that jisung is their babie, but they also encourage and support his creativity and give him a wonderful place to grow as an artist. whether its producing, songwriting, or musically, bin and chan are always in his corner and that's so wholesome to me.

i also really love felix and jisung too. the sunshine twins never fail to make me smile and make my day brighter. megawatt smiles, megawatt personalities, etc etc.

also special mention to minho and jisung. separately they're brilliant, together they share a singular braincell. and i just think that their antics are fantastic.

fave moments and why

oh this is a difficult one i think. there's not a moment he's had that i haven't just absolutely adored him and so its hard to boil that down to a single moment or moments.

i think one of the ones that stick out to me was recently on bbl after his c*vid diagnosis, he didn't speak on there until a few days after but he was like "i'm sorry i didn't come on here sooner, i didn't know what to say. and i'm sorry i made you worry." it just made my heart flutter and i can't really explain why???

another one of my favorite moments was recently too when he had that stupid back window on his shirt for one of the maniac stages and was like "don't look at my back im shy :( look at my face" and then turned around and wore The Shirt That Shall Not Be Named bc all men do is lie.

performance wise, one of my favorite moments was during the 2019 japan showcase on the my pace stage when he hit that high note??? chef kiss. it was just surreal watching him hit that, dance his ass off, and rap like rent was due.

i could honestly talk about so many more but this is already long enough so i'll spare u <3

bonus pics!!!!!

this is ONE of my all time fav jisung pictures tbh (bluesung notwithstanding)

anyways i hope u enjoy this love letter to The Best Boy !

oooh here we go

yep hes so hilarious, thats def one of my key points in biasing him as well

bruh yes i know this is literally official statements but he just truly is an all rounder and it’s crazy to just watch him deliver in every possible area

omg yes special mention for his stage expressions... truly a whole other aspect that he delivers all on his own like how does he do that!!! it’s crazy

aww yes he is 3racha’s baby! very true!!!

omg my twin antics (thats how i call them lmao)!!! i love it when they’re together so much!!!

lmao minsung most iconic duo ever

lmao yeah the “im shy” thing. truly all men do is lie...

oh boy pls send me the 2019 my pace stage!

that picture is sooooooooooo cute 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

ok now it’s my time to give you some pics!!!! 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

send me a love letter about your bias 💌💌💌

#answered #bias love letter #long post

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thatmissfit · 3 years ago

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IKON TV Episode One: Behind The Scenes

Right now, you’re walking to the YG dorms to relax with your boyfriend and his group as it’s been a while since you last saw him due to all their growing success and long schedules. You brought along some jajangmyeon for everyone as you’ve been craving it recently and thought the boys would be hungry from today’s concert. You reach the dorm and Jinhwan lets you in as he takes the takeout from your hand and closes the door behind you.

He puts the food on the living room table and both of you sit down on the couch when he asks you, “how’ve you been y/n-ie?"

You smile cutely as you respond with, "I've been pretty good, school’s been such a pain but I’m pushing through it. Plus I've missed my favourite boys,” I say with a cheeky smile and a shove to Jinnie's shoulder. “How are you guys? Being global sensations and all” you asked while pushing his shoulder, teasing him.

He laughs at your statement and responds with “It’s good, seeing the fans, performing, being on stage but I do enjoy moments where we can sit back and look at how far we’ve come with all our hard work.” “I get that. We should probably eat before the food gets cold.”

With that, Jinhwan went to get the boys as you went to the bathroom to wash up to eat. When you get out Yunhyeong, Chanwoo, Jiwon and Hanbin are sitting on the couch. “Noona, I can’t believe you bought us food. Thanks. You’re so sweet to us,” Chanwoo says as you sit down next to Hanbin. “You don’t have to thank me, I just want to make sure you boys aren’t starving yourselves.”

“Our little maknae is so cute,” Bobby says as he pinches Chan’s check. “Yah, stop that. I’m not a child.”

Junhoe, Jinhwan and DK enter the living room as the rest of you guys remove the plastic off the food and start eating. “Y/N-ah, did you hear we’re self-producing our own tv show,” Jiwon asks. “Really, that sounds exciting. Kinda like Going Seventeen or Run BTS.

“Exactly like that but we get to film, choose our own activities and well you get to see my face so for that reason we’re better than all those other shows out there.

“What is it called?” You asked. “IKON TV,” Jiwon replies, “We’re actually starting filming today.”

You turn to Hanbin and hit him in the shoulder gently, of course, you can't bruise your baby. “Yah, Hanbin-ah how could you not tell me you were filming today?” “I don’t see the big deal. Besides I wanted to see you,” he says as he pulls you in for a sidearm hug and kisses you on the temple. You put your head on his shoulder in response, “look at Hanbin-ie, being so cute to his girlfriend.” “Are you trying to say I’m not always cute to my girlfriend? Who wouldn’t be? Look at this cute face,” Hanbin says as he squeezes your cheeks together making your lips pout. “Knock it off Hanbin-ah,” you say as you remove his hands from your face and cutely pout at him. The boys laugh and continue eating.

The sounds of slurping and swallowing are going through the room while you all idly chat about school, new songs, fan meets, anything under the sun really. Even though you’re dating Hanbin the rest of the boys are like your brothers and if you needed anything they would be there for you and vice versa.

“Wah, that was so good. It really hit the spot,” Yunhyeong says as he sits back in, “thanks Y/N.” “No problem guys, but as I said, I just want to make sure you’re all good.”

Eventually, you all go your separate ways in the dorm and you and B.I head to his room as he closes the door and he pulls you into his lap. He sits there with his hands wrapped along your waist as he admires you deeply. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long,” he says quietly just enough for you to hear but not for anyone else to. “I know. I miss my talented rapper-songwriter”

“I’m serious baby, I missed you. A lot.” It makes your stomach flutter to hear him be so honest but you know it’s true. Both of you have been extremely busy; you with your last semester of university and him with ikon so, you understand that being separate at moments of your relationship is required in both of your lives. “And I missed you too,” which of course is true but you know he wants to hear you say it, you know he's just insecure as this is his first real relationship so you make sure he knows you love and care for him.

He leans in as you meet him halfway in a short and sweet kiss, and another, and another before you stop him with, “as much as I love kissing you, don’t you have to film soon?” “Yea, but that can wait. I want more time with my girl,” he tries to kiss you once more but you pull away and place your finger on his lips. “Ah, ah, go film,” with that you get off his lap and force him to stand up but being a whiny little baby he jokes by saying, “yah, so you don’t love me anymore y/n-ie.” “Stop being an idiot Hanbin-ah.” You push him slightly towards the door and he shoots you finger hearts as he walks out.

You lay back on his bed for a few minutes until you decide you want the coolness of the ground so you roll off and lay on the floor as Hanbin walks back into his room to see you on the floor. “You do know there’s a camera up there,” he says as he points at the corner of his ceiling where a go-pro films you, more importantly, you decide to lay on a cold hard floor instead of a comfy bed. “How awkward,” and even though you said that it didn’t prompt you to leave the floor.

“Yeah, a bit of an invasion of privacy but we’ll make the most of it.” He proceeds to take off his shirt which confuses you, “I didn’t know you were into that stuff.” He looks down at you puzzled by your dirty mouth especially since you were being recorded. He nudges you sightly with his food and responds with, “it’s not like that, dirty girl I’m gonna work out, but you can help me if want.”

You sit up wondering how could you help him workout but if this means seeing him shirtless longer you didn’t really mind. He positions you perpendicular to the bed and lays you back down on the floor then, he positions himself to use the bed as support to do his pushups over you. “You’re my motivation so, you’re gonna lay there and look pretty, which you always are,” he gives you that cute smile you love, “and every time I come down you give me a kiss, okay?” Surprised by his boldness especially with the cameras here you still nod at his proposal.

He does about thirty pushups and for each one he gives you a sweet and short kiss that makes you want to kiss him more. Even though the cameras are recording this it still feels like you guys are in this little world that nothing and no one can penetrate. Being so busy with your own lives, these are the moments you cherish the most so when does the last pushup you give him an extra kiss and he blushes as he turns away from the camera and moves on to the pull-up bar. You sit up and lean against his bed as you admire his back muscles thinking about how your attractive boyfriend is reeling in all types of fans with the show he’s putting on. His workout continues for the next hour but you decide to take a shower and do your skincare since you leave some of your stuff at the dorm for when you stay over.

When you come back Hanbin is now lying on the floor tired, he then complains about being sweaty and gets up to take a shower while he brings his camera as well. Eventually, you hear the shower running which made think of giving ikonics a peek they would like so, you sneak into the bathroom, grab the camera Hanbin left on the counter and started recording yourself at first. You whisper into the camera, “hey ikonics, hope you’re in for a treat.” That’s when he heard you, “what are you doing in here baby?” You make sure to cover the bottom half of the camera so it doesn’t become that type of video and reply with, “I wanna give ikonics a present.” You flip the camera and blow a kiss at the camera then, flip it back towards Hanbin.

He tries to move around which could be problematic, “don’t move! Just say I love you, ikonics,” you prompt him. He puts his arms up into a heart and repeats what you said, “love you, ikonics,” he also draws a heart in the steamy glass door which makes you laugh. You flip the camera back on you and end the recording with, “love you ikonics, hoped you enjoy that scene.” You whisper the next part so Hanbin doesn’t hear, “I’ll try and film sneaky things like that when I can.” You stop the recording and left Hanbin to finish his shower and went to lay down in his bed.

A few moments later he comes back and quickly gets dressed in boxers and sweats so, he can lay down in the bed with you. He wraps his body around you by putting his arms and legs around your torso and shoulders. He kisses you on the temple then asks you, “are you okay?” You turn to him confused why he’d asked that. “Why wouldn’t I be, are you okay?”

“Yea I just wanted to make sure you weren’t uncomfortable with all the cameras and stuff invading our space.” Look at your baby being so cute and considerate, damn you love him to bits but, you do understand why he’d ask that. If you were with someone else you wouldn’t know if they’d stay in such an invasive environment but you love Hanbin, Ikon and all their fans so you wouldn’t change your life one bit.

You squish his face and tell him, “I wouldn’t change this for anything because all of this comes with being with you and I love being with you so yea, I’m good.” You gently brush your lips against his and give him a gentle kiss. He then unwraps his body from yours to grab the television remote from the bedside table and turn on Netflix. “So Sisyphus or Men on a Mission?” Not even a second was needed to think about this simple decision which is, “Men on a Mission, obviously.” He smiles at you as he starts the show and pulls you back into his chest where you snuggle yourself into and eventually both of you fall asleep to the sounds of laughter.

#ikon bobby #ikon scenarios #b.i ikon #ikon #ikon jinhwan #ikonic #ikon imagines #yunhyeong #kim jiwon #donghyuk #jung chanwoo #ikon masterlist

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ravynous · 3 years ago

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as dreamscapes’ manager。

▌|﹫ᅠcharacter/s ⦂ mona, fischl ▌| ⌕ᅠ description ⦂ (platonic) what's it like being the manager of the two most talented songwriters of their generation? ▌| #ᅠ warning/s ⦂ none ▌| ➛ᅠpinned comment ⦂ (edited 12/05/22) inspo — fanart, you in me, hey kid, close your eyes, kard, akmu, iu, stella jang

the group:

The group was originally planned to debut with five members under Hexenzirkel Media (Hex Media).

Even so, two trainees — Mona Megistus and Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort — were the only ones who remained.

They debuted with their first single, "Midnight Phantasms," a thrilling song about a lost lover from a faraway land whose soul lingered beside the singer.

Dreamscapes captivated their audience through underlying meanings with intricately interwoven tales and fantasy concepts.

This group was also their company's salvation, pulling them from the verge of bankruptcy.

Fandom name: Stargazers

(Main Vocal)

Mona has a habit of humming tunes that could be used for future songs. that in turn, often had you and Fischl asleep in the car.

No, Mona doesn't handle her own finances. Yes, you were worried about her being more broke than the company itself. This is due to her dishing out mora for expensive equipment, like top-of-the-line studio headphones and monitors. instead, she trusted you with it, and shopping (for equipment) became somewhat of a bonding moment.

She barely ate full meals before you arrived. You lightly scolded her, "how will you continue producing and composing if you keep neglecting your health?"

You ended up bringing her meals to her studio, receiving a genuine thanks in return (despite the prideful attitude she displays in public.)

"Do you know about constellations? I always believed that our meeting had been written amongst the stars. … The stars have also shown that tomorrow will be a wonderful day to go out together."

(Rapper)

Have you ever seen a fandom with a vocabulary so wide and comprehension so astounding because of their idol? If so, you've probably met a Fischl stan (or a Hex Media employee.)

At the beginning, you carried around a small dictionary, taking a peek whenever Fischl went on lengthy bouts of dialogue. Now, you've learned to rely on context clues on what she says, a gleeful Fischl chatting with you about her day.

If she wasn't an idol, it would be fitting if an author was a career choice of her's. You've inserted research time into their schedules where the girls were free to visit the local library. Fischl always headed straight to the fiction section, and exited with a full story for a whole song (or even an album).

"Hark! The Prinzessin brought forth a much desired heirloom passed through generations! … What do you mean 'it's just an autograph?' It is the Sovereign of Immernachtreich's handwritten token of appreciation!"

behind the scenes:

Fischl has a bodyguard named Ozvaldo (sent by her parents) and raven named Ozzie (found in a park). There's this weird occurrence where she knows what you were doing, even if Ozzie was the only one with you in the room.

Both of them see you as sort of an older sibling, a person they could rely on, and a person they could seek advice from.

You once joked and asked them what they'd do if you had a crush on Ozvaldo. You've never seen them say "NO, YOU CAN'T!" so loudly and so in-synch.

You and Fischl have a set time where you visit Mona's studio to fix her sketchbooks and music sheets, and carry her off to bed.

Mona directs the scenes in each music video, putting care in which places to situate clues about their story. meanwhile, Fischl writes the lyrics, making sure they're all coherent and cohesive with the universe they've built together for their listeners.

They're not perfect, they know — but they're confident, especially with you.

▌| ⚠︎ ᅠby RAVYNOUS — please do not copy, edit, screenshot, or repost any of my works. Likes and reblogs are appreciated.

#ꮺ ravy.writes #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfic #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x y/n #genshin x reader #mona x reader #mona megistus x reader #fischl x reader #fischl von luftschloss narfidort

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0613magazine · 2 years ago

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220715 Consequence Sound

j-hope Is Stepping Outside the Box

The BTS member unpacks his dark new era, performance goals, and full-length solo album

j-hope is right on time.

When I log onto the Zoom call — approaching lunchtime in Seoul, nightfall in New York City, and 4:00 a.m. in Madrid, where this writer happens to be for the week — j-hope is waiting for me, sipping an iced coffee from Starbucks and fiddling with the rings on his fingers. “Hi!” he says, brightly.

j-hope is one-seventh of BTS, of course; within the group of international superstars, he holds the role of main dancer, along with managing duties as a rapper, songwriter, and producer. Over the past decade in the spotlight, j-hope has developed a reputation that suits his moniker. He’s known as a ray of sunshine, unflappably optimistic, as buoyant and colorful in his street style as he is in his music.

This j-hope, seated for the interview sporting a backwards READYMADE snapback and striped polo shirt, bears quite the contrast to the j-hope seen in recent concept photos for Jack in the Box, his first full-length solo album project (available today, July 15th). Where in promotional images for the project he is seen in front of burning cars, apocalyptic landscapes, and desolate office buildings in variations of torn up jumpsuits, this j-hope looks casual, like he just rolled in from the dance studio. Relaxed — for the most part.

He’s nervous, he explains. Nervous and excited. Our conversation is taking place five days before Jack in the Box becomes available, and when it’s mentioned that he only has a few more days until he can finally see the reactions from the public, he yelps and buries his enormous smile in his elbows.

j-hope has been busy. Within the packed schedules of the members of BTS, it’s a wonder that he was able to carve out time to conceptualize and execute a full-length record of his own. The dust has barely settled from BTS’s June release: a massive anthology album, PROOF, which chronicles the act’s first chapter of music over the past decade. “The significance is exactly as important as when we work as a group, as BTS,” he says of the time he’s spent preparing for Jack in the Box. “But it’s true that since I’m the first with a full-length solo album among my team members, I feel a weight on my shoulders. I feel a responsibility to start it off really well.”

It’s interesting how j-hope speaks of himself within the constellation of BTS; despite the fact that this conversation was explicitly designed as a place for him to talk about his work as a soloist, he mentions his bandmates and his role within the group often. “I’ve been inspired by my members, the kind of music they produce, and the kind of visuals they can showcase to the world,” he explains. He shares that since the group debuted in 2013, he’s thought long and hard about not only what he can contribute as one part of a septet, but what he can contribute as himself — as j-hope.

That’s led him to this moment, and to an album that he began working on when the pandemic hit and BTS’s “MAP OF THE SOUL World Tour” was postponed, postponed again, and ultimately canceled. Like the rest of us, j-hope was at home with an abundance of time on his hands, and found himself ready to dig into a different side of himself.

His sparkling personality is an honest part of his identity, to be sure, especially when it comes to his role as a performer and his place within BTS — he’s just never had the time or space to express the other side of the coin, too. “I wanted to show a different aspect of me, other than the sunny and bright side I have as a member of BTS. I always had a very clear message that I wanted to convey through this album,” he says. “That’s why I decided to show a darker side of me through this album — maybe the shadow on the other side of the sunny and bright disposition I usually show.” He pauses. “Showing the same vibes I show as a member of BTS might not be the right way to touch upon these darker or more serious topics.”

The first entry into j-hope-gone-dark was a pre-release single on July 1st, a gritty, rock-tinged track called “MORE.” There is no choreography in the accompanying video; the clip references Fight Club. The new era had officially begun, with a dark, simmering bang.

In the world of K-pop, j-hope is what’s (rightfully) known as an all-rounder. He’s an entrancing dancer and an energetic rapper. His stage presence is a wonder to behold. Unlike many folks who fall into a rap line, he can also sing. He’s a skillful producer. The imagery around Jack in the Box ties in playing cards, appropriate for a jack of all trades.

With such an amazing skill set at your disposal, it must be difficult to decide where to begin; for j-hope, it meant going back to the beginning, in a sense.

He’s always loved the story of Pandora’s Box, but the myth took on extra significance 10 years ago when he was preparing for his debut in BTS. He recounts the day he chose his stage name, sitting with RM (the group leader) and their producer, Bang Si-Hyuk, who assembled BTS. j-hope was born Jeong Ho-seok, and wanted to incorporate his family initial, J, and the first two letters of his name into his stage name somehow. (J-Ho didn’t make the cut.) When he first heard Producer Bang say j-hope, though, he felt something like fate in the room.

“After 10 years, since I chose the stage name, j-hope, that moment of choosing stayed in my heart,” he recalls. “It transformed how I am as an individual, and I always wanted to share that story through music.”

Even so, being one-seventh of the biggest group on the planet comes with a few restrictions; the members seem to be generous and gracious with one another in all long and short-term plans, when an hour-long video made the rounds depicting the members of BTS laying out plans for more solo endeavors, they lingered on the fact that they’ve been running forward as a team for nearly a decade.

This current period, dubbed Chapter 2, is a time for each of them to express their individual colors however they see fit. “The music I have done so far is like me being in the box… so this album is about stepping outside of the box,” j-hope reveals. He then mentions some of BTS’s more wondrous accomplishments as a group — speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, performing at the Grammy Awards, humbly phrasing selling out 70,000-seat arenas as “performing at various concerts and stadiums” — and underscores his desire to keep pushing himself to explore new things in his music and his art.

Taking on new challenges is very important to him, and he’s unafraid of criticism. It’s part of the reason he took on the challenge of performing at Lollapalooza, where he was added as a headliner to close out the festival just weeks before the event. He shares that when he’s on stage is when his heart is pounding the loudest, but the choice of a general festival like Lollapalooza was a highly intentional one.

“Maybe I could have chosen to perform in front of fans, who already love my performance and love me,” he muses. “However, I chose Lollapalooza because I wanted to test my limits. I wanted to stage and perform my music in front of people who love music, even if they’re not my fans. Even if the feedback is positive or negative, I really want the feedback — so I can grow.”

The conversation flows in long paragraphs, and his incredible interpreter relays extensive questions and even more in-depth answers with a rate that should be applauded. When she translates one of his thoughts about Lollapalooza — “Maybe I was a little overconfident, or even arrogant, to take on the challenge in addition to producing my album” — I shake my head emphatically. Perhaps he doesn’t know that the day after he was announced as a headliner, Lollapalooza restructured their homepage — adding a button with his name — to accommodate for the influx of people purchasing tickets just to catch his set on Sunday night.

While he’s feeling a little nervous, a little excited, he ultimately hopes Jack in the Box acts “as a business card” for him. There are no features or collaborations on the album, and he’s looking forward to interacting and working with more people in his field.

When asked what he’s been inspired by lately, his answer is immediate. “People,” he says in English, his trademark smile blinding even over Zoom.

Source: Consequence Sound

#2022 #jhope

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anonil88 · 3 years ago

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Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish: live listen review

Not going into it with too many expectations.

Getting Older: I like the lyrics...kind of, um its not a bad song its just not doing it for me as an intro.

I didn't change my number: Love the beat and background vocal mixing but the forward vocals are very punchy in your face. The bass on the back end of this song is kind of insane in a good way. Finneas really be putting his entire foot in his production. This new genre twist ooo chile if he ever starts producing for rnb acts we may have a problem. I hate the abrupt end to the track.

Billie Bossa Nova: The guitar melody that frames the song is the same as Havana by Camilla Cabello. Billie's lyrics are a lost better than Havana in terms of story versus radio playability. That being said this has a lot of radio potential like if I could go back in time this would be on the Gap Playlist in 2005.

My Future: I thought there would be more blending or seamless transition into this song. It may have been there but it was very subtle. Would love to hear Snoh Alegra do a cover of this song. Still really like this song and the lofi inspirations behind it.

Oxytocin: Very reminiscent of the sound from Billie that everyone is used to hearing. Again Finneas be in that studio in his whole bag while making beats. This song is um lyrically....Billie is like I'm an adult y'all. Which technically she is, but the people around her and herself gotta be careful that she is still young. Anywho Billie is using men to her advantage this is pretty clear 🤷‍♀️. Her and Finneas should continue their recent journey of scoring for television and movies. If they ever get to fully score an entire episode of something or a short film I can only imagine that magic.

Goldwing: Billie has been practicing her falsettos and studying some of her favorite rnb singers. The syncopation of her vocals as the beat *chefs kiss*. This is my favorite song. (Was my favorite and then I heard overheated.)

Lost Cause: I'm not a huge fan of this song, it doesn't really do anything new for me. Its missing this umpf and I felt the same way when I saw the music video.

Halley's Comet: This is if Sarah Bareilles and Norah Jones had a baby. Really enjoying the subtle but very nice transition in this song and then the microphone effects on her voice. She fell in love you can hear it on this album. There is also what sounds like a bit of Beatles melody in the songwriting to me. Also you can hear her almost crying on every single line of the main part of this song.

Not my responsibility: This song has to be listened to with headphones. I think this is what was played during her concerts when she did the little reveal. I would not want the pressure she has at 19 to uphold this image while going through all the same stuff we all went through or go through at 19. This includes how we each deal with our own body image.

Overheated: This song really shows how Finneas and Billie bounce off one another. The lyrics are some of the best combination of radio play/replay-ability, and flow, on the album. It really follows the production queues of 90s rnb and early 00s pop where the beat and the lyrics build on one another. It even has a similar bubble like drum that Darkchild used a lot in the 00s but its more muffled under the stacked layers of production. Finneas really makes something sound more simple than it is because if you go into the breakdown of their songs its like over 40 lines of vocals alone at times with more drums and just layers upon layers.

Everybody Dies: Thanks for the depression reminder Billie. This is much more hopeful than her past tracks about depression though. It's like a "this to shall pass" song about depression.

Your Power: IS THIS THE SAME VERSION AS BEFORE? Yes it is haha. This song got so much more hate than it deserved like its really good. Also the mixing with over the ears is very full. It feels like you're in a room and the speakers are all facing you. Also, is it weird to say that a song feels warm because this song feels very warm.

NDA: This song is very honest because she is making people sign NDA's to protect herself. Which its a mess that you can't have a fling or one night stand at that level of success or fame because some people will use it against you. Yes this does make me think how much messy shit is being said or done in Hollywood but no one finds out because of non disclosure agreements. But, this isn't something young stars openly discuss that they do for protection and also so they don't get in trouble. Because unfortunately some people should probably have an NDA on themselves glares at a certain rapper.

Therefore I Am: Yesss the transitions are back !!! Also this song is a bop liked it even when it dropped as a single.

Happier Than Ever: this song is sad and happy and a mix of a lot BUT I would love to hear Billie run forward with a country rock album. The end of this song is so distorted and punchy like Paramore.

Male Fantasy: She's in her Lana era yall she's in her Lana era. Just kidding, but I wonder if Jack Antanoff is sitting here listening to this like 🤨. Yaknow Phoebe Bridgers writing with Billie would actually be super super cool. Phoebe and Co. (I.e. Julien and Lucy) along with Billie's breathiness, ooo thinking that would sound really good. Also the lyrics would physically hurt in a good way.

The album ends a bit too abruptly for my taste but I definitely give this a 3.8/4 out of 5 for sure.

♧ My personal ranking of the tracks from Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish:

Overheated

Goldwing

Billie Bossa Nova

Everybody Dies

Oxytocin (2:18 to the end)

Happier Than Ever

Billie Bossa Nova

My Future

Your Power (ranking it here because its a really really strong song even if it isn't my favorite)

Therefore I Am

Male Fantasy

Oxytocin (the rest of the song)

Not My responsibility

Halley's Comet

NDA

Lost Cause

Getting Older

#billie eilish #music #liveblog #live listen #happier than ever #album reaction #album review #finneas

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dinosaurtsukki · 4 years ago

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haikyuu!! music idol au (nekoma and fukurodani vers.)

i haven’t actually posted some hc’s in a while because i’ve been reading the manga but i hope you guys enjoy this surprise !! also check out the karasuno vers. and seijoh and shiratorizawa vers. for more music idol au’s

TOKYO IDOLS ENTERTAINMENT

(this may or may not be the last of this series, maybe I’ll make one for inarizaki and date tech who knows?)

Also I hope y’all are ready for me Badly Titling Things Again

Okay so they’re both under Tokyo Idols Entertainment

Hah that wasn’t so bad was it just wait for it

Stray Cats and OWL6

This blogger’s brain cells are so fried that they’ve now resorted to puns

sO THEY’RE BOTH UNDER TOKYO IDOLS AND THEY’RE REALLY AMAZING GROUPS AND THEIR TALENT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SHITTY GROUP NAMES

anyway so it was set up by Nekomata and they’ve been pretty good at producing groups over the years but their biggest hits have been their two recent groups

both of them actually started at the same time but they work with quite different concepts and have different dynamics

but they tend to collab and interact with each other a lot which the fans love

so lets get into the groups

Stray Cats - Nekoma

their leader is Kuroo ofc and they work with a lot of bad boy/edgy concepts and their music is more on the hip-hop and R&B side

a lot of their music videos and outfits are in the black-and-white with pops of red, blue, and yellow

you think the fans would get tired of seeing them in matching suits and leather jackets but no

anyway, Kuroo’s they’re leader who’s also main rapper, dancer, and visuals

he actually started out as a vocalist but since Stray Cats was going to be more of a hip-hop group he eventually picked up rapping (although those who have Deeply Analyzed the backing vocals for some of their tracks claim that Kuroo’s vocals will save the world)

his dancing looks super fluid and natural because he also tried ballet dancing at one point

sometimes he films himself practicing and shows off by wearing stilettos and not once tripping over himself

kai and yaku were his fellow trainees and just like in the manga, kuroo and yaku did not get along and kai had to be there to make sure no one died

kuroo and yaku were quite competitive with their dancing but eventually they realized that the fans loved their dynamic during their dances and worked together for once

their choreos almost always involve someone carrying yaku on their shoulders

he’s also another main rapper and he’s really good at a variety of styles

he’s also the mom of the group and likes to check on everyone before going live

the one who trains the more inexperienced members with their choreography and while he’s very much a perfectionist, he’s also the one who reassures them when they make a mistake on a live stage

kai is actually the genius behind most of their songs because his producer skills are mad crazy he’s been invited to collab with so many other artists (including the wonderful Kiyoko-san)

kuroo and yaku have no idea what goes on in his head but it’s probably music

they always make sure that kai gets enough sleep and is eating right when he’s working on an album

his dancing is pretty solid but he’s more well-known for being a main rapper and his smooth, sultry voice during the chorus that gives everyone eargasms

next we have kenma who’s one of the few main vocalists of the group

his voice is a nice tenor and he can hit a good amount of the high notes

can harmonize like it’s nobody’s business

he and kuroo had been friends since they were practically born and while kuroo dreamed of becoming a music idol onstage, kenma was more interested in songwriting and producing music

he joined Tokyo Idols for the opportunity to be a producer but Nekomata was like ‘why not be an idol?’ and kenma was like ‘no, I’ll have to dance’

he was then persuaded by kuroo and kenma decided to do some vocal training to make up for not wanting to move around so much

so, most of the time, he’s in the back and during his turn in the chorus he’ll make a bit of an appearance

he has done a few live solo performances but he’s playing the piano in them so he doesn’t have to look at the audience so much

he loves working with kai in the studio more than anything

doesn’t have a social media account because he doesn’t want to see how the fans talk about him (they mostly say good stuff though!)

now we have taketora who’s the main rapper of the group as well

this guy is an expert beatboxer and he does a very good job of hyping up the crowd

his rap is the kind that even fires up his teammates and they always let him know that he did a good job after every performance

he actually has a good amount of tattoos on his arms and he used to cover them with long-sleeves but the fans love them arms and the tattoos even more so

#MakeTaketoraSleeveless movement on Twitter thus begins

Taketora was super flattered but okay with it

Fukunaga is another main vocalist and he has a very deep voice that blends really well with his fellow vocalists

His voice doesn’t stand out that much and he doesn’t have a lot of solos but Stray Cats’ specialty is really blending their vocals (aside from their rappers and dancers)

And you can also definitely notice a difference when Fukunaga isn’t singing a part

He’s also the kind of dancer who does a lot of cartwheel and flip-like stunts that come in during the dance breaks

Has this habit of staring blankly in the distance during group interviews and fans make memes using his face

He also likes messing with his senpai’s but they all blame lev and don’t suspect a thing with Fukunaga (well, that’s until he posts the video)

Lastly, we have lev who is the youngest among all of them and also main vocalist and visuals

He has a nice baritone voice and he does most of the singing in the chorus but tends to get a bit lost when Fukunaga and Kenma come in

A lot of his time is spent practicing how to not get lost when people are harmonizing with him, especially since that’s what Stray Cat’s known for

He actually came in a bit late, like after the group had its first debut since they felt like they needed another vocalist

Lev also has a natural talent when it comes to dancing so Nekomata added him to the group

It was a bit difficult integrating him into the group but he also added onto the overall chemistry as the baby of the group

As much as they know he makes mistakes, his senpais always congratulate Lev on how far he’s come

No one wants to admit that he gets handsomer by the day because it will add to his ego but the fans do enough of that

OWL6 - fukurodani

They only have four members (because idk a lot about all the members and I also wanted to have like a four-person group)

JUST BECAUSE THERE’S A NUMBER 6 IN THE NAME OF THE GROUP DOESN’T MEAN THAT’S HOW MANY MEMBERS THERE ARE *glares at SEVENTEEN* *also I ended up looking up how many members there are in Day6 and now I feel bad I’m sorry day6 fans*

aNYWAY

They’re a very small group since Tokyo Idol wanted to try out having a four-person group

They don’t really have a singular kind of aesthetic or style like Stray Cats does but work with a variety of them

They do a good number of lively pop songs as well as ballads for the b-side tracks

They’re also made up of four vocalists, two of which also know how to rap, and are overall pretty solid

Bokuto’s their leader (even though its mostly Akaashi who holds the group together) but he speaks a lot for the group during interviews

He’s main vocalist, main dancer, and also main visual

His stage presence is astounding especially with his natural talent for dancing and his stamina is endless

He can sing really well even busting out the hardest dance moves

Although he’s unquestionably talented, he does get hit hard by online haters and will shut himself in the dance studio to practice until everyone drags him out

He’s super endearing and sweet around his fans, he’ll remember a fan that he saw more than once and send letters in response to fanmail

Bokuto’s known for being super clumsy though and he has destroyed a mic or his clothes or someone else’s clothes more than once

Once tripped on the way when OWL6 was about to receive an award

Sarukui is another main vocalist and rapper

His voice is quite deep but it sounds really melodic and unique that anyone could tell when he’s singing

Also knows a thing or two about music production and has helped produce a few of their tracks

He’s the one assigned to saying ‘That’s our leader!’ to Bokuto when he’s feeling down

Also responsible for the ‘Bokuto and Akaashi are dating’ prank on Twitter that became a whole thing

A shitposter, basically

Konoha Akinori is once again our jack of all trades, especially since he’s rapper, dancer, vocalist, and visuals

I would say that his back hurts from carrying OWL6 but each member knows how to hold their own

His back just hurts from curling up like a shrimp when he’s asleep

He gets a lot of lines because of this and fans love it when he leads the dance breaks, that being said he’s also tired all the time

Konoha has fallen asleep in interviews more than once and Sarukui takes the pictures of him

Because of his jack of all trades nature he also has a lot of weird, random talents that he likes to showcase in variety shows

These weird talents range from being able to name all of the countries in Europe backwards to being able to make a slingshot using his feet and a rubber band

It’s always something new with him

Everyone cheers him on except for Akaashi who’s soul has left his body

And last but definitely not the least, we have the youngest in the group, Akaashi, who’s also main vocals and visual

Everyone in OWL6 agree that Akaashi is the prettiest among them

He also has such a sweet and beautiful voice that gives everyone eargasms

Sometimes everyone has to stop dancing during practice whenever they hear Akaashi sing

He also does a lot of vocal covers that he posts online and has released a few solo albums since he’s always working on making new music

Although everyone knows that he’d also do really well as a solo artist, Akaashi knows that his members were the reason why he wanted to debut in the first place and it just wouldn’t be the same without them

Extra HC’s for Stray Cats and OWL6

Kuroo and Bokuto have been friends since their trainee years and even though they were disappointed about not debuting in the same group they agreed to collab on a lot of things

During award shows they like to have a performance together, most often a dance cover, until Akaashi and Kenma decided to help out by writing a song for the two of them to perform

The members of both groups like to sneak into each other’s dorms because the more the merrier and they share and order food

Yaku and Kai actually like staying in the OWL6 dorms more because its quieter (since Lev and Tora aren’t there) but change their mind when they see Bokuto

Eventually they divided the dorms into ‘the quiet people’ and ‘the noisy people’

Both of the groups love doing those Halloween performances and dressing up really scary with the same level of production and everything

None of those cutesy costumes, Fukunaga will straight up come in a headless man costume and Sarukui brings a fake chainsaw with him

Some of them like to do really weird costumes though like Lev dressing up as a bottle of vodka and Konoha coming in dressed as Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street

Sometimes the fans just don’t know what goes on in their heads

Kai tends to get a lot of awards for his producing skills but the first time he did Stray Cats came onstage with him and basically cried all around him while Kai tried to do his speech

They also like to mess around in the comments section when another group is doing a VLive

For example, Kuroo commented ‘send feet pics’ during one of OWL6’s lives and Bokuto retaliated by uploading the ugly selfies that Kuroo takes on his phone

They also either make up the fanchants or memorize each other’s fanchants for the songs

Yahaba, watching Stray Cats doing the fanchant for OWL6′s song: why can’t we be like that?

Iwaizumi: because we have Oikawa

Oikawa: IT’S NOT MY FAULT IT’S USHIWAKA

#haikyuu!! music idol au #nekoma #fukurodani #haikyuu!! music idol au (nekoma and fukurodani vers.)#ok here we go with the tags #kuroo tetsurou #kozume kenma #kai nobuyuki #yaku morisuke #fukunaga shouhei #yamamoto taketora #haiba lev #bokuto koutarou #akaashi keiji #sarukui yamato #konoha akinori #haikyuu!!#haikyuu headcanons

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cyarsk52-20 · 9 months ago

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LIST

HIT 'EM WIT DA HEE! THE 25 DOPEST MISSY ELLIOTT SONGS

By Jacinta Howard

Published Mon, January 10, 2022 at 12:00 PM EST

At this point, it’s almost cliché to point out the obvious — Missy’s always been ahead of her time. A songwriter, producer, rapper, singer, and artistic visionary, her talent has cemented her as a singular artist whose avant-garde creativity has inspired musicians across genres for decades.

Her musical partnership with longtime friend and fellow Virginia native, producer Timbaland transformed the sound of R&B and rap in the mid-late 90s through their work with artists like Aaliyah and Ginuwine, and when her debut rap album Supa Dupa Fly dropped in 1997, lead by the out-of-the-box, catchy single “The Rain,” it further solidified their standing as two the most important talents in music.

Over the years, Missy’s creative approach to music and her accompanying videos has been virtually unmatched. Her videos, mostly created in collaboration with Hype Williams and later Dave Meyers, are loud, dynamic, and otherworldly, studied and dissected by artists looking to emulate her sound and viewers wondering how she does it. She set the standard for experimental, innovative music videos, no matter what the genre.

Beyond her visual creativity, her work behind the scenes has been just as significant. Few producers and songwriters can make universal pop hits while still maintaining a level of authenticity the way Missy does. Throughout the decades she’s crafted hits for Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Tweet, Monica, Beyoncé, Jazmine Sullivan, Fantasia, and Keyshia Cole, among others, all while keeping her feet firmly grounded in Hip-Hop.

We’ve sifted through Missy’s discography to pick out 25 of her dopest songs.

#26

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY" - NEW EDITION FEAT. MISSY ELLIOTT [BONUS SONG]

Our BONUS SONG pick is a celebrated classic guest spot! In 1996, the newly-reunited sextet New Edition tapped Miss E. for this banger of a Bad Boy remix.

#25

"THROW IT BACK"

Missy returned in 2019 to drop her first EP, "Iconology," her first body of music since 2005’s "The Cookbook." “Throw It Back” was the first single and a standout on the project— it featured a distorted bassline and busy production courtesy of Willi Hendrix as she reminded folks of her icon status and influence in the game: “I did records for Tweet before you could even Tweet.”

#24

“WTF (WHERE THEY FROM)" FEAT. PHARRELL

Throughout Missy’s long stretch between her 2005 album The Cookbook and 2019’s Iconology EP, Missy released a smattering of singles including this dance track featuring Pharrell. The song, which was also produced by Pharrell, peaked at #78 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Rap Songs but signaled Missy’s continued ability to stay ahead of the game sonically and visually.

#23

"PASS THAT DUTCH"

The lead single from 2003’s "This Is Not a Test!," “Pass That Dutch” is another insanely catchy collaboration for Missy and Timbaland, with a shout-out to OutKast’s “Hootie Hoo” interspersed in the hook. The video version of the song smashes three songs from the album together, the introspective ode to Aaliyah “Baby Girl Interlude/Intro,” “Pass That Dutch,” and the drum-heavy, rap-chastising “Wake Up.”

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#22

"I'M REALLY HOT"

Timbaland and Missy helped rewrite popular music with their futuristic, yet familiar sound. While this song from Missy’s fifth album, 2003’s "This Is Not a Test!" wasn’t a huge hit like some of their other collabs, it nevertheless showcases their creative chemistry over wild drums and agile synths.

#21

"WE RUN THIS"

An ode to HBCU bands before Beyoncé tore up Coachella, 2005’s “We Run This” with its rhythmic drums perfectly compliments Missy’s energetic delivery.

#20

"SHAKE YOUR POM-POM"

Over a go-go beat, Missy delivered a rambunctious offering for the Step It Up 2 soundtrack.

#19

"DRIPDEMEANOR"

People don’t always immediately associate Missy with sensual R&B but that’s her other sweet spot, as showcased here. Featuring singer Sum1, the sultry song from her 2019 release, "Iconology," Missy is once again on-trend while remaining original.

#18

"PUSSYCAT"

An explicit dedication to how to keep her man in check, Missy's anthem for "how to turn this n*gga out" became an early 2000s theme song. Another great showcase for how sultry a singer Missy could always be. A remix with Janet Jackson and Lil Kim was shelved.

#17

"WHY I STILL LOVE YOU" FEAT. MONICA

An ode to 60s do-wop with contemporary sprinklings, Missy shows off her vocal chops on “Why I Still Love You,” as she questions why she can’t seem to break it off with someone who doesn’t deserve her time. Featured on Iconology, the mostly black and white video features a comical, sassy cameo from her longtime collaborator, Monica.

#16

"4 MY PEOPLE" FEAT. EVE

Missy and Eve connected on the uptempo “4 My People,” the fourth single from her 2001 album, "Miss E… So Addictive." The video features Missy dancing in front of a flag in homage to 9/11 and the song remains among her top dance tracks.

#15

"TAKE AWAY"

The video is dedicated to her musical muse Aaliyah, and the ballad features expectedly gorgeous vocals from Tweet as well as an assist from Ginuwine. Missy’s vocals are on display once more, proving again that she can’t pretty much do whatever she wants musically.

#14

"TEARY-EYED"

Missy teamed with producer/songwriter Warryn Campbell for the mid-tempo, love-torn song “Teary Eyed'' from her 2005 album, "The Cookbook." The video features Missy in a straight-jacket, singing to her incapacitated lover in his hospital bed, crooning about her love-hate relationship with him and his hold on her. It’s another example of her command for heartbreak R&B.

#13

"I'M BETTER" FEAT. LAMB

In 2017 Missy dropped the extremely catchy, bass-heavy trap-influenced “I’m Better,” produced by and featuring regular collaborator, Lamb. It’s quietly one of the strongest entries in her latter discography. And the video, which she co-directed with Dave Meyers, is probably among her top 5 best, which is saying a lot.

#12

"HIT 'EM WIT DA HEE"

A quiet standout on her 1997 debut, the video version of “Hit Em Wit Da Hee” featured a Bjork sample, and also a pinstripe suit-wearing Ginuwine. It’s a reminder that Missy is a talented vocalist, a prelude to the mid-tempo sound she’d tweak a few years later on Tweet’s debut Southern Hummingbird.

#11

"LOSE CONTROL"

The first single from her 2005 album, The Cookbook, “Lose Control” found Missy reconnecting with Ciara for another enthusiastic two-step jam. The song samples Cybotron’s “Clear” and Hot Streak’s “Body Work,” and it’s a standout in her long collection of pop dance hits.

#10

"COOL OFF"

“Missy in this bitch don’ shit you ain’t ever seen,” Missy sassily declares on the opening bars of her 808 heavy southern bounce track “Cool Off” from her 2019 EP, Iconology, offering a fresh reminder of a lasting legacy.

"SHE'S A BITCH"

The lead single from her second album, 1999’s Da Real World, “She’s a Bitch” is Missy and Timbaland continuing to flex their creativity, even though it wasn’t the highest-charting song on the album.

"SOCK IT 2 ME" FEAT. DA BRAT

One of her early standouts, “Sock It 2 Me” offered a direct glimpse into Missy’s experimental originality. Da Brat was at the top of her game in 1997, with a recitable verse and swag to match.

"ONE MINUTE MAN" FEAT. LUDACRIS AND TRINA

Missy found yet another musical kindred spirit in Ludacris during the early aughts, and they capitalized on their connection regularly, including on the 2001 club hit “One Minute Man” from her third album, "Miss E… So Addictive." Trina's guest verse steals the show, as "da baddest bitch" gets raw and raunchy about what she needs in the bedroom.

"BEEP ME 9-1-1" FEAT. 702 AND MAGOO

A sleepy banger from her debut, “Beep Me 911” is Missy and Timbaland deep in their creative well during the time in the late 90s when they were actively reshaping the sound of contemporary R&B. Decades later, the song still sounds futuristic-fresh, with Missy and Meelah (of 702)’s languid-sultry vocals breezing over the track as Magoo stamps it with a verse.

"ALL N MY GRILL" FEAT. BIG BOI AND NICOLE WRAY

Big Boy and Nicole Wray threw the assist on “All in My Grill,” the breakout success from Missy’s second album, "Da Real World." Reminding everyone of her R&B roots, a sound she honed with Aaliyah and Ginuwine, “All In My Grill” is a straightforward late 90s soul track with glossy vocals and rich synths that still holds up today.

"HOT BOYZ" FEAT. EVE, NAS, LIL MO, Q-TIP

The remix version of “Hot Boyz” broke records and became one of Missy’s most popular tracks. Featured on her sophomore album, 1999’s Da Real World, it’s an era-defining posse cut with a standout verse from Eve. (Why wasn't Q-Tip in the video, doe?)

"GET UR FREAK ON"

Once again, Missy dropped a single that sounded like nothing else when she dropped “Get Ur Freak On” in 2001, and it’d go on to influence the pop production sound of the early aughts. Another Timbaland collaboration, it’s one of Missy’s signature tracks. The song encompasses the cool, frenetic energy that comes to define her solo work, and showcases her creativity at its peak.

"THE RAIN (SUPA DUPA FLY)"

Timbaland’s sparse, forward-leaning production, and Missy’s wholly original execution which built on a familiar Ann Peebles song, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” is one of the most memorable debuts in rap history. When you couple it with the Hype Williams video that helped change the game, Missy’s influential solo entry pushed rap and pop music in a new direction.

"WORK IT"

2002’s "Under Construction" ushered in a fresh period of domination for Missy and Timbaland’s sound. “Work It” embodies the best of the duo’s innovative charm, and is a signature, career-defining track (and video) for Missy.

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#hip-hop #hiphop #hip hop #hip hop music #todayinhiphophistory #hip hop history #history #music history #hip hop culture #music #today in hip hop history #television #mc #emcee #rap #hip hop 50 #rapper

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