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sargenthouse · 6 years ago

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Interview with Dylan Carlson of Earth

Interview via Echoes & Dust From soundwaves to landscapes, the sonic experience conjured up by Earth is both a meditative and an immersive one. From having laid the root foundations of rock’s infamous exercise in extreme minimalism with the classic Earth 2: Special Low-Frequency Version, the Seattle-born earth-shakers have braced through the decades carrying a legacy of slow, heavy riffs and long, introspective song-structures with a strong emphasis on repetition. The band has kept their pace slow and steady whilst branching out into a multitude of directions, ranging from stoner rock on Pentastar: In the Style of Demons to the esoteric desert-rock musings on Primitive and Deadly. For the band’s first record in over five years, leading member Dylan Carlson has decided to strip things down for a back-to-basics, raw approach, working as a duo alongside drummer Adrienne Davies to harken back to Earth’s core sound. We caught up with Dylan ahead of his solo performance at Paris’ Sonic Protest Festival to ask about his upcoming record, as well as learn more about his approach to sound and music playing.

E&D: Last time you were scheduled to perform in Paris, you unfortunately had to cancel due to some serious medical emergency. How have you been, how is your health?

DC: I’m much better. It was a gallbladder infection, so I was put on a bunch of antibiotics and I did a bunch of tests to clear it up. I’m fine now.

E&D: Welcome back to France. I understand your mother speaks French, by the way. Is that right?

DC: Yeah, that’s true.

E&D: You grew up moving around many different places, including in Europe. Have you ever lived in France?

DC: No, we lived in Germany, but we visited a lot because my mum liked Paris. The first year, we lived in Ramstein, which is basically just an airbase. Then we lived in Augsburg, Bavaria for three years. It’s an hour away from Munich. I also lived another year in Wiesbaden, which is by Frankfurt. We used to travel a lot. We went to the United Kingdom a lot, too, because we had relatives in Scotland. This was in the Seventies. We came back to the States in 1980. I was in first grade, so this was between the age of six to eleven. We were in American schools though.

E&D: May 24 will mark the release date of the first Earth record in five years, Full Upon Her Burning Lips. Back in 2014, you stated that you had already had started sketching out three songs for the follow-up toPrimitive and Deadly. Have you kept these ideas for this new album or have they been used for your solo and side projects?

DC: They were kept. Generally, when I come up with stuff, it will be earmarked for whatever project it was originally meant for. We played a couple of the ones that ended up on the album a few times live. We played one of the two songs at Hellfest in 2014. Two other songs were developed from playing live and held over. We also did a live soundtrack in Gent for Belladonna of Sadness and we tweaked and kept one of the tracks we performed. The rest of the material was pretty much done a month before we went into the studio. So basically there had been three tracks that had been bouncing around for a while and the bulk of it was done really quickly right before the studio sessions. I came up with a lot of the arrangements in the studio, too.

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E&D: Since Primitive and Deadly, you’ve released three solo albums and a collaborative album with The Bug. Did you originally plan on taking this ‘hiatus’ in between Earth albums?

DC: When we did Primitive and Deadly, it was the end of our relationship with Southern Lord. We had just gotten new management with Cathy from Sargent House. I knew it would be a bit of a while before the next Earth album came about. Things had to settle down and we had to test the waters, see who was interested in us. I had this other material that I thought would be a good solo record. It also gave me a chance to work with Sargent House as a label. Cathy was our manager but we weren’t with the label up until that point. It gave us a chance to do a solo project and a chance to work with Emma Ruth Rundle. It just kind of happened, I guess. It seemed like a good time to do it.

E&D: Coming into writing and recording this record, did you have any initial ideas or a particular head-space that guided you?

DC: This album was actually a bit different, in that I’d usually have a super strong conceptual idea that precedes the record. The records started out concept-heavy, but now it seems like I write music faster than I come up with concepts! [laughs] The concepts reveal themselves in the music more than the concept guides the writing of the music. This record came really fast because we decided we were going to do it with the core of the band, which is me and Adrienne. I ended up playing bass on the record. It was time to show what Earth can do with its core elements, as we’ve had so many members and guests join us over the year. We had been doing a lot of playing and writing in our practise space, just the two of us, and when it came time to do the album I figured “Let’s just do that!”. I also felt like it was a chance for the drums to really shine on record. I think the drums have been a big part of the band live, but with all of the instrumentation and overdubs, the drums aren’t left with much space on record. The drums were typically the last in line on record. For this record, I wanted everything really upfront and present. We’ve also had records that were quite lush-sounding, but I wanted this one to be really dry and stripped.

E&D: Did going back to a two-piece formation require some time to get re-accustomed to?

DC: No, not really. We’ve been working together for so long now that we don’t really think about it. When we add people, I generally know right away whether someone is going to work or not. For the tour that we’re getting ready to do, I’ll be adding another guitarist called Tristan. We did an improv show right before I left Seattle. We interpreted some Miles Davis stuff and we just clicked right away. We met because he was my driver on my solo US tour, before I found out that he was in a band. I invited him to jam and do this join, and now he’s joined the band for the tour.

E&D: Do you approach working as a duo or trio differently from a strictly solo performance?

DC: I find playing with people more enjoyable, certainly, it’s more fun to explore with other people and see what happens. Playing solo is different in that it’s just you, there’s no real buffer. When you’re in a band it’s much easier to cover up mistakes and wing it I guess [laughs]. At the same time, it’s still enjoyable to just playing.

E&D: Part of what makes your shows with Earth so impressive is how “locked-in” you all are at these slow tempos. It’s as though the band followed its own organic pace, like synchronised “breathing”.

DC: Yeah, it’s not “tight” but it’s that weird kind of “loose but on’” thing. It’s not like a regimented prog thing [laughs]. I guess the best description for it, to me, is that it “flows”. You play and things just go right, everything just flows, you’re not getting in your way.

E&D: Is this something you work on with the musicians you add to your line-up or is it something that needs to naturally lock into place from the get-go?

DC: I pretty much know once we play together whether it’s going to work. They either “flow” or they don’t [laughs]. It either just works or it’s not happening. It’s not something you can force.

E&D: You mentioned that this record was written with a more open approach, without a conceptual backbone to guide the sound. Looking back on the end result, what do you “see” when listening to the record?

DC: I think the album titles that came out of it give a general idea. I wanted this album to be more “witchy”, so to speak, with magical plants and animals. I think that it has a very strong feminine energy involved with it. I feel like the music industry in general, and rock in particular, can be very unbalanced and hyper-masculine, and I think it’s reflected in society now, too. We’ve had this hyper-masculine society for so long now. If you hear a band like Metallica, there’s no hint of the feminine anywhere in their music, lyrically or conceptually. It’s this super-weird, “hyper-male bubble”. To me, music, in addition to being intellectual and emotional, is also sensual – especially rock and blues music. It’s from the hips as well! [laughs] I was trying to tap into that side of existence more on this record than on previous ones.

E&D: I was going to say that I did feel some hints of what you mentioned when I first heard Primitive and Deadly.

DC: Yeah, it definitely started with that record, and I feel like it’s reached fuller expression with this one.

E&D: When it came to prepping the recording sessions, what guided your decisions regarding the gear and sound you wanted for the album?

DC: I basically used what I use live. Sometimes it’s nice to have a million choices for overdubs and whatnot, but for this one I just stripped it down. It forces you to be more creative with the materials that you do choose. I just used the same gear as my live setup, which is pretty minimal. It was really exciting to get all of the variety of sounds from those, rather than looking to do overdubs with a collection of gear like on previous albums. This was how me and Randall Dunn would work. We’d have a plethora of things to choose from, whereas I wanted things to be stripped back this time. There were four or five pedals at the most, but I used them in different ways than I had previously done.

E&D: For many, myself included, your music has marked a turning point, a discovery of a new way of listening to music. Can you remember what first raised your awareness of this way of ‘processing’ music? What made you want to go down that path?

DC: I guess, musically, I would hear riffs from bands that I liked, and I’d want them to keep playing that riff. I was always wondering what would happen if you just stuck on that one riff. At the time I was heavily into metal, but I was also into King Crimson. Through the Velvet Underground, I learned about La Monte Young. It was just this idea of enjoying the repetition of stuff. I used to listen to my guitar droning and practice singing through it. I would learn how to hold a note. I had done a couple of other bands before that, and I didn’t really like them very much. As I said, it started with a conceptual thing. Drone is a technique that’s in a bunch of different music. Indian music is probably its highest form of development, but Blues has it too with open string root notes. Maybe it’s this atavistic Scottish thing about bagpipes since I have Scotch heritage, I don’t know.

E&D: Was this on your own or in a band?

DC: It was more on my own, I guess. After my second band broke up, I just went into what I call “woodshedding”, for a couple of years. I was practising and listening to a lot of music, and thinking about what I wanted to do next. That’s where the ideas coalesced, I guess.

E&D: Any overview of drone genre inevitably mentions two figurehead acts: Earth and Sunn O))). Having met the band and having worked with them in the past, have you had an opportunity to discuss your respective approaches about the genre, what “drone” means to you?

DC: Yeah, I’ve guested on their records, but other than that they’re doing their thing and I’m doing my thing. We’re both pursuing different aspects to me. From my perspective, I view myself as always serving the music. The riff needs to be worth repeating, it’s not just about repeating it. It needs to be something that grabs people. I’m constantly concerned about increasing the melodic content and the musicality of what I do. I’m also not as concerned with being the loudest or the slowest, which I feel can reduce the music. Back when I started, the bands wanted to be the fastest bands on earth. Whenever you play something ahead of the music, the music suffers. I just always consider myself a servant of the music and a servant of the song, first and foremost.

E&D: The new album features songs that are fairly short by Earth’s standards. Given that repetition plays an important part in your music, how do you determine the length of a particular song?

DC: I guess there’s a couple of things. There’s the feeling that you’ve said what you needed to say in that length of time. A lot of the time, our songs tend to grow in length live. I sometimes view shorter songs as snapshots of longer pieces. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the physical means of reproduction limits you to a certain amount of time. People aren’t going to buy an eight-album set – you need to get it down to two LPs [laughs]. We need to consider how it’s going to fit on the vinyl.

E&D: Finishing off, can you name one of your favourite albums, movies and books?

DC: There are so many albums, it’s hard to pick just one [laughs]! I guess I’ll say Memphis Underground by Herbie Mann for the LP. Movie-wise, I’ll say Le Samouraï by Jean-Pierre Melville. Book-wise, Blood Moon by John Sedgwick.

Earth’s new album, Full Upon Her Burning Lips, is released on May 24 by Sargent House. Pre-order here…

#Earth #Dylan Carlson #Full Upon Her Burning Lips

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demolitonlover · 7 years ago

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MCR History: “We just have no reason to be sad anymore”

From February 19, 2011

Mere hours before they take to the stage in Dublin’s O2, bassist Mikey Way and guitarist Frank Iero of New Jersey punk-pop icons My Chemical Romance chatted to State about the inspiration behind their fourth studio album, Danger Days: the True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys. Though the gig itself was far from sold out, there were reports of cues stretching around the corner the night before in anticipation…

State: What was your inspiration for the record? Frank: Well after the last record, we toured two… two and a half years straight, and we decided to take an extended break, just living our lives again. And about eight months into that break… Mikey: Yeah, that’s when the itch started. Frank: …we got it together and did a song [a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’] for the Watchmen movie soundtrack and it felt good just to be making noise and playing together again. So we decided to get together again. About two or three months after that we convened out in LA, started picking up guitars and playing, and we wrote about 20 or 30 songs. We started to record them, kind of ran out of time, got the mix in the studio and we were kind of unhappy with how it was finally coming about. So we put it all on hold and went back into another studio, met up with Rob Cavallo who did our last record and wrote four brand new songs and liked them way better than the 20 or 30 that we had written before. We just kept going, and slowly but surely this concept started coming about, like a setting kind of thing. Picture it: an apocalyptic event occurs and it’s 2019 – what would the band sound like? There would still be music, there would still be shows – if there were kids still alive – but what would that band be like? We started to pick up instruments that we weren’t really familiar with and never really experimented with before – didn’t really know how to play – and what you’re hearing is a band sort of excited and, I think, psyched to be creating. Mikey: It was definitely a period of exploration and it was exciting for all of us. We were doing things that we never thought we could do. That was very exciting and very fulfilling. You said you were playing new instruments, what did that involve? Frank: At that point we had become a four-piece again. We needed a backbone. So we started to create loops and beats within the computer but also with synthesizers, Kaoss pads and drum machines… Mikey: Theramin… farfisa… a lot of digital elements. There were a lot of digital instruments that we never thought to use or we never thought fit with My Chemical Romance. We kind of started branching out and any kind of concept we had in our head about what could be on a My Chemical Romance album we were just like, “let’s try absolutely everything!” In terms of the concept, did you write songs to fit that or did the songs just roll out in that way? Frank: They just started to come out in that format. I think, as we started to write, ‘Na Na Na’ was the first song we wrote second time around and then ‘Vampire Money’ and ‘Planetary (GO!)’ and ‘Sing.’ Once we started to get past ‘Sing’ it was like, “alright, this is what’s coming out. This is the world that we feel it fits into.” All it needed was “I feel like this” and we’d experiment that way or somebody would come up with a riff. I think when you start to go like, “this is the concept , this is what the record’s gonna be” and put it into a box, then you have to fill that box, then it ends up being forced and you never end up really happy with it. When it comes organically, that’s when the magic really happens. Mikey: The songs kind of shape the universe, you know? It was like these little bangs that were creating little pocket universes that the album was living in. You all inhabit different characters on the album, or at least that’s the presentation, was that a conscious thing? Mikey: We kept any character elements strictly to the video. It’s not supposed to be anything more than that. The concept itself, was it a case of one person coming in and saying, “I have this great idea” or did it just come out? Frank: The inspiration came from a song we had written called ‘Bulletproof Heart.’ The lyrics from that song started to create… it was basically, if you had to taste-test the world from one song, I guess that was the song to do it from. That was actually written on the first attempt at the record, so we kind of took that song and blew it out of proportion. Mikey: I think, like, ‘Bulletproof’ and ‘Na Na’ were kind of the points of the nexus of the world. Those were the two that created the vibe, the feeling, the colour, the attitude, the overall sonic arc. You said you did 20 or so songs in the first tranche and didn’t like them. Did you keep much of that stuff? Mikey: A couple. A couple we loved so much that we wanted to put them on the album. But the thing is they couldn’t exist as they existed on the previous attempt and we had to very much look at them as if we were writing them again. It was almost like we started from square one with a lot of these songs. We had to almost rewrite some of them. The idea of the radio broadcast – was that central to how you wrote the songs? Were you writing “radio songs,” the sort of songs that could sound like they were coming out of your radio one after another? Frank: I think the idea of having a narrator to bring you through the world… the idea is to have a pirate radio station emerging from this apocalyptic world. But definitely, I think, at least some of them are crafted pop songs. That’s what we do – take the formula for a pop song and kind of twist it and make something ugly beautiful. Mikey: The DJ was kind of a nod to some of our favourite films – there’s a radio DJ who comes in and guides the viewer/listener in a few different things: The Warriors and Vantage Point and Reservoir Dogs did that really well. It’s kind of like a tiny bit of the inspiration for that was from that. Was there a musical influence on the actual format, the concept? The one I was thinking of was Deltron 3030. Mikey: I love that album! Actually, come to think of it, that’s very similar to where Del the Funky Homosapien jumps in and out like a radio DJ, and Damon Albarn’s on that. Yeah I never even thought of that… yeah, that’s a great album. There’s more of a power pop vibe than on the last album, sort of a bit more carefree, less serious topics… Mikey: We’re at a more positive point in our lives. We’re more happy people, have amazing, supportive family and friends around us and we just have no reason to be sad anymore. We’re just very much into having an amazing time. That kind of carries through in the songs. So there’s no going back to the… Mikey: Yeah, we’re not really sad anymore! But we do like sad things… that doesn’t mean we won’t ever write sad music. That not to say we’ll never write some sad songs, because we love that stuff. Frank: It’s one of those things where I think, the last record, was about life and death. It’s like life: you can’t have the good times without the bad times, the happy without the sad. So when you’re writing a concept record about life and death, you have to have that. When you’re writing about a gang of laser-gun totin’ crazy kids in a post-apocalyptic world, there’s not that sad element. The next record, you know, could be about orphans. Hopefully it won’t be so long between releases this time. Mikey: Yeah, that’s the thing, if it were up to us we’d be in the studio right now recording. The flip side of it all is that it’s really gratifying to go out and play songs for people, which is why we’re out. They’re both amazing for their own reasons: touring is amazing and recording is amazing. They’re amazing for their own reasons. We wish we could do both. We wish we could clone ourselves, send a set of ourselves home to record and the other set of us to tour! That would be the ultimate goal – I’m sure we’ll work out some day. No plans to go on another two-year tour… Frank: Nah, I fucking hope not. Mikey: Hahahahaha. Frank: I think we’ll have to be more smart about it. Mikey: Yeah we’ll be wiser when it comes to that. We won’t drive ourselves to the point of exhaustion and mental anguish. We’ll do everything smarter this time. I haven’t really asked about musical influences. There are some hip-hop… well not necessarily hip-hop, but Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rage Against the Machine kind of vibes… Mikey: Well we’re huge fans of bands like Rage Against the Machine, and we’re huge fans of hip-hop too, and we kind of never try to paint ourselves into a corner. You know, if it sounds great it should be on the album. I heard a sort of Slash, Van Halen kind of hair rock… Mikey: See, that’s the thing! What you just said, those past three things, it’s all over the place – it’s everywhere. There’s no, like, narrow view to this album, no “this is what it sounds like.” There’s elements of so many different bits and pieces of our influences and we were somehow able to cram it all into this one universe, which is what we set out to do. Frank: Just get inspired by everything… I was going to say that… the last album was, I don’t want to say conventional, but more what you’d expect from a big rock concept record, the big ‘70s rock sound. This time you seem to be all over the place. Frank: I think when you’re younger – we were only a band for, like, six years? We were still a young band and you can wear your influences on your sleeve a little bit more. When you’ve been together a bit more, you begin to get inspired by each other and those influences get a little bit more varied and your own musical prowess comes to the forefront. Last question: ‘Vampire Money’ is a rip on Twilight, right? Mikey: Sort of! It’s a rip on anyone repeatedly telling you to do what you don’t want to do. It just so happens that that can be the context that people pull out of it. It’s not necessarily a dig at Twilight, it’s just a dig at a nagging. It’s a dig at someone nagging at you. I listened to it once – I had to go to the record label to hear the album – and it stuck out completely from the rest of the album and it sounded kinda bitchy, but in a good way. Mikey: Exactly! We wanted to make one of those classic Chuck Berry rock n’ roll jams. Frank: Little Richard. Mikey: Little Richard, yeah. When we were writing the song, that’s very much what we were feeling at the time.

#i wanted this interview on my blog sue me #there are actually some really good questions #especially about the songs #interview #article #mcr #my chemical romance #danger days #2011 #sam stuff

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drippeddaily · 7 years ago

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Album of the Year 2017 #18: 2 Chainz - Pretty Girls Like Trap Music

Artist: 2 Chainz

Album: Pretty Girls Like Trap Music

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”It's always these beautiful girls who like this hustler – who you think would be attracted to a whole other type of music. But they like Migos, Future. You get with this girl, and you want to play Bryson Tiller. But she's like, "I want to hear Gucci." Shit. We're the pop stars. Trap rap is pop now. People's ears have adjusted to what we have to say and how we say it.”

-2 Chainz, Rolling Stone interview, June 2017

In July of this year, it was reported that hip hop and R&B music had officially surpassed rock ‘n’ roll as the most popular genre of music in the United States. Personally, I feel like rock had already been dethroned years ago and that rap’s dominance was only now made apparent by the implementation of streaming into the Billboard charting system, but nonetheless the shift has sparked debates over the relevance of the musical styles of generations past with millennials who, having grown up with rap and adjusting to it at a young age in a way their parents hadn’t, have essentially claimed the genre as the music of their generation. In the same way that my father’s generation chose Elvis and the Beatles over Frank Sinatra and the like, someone like 2 Chainz could be argued to have a more powerful hold on the youth culture of today than anyone with a guitar.

Like most people, my first experience with the man born Tauheed Epps was the Lil Wayne featuring “Duffle Bag Boy”, though as it was credited to Playaz Circle I didn’t realize it at the time. The rapper formerly known as Tity Boi made the shift to 2 Chainz not long thereafter, and by the time he released his T.R.U. Realigion mixtape in 2011 he was certifiably one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers in the world, a full decade and half after he’d started his career. The year after he released his major label debut Based on a T.R.U. Story, a platinum selling album in a pre-streaming era (no easy feat) with three major hit singles. History would dictate that Mr. Chainz would be able to ride off the success of this album to further hits and commercial viability in the years to come, and while his string of golden features on others’ tracks continued to flourish, his own solo material began to falter. B.O.A.T.S. II was released one year after its predecessor but sold less than half as many copies and failed to produce a top 40 single. For the next few years Tity released a few mixtapes and EPs, along with a collaborative project with Lil Wayne, but nothing seemed to resonate with audiences like his material in the early part of the decade had.

Suddenly, however, it became apparent that as trap music became more and more engrained into the mainstream consciousness, so too did 2 Chainz’s popularity begin to get a second wind of sorts. This is adeptly referenced in the title to his third studio album Pretty Girls Like Trap Music: it’s a testament to how far rap has come in its mission of taking over the airwaves in recent years and how, while the young women of yesteryear’s generation may have been more enamored with artists who were strictly pop, the more melodic style of trap music that has infiltrated the game this decade has taken pop’s place as the go-to music for the youth.

The general consensus surrounding 2 Chainz up until now was that he worked better as a feature and/or “punchline” rapper than a legitimate album artist. 2 Chainz perhaps recognized that, having fallen from his peak hype levels in the first half of the decade, he needed to put out something truly special to keep people interested in his music. As such, he chose to downplay the more humorous aspects of his verses on Pretty Girls and instead focus on the grittier, drug dealing aspects of his upbringing, along with the usual foray into pussy, money, weed and braggadocio that is almost a requirement for mainstream rap nowadays. He enlisted the help of prior collaborators Mike Will Made-It and Honorable C.N.O.T.E. to provide beats, alongside newcomers such as Murda Beatz and Buddah Bless and industry legends like Pharrell and Mike Dean, amongst others. There’s also a “who’s who” of 2017 mainstream rap on the features list, with Drake, Migos, Travis Scott, Swae Lee, Nicki Minaj, Gucci Mane, Ty Dolla Sign and others all making appearances. He also utilized a unique promotional tactics for the record: he rented a “trap house” in Atlanta that he had painted completely pink and donned it with the album’s logo on the front, and also ran a “trap salon” for girls to get their nails done with song titles inspiring the designs.

Pretty Girls ended up becoming one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 2017 summer rap season. It sold over 100,000 album equivalent units in its first week in the United States and garnered 2 Chainz the highest critical praise he had received in his career up to that point. Less than 3 months after its release, it had been certified gold, his first RIAA certified record since his platinum selling debut. Pretty Girls has produced a run of hit singles that were mainstays on rap stations this year, and the album has been considered nothing but a success for Mr. Chainz.

But is it actually any good?

Review

Pretty Girls Like Trap Music begins with a few rapid piano hits and, ironically enough, a blazing guitar line that would be feel more at home in the rock music that trap artists like 2 Chainz had helped displace at the top of the charts. Tity uses the opener to reminisce about his past and the things he’s done to get him to where he is today. The subject matter fits the Mike Will production nicely and overall this serves as a great way to start the album off.

The title of the following track “Riverdale Rd” is a reference to a street in Atlanta, 2 Chainz’s hometown. The beat almost sounds like a trap reinterpretation of the Psycho soundtrack, courtesy of DJ Mano. Similar to the song preceding it, Tity makes reference in his lyrics to his younger days of hustling and drug dealing and how it contrasts with his life in the present day. This is undeniably one of the hardest tracks on the album.

“Good Drank”, the first official single that had previously appeared on 2016’s Hibachi for Lunch mixtape, follows next. This was the first song I’d heard off the project and it quickly became an obsession, mostly due to the damn near perfect synth lead that opens the song. The patented Mike Dean Magic™ is all over this thing: a beautiful concoction of drums and melodies that stick to your ear and refuse to leave. 2 Chainz’s verse follows the standard for what the majority of the album’s content will ultimately consist of: money, cars and drug dealing. Quavo’s hook is infectious (the “Nooo-ooo-ooo” melodies following the “no hot box” line are great in particular) and Gucci’s verse, while nothing spectacular, fits with the track.

The Travis Scott-featuring “4 AM” follows, with production from 2017’s most breakout producer Murda Beatz. Placing this woozy instrumental directly after “Good Drank” was a solid move as they almost feel like compliments to one another. Tity harkens back to the past again, “reminiscing ‘bout the trap, playin’ the first Carter” and references the projects he’s put out since B.O.A.T.S. II, namely a series of EPs and his collaborative project with Lil Wayne from the year before. La Flame’s performance on the chorus is pretty standard for him but given how awesome he generally is on hook duty this isn’t really a complaint. Could’ve benefitted from an actual verse from Travis but this is solid nonetheless.

“Door Swangin’” boasts the first of four Buddah Bless productions on the album. Pretty standard trap stuff on this one, both in terms of lyrics and music. The running theme of the album seems to be drug dealing first and foremost and that stays true here. The strings that come in from time to time sound really good too, but overall this one comes off as just decent.

The Nicki Minaj collaboration “Realize” follows next. To be honest, it’s getting difficult to write anything significant about 2 Chainz’s lyrics at this point. They fit the production and his voice and presence is commanding as ever, but the topics stick almost exclusively to talking about drugs, cars, money, etc, which can become tedious to write about after a while. The line at the end of his verse taking a shot at mumble rap was admittedly hilarious, though. Nicki’s hook goes well with the chilled out vibe of the production and her verse isn’t too bad either. Not incredible but it gets the job done.

With “Poor Fool” Mike Will Made-It continues to prove why he is in the upper echelon of hip hop producers at the moment with keyboard plinks in the beat that sound like a malfunctioning children’s toy and brooding synth lines underneath. Swae Lee hops on the chorus and it’s one of the best on the record, further cementing himself as one of the best go-to rappers for a hook right now. Swae and Chainz reference how their mothers reacted to their sons dealings in the street, even though the money they would have been earning through their hustling ways was what was helping to keep food on the table. All in all this shit bangs; a definite highlight.

“Big Amount” originally dropped on 2 Chainz’s 2016 mixtape Daniel Son; Necklace Don and the success of the track prompted him to include it on Pretty Girls as a bonus track for the digital version. Buddah Bless’s contribution is significantly better than the preceding “Door Swangin’”: as far as I can tell, this was one of the first contributions to the flute rap trend that wound up dominating most of 2017. Some of Chainz’s best lines on the album end up here (the “Shawty ride like an equestrian” line kills me every time) and Drake’s contribution works really well too. A solid track all around.

Arguably the biggest single off the album, “It’s a Vibe” was a staple on hip hop stations this year and it’s not hard to see why. Murda Beatz’s smooth mid-paced production features irresistible guitar licks and 2 Chainz flows over it flawlessly, lending one of his best verses on the album to this track. Ty Dolla Sign, Trey Songz and Jhene Aiko provide vocals to flesh things out. In comparison to the other singles I’d probably take “Good Drank” and “4 AM” over this one, but that just comes down to personal preference; it’s still a chill ass song regardless.

Honorable C.N.O.T.E. provides an absolutely gorgeous backdrop on “Rolls Royce Bitch”, once again employing the use of guitar. Next to “Good Drank” and two other tracks to be mentioned later, this may be my favorite beat on the entire record. Tity starts the track telling the listener to believe in themselves first and foremost and if they they can make their dreams come true. The rest of the record is spent describing his wealth and how he came to acquire it. This is an absolute pleasure to listen to and an easy highlight.

“Sleep When U Die” is another Buddah Bless production; this one sounds closer to “Door Swangin’” than “Big Amount”. Tity compares his clothing to Ric Flair’s and his hair to James Brown’s. Pretty standard trap here; nothing more to say.

Without even realizing it I sort of knew instinctually that “Trap Check” was probably a Buddah Bless beat before I checked the production credits, and sure enough that turns out to be the case. Again, this stuff is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as 2017 trap goes until the last 30 seconds, where the beat switches to the furious horns of T.I.’s “ASAP”, a welcome switch-up that finishes the track off nicely. More of the same content from Tity on the lyrical side of things, though the “I ain’t talkin’ Nike when I’m talkin’ bout a check” line always manages to get a smile out of me.

“Blue Cheese”, featuring rap’s hottest trio at the moment, boasts what is arguably the best beat on the entire album. K Swisha laces the track with a bed of hypnotizing synths that completely envelop the listener; the effect always gives me a feeling of being underwater for some reason. Quavo’s chorus here is just as irresistible as “Good Drank” was and everyone plays their part to make the song a success. There is one complaint to be made with this track, however: Tity only gets one 45 second verse at the start with Quavo, Offset and Takeoff dominating the rest of the cut. It feels more like a Migos song featuring 2 Chainz than the other way around, which is disappointing given it’s supposed to be a 2 Chainz album, but I digress.

Tity decides to go on an “OG Kush Diet” on the next track to cope with the death of his close friend (at least for the chorus, anyway; the verses revert back to his usual braggadocios, materialistic style). Production on this one is decent to start, but things change halfway through where the beat has a reggae-tinged switch-up to keep things interesting. The pitch shifting on 2 Chainz’s voice at the end of the track is a nice touch also.

Next we’ve got the Pharrell Williams-produced “Bailan”, and goddamn this shit is smooth! 25 years on and Skateboard P is still a genius behind the boards. This goes over a lot better than their previous collaboration “Feds Watching”: whereas that cut felt like a misguided attempt at Pharrell adjusting himself to 2 Chainz’s typical production style, the roles are reversed on this cut and, surprisingly enough, Tity sounds great over this despite it being a lil outside of his usual territory when it comes to production choices. A full length 2 Chainz-Pharrell collaboration would be more than welcome if the results stay consistent with this one.

The album saves the best for last with “Burglar Bars”, a poignant cut that feels more “traditionally” hip hop than anything else on the record. Near the end of the song Tity describes it as “soulful trap music” and his assertion couldn’t be any more on point. It’s a beautifully produced gem of a track from M16 and Mike Dean, sampling Barbara Jean English’s “You’re Gonna Need Somebody to Love You”, with Monica providing backing vocals along with the intro and a closing verse. 2 Chainz’s lyrics are still drug and money-focused, but he also intersperses references to his contemporaries and reflects on how far his rap career has come. All in all, it’s a wonderful closer, and if it’s a sign of things to come (considering 2 Chainz has been working on music with 90’s era legend Q-Tip as of late) then I’m all for hearing what Mr. Chainz has up his sleeve next.

Is Pretty Girls Like Trap Music the best album of the year? Not for me, personally, but having grown up listening to guys like Jay and Em in my early years and getting into underground/conscious/backpack stuff in my teens I’ll probably always be more inclined towards something that’s more lyrically focused anyway. Nonetheless, I can definitively say as someone who’s critical of a lot of the trap that comes out nowadays this was a pleasure to listen to.

I’ve heard some complain about the lack of humor that was prevalent in 2 Chainz’s earlier projects compared to this, and admittedly, as I started reviewing this album, I found it to be increasingly difficult to find anything to really say about 2 Chainz’s bars on this one. They all revolve around the usual trap-standard subject matter that one expects from a 2 Chainz record, and after awhile it can be hard to say something new or original about them. His flow and his presence are still more than intact and lyrics aren't a huge point of emphasis for me when listening to this kind of music anyway; plus, tracks like "Burglar Bars" show that Tity doesn't need to do his usual funnier style to pull off some solid verses. It’s obvious that he wanted to use Pretty Girls as his chance to show people that he isn’t just a punchline rapper and that he can be serious about his music when he chooses to be.

Like most trap albums, the real highlight of the record is the production, and in this regard Pretty Girls is typically fantastic. Aside from some uninspired Buddah Bless productions everything on the record is extremely memorable and endlessly creative: the excellent guitar lines on "Saturday Night", "It's a Vibe" and especially "Rolls Royce Bitch", the nightmarish feel of "Riverdale Rd" and "Poor Fool", the indelible melodies of "Good Drank" and "4 AM", the smooth ecstasy of "Blue Cheese" and "Bailan", and capping the album off with the epic "Burglar Bars", the songs are expertly produced and really lend themselves to making the record what it is.

This was my first experience with a 2 Chainz project so I’m not totally sure how it compares to his other work, but if this is a sign of things to come, I’m very excited to hear what else he does in this lil “late career renaissance” he’s got going on right now.

Favorite Songs

Burglar Bars

Good Drank

Rolls Royce Bitch

Bailan

Blue Cheese

Favorite Lyrics

”Shawty ride like an equestrian” -Big Amount

”I give a fuck about thesaurus rappers" -Burglar Bars

”Used to drive a Porsche ‘til I found out it was made by Volkswagen” -OG Kush Diet

Discussion Questions

• Do you feel like the album would have been better if 2 Chainz had used his more humorous style more often?

• How does 2 Chainz compare with other rappers in their late 30s and beyond who are still putting out music today?

• How would you like to see 2 Chainz progress with his next record?

Tomorrow we'll have u/vulcan24 writing about Death Grips’ “Steroids” EP

Artist: 2 ChainzAlbum: Pretty Girls Like Trap MusicListen:YouTubeSpotifyApple MusicGoogle Play MusicTIDALAlbum Background”It's always these beautiful girls who like this hustler – who you think would be attracted to a whole other type of music. But they like Migos, Future. You get with this girl, and you want to play Bryson Tiller. But she's like, "I want to hear Gucci." Shit. We're the pop stars. Trap rap is pop now. People's ears have adjusted to what we have to say and how we say it.”-2 Chainz, Rolling Stone interview, June 2017 In July of this year, it was reported that hip hop and R&B music had officially surpassed rock ‘n’ roll as the most popular genre of music in the United States. Personally, I feel like rock had already been dethroned years ago and that rap’s dominance was only now made apparent by the implementation of streaming into the Billboard charting system, but nonetheless the shift has sparked debates over the relevance of the musical styles of generations past with millennials who, having grown up with rap and adjusting to it at a young age in a way their parents hadn’t, have essentially claimed the genre as the music of their generation. In the same way that my father’s generation chose Elvis and the Beatles over Frank Sinatra and the like, someone like 2 Chainz could be argued to have a more powerful hold on the youth culture of today than anyone with a guitar. Like most people, my first experience with the man born Tauheed Epps was the Lil Wayne featuring “Duffle Bag Boy”, though as it was credited to Playaz Circle I didn’t realize it at the time. The rapper formerly known as Tity Boi made the shift to 2 Chainz not long thereafter, and by the time he released his T.R.U. Realigion mixtape in 2011 he was certifiably one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers in the world, a full decade and half after he’d started his career. The year after he released his major label debut Based on a T.R.U. Story, a platinum selling album in a pre-streaming era (no easy feat) with three major hit singles. History would dictate that Mr. Chainz would be able to ride off the success of this album to further hits and commercial viability in the years to come, and while his string of golden features on others’ tracks continued to flourish, his own solo material began to falter. B.O.A.T.S. II was released one year after its predecessor but sold less than half as many copies and failed to produce a top 40 single. For the next few years Tity released a few mixtapes and EPs, along with a collaborative project with Lil Wayne, but nothing seemed to resonate with audiences like his material in the early part of the decade had. Suddenly, however, it became apparent that as trap music became more and more engrained into the mainstream consciousness, so too did 2 Chainz’s popularity begin to get a second wind of sorts. This is adeptly referenced in the title to his third studio album Pretty Girls Like Trap Music: it’s a testament to how far rap has come in its mission of taking over the airwaves in recent years and how, while the young women of yesteryear’s generation may have been more enamored with artists who were strictly pop, the more melodic style of trap music that has infiltrated the game this decade has taken pop’s place as the go-to music for the youth. The general consensus surrounding 2 Chainz up until now was that he worked better as a feature and/or “punchline” rapper than a legitimate album artist. 2 Chainz perhaps recognized that, having fallen from his peak hype levels in the first half of the decade, he needed to put out something truly special to keep people interested in his music. As such, he chose to downplay the more humorous aspects of his verses on Pretty Girls and instead focus on the grittier, drug dealing aspects of his upbringing, along with the usual foray into pussy, money, weed and braggadocio that is almost a requirement for mainstream rap nowadays. He enlisted the help of prior collaborators Mike Will Made-It and Honorable C.N.O.T.E. to provide beats, alongside newcomers such as Murda Beatz and Buddah Bless and industry legends like Pharrell and Mike Dean, amongst others. There’s also a “who’s who” of 2017 mainstream rap on the features list, with Drake, Migos, Travis Scott, Swae Lee, Nicki Minaj, Gucci Mane, Ty Dolla Sign and others all making appearances. He also utilized a unique promotional tactics for the record: he rented a “trap house” in Atlanta that he had painted completely pink and donned it with the album’s logo on the front, and also ran a “trap salon” for girls to get their nails done with song titles inspiring the designs. Pretty Girls ended up becoming one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 2017 summer rap season. It sold over 100,000 album equivalent units in its first week in the United States and garnered 2 Chainz the highest critical praise he had received in his career up to that point. Less than 3 months after its release, it had been certified gold, his first RIAA certified record since his platinum selling debut. Pretty Girls has produced a run of hit singles that were mainstays on rap stations this year, and the album has been considered nothing but a success for Mr. Chainz. But is it actually any good? ReviewPretty Girls Like Trap Music begins with a few rapid piano hits and, ironically enough, a blazing guitar line that would be feel more at home in the rock music that trap artists like 2 Chainz had helped displace at the top of the charts. Tity uses the opener to reminisce about his past and the things he’s done to get him to where he is today. The subject matter fits the Mike Will production nicely and overall this serves as a great way to start the album off. The title of the following track “Riverdale Rd” is a reference to a street in Atlanta, 2 Chainz’s hometown. The beat almost sounds like a trap reinterpretation of the Psycho soundtrack, courtesy of DJ Mano. Similar to the song preceding it, Tity makes reference in his lyrics to his younger days of hustling and drug dealing and how it contrasts with his life in the present day. This is undeniably one of the hardest tracks on the album. “Good Drank”, the first official single that had previously appeared on 2016’s Hibachi for Lunch mixtape, follows next. This was the first song I’d heard off the project and it quickly became an obsession, mostly due to the damn near perfect synth lead that opens the song. The patented Mike Dean Magic™ is all over this thing: a beautiful concoction of drums and melodies that stick to your ear and refuse to leave. 2 Chainz’s verse follows the standard for what the majority of the album’s content will ultimately consist of: money, cars and drug dealing. Quavo’s hook is infectious (the “Nooo-ooo-ooo” melodies following the “no hot box” line are great in particular) and Gucci’s verse, while nothing spectacular, fits with the track. The Travis Scott-featuring “4 AM” follows, with production from 2017’s most breakout producer Murda Beatz. Placing this woozy instrumental directly after “Good Drank” was a solid move as they almost feel like compliments to one another. Tity harkens back to the past again, “reminiscing ‘bout the trap, playin’ the first Carter” and references the projects he’s put out since B.O.A.T.S. II, namely a series of EPs and his collaborative project with Lil Wayne from the year before. La Flame’s performance on the chorus is pretty standard for him but given how awesome he generally is on hook duty this isn’t really a complaint. Could’ve benefitted from an actual verse from Travis but this is solid nonetheless. “Door Swangin’” boasts the first of four Buddah Bless productions on the album. Pretty standard trap stuff on this one, both in terms of lyrics and music. The running theme of the album seems to be drug dealing first and foremost and that stays true here. The strings that come in from time to time sound really good too, but overall this one comes off as just decent. The Nicki Minaj collaboration “Realize” follows next. To be honest, it’s getting difficult to write anything significant about 2 Chainz’s lyrics at this point. They fit the production and his voice and presence is commanding as ever, but the topics stick almost exclusively to talking about drugs, cars, money, etc, which can become tedious to write about after a while. The line at the end of his verse taking a shot at mumble rap was admittedly hilarious, though. Nicki’s hook goes well with the chilled out vibe of the production and her verse isn’t too bad either. Not incredible but it gets the job done. With “Poor Fool” Mike Will Made-It continues to prove why he is in the upper echelon of hip hop producers at the moment with keyboard plinks in the beat that sound like a malfunctioning children’s toy and brooding synth lines underneath. Swae Lee hops on the chorus and it’s one of the best on the record, further cementing himself as one of the best go-to rappers for a hook right now. Swae and Chainz reference how their mothers reacted to their sons dealings in the street, even though the money they would have been earning through their hustling ways was what was helping to keep food on the table. All in all this shit bangs; a definite highlight. “Big Amount” originally dropped on 2 Chainz’s 2016 mixtape Daniel Son; Necklace Don and the success of the track prompted him to include it on Pretty Girls as a bonus track for the digital version. Buddah Bless’s contribution is significantly better than the preceding “Door Swangin’”: as far as I can tell, this was one of the first contributions to the flute rap trend that wound up dominating most of 2017. Some of Chainz’s best lines on the album end up here (the “Shawty ride like an equestrian” line kills me every time) and Drake’s contribution works really well too. A solid track all around. Arguably the biggest single off the album, “It’s a Vibe” was a staple on hip hop stations this year and it’s not hard to see why. Murda Beatz’s smooth mid-paced production features irresistible guitar licks and 2 Chainz flows over it flawlessly, lending one of his best verses on the album to this track. Ty Dolla Sign, Trey Songz and Jhene Aiko provide vocals to flesh things out. In comparison to the other singles I’d probably take “Good Drank” and “4 AM” over this one, but that just comes down to personal preference; it’s still a chill ass song regardless. Honorable C.N.O.T.E. provides an absolutely gorgeous backdrop on “Rolls Royce Bitch”, once again employing the use of guitar. Next to “Good Drank” and two other tracks to be mentioned later, this may be my favorite beat on the entire record. Tity starts the track telling the listener to believe in themselves first and foremost and if they they can make their dreams come true. The rest of the record is spent describing his wealth and how he came to acquire it. This is an absolute pleasure to listen to and an easy highlight. “Sleep When U Die” is another Buddah Bless production; this one sounds closer to “Door Swangin’” than “Big Amount”. Tity compares his clothing to Ric Flair’s and his hair to James Brown’s. Pretty standard trap here; nothing more to say. Without even realizing it I sort of knew instinctually that “Trap Check” was probably a Buddah Bless beat before I checked the production credits, and sure enough that turns out to be the case. Again, this stuff is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as 2017 trap goes until the last 30 seconds, where the beat switches to the furious horns of T.I.’s “ASAP”, a welcome switch-up that finishes the track off nicely. More of the same content from Tity on the lyrical side of things, though the “I ain’t talkin’ Nike when I’m talkin’ bout a check” line always manages to get a smile out of me. “Blue Cheese”, featuring rap’s hottest trio at the moment, boasts what is arguably the best beat on the entire album. K Swisha laces the track with a bed of hypnotizing synths that completely envelop the listener; the effect always gives me a feeling of being underwater for some reason. Quavo’s chorus here is just as irresistible as “Good Drank” was and everyone plays their part to make the song a success. There is one complaint to be made with this track, however: Tity only gets one 45 second verse at the start with Quavo, Offset and Takeoff dominating the rest of the cut. It feels more like a Migos song featuring 2 Chainz than the other way around, which is disappointing given it’s supposed to be a 2 Chainz album, but I digress. Tity decides to go on an “OG Kush Diet” on the next track to cope with the death of his close friend (at least for the chorus, anyway; the verses revert back to his usual braggadocios, materialistic style). Production on this one is decent to start, but things change halfway through where the beat has a reggae-tinged switch-up to keep things interesting. The pitch shifting on 2 Chainz’s voice at the end of the track is a nice touch also. Next we’ve got the Pharrell Williams-produced “Bailan”, and goddamn this shit is smooth! 25 years on and Skateboard P is still a genius behind the boards. This goes over a lot better than their previous collaboration “Feds Watching”: whereas that cut felt like a misguided attempt at Pharrell adjusting himself to 2 Chainz’s typical production style, the roles are reversed on this cut and, surprisingly enough, Tity sounds great over this despite it being a lil outside of his usual territory when it comes to production choices. A full length 2 Chainz-Pharrell collaboration would be more than welcome if the results stay consistent with this one. The album saves the best for last with “Burglar Bars”, a poignant cut that feels more “traditionally” hip hop than anything else on the record. Near the end of the song Tity describes it as “soulful trap music” and his assertion couldn’t be any more on point. It’s a beautifully produced gem of a track from M16 and Mike Dean, sampling Barbara Jean English’s “You’re Gonna Need Somebody to Love You”, with Monica providing backing vocals along with the intro and a closing verse. 2 Chainz’s lyrics are still drug and money-focused, but he also intersperses references to his contemporaries and reflects on how far his rap career has come. All in all, it’s a wonderful closer, and if it’s a sign of things to come (considering 2 Chainz has been working on music with 90’s era legend Q-Tip as of late) then I’m all for hearing what Mr. Chainz has up his sleeve next. Is Pretty Girls Like Trap Music the best album of the year? Not for me, personally, but having grown up listening to guys like Jay and Em in my early years and getting into underground/conscious/backpack stuff in my teens I’ll probably always be more inclined towards something that’s more lyrically focused anyway. Nonetheless, I can definitively say as someone who’s critical of a lot of the trap that comes out nowadays this was a pleasure to listen to. I’ve heard some complain about the lack of humor that was prevalent in 2 Chainz’s earlier projects compared to this, and admittedly, as I started reviewing this album, I found it to be increasingly difficult to find anything to really say about 2 Chainz’s bars on this one. They all revolve around the usual trap-standard subject matter that one expects from a 2 Chainz record, and after awhile it can be hard to say something new or original about them. His flow and his presence are still more than intact and lyrics aren't a huge point of emphasis for me when listening to this kind of music anyway; plus, tracks like "Burglar Bars" show that Tity doesn't need to do his usual funnier style to pull off some solid verses. It’s obvious that he wanted to use Pretty Girls as his chance to show people that he isn’t just a punchline rapper and that he can be serious about his music when he chooses to be. Like most trap albums, the real highlight of the record is the production, and in this regard Pretty Girls is typically fantastic. Aside from some uninspired Buddah Bless productions everything on the record is extremely memorable and endlessly creative: the excellent guitar lines on "Saturday Night", "It's a Vibe" and especially "Rolls Royce Bitch", the nightmarish feel of "Riverdale Rd" and "Poor Fool", the indelible melodies of "Good Drank" and "4 AM", the smooth ecstasy of "Blue Cheese" and "Bailan", and capping the album off with the epic "Burglar Bars", the songs are expertly produced and really lend themselves to making the record what it is. This was my first experience with a 2 Chainz project so I’m not totally sure how it compares to his other work, but if this is a sign of things to come, I’m very excited to hear what else he does in this lil “late career renaissance” he’s got going on right now. Favorite SongsBurglar BarsGood DrankRolls Royce BitchBailanBlue CheeseFavorite Lyrics”Shawty ride like an equestrian” -Big Amount”I give a fuck about thesaurus rappers" -Burglar Bars”Used to drive a Porsche ‘til I found out it was made by Volkswagen” -OG Kush DietDiscussion Questions• Do you feel like the album would have been better if 2 Chainz had used his more humorous style more often?• How does 2 Chainz compare with other rappers in their late 30s and beyond who are still putting out music today?• How would you like to see 2 Chainz progress with his next record?Tomorrow we'll have u/vulcan24 writing about Death Grips’ “Steroids” EP

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