Etikett: Drake

The Weeknd – Dawn FM.

I have a friend that listen to a lot of new music and releases, every year he publishes a list of albums and artist, with a simplistic overview of the score that he gave the release. This has inspired me to try and do the same, but also try to write more here.

This weekend i listened to the new release called Dawn FM from the canadian phenomenon called The Weeknd. This is his tenth album and i believe that there are few who have missed his rise to stardom and fame. During earlier album he’s done collaborations with giants such as Daft Punk, Lana Del Rey, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Drake, to name a few. Giants within the business and musical sphere.

I will state that The Weeknd isn’t one of my favorites, and i rarely listen to him on purpose as his music isn’t for me. I have tried, because i don’t believe in writing any artist off, without listening to them and forming my own opinion on their work. However The Weeknd isn’t for me. However, with that in mind i listened to The new album, Dawn FM, by The Weeknd.

The Dawn FM concept runs through this album like water and it really tries to conceptualize something but it doesn’t go the whole way. The obvious concept that this album tries to connect to is the FM part of the album title. The album has soundbites that could be used on a real radio show, and there’s even a segment with a fake commercial – however, does anyone want this? Every day we’re constantly bombarded with messages from persons and business the second we jump into the car, to when we go down in the subway, to when we watch TV, or try to watch a video on YouTube. Especially in a time where atleast i, do what i can, to get away from commercials and advertisement, i do not want to hear it blown in, inside of an album. It made me think of the first of second season of Donald Glovers show Atlanta, where they had the concept of a fake tv show, within the show, filled with very well produced, but fake commercials.

The production and the sound quality of the album is very good, and the instrumentals for some of the songs are stunning and beautiful. This is the redeeming quailty of this album, however not without some criticism. A couple of months ago i read the book Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher, and since then i’ve been thinking about the concept of nostalgia and how rarely anything ”new” is published. That often the thing that is ”new” is just an old thing or concept, put in a new suit. I had the same feeling when i listened to An evening with Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak), it’s so flirty with the funk and the disco, but it sounds better, it’s too polished, it doesn’t feel alive, or real. It’s so clearly a product that took an old concept, in this case, genre of music, and refined it with modern tools – however in the proccess, the soul within it died a bit.
I had the same feeling with Dawn FM, it’s extremely well produced and the melodies, the instrumentals and the sound is so good, but it doesn’t make me feel anything other than: ”hey, this sounds good.”.

And to the last part of this text, and what to me is the weakest part of this album.
Unfortunatley the weakest part of this album is The Weeknd himself, or atleast his singing. I’ve been watching Seinfeld lately, for the first time, and there’s the same case there, that Seinfeld himself is the weakest link of the show. This album sounds like nothing new, it feels like i’ve already heard the lyrics in his other albums, years ago.

As for some end disussion i’d like to point out that the quality of the production is stunning, yet rather lifeless, the commercials inside of the album wasn’t for me, i have however read that people have been enjoying that element. The lyrics and the singing from The Weeknd himself is the weakest link in this album, but as i mentioned in the beginning of the text, i am not a fan of his, and i want to be as transparent as possible. The Weeknd is one of our biggest artists and acts right now and his songs has been streamed hundreds of millions of times.
This album is a product that is very well put together, it’s excellent for commerce and if seen as a product, it’s good. But seen as an album with conceptual ideas, it’s not good.

Dawn FM by The Weeknd can be found on every streaming platform, and wherever you buy your music.

The weakest link of this review might be me, myself and i.

Until next time, take care.
SLQT.

New releases.

The other week we had many new releases from big artists, and as always smaller acts. However the bigger the release seems to be, the bigger the performing artist, the bigger the drum and PR around the release. When it in face should be the smaller acts that gets written about. This inquiry from me will be hypocritical since i am going to write about one of the bigger releases.

The week of releases i am thinking about is the week where Kanye West released Donda, Drake released Certified Lover Boy and Iron Maiden released Senjutsu. The smaller release that i was hinting towards in the beginning of the paragraph is Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All by Blockhead.

I’ve given them all a listen, however, i have very different feelings toward them all, apart from Kanye & Drake. I can’t, i was able to listen to like four or five songs from their respective albums. I’ve never been a fan of Drake, he has a couple of songs that i’ve had on repeat and that follows onto every newly created playlist on Spotify, but overall i find Drakes music rather bland.

What to say about Kanye? I don’t know.
I really enjoyed The Life of Pablo and i strongly feel like that’s the last good album Kanye has released alone and under his own name. I do however think that the KIDS SEE GHOSTS project he did together with Kid Cudi was fresh and intresting. I felt a bit let down by Donda because of the route Kanye’s been taking these last years doesn’t please me and my taste. I prefer when his album contains rap with some chorus, and not like it’s been on these last releases, chorus with some rap. I don’t want artists to be stagnant and get stuck in whatever they’re doing, i love when they try different things that might push the artform forward, and i believe that is what Kanye’s doing – he’s trying, and that, i appreciate greatly. I value his work and what he’s trying to accomplish, and i believe that something amazing will come out of it, however, Donda, isn’t that, for me. Compared to Kanye, i feel that Drake has become stagnant in his style, it works, he sells and streams a lot, but it is no longer appealing to me.

I’ve been listening to Blockhead on and off for a couple of years, i discovered him through the discovery of Aesop Rock. I read somewhere that they went to school together and through that they started to make music. Periodically i’ve been more into Aesop than Blockhead, and for periods it’s been swapped.
With that background, i’ve been listening to snippets and stuff that Blockheads been releasing for this new album, leading up to its actual release. I have a softspot for electronic artists that actually release albums. It usually tend to feel like there’s releases of singles and EPs, but rarely albums. I think that Space Werewolves Will Be the End of Us All is very well worth a listen. Blockheads style of producing and putting songs together is very well done and overall i find that this is a good album that i will be rotating for a while.

The last, but not the least.
Senjutsu by Iron Maiden. I must admit, when i saw the name of the upcoming album, i was skeptic. I felt from the name that the old rockers were trying to be woke. However, i was very wrong, and i was floored by this album. I’ve had it on repeat since release, and it keeps on growing on me. It’s full of that classic imagery that you find in Iron Maiden lyrics and i feel like that the sound that they’ve found their way back to a sound that resembles the sound of older albums. I know, this sounds hypocritical of me to say, but an Iron Maiden-album sounding like an Iron Maiden-album will always be the best sounding Iron Maiden album. Senjutsu for me is a strong contender for the best album of the year so far, and i think, and i recommend you to listen to it!

I’ve been walking a lot over the summer, i got a good application on the phone for tracking steps, so i can easily get oversight of my progress. Since May, and 4 months ahead, a couple of days ago, i registred my 750km (465 miles) in four months of walking. It feels good, and it feels like an accomplishment.

I also feel like i should adress the fact that i haven’t finished listening to the new Kanye and Drake album and the fact that i give my opinions on them here. I will finish them, and i will listen through them thoroughly and i might write something about them in the future.


Until next time, take care.

SLQT.