Cordavision Music Reviews

Minecraft is one of the most popular and iconic video games of all time. This week, Minecraft Dungeons , the first new game in the franchise made by the original developers, Mojang Studios, released. I personally haven’t played it yet, but I’ve heard great things from my friends that have it. So, I decided to take it back a couple years to the first volume of the Minecraft soundtrack, titled Volume Alpha . Like the Beta album and upcoming untitled third (!!!) album, Alpha was created by electronic producer Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. He has made other music under the C418 moniker, but his work for Minecraft is his highest-profile work by far. So, how does Minecraft ’s music affect the game? Is Alpha any good? Let’s see… Alpha is the first volume in the Minecraft soundtrack, and it could be considered an ambient album. Most of it sets a mood or an atmosphere. None of it is really intense or action-oriented, just background music to your gameplay. Alpha tells the stor...

Freddie Gibbs is one of the hardest workers in hip-hop today. He’s put out at least one mixtape or album a year since 2004, and he hasn’t seen any dip in quality at all, even in his features. Madlib is a LEGENDARY producer who’s worked with many different iconic rappers on whole albums like MF Doom on the classic Madvillainy , J Dilla on Champion Sound , and most recently, his brother Oh No on The Professionals . His most high profile album this decade has been Piñata , with Freddie Gibbs on the vocals. Many publications have been calling it an instant classic and one of the best of the decade, but I don’t have the same sympathies for it. Yes, Piñata is a great record, but there could’ve been small improvements to me. Now, five years after that, MadGibbs is back with Bandana . How does that hold up? Let’s find out! Bandana is a rap record if you heard one. Madlib’s legendary production is all over the place, but there are times where he steps out of his comfort zone. What sticks ou...

Since I’ve covered Tyler, The Creator on here before, I’m not going to go too in-depth on who he is or what he’s done in the past and all that, but it is worth noting that Tyler has had one of the most changing aesthetics in music. Tyler’s first couple projects, Bastard , his 2011 breakout Goblin , and Wolf , were vulgar, hard-hitting rap albums, and most of those lyrics were violent, creepy, and borderline-rapey. Back in the early 2010s, cancel culture wasn’t as relevant. Personally, Tyler wouldn’t have a career if songs like “Yonkers” or “She” or “Tamale” were coming out today. His polarizing 2015 record Cherry Bomb split his fan base, in a way. It was still abrasive and in your face, but its instrumentals became lush and airy, with multiple instruments in the mix. I personally love Cherry Bomb , and it was the record that I found Tyler with. Then, that lush sound took over Flower Boy , his best record yet, and along with a new sound, it brought a new, romantic side of Tyler that we...

Barrington Hendricks, a.k.a. JPEGMAFIA, is one of the most unique voices and artists on the planet right now. His breakthrough projects, Black Ben Carson and Veteran , have been some of my favorite records last decade, and when it came to out-there, experimental music, Peggy over here is where it’s at. His career (so far, at least) came to a peak with his newest album, All My Heroes Are Cornballs . The glitch-hop tones that are throughout all of Peggy’s projects are here more than ever on All My Heroes Are Cornballs . Let’s get into what really makes this so ‘experimental.’ All My Heroes Are Cornballs is, you guessed it, an experimental hip-hop record. It could also be known as punk rap or even an avant-garde record. If you’re a Peggy fan, you’ve come to know the WWE-sampling “You think you know me” tags across his records. Its shoddy presentation has always been relevant throughout his records, but this feels different. It’s more complete and put together than his past projects, but...

Gunna has been popping up on my radar for the past couple of months, and honestly, he hasn’t impressed me that much. His most recent project Drip or Drown 2 didn’t really do much for me, although “Speed It Up” was a mindless bop that I enjoyed for a week, and his collaborative mixtape with Lil Baby, Drip Harder , proved that Gunna could have chemistry if he’s on the right track, even if the project itself was pretty boring. Now, his second studio album WUNNA is here, which was announced out of the blue the week of its release. How is WUNNA , and how does it fare with other artists in his genre? Let’s get into it and find out. WUNNA is a trap album and like most albums in this subgenre of rap, most of it isn’t that pretty. To become famous in this area, it usually has to be a viral track or album to send an artist into stardom. For Gunna, it was “Drip Too Hard” with Lil Baby and Drake. It’s a pretty infectious track, and sadly, none of that is heard throughout WUNNA . While the produ...

The world was shocked to find out that Mac Miller had passed away in September 2018, not even a month after his last album, Swimming . It sent ripples throughout the music industry, tributes pouring in from everyone that knew him best. Like me, a lot of people were devastated by Miller’s passing, and if I’m being honest, I heard no talk of any type of posthumous release, but that was okay. Then, at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, Miller’s estate announced Circles , a companion album to Swimming that was near completion before his death. Legendary producer Jon Brion came in to apply the finishing touches onto the album. Miller’s estate did end up confirming that there wasn’t a lot of recordings that he left after his death, so Circles could very well be Mac Miller’s final album. Let’s break it down and see how it is. Although Mac was a hip-hop artist, Circles is by no means a hip-hop album. I could classify it as a singer-songwriter album with hip-hop, soul, and pop influences. I ...

Shawn Carter doesn’t need an introduction by any means. He’s one of the most legendary rappers of all time, one of the most influential music figures ever, and is currently married to one of the biggest musicians on the planet, Beyoncé. In 2016, his relationship with Beyoncé was put on full blast with her masterpiece of a visual album Lemonade , a one-of-a-kind album that defined a decade’s generation’s worth of pop culture milestones. But the content was what turned heads in the pop culture world: She was accusing Jay-Z, her husband, of cheating on her. Jay-Z stayed silent for the most part on this side, but he eventually returned with 4:44 , an album that was completely different compared to his past releases. From the media’s standpoint, this was Jay-Z’s Lemonade . How did Jay-Z’s thirteenth studio album come to be? Is it good? Is it bad? Well, let me tell you. Of course, 4:44 is a hip-hop record. 4:44 could be considered a jazz rap album or a conscious rap album as well. It’s def...

Charli XCX has been popping up on my radar for a while now, and she’s always been a quiet yet powerful voice in music. Charli doesn’t have as big of a fan base of, say, BTS or Ariana Grande, but Charli’s fanbase is one of the vigorous out there. Her breakout single “Boom Clap” from the Fault in Our Stars was how many people first saw her, and while it wasn’t the best song on the planet, it was catchy as hell. Every now and then, that song still gets stuck in my head. As she’s dropped off of mainstream attention, she’s dropped some of the most addictive pop albums of the 2010s. I’d even go as far as to say that her last album, 2019’s Charli , is one of the best pop records of the decade. Not even a year after Charli , she’s made a ‘do-it-yourself’ album titled how i’m feeling now , a grand pop experiment that was made entirely in her home studio in a span of six weeks during this COVID-19 pandemic that we’re in now. So, does how i’m feeling now succeed in its DIY nature? Surprisingly,...

Many artists in the game don’t have as unique of a voice as Danny Brown. Throughout his nearly decade long career, Danny has been a shapeshifter in the rap world. His first two albums, The Hybrid and XXX , are classics in the new wave of hip-hop. His third album, Old, brought him mainstream attention, but he lost that experimental and vulgar edge. His fourth studio album, Atrocity Exhibition , brought back that experimental sound, which was also even more vulgar but fewer features. With Atrocity Exhibition , Danny Brown has made one of the wildest and strangest rap records to date. Atrocity Exhibition is an experimental hip-hop record at its core. I didn’t catch any concepts across the album, but this is such an addicting listen. It feels like every nightmare of drug abuse coming true, and I feel like I can enjoy it more because the content that Danny raps about on Atrocity Exhibition is about situations that I’m never gonna be in. Even if I wanted to, it’s just never gonna happen. N...

Future has been one of the most influential and recognizable voices in music of the past decade, and he knows it. Since 2012, he’s been putting out a constant stream of albums, collaboration projects, and EPs to the delight of his fans. During this pandemic, he’s put out High Off Life , his first (and maybe not his last) project of 2020. He’s made waves with his songs with Drake and Lil Uzi Vert throughout the end of last year and this year, and many have been waiting for his triumphant return to album form. Many of his fans have been wanting a project on the level of DS2 , his 2015 album that some consider being the height of the trap/mumble rap scene in album form. He’s been in a bit of a slump since then, and many are hoping that High Off Life is a triumphant return to form for Future. And I’m happy to report that it is exactly that. Like all of Future’s projects, High Off Life is a trap album. Compared to Future’s other albums, this really isn’t that different from his past proje...

(A/N: Some of the tracks in 3.15.20 are timestamps, so I’ll just name the tracks as they were rumored to be and put the timestamps [in brackets] to tell you the actual times.) Donald Glover needs no introduction. Actor, rapper, singer, writer… He can do it all. I first discovered Childish Gambino through his 2013 album Because the Internet , which has slowly become one of my favorite rap albums in recent memory. His debut album Bonfire left a lot to be desired, although we do have the legendary “Bonfire” and the underrated “Heartbeat” off that project. What truly made me love Gambino’s music is his last full-length project, “Awaken, My Love!” , a freakish and psychedelic acid trip that should have gotten so much more praise and attention than it got. It’s been nearly four years since that project, though. Since then, he’s dropped the Grammy-winning phenomenon “This is America” and starred in big-budget films like Disney’s Lion King remake and had a small role in Spider-Man: Homecomi...

I’ve been following Frank Ocean’s music for a long time now, and his music has never failed to disappoint me. What had me fall in love with Ocean’s music, particularly his 2012 project Channel ORANGE , was that it felt like I was relating to something that I had never experienced yet: love and everything that came with it. I was so curious to know when his follow-up album would be out, and so was the rest of the world. I even had set up a system on my phone to get a text saying when Frank’s album would be released. Then, we got two albums. The first, the ambient pop album Endless (I have the collectible vinyl for it), was somewhat of a letdown for Frank fans, although there’s nothing bad about it. I personally think it’s aged like fine wine since 2016. The second album, which I’ll talk about here, was the main event. blond was the follow-up to Channel ORANGE that everyone was waiting for. It’s been four years since blond ’s release, so has it held up since then? I think it has. blon...

One of the best lyricists in all of music, Thebe Kgositsile, better known as Earl Sweatshirt, is an enigma. Once an Odd Future teen prodigy, Earl has always been a great artist, but not an amazing album rapper. His self-titled mixtape showed off his mesmerizing skills at the age of 16, but his debut album Doris left something to be desired in me, and while his next project I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside has one of the best songs of his career in “Grief,” I honestly couldn’t name you another song off of it. Then, he disappeared. This was different than the whole #FreeEarl campaign when he was sent to a Samoan wilderness camp at the peak of his popularity. He had dropped off of the face of the Earth. Like me, everyone was stunned, waiting for Earl’s eventual return. In between that time, my music taste had grown more abstract and experimental. When it came to Earl, though, it was devastating. His father, South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, and his uncle, legendary musician...

I’ve been following The Weeknd and his music since his House of Balloons days, and I gotta tell you, it’s been a wild ride. Since he’s gone more mainstream, though, it’s felt like he’s been playing it really safe, especially on his last album Starboy . After taking a nearly five-year break from studio albums (and filling the void with one EP, My Dear Melancholy… ), Abel Tesfaye is back with After Hours . With its singles “Heartless,” “Blinding Lights,” and the title track, I was getting heavy Trilogy vibes mixed with some of the pop undertones from his mainstream breakthrough Beauty Behind the Madness . So, outside of all of the hype, does After Hours make a good album? Let’s find out, shall we? After Hours is an R&B album, and it has influences that range from dream-pop and neo-soul to synthwave and even some hints of new wave and disco. After Hours has no features at all, a first for a Weeknd album. Although, there was an EP that was put out that featured remixes from electro...

Everyone has that one YouTuber that you watched growing up. For me, that was Filthy Frank, a truly offensive and boundary-pushing creator that single-handedly made the world Harlem Shake for about a year. He also had another personality in his YouTube series, Pink Guy, who was an interdimensional being who couldn’t speak, but somehow was a great rapper. His final effort as Pink Guy, the vulgar and disturbing (yet somehow good) Pink Season , topped the iTunes charts and even made it onto the Billboard 200 charts. After retiring his YouTube channel due to the health concerns that had to do with the things he did as Filthy Frank, he went full in on his music career with his In Tongues EP, a shallow project that had a great aesthetic. With his second studio album Nectar on the way in July, I think it’s time that we look back to his debut album BALLADS 1 and see how it holds up in retrospect. BALLADS 1 is an R&B album with some influences from trip-hop, pop, and lo-fi spread through...

It may seem strange now, but there was a time where Travis Scott wasn’t the biggest star on the planet. His mix of hip-hop and some aspects of lo-fi music and psychedelic rock is one of the foundations of the new wave of rap that’s taking the music scene by storm. While refining his craft with Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight and making a true event album with ASTROWORLD , what really made Travis Scott amazing was his debut album, Rodeo . What makes it so special, you may ask? Let me tell you. While Rodeo isn’t the first trap album, it helped usher in this new era of Soundcloud rap that’s all the rage. Its distinct, psyched-out sound (at the time) is one of a kind, even now. Rodeo is banger after banger after banger, and it never lets up. Standout cut “90210” with dream-pop singer Kacy Hill is a contender for Scott’s best track, while the forever-rager “Antidote” never gets old. My personal favorite track is “Piss On Your Grave,” a vulgar and rock-leaning track with Kanye West. It’s o...

If you’re into experimental/abstract rap, you definitely know who Death Grips are. If you don’t, let me sum them up for you. Death Grips is a band that consists of one rapper, MC Ride, and two producers, Zach Hill and Andy Morin. They’ve been a group since 2010, and they’re known for their abrasive sounds that mixes their experimental rap with tinges of punk rock and electronic music. For being so experimental and ‘weird’ music, they have had their songs pop up in video games like Battlefield Hardline and shows like Westworld and BoJack Horseman . They even have notable fans like Pearl Jam, Danny Brown, and Robert Pattinson, who actually played guitar on their album Government Plates . What sent their fans into a true doozy was their fourth studio album, The Powers That B , a mammoth double album that the first part came in June 2014, and Death Grips forced their fans to nearly a whole year of silence before dropping the second part in March the next year. It’s been over five years si...

Whether you love him or loathe him, Drake is one of the most influential artists of this generation. As of late, I think that Drake (a.k.a. The 6 God or Champagne Papi) has been on a bit of a slump. It started for me in 2015 when he dropped the track “Hotline Bling,” which would end up being a bonus track on his 2016 album Views . While this had some likable aspects, it felt too overstuffed and bloated, which I could say the same for his More Life project (mixtape, album, playlist??) and especially his last record, 2018’s Scorpion . But the highs of Drake’s career is such a milestone in rap that he’s impossible to ignore. And you can call me crazy, but I think that his 2015 mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is one of the best rap projects of the past decade. Now, with a full album on the way this summer, he’s essentially given his fans a loose project called Dark Lane Demo Tapes , which includes some full versions of leaks and snippets that have come out over the past year...

(Author's Note: ARMY, please forgive me if I mess up with your boys. I know your power, and I don't wanna make you guys mad, but this review isn't biased.) If you know about the music scene, BTS honestly needs no introduction. One of the biggest boy bands, if not the biggest, in all of music, the septet that consists of Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook have been on the music scene since about 2010. Their debut single album being called 2 Cool 4 Skool officially released in 2013, and since then, they’ve grown a powerful fanbase called the ARMY, rivaling the fanbases of megastars like Ariana Grande or Shawn Mendes. Their pretty great album WINGS and the Love Yourself albums are what set them on the map (get it, map?) for me, and I’ve always been interested in the group’s dynamic and influence in the K-Pop genre. So, their latest record, Map of the Soul: 7 is a record that I was pretty excited to listen to. So, what did I think about it? In a word, it wa...