Cordavision Music Reviews

That’s a small-ass island. I have to admit, I’ve been anticipating this album for a long time. Calvin Harris’s first Funk Wav Bounces album from 2017 is one of my favorite albums of all time, and if I’m being totally honest, I think a second release in this series wasn’t ever going to happen. Either way, here we are. We have a DJ Khaled-esque murderers’ row of features which are Snoop Dogg, Young Thug, Normani, Pharrell Williams, Dua Lipa, Busta Rhymes, Justin Timberlake, Chloe Bailey, 21 Savage, Latto, Charlie Puth, Tinashe, Swae Lee, Stefflon Don, Offset, 6lack, Pusha T, Donae'o, Halsey, Lil Durk, Shenseea, and Jorja Smith. How do I feel about this new entry? Let’s get into it. I went into this not thinking that this was going to top the first one, mainly because it doesn’t come close to hitting the peak that is “Slide” with Frank Ocean and Migos from the first album, but I do think that there are some redeeming qualities here. Of course, the production here is gorgeous. Mixing ...

There are three different people with the name Chris involved in one song, it’s basically the Marvel movies now. It’s no secret that Lizzo is a star at this point. While I appreciate her social media game about positivity (even if it’s not necessarily for me), I thought her last album, Cuz I Love You , is quite good. Some songs from that project are still in my rotation, and “Boys” is one of my favorite pop hits from the past decade. That being said, whatever Lizzo did next from a music standpoint would have my attention. While “About Damn Time” was certainly a fine song, it just didn’t do anything. Either way, we have Special now, so let’s just get into it. Right off the bat, I’m very happy that the song she did with Cardi B isn’t on this because it’s one of her worst songs. That’s a good start. Like on her past music, her voice is honestly what hits it out of the park for me, and while it doesn’t hit the same heights as her last album, it’s still very good. Where this project lacks,...

This one sparks joy. I honestly am not familiar with CHAI’s previous work and who they are. I’ve heard some singles from this project here, and they worked with JPEGMAFIA on the last Gorillaz album Song Machine - Season One: Strange Timez , which has definitely grown on me. The Peggy/CHAI collab is one of my favorites off that project, and since I already know about Peggy, I should wait to see what happens with CHAI in the future. Lo and behold, that new project is here. WINK is the name, and indie-pop is CHAI’s game. Let’s get into it. WOW, this thing is weird. First, the production is pretty nice. It’s nice to hear elements of future funk in a major album release, and it honestly gives me hope for that subgenre. The opening track “Donuts Mind if I Do” is relaxing and quite catchy. There are a lot of elements of dance in “Nobody Knows We Are Fun” and “IN PINK,” “END” is a legitimately strange track in the best ways possible, and “PING PONG” has some chiptune vibes that are so legitim...

Is this 'nu-disco?' YUKIKA is the best K-pop artist working right now. That may be a hot take in the K-pop community, but I can back up my claims. Her debut album, 2020’s Soul Lady , is my favorite K-pop project out of all of them at the moment, and the lead single from this project, “Lovemonth” is one of the best singles of the year so far. Once I heard there was a new project coming from YUKIKA earlier this year, I was super excited. If anything she put out next was on the same level as Soul Lady , this is gonna be insane. Now, we have that project in the form of timeabout, which is one of my most anticipated projects of the year. I’ll stop gushing so we can talk about timeabout, . The genre-mixing on this project is divine, honestly. Many tracks range from city pop to K-pop to a disco revival that’s modernized for the 2020s. For such a short project, the consistency of only six tracks is absolutely on point. Instrumentally and vocally, ESPECIALLY VOCALLY, YUKIKA fucking kil...

R.I.P. Daft Punk. You will live on forever. No, they didn’t die. It just feels like they did. The duo known as Daft Punk, consisting of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, officially retired their robot personas earlier this week, and this one hit a lot harder than I thought it would. I figured it would be fitting to talk about one of their albums this week because of this, but there was so much to choose from. Discovery , Homework , Human After All , the Tron: Legacy score… There was so much that’s iconic in their discography, but I feel like there’s one project that I feel like I can talk about in full, mainly because I lived through it. This is Daft Punk’s final outing, Random Access Memories . This feels like Daft Punk’s most human record. Ironically, this should’ve been called Human After All . The disco-influenced tones of their past projects are gone, and they’re replaced by mainly a rock-and-roll vibe. It was strange at the time, but it’s all I can remember about...

2020 has been the year of the disco revival. Artists like Dua Lipa ( Future Nostalgia ), Jessie Ware ( What’s Your Pleasure? ), Róisín Murphy ( Róisín Machine ), and even Tame Impala ( The Slow Rush ) have been able to bring back the disco sound to mostly positive results. Now, over thirty years into her career, Kylie Minogue has decided to jump into this revival with the self-aware title of  Disco . This is the Australian pop legend’s fifteenth studio album, and with the old-is-new run of albums that have permeated 2020, I can’t wait to take another dive into the sound again. Not a giant intro, so let’s just get into Disco . Disco is, you guessed it, a disco album with dance and pop vibes. Damn, this is a cool album. If this album came out in the 70s, it’d be dominating the charts. Out of the disco revival albums that came out this year, Kylie’s take on it sounds the most authentic. This is a fancy, luxurious experience that’s really fun. The production is the highlight for me, r...

Time-traveling has always been on my mind. What could I do if I had a time machine and change up the timeline that we’re in? If I’m being totally honest with you, I wouldn’t do anything world-altering like kill Hitler or stop M. Night Shyamalan’s Last Airbender movie from being made, I’d go back for the music. I’d kill to be around for the peak of Beatlemania or even the 70s, which I think is one of the best decades for music ever. The 80s is always one that comes back to my mind, and there’s been a bit of a renaissance in dance-pop as of late. One of those artists that’s trailblazing this revival is Dua Lipa. Her latest album, Future Nostalgia , is a time capsule from forty years ago that has just been reopened. Let’s get into it. Future Nostalgia is a dance-pop album with HEAVY disco vibes. A lot of mainstream pop music these days is put on a low bar. Everyone expects a lot of great things from the genre but is ultimately let down. Dua Lipa and Future Nostalgia is the music that e...

I’ve been trying to expand my knowledge in genres of music that I’m generally not interested in. K-pop is one of those genres, and while I’ve been looking through Spotify and even Twitter to find some new releases or some that I missed, I came across YUKIKA. The only album listed on her Spotify page was her debut album which came out that weekend, Soul Lady . Since I had already listened to Taylor Swift and Logic for their respective reviews, I figured ‘what the hell’ and I hit play on Soul Lady . Here’s what I thought about it. Soul Lady is a K-pop record with heavy disco influences. Now, the best way to describe this record’s sound is its aesthetic. It’s like you’re walking through the big city on a night out with your friends, maybe in the 80s, maybe in the present (pre-pandemic, of course). Then, you see this certain someone. You don’t know how, but somehow, you feel connected. The chatter of everyone else around you, the thumping bass, everything fades away and all you can see an...