Cordavision Music Reviews

I mean, an album titled A SUMMER WITHOUT YOU should be a great, if somber, summer album. It’s no secret that Bad Bunny is one of the biggest names not just in Latin music, but in music right now. Not to bring up the same comparison from my review of Jack Harlow’s recent album, he’s slowly becoming a Drake-esque figure, and that comes with everything. I actually do prefer Bad Bunny over Drake because I think he’s more creative with his music. I enjoyed his last project, EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO , quite a bit and I still have it in rotation. We now have UN VERANO SIN TI (an already record-breaking album), which admittedly is very long. Bad Bunny has stated this about being a summer playlist of sorts, so framing it like a collection of songs, it’ll be interesting to see how this project shapes up. Let’s get into it. I’ll say that this is Bad Bunny’s most risky project yet. There are a lot more genres at play here like trap, afrobeat, bossa nova, reggae, synthpop, and dancehall, among ma...

Because of listening to this, I found out that ROSALÍA and Frank Ocean lived together for a bit. Let me tell you this right now: I’ve been insanely excited for this album for a while now. ROSALÍA has been on my radar for a few years, especially after her two breakout albums Los Ángeles and El mal querer . Even her collaborations with Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, and The Weeknd have all hit pretty well with me as well. Ever since MOTOMAMI was officially announced, it immediately shot to the top of my most anticipated list. Even with the rumor of Frank Ocean being a feature ending up being false, that didn’t slow down the hype for me one bit. Let’s not waste any more time and get into MOTOMAMI . In a word, this is explosive. The direction of experimental pop thrown in with reggaeton and R&B is some of the most creative music I’ve heard this decade so far. Each song is genuinely different, and especially with ROSALÍA having a hand in the production on every song, it just cements the fa...

Arca Week continues with KicK iii , where I start to feel the tiniest bit sorry for straight people. You know, as I said with KICK ii yesterday, I was kind of disappointed by it and I actually got pretty worried about the rest of this week-long trek. Luckily, in casual terms, THIS SHIT SLAPS. Holy christ, man. This might be Arca’s best album. It’ll be hard to top this one. Even though I had said that KICK ii was experimental, that might as well be top 40 pop compared to this. It’s so loud and abrasive that it could honestly pass as a harsh noise outside of an electronic album. Along with that, she’s rapping on this. Like, rapping on it incredibly well. My personal favorite track has to be the instrumental “Fiera,” which genuinely might be one of my favorite songs of the year right now. It’s genuinely psychedelic and if you’re not into this kind of music, it will be very VERY hard for you to get into it. If KICK ii was the countdown, KicK iii is the explosion. This is truly incredib...

Arca Week starts today! Tuesday-Friday will cover all four new KICK albums, and I will give my ratings on each album on Friday. Let’s start with KICK ii , the first album to my knowledge that samples Among Us . This is gonna be the only review with an intro, so I’ll just get it out of the way now. Arca is one of the most creative producers working right now. I could honestly go on and on about how many new sounds I’ve heard from her, but that would take forever. The first album in this series, KiCk i , catapulted her into worldwide fame, even getting the chance to work with artists like Frank Ocean and Lady Gaga. Now, in a new experiment specifically to torment my review schedule, Arca has released FOUR NEW ALBUMS in the KICK series. I’ll be covering them one at a time and ranking them on Friday. So, let’s get into KICK ii . In her past albums, there were hints of experimental reggaeton and I enjoyed the little bits of that sound, but here, she goes all in on this sound. Oddly enough...

At least the art’s pretty cool, I like all the colors. Well, uh, I believe this is the first new soundtrack I’ve reviewed, and I’ll keep it straightforward here. F9 is the newest film in the Fast and Furious franchise, and each film in the series has a soundtrack like this. I’m not overly excited about this, or most movie soundtracks in this vein in general, but I always tend to look at it as some fun collaborations that may or may not happen outside of it. This time around, we got some decent names on here. Don Toliver, Lil Durk, Latto, Skepta, Pop Smoke, A$AP Rocky, Juicy J, Project Pat, Offset, Trippie Redd, Kevin Gates, King Von, Ty Dolla Sign, Jack Harlow, 24kGoldn, Amenazzy, Farruko, Myke Towers, Rochy RD, Liam H, René LaVice Re-Amp, The Prodigy, RZA, Justin Quiles, Dalex, Konshens, Lil Tecca, Anitta, Polo G, Teejay3k, Good Gas, JP the Wavy, NLE Choppa, Rico Nasty, Jarina De Marco, Murci, Sean Paul, and Dixson Waz are all here. Is anything from the F9 soundtrack worth listenin...

Something unlocked in my mind while listening to this. I’m still working on what that is, though. These days, folk music goes very underappreciated. A lot of people gravitate more towards the more iconic folk artists from the 60s and 70s like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and it’s pretty easy to become fans of artists like Simon and Garfunkel. Sadly, not a lot of newer folk artists are getting the love they rightfully deserve. Right off the top of my head, artists like Bon Iver, Laura Marling, and even Ichiko Aoba deserve just as much love as the Dylans and the Cohens of the world. Focusing on foreign folk (or basically foreign to me, someone who was born and raised in America), it’s vastly overlooked. The aforementioned Aoba, who has quickly become one of my favorite artists ever, has a new competitor in this field of foreign folk music: Natalia Lafourcade. The Grammy-nominated singer has put out a new installment of her Un Canto por México series, this being the second volume. I’ve h...

 

I’m just getting into Latin music now, and Bad Bunny has been a name that’s been winning award after award and even getting critical acclaim on most fronts too. He’s released two other albums this year, YHLQMDLG and LAS QUE NO IBAN A SALIR , with the former recently being nominated for a few Grammys and winning Latin Grammys too. His newest album, EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO , is his newest album, and is quite possibly his final album since there are reports of his desires to retire after this year. Let’s just get right into it now! EL ÚLTIMO TOUR DEL MUNDO is a Latin album with reggaeton, hip-hop, rock, and pop influences. Now, no matter the quality of his albums, Bad Bunny is a hit-making machine and his charisma and energy are off the charts crazy. While some songs aren’t as catchy, they tend to make up for it in the amount of pushing his comfort zone. Some of these have rock edges and can even be more abrasive than the typical Bad Bunny track, and I can really commend him for being ...

Kali Uchis is pretty sick. I’m new to Latin music in general, and when I found out that Kali Uchis’s next project will be mainly in Spanish, I was all for it. Her debut album, Isolation, was one of my favorite R&B albums in recent memory, but her most recent EP TO FEEL ALIVE wasn’t that great to me. That EP and her second album, Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ , are leaning more on the Latin side, and quite frankly, the singles leading up to this have been pretty great. Since this came out earlier in the week, I decided to save Friday’s spot for Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ , so let’s just get right into it! Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞ is a Latin album with pop, R&B, alternative, and reggaeton vibes. Kali has really gone back to her Latin roots with this project, and it feels like somewhat of a rebirth for her. Uchis rocks the reggaeton style very well to me. The lead singles, “¡aquí yo mando!” with Rico Nasty and “la luz(Fín)” with Jhay Cortez,...

Before you read this review, I know what you’re thinking. Why am I wasting my time with this guy? First off, I need content, but that’s not the important part. Throughout 6ix9ine’s relatively short career, he’s been grabbing headlines left and right. From being kicked out of a gang to testifying to the court of his former gang members, he’s famous for everything that he’s done except for his music. Just to let everyone know, I do not think this man should have a career in music. His activities, which include pedophilia, are inexcusable for him as a person, and it bewilders me that he has a fanbase as large as it is. Either way, I like to try and separate the art from the artist in this type of situation. I can still think that Thriller is one of the best pop albums of all time, whether or not the allegations against Michael Jackson are true. So from here on out, this will only be about 6ix8ine’s career in music. I will only judge the album from the context of the music itself, not his...