The Weeknd – Beauty Behind The Madness

There aren't too many big pop albums anymore but when there are they tend to make sense. Taylor Swift, Katy Perry. Even with the more confusing versions of this – Ed Sheeren, Lana Del Rey – you can still wrap your head around why they work. The Weeknd reaching this stratosphere does not make sense. The Weeknd crawled out of a hole in Toronto in 2011 singing about drugs and sex and sex and loneliness and more drugs. It wasn't so much the subject matter as it was the sound, the music, the voice that was so appealing. When I would get high and listen to sad R&B in my college apartment, House of Balloons was in that regular rotation.
Even if there was an aspect of those Trilogy tapes that could appeal to (at least a portion of) the masses, it wasn't music that screamed pop star. It definitely screamed Internet idol and teen girl worshipee but definitely not pop star. Which is why the transition is a little puzzling.
"Earned It" was a cool change of pace for an artist like the Weeknd who not only sticks to the same family of sonic production elements but also tends to recycle the same melodies and vocal stylings. It showed his abilities carrying a lower register, singing over live strings and a down tempo. It was so out of his typical comfort zone that he was forced to not do your typical Weeknd song. The song put him on the radar but he followed it with two Trilogy-esque singles – low synths, pitched up Thursday effects, lyrics about (what else?) sex. "Can't Feel My Face" brought Weeknd out into the open again where fans of "Earned It" stayed waiting. It's an obvious summer hit – Michael Jackson riffs, the perfect bassline.
It's fair to say, in the aftermath of the four singles that prefaced Beauty Behind the Madness, that pop stardom is a technicality. Not anyone can become one, but doing the big song(s) automatically puts you in that conversation, regardless of the type of artist you are. Beauty opens up the sonic color palette Weeknd typically uses, but it's the essentially the same songs he's always written. It doesn't seem totally fair to say with the two Max Martin songs and the 80s power ballad outro, but you generally know what you're getting with The Weeknd.
The hook to "Shameless" asks "Who is going to fuck you like me?" "Often" brags about how regularly that's done. "The Hills" specifies what time of day it's going to happen. If there's anything that seem out of place even in an album that attempts to be the year's biggest, it's the appearances by Ed Sheeran and Lana Del Rey. Just stop. In this case, the beauty behind the madness is not so different from what we've been used to.

Dr. Dre – Compton

I know more about what happened with Aftermath between 2006-2009 than probably any other human that wasn't employed by them. It makes no sense, in retrospect, why that was. My formative years as a hip-hop listener 2002-2005 were dominated by the G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath conglomerate. As a fan and at that point admitted producer groupie, I paid attention to a lot of different producer-led movements. By 2005/2006 though, Star Trak didn't really amount to anything, and Tim's group didn't pop off until Nelly and Justin's albums. So yeah, I paid attention to what was going with Aftermath.
There was the Aftermathmusic.net fansite/also sort of official site?, DubCNN, HipHopDX, Wikipedia, whatever. There was a point in the summer of 2007 where the Detox Wikipedia page was updated almost everyday. I know this because at the time I had no friends. I remember when Eminem said "We gon' make him do it" on the Encore title track. I remember when Dre said "Look out for Detox" on The Documentary. I remember all the changes that the artist roster went through. Game went to Geffen. Eve never dropped, even after "Tambourine." Stat Quo's single never popped and he got shelved. Busta's album was what it was. Bishop Lamont leaked "Grow Up" and was never heard of after that. Raekwon was rumored to have signed.  Marsha Ambrosius did some hooks but left without anyone realizing it. There was a dude named G.A.G.E., who had a cool song I heard on YouTube song. Joell Ortiz was there for like five minutes. Slim the Mobster was always this mysterious figure. They didn't really push him until 2010 but things got weird and he disappeared.
I remember the producers. Mike Elizondo, who did 50, Em and Game's biggest hits, left to do Maroon 5's second album. But there were still Mark Batson, Dawaun Parker, Focus..., sort of Mr. Porter and technically DJ Khalil even though things didn't really work out like that for him until 2009 when he did singles for Clipse, Slaughterhouse and Eminem. I even remember when Focus... said he wanted his album to be as big as The Chronic even though it was a free download on some random website.
I wrote a cover story on the myth and status of Detox for the A&E section of The Monarch, my high school paper Spring 2009. At the time, it was supposed to happen after Relapse and Before I Self Destruct. 50 used to throw around the phrase "three-headed monster" then. But those albums were what they were and that plan fizzled. But there was a plan in motion. Dre had presented Video of the Year at the VMAs. He signed a deal with a liquor company. He hopped on Kardinal Offishall and the Clipse's "Set It Off." And then his son died of an overdose. I think he has lots of kids, and this wasn't one with his wife. Not that one kid is more important than the other, but you get it.
Then Beats launched. Dre, Jimmy Iovine and Lebron all appeared at a Red Sox game to promote a new color way. Just the week before, there were rumors of a Dr. Dre and Jay-Z song called "Under Pressure." Splash leaked it three months later, and well, that shit was terrible.
But there were the good leaks! The T.I. references - "Coming Back" (Hi-Tek's best beat?), "Topless" and "Shit Popped Off." And they were really great. Literally, nothing to complain about. From what I understand, even as some of those songs went to commercials or a T.I. mixtape, different version were worked on well over time. A year or two later, there were other leaks. A song called "Syllables" with 50, Em and Jay and some more songs, but no one really remembers those.
Then there was a moment in 2012 when it was really supposed to happen. Nottz, Jake One and Bink were involved. This is before the official singles were released. But it seemed like someone pushed the button on "Kush" too early. And then there was "I Need A Doctor"...
Kendrick came along. He did Coachella. Slim the Mobster vanished. At that point I stopped caring. Even if it dropped, it would not have mattered. But it's actually here now.
And it's weird. It's good, probably not that great. But it's weird. In many senses. From what I understand, at least half of this album existed previously. Maybe the verses were re-written but the music was there. "Talking To My Diary" was in a Beats commercial four years ago. After all that I just covered, the names involved with Compton make no sense. Focus... left Aftermath in 2009. I understand everyone came back to work on different iterations of this project, but his name is on more than half of these songs, with mixing credits. Stat Quo and Slim The Mobster only have writing credits on one song each. Marsha's back on a bunch of songs. There's lots of King Mez, Justus and Anderson .Paak. It's not really a reunion album. It's just sort of an album that the people who were around in the past year made.
I strongly feel that the album came out when it did because Straight Outta Compton the movie's release date was the only realistic deadline Dre could have ever given himself for this project. Calling it a soundtrack is a bit of a cop out. The way music works today it would have never been as significant culturally than it would have been if it dropped ten years ago.
The songs for the most part are very busy. So much is going on. Too much. It's unnecessary. Why is there a "For the Love of Money" sample? And what's with all the Eazy references? And the line in that Em verse? There's a weird murder skit that doesn't make any sense in the context of the rest of the album. And the drowning skit?
The credits make no sense. Too much is made of what Dre actually does in studio, but even with his name as lead writing credit on every song, he has production credits on less than half of the album. The Game joint goes though, and "Animals" is very dope.
It's out, so he's off the hook now. That's the point of this album. It will never do what the other two albums did. He doesn't need them too. He just needed this album not to be terrible. Even if it was, it wouldn't have mattered. It's hard to say this album could have been better because this album is probably the best it could have been. I probably wanted something different, but there's no point trying to speculate anymore.

Film School: Straight Outta Compton

Straight Outta Compton was way better than it had any business being, but it's hard to leave this movie not having wanted a more focused, darker political film. When I say that the movie is good, I mean that it's well directed with a real budget and talented actors, even Cube's son. Ultimately though the movie was made by, or perhaps even strong armed into the final version by, the people it was based on. Cube, Dre and Eazy's widow Tomica are the movie's executive producers. While those main three are the most significant characters in the story, there's a lot more that went on than what was going to be depicted by these three.

It's the N.W.A. movie, but the group is only the focus of the first third of it. I get that there's more to the story when you get into the solo careers, but it's still the N.W.A. movie. We go pretty quickly from the five loosely knowing each other to "Boyz N Da Hood" to national tour. Compton touches on the members dealings with police (and the subsequent but wholly inaccurate inspiration for "Fuck The Police"), groupies and the FBI letter, but it doesn't focus on what made the group so significant both within hip-hop and in music generally, even without the context of violence in LA. There's a reason that 15 years after the fact twelve-year-old me could bump "Straight Outta Compton" and enjoy it like just came out and feel the aggression within it. That didn't happen when I tried to listen to Public Enemy or KRS or Rakim. The group was bigger than the controversy and the label drama. A great script would have tried to portray this.

My biggest outright issue with the movie is how all the dialogue involved saying the name of the person being addressed. "Come over here, Eazy." "Did you hear this, Dre?" I talk to people all the time. I hardly say their names unless I'm trying to get their attention. My second biggest complain is the amount of daps given in this movie. Write a dope line - daps. Threaten boyfriends of groupies with heavy artillery - daps. Reunite with a former enemy - daps. You'd think the screenwriters ran out of ideas and thought, "Let's have them give daps so we don't have to come up with more words for them to say."

The weirdest twist in this movie is how much it focused on Dre. I've seen pretty much all the interviews done by members of N.W.A., Death Row, Aftermath, what have you. Dre did press but was never really that vocal. As pivotal as he was to the group, he definitely wasn't a frontman. It seemed like more time was spent on his character than Eazy or Cube's. The movie literally ends with him saying he's leaving Suge and then announcing that his label will be called Aftermath. Like, the credits roll right after this. Wtf? This is like when the Lifetime Saved by the Bell movie was actually about Screech. How did we get here? He clearly had his own people punch up the script, but I didn't realize they had to power to do all this.

The movie is probably only 70% accurate -- why is 2Pac recording "Hail Mary" when Dre brings him "California Love"? The way "G Thang" and "Deep Cover" were recorded? Suge wasn't even that scary! A teenager could still walk away from it knowing most of the basic facts. There's just too much to cover even in a 2.5 hour movie. Had it been tighter and darker it would have been a different movie entirely. I guess I'll just hold out for the remake.

Film School: Trainwreck, Ant-Man

Ant-Man
This movie is cool. That's really the highest praise I can give it. Much was made about not necessarily being a superhero movie but rather a heist movie. I mean, it's a heist movie in the sense that at different times in the movie they break into somewhere to steal something. But this isn't Heat or Point Break or *googles heist movies to not just mention Ocean's Eleven*. It definitely has more of the feel of a Marvel movie than a heist movie. I would like to have seen how drastically different Edgar Wright's vision of this movie was. It could have been a cool diversion from all the Avengers tie-ins. But Rudd does a good job. Corey Stoll too. Michael Pena is really great, but something didn't sit right with me that he and T.I. played the dumb criminals.

Trainwreck
I like Amy Schumer. I've enjoyed her standup. I watch her show. I've seen her star rise since that Comedy Central hour, so it didn't really surprise me that Judd Apatow handpicked her as the next project. And, I guess, as a fan it was hard for me to find anything negative in this movie jump out at me because, well, I root for comics to make it to that next level. But when you actually think about it, there are some "huh?" moments in this movie. There's no way Lebron's character was her idea. She clearly knows nothing about sports and that's why Lebron's character hangs out with his doctor. Also, why is Lebron in New York so often during the season? Does he even have time to hang out? He has a family and kids and a ton of obligations. Also if Lebron is already in Cleveland, why is Amar'e still with the Knicks. Basketball logistics aside...
There's an emotional core to this movie that's at the very least enviable. A woman who doesn't want to settle down realizes she's found the right person amidst different tragedies in her life. I'm just not sure that idea was fully developed. What we saw on screen was very much the surface of that idea. This is a weird thing to nitpick about but is she even that much of a trainwreck? She cheats on her boyfriend with a couple different guys, but that's kinda it. Her job seems pretty normal (also, she works at a magazine? a fucking physical magazine in 2015?). Her dad is sick but again, that happens. You could tell Liz Lemon was a mess ten minutes into 30 Rock's pilot. I don't think we ever really get why Bill Hader's character is that special. They like each other, but it's not evident why they need each other. And like all Apatow movies, it was maybe 30 minutes too long and the beginning of the third act completely threw me off. I'd love to see her next movie just to see where she goes with it.

Book Club: The Martian, No Country for Black Men

The Martian by Andy Weir
The teaser or not-quite-theatrical trailer or whatever two minute clip Fox released for the upcoming movie The Martian some months back did absolutely nothing for me. Even with Ridley Scott's name attached — you saw Prometheus — I found it strange that a huge budget studio film set in space was coming out so close to the release of Interstellar, another big space movie, let alone one that also starred Matt Damon (spoiler..). Now that I think about it, if you include Gravity, space movies have had quite the run these last few years. Anyway this trailer did nothing for me. He gets stuck. They save him. So what? Also, Donald Glover? I like Matt Damon, but he's had some misses recently. I disregarded it until someone at work mentioned reading the book and I read about the unbelievable response to the book online. This book is absolutely thrilling. While I do read a lot, I admittedly don't read much modern fiction. Astronaut Watney is accidentally left behind on Mars when his crew thinks he's dead. He has to survive. It's hard to survive in space. Things go wrong. When things start to go right, they go wrong again. And then they go wrong again. Even when you know things are going to go wrong, they go right and then go wrong in a way you could not have imagined. The science of it was fun for me (and apparently accurate at least to an extent). I do recommend this very much.
I just re-watched the trailer and am a lot more excited at least until I realized Venkat Kapoor, the head of NASA in the book, turned into fucking Jeff Daniels on the screen. Jeff fucking Daniels are you kidding me? An Indian dude was finally going to major part in a movie and it went to this clown.

No Country for Black Men by Byron Crawford
I've read all Byron Crawford's books. His blog is in my RSS reader. I subscribe to his weekly newsletter. If you're familiar with his writing, you can guess how this book reads. The books' titles would suggest that they have themes, but they're all anthologies of sorts, with chapters that document different current (and not so current) events that may or may not have to do with their titles, not unlike some of his long form blog posts. There were maybe three chapters about how Nas had in fact lost in Nas Lost if I remember correctly, but that could be total BS. No Country for Black Men follows suit of the other four (wow), but I really enjoyed certain parts of this book. It would be weird to say he has improved while writing these books because he's been writing for so long, but he definitely hit a stride writing certain chapters of this one.

Film School: Spy

The stigma around Melissa McCarthy for people who have only seen Bridesmaids and are maybe slightly aware of Mike & Molly seems to be that she only plays women versions of Paul Blart. That she knows she's big and sort of plays dumb and is only capable of being funny physically. It's amazing how unfair that is. McCarthy is so funny and such a gifted actress. Emotions, facial expressions, sarcasm, physical movements, comedy, drama, she's really good at all of it. Even that last sentence is patronizing. When people were excited at the possibility of women-driven comedies after the success of Bridesmaids and nothing like that really happened, McCarthy happened. This is her second big comedy in two years, and while she's joined by some big names, Spy is essentially her movie. That's the star she has become.

I'll be honest, when I saw the trailer for this movie, with all the big names in it — Jude Law, Statham, Rose Byrne and even McCarthy — and with it being a secret agent parody, I thought it was a kids movie. I had no idea until literally the other day that it was an R-rated comedy. I don't know if that says more about me or how they marketed the movie.

It almost doesn't seem like an R-rated movie. Statham is the only one that uses any bad language and with the exception of a great dick pic joke, it's not until the second half of the movie that the jokes pick up their raunch factor. They clearly spent money on this movie. They film literally all over Europe. I love that a movie that isn't a Fast and Furious sequel or comic book movie got a huge budget like this. I like that an R-rated comedy that doesn't have Rogen or Apatow's name on it received such a push. And this isn't a lead up to some qualifying statement. This is a great movie that's very funny. I enjoyed it very much.

The cast meshes together very well. McCarthy and Miranda Hart, who plays her sidekick and fellow fish out of water, are especially great. The spy parody is almost a genre of its own at this point, but Spy establishes its tone uniquely. It successfully mixes a goofiness with comedy today's need for quick, savvy Veep-style insults. And that we owe to director Paul Fieg. I've enjoyed Feig's past work, but now I'm fully on the bandwagon. He brings the best out of his actors and lets all sorts of minor characters get in on the fun.

By the way, 50 Cent is in this movie. If you've listened to any interview he's done in the last two years, he has mentioned it. He literally only has a two minute concert cameo in which he doesn't even perform a real song. Well, it might have been off Animal Ambition, but those are the same thing to me.

A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP

It's not unfair to say that much of what makes A$AP Rocky's music enjoyable is the aesthetic. There are people that for whatever reason still link him to a Houston sound, and while that's not the case, there's definitely a palpable style to his music. The Houston, Memphis and whatever else influences are there, yes, but it is Rocky's charisma that made it worth feeling excited over. Anybody can pitch down vocals over fake Mike Jones leftovers, and that sounds cool until it doesn't. What was fun about Rocky shone through on bright like "Peso" and "Goldie". There wasn't really a formula to follow. The energy was just there.

At.Long.Last.A$AP noticeably lacks any of these moments. Rocky is not a bad rapper, but he hasn't shown much technical improvement at all. So it's really not a good thing that one of his two main qualities - charisma - is blatantly absent and the other - aesthetic - is muddled up garbage. The production on this album is the remnants of a half-eaten scoop of ice cream after being left in the sun. Shit is bland and wholly uninteresting. And when it does hit, Rocky coasts lazily. The LPFJ2 beat sounds like the soundtrack to hell raising. Rocky doesn't seem to get the memo. L$D is wtf?

Why is this album so long? And why is Mos Def on it? After four listens, you can trick yourself into thinking this album is kiiiiind of alright if it's on strictly in the background and you're not really paying attention to it. It's hard for me to believe Yams approved of this. Future's part is fire though.