Currently Listening:
Rome Fortune x OG Maco - Yep
Panda Bear - Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper
100s - IVRY
Rae Sremmurd - SremmLife
Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure
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Currently Watching:
The Wire HD
Bojack Horseman
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Currently Reading:
Racecraft by Barbara Fields and Karen Fields Promethea by Alan Moore Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald Middlemarch by George Eliot| Hold Up Hamilton: Clipping Return with the Wriggle EP | June 27, 2016 |
Clipping have thankfully taken breaks from time-consuming adventures to release more music.
| God in the Building: A Second Look At The Life of Pablo | June 20, 2016 |
B. Michael Payne takes a fresh look at Kanye West's divisive The Life of Pablo.
| David Bowie Tribute: Why ‘Ziggy Stardust’ Is The Perfect Rock Album | January 13, 2016 |
Passion of the Weiss takes the week to celebrate the life and mourn the death of David Bowie.
| Young Forever: Rae Sremmurd “SremmLife” | January 20, 2015 |
B. Michael Payne examines Rae Sremmurd's debut album "SremmLife", cause it's the only life they know.
| Rich Forever: Azealia Banks “Broke With Expensive Tastes” | November 11, 2014 |
Azealia Banks' attempt to get rich or get dropped trying.
| Is This It? FKA Twigs “LP 1” | August 13, 2014 |
B. Michael Payne can feel it in the air Style, emotion, and sex form a close nexus around music, but they’re not music itself. Judged on the rich presentation of these concepts, FKA Twigs debut album, LP1, is a clear winner. The timelessness or quality of the music itself is a murkier thing to judge. […]
| She’s a Big Dreamer, So Watch Her Come Up With Something: Kate Tempest Challenges Kendrick and The Streets | June 2, 2014 |
B. Michael Payne motions his maids to bring him toast and eggs Kate Tempest is doing it all backward. There are literal volumes devoted to making the argument that rap = poetry. There are probably exponentially more half-baked term papers linking 2pac-v-Biggie to Wordsworth and Coleridge. When rap does reach a “Lyrical Ballads”-level, as it […]
| Enter the Void of EMA | April 11, 2014 |
B. Michael respects a good pair of Brett Hitman Hart sunglasses Writing about a Record of Ideas is a lot easier than writing about a Record of Emotions, which should make this review of the new EMA album, Future Void, really easy. It is, ostensibly, a Record of Ideas. Look at the cover. That’s EMA […]
| Rock Game, Amy Grant: Haim’s “Days Are Gone” | November 13, 2013 |
B. Michael Payne is unrelated to Michael W. Smith. Over the last week, three different friends have mentioned to me that HAIM sounds like Amy Grant. They were all independent of each other, and two of them aren’t even big music buffs. I’m not sure what that means other than if I were about ten […]
| Faces in Reflection: The Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” | October 30, 2013 |
B. Michael Payne stole Win Butler’s basketball. At some point – perhaps after he realized they both raised money for a hurricane-ravaged land, or maybe it was the recognition of a fellow Capital-A Artist’s inner glow of – whatever it was, at some point Win Butler seems to fall under the impression that he was […]
