B. Michael Payne owns stock in both Fanta and jolly ranchers. There’s a version of this piece that doesn’t play the Guess The Race Game. I think we can all agree the Guess the Race Game is the worst. But there are many, many pieces to the Spark Master Tape experience that lend themselves to […]

B Michael Payne wrote this in a hovercraft-converted Edsel. The debut album by Brooklyn trio Huntronix starts off in a retrograde fashion. A wash of synths with a retro-futuristic posture and echo-heavy live drums carry its first lines in like the surf at the end of Planet of the Apes: “We’re gonna tell you how […]

Hit-Boy occupies an unsettled but not uncommon space in modern rap culture. At 25 years old, he’s had an inordinately busy career producing pop singles for acts like the Pussycat Dolls, Brandy, Jennifer Lopez, and Rihanna. He’s also created a significant body of production work for rappers ranging from Snoop Dogg to Slaughterhouse. Hit’s biggest […]

On a Previous Episode of the Passion of the Weiss: The Top 50 Albums of: 2011; 2010; 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 50. House Shoes – Let it Go [Tres] No best album list is complete without something from Detroit. Nowhere else is as no frills and unvarnished. It operates as a palate cleanser to remind […]

B. Michael Payne’s favorite trilogy remains the only trilogy worth being your favorite trilogy. Now that The Weeknd’s three mixtapes are about to see a “proper” release as Trilogy, the Drake-featuring song, “The Zone”, has become the latest Weeknd video (directed by Abel Tesfaye). It opens with a familiarly Lynchian image. We’re in a car […]