Movies – My focus last month was to watch all the Oscar nominated shorts and the Oscar nominated feature films I wasn’t excited about. I did end up watching all the shorts, but after watching Over the Moon on Netflix, I decided I didn’t want to finish my Oscar watchlist. I’ll save that bucket list project for when I’m retired. Hell, I didn’t even win my damn Oscar pool, so what’s the point? I was pretty excited to get back to watching movies I actually want to see after the Oscars aired. I did not get my money’s worth from AMC A-List last month as I saw Godzilla vs. Kong in early April, streamed Mortal Kombat on HBOMax, and then cancelled my tickets to Raya and the Last Dragon multiple times. Because of the ongoing pandemic, the movie theaters don’t have early matinee showings and any movie I watch is going to cost me at least three hours of poker and with Raya streaming for free on Disney+ in June, I just haven’t had the desire to go see it. Another thing that has become pretty clear to me: writing is my absolute last priority. I’ve gone from writing thoughts on every movie I see to only doing so less than 33% of the time last month. Plus, I didn’t post a single album review for any music I listened to. Yikes. I have a hard enough time balancing work, study, mental and physical health, hobbies, and family time. Posting movie reviews just hasn’t fit in my schedule since I’ve been back to playing.
I also went crazy and made a best films of the year list for every year from 2020 to 1982, the year I was born. I ranked 25 films for 2000 and later and 10 films for 1999 to 1982. I started fizzling out on my lists in the early 90s as I just haven’t seen most of the important films from those early years when I was a kid. I have all the lists on my blog here. Enjoy!
T.V. Shows (Ratings out of 5)
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier season 1 (2021, Disney+) – 3.5
Top 20 Albums in April (all ratings are out of 10)
Note: These albums are NOT ranked in order of preference; they are ranked in order of number of songs listened to (scrobbles) over the past month.Previous ranking in brackets. Year of release in parentheses if it’s not 2020 or 2021.I’ll include a rough rating for each album to make my feelings on each project clearer. The more I’ve listened to an album, the more accurate my rating is. Any rating that has a + symbol means that I’ve found my floor, but I could rate it higher. I won’t leave a rating for anything I don’t have a good feel for yet.
*indicates April 2021 release
*Conway the Machine – La Maquina – 7+
DMX – It’s Dark and Hell is Hot (1998) – 8
DMX – …And Then There Was X (1999) – 7
50 Cent – Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003) – 8+
Snoop Doggy Dogg – Tha Doggfather (1996)
DMX – The Great Depression (2001) – 4+
Benny the Butcher – The Plugs I Met 2 [3] – 7+
DMX – Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood (1998) – 6
*Kenny Mason – Angelic Hoodrat
Ghostface Killah – Supreme Clientele (2000)
*Saigon – Pain, Peace & Prosperity
Black Coffee – Subconsciously
Ghostface Killah – Ironman (1996)
*KOTA The Friend – To Kill A Sunrise [14] – 7+
The Notorious B.I.G. – Life After Death (1997) [1] – 9+
Big L – Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous (1995) – 7+
Pink Sweat$ – Pink Planet [9]
The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready To Die (1994) [4] – 9+
Tyrone’s Jacket – Tyrone’s Jacket [18] – 8
Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club [6] – 7
The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You [7]
The Lox – Money, Power & Respect (1998)
Comments: This is the most I’ve distanced myself from new music since I started doing these monthly posts. Obviously, I did a lot of reminiscing on DMX’s early discography as his life seemed to be in danger and then he ultimately passed away. I gave DMX a pretty unfavorable write-up when I went through his whole recording career, but his peak was really strong and looking back at my ratings for his earliest albums, I think I was a bit unfair. For all his flaws as a lyricist, he was a great songwriter and made very enjoyable music.
The 20 Artists I Listened To The Most In April
DMX
Conway the Machine
Ghostface Killah
Kendrick Lamar
Snoop Dogg
The Notorious B.I.G.
Benny the Butcher
50 Cent
Kenny Mason
J. Cole
Jay Rock
Big L
Kali Uchis
Saigon
Black Coffee
Cordae
Isaiah Rashad
KOTA The Friend
Pink Sweat$
Ab-Soul
Comments: Snoop crept into my top 5 because I was re-listening to Tha Doggfather plus he dropped a new album last month (that didn’t crack my top 20 spins). I also re-visited some early Ghostface Killah and 50 Cent while Biggie stayed in rotation from the past couple months. It was recently announced that Top Dawg Entertainment will be breaking a very long dry spell by releasing new music on May 7th. This is a label whose entire roster is basically years overdue for a new album. I’m excited for all of them to drop, so I was listening to TDE releases heavy this past week and four of them ended up cracking my top 20 for the month, with Kendrick leading the way. TDE season is upon us!
Movies – I got back to “normal” life during the last week of March, re-activating my AMC A-list membership and returning to the movie theaters. I also got back to doing my day job: playing poker. I still watched an absurd amount of movies in March, but with getting back to the poker grind last week and doing all my fantasy baseball drafts (five of them!) the week before that, I didn’t review most of the movies I watched. I’m guess that’s how it will be going forward. I’ll probably still watch 2-4 movies a week, but I won’t have much time to write about them. If I wind up reviewing a movie that I haven’t yet, I’ll just post the link in next month’s post like this. I’ll say this much: Anthony Hopkins in The Father is my favorite performance of 2020.
I also went crazy and made a best films of the year list for every year from 2020 to 1982, the year I was born. I ranked 25 films for 2000 and later and 10 films for 1999 to 1982. I started fizzling out on my lists in the early 90s as I just haven’t seen most of the important films from those early years when I was a kid. I have all the lists on my blog here. Enjoy!
Top 20 Albums in March (all ratings are out of 10)
Note: These albums are NOT ranked in order of preference; they are ranked in order of number of songs listened to (scrobbles) over the past month.Previous ranking in brackets. Year of release in parentheses if it’s not 2020 or 2021.I’ll include a rough rating for each album to make my feelings on each project clearer. The more I’ve listened to an album, the more accurate my rating is. Any rating that has a + symbol means that I’ve found my floor, but I could rate it higher. I won’t leave a rating for anything I don’t have a good feel for yet.
*indicates February 2021 release
The Notorious B.I.G. – Life After Death (1997) – 9+ [unranked]
Jadakiss – Kiss Tha Game Goodbye (2001) – 6+ [unranked]
*Benny the Butcher – The Plugs I Met 2 – 7+
The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to Die (1994) – 9+ [unranked]
*Ghetts – Conflict of Interest – 6+
*Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club – 6+
The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You – 6+ [unranked]
Mos Def – Black On Both Sides (1999) – 8+ [unranked]
*Pink Sweat$ – Pink Planet – 6+
Marlon Craft – How We Intended – 6+ [6]
*Rod Wave – SoulFly
Toby Ganger – Free Machine (Unreleased) – 8+ [20]
JAY-Z – 4:44 (2017) – 8+ [unranked]
*KOTA The Friend – To Kill A Sunrise
Madison Beer – Life Support [11]
*Robin Thicke – On Earth, and in Heaven
Tash Sultana – Terra Firma – 7+ [1]
Tyrone’s Jacket – Tyrone’s Jacket – 8+ [unranked]
Courtney Bell – Poverty Stricken – 7+ [4]
Sheek Louch – Beast Mode, Vol. 4 [unranked]
*slowthai – TYRON
The 25 Artists I’ve Listened To The Most In 2021
Notes: Last month I listened to a ton of Biggie. I haven’t been posting many album reviews, but I got them coming for both of Biggie’s albums. I have also been a long time Jadakiss nonbeliever and I’ll probably be giving him some extra attention in the near future because I either wanna prove myself right or start loving someone I’ve never given enough credit to. I pretty much have his first album reviewed – I just need to post it. I started playing live poker again this past week and that is going to drastically increase the amount of time I spend listening to music. Yesterday I listened to Scarface my whole session and that was good enough to almost get him into my top 10 for the year.
38 Spesh (feat. Benny the Butcher), “Stash Box” Benny the Butcher (feat. 2 Chainz), “Plug Talk” Courtney Bell, “Celebrate” Elcamino (feat. Benny the Butcher), “Immunity” Gukie, “Make It a Double” KOTA the Friend, “Wolves” Lil Tjay & 6LACK, “Calling My Phone” Lucky Daye (feat. Mahalia), “My Window” Masego (feat. JID & Rapsody), “Somethin’ Ain’t Right” Nyck Caution (feat. KOTA the Friend & Erick the Architect), “Product Of My Environment” Nyck Caution (feat. Joey Bada$$), “How You Live It”
Spin Rate: Average Song Rating: 4/5 3.5+ Percentage: 100% SkipFactor: 0% Bangers: 3
Thoughts: This was Che’s third extremely high quality project of 2020 and her album with Apollo Brown was a legit Album of the Year contender. I’d say all that makes her a legit candidate for hip-hop’s MVP award last year. As you can see above, this is a short project, but she still has multiple mega-bangers and gets one of the highest average song ratings of any project I’ve ever reviewed. Che has a knack for getting elite production and features (I love seeing her collab with Sa-Roc here), plus she has a tremendous amount of talent herself. I don’t mind someone releasing this much music if it’s this good. If you been sleeping on Che Noir, it’s well past time to wake up.
Top 20 Albums in February (all ratings are out of 10)
Note: These albums are NOT ranked in order of preference; they are ranked in order of number of songs listened to (scrobbles) over the past month.Previous ranking in brackets. Year of release in parentheses if it’s not 2020 or 2021.I’ll include a rough rating for each album to make my feelings on each project clearer. The more I’ve listened to an album, the more accurate my rating is. Any rating that has a + symbol means that I’ve found my floor, but I could rate it higher. I won’t leave a rating for anything I don’t have a good feel for yet.
Pharoahe Monch & th1rt3en – A Magnificent Day For an Exorcism – 6+
*Devin the Dude – Soulful Distance – 6+
*Lucky Daye – Table For Two
Sa-Roc – The Sharecropper’s Daughter – review coming soon
*Madison Beer – Life Support
Brother Ali – The Undisputed Truth (2007) – 9
*Dorian Whyte – Truth Be Told
Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon III: The Chosen [5] – 6
Breeze Brewin – Hindsight
Che Noir – After 12 – review coming soon
Rapsody – Laila’s Wisdom (2017) – 8+
Mac Ayres – Magic 8ball
Nyck Caution – Anywhere But Here [14]
Toby Ganger – Free Machine – 8+
*VanJess – Homegrown
Your Old Droog – It Wasn’t Even Close
The 20 Artists I’ve Listened To The Most In 2021
Notes: I spread my listening out a lot more this past month and spent very little time focusing on brand new releases since there were very few I was interested in. I created a playlist of artists and albums I feel I’ve overlooked and want to get more familiar with and listened to that. I was actually inspired to do this when I heard MF DOOM had passed away and realized how little of his catalog I had listened to. I also split time between my Brand New, All-Time Favorites, and Best of 2020 playlists.
Movies – I went crazy again in February and watched a movie almost every day. I will probably do something similar in March, but by the start of April, I will be fully vaxxed and cleared for takeoff (back to my day job of playing poker) and my days of watching 25 movies a month will be coming to an end. Still, I have the expectation that I can watch every feature film, documentary, and international film that gets an Oscar nomination before the Oscars air in late April and that’s something I’ve never done before.
I also went crazy and made a best films of the year list for every year from 2020 to 1982, the year I was born. I ranked 25 films for 2000 and later and 10 films for 1999 to 1982. I started fizzling out on my lists in the early 90s as I just haven’t seen most of the important films from those early years when I was a kid. I have all the lists on my blog here. Enjoy!
Spin Rate: 7+ Average Song Rating: 3.5/5 3.5+ Percentage: 69% SkipFactor: 11.5% Bangers: 1
Thoughts: Eminem has kind of become a master at making incomplete songs. At least for me. This album is a clinic in making music that is mostly pretty decent but almost every song has an aspect to it that I don’t like. In “Book of Rhymes” the beat is horrendous. How are you going to have a song that says it features DJ Premier and he’s not even producing it? I was really looking forward to this collaboration and it’s not even a thing. “Favorite Bitch” features Ty Dolla $ign, one of the top hook makers in the hip-hop world right now, and his hook is TERRIBLE. “Guns Blazing” has a Dr. Dre verse and a hook that I just can’t get into. Even the songs that I like a lot tend to feature a beat or flow switch that doesn’t really work for me. The rapping on this album is pretty good, but that’s not much of a surprise – Eminem can still rap his ass off. He can also drop some ultra corny bars, but I’d say that his cleverness and rhyming ability still far outweigh these eyeroll-inducing lines.
I like Side A substantially more than Side B, but if you look at both of my reviews you’ll notice Side B has a higher average song rating. That’s because the highs on Side A are much higher than they are here, but the lows are also much lower (it’s also because this is the first album I started using .25 and .75 when I can’t decide between two ratings). Side B doesn’t have any pure skips, but it also only has one true banger. “Zeus” is a really good song, but I think it’s the only track where Eminem really puts it all together on this album. I’ll take whatever I can get from Eminem (well, not Revival), but I also feel like he’s just going to keep stringing together technically proficient verses while not making all that great of music.
On the Real Tho (feat. Yukmouth & Tha Chill) – 3.5
Stand Up (feat. Mitchy Slick & Tha Chill) – 3.5
Neighborhood Looks (feat. Havoc & Kurupt) – 4.5
Magic (feat. Young Noble & Tha Chill) – 4.5
We Got – 4
Spin Rate: 9 Average Song Rating: 3.85/5 3.5+ Percentage: 100% Pure Skips: 0 Bangers: 11
Thoughts: No album in 2020 took me by surprise more than this gem from Compon’s MC Eiht. When I saw it in the new releases section the weekend it came out, I didn’t even give it a skim. I just don’t expect much from an old school gangsta rap artist in 2020 and it’s not like I’ve ever been much of a fan anyway. But then I saw a thread about it on a hip-hop message board I’ve been posting on since 1999 (LOL) and people I have similar taste as were saying it was nice.
Well, Lessons is insanely good. I actually had to re-think what a 3.5 and a 4 song is to me because so many tracks on this album blur the line between what I think is a good song and what I think is an absolute banger. MC Eiht isn’t an amazing rapper, lyrically or vocally, but the production and song-writing on Lessons are so good that the whole project is elevated to a pretty elite level. I enjoy the beat, hook, and vibe of every track on here. It’s not like MC Eiht is weak on the mic either. He has a very smooth delivery and while his lyrics and rhymes schemes are relatively simple, he is adept at painting a picture of the stories he is telling. It’s a pretty remarkable feat to put out an album with 20 songs and zero skips – and honestly, nothing is even close to a skip – plus I think over half the album is pure fire.
Lessons is one of two albums from 2020 (the other being Che Noir & Apollo Brown’s As God Intended) that feel like immediate hip-hop classics. This album is straight heat from top to bottom. An absolute must listen and one of the best rap albums from last year. Don’t sleep.
Notes: January was a super slow month for new music. I only added a handful of new albums and only two 2021 releases cracked the top 20 albums I listened to the most over the past month. Because of this, I cheated and gave Album of the Month to something that came out over four months ago… and why not? I listened to MC Eiht’s <i>LESSONS</i> more than any other album last month. It’s incredible. I have a review coming for it soon, so I won’t say much else now, but if you’ve been sleeping, it’s time to wake up. I’ll go ahead and include a rough rating for each album to make my feelings on each project clearer. The more I’ve listened to an album, the more accurate my rating is. Any rating that has a + symbol means that I’ve found my floor, but I could rate it higher. I won’t leave a rating for anything I don’t have a good feel for yet.
Top 20 Albums in January (all ratings are out of 10)
Note: These albums are NOT ranked in order of preference; they are ranked in order of number of songs listened to (scrobbles) over the past month.Previous ranking in brackets. Year of release in parentheses if it’s not 2020 or 2021.
*indicates January 2021 release
MC Eiht – LESSONS – 8+
MF DOOM & Madlib – Madvillainy (2004) – 7+
Chris Stapleton – Starting Over – 7+
Joji – Nectar – 7
Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon III: The Chosen [4] – 6
Playboi Carti – Whole Lotta Red [12] – 3
Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? [8] – 9
Rina Sawayama – SAWAYAMA – 6+
Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa (2017) – 7+
Boldy James & Sterling Toles – Manger on McNichols – 6+
Roc Marciano – Reasonable Drought – 7+
Taylor Swift – evermore [16] – 7+
KRS-One – Between Da Protests – 6+
*Nyck Caution – Anywhere But Here – 6+
Eminem – Murder To Be Murdered By – Side B [2] – 6
Tyrone’s Jacket – Tyrone’s Jacket [3] – 8+
Flee Lord – In The Name Of Prodigy
Lianne La Havas – Lianne La Havas
Isaiah Rashad – Cilvia Demo (2014) – 8+
*KOTA The Friend – Lyrics to GO, Vol. 2 – 6+
The 20 Artists I Listened To The Most In January
Notes: I spread my listening out a lot more this past month and spent very little time focusing on brand new releases since there were very few I was interested in. I created a playlist of artists and albums I feel I’ve overlooked and want to get more familiar with and listened to that. I was actually inspired to do this when I heard MF DOOM had passed away and realized how little of his catalog I had listened to. I also split time between my Brand New, All-Time Favorites, and Best of 2020 playlists.
38 Spesh (feat. Ransom & Klass Murda), “Toll Booth” 38 Spesh, “Road Back” Che Noir (feat. The Musalini), “Cruise Control” Chris Stapleton, “Joy of My Life” Flip Huston (feat. Jim Jones), “Outta My Mind” Flip Huston (feat. Dame D.O.L.L.A.), “Momma I Made It” Flip Huston, “You Know The Vibes” Jessie Ware, “Spotlight” Jessie Ware, “What’s Your Pleasure?” Jessie Ware, “Ooh La La” Jessie Ware, “In Your Eyes” Jessie Ware, “The Kill” Joji, “Your Man” Kid Cudi (feat. Phoebe Bridgers), “Lovin’ Me” Kid Cudi, “The Void” MC Eiht (feat. Young Noble & Tha Chill), “Magic” Nyck Caution, “Dirt On Your Name”
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