Movies – As I said in my last movie post, writing has become one of my bottom priorities and here we are three months since I last made a movie post. Oh well, here are the reviews and/or ratings for every movie I’ve seen over that time. I’ve been going to the theaters at least once a week and Dina has even jumped back on the movie theater going experience as we’ve started taking our niece and nephew to a movie every other weekend. This has been a pleasant surprise as I’ve been seeing movies in theaters mostly by myself for years now. I still seem to be reviewing only about 33% of the movies I watch. The best movie I watched that I’ve never seen was Captain Fantastic. It was just a complete joy to watch. I think it is still streaming on Netflix and if you happened to miss it like I did, it’s time to make up for that mistake. Also, I think horror fans should check out the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix. It’s based on the kids book series by R.L. Stine (which I never read — I was a “Goosebumps” kid though), but it’s actually a pretty hard-R experience. I admittedly did not like the first movie, but I always had my eyes on the second one anyway because it looked like an homage to 1980s campsite slasher flicks and that horror sub-genre will always have a special place in my heart. Of course, I enjoyed that one, but I was surprised to also like the third movie and I think the last entry makes the whole trilogy substantially more enjoyable as a whole. It almost made me want to re-watch the first one.
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)
Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: A Schitt’s Creek Farewell (2021, Netflix) – 3.5
Spin Rate: heaps Average Song Rating: 4.1/5 3.5+ Percentage: 93% Skips: 0.5 Bangers: 10
Thoughts: This album is an all-time classic and the debut project of one of the best rappers to ever pick up a microphone. I have to admit I didn’t appreciate this album when it originally came out – I was 12 years old and my musical preference was transitioning to grunge, alternative and metal at this time and even when I did start to get back into rap music, I was a Tupac fanboy and since I was an ignorant and easily influenced 14 year old, that meant I hated Biggie.
Over the years (and decades) though, Ready to Die has become one of my favorite albums of all-time and the data here supports that claim. With an average song rating of 4.1, Ready to Die now has the highest average song rating of any full length album I’ve posted a review for using this system. No surprise there. “Juicy,” “Everyday Struggle,” and “Big Poppa” are absolutely perfect songs. The only song I even think about skipping on this project is “Me & My Bitch” – it’s not bad, but i don’t think it’s good either. Also, this album has 10 bangers in 15 songs and I wouldn’t blame anyone for suggesting I underrated a few other songs here.
I don’t include bonus tracks as part of my overall rating or in my number of bangers since they aren’t really meant to be part of the album, but it’s worth noting that all three 1994 era Biggie tracks that I tacked on to the end of this album are all fire and would only improve Ready to Die’s already lofty esteem.
I think perhaps the most impressive aspect of this album is that Biggie is not a polished rapper here. When he was recording Ready toDie, Biggie was more of a crack dealer than a hip-hop artist. This was his side gig and it sounds like this? Good grief. This is why people don’t hesitate to list Biggie in their top 10s despite a limited discography due to his murder in March of 1997 – he had more natural ability than basically any rapper that has ever lived and the two albums he did record while he was alive are both legendary. It’s crazy to think what he would have accomplished in music if he was still alive today.
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 May 2021 release
*J. Cole – The Off-Season – 8+
*Mach-Hommy – Pray For Haiti – 7+
Vince Staples – Summertime ’06 (2015) – 7+
Westside Boogie – Everythings For Sale (2019) – 8+
*DMX – Exodus – 7+
*Sa-Roc – The Sharecropper’s Daughter (Deluxe) – 8+
*BROCKHAMPTON – ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE – 7+
*Benny the Butcher & 38 Spesh – Trust the Sopranos – 6+
Eminem – Kamikaze (2018) – 6+
Pink Sweat$ – Pink Planet [17] – 6+
Mac Miller – Faces (2014)
*DJ Khaled – Khaled Khaled
JID – The Never Story (2017)
Tash Sultana – Terra Firma – 7+
Yelawolf – Mud Mouth
JID – Dicaprio 2 (2018)
Toby Ganger – Free Machine – 8+
Inverse – So Far (2008) – 7+
Devin the Dude – Soulful Distance – 6+
Guapdad 4000 – 1176
Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club [20] – 6+
Mello Music Group – Bushido
Comments: Almost no holdovers from the previous month, as I continued to work older albums into my regular rotation. May belonged to J. Cole though. I listened to his new album so much already that he went from unranked in my top 25 most listened to artists of 2021 to #1 on the list below. I’m a big fan of the album. I think every song is good. I can’t say I had high expectations for a new DMX album since he hasn’t made good music for like 15 years now, but this new album is pretty damn good. Certainly anyone that’s been a loyal fan all this time will enjoy it and even those of us that abandoned ship long ago should give it a listen. The production is substantially better than on any of his most recent releases and while X is far from sounding in prime form, his vocals are improved. Plus he also has some stellar features on the album. Imagine Benny the Butcher going half a year without releasing a new project. I’m officially starting my JID and Vince Staples anticipation phase.
The 25 Artists I’ve Listened To the Most in 2021
J. Cole [unranked]
DMX [unranked]
The Notorious B.I.G. [1]
Benny the Butcher [5]
Eminem [2]
MF DOOM [4]
MC Eiht [3]
Sa-Roc [14]
Conway the Machine [unranked]
Mac Miller [25]
Tash Sultana [8]
Lana Del Rey [18]
Tyrone’s Jacket [12]
KOTA the Friend [15]
Dua Lipa [13]
Pink Sweat$ [unranked]
Toby Ganger [unranked]
Kali Uchis [23]
Kendrick Lamar [unranked]
Kid Cudi [6]
Courtney Bell [7]
Snoop Dogg [unranked]
Scarface [unranked]
Boldy James [9]
Nyck Caution [10]
Comments: Since I last updated this two months ago, J. Cole released a new album and DMX passed away and then released a posthumous album so they went from outside my top 25 through March to my two most listened to artists of the year. Conway also got a similar bump thanks to yet another new project. I’ve been listening to a lot of TDE lately since all their artists are due to drop this summer. Almost all of them fell shy of my top 25 here, but Kendrick cracked the list and I expect him to keep climbing it, especially if his long overdue follow-up to 2017’s DAMN. finally drops.
You can click the link above to see my most recent additions to either playlist, but I’m not going to list them here because it’s the middle of June and I don’t which songs I added in May and which ones I’ve added in June, so I’ll just post them all in my next writeup.
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!
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