It's interesting to listen to an album that's basically been reverse engineered to match the aesthetic of a remix that accidentally became a worldwide hit. "Going Thru It" with Boosie is awesome, maybe better than anything on Boosie's project. So it's shrewd of Shy Glizzy to also do an entire tape with Zaytoven, even if it's not a completely perfect MC/producer combination, there's some potent stuff on here. I've always been a fan of Zaytoven's production, and it's impressive that after 10 years on the scene he's been able to produce a whole project with the impact that Future's Beast Mode has had. "Bring It Like I Talk It" is the most immediate standout. His voice and his music is a little different now but Thrilla is really the closest he's sounded to Trill Ent.-era Boosie since coming back, the old fans might like it a little more. This is his 3rd project since coming home last year, and the first 2 were pretty great, it's really a shame that Boosiemania has dissipated and he's gone back to being underrated. I'm a little relieved that this mixtape just says 'Boosie' on the cover, it gives me hope that he's maybe moving on from that whole 'Boosie Badazz' thing that I was never crazy about. "Stars," the song with drums that sound sampled (or deliberately emulated) from a Sleigh Bells track, is one of the better songs on the album, her label should cut that check and make it a single. She's always theoretically had a good voice for power ballads, but "For You" is really the first good one she's been able to knock out of the park.
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Like her last couple albums, it's a bit patchwork and hit'n'miss, but there aren't any big stumbles aside from that awful Iggy Azalea collaboration. So this album kind of feels like a power grab to finally get up to that level and work with Martin and Stargate, and I think it comes off pretty well. I was always impressed by Demi Lovato's early albums, which had a pretty high level of production and songwriting without ever really having big name pros like Max Martin and Stargate involved in them. I think my favorite stuff is that run starting with "Bout (Damn) Time" and "Flaws" towards the end. I tend to avoid listening to leaked unfinished music, so I'm glad they took some of those tracks and mastered them and got them sounding right on here, there's even a few songs with Rich Homie Quan and Birdman that would've been on that mythical second Rich Gang mixtape.
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This one's really too long for its own good, though, shorter mixtapes would be better. Apparently a lot of that has to do with Alex Tumay, the engineer who assembled Slime Season 2, and I hope this means more releases like this will become more frequent now - there's no reason he can't be dropping high quality projects as often as Future, or Gucci back in the day. So the exciting thing about him putting out the first Slime Season in September and then following up with the sequel just a few weeks later is that it feels like he's finally doing something with all that material instead of just letting it leak or get too old to use. One of the most frustrating ways in which Young Thug has emulated his hero Lil Wayne in the way he seems to work very hard at recording huge amounts of material but there's very little sense of when or how it's going to come out, and tons of it got leaked before it was mastered or sequenced for a release. I put this and most of these other albums on my running Spotify playlist of 2015 albums. "Take Me Away" is great, "Broken Hearts Heal" is great, really a lot of it is just beautiful and euphoric even if it's not as catchy as Control or as visionary as T he Velvet Rope. Other than "Burnitup!" trying a little too hard, there's a plush, sumptuous feel to even the uptempo tracks, and Janet's voice shows its age a little, but she stays in a comfortable range. It sounds like she spent that time learning to relax and stop chasing hits, and while this isn't her best album, it may be her warmest and happiest.
#RAURY ALL WE NEED BLOGSPOT SERIES#
Having pored over Janet's back catalog before this album was released, and examining the way she kind of spiraled off into a series of frequent unsuccessful albums a decade ago, it's nice to see her come back after a 7 years and sound genuinely refreshed and rejuvenated.