MY MAN HAS FINALLY MADE SOMETHING AGAIN THAT I GET THOROUGH ENJOYMENT FROM
I've basically been off Kanye since 'Graduation'. '808s' is him autotuning for a whole album... No thanks. I won't go into it, but I've never gotten the obsession with 'Fantasy'. I've written a review explaining why. Minus a couple of songs, 'Yeezus' ain't my cup of tea. 'Pablo' sounds like a rushed mish-mash of ideas with few great moments. 'Ye' has nothing noteworthy. 'JESUS IS KING' has some of the most boring music Kanye has ever produced. Donda is better though.
This is such an easy listen. It isn't experimental like 'Yeezus' at all. It's just good trap production with some unique sounds including gospel themes. A lot of the beats bump, Kanye is entertaining ("We off the grid, grid, grid, grid, grid"), but doesn't step over the line like he did with lyrics from the aforementioned album, and while there are many featuring verses, and Kanye goes missing at times, most work well. 'Off the Grid' is hard a nails, but would be better if Kanye just spat, particularly instead of Playboi Carti.
The main issue with this is that it's 27 TRACKS long with the last four songs just being slightly different versions of what we have already heard. For someone who has had quality control with most of his projects, it's surprising that he's decided to release a near 2-hour album. Another more minor issue is the loooong speech by Larry Hoover Jr. As I play the album I have to hit skip every time that starts. He should've just put it on 'Jesus Lord pt 2' to keep pt 1 snappy.
The only songs I dislike here are the annoying opener, with Syleena Johnson repeating "Donda" in different ways for 50 seconds, but that's just an intro, 'Remote Control' and Pop Smoke's 'Lord I Need You'. 'Jail' is a touch boring too with Jay-Z's verse nearly putting me to sleep.
As I opened with, after not feeling Kanye for a while, this is the most I've gotten out of a project from him for ages. 'Come to Life' is so beautiful.
Best Tracks: Off the Grid, Praise God, Ok Ok, Junya, Believe What I Say, Heaven and Hell, Jesus Lord, Come to Life, All the 'pt 2s' of songs I've listed.
Very good show about chess - actual Grandmasters worked together with the production team so the games themselves are of pretty good quality. But this show is about much more than the game of chess, it just provides a great background for the story of Beth Harmon. Beth was dealt a pretty rough hand in life, being orphaned in her childhood because her psychotic mother could not take care of her. She eventually gets adopted but even then it's not all smiles and sunshine as life still manages to throw a wrench in the gears every time it's looking up for her.
One thing to critique about the show is Moses Ingram's character, Beth's childhood friend Jolene whom she met at the orphanage. She turns up later in the series again to become the Black Woman Ex Machina and despite the show lampshading it, it still comes off as very tropey. Other than that though, it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride and for sure has sparked my passion for chess recently.
A seemingly innocuous cartoon for grown-ups on the surface, Bojack Horseman is a layered, more nuanced series than it initially seems. With a painfully honest, beautifully dark, and compassionately told portrayal of depression, the show offers a sobering yet comedic (and wholly humane) look at what can probably be summed up as "simply the human condition in general."
