pop
A.D. AMOROSI
XXXTentacion HHH Bad Vibes Forever Warners This might be a lousy way of expressing it, but the last few months have been a great time for moody, Nirvana-inspired, emo-punk, SoundCloud rappers. For better or worse, Tekashi 6ix9ine handed his prosecutors a get-out-of-jailearly card for cooperating with the law. The late Lil Peep’s Everybody’s Everything just dropped in connection with an emotional documentary of the same name. Trippie Redd’s mournfully narcissistic new “A Love Letter to You 4” is at the top of the charts one week after release. Then there is XXXTentacion, sad rap’s lo-fried king of pain. Gone since June 2018, gunned down over a Louis Vuitton bag of money,
XXXTentacion has an industry of release dates quickly growing flowers around his grave. As far as visceral, Cobain-esque expressions of pain and genuine fury (warranted or unwarranted) often mouthed in a cleverly executed, triplet flow of rushy, offbeat rhythm, XXXTentacion had the art form down cold. And when he slowed that flow to a crooning, alt-rock worthy purr, he was even more audacious. “Ex Bitch” has a gentle acoustic pluck and a melody line so delicious you could swoon, but the swoon factor soon stops, as you might guess from the title. Courting controversy from the very first lines, XXX talks about moving from one woman to another with curt, coarse frankness that won’t help his case when it comes to feminism. XXX isn’t looking to get right with God, either. Courting controversy in “Daemons” with a verse pulled from a previously leaded track, “Who The F– is God?,” XXX uses Jesus as a psychic scapegoat for suicide (an uncle who committed suicide, his own allusions to hanging himself in the past) atop a slow, lava-like gurgle of electric piano-led 30
lounge funk. While Joey Bada$$ muses about “Dancing with the devil in a burning room,” XXX uses a deep baritone sing-songy rap for his blame game that’s more numbingly biblical than it is sensible. That XXX turns to the Lord on the airy, clomping “Attention!” (“God, I’ve been up, I’ve been dead, yeah”) should be no surprise. Throughout his career, XXXTentacion has been stuffed like a turkey with chunky contradictions. Luckily, producer Singleton and these tracks give the rapper’s sweet, higher-pitched mumble breathing room. The Bad Plus HHHH Activate Infinity Edition Though drummer Dave King and bassist Reid Anderson, math-music’s rhythm twins lost their partner of 17 years in the Bad Plus, pianist Ethan Iverson, the pair found a new Bad keyboardist/pal in Philadelphia’s Orrin Evans. They recorded two new albums, including the December release of Activate Infinity. Call it a tale
of one rhythm section, or new chapters in a lifebook dedicated to progressive music-making: These recordings present Anderson and King in a rainbow of surprisingly subtle colors and shadings. Hewing closer to cool post-bop tradition than most of the Bad Plus’ previous efforts
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(including their first album with Evans, the math-rocking Never Stop II), the all-original Activate Infinity finds Evans mashing his sinister soulfulness into swift Monk-like runs (“Avail”), playful Guaraldi-isms (“Thrift Store Jewelry”) and pastoral Bruce Hornsby-ish themes (“The Red Door”) without losing sight of his unique tone. King, meanwhile, is an absolute monster. Higher in the mix than the fluid Anderson, he rumbles and rumbas with giddy complexity on “Avail,” crafts a wash of crashing cymbals, rolling toms, and quickly flitting snares on “Dovetail Nicely,” and elegantly sand-dances below Evans’ heady modal cocktail on “Love Is the Answer.” Though it doesn’t lack for quirk, there’s a breezy symmetry and easygoing melodicism to TBP’s new album that’s more handsome than it is histrionic. The Band HHHHH The Band: 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Ume While Robbie Robertson’s fan base has been diverted by his woozily atmospheric solo album from late 2019, Sinematic, and his equally moody soundtrack to pal Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, I insist that you focus on the two CDs, Blu-Ray, two LPs and vinyl single-filled reissue of the guitarist-composer’s first finest work—also known as The Brown Album. Along with a shiny new overall remix from Bob Clearmountain, a handful of vibey, rough-hewn in-
strumental takes and a disc of their Woodstock live set, just hearing their entire sophomore album refreshed—the heart and soul of the hillbilly Americana movement at its start, unfettered and undistracted—from “Up on Cripple Creek” on down to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is as magical as it is majestically muddy. n
