WSH's Songs + Albums of the Year 2016
Last year’s Highly Scientific Ranking of the Year’s Best Songs featured me and me alone. This time, I’ve asked some writer friends to join the fun. Among these friends are academics and professional writers and folks tied into the industry, but most importantly, they are very good people with musical tastes I’ve always respected. I can’t thank them enough for their help with this article, and I’m grateful that folks – friends or not – want their writing on my little startup website.
The Curious Case of Usher Raymond
Since releasing Here I Stand, an distinctly mature album for a then-29-year-old, Usher has seemingly chosen to age backwards. Up until Hard II Love, each attempt felt clunky and, even worse, contrived.
Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor, 10 Years Later
Food & Liquor quickly became the soundtrack of my freshman year of high school. I’m terrible at rapping, but I’ve always fancied myself a poet; I love crafting the perfect sentence, and it was clear this not-tough nerd from Chicago loved words just as much – if not more – than this not-tough nerd from the westside of Detroit.
Purple Reign
Once upon a time, my four favorite people on this earth were Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, my dad, and Whitney Houston, in that order. And just like I thought folks had to choose between 'Pac and Big or Bow Wow and Lil Romeo, I figured I couldn't like both Mike and Prince.
Two Cheers for the Best Rapper You've Never Heard Of
Oddly enough, I wasn't very pressed to hear Kendrick Lamar's project, and I didn't have very high expectations for Collegrove, either.
Nope. The only one I absolutely needed to hear is the one you've probably never heard about.
A Tribe Called Quest v. OutKast: A Love Story
My top-ten and top-five are pretty solid for the most part, but my favorite rap group has been a lot harder to pin down. My boyfriend has expressed that I can love both equally and no one is forcing me to choose but let’s be honest... that’s impossible. I love them both too much to not have a clear decision, but declaring one over the other seems just as unfair. It’s like having two boyfriends, they both satisfy you fully but in different ways, and you NEED both to be fulfilled but inside you still know you need to be faithful to only one (I would imagine, anyway). To break this down this down further I won’t compare the two groups and I won’t go in depth with each album (even though I could). I will, however, express what they mean me to in order to convey this, if only for my own understanding.
Anti Is The Rihanna Album You Never Knew You Needed
ANTi is Rihanna’s eighth studio release, and she came back to let us know that reinvention is still her strong suit, and her growth is only beginning. As a listener I find it difficult, if not impossible not to incorporate every song into my overall opinion of an album, so we’ll be taking this ride track-by-track.
Sisqó. Sisqó? Sisqó!
I haven't seen enough (read: any) Sisqó profiles, and I say that without a hint of sarcasm. It's been a peculiar yet somehow satisfying career to watch.
WSH's Songs of the Year 2015
I’ve been making year-end playlists for a few years now. It’s a really fun exercise. Every now and again, you’ll see a song that you downloaded in January and can’t believe that song came out in the same calendar year as a song that came out 2 weeks ago. My only general qualification for this project is that the song be on an album that came out in 2015. I picked 100 songs to start, cut that down to 40, and finished with 17 — 7 honorable mentions, and a top-10 I painstakingly ranked. Really, painstakingly. It hurt me to cut some of the songs. But, tough decisions had to be made and whatnot. So, without further ado, the honorable mentions, in no particular order:
Kendrick, Cole, and Home as Hip-Hop’s Muse
I texted my best friend, a fellow music snob, to see if she picked up where Kendrick was going, and she agreed the project was really easy to comprehend. Why were the folks who get paid to critique it so afraid to try?