Over the last twenty days of December (and obviously 2013), I’ll be writing about my favorite twenty albums and songs of the year, one a day. Not best. Not most influential. Not most likely to land on a Complex slideshow. Just my favorite, ranked in order.
8. childish gambino – because the internet
First of all, let’s establish the flaws here. Even when Childish Gambino is flowing (he can do that well enough), he’s prone to dropping lines that make him sound like he picked up a mic for the first time yesterday (“Girl why is you lyin’? Girl why you Mufasa?”). The second half of the album is a mess of ideas, musical motifs, and average verses. And the album really requires you to read a seventy-page screenplay to understand what’s going on. That’s what’s bad. But even given that, it’s one of my favorite albums of the year. Part of it’s just my personal preference for innovation and my need to applaud anyone doing anything particularly different; stagnation is a much more frightening prospect than homogeneity. The rest of it? For a second, I’ll stop being a Music Critic and be a Music Fan. A lot of how you view Because the Internet is going to hinge on your opinion of Gambino before you even hit play – if you like him, the flaws will read as endearing; if not, they’ll just reinforce your views of Gambino as a subpar rapper. I’m of the former opinion. Maybe it’s just my romanticized view of him as a musician, but he seems like the rare artist who’s more consumed with pursuing his artistic vision than with perfection (no surprise, then, that my favorite artist, Kanye West, happens to be the poster-boy of that artistic approach). Rather than analyzing exactly what’s wrong with Gambino’s music (and there are many things that are wrong, believe me), I’d prefer to chant “All she need was some…” on “The Other Guys” and sing along with Gambino on “3005.” The album is listenable, a quality that’s often lost in the search for a good Pitchfork score. Because the Internet is the best when you don’t take it too seriously.
8. danny brown – “odb (prod. paul white)”
Lots of Danny’s music deals with the pains of reality in his hometown of Detroit: in fact, he’s pretty proud of the fact that he refuses to dodge or duck the facts, as he seems to think fellow Motor City rappers like Big Sean tend to do. And even though the music video for “ODB”, the lead single off of Danny Brown’s album “Old” (even though it never ended up on the album thanks to sample clearance issues), is a psychedelic affair, the music’s still grounded right in Detroit’s grimy streets. It’s only a rapper like Danny that could snarl “So when the night fall I be getting head in the alley/By a low down nothing 2 dollar skully” without losing all of his credibility, or lay down a hook like “But in the end I’m just a dirty old man/With a pill in my mouth and my dick in my hand” without coming off ridiculous. Paul White’s production is brutal, screeching; his synths grinding and whining to jerky stops and starts. At times it’s discordant, but that’s where Danny does best.