Trollheart

Album title: Ban2oozle
Artist: Jipsta
Genre: Hip-Hop
Nationality: American
Release date: January 6
Position in Discography: Third
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No
Check out more from this artist? Actually, I would yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Maybe

Ah, guess the fun's over then: back to hip-hop we go. Hey! I like the rolling drums, and to be honest, the rap is good. Starting off well anyway. Bouncy sort of disco/soul feel to “All Systems Go” and again the flow (is it? Is that what they call it: how the rap works with the music?) is very good. I must admit, this is the first hip-hop record I haven't been praying would end; I'm actually enjoying this quite a bit. It helps that I can understand most of the lyrics, which is often not the case with other hiphop artists I find. This album is full of energy and fun. Even the trancy “Last Night” has me smiling. Yeah, gotta admit I really enjoyed that one.

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Trollheart

I do not have a hat.

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Trollheart

Album title: Limitless
Artist: NCT 127
Genre: K-pop
Nationality: Korean
Release date: January 6
Position in Discography: Second
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? No; only vaguely familiar with the female side so far
Check out more from this artist? Not in this life
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes, but only girlpop. So I'm a chauvinist. Sue me.

So we're back to K-pop, but this time it's my first experience of the boyband aspect of the genre. K-pop may be something I never quite understand: this band are apparently named for having “unlimited members” and for those members coming from all sorts of different areas. NCT stands for, believe it or not, Neo Culture Technology, and NCT 127 are only one “unit” of a bunch of NCT bands. Hmm. Well although it begins almost as a darkish hip-hop song the opener quickly slides into banal boyband territory. Now, the girlband side of this surely does the same, but there's something – to me, anyway – different about listening to a bunch of girls sing. There's some heart and soul in what they sing. Here, this just sounds like Korean boys trying to sound like Nsync or Backstreet Boys. Probably is the case for all K-pop, but I can maybe ignore it more with the girl bands. This does nothing for me, and has what I'm now recognising to be a facet of K-pop, the mixing of English and Korean lyrics.

Not doing anything for me. At least it's short, a mere six tracks. Yeah, call it sexist if you want – it almost certainly is – but I enjoy listening to the girls, not so much the boys. This is hella boring and derivative. If I had to choose the song I hate most, “Heartbreaker” gets the turd prize, mind you the rap on the following track, “Baby don't like it” comes close. Seriously, most of this is pretty awful. I may have to revisit my opinion of K-pop. Where are my girls when I need them?

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Trollheart

Album title: Youth is Only Fun in Retrospect
Artist: Sundara Karma
Genre: Indie Rock
Nationality: English
Release date: January 6
Position in Discography: Debut
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Mildly
Check out more from this artist? Yes, I'll be watching them.
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Probably.

Sounds decent enough when it kicks off. Not going to be rushing out and buying all their ... oh. This is their only album. Well. Good enough really. Parts of “Explore” definitely echo the main melody of Pulp's “Common People” but that doesn't make it a copy or anything. The brass is nice too. Probaby synthesised, but there you go. There's a lot of Springsteen/Gaslight Anthem about “Olympia”, and there's certainly a lot of energy and enthusiasm in these songs. Kind of liking it more as the album progresses. Well these guys aren't exactly reinventing the wheel or pushing any boundaries, but they seem happy to rest in the niche they've carved for themselves. It makes for a very good album anyway, and I dig it.

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Trollheart

Album title: Night People
Artist: You Me At Six
Genre: Hard Rock/Pop Rock
Nationality: American
Release date: January 6
Position in Discography: Fifth
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Quite
Check out more from this artist? Maybe
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Sure

You Me At Six? What does that even mean? Well the album, their fifth, kicks off with a sort of mix of Def Leppard's “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and any Kiss rock anthem you care to mention, maybe “I Love it Loud”? Not exactly original, though I guess it is a kick up the arse to start the album off. Let's see how it goes from here. Meh, it comes across as a little generic so far, bit too Daughtry-lite for me, but not bad even at that. “Take On The World” is a nice break from the rock histrionics, but for those who hate them, ie all of you, it seems a little Bon Jovi to these ears. Shut up. Yeah, this ain't too bad at all. Some great stuff on here. A decent album for sure.

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Trollheart

Album title: No Plan
Artist: David Bowie
Genre: Art Rock
Nationality: English
Release date: January 8
Position in Discography: Last ever
Familiar with this artist? Duh!
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Yes
Check out more from this artist? Sadly, impossible
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Always

Hold on a moment: what's going on here? I thought Blackstar was Bowie's last album, written even as he faced death and prepared to leave us all shattered and emotional cripples as he left us? How could there be ... ah. I see. This is posthumous material he and Tony Visconti were working on prior to his death. Okay, well it's Bowie so I guess I could just give it the highest rating without even listening to it (like there's any doubt it would get that anyway) but this is a chance to listen, once more, probably for the last time ever, to new music from the late Thin White Duke, so why would I pass up that opportunity? It's only four tracks, sadly, so an EP rather than an album, but hey, four new Bowie tracks is surely better than none.

And it's not on Spotify! Never mind: YouTube to the rescue! Fittingly, but perhaps slightly disappointingly, the EP opens with one of his best, and most poignant later songs, “Lazarus”, and it's a wonderfully heartbreaking song which shows the artist at both his most human and fragile, while yet at his most both somehow defiant and accepting of his fate. These songs were to be part of a musical of the same name which sadly of course never came to pass, due to Bowie's untimely death. “No plan” then is another soft soulful little ballad, which sounds both like it belongs firmly in the seventies and is completely contemporary (how did he do that so easily?) then with a title like “Killing a little time” there's an opportunity to marvel at both the man's disregard for and embracing of his fate – he wasn't going to go quietly and unremarked, was he? - with a much harder, more bitter edge, until all too soon it's wrapping up with “When I met you” which reminds me of one of his older classic songs, just can't place it.

Obviously, too short but a wonderful final coda to the music of the man who for many of us created a soundtrack to our lives, showed us what music was all about, invented and reinvented himself more than anyone else in music, always not only kept up with the trends but usually set them, and who most of us still find it hard to believe is no longer with us. God rest ye David.

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Trollheart

Album title: Just Bring It
Artist: Band-Maid
Genre: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal
Nationality: Japanese
Release date: January 11
Position in Discography: Fourth
Familiar with this artist?No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Very
Check out more from this artist? Possibly
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Probably
Ever since the emergence of Babymetal it seems Japanese girls have embraced the idea of Heavy Metal, perhaps as much as K-pop in Korea, and bands like Band-Maid have been doing good business on the back of that reawakened interest. As for this, well it's competent, maybe taking themselves a little too seriously – not the fun K-pop seems to be – but I wouldn't say it's anything special and I'd be in no hurry to hear more.

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Trollheart

Album title: Mystery of Venus
Artist: Hello Venus
Genre: K-pop
Nationality: Korean
Release date: January 11
Position in Discography: Fifth
Familiar with this artist? No
Familiar with the genre or subgenre? Getting there
Check out more from this artist? Meh
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Meh

Back to K-pop we go. This is another new group to me, Hello Venus, and this is their fifth release, another EP, with only four tracks. Good fun I guess, but the fun is beginning to wear a little thin and of course peering below the makeup and the fluff there's really little there. Still, it's pleasant music, inoffensive but not something I'd seek out if I was in the mood for serious music. As fluff, it's ok I guess. Couldn't really tell that much of a difference between this and the various other K-pop albums I've listened to up to now. That will probably becoming a recurring theme as we go on.

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djchameleon

I'm enjoying this thread more than I thought I would. Keep up the good work. Your previews are saving me time so I can just pick and choose some of the albums that I missed checking out.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Trollheart

Glad to help, and nice to have you along for the ride!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018