ALBUM REVIEW: "Big Fish Theory" by Vince Staples

Vince Staples is a very similar artist to Kendrick Lamar in a lot of ways; both out of California, both have found great success by going against the grain musically, both perform politically charged and dense lyrics and both are astonishingly gifted at their craft. Kendrick seems to claim all of the spotlight, though, whether that be due to endorsement from President Obama himself or widespread "album of the year" accolades. As such, I couldn't help comparing this record (which is incredible, to be frank) to Kendrick's album from earlier this year, DAMN. For me Big Fish Theory betters DAMN. I'm not going to say it's Staples' TPAB, but it's clearly strides ahead of the simplistic sing-song decadence of the Lil Yachtys, Rae Sremmurds and Migos of today. Playing part world weary philosopher and part street kid, Vince Staples delivers what will be one of the best hip hop albums of this year.

Favourite Songs: Big Fish, Love Can Be..., Yeah Right and Rain Come Down

Least Favourite Song: SAMO

Rating: A

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A Response To 'Christian' Views On Secular Music

Is there such thing as music that Christians shouldn’t listen to? Should we be dismissive of music with either explicit language or sexual, violent or substance oriented themes? Should anyone even be telling anyone else what they can and can’t listen to? These are questions that are thrown around a lot in Christian circles, and given what I do here on this blog and how that overlaps with my job working for the church, I thought I would share my thoughts on this topic. I’ll say this at the outset so that we’re on the same page – I think any attempt to dictate what people should and shouldn’t listen to is stupid and disrespectful on a fundamental level. I’ll go into detail about why I think that later on, but for now here are some thoughts I have on some of the “Christian” opinions I come across pretty regularly. The first and most ludicrous thing that seems to follow me around is the idea that because I listen to underground genres, particularly on the heavy metal ...

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Bon Iver's third studio album turns 1 in about a week (where did that year go?), so I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about how my impressions of the album have changed - or how they haven't - over the last 12 months. When this album was released I was more excited than I think I ever have been to hear a new album. For Emma, Forever Ago is one of my all time favourites, and I love his self-titled second album too, so I had huge expectations for this album, but was also wary that expectations might ruin my experience of the music. This was particularly the case for 22, A Million , because it is unlike anything else Justin Vernon has released. There have been hints at this more processed, electronic direction previously, like the song "Woods" on the Blood Bank EP and occasional flourishes on Bon Iver , but 22, A Million is a drastic departure from the Bon Iver sound we had grown accustomed to at this point in time. Or at least, that's what I thought...

Should Brand New be in my top 20? (CONTENT WARNING: sexual abuse)

For those who read both top 20 albums lists that I did - one here on thatmusicnerd and one over at Kill Your Stereo - you will have noticed, I'm sure, that one had The Ongoing Concept's album Places at number 1, and the other had Brand New's Science Fiction at the top. Full disclosure, I initially had Brand New at the top of just the one list, but the readership of Kill Your Stereo reacted very strongly against the allegations of sexual misconduct against Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey and so I removed it entirely. In fact, none of the KYS contributors' top 20 lists featured Science Fiction at all. Of course I was happy to follow the general consensus in regards to whether or not an artist accused of such things should be promoted by a music publication, but I still stand by my opinion that Science Fiction was the best album of 2017 and as such it was number 1 on my thatmusicnerd top 20 list. 2017 has been a pretty crazy year in terms of the ...

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