5 Albums Not To Miss In '08

1. N.E.R.D. - N.3.R.D.

After the genre mindfuck rock-pop-hip-hop-skate punk of their debut In Search Of... and the Steely Dan/Zappa influenced 70s soul funk of Fly Or Die, I'm wlling to follow Pharrell, Chad and Shae (what the FUCK does he do in this group? Seriously) into the river Styx.

Luckily, that won't be necessary, as the boys are coming back strong with a new album within the next two or three months. The lead single "Everbody Nose" is an excellent jam ostensibly about coke-snorting party girls and it's really only gotten easier on the ears since it dropped last month.

Pharrell has said in interviews that the album will be less consistent stylistically than their first two releases, being more incoherent and all over the place, a trait usually seen as negative on an album, but could be a welcome progression from the somewhat sameness of their other work.

Here's two live performances of new tracks on the album. The first is called "Spaz" and the second excerpt "Kill Joy."





Fire.

2. Love Is All - A Hundred Things That Keep Me Up At Night

I loved Love Is All's explosive debut LP Nine Times That Same Song to the point that this new album could be a collection of bossa nova covers of Three Doors Down songs and I'd still buy the fucker. Judging from this new live track,



and the skeletons of new tracks available at their Myspace, the new album might be more cohesive and melodic that the gorgeous mess of clashing instruments their first one was. The howling vocals, punky guitar and skronky sax are still in effect though. Regardless, cop that (Swedish) shit.


3. Girl Talk - Wild Peace IV: Feed The Animals, Raise The Dead

Anyone who's heard Night Ripper knows there's pretty much no real reason to decipher Girl Talk's musical style. It's a batshit crazy collage of pop music samples, juxtaposed and repositioned into exciting party bangers that barely resemble the pieces they're made of. A fun game is to get fucked up on your inhibition blocker of choice and try to catch every sample and musical reference on a given track (That's the drum fill from "Sugar We're Goin' Down" and SWV! Is that...Neutral Milk Hotel and Juelz Santana?)

Greg Gillis' new release is most likely going to be a logical extension of such craft, probably opting for more widespread source material. A fake version of the new album leaked on PirateBay last month, and one of the songs on it actually isn't half bad at aping Gillis' style. Prepare to have your mind fucked.

(Fake) Girl Talk - Freak Out
(real) Girl Talk - Smash Your Head

4. Wolf Parade - TITLE TBD

I wasn't always the biggest Wolf Parade fan. I'm not one of those guys who gets excited about Sunset Rubdown or whatever else Spencer Krug is filling his time with, but their debut LP Apologies To The Queen Mary really grew on me. I liked the dichotomy between Krug and Dan Boeckner's musical styles.

Merry Swankster has a track by track preview of the new album, with a few playable songs. I'm intrigued so far. I like that the band can straddle genuine rock outs with more nuanced emotions and proggy flourishes. Also really hoping they go with "Kissing The Beehive" as the title. Can't wait.


5. Andre 3000 - TITLE TBD

I'm pretty annoyed about the new solo album from 3stacks here, mostly because I saw him on MTV Jams doing some bullshit interview for Semi-Pro and he totally said the name of the new album, but no one on the interwebz seems to fucking no what it is, which leads me to believe either:

A) No one in the world other than me (and perhaps DJ Clue) watches MTV Jams.

or

B) It's late, I'm tired, and I'm just not looking hard enough.

Either way, any time Andre releases new music is a time to rejoice. I was expecting another weird Prince-y set of songs, melding genres, moods, and tones, but apparently all of his rampant mixtape work as made Andre hungry for the mic again, as the new shit is supposed to be mostly straightforward hip-hop.

Right now Andre's top 5 dead or alive in the game, so I can't imagine this being anything resembling a disappointment.

Devin The Dude f. Andre 3000 & Snoop - What A Job
Rich Boy f. Andre 3000, Jim Jones, The Game, etc - Throw Some D's (remix)