Sam's Thoughts...

Guy's My Age-Hey Violet

I was watching this video on the internet called Billboard breakdown where this guy analyzes the Billboard Hot 100 every week and this past week this song apparently charted somewhere in the lower half of the chart recently and I remember this critic being very harsh on this song to a point where that along with the small clip just kind of made me have to go check this song out and a few listens later I'm a small bit perplexed.

So some context to all this apparently Hey Violet consist of the members of a band called Cherri Bomb who from what I heard were an all girl pop punk act that made what was pretty bland fair very reminiscent of their tour mates 5 Seconds of Summer with a sound that give me this feeling that I'm way to old for this teenybopper shit so from that after the lead singer decided to go AWOL they reformed and changed their sound to go from a kind of teenybopper pop punk group to what I can best describe as Melanie Martinez trying to make a radio Disney rock record.

The chick they have singing for them pretty much sounds like a Disney channel knock off Melanie and from this and the other songs they've made her lyrical themes seem to consist of edgy teenage girl things like hating on “Fuqboi's,”  being young and, “Feeling it,” and of course the subject of today's post wanting to fuck older men.

This song from the beginning drops pretty much all the Radio Disney rock sounds of their previous tunes and instead adopts a kind of trap music tone with a pretty decent drop as she lulls along a chorus that sounds exactly like something Melanie Martinez would write, “Guy's My Age don't know how to treat me, don't know how to treat me, don't know how to treat me, don't know how to touch me, don't know how to love me good,” croons this purple haired choker clad chick that I had to verify that she's 18 while she does her best to basically personify a Tumblr post validating why it's not at all creepy for women this age to go after men who are at a significantly different point in their lives than them.

You have an incredibly creepy undertone going on here where the whole I'm a bad girl who's mature for her age is spending 3 and a half minutes making a very 2016 sounding pop tune that's admittedly pretty fucking catchy with it's formulaic but solid beat being complimentary to a vocalist that's clearly taking notes from Melanie Martinez and Halsey in trying to be very forbidden fruit sexy but equally uncomfortable and admittedly I only find this song interesting for the fact that somebody who enjoys Melanie Martinez as much as I do should theoretically enjoy this song a lot more but really I'm getting more of a vibe that I'm listening to a cheap knock off that just makes me wonder if all future pop bands are going to be this kind of blasé edgy teen bullshit from here on out because modern radio has been stagnant with only a couple of real gems shining though and if this sound is apparently what it takes to get on the hot 100 and get 6 million plays on Youtube than I'm just starting to think that Billy Corgan was right in saying Rock is Dead and the internet has fucked everything up because this catchy but underwhelming bit of Tumblr jams is a bad example of things to come.

Sam's Top 20 of 2015 #4

#4 Pitty Party-Melanie Martinez

This year had a lot of female representation for me and of all the ladies to come out of the blue and just grab the ball and run with it I'd have to give credit to this talented little pixie.

While I'll admit my review of Cry Baby as an album wasn't super spectacular and in retrospect it's proving to be a solid effort it's still not really to the expectations that this song just unexpectedly created and even now this song on it's own is just too damn good to ignore.

An interpretation of the Lesly Gore classic, “It's My Party,” this song has Melanie doing what she does best in singing about how fucked up and miserable her life is and in this song maybe more so then anything else she's recorded it works because of it's kind of droning but steady electronic beats that help make her voice in all of it's pissed off woe is me sounding way's work while she delivers plenty of lines about the feelings of being ditched on your birthday.

This song is in the business of misery and for Melanie business is damn good.

Song of the Day 9/4/15

Training Wheels-Melanie Martinez

So I gave this album a review and it was a very poorly worded expressing of saying that this album has some damn great songs but it’s subject matter get’s too much in the way of the songs and kind of weighs things down to a point of sounding downright overly repetitive but even if I do have that complaint there’s certain instances where re-listening to the album as a whole and taking time to really digest things kind of leads you to an interesting point where you find odd charms in tunes and that’s really prevalent in this overly romantic tinged but predictably obscenely worded tune that has this delightfully romantic delivery of, “I love everything you do, when you call me fucking dumb for the stupid shit I do,” which just may be the best chorus I’ve heard all year if not at the very least the most amusing, but all that aside it’s an oddly charming tune that almost changes my opinions on the album as it grows on me….

Sam Reiews an album: Cry Baby-Melanie Martinez

You know going on a hiatus is a terrible idea and I'd highly advise never doing it because even though I've been to a shit load of shows over the past 2 months I've been very much dead in terms of actual creative writing and it's been extra difficult to REALLY be motivated to tell you guy's just how awesome it is to see so many different bands and what not but today seems kind of interesting because not only is Straight Out of Compton out but one Melanie Martinez has released her full length studio debut album Cry Baby and to my excitement I've been giving it a proper listen and well i have a few things to say in a fairly compact matter so let's quit fucking around and do yet another Sam Reviews an album....

So Cry Baby it's a 13 song story of a little girl who's parents are alcoholics who cheat on each other and fuck up her life by distorting her moral compass and making her proceed to both murder and act in a mischievous manor and beyond that story there's not much else in this album besides a shit load of clever word play and some interestingly twisted things over what's very childish instrumentals that add to Martinez's twisted nature and give the album a kind of disturbingly wholesome feel.

In all honesty this album has about 6 killer tracks and the rest just kind of feel more in place to sound catchy and carry along a certain feel to it's aesthetic and story which isn't bad at all especially when some of them are performed live and kind of take a life of their own like the opening track Cry Baby which on here is a kind of tame number with one of the best uses of the word fuck in the whole album which completely changes around and becomes a viciously awesome number in a live environment which was my biggest disappointment when it came to this album but that disappointment is quickly set aside when you reach tracks like Dollhouse and Pity Party which just kind of have a really manic vibe that leads you to just kind of want to freak out along with her and really help hype the story being told.

There's also instances of slower songs really working like Soap which is a kind of dreamy number that musically does a good job of being kind of calming but with a really moveable beat and a chorus that kind of sticks along even if the rest of it is fairly typical stuff, and beyond that the rest of the album tracks don't have any super stand out tracks that are that good or bad for that matter so what I'm stuck with is more a solidly good album that leaves me wanting to listen to it more and seeing just how it develops over time.

Score: 6.5/10

Hits: Pity Party, Soap, Dollhouse

Misses: Cry Baby, Alphabet Boy

Song of the Day 6/3/15

So after blasting the ever loving fuck out of that new Melanie Martinez single I decided to actually go back and re-listen to the song it's basically an interpretation on and realized that that song came out 50 years ago....shit son time is a crazy thing but either way it's interesting really that she's done a modernized take on a very sad but catchy number...

Sam Sugguest a Song Pity Party-Melanie Martinez

So as I'm going around Facebook I see that one Melanie Martinez has posted a video for a new single called Pity Party and I'm not going to lie this song is dope as fuck people.

Now the video is just simply her doing some fucked up stuff and trying to make a dark and very disturbing showcasing of how nobody seems to love her and to help support the usage of Leslie Gore's, "It's My Party," to create a kind of re-imagining of sorts that has this very Dubsteppy beat to go along with a tune that I'm more then sure is playing along with some grander theme of Cry Baby as an upcomming album which should really interest me considering that after a couple of listens I really do now have complete interest in that she probably has made a record that'll be the surprise of the year....

Song of the Day 2/20/15

You know the cool thing about show's is that they give an artist a platform to test new music before they decide to release it but the same problem is sometimes you're left waiting for a proper studio recording and kind of have to deal with poor audio quality and questionable camera recording quality just to hear that song again and not have it feel nearly as awesome as it was when you saw it live because the energy just isn't there, but that's minor really because this song's still interesting.

The song in question is called Cry Baby and it's going to be on Melanie Martinez's studio album and it's a very kind of circus sounding bit of swirling madness that is only made even better by her repeated use of the word FUCK while spewing some truly kind of twisted lyrics I really can't wait for the studio version of this song because from the sounds of it that should be a million times better then her fairly underwhelming EP.

Sam Went to a show last night....oh and Happy Valentines Day

So before I get into anything people I'd like to take the 30 seconds to say that Kansas City's 96.5 The Buzz is the best station ever....just saying they're more then responsible for making KC an amazing showcase for young and emerging artist and deserve as much love as possible and last night they had their annual Afentra's VD show and it was pretty bad ass and I'm going to tell you guy's just how awesome.

 Like I said last night was their annual Valentines Day concert and rather then taking the route of just having one obviously big act headline the whole thing they instead decided to have a series of bands and artist looking to make something of themselves and last night was a pretty solid showcase so here's the acts that played and my thoughts of them.

X Ambassadors

So these guy's opened the show with a pretty solid set of tunes that were a good bit of energy and plenty of interesting instrumentation and solid songs but I think they unfairly got the issue of opening band syndrome which kind of meant they didn't get the crowd in the heat of the moment but they were still solid none-the-less and I figure they may get to be better in time.

In the Valley Below

Not going to lie this band was pretty solidly good and kind of made me think of a more electronic Sonic Youth at times which isn't a bad thing at all and while some of their songs kind of sounded the exact same they were still pretty damn good and their song Peaches was pretty spectacular definitely a group to keep an eye out for.

 Melanie Martinez

I'm just going to get the one fault I had with this chick out of the way right now and say that I honestly after seeing her play live and getting to hear a little more of her songs I'm going to have to say that this chick REALLY sounds like she's taking quite a bit of her sound from one Kimbra who is an artist I've covered plenty of times on this blog and am very much a big fan of but even with that kind of souring her set a tiny bit there's still a load of positives I really have to give her.

While I was and am still not really a fan of her current EP that's out this chick is an incredibly solid performer  and she really can sing these kind of weird circusy sounding tunes very excellently and even with some technical difficulties she managed to hold up and give a very solidly good performance that sold me more whenever she started to do some of her more confident and quality tunes that she's saving for her upcoming album which I'm very much looking forward to give a listen to.

If this chick comes to your town hella go give her a view she wont dissapoint.

LIGHTS

It was rather disappointing that a good chunk of people left the show before this little Canadian pop artist got to perform because she's a pretty solid live act that gave a very high energy and entertaining set of songs that were a lot of big chorus' and danceable numbers that engaged a good bit of the crowd where I was standing quite a bit while also seemingly just throwing herself completely into her set and really did her best to show why she was the headliner and she did a very solidly good job at it.

Overall this show was pretty fucking great and the only real complaint if any is that the set's were very short and at times and some of the crowd was kind of less then spectacular but overall that's all minor because I'll be hella sure to come to the flying condom showcase again next year hopefully.

Thumbs up all over KC and here's a playlist of the bands that performed for all those interested in giving them a listen and of course make sure to go like and share The Official Facebook Page because you're awesome....

Song of the Day 1-14-15

Dollhouse-Melanie Martinez

So this songs  been getting quite a huge amount of momentum on the radio as of late and I just recently seemed to have noticed that this songs lyrics are a rather cleverly messed up little series of unfortunate events hiding behind this metaphor of a dollhouse being this kind of masking image of a broken family getting ruined by infidelity and drugs.

All of this seems to just add to what's a kind of circus sounding spiraling bit of danceable intrigue that is a pretty solidly good tune that does a good job of kind of slowly sucking you into it before you eventually find yourself singing along and having it stuck in your head for the better part of your day, also she's coming to my neck of the woods here soon which is pretty rad...