100 Songs I Liked In 2021

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2021.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Last year I expanded this list from the usual 50 song count to 75 songs, but because working from home allowed me to listen to more music than ever this year and also because I love to torture myself, I've made it a clean 100 songs.  There's sure to be something you'll enjoy on here.

50 Songs I Liked in 2018

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2018.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 list in a few days.  I made a minor change this year and am now allowing songs from my five honorable mention albums to appear on this list as well.  So if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally liked this year.

50 Great Songs From 2017

On December 29th, my "20 Favorite Albums of 2017" list drops, but there's so much good music out there that one list couldn't fully represent what the year had to offer.  It's hard to make an album that's consistently great from start to finish, especially in an age where individual songs are given more and more importance.  So this list is intended to pay lip service to some great standalone songs.  All of these come from albums that won't be on my top 20 list, either because it's a great song on a mediocre album, or one on an album that's good but not quite good enough to crack the top tier.  So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty standalone songs, listed in alphabetical order (I limited myself to one song per artist):

Maximizing the potential of Drake's "More Life"

Last year, I introduced the world to Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut.  It was an effort to pare down Drake's misunderstood sad-rap opus into a version that emphasized just how many gems it contained once you part through the bloat.  After long and intense anticipation prior to its release, Views was met with a lukewarm response, and despite some positive reappraisals, the prevailing narrative has largely remained the same since then.  Despite the critical consensus, Views was a commercial success though, gaming the new Billboard chart rating system to maximize Spotify streaming counts due to its endless tracklist.

Drake repeated that trick again with his don't-call-it-an-album album More Life, a 22-song "playlist" that chronicles his obsession with the UK rappers, Caribbean music, and not taking naps.  This time around it was considered a success.  The reviews surrounding More Life have been much more positive, with many dubbing it a return to form after Views.  But even the praise was tempered with the idea that this collection of songs, while breezier than its predecessor, was still bloated.  An 80 minute album seems to be something we've just come to expect from Aubrey Graham.

But what if we didn't have to accept that?  Where Views was underrated and I trimmed it down to expose its many high points, I think More Life is slightly overrated, so I've made a condensed version to show the world how much better it could be.  I call it More Life, Less Songs, and here's how it looks:

1. Free Smoke

2. No Long Talk

3. Passionfruit

4. Jorja Interlude

5. Get It Together

6. Madiba Riddim

7. Blem

8. Gyalchester

9. Skepta Interlude

10. Portland

11. Sacrifices

12. KMT

13. Lose You

14. Can't Have Everything

15. Ice Melts

16. Do Not Disturb

This streamlined version comes in at 16 tracks, so let's talk about the cuts made to get it down from the original 22: People seem to love Sampha, but I remain skeptical so I'm casting off "4422" to his own album where it belongs.  "Nothings Into Somethings" is so slight it will hardly be missed, so that gets nixed too.  The only thing "Teenage Fever" has going for it is the Jennifer Lopez sample, so just listen to the original song if you want to hear that.  I didn't think Drake and Kanye West could collaborate on anything worse than the non-album version of "Pop Style," but they admirably proved me wrong with the turgid, grating "Glow."  "Since Way Back" is six minutes long...I don't think I need to explain why it has to go.  And last to be dropped is "Fake Love," which is good but we've all heard it a million times, and there's no need to hear it again, especially near the end of a long album.  With all those exclusions, the album length has been reduced from an interminable 81 minutes to a tighter 59.

One extra thing I did last year with Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut was switch up the sequencing to change the order of a few songs.  I wasn't able to do the same on More Life, Less Songs because its tracks tend to connect and bleed into one another.  That's a shame too, because I do think there's some opportunity to switch things up, seeing as the first half is heavily weighted towards the R&B leaning songs while the back half is more rap-centric, and it would be nice to integrate things more.  Overall, though, the sequencing is less of an issue here than it was with Views.  I like to think that Drake read my post last year and realized I was right about starting that album with "Weston Road Flows," because he starts off More Life with the straight rap assault of "Free Smoke."

So that's More Life, Less Songs.  It still has both Giggs verses, so it's not a perfect album, but it goes down much easier than the original incarnation.  Feel free to see for yourselves, as I've added a Spotify version of my playlist below.  And Drake: if you're reading this, it's not too late to re-release the album with just these songs.

50 Great Songs From 2016

On December 29th, my "20 Favorite Albums of 2016" list drops, but there's so much good music out there that one list couldn't fully represent what the year had to offer.  It's hard to make an album that's consistently great from start to finish, especially in an age where individual songs are given more and more importance.  So this list is intended to pay lip service to some great standalone songs.  All of these come from albums that won't be on my top 20 list, either because it's a great song on a mediocre album, or one on an album that's good but not quite good enough to crack the top tier.  So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty standalone songs, listed in alphabetical order (with one exception, I limited myself to one song per artist):

How to fix Drake's "Views"

We're witnessing a change in discourse regarding music that's both a gift and a curse.  Spurred on by the rise of surprise releases and the ubiquity of social media giving us an all-access pass to the thoughts of critics and fans alike, the gestation period for albums is becoming shorter and shorter.  In a way, that's exciting.  Even as a mild Radiohead fan, I couldn't help but get swept up in the fervor a few weeks ago when they dropped a new album on a Sunday afternoon with very little lead-up.  That collective listening experience is intoxicating.

But it also leads to everyone feeling the need to be the fastest one to deliver the hottest take.  Can we really determine if Beyonce's Lemonade is a masterpiece on the first night of listening to it?  Likewise, was The Life of Pablo really the mess everyone instantly declared it to be after Kanye West finally let us listen to it?

This year's biggest victim of this phenomenon is Views, Drake's expansive sad-rap rumination on fame, loneliness, and the city he calls home.  Once it dropped, the early opinion deemed it a bloated, monochromatic letdown.  Official reviews ran with that idea too.  Pitchfork, one of Drake's biggest acolytes, gave the album a 6.8.  Stereogum, The AV Club, Hip Hop DX, and various other sites were similarly lukewarm.  Advance copies weren't given out for this album, and if you look at the dates that these reviews were posted -- some of them on the same day it was released -- it's clear that reviewers didn't give Views much time to marinate.  I can't help but wonder if the general consensus on the record would be a little different if there wasn't such a rush for everyone to get their official opinion on it out into the world.  After all, the album has a 68 on Metacritic, a score far more mediocre albums regularly eclipse.

I, too, was in the negative camp when I first heard the album.  I've always had issues with Drake's music, and Views initially felt like all of his worst impulses compounded into an LP that heavily emphasizes the L.  After a few listens, it started to grow on me considerably, to the point where I've become somewhat of a champion for this deeply underrated album.  Views has some gems to offer up.  The problem is that it asks the listener to sift through a little bit of rubble to locate the shiny bits.  So I've proposed a solution, what I like to call Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut.  It looks a little something like this:

1. Weston Road Flows

2. 9

3. U With Me?

4. Feel No Ways

5. Hype

6. Controlla

7. Redemption

8. With You

9. Still Here

10. One Dance

11. Child's Play

12. Too Good

13. Views

The biggest sin Views commits is that it's way too long, clocking in at 81 minutes but feeling more like 100.  So the initial step is to start chopping off songs.  First to go is "Keep the Family Close," which actually is a good opener in concept, but in execution it's mostly just a slog.  Nix "Faithful" because it's boring and not very memorable.  "Grammys" sounds like an outtake from What a Time to Be Alive, a mixtape that already feels like a collection of outtakes.  Every incarnation of "Pop Style" stinks, so that can go too.  "Fire & Desire" feels twice as long as it is, and the fact that it's near the end of the album doesn't help matters either.  Once that song gets cut, there's no real reason to keep "Summers Over Interlude" either.  Trim all of that fat and you've got a lean 53 minutes of music, almost the perfect length for a rap album.

Then there are finishing touches to put on the sequencing.  Without "Keep the Family Close," the album is lacking a fitting opening song.  The terrific "9" has 40 and Boi-1da combining their powers to create a beautiful, chattering beat but it doesn't exactly set the stage for the album.  That's why I propose putting "Weston Road Flows" in the leadoff slot.  With no chorus and four minutes of Drake spitting some of the best bars on the album, it's a perfect shot in the arm to start the record with, and it bookends nicely with the straightforward rapping approach of the album-closing title track.  The only other minor problem is that "Controlla," "One Dance," and "Too Good," the trio of dancehall-tinged tunes that are all highlights, are way too clustered together.  Moving "Controlla" closer to the front of the album helps spread that sound out a little bit, and also keeps the three songs in an order of increasing excellence.

Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut isn't a perfect album.  It can't escape one of the other big issues with the record: Drake's persona, which has grown more oppressive and exhausting with each release.  Reducing the track length also reduces how much of Drake you get, but you're still bound to hear alot of his weird issues with women and his "woe is me" posturing, only seeming half-aware of how much he actually sounds like a jerk in most of the scenarios he describes.  And for what it's worth, this is a mood piece album that's trying to evoke some very specific vibes, so removing the sprawl makes it harder to appreciate what Drake and 40 are aiming for.  Still, this streamlined version of Views goes down much easier.  If it had been released in this incarnation, it would be considered one of the best rap albums of the year.