Ok this album is a snoozefest. Don't really get the hype.

not to be that guy, but it's 1989. ;)



btw, new Aesop Rock album is solid.

Why do you give any fucks about Grammy awards?? They're simply trophies awarded by the corporate media to the best sell outs! Personally when artists i like win Grammys it makes me depressed

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/...eave-me-alone/

These girls can't sing or play their instruments, they only got famous because they look cute.. funny how shit works nowadays..

Another new Radiohead song, another new video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTAU7lLDZYU

Much better than Burn the Witch. Album drops Sunday (May 8th).

One of my students got me an Amazon card for teacher appreciation day with Radiohead's name on it

That's nice. :) Thoughts on "Daydreaming" (the new song)?

Ok, so I was thinking about Inception before he opened the first door, and continued thinking about Inception throughout the video. Nice video.

Would have benefitted from casting someone other than Thom Yorke, though. The guy almost looks like my father, which is creepy. And I'm firmly against videos where the band are shown signing the song. It's ok sometimes... like if it's a performance based video like "the Empty Page" or "Bull in the Heather," and it's tolerable if the video's concept is solid enough (like in the "No Surprises" vid) but usually it's just boring.

I'm a "Rabbit in your headlights" kind of video fan. The whole video as short film thing. I think it's pretty boring to show the singer singing the song that the video is for. I know, everyone's done it — from the Beatles to Nirvana to Kanye — but I'm just over it.

I like "Daydreamers" ... I like its sort of abstract, spacey vibe. It's an interesting listen that doesn't go into minor keys or major diminished chord changes, or blow up into some anxious freak out. It's a rather sublime little song. I wish it had fewer lyrics, because I like the Aphex Twin-y synth scales and the spaciousness of the electronic atmosphere.

However... I actually think I like "Burn the Witch" better as a song at this point. I mean, "Daydreamers" sounds like it will be more of a "Subterranean Homesick Alien" kind of slow burner that grows on you over time, so maybe that will happen. But apart from the typical lyrics, I think "Burn the Witch" is a pretty interesting song, structurally. It seems to take its cue from the krautrock of TKOL, but the use of percussive strings instead of metronomic drums makes it feel like an extension of that style that I loved so much in songs like "Staircase" and "Separator."

So as far as videos go, Daydreamers FTW, even with Thom Yorke's fucked up young-Severian's-Dad looking ass wandering around in it. But song wise, I have to go with "BTW" at this juncture.

You know, because we all seem to have a lot to say about Radiohead, and because shit appears to be going down with the band for the first time in half a decade, maybe we should hand this discussion over to its own thread?

I love the café, but surely there are people who never come to this place (y'know... because it's basically our playground, and they're jealous and/or they don't like hip-hop) who would otherwise contribute to the conversation.

Up to you guys. I ain't makin' no thread.

Holy shit, the album's coming out in 2 fucking days? What. Awesome! I'm actually really excited!!

Nor do I. I've never been into James Blake, even though that honestly doesn't make sense, even to me. You'd think he'd be right up my alley. But you'd be wrong. His early stuff was ok, but I'd rather hear a million other non-Jamie Xx producer/songsmith dudes than Blake.

I remember when The Acid released their amazing debut album in 2014. I caught on early (it had elements of dub step, grime, dark R&B AND techno... I was helpless!) and I took it into my neighborhood record store and played it for my friends there, and someone said, "this is good... This is what I wish James Blake sounded like," and the owner snapped his fingers and said "that's it!"

Cool moment.

Ok, carry on

Also, "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" is one of my all time favorite Radiohead songs. That one's not a total fucking bummer.

Kinda want to do my top ten Radiohead tracks now. We doin' a Radiothread or not?

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi is amazing! I need to revisit Kid A and In Rainbows today, before the new album drops. :) I'm all for a Radiohead thread, even though I don't mind discussing them here either.. but if that'll bring more people to participate, sure.

It's just that I think "hip hop café" may be losing some of its meaning. I don't mind taking about other shit here, but let's not lose our hip hop thread. You know... just in case any more good hip hop happens to come out this year (unlikely).

Hey, "Chance 3" drops next Friday. If it's not GREAT, then I'll lose some hope.

hip hop claff? smut mop bath. you jerks have an unlimited amount of nerves to listen to a bunch of assholes rhyme. I fantasize about someone like Eminem dying. I'll be like "fuck that white jerk ass hole". can you imagine the white trash crying over his death? or Jay Z. "yeah, dat nigga was ok but made money". touched my soul. don't give a fuck/care about any of them. if they disappeared tomorrow it would not effect my world while shitting in a bed pan and jackin it on Viagra.

see, im not scared to step in the café and speak my mind. others are. they want too but, they scared. I say it and spray it. it's a foreverrebeccagotpepperedgreen thang.

Oh yeah! Yes of course! I was actually including that in the batch of great hip hop releases we've already had, along with Ye, K and Bey.

Slow year for newbies ... Or I'm just getting old.

You are so full of it bro.

Yes. Weird Fishes is an all time good song

Madlib & Freddie Gibbs are releasing Piñata sequel titled Bandana...

Read about it.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Apparently Gibbs snatched up some of the leftover beats from the "Scary" beat comp Madlib sent to Kanye for TLOP.

This should be good.

Yeah I'm excited. They make a dope duo, plus it's always nice to hear some new Madlib.

y'all might hate, but as much as I love Madlib, I'd always prefer he spend his time on new YNQ related shit. Don't get me wrong, he's produced some excellent hip hop albums. But his jazz shit is my favorite.

I think the two are inseparable. His beats have always been very jazz influenced, and his work with the Blue Note catalogue is pretty grounded in hip-hop, as is YNQ. He's just a crate junkie, man. I love that he loves and appreciates jazz, but I think his hip-hop ethic seeps into everything he does.

Also, I'd take The Unseen over any other Madlib project any day of any week.

Well I'm pretty much a MadGibbs stan, Piñata is one of my favorite albums of the decade. However I, for one, would like to see Gibbs expanding his subject matter beyond #ThugLife and talking about something else on this new project. He knows that shit isn't hot anymore. People like to see the more human side of rappers nowadays.

... Or the more cartoonish, mumbly, and punchable sides of rappers.

Piñata is def. one of my favorite non-Kanye, non-Kendrick hip hop albums of the decade. But I'm actually listening it Gibbs a lot less than I once did. Shadow of a Doubt came and went for me pretty goddamn quickly. It's not that I don't like him, and I actually like his take on gangsta rap. He sounds like a slightly more comical 2pac (especially on highlight "Deep").

But nothing he's done is mind blowing. Not even Piñata. That album is simply very solid. Texturally, tonally, musically, it's actually pretty basic. And I'm less and less impressed by anything that isn't aural orgasm inducing.

Still, I'm a Madlib fan from way way back. It's funny to think that there was a time when pretty much nobody knew who he was, but Lootpack's Soundpieces: Da Antidote was my motherfuckin' gold standard back in the day.

I agree that Shadow of a Doubt came and went, which is weird because it was a good album.

Yeah, but for some reason I listened to it for like two days, and that was that.

I feel the same about Summertime '06. I was all over this album for about a week, then I realized it might've not been THAT good.

Yeah, I kinda had that experience too. I still think it's quite good, but I can't believe I had it topping TPAB for a while. I'd say it was probably the #3 hip-hop album of 2015, after Kendrick and Pusha.

The world seemed to forget about it rather quickly too. It really is a hell of a debut album, but I was expecting it to be on people's lips and fingertips until his follow-up dropped, as was the case with good kid, TPAB and... you know... every Kanye album.

This happened to me a few times in 2015. I mean, first it was Tetsuo & Youth, which I just gushed over until, you know, I didn't. Then B4DA$$, which I went back to a few times but haven't listened to in full in a year. Then ALLA, which I wanted and tried to love like Live.Love and Long.Live. And Sour Soul, and that Raekwon album I listened to twice, and blah, blah, blah.

None of those albums are bad, but none of them are good enough to warrant the praise I heaped on them, however temporarily. That's what 2 years without Kanye will do to a man. It'll make you desperate for something even semi-classic.

Really, the year was pretty much just TPAB, with Darkness Before Dawn acting as a nice little cherry on top. The rest of the year's big hip hop releases have proven to be very forgettable indeed.

RADIOHEAD - A MOON SHAPED POOL ... OUT NOW!



I made a thread about it. Go there, you fucks!

This is breaking ass news... which means I'm basically working on a Sunday

I haven't had time for new hip hop, or wait, has there really been any new hip hop worth my time?

"Yeah. This stuff is way better than Surf. I’ll say that on record. Donnie [Trumpet] is awesome, and the project was awesome, but this is all of us focusing our efforts into some very hip-hop and very dance-y shit, and it feels good. So I’m excited about that." - Chance in an interview to Complex

Not really. This year has been slow.

SFAD, unless you've changed your opinion about Kanye, or suddenly become a Kendrick fan, then sadly no. It's been kind of a bitchass year for hip-hop as a genre. I feel like TLOP barely qualifies as a hip-hop album, and untitled unmastered. barely qualifies as an album, despite being tremendously awesome.

Not sure how you feel about Chance, but C3 is the only thing I have on my hip-hop radar right now.

I've gotta say, however, that everyone in the café seems to be far less in touch with mixtape and underground rap culture than we have been in past years. If you scroll through Flipboard under the Hip-hop topic, there are a bunch of new kids with dreads making names for themselves and getting a lot of traction in that community. But personally, I feel like I must have hit a wall... maybe I'm too far removed age-wise from the kids making this music to appreciate or understand it.

So I probably shouldn't say it been a bitchass year. Rather, it's been a largely uninteresting year, where for the first time in a long time, established artists and big names are having more of an impact on me than anyone on the come up.

I don't fucking get lil Yachty. I don't want to get him. I'm chillin' with Kanye, Kendrick, Beyonce, PJ and Radiohead. yup.

Just checking. I figured as much.. i mean nothing is gonna top 2013 for me anyway so its all good.

I still try to keep my eye on the most notable "underground" hip hop releases, even if I don't mention them in this thread (which usually just means I didn't find them good enough).. trust me..

And yeah I don't get Lil Yachty either. He's like Lil B minus the charm and ILoveMakonnen minus whatever made him interesting for a week back in 2014.

Ha!