Album Review: Lupe Fiasco - Lasers

Artist versus label. This age-old problem essentially sums up the fraught history of Lupe Fiasco’s third album, Lasers. Lupe had originally planned to release a triple album, LupE.N.D, as his third and final album. However, this was prevented by his contract with label Atlantic Records.

Lupe went back to the drawing boards and returned with Lasers, which has itself been held back for over a year by Atlantic, until a fans petition and demonstration forced the label into announcing a release date. To say that Lasers has had a checked history isn’t a far stretch, then. In fact, even Lupe has stated in one interview that “I love and hate this album”. So, how good is Lasers if even the man who created it is indifferent to it?

The album begins strongly with ‘Letting Go’, where a beautiful melody backs Lupe’s distorted vocals, evoking a similar sound to Kanye West’s vocals on 808’s And Heartbreak. Next up is ‘Words I Never Said’, which is by far the strongest song on Lasers.

What’s Next for Music in 2011?

So, 2010 has been and gone. Overall, it was a fairly unspectacular year for music, other than occasional glances of genius (Kanye West and Arcade Fire stand up please). Can 2011 do any better then?

Well, the New Year should see new releases from established artists such as Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, White Lies, R.E.M, Coldplay and Death Cab For Cutie. We will also see the return of Lady Gaga with her second album, Born This Way, which will no doubt see the eccentric pop star dominate the mainstream charts again. For Hip-Hop/Rap fans the joint album from Kanye West and Jay-Z, entitled Watch The Throne, and the third album from Lupe Fiasco, called Lasers, will both be making an appearance at some point during the year.

The Best of 2010 – Part 2: Best Albums Of The Year

15. Hot Chip – One Life Stand: The fourth album by British band Hot Chip really stood out as one of the best dance/electronic albums of 2010. The brilliant opener ‘Thieves In The Night’ sets the tone for the rest of the album. It is quickly followed by the sweeping, jittery piano-led ‘Hand Me Down Your Love’ and the euphoric synths of ‘I Feel Better’, which almost steals the album before it has really begun. The first single, ‘One Life Stand’, initially makes for fairly difficult listening through the electro distortation, that is, until the throbbing beat breaks into Alexis Taylor’s subtly anthemic chorus. One Life Stand is full of the consistently brilliant hooks which Hot Chip are known for, but vocally the album is much more mellower, as captured in the heartfelt ‘Brothers’ and softly, softly ‘Alley Cats’.

The Best Of 2010 - Part 1: Best Songs Of The Year

It would be pretty difficult to argue that 2010 was a great year for music. The mainstream charts were typically repetitive, terrible songs such as ‘This Ain’t A Love Song’ by Scouting For Girls, Owl City’s ‘Fireflies’ and ‘The Time (Dirty Bit)’ by Black Eyed Peas all managed to make it to number one, somehow. Yet, if you ignored the absurd, and quite frankly, boring mainstream charts, then you may have realized that there were actually some great songs knocking about. So, what songs stood out in 2010?

15. Darwin Deez – ‘Constellations’: Darwin Deez’s debut album is unmistakably from the school of The Strokes. However, it is full of catchy, summery tunes such as ‘Constellations’. The song is fairly straight-forward, yet it’s the very simplicity of the jerky guitar that makes the song so infectious.

Kanye West - Runaway (Full-length Film)

Kanye West's film about his relationship with a Phoenix girl who has fallen from the sky is certainly different, shall we say. Personally, I love it. But whilst some of the visuals are undoubtedly incredible, I believe the real masterpiece of this film is the music. The songs should all be set to appear on his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. From the snippets of the songs that are played over the film, I reckon this album will be huge.

Album Review: Eminem - Recovery

This is the album that Relapse should have been. Eminem returns just over a year after his previous output with Recovery, arguably his best album since The Eminem Show. Recovery is Eminem’s 7th studio album, and takes a bold step away from his previous work, perhaps to show his growing maturity.

Relapse was not a bad album, yet it failed to deliver anything to match Marshall’s previous back catalogue, other than a handful of highlights.

It is possibly for this very reason that Eminem scrapped Relapse 2, and replaced it with Recovery, as the man himself stated: ‘the idea of a sequel to Relapse started to make less and less sense to me, and I wanted to make a completely new album’.