03-07-2018 09:22 GMT

[WEEKLY SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLE]

A special feature article by indie writer, The Ghostwriter





Explicit.





XXXTentacion

"SAD!"

Hip Hop





I'd like to officially welcome you to my new column on SRL Music News, "The Earmaster Will See You". As an extension to my existing column, "Why Music Lost its Commercial Value ( Read it here later )" which has been doing particularly well, the good bosses at the SRL Music News room have decided to take another chance on me and provide me with a special column to review some of Billboard's top 100 records every week. For some reason I was expecting to receive the old brown letter when I was tapped on the shoulder late on Sunday night and told quietly, "The big kahuna wants a word". I've never been promoted or given a pat on the back for doing a good job ever in my life. I wasn't even under the slightest impression I was on the boss's good side. Just last week when I said I was going out to launch, I was treated to a really an awkward silence and then a response I wasn't expecting, "See you next week" - and he was right (everybody knows I don't eat anything I didn't cook myself). So anyways, this is really big for me and I hope you'll join me in celebrating with my favorite Skunk Radio Live playlist of all time, "Let's Ride! ( listen to playlist - 21 tracks )"As with my previous column this one's going to have the "explicit" tag clearly displayed at the top for safety. It doesn't mean it'll be littered with curse words, it just means I won't be holding back and you'll read a lot of stuff that you'll probably never find in your local newspaper or the mainstream media in general - it's going to be raw as hell, that's all I'm saying. Now, last but not least, I must stress that these reviews are just my opinion as a music lover - it just so happens that I'm a scholar of the arts and a writer as well. As I stated in one of the articles in my existing column "I'm not God and I'm not Kanye West". Go out there on Spotify and iTunes, listen to the music for yourself, and make your own judgements as well.So let's get right down to it shall we?Since mainstream music has not been very good to me over the past few years and my index finger is raw from furiously poking the skip button everytime I listen to a new album, these reviews will be short and loosely based on everything I hear before attacking the skip button if I must. Now, this is not XXL or Pitchfork, NME, or Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Rollingstone or other top mainstream music review type stuff driven by mainstream music politics, record sales, or hype. This is ONLY about the record, and hence there will be no fancy album covers or booty shaking music videos to try and cloud your judgement. Only key aspects will be covered, so in its most basic form a music review would generally be rated based on: number of seconds before the skip button needs to be hit, mood, originality, viability, Safe for Kids? (Is it family-friendly? Should kids listen to this?), Safe for Work (can you work with this playing in the background?) and the last criteria, I wanted to call "Brain Damage" but that was too strong so let's call it "Your Brain on This"? (what songs/albums like this could do to your psyche).Now I like to consider myself to be quite a nice and fair individual, and working in the music industry for years I've seen how hard and long artists, producers and every one right down to the newest intern works, so it's not always easy to say bad things about records, and hence if something is just too bad or I have nothing good to say, I may sometimes just leave the comments section blank. Maybe I'll even throw in a comment box and let listeners do the commenting.So here we go:Currently sitting in the number 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 2:47 (Listened to the full track)sad, really emotional.Yes!Filled with hope - maybe there's still some good mainstream music out there.10/10 production-wise, quite different in very subtle ways. 10/10 lyrics-wise - didn't get bored at all (I was waiting).Yes.Thankful.A little bit, unless they are suicidal.Yes - not too distracting, not too explicit or offensive.Quite satisfied, calm and collected.One of the best records I've heard in a long time. It's the first XXXTentacion record I've ever heard. With all the tats and crazy hair and stuff, I was expecting just another new school rapper doing and saying what every other new school rapper is doing and saying but I didn't get that at all. This was a really refreshing track about love that actually made my day. I was thankful to have listened to it and it's making me think again about signing up for Spotify Premium. RIP XXXTentacion.Stream song on Spotify: