What is the what what y'all. It's that time of year when record companies release a clusterfuck of albums as people lose control of their damn minds and go shopping at five in the morning on Black Friday to get their deals on for Christmas presents while tapping into their primal need to punch somebody in the face while waiting in line at Best Buy.
In honor of this lovely little tradition of chaos and mayhem and shopping Tom Foolery, we dedicate today's new tunes Tuesday mixtape to all the albums that people will be buying this week on a severe discount for their own benefit and for Christmas presents as we tackle albums from Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Christina Aguilera, and a host of others who want you to stuff your stockings with their albums.
Nicki Minaj and her gum are excited for you to continue reading.
Oh Kanye West. You're an enigma wrapped in a mystery shrouded in a lot of bling as you've become a consistent lightening rod of opinion as there is absolutely no middle ground on you, your music and, most often, your personality. You've told the world that George W. Bush doesn't care for Black people, that Taylor Swift didn't deserve her VMA, you've thrown scores of hissy fits all over the place. This kind of behavior would, on anybody else, become so distracting and the most fascinating part of their whole persona that their music would be a mere blip on the radar compared to the gossip rags constantly tracing your latest fuck-up.
Not so much with Mr. Yeezy. Sure, he still gets into it with people like Matt Lauer on The Today Show, but Kanye is also getting the best reviews of his career for the flat out, wig-snatching epic that is Twisted Fantasy. Coming off the hot mess that was 808s and Heartbreaks, anything would sound really good but Twisted Fantasy is a flawlessly constructed album that is self-indulgent in the best possible ways. Being one of the most loathed men in America for a period of time must have been quite freeing for Mr. West as his album bounces along without a trace of giving a single care at what critics are going to think or if radio will embrace it. Songs like "Runaway" go for nine minutes long while the opening of the album begins with Nicki Minaj in a faux British accent giving some wonderfully kooky narration.
It shouldn't work. At all. It should be a big narcissistic mess, but it somehow never really gets to that point. It's too well-constructed, too ridiculous in its strength for you to attack it for that since Kanye has always been self-involved. It's like a guy complaining about ending up in Taylor Swift song after they break up.
After spending the past few years putting out hot mixtapes as well as seemingly appearing on every single person's single in the last six months, Nicki Minaj has dropped her debut album Pink Friday this week and it's......something? Like fellow member of Young Money Drake, Nicki Minaj has had inordinate amount of hype attached to her debut album and has had a lot of pressure to deliver, particularly as the female rap game has been on life support since Lil Kim decided to become a Bratz doll, Missy seemingly became content with being behind the scenes, and the world went NO1CURR to Trina and Eve.
We understand why Lil Kim is annoyed with Minaj since so much of her style can be linked back to the original Queen Bee who used to put out hotness like this on the regular.
But you can't be mad at Nicki Minaj for your state of your career since you've been reduced to putting out music videos with the likes of Derek Hough:
The album is a lot more mellow than Minaj's more off-the-wall mixtapes like Beam Me Up Scotty and Minaj still seems a better features artist than a solo artist at this point, we can't hate on her completely since girl can deliver a funny lyric or too while making the best faces.
Hopefully Minaj will get back to her roots on her next album but as far as big glossy debuts go, you could do a lot worse.
Speaking of worse, Ke-dollar sign-ha is back to assault us with her brand of drunk puke glitter pop with her EP Cannibal.
We've given up hating Ke-dollar sign-ha. It's a futile exercise at this point as we always end up loving her tunes once we get onto the dance floor. We WILL hate on her totally shameless grab for attention when she claimed that her new single "We R Who We Are" was written in support of the kids who killed themselves because of being bullied for their gayness.
Next up Christina Aguilera and Cher team up in the most gay friendly soundtrack since Can't Stop the Music.
Christina Aguilera is back to the retro sound after the unmitigated DISASTUH that was her album Bionic.
With the aid of Cher and Stanley Tucci, Christina Aguilera is trying to relaunch her stagnant career with the soundtrack to her upcoming film Burlesque. We will have to say that we haven't enjoyed Aguilera this much since Back to Basics since the whole retro sound fits Aguilera's gleeful over-singing than the suffocating production that was all over the Bionic album. We're personally hoping that movie itself can live up to the glorious trainwreck that was Mariah Carey's Glitter.
Here's hoping!
Let us make a 180 degree turn as we switch gears to My Chemical Romance and their new album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.
Here's the thing: we sort of love My Chemical Romance. They have never found a moment in their career where they go, "Should be dial back and be more subtle?" It's like if you gave a group of music and theatre majors a huge amount of money and told them to roam free with it, you'd probably end up with some version of what MCR routinely produces which are concept albums that make not a lick of sense if you try to figure out their plots but are fun nevertheless.
And we can never hate them for the simple fact that they gave us the mocking wonder that is "Teenagers" which lampooned their chief fanbase while exalting them all at the same time.
Next up, Ne-Yo drops his album Libra Scale.
We'd like to say that Ne-Yo's music is sonic equivalent of beige, but we'd hate to insult that color because it doesn't deserve it. Here's how you make a Ne-Yo album: take a bunch of songs, run them through a Michael Jackson impersonator machine, add some guitar strums and finger snaps occasionally, tack on a few obligatory dance tracks aimed for the clubs and top it off with a fedora to cover a questionable fore/five-head.
Next, one of our favorite indie bands Girls return to the studio to put together a fabulous little EP Broken Dreams Club.
We absolutely adored their debut album creatively titled Album so we were overjoyed that they bought out a little EP of new material after returning home from tours.
And finally in "LOOK AT LIFE, LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES" album release news, Jessica Simpson is dropping her second Christmas album Happy Christmas.
Having been dropped from her record label after her meh-tastic attempt at being a country star, newly engaged Jessica Simpson finds herself on Ellen's new record label, joining a whole cavalcade of YouTube stars, and putting out a Christmas album. Hopefully, the holiday covers aren't nearly as disastrous as her attempt at Robbie Williams' "Angels":
And with that, we end this ultra mega fabulous New Tunes Tuesday post. Happy Black Friday shopping this week and as always we wish you love, peace and downloads.
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