Happy New Year and all that fuckery. Unlike other bloggers, I don’t spend the month of December posting a year in review and all jazz for two main reasons. The first being, December is still apart of the year we’re reviewing and it’s completely ridiculous, in my mind, to review a year that isn't complete yet. The second being, for some reasons, a lot of brands/companies and artists have a tendency to release things or offer up limited editions of their products (whatever it may be). It’s because of those two reasons that I don’t do my Year In Review posts until December comes to a complete close and January has begun. That being said, roughly the first two weeks of January will be dedicated to reviewing the year 2013.

To kick it off, I’ve decided to start off with something that I hold near and dear to my heart, music. If you couldn’t already tell, in this post, I’ll be talking about the albums of 2013 that I think that people slept on and they probably shouldn't have. For this particular post, I’ll be focusing primarily on the American/English mainstream releases.

Note: This post contains my personal opinions and no one else’s. I was in no way, shape, or form coerced nor offered any form of payment (be it monetary or whatever). This post is also not intended to change anyone's opinion nor poke fun at anyone’s opinion but rather to spark interest and possibly conversation.

You can also choose to read the entire post or skip past the honourable mentions and early prattle to get to the chosen albums by clicking here.

So this year was probably the year for everything in entertainment, especially music. Everyone, including your faves and my faves, released a new album. Some were good, some were decent, and well, some were barely worth more than the one-third listen I gave it (I'm definitely side-eyeing ARTPOP andBangerz). That being said, I, personally, only liked a handful of albums released here in the North American music market and of those handful, only a small amount were deserving of the praise I give towards the end of the year.

Now before I start, let’s get all the unworthies and honourable mentions out of the way. The albums that really were utter bullocks and can keep their arses in 2013 are only two albums and they are ARTPOP and Bangerz.

I was a bit upset with how ARTPOP came out. I'm a bit of an on the low Gaga fan (no longer a stan, but a fan) and I rather enoyed “Applause”, in fact, I adored it. After “Applause”, I expected something fantastic to follow the amazingness of “Applause” and that wasn't the case. “Aura” is probably one of the most godawful songs I’ve ever heard from Gaga and that’s saying something because as much I don’t particularly care for her out the ordinary antics (for lack of a better word as I know they aren’t antics), I absolutely live for her voice and her quirky lyrics. So “Aura” was a huge letdown, to me, in various ways. Then “Do What U Want (feat. R.Kelly)” and despite what many people may think, I actually liked the song. I didn't love it, but it was decent in comparison to “Aura”. “Venus” didn't appeal to me and that's all I’ll say to that.

As for Bangerz, I’m not even going to waste too much time. I wanted to give the album a chance cause “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can’t Stop” are songs that I actually find pretty good as long as I block out all memory of the video. If I allow myself to be reminded of the video, I’ll hate both songs for reasons that are probably different from what most people think. Aside from “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can't Stop”, the only other song I liked off the album was “Adore You” and of course, that video is a ruiner so I probably will forget it exists as well. That’s all I have to say on the topic and now we move on.

Now it’s for the honourable mentions. I’m not going to lie, while there weren’t a lot of albums that I went absolutely hard for in its entirety, there were a lot of albums that had they had that extra something it would have made making this list significantly harder. Those albums include: Talk A Good Game by Kelly Rowland, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 by Eminem, Nothing Was The Same by Drake, Random Access Memories by Daft Punk, PRISM by Katy Perry, Yours Truly by Ariana Grande, The Electric Lady by Janelle Monáe, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! by Panic! At The Disco, and Kaleidoscope Dream by MiqurlMiguel. If those albums had an extra something to them, they probably would have made the list.

I will say that there are two albums that weren’t added to the list strictly because I spent so much time talking about them on other social media sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that I felt like adding them to the list and then talking about them would be pretty redundant. Those albums are Save Rock and Roll by Fall Out Boy.

Hands down, Save Rock and Roll was one of the, if not the, most played album in my iTunes for the year. Mostly because I go hard for Fall Out Boy and having them return was like the godsend I needed for my music this year. Another reason it’s one of my most played albums is because it was a damn good album, in my opinion. It was everything I expected from Fall Out Boy and then some. It was a little bit of everything that I enjoy in a solid Pop Rock abum. It was pop, it was pop rock, it had bits of rap (hello, Big Sean), quirky lyricism, and it was just the kind of thing I enjoy listening to.

Whew~ we got that out of the way. But if you skipped this section, then it wouldn't matter to you.



We start this section off with the self titled album by Travis Garland. I originally knew about Travis Garland way before he embarked on his solo career and back when NLT and if you watched Jump In! with Corbin Bleu and Keke Palmer on Disney Channel, then you’ve heard Travis Garland’s voice since NLT did one of the songs for the movie (‘It’s On’ is by them) and really, being in NLT did nothng for his voice.

Anyway, when I was introduced to this album, I had actually fallen off being a fan of his and kind of thought he went off and did something else while being one of those people that tried to stay off the radar. I had stumbled upon “Clouds”, well the audio for the song, and I was immediately in love. I didn’t really realise who it was at first, but I just knew I liked the person and their voice. Fast forward to a couple months later, one of my mates passes me the album and as soon as I saw the cover, I lost it. It was like a wave of nosalgia just attacked me and refused to let me go. So I immediately jumped at the chance to listen to the album.

Looooooooooooooooord. Let me tell you about Travis Garland’s voice and this album. Bless. His voice is like Nutella hot chocolate and if you’ve never had Nutella hot chocolate before, go buy some Nutella and milk and make that shit. When you’re done drinking it, listen to this album and you will understand. Travis Garland’s voice is everything. It’s smooth and sensual, but incredibly soulful. Listening to this album was like smoking a cigarette after good sex and I am not ashamed that I used that comparison. The album oozed of sex and good vibes and sensuality and it was really something that I needed for 2013 and missed in the last couple years.


Following behind Travis Garland is A$AP Rocky’s LONG.LIVE.A$AP. album. Although it was released on January 15, 2013, I didn’t properly acknowledge to the album until about the middle of May and even then I didn’t sit down and properly listen to the album until about September of this year and only because I had forgotten it existed up until then. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t really pay much attention to mainstream rap anymore because I happen to think that the genre is filled with less talent than I, personally, am accustomed to from it. That’s not to say that there’s not a good bit of songs that I find appealing in my ratchet moments nor am I saying that there aren’t gems (uhm, hello there’s Kendrink Lamar and his Black Hippy gang, J.Cole, etcetera), but overall, the mainstream isn’t really my scene and I tend to slack off a lot when it comes to mainstream rappers.

So here’s the thing, I had no intentions of listening to the album completely until I heard “Wild For The Night (feat. Skrillex)” on Tumblr. I loved “Fuckin’ Problems” because it was a collaboration between mostly my favourite people (fuck outta here with 2Chainz) and just everything with that song flowed perfectly, in my honest opinion. However, I wasn’t intrigued enough to go through and blast the album at all. “Wild For The Night (feat. Skrillex)” captured my attention because of how everything was blended and molded together to create a decent ass song. I initially heard the song watching the video and I found myself not really enjoying the song because the video was such shite in comparison to me that it threw me off the song for a bit. Much like with Miley Cyrus’ recent songs, if I watch the video, I’ll end up not liking the song.

Nonetheless, I found myself really drawn to A$AP Rocky’s flow and I caved in and decided to listen to the album all the way through without stopping. Later, I realised that I was drawn to his flow because it reminded me a bit of a lot of rap that I listened to when I grew up. The album has a few moments where it has a tendency to dip off and kind of lose it’s focus, but overall, it’s probably one of my favourite albums of the year. From the featurings to the beats and, in a lot of occasions, the lyricism, I found it to be one of the better albums released in 2013.


Next is Demi Lovato’s D E M I album. I’m going to eventually do a review on this album (it’s actually about halfway done), so I’ll try to keep this rather short so that I’m not repeating myself in the review. What I loved about D E M I was the vocal ability Demi Lovato showcases on the album. Her voice is absolutely gorgeous and I loved just hearing her hit some of the most epic notes I’ve heard anyone hit (and this is coming from someone who listens to Korean Pop’s Max Changmin and Ailee and their high notes are ridiculous). I do appreciate that most of the latter half of the album were ballads and songs that showcased not only how emotional her voice can be, but a sense of emotions that range from longing to loneliness to strength to sadness. I loved the lyricism that shined through during the latter half of the album and I adore that the songs could be taken in more than one way depending on how you looked at it. A lot of the ballad songs were all about personal perception and I dig songs like that.

My only problem with the album, and I mention this in the review, is that the first couple songs of the album were very stereotypical mainstream pop and it made me a bit sad that for people who aren’t like me, the first couple songs would have put them off from the album. Nonetheless, it is my favourite mainstream pop album of 2013 and I look forward to hearing what the future holds for Demi and her lovely voice.


Ciara was a damn good album and I’m pretty sure that 95% of people slept on it. It wasn’t the greatest album in the world, but it was a damn good album for her and that is no shade. Beginning to end, the songs were cute or danceable and really, people give Ciara too much shit. If anything, this album should have made up for it considerably. I spent a huge amount of time on especially Twitter talking about how much I loved the album and how much I loved “Overdose”, so I won’t waste too much more time raving about it. I do wish she kept up with the momentum that came with “I’m Out (feat. Nicki Minaj)” and “Body Party”, but from what I’ve heard, there’s a legititmate excuse and it’s none of my goddamn business. So that’s that.


So that's it. Man, I’m beat. That actually took a lot to type and it was in the works for the last five days. I do want to apologise for the long wait and my long hiatus, but I have a reason and when the yearly posts are done and the new layout is up, I’ll reveal why. But! Until next time, darlings! ❤

Labels: [music], [yearlies], artist: various artists, goodbye two thousand thirteen, misc: lotta text

Happy New Year and all that fuckery. Unlike other bloggers, I don’t spend the month of December posting a year in review and all jazz for two main reasons. The first being, December is still apart of the year we’re reviewing and it’s completely ridiculous, in my mind, to review a year that isn't complete yet. The second being, for some reasons, a lot of brands/companies and artists have a tendency to release things or offer up limited editions of their products (whatever it may be). It’s because of those two reasons that I don’t do my Year In Review posts until December comes to a complete close and January has begun. That being said, roughly the first two weeks of January will be dedicated to reviewing the year 2013.

To kick it off, I’ve decided to start off with something that I hold near and dear to my heart, music. If you couldn’t already tell, in this post, I’ll be talking about the albums of 2013 that I think that people slept on and they probably shouldn't have. For this particular post, I’ll be focusing primarily on the American/English mainstream releases.

Note: This post contains my personal opinions and no one else’s. I was in no way, shape, or form coerced nor offered any form of payment (be it monetary or whatever). This post is also not intended to change anyone's opinion nor poke fun at anyone’s opinion but rather to spark interest and possibly conversation.

You can also choose to read the entire post or skip past the honourable mentions and early prattle to get to the chosen albums by clicking here.

So this year was probably the year for everything in entertainment, especially music. Everyone, including your faves and my faves, released a new album. Some were good, some were decent, and well, some were barely worth more than the one-third listen I gave it (I'm definitely side-eyeing ARTPOP andBangerz). That being said, I, personally, only liked a handful of albums released here in the North American music market and of those handful, only a small amount were deserving of the praise I give towards the end of the year.

Now before I start, let’s get all the unworthies and honourable mentions out of the way. The albums that really were utter bullocks and can keep their arses in 2013 are only two albums and they are ARTPOP and Bangerz.

I was a bit upset with how ARTPOP came out. I'm a bit of an on the low Gaga fan (no longer a stan, but a fan) and I rather enoyed “Applause”, in fact, I adored it. After “Applause”, I expected something fantastic to follow the amazingness of “Applause” and that wasn't the case. “Aura” is probably one of the most godawful songs I’ve ever heard from Gaga and that’s saying something because as much I don’t particularly care for her out the ordinary antics (for lack of a better word as I know they aren’t antics), I absolutely live for her voice and her quirky lyrics. So “Aura” was a huge letdown, to me, in various ways. Then “Do What U Want (feat. R.Kelly)” and despite what many people may think, I actually liked the song. I didn't love it, but it was decent in comparison to “Aura”. “Venus” didn't appeal to me and that's all I’ll say to that.

As for Bangerz, I’m not even going to waste too much time. I wanted to give the album a chance cause “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can’t Stop” are songs that I actually find pretty good as long as I block out all memory of the video. If I allow myself to be reminded of the video, I’ll hate both songs for reasons that are probably different from what most people think. Aside from “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can't Stop”, the only other song I liked off the album was “Adore You” and of course, that video is a ruiner so I probably will forget it exists as well. That’s all I have to say on the topic and now we move on.

Now it’s for the honourable mentions. I’m not going to lie, while there weren’t a lot of albums that I went absolutely hard for in its entirety, there were a lot of albums that had they had that extra something it would have made making this list significantly harder. Those albums include: Talk A Good Game by Kelly Rowland, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 by Eminem, Nothing Was The Same by Drake, Random Access Memories by Daft Punk, PRISM by Katy Perry, Yours Truly by Ariana Grande, The Electric Lady by Janelle Monáe, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! by Panic! At The Disco, and Kaleidoscope Dream by MiqurlMiguel. If those albums had an extra something to them, they probably would have made the list.

I will say that there are two albums that weren’t added to the list strictly because I spent so much time talking about them on other social media sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that I felt like adding them to the list and then talking about them would be pretty redundant. Those albums are Save Rock and Roll by Fall Out Boy.

Hands down, Save Rock and Roll was one of the, if not the, most played album in my iTunes for the year. Mostly because I go hard for Fall Out Boy and having them return was like the godsend I needed for my music this year. Another reason it’s one of my most played albums is because it was a damn good album, in my opinion. It was everything I expected from Fall Out Boy and then some. It was a little bit of everything that I enjoy in a solid Pop Rock abum. It was pop, it was pop rock, it had bits of rap (hello, Big Sean), quirky lyricism, and it was just the kind of thing I enjoy listening to.

Whew~ we got that out of the way. But if you skipped this section, then it wouldn't matter to you.



We start this section off with the self titled album by Travis Garland. I originally knew about Travis Garland way before he embarked on his solo career and back when NLT and if you watched Jump In! with Corbin Bleu and Keke Palmer on Disney Channel, then you’ve heard Travis Garland’s voice since NLT did one of the songs for the movie (‘It’s On’ is by them) and really, being in NLT did nothng for his voice.

Anyway, when I was introduced to this album, I had actually fallen off being a fan of his and kind of thought he went off and did something else while being one of those people that tried to stay off the radar. I had stumbled upon “Clouds”, well the audio for the song, and I was immediately in love. I didn’t really realise who it was at first, but I just knew I liked the person and their voice. Fast forward to a couple months later, one of my mates passes me the album and as soon as I saw the cover, I lost it. It was like a wave of nosalgia just attacked me and refused to let me go. So I immediately jumped at the chance to listen to the album.

Looooooooooooooooord. Let me tell you about Travis Garland’s voice and this album. Bless. His voice is like Nutella hot chocolate and if you’ve never had Nutella hot chocolate before, go buy some Nutella and milk and make that shit. When you’re done drinking it, listen to this album and you will understand. Travis Garland’s voice is everything. It’s smooth and sensual, but incredibly soulful. Listening to this album was like smoking a cigarette after good sex and I am not ashamed that I used that comparison. The album oozed of sex and good vibes and sensuality and it was really something that I needed for 2013 and missed in the last couple years.


Following behind Travis Garland is A$AP Rocky’s LONG.LIVE.A$AP. album. Although it was released on January 15, 2013, I didn’t properly acknowledge to the album until about the middle of May and even then I didn’t sit down and properly listen to the album until about September of this year and only because I had forgotten it existed up until then. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t really pay much attention to mainstream rap anymore because I happen to think that the genre is filled with less talent than I, personally, am accustomed to from it. That’s not to say that there’s not a good bit of songs that I find appealing in my ratchet moments nor am I saying that there aren’t gems (uhm, hello there’s Kendrink Lamar and his Black Hippy gang, J.Cole, etcetera), but overall, the mainstream isn’t really my scene and I tend to slack off a lot when it comes to mainstream rappers.

So here’s the thing, I had no intentions of listening to the album completely until I heard “Wild For The Night (feat. Skrillex)” on Tumblr. I loved “Fuckin’ Problems” because it was a collaboration between mostly my favourite people (fuck outta here with 2Chainz) and just everything with that song flowed perfectly, in my honest opinion. However, I wasn’t intrigued enough to go through and blast the album at all. “Wild For The Night (feat. Skrillex)” captured my attention because of how everything was blended and molded together to create a decent ass song. I initially heard the song watching the video and I found myself not really enjoying the song because the video was such shite in comparison to me that it threw me off the song for a bit. Much like with Miley Cyrus’ recent songs, if I watch the video, I’ll end up not liking the song.

Nonetheless, I found myself really drawn to A$AP Rocky’s flow and I caved in and decided to listen to the album all the way through without stopping. Later, I realised that I was drawn to his flow because it reminded me a bit of a lot of rap that I listened to when I grew up. The album has a few moments where it has a tendency to dip off and kind of lose it’s focus, but overall, it’s probably one of my favourite albums of the year. From the featurings to the beats and, in a lot of occasions, the lyricism, I found it to be one of the better albums released in 2013.


Next is Demi Lovato’s D E M I album. I’m going to eventually do a review on this album (it’s actually about halfway done), so I’ll try to keep this rather short so that I’m not repeating myself in the review. What I loved about D E M I was the vocal ability Demi Lovato showcases on the album. Her voice is absolutely gorgeous and I loved just hearing her hit some of the most epic notes I’ve heard anyone hit (and this is coming from someone who listens to Korean Pop’s Max Changmin and Ailee and their high notes are ridiculous). I do appreciate that most of the latter half of the album were ballads and songs that showcased not only how emotional her voice can be, but a sense of emotions that range from longing to loneliness to strength to sadness. I loved the lyricism that shined through during the latter half of the album and I adore that the songs could be taken in more than one way depending on how you looked at it. A lot of the ballad songs were all about personal perception and I dig songs like that.

My only problem with the album, and I mention this in the review, is that the first couple songs of the album were very stereotypical mainstream pop and it made me a bit sad that for people who aren’t like me, the first couple songs would have put them off from the album. Nonetheless, it is my favourite mainstream pop album of 2013 and I look forward to hearing what the future holds for Demi and her lovely voice.


Ciara was a damn good album and I’m pretty sure that 95% of people slept on it. It wasn’t the greatest album in the world, but it was a damn good album for her and that is no shade. Beginning to end, the songs were cute or danceable and really, people give Ciara too much shit. If anything, this album should have made up for it considerably. I spent a huge amount of time on especially Twitter talking about how much I loved the album and how much I loved “Overdose”, so I won’t waste too much more time raving about it. I do wish she kept up with the momentum that came with “I’m Out (feat. Nicki Minaj)” and “Body Party”, but from what I’ve heard, there’s a legititmate excuse and it’s none of my goddamn business. So that’s that.


So that's it. Man, I’m beat. That actually took a lot to type and it was in the works for the last five days. I do want to apologise for the long wait and my long hiatus, but I have a reason and when the yearly posts are done and the new layout is up, I’ll reveal why. But! Until next time, darlings! ❤

Labels: [music], [yearlies], artist: various artists, goodbye two thousand thirteen, misc: lotta text