Spring’s counterpart to the hyper-detailed year-end music countdown list is the “Most Anticipated Albums of 2012” roundup. Funny thing is, these lists usually contain the same? handful of buzzed-about albums. This spring’s earliest offenders rest at opposite ends of a spectrum: renegade rap collective Odd Future and Top 40’s reigning hip-hop princess Nicki Minaj.
Here are the Scene’s two least/most anticipated rap albums of spring and hints on how to avoid them.
Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All/Tyler the Creator
The rap music narrative of 2011 belonged to a lanky teenager sporting a Supreme cap and knee socks, who in a year snapped up millions of Twitter followers, a Best New Artist VMA and the hearts of music bloggers everywhere.
The rise of Tyler, the Creator and his 11-strong collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All from their Cali skate parks to the pages of the New Yorker was documented everywhere last year, with nearly every music publication running weighty thinkpieces on the group’s rapid ascent bolstered by their violent charisma and torture-porn lyrics.
As much as many of us would like to forget about Odd Future and write-off the popular embrace of their exuberant misogyny as a 2011 fluke, they’re far from dead.
Not only is Tyler releasing “Wolf” this spring, a follow-up LP to last year’s contentious release, “Goblin,” but the whole Odd Future crew is releasing “OF Tape Vol. 2,” which brings together the entire collective after their solo endeavors over the last few months.
It’s hard to imagine what the next few months can reveal about Odd Future that we haven’t seen already in the group’s year of cultural ubiquity, but unfortunately for listeners who’d prefer to see OF fade from view, Tyler’s “swag” isn’t going anywhere soon.
Listen to instead: the G.O.O.D Music compilation
Fans got a teaser of material from Kanye West’s record label in the G.O.O.D Fridays series of music giveaways leading up to his release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”
The upcoming album features recent Kanye collaborators Big Sean and Pusha T, who guested on the previous G.O.O.D series, in addition to the inevitable slew of big-name guest stars.
There is overlap between the two camps — Pusha T and Tyler did a song last year, and Odd Future’s auxiliary R&B member Frank Ocean reportedly appears on the forthcoming G.O.O.D compilation — but considering the aesthetic difference between Tyler’s Hawaiian shirts and West’s Margiela jackets, we won’t see the two groups coalescing anytime soon, for better or for worse. Or for better.
Nicki Minaj
Hey, Nicki, time’s up. After her disappointing debut album “Pink Friday” was released earlier last year, we’ve since heard Nicki Minaj waffling between cheesy (“Fly,” “Moment 4 Life”) and utterly foul (her verse on Big Sean’s “Dance (Ass)” remix), still trying to find her footing as a star.
Minaj been around for long enough that the thrill of her “Monster” verse-of-the-year has subsided, and her fans are tirelessly waiting for her return-to-form as seen on “Itty Bitty Piggy” and other earlier tracks.
Those still praying for Nicki’s return to “baddest bitch” status won’t find much solace in our first taste of “Pink Friday 2” material.
Her latest single “Stupid Hoe” wastes a perfectly good beat on mindless choruses and rhymes that are just plain lazy. Everyone loves a quality diss track, but on “Stupid Hoe” Minaj is taking shots at … Lil Kim?
Maybe Minaj should be more worried about a female rapper who’s actually releasing music: rising 20-year-old rapper Azealia Banks, who rode the wave of her recent breakout single “212” to a Universal contract and a private show at Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld’s house last week.
Listen to instead: “Reign of Terror,” Sleigh Bells’ newest LP out on Feb. 21
“Roman’s Revenge” and “Reign of Terror” were originally slated for a Feb. 14 release, and it’s a real shame that Sleigh Bells pushed back their date, because you can’t ask for a better Valentine’s Day antidote than frontwoman Alexis Krauss.
Whether she’s jumping on a bed clutching a shotgun in the video for recent single “Comeback Kid” or blowing audiences’ minds at Sleigh Bells’ explosive live shows, Krauss doesn’t need to boast how she “single-handedly annihilated every rap bitch in the building;” she shows us instead of telling us.
