Best Tracks: The whole thing
Genre: Post Jazz, Experimental
Year: 2017

The most intricate album I’ve ever heard. Red Burns is structured like a continuous story, fading between tracks like scenes of a documentary. The story feels like the account of an American folklorist exploring New York. Red Burns visits a wide variety of African and Latin American genres to paint a picture of the African Diaspora living in New York today. The album is led by a rotating cast of musicians, artists, and poets. Red Burns comes together as a collage of the personal histories and cultural identities of each of its artists.

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Best Tracks: Watch the Children
Genre: Spoken Word, Jazz Funk
Year: 2021

Adrian Younge is behind some of my favourite jazz albums to come out since the ’70s, but this album is an exception. The songs are decent, combining jazz-funk with gorgeous, string-backed soul. That being said, my biggest issue is with the pacing. Almost every other track on here is a <1 min spoken-word interlude. These interludes aren’t filler, the message they convey is the conceptual core of this project, but they aren’t great to listen to either. The American Negro has a very stop-and-go feeling, leaving the album without a satisfying climax or ending. Even the musical tracks here are short. The album never gets a chance to build on itself before it ends. I understand the goal of this project is discomfort, but Younge doesn’t have to create a musically unsatisfying album to go against the status quo.

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Best Tracks: Speak to Me/Breathe, Money, Brain Damage/Eclipse
Genre: Rock, Psychedelia
Year: 1973

Dark Side of the Moon was, for a very long time, the best album I had ever heard. But even then, for some reason, I didn’t consider it perfect. It has its lowlights. Yes, there are grand conceptual themes, but they come at the cost of having weaker moments: the annoying transition into “Time”, the repetitiveness of “Us and Them”. Pink Floyd could have focused on making each track equally as strong as the last, but that would have deprived the album of its dynamics and its incredible ending.

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