honestly I never saw the Bieber artwork. My wife just streams it on Spotify but I never went looking to see what it looked like haha.

I don't know why this bugs me so much but... Beyonce drops album as "Tidal exclusive" - then a day later it's on iTunes, so at least there's some choice. And you can buy it from Tidal so you don't need to subscribe. But I mean... then Drake announced Views and says it's an "iTunes exclusive"... GUYS! Can we get over this whole exclusive marketplace thing? Stop with your allegiances to specific stores. Just make a friggin album and sell it at all the places that people shop. Let THEM decide where to buy it from. I don't get this BS.

Imagine if when the Force Awakens came out on DVD and Bluray it had been a "Best Buy Exclusive" - you don't see that kind of shit though. Know why? Because Disney wants to make money yo. And they know that some of us shop at Target or Walmart or countless other places that sell DVD's and Blurays so guess what they do? THey put the movie for sale at those places too.

UGH.

Yeah those exclusives gotta stop.

Agreed. I Fucking hate exclusives. The only exclusive I'll support is a "physical release only" exclusive (haha, as if that were a thing!), because someone would upload that shit anyway, and I could put the cd on my computer and play it through iTunes or whatever.

Yeah, I hate the exclusive movement. But if I had to pick, I'd rather have an iTunes exclusive than a Spotify session or a TIDAL exclusive. iTunes is, after all, an actual STORE that actually sells albums, and allows you to own the album, a digital booklet, etc.

What's Drake said, I think, was that Views from the 6 was going to be a "Apple Music exclusive" which is very different from an iTunes exclusive.

Apple Music is streaming only, just like tidal. You can't purchase albums on Apple Music, you can only purchase a subscription to Apple Music, and listen to the album and let it eat up your data. If you're stuck in the 2000's and don't have data streaming capabilities, then you either need to get a goddamn data plan somewhere, or the album will basically only exist for you if you're sitting at your computer on Wifi.

iTunes lets you buy an album -- or song, movie, tv show, ringtone, book, etc. -- and then once you download it, it's yours and you can listen to it any way you want to.

If Drake's doing a true Apple Music exclusive, then he's just pulling a TLOP version 1.0. And it's going to be frustrating as all hell for his fans, and people will pirate the album and rip it and share it.

It just means Drake is a tool for Apple. At least Kanye is a part-owner of Tidal, and he's only a tool of himself and his community's self-interest. This Apple Music thing is weird. Obviously Drake has a contract with Apple, just like he has with the Raptors, and he's trying to pull consumers in. Which kind of makes him a fuckwad in my opinion.

Lame.

Hey, though, check it... LEMONADE is Fucking good.

I don't care for the Jack White track, which is weird because I actually like The White Stripes a lot. But he's not so charming on his own, and his voice doesn't sound right on a Beyoncé record.

I fucking LOVE "hold up" and "6 inch" though. Wow. Fucking awesome!

This streaming site shit has got to stop. Artists make less $ than when their music was on the radio only they keeping selling out more and more to in essence become mere advertising for the sites. Do artists even have integrity anymore or is selling out just not a thing?

I've got a lot of friends -- former band mates mostly -- who continued making music after I gave it up, but never really "made it" in any substantive way, and a lot of them choose to be on Spotify because they think it helps them get the word out about their music. But they're all dissatisfied. I just think that streaming services -- Spotify in particular -- have become such a huge part of the music culture that people think it's essential to have their music available there. It doesn't seem to be paying off for any of my friends though.

I agree though. I use Spotify because it's a cheap way to access songs I like in those rare instances when I have no other way to hear those song. Like, I've forgotten my iPod or I'm working on someone else's computer. But I don't *like* it. I don't *enjoy* streaming music. I can't imagine who would opt for steaming a playlist over listening to an album, but, again, I'm getting too old to speak to this shit obviously.

What's funny is that a lot of people who still purchase physical copies of their music don't actually listen to t. I read an article out of the U.K. last week that contained the results of some massive survey of vinyl buyers, and only about 50% of them said they listened to the records they purchased.

Which I can't even begin to understand. Why buy it then? To show it off? So you look like a person who listens to -- whatever -- but you're really not? Why? Or if they're listening to it, they're streaming it, so why buy the fucking album if you only listen via stream? Either way, fucking poser alert, I guess. Like, major poser alert. Poser population reaching critical mass. Seriously, What the fuck?

Perhaps the survey meant listen to hard copies? I haven't listened to a CD aside from on my car in years. I still buy hard copies sometimes but immediately rip them and put them on my iPod.

I listen to most music in my car, so Spotify makes sense. But I usually buy a physical copy when I really love an album. More as a memento or for listening to at home as rare as that may be.

The car is the last refuge for my CD collection and i like it that way. It feels right. I miss throwing a bunch of discs in my backpack before jumping on the Metro. Having my iPod is great, and convenient, but i miss how listening to discs made you commit to listening to albums instead of tracks.

Its why i go out of my way to download full albums from YouTube. Even on my iPod it makes me listen to entire albums

Yeah, me too. And I had some good times on the bus with my CDs as well, back in the pre-iPod Stone Age.

But I also usually just rip CD's onto my Mac, plop them into my iTunes library, and stick them on one of my iPod classics. I still listen to CDs, but only if the iPod is out of juice and I've forgotten the chord or something.

But even on my iPod, I'm an album guy. I have a couple playlists... One is called "The Inimitable Mr. West" and it's just all my Kanye albums. Another is called "Richard D. James" and it's just all my RDJ/AFX/Aphex Twin shit. Then there's "Kill your iPods" ... guess what that is? Yup. All my sonic youth albums and EP's.

No point in even having these playlists since I can just shuffle the artist's songs, but whatever. I rarely do anything other than listen to albums. I don't always start with track 1 and end with the last track, but I usually go through at least 6 or 7 consecutive album cuts before I move on to something else.

Damn. "Don't Hurt Yourself" is actually one of my favorite songs.. it blew me away immediately. Bey's delivery along with those distorted vocals.. the lyrics on her first verse.. Jack White kinda sounded like Marilyn Manson (lol) but somehow it totally worked. Awesome song in my opinion.

Yeah, "Hold Up" is great. "Sandcastles" and "All Night" are beautiful.

JAY Z First Time Hearing Beyonce Album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOJcAE72TH0

Hilarious!

Nah, I've listened to it more now and I'm digging the shit out of it. What I wrote before (about "Don't Hurt Yourself") was a snap judgement after only hearing it once and not paying full attention.

DAMN though, this is one hell of an album. I'm honestly, truly and completely, amazed.

I've loved Beyoncé forever, even argued in favor of Destiny's Child back in the day, when shot started to get twisted and weird on "Bills Bills Bills" and "Say My Name," but I have I admit that I've always been more of an individual song fan than an album fan.

Her self titled album -- the first to really go for that "complete album" sound, without relying on pre-release singles -- is great, but I've listened to it much less than I've listened to 4, which is filled with those crazy high points like "Schoolin Life" scattered throughout, and feels like it's made with singles and individual tracks in mind.

Lemonade is the first Beyoncé album that I've blown through from start to finish repeated times as soon as it was released, and there's a damn good reason why I've done that: it's absolutely transcendent, and while it's hard to say (for me, anyway) if it's "better" or of a higher quality than 4 or s/t, it definitely feels like a monumental leap forward that makes her previous progressions seems minor by comparison.

In a year characterized by a handful of big releases from big names -- pretty much all of whom are, or were, above Bey in my opinion -- this album is making a hell of an impression on me, and I'd have to say that it's probably sitting at the #3 spot, just behind Kanye and PJ, but astonishingly ahead of Kendrick, in my albums of the year list so far.

Wow. Seriously, wow.

And Pitchfork actually wrote a pretty goddamn good review of the album. I can't say how accurately they write about the "visual" element of the album, since I've only heard the record itself.

But... yes, this is a corker.

And it makes me look a little differently at Jay, who's long been (as you all know) one of my hip-hop heroes. I want their relationship to be fair and balanced and faithful, even though I have no earthly reason to give a shit. I just want them to succeed where the others have failed. To be the anti-Kurt and Courtney, and to have a healthy and happy marriage that works and doesn't result in any suicides or lawsuits or investigations. So, some of the obviously biographical content of Lemonade is a little unnerving for me. But still... fucking amazing album.

Speaking of Pitchfork, HEY NR:

Pitchfork gave the new Ferg album a surprisingly good review, and basically said "Severian is wrong, it's good, shut up Severian." So I'll keep listening, and see if I can't see the error of my ways.

They also refer to Ferg as the "artsier" and "more overbearing" Kanye to A$AP Rocky's Jay-Z, which somehow completely baffles me. Not only do I think Ferg is actually a bit more traditional than Rocky (more of a technician, less of a dreary dreamer, more of a rapper, less of a rockstar and fashion icon) but I think the comparison in general is kind f whack. I'd compare them to Q-Tip and Phife or Ghostface and Rae before comparing them to "The Throne" (that's how Drake credits them on that song I haven't heard yet because louder said it was so shitty, and because it has that awful "Chaining Tatum" line... Ugh!).

Anyway. These are my thoughts for the day so far.

the pfork review surprised me yeah.

I thought the Jay/Kanye comparison was slightly off too. (I'm not calling them The Throne). But maybe for diff reasons than you. I do actually consider Ferg the artsier one. I consider Rocky the better rapper, and to have more star appeal. But I think Ferg looks at music coming from being a visual artist. Which is to say, on his first album he did a track "F out my face" and then the following track used the same exact beat... in reverse. Stuff like that. He seems to have the more experimental mind. It's also in the voices and cadences he chooses. Like on "Doe Active." He's all over the track it's crazy. Or on this new album he has that song "Never Let You Go" I think it's called - where he raps a verse from the perspective of his girlfriend who he's treating poorly. I mean, it's not "better" than what Rocky does - but I don't think Rocky's mind works that way. I don't think he'd think to write from the perspective of a girl who he's cheating on.

Another way to think of it: Rocky is a fantastic rapper. But Ferg is compelling because he wasn't a proper rapper. So maybe he kind of does things "wrong" because he's not thinking about the right way to do it. Does that make sense?

Of course I prefer Rocky. But Ferg is great. I really want a proper Mob album to happen still.

Yeah, makes sense. But that kinda sounds like you DO think he's Ferg's the "Kanye" of the two. Because a lot of what you're saying applies to Ye's style, and is indeed part of what makes him such an excellent artist and such a compelling and enjoyable, if not always technically proficient, rapper. ;)

Ye rapped from the perspective of the city of Chicago personified as a mistreated prostitute... hah. I cannot see Jay-Z OR Rocky ever doing anything like that.

Sorry for talking about Kanye. It's not something I have a ton of control over at this point, and I just hope you guys understand that I understand that my love of this manic weirdo is definitely strange, if not outright unhealthy.

Thanks for putting up with me to the extent that you do. :)

R&B is not hip hop

And yes, I would still love to see a proper A$AP Mob album. There's a vacancy -- a kind of void -- in the hip hop world, now that Wu-Tang Clan kinda sucks/isn't together anymore, OF kinda sucks/isn't together anymore, and Phife's death has made a true ATCQ reunion reunion impossible.

We need a new CREW. I've been waiting for the Mob to step into that spot since I realized how much I loved Long.Live.A$AP. I thought maybe we were going to get one, with all those Wavy Wednesdays tracks coming out, but it seems like it's just an eternal tease.

Also, yeah, I'm not going to start saying "The Throne" either. I just wanted to say it once, because it needs to be acknowledged here that these stupid things are happening in Drake's general orbit. When that dude falls, he's gonna fall hard.

D'Angelo Is Doing A Tribute To Prince Tonight On Jimmy Fallon!!! Yesss!!