Review: The Slang – Divide

The funny thing about debut albums is that they’re filled with so much promise, blissful ignorance, and a full beating heart filled with the utmost purpose. Washington, DC’s The Slang are able to capture that early magic that bands would kill for at this stage of their career. Divide, in a lot of ways, investigates where we are as a society today, but it’s vibrant guitar tones and uplifting choruses keep the material from sinking into the abyss. When I last caught up with the band for an interview, the band appeared to be completely flattered by my early praise of their album that I got an advance copy of. After explaining to The Slang (comprised of John Bobo and Felix Nieto) just how great their debut is, I hope I was able to instill some new-found confidence in this band that I feel everyone should turn their immediate focus onto.

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Drake Tops the Charts, Again

Drake still has the number one album in the country:

Drake’s Certified Lover Boy rules the Billboard 200 albums chart for a third consecutive and total week, as the set earned 171,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 23 (down 28%), according to MRC Data. The album opened atop the list two weeks ago with the year’s biggest week for an album: 613,000 units.

Roblox Introduces Listening Parties, Starting With Poppy’s New Album

Poppy

Tatiana Cirisano, writing for Billboard:

Over the past year, Roblox has hosted immersive virtual concerts with artists like Lil Nas X and Twenty One Pilots. Now, the gaming platform is inviting artists to stream entire albums in the metaverse through virtual listening parties.

For its first-ever listening party, Roblox is teaming with Grammy-nominated musical chameleon Poppy and her record label Sumerian Records to stream her brand-new album Flux in the gaming platform starting today (Sept. 24). Music from the album will be integrated throughout nine popular Roblox games — which collectively boast more than 3 billion lifetime visits — so that fans can listen as they dance in RoBeats, attend Robloxian High School or explore Creatures of Sonaria.

Liner Notes (September 25th, 2021)

Forrest

This week’s newsletter has some thoughts on the new version of iOS and what I like (and don’t like) about it so far. There are also thoughts on music out this week (Poppy, One Step Closer, Third Eye Blind) and commentary on other bands I enjoyed this week (Joystick, Catbite, Heathcliff), as well as my usual running views on media. Plus, a playlist of ten songs worth your time and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

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