(OCTOBER)New Music Rankings

5 min readNov 6, 2020

So I may have gotten sidetracked over the month of September in writing one of these new music reviews, but I am back to give you guys some new music worth checking out. Again, I will be giving the top 5 new albums and some random songs (not from the albums) that I discovered in the past month. The albums don’t have to be new official releases, but just new to me as a listener (this includes any “classics” I may have overlooked).

I will give each album a rating, mood (when I would say is the best time to listen to the album), and one song recommendation (if you just want to hear the best/my favorite song on it to hear if it’s worth exploring more). Some of the music that I get is based off of recommendations so if there’s something you’re really vibing with that you might think I will like, send it my way!

ALBUMS:

5. Gorillaz — Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez : [Alternative] Everyone’s favorite animated band, (The) Gorillaz, finally dropped their 7th full length album. From what I could gather, Song Machine is an attempt to revolutionize the way artists release albums in that Damon Albarn/Gorillaz wanted to release most of the songs as singles before compiling them together onto an album. Oddly enough, I wasn’t expecting much from this release as the standalone singles didn’t seem to click with me. Something about the flow of each song as an entire compilation seems to make this album fair better as I thoroughly enjoyed most of the tracks on here together. In that sense, perhaps Damon Albarn/The Gorillaz’s new innovative way of releasing music albums as singles first might work better than expected.

Rating: 7.0/10

Mood: Mellow

One Song Recommendation:

4. Ty Dolla $ign — Featuring Ty Dolla $ign: [Hip-Hop/R&B] Initially, I LOVED this album. Hearing those first songs from Intro through Freak (feat. Quavo) I was thinking this album was going to be amazing. The album seemed to fall off a bit for me in the middle part, before picking it back up in the latter end of it. I’m not entirely sure if it’s the repetitive nature of the songs or if Big Sean’s lyricism just threw me off too far to respectfully return to the album

Regardless, Ty did a very good job with this album and there are A LOT of good (not great) tracks on this.

Rating: 7.5/10

Mood: Party

One Song Recommendation:

3. 21 Savage & Metro Boomin — Savage Mode II: [Hip-Hop/Rap] I haven’t felt the urge to workout to a hip-hop album as much as I did when I first heard this banger of a hip-hop/trap album. Most new age hip-hop just doesn’t click with me as much, but from the moment Morgan Freeman was narrating over an eerie beat from the trustworthy Metro Boomin on the intro track, it just felt like this was going to be different. That intuition couldn’t be more right as this album has 21 Savage giving us some hard-hitting trap bars, lots of being called a “pussy”, and some great features from Drake and Young Nudy.

Rating: 7.9/10

Mood: Workout, Party, Doing hoodrat stuff with your friends

One Song Recommendation:

2. Xavier Omar — if You Feel: [R&B/SOUL] Where the previous albums mentioned had tons of hype leading up to their releases, this album just fell into my lap. I guess I had been sleeping on Xavier Omar for some time because this album is an absolute gem. From top to bottom this album just flows perfectly from one track into the next. I instantly fell in love with the sound of Xavier Omar’s melodies layered on top of a beautifully produced album by none other than Sango. Highly recommend giving this album a try if you’re a fan of R&B.

Rating: 8.3/10

Mood: Mellow, Studying, WFH

One Song Recommendation:

1. The Avalanches — Since I Left You: [Electronic/Pop/Alternative] I’d previously liked some of The Avalanches’ tracks from their latest album, but never cared to delve into their music beyond those songs. Finally, after hearing that their debut album Since I Left You was made up of entirely samples (over 900 of them exactly) which lead to a masterpiece of production, I tried it out and boy am I glad I did. This album from 2000 has samples from old-time radio songs, old-school rap, some poppy Madonna tracks, and everything in-between. It’s incredible to me that am album of purely samples can be such a well-composed piece of work that brings out a variety of emotions throughout its runtime.

Rating: 8.6/10

Mood: Mellow, Studying, WFH

One Song Recommendation: