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10) Lil Pump - Harverd Dropout

A listen a day keeps the brain cells away!!!

9) Jaden Smith - ERYS

The most frustrating “artists” are those who have far more financial resources and ambition than they do actual talent. Instead of resulting in an artist’s intended masterpiece, this method of music creation concludes in Jaden Smith’s bloated, trying-to-be-artsy-and-hipster-but-failing 70-minute slog ERYS. As the son of Will Smith, of course he’s a super rich kid, and as a 21-year-old who’s never had to work hard for his money, of course he doesn’t have the experience or work ethic to make something truly amazing. Unfortunately, Jaden seems to believe that money automatically results in great art: you can tell that ERYS’s production cost tons of money, yet he wears his influences of BROCKHAMPTON and Tyler (who phones in a feature on “NOIZE”) on his sleeve too much. Theoretically, Jaden’s music is formulaically made to be something I love, but the works he tries to replicate are too honest to be successfully faked. Worse is how seriously he takes himself; in too many bad lyrics to list, he deludes himself into believing that he’s some kind of brilliant rapper. He’s on a “MISSION”… to do what is extremely unclear. Money can buy many things - brilliance it can’t. Is ERYS ambitious? Yes, very. But is it any good? Uhhhh, no.

8) Doug Walker - Nostalgia Critic’s The Wall

Roger Waters endlessly complaining about the war is quite tiring, but even more so is hearing an hour of unfunny parodies attacking The Wall. What did The Wall ever do to the Nostalgia Critic? Last I checked, albums don’t have the ability to directly carry lethal weapons. Though by the time I finish this list, I might take back that last statement.

7) Westside Gunn - Hitler Wears Hermes 7

Westside Gunn and his Griselda crew make every effort possible to revive the 90’s boom bap sound, but it’s always hard to take it seriously. Not because of their average pen game, nor their instrumentals (which range from merely listenable to very good), but because of WSG’s ear-raping adlibs. His intrusive habit of going “BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO BOO BOOM!!!!!!!” “DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO,” “BRRRRRRRUUUUUUUU!” “AAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” and “BRU-BRU-BRU-BRU-BRU-BRU” about every 20 seconds truly shows utter contempt to listeners - it makes me wonder how people can even stomach an entire Westside Gunn solo album. To my surprise, hip-hop oldhead purists love WSG, and, if necessary, will for the rest of eternity avidly defend his unlistenable adlibs. It’s really unfortunate that Westside Gunn virtually ruins his own otherwise decent luxury rap, but into The Year-End Garbage Can Hitler Wears Hermes 7 goes.

6) Miles Davis - Rubberband

Miles Davis and smooth jazz are two worlds that should never have intersected, but in the 1980s, they unfortunately did. When in 1985 he re-emerged after a decade of addiction problems, he recorded You’re Under Arrest to fulfill his Columbia contract before moving to Warner Brothers. He shelved Rubberband, his first project for Warner, after label complaints that he took too long. Now, his collaborators during those sessions assembled a complete Rubberband, and it’s terrible. (Note: for this album I filmed a video review but can’t be bothered to edit and post it.) Actual Miles compositions barely even sound present: instead, it feels like those who “finished” Rubberband took snippets of his playing and built songs around them rather than simply polishing them. There’s a terrible Caribbean beach resort advertisement “Paradise,” the near Miles-less, Lalah Hathaway-featuring “So Emotional” (which, if released 25 years ago, could’ve been a hit); but what mostly comprises Rubberband is bland, synth and slap bass-led overly smooth fusion. Given both this and Capitol’s terrible The Complete Birth Of The Cool, I’m just wondering what’s next: the Prestige albums in duophonic? An official “8D audio” Kind Of Blue? It’s a shame that his estate now exploits his name - Rubberband sadly sounds far more like a “Miles Davis’ Collaborators featuring special guest Miles Davis” album than a Miles Davis record.

5) NAV - Bad Habits

It’s a NAV album. What else did you expect?

4) Chance The Rapper - The Big Day

The year’s most fascinating epic musical fail. What was supposed to cement Chance The Rapper’s place as one of rap’s most thoughtful current MC’s ended up as a genre-hopping, 77-minute ode to his newlywed wife, and only his wife. In an attempt to prove himself as a Kanye-level curator of a diverse set of artists, Chance does nothing but embarrass himself; very few of his many collaborators mesh with each other at all. His style choices aren’t any better: Chance explores sleazy Nickelodeon-beach-music-meets-wannabe-Sting, circa-1988 Top 40 pop ballads, an overly faux-sentimental Randy Newman-featuring track, and too many other bad ideas to list. On every song, Chance drops terrible lyric after terrible lyric, horrendous verse after horrendous verse - this record is literally begging to be memed. I will pay $100 to anyone that can find a 2-minute stretch of The Big Day that doesn’t somehow reference his wife: it doesn’t exist. Literally, the only thing that you leave this LP with is the knowledge that Chance really, truly, sincerely, UNCONDITIONALLY loves his wife. I’m the millionth person to say this, but The Big Mess is a far more accurate title.

3) Logic - Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind

I recently came to the conclusion that Logic is essentially the Donald Trump of rap. Here are the reasons why:

1) Both use their whiteness to appeal to their respective audiences.
2) Both excite their fans and supporters by attacking their respective rivals.
3) When attacking said rivals, neither have strong enough wit to craft a lasting insult.
4) Beyond the braggadocios surface statements (and in Logic’s case, rapping speed), neither actually know how to carry out most of their ideas, much less have any ideas of substance.
5) Through bad art (Logic) and impeachment (Trump), from a professional legacy standpoint both essentially killed their careers this year yet won’t cease to attract attention.

But political comparisons aside, let’s just remember that 2 months apart, Logic dropped two of the year’s worst albums, the second on which he recruited his dad to defend, from internet haters, Logic’s biracial penis:

2) GFOTY - GFOTV

“Girlfriend Of The Year”? More like Girlfriend Of The Year-End Garbage Can (GFOTYEGC). Never have I heard an album more shockingly nonmusical than GFOTV, nor has there ever been a more excruciating 12-minute listening experience.

1) Logic - SUPERMARKET

k Logic, again? Yes. With a new (according to the reviews, terribly unoriginal) novel and an associated soundtrack, Logic proves that he has no skill at anything. In case preparing Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind wasn’t enough, “visionary” (according to himself and himself only) Bobby “I Need To Tell You About My Biracial Penis” Hall took a venture into pop rock with the SUPERMARKET novel soundtrack. Based on a narrative about stalking a girl who works at a supermarket, Logic’s rock album influenced by the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who he blatantly rips off on the vomit-inducing “Lemon Drop”) and Mac Demarco (who contributes to the Mac Demarco karaoke of “I’m Probably Gonna Rock Your World”), among others, is a nightmare, if your idea of a nightmare takes place in a Guitar Center. Poor instrument playing, overly polished (yet shoddily mixed) production, mediocre singing, appallingly poor songwriting, awful lyrics (on “Lemon Drop” alone, he spits “I smoke weed, so I’m trippy” and “How many licks to lick your lemon drop?/How many licks to lick your drop drop?”), a terrible storyline (the title track, about “danc[ing] with me in this department inside of this supermarket,” conjures up the worst mental images in narrative music), blatant plagiarism (aside from the uncredited RHCP melodic interpolations on “Lemon Drop,” there’s also the disrespectful sample of Tribe’s “Can I Kick It?” on Logic’s own inferior track of the same name), and extreme repetition (oftentimes, the pre-choruses and choruses are repeated to sound like satires of their already bad selves) make SUPERMARKET a nearly unlistenable garbage heap that for Logic’s creative credibility only serves as a final nail in the coffin. Have a barf bag ready.