'CAUSE I REMEMBER ALL THOSE YEARS
HOW IT WAS WHEN YOU WERE HERE
HOW IT WAS WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG
YESTERDAY WAS SO LONG AGO (LONG AGO)
KID ROCK AND LIMP BIZKIT CAME ALONG NOW
AIN'T NOBODY WANNA SEE YOUR OLD ASS SING NO MORE

>>129819019
It was a fun song when I was literally 10. But I grew up. And so should you.

Cardi B: Invasion of Privacy [Atlantic, 2018]
Because she's smart enough to know the difference between a mixtape and an album, she earns the right to treat this official debut as the one that counts--no filler, no throwaways, no riding her smash, no withholding her smash either. Musically and lyrically, every track is thought through, with debts called in and incurred. The Noo Yawk accent she's right to lean on is so blunt that she's not a truly fluent rhymer, so she does well to pull in Chance's flow, Migos's trickeration, Pete Rodriguez's clave. And lyrically, her aim is true. "Write a verse while I twerk / I wear off-white in church"? Tell it, sister. "Only thing fake is the boobs"? Ca-ching. "Pussy's so good I say my own name during sex"? Car-di! A

Taylor Swift: Red [Big Machine, 2012]
So if Stephin Merritt can make a big deal out of 69 love songs, why can't Taylor Swift make a fairly big deal out of 16? His being formally savvy in his pop-polymath way and hers being formally voracious in her pop-bestseller way? Need either deal be autobiographical? One hopes not in both cases, although verisimilitude has its formal aspects for bestsellers. Swift hits the mark less often than Merritt--65 or 70 percent, I'd say. But one could argue that the verisimilitude requirement forces her to aim higher. I like the feisty ones, as I generally do. But "Begin Again" and especially "Stay Stay Stay" stay happy and hit just as hard. That's hard. A-