Summary

Based in Los Angeles, California, the Internet is composed of vocalist and drummer Sydney Bennet and musicians Steve Lacey, Matthew Martin, Patrick Paige, and Christopher Smith. Hive Mind is the group’s fourth album and was released July 20, 2018, on Columbia Records.

Critical Evaluation

Understated, cool, smooth, and true to the many strands of music history it blends, the Internet’s Hive Mind is truly stunning. But let me start over. Before selecting this album for this collection, I was listening to the most recent release from K-Pop phenom BTS, Be. My students are really into K-Pop, and I wanted to see if I could do a sort of tribute to their obsession in my collection. But after about 20 minutes of the 28-minute long Be, I had to stop. I kept thinking about Disney as I listened, about highly commercialized music which seems to be one long advertisement for itself. The candy-style gloss of the production and vapid sound was totally lost on me. I wanted to find something, a real offering, that young people can put in their “I will listen to this for the rest of my life” box. Enter the Internet’s Hive Mind. The opening track on the album, “Come Together,” probably my favorite, brought tears to my eyes. But listening on, I felt I was getting an education in all of the most important genres of music in American history. The baseline in “Roll (Burbank Funk)” is all disco, but there’s a touch of the post-punk in the ambience of the song, too. The third song, “Come Over,” is built out of these slack off-beats, reminiscent of D’Angelo. The jazz and salsa infused “La Di Da” also includes a wah-wah pedal and a James Brown reference, so there’s funk there too. Then there’s the sultry, slow and sweet singing of the Internet’s lead vocalist, Syd. Take her work on “Stay the Night”: pretty, clarion, and simple, the song repeats the frank, sexy refrain, “I just think you should stay the night. Why don’t you stay the night.” The languid and sleepy singing on “Mood” slides into beatbox on “Next Time/Humble Pie,” which itself breaks in the middle and calls forth a bit of Portishead and a bit of Bowie on his album Outside. All of this is traceable in this consistently danceable soul and R&B bubble, Hive Mind.

Reader's Annotation

Sultry, smooth, adept, and sexy music for those nights when you need to slow it down.

About the Band

The Internet is an American band from Los Angeles, California. It currently consists of vocalist Syd, keyboardist Matt Martians, bassist Patrick Paige II, drummer Christopher Smith, and guitarist Steve Lacy. Their music is a blend of R&B, hip hop, jazz, funk, and electronic dance music. They have released four studio albums and three extended plays since their formation in late 2011. The band's 2015 album Ego Death was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album. (The Internet (band) - Wikipedia)

Genres

R&B, funk, hip hop, jazz, quiet storm, blues

Albumtalking Ideas

Play some songs from the album.

Listening Level

14+

Challenge Issues

Sexuality, swearing

Challenge Issues Resources

Why I Chose This Album

The Internet is a Los Angeles based band and their work is critically acclaimed, reflects a fusion of some of the most important genres in American music history, and encourages dance and reflection.

Summary

Wayne Shorter’s sixth album, Speak No Evil, was recorded in 1964 and released in 1966 by Blue Note. Often considered part of the duet of albums that includes Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, the band here is virtually the same as that which played on Hancock’s recording. The album combines hard bop and modal jazz and is widely considered Shorter' debut as a master composer.

Critical Evaluation

I’m definitely no expert in jazz, but Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil is one of my favorite albums of all time. With its lyrical horn chorales, underlying piano flourishes (so delicately fingered by Herbie Hancock), and sandy drums, the album promises to carry readers into a witchy underworld of ideas, while allowing them to float on its soul-stirring, joyful structure. Expect gorgeous melodies and harmonies punctuated by saxophone and trumpet solos of virtuoso chill and high intelligence. The first track on the album, “Witch Hunt” reflects this combination of qualities perfectly. Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet solo in the middle of the album’s title track is majestic, while Hancock seems to be two or three piano players and Elvin Jones keeps the background alive--but it only intensifies when they come back to the central melody. We are lifted off the ground and swung 'round before the song puts us down and the album heads off into the pensive piano meditation that begins “Infant Eyes.” Here, Shorter shows his soft, sorrowful side, pealing out vibrato cries over molasses drums and lazy Sunday piano which is, still, listening so well. The song is a summer pond at dusk. Summer seems to continue in “Wild Flower,” again bringing us back to that horn section sound I have no words to properly describe but whose sounds go right into the soul. Or how about “Dance Cadaverous”? Sounds spooky, yeah? If spooky can also be gentle, pretty, certain, if it can engender humility and rise to epiphanies of joy, then, OK, spooky it is. Speak No Evil is music that has become an ecosystem, and as we travel its lacy, cerebral trails, we grow in our own understanding of the confluence between mind and heart.

Reader's Annotation

Here’s a good place to start your jazz education, with one of the finest jazz albums ever produced.

Genres

Jazz

Albumtalking Ideas

Play samples from the album and discuss some of the history of jazz.

Listening Level

Any

Challenge Issues

None

Challenge Issues Resources

Why I Chose This Album

This album would probably have changed my life if I had heard it when I was a teen. Certainly it would have opened my musical horizons and may even have inspired me to take my lessons way more seriously, seeing as how I could then at least have dreamed of attaining this kind of wonder.