Run the Jewels, "Meow the Jewels"

Fetty Wap

“FETTY WAP”

300 Entertainment/RGF Records

New Jersey rapper Fetty Wap’s self-titled album is a testament to how romantic the trap is willing to get.

Although many songs are already familiar — like “Trap Queen,” “My Way,” “679,” “RGF Island,” and “Again” — the album still has some great surprises. Throughout the project, Wap shows his love for trap, trapping, his crew Remy Boyz, and his love for women. In “Time,” a sure romantic favorite, Wap croons with passion, asking a lady if she has “some time to spare.”

One moment the bravado demands your attention, and the next he’s showing a soft, almost boyish side of himself.

On “RGF Island,” he declares: “There’s gon’ be a house party on this island!” And that’s exactly what this album is: songs for red cups raised to the roof.

— Sofiya Ballin,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Hurts

“SURRENDER”

Columbia Records

They could’ve been contenders. When Manchester duo Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson landed on Planet Pop with 2010’s “Happiness,” the world was theirs for the taking. This was deluxe pop music for the masses; a 21st century A-ha for the enormodomes with choruses to be sung from the top of misty mountains A flurry of swanky singles — “Better Than Love,” “Wonderful Life” and the windswept weeper “Stay” — sold two million copies of “Happiness” and yes, they were massive in Germany.

There’s a lot riding on “Surrender” then. “A bold and brilliant pop record” is Hurts’ (and likely Sony’s) goal. It’s split equally between bootyshakers and ballads, contains a smorgasbord of loopy lyrics (hello “Policewoman”) and mostly adheres to the three-and-a-half minute pure pop rule. The fanciest alchemists in pop, Ariel Rechtshaid (Haim, Brandon Flowers) and Stuart Price (PSB, Madonna) are on knob-twiddling duties. What could possibly go wrong?

Well tragically, and bafflingly, there are just four good-to-great songs on “Surrender.” “Some Kind of Heaven” may’ve bombed — yes, even in Germany — but it’s classic Hurts. It’s marvelously melodramatic, fragrantly flamboyant. Its DNA is 70 percent Florence & The Machine’s version of “You Got The Love” and 30 percent Coldplay’s “Clocks.” Thus it is ace.

Later the rave monster “Nothing Will Be Bigger Than Us” parties like it’s the last night on Earth. It’s EDM by numbers, perhaps but it bounces almost as high as Rihanna and Calvin’s mighty “We Found Love” so party on dudes and, y’know, watch out for that D-R-O-P.

— Matt James,

PopMatters.com

Run the Jewels

“MEOW THE JEWELS”

Mass Appeal Records

In a world overwhelmed by one-trick feline Instagram sensations like Snoopy Cat and kitties that earned fame by the oddball luck of nature like Grumpy Cat, the expert furries that purr and paw their way through Run the Jewels’ new all-cat remix album “Meow the Jewels” deliver emotional depth befitting nature’s most psychologically elusive creature.

A remix of Run the Jewels’ 2014 album “RTJ2,” “Meow the Jewels” is the first all-cat rap album. An album whose genesis began with a joke, the 12 tracks feature the same rapped verses by the duo of El-P and Killer Mike, but the original music has been replaced with recordings of cats.

When the original album “RTJ2” was released, Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike and El-P jokingly offered for sale something called “The Meow the Jewels Package.” With a price tag of $40,000, it was described in a sales pitch as a rerecording of the album “using nothing but cat sounds for music.” One fan took the bait and started a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. Enthusiastic donors ponied up and eventually exceeded the goal. Less than a year later, “Meow the Jewels” is available as a free download and deluxe double LP, with all proceeds going to charity.

From a conceptual standpoint, “Meow the Jewels” is hardly new. Rather, the most recent iteration of a sampling technique in which curious, “unmusical” noise is tuned, distorted, sped-up, slowed-down and then organized into beat-based tracks.

Does a record in which every single beat, snare, high-hat, melody and hook is built using only the many textures that arise from sampling a cat sound any good? Let’s just say, I have seen the future of cat-based music, and its name is “Meow the Jewels.”

— Randall Roberts,

Los Angeles Times