Set for release through Def Jam and GOOD Music on June 18th, Kanye West’s sixth studio album, Yeezus, has leaked. In the follow-up to the critically acclaimed hip-hop opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye returns to a dark form and then some. The key difference being, this album lacks the star-studded roster of guest verses. Nevertheless, we at the Airspace have worked to single out the moments of brilliance in the oft-underrated lyrical workings of Mr. West.
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As the dust settles in the wake of all the best music of 2012 lists, one thing is clear: some music has gone under the radar. Some LPs and EPs were critically unappreciated, underplayed, or underhyped throughout 2012. And at The Airspace, we think that is just wrong. So here is our list—not merely of the best music—but of the best music you probably overlooked.
In alphabetical order.
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On August 19th, S5E6 of Breaking Bad, “Buyout,” aired. And it changed the way we viewed Walter and the series up to that point. The Airspace’s resident Breaking Bad fanatics Tony Russo and Vikram Murthi got together with Blake J. Graham for a brief, moderated, yet in-depth, discussion of the episode and what its position within the series.
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With an ongoing series of cold openings and thrilling twists, Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan has done enough to merit the nickname M. Night Gilligan, though this week’s episode alone was more skilled than any Shyamalan move in recent memory. This week’s opening involved a boy on a motorbike picking up a tarantula in the desert, and just before he speeds off, we can hear a train whistle. The stage for a heart-pounding Western is set.
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This episode, then, continues tying up the loose end, just like the last. In the wake of the earth-shattering fourth season finale, Breaking Bad’s dedication to closing the plot holes is admirable, however time-consuming. With the death of the Herr Schuler of Madrigal, the question of role of the massive multinational that backs Gustavo Fring, and that Hank actually uncovers as doing so, is closed. This is confirmed by a later Madrigal representative, stating that he is absolutely confident that Schuler was acting alone in his support of the meth trade. Sad that there won’t be a large corporation with a vendetta against Walt, but the story goes on. There are more loose ends to attend to.
More on S5/E2 of Breaking Bad.
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Season 5 of Breaking Bad begins inside a Denny’s. With a shot from above, a plate of eggs, hash browns, and bacon cover a “Rethink Refreshment” placemat. Walter grabs the bacon and tears the flesh into pieces, rearranging the bits to spell “52.” It is, as he tells the waitress, his fifty-second birthday today. The reveal, as the camera moves to frame Walter White—the de facto hero of the series—is that he now has a full head of hair, a beard, and thick-framed glasses. Still in Albuquerque, Walter is living under the alias “Mr. Lambert” from New Hampshire, and an unknowable amount of time has passed*. He ends up purchasing an enormous gun in that Denny’s bathroom, promising to the salesman, “It’s never leaving town.”
Editor Tony Russo breaks down the Season 5 premiere of Breaking Bad.
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It would be nearly impossible to shed enough praise upon Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan’s television drama on AMC. Through its 46 episode run, the series has proven itself as one of the most complete shows in TV history, combining superb writing, acting, and cinematography. Gilligan’s dedication to a meticulous narrative and tendency to push characters and the audience to oblivion make Breaking Bad one of the best shows to watch and to discuss. The Airspace is excited to announce that the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad will have full coverage—episodic reviews, video discussions, and debates galore—joining the ranks of Game of Thrones and Mad Men.
Breaking Bad begins with a small foundational concept: a high school chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer and begins cooking methamphetamine with a former student in Albuquerque, New Mexico in order to provide financial security for his family. But the cancer just serves as a chemical catalyst for a chain-reaction so entropic and required. The series details the trajectory of this decision, and proves choices have real consequences—effects that ruin, murder, rage, annihilate, and explode.
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If you were on Facebook or twitter last Monday, July 9, you probably heard something about Frank Ocean’s channel ORANGE—someone scrobbling late at night, or maybe a cryptic lyric posted. Monday marked the true genesis of Frank Ocean as major recording artist, and the world is taking notice.
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A$AP Rocky has had a busy week: distancing himself from the pack, hyping his new album, and working with Lana Del Rey. Read about his roles as trillwave pioneer and JFK inside.
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The Graduate tells the story of the seduction of one recently graduated Benjamin Braddock by his neighbor, the proto-cougar Mrs. Robinson. Now, upon its 45th anniversary and well-timed re-release to coincide with graduations nationwide, it’s poised to be re-examined—analyzed not as a story of an affair but the story of the life of its main character.
The film begins with 20 ‘soon-to-be-21’-year-old, athlete and scholar Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returning home from college upon graduation. Despite an utterly ridiculous list of college accomplishments—captain of the cross country team, head of debating club, editor-in-chief of the college paper—he is without spirit, instantly coming off as a mumbling mush-of-a-man. And he is a little worried about his future. The poster makes it seem like the affair has got him worried, but the film imbues a different sense in the viewer: that he is worried because his future is not his.
Read More...After a day spent wandering around the Louvre in Paris, France, studying the idyllic nude bodies of ancient Greek statues, photographer Léo Caillard got to wondering about the nature of clothing. Each of the statues represented the maximization of human perfection—the human body taken to the extreme. But most people don’t have the ideal Greek [...]
From the Hoover Dam and the Burj Khalifa to the Panama Canal, concrete underlies the greatest of modern architectural achievements. But modern concrete, it seems, doesn’t hold a candle to Ancient Rome’s. A little history for you: the Romans were the first to engineer concrete in mass, and it was upon this concrete that they [...]
“Balloons. That’s right. Balloons,” says the voice of a young girl in a video for Google’s latest endeavor: bringing the world online with massive balloons. The initiative, called Project Loon, comes from Google X, the experimental lab within the company whose sole purpose is to dream up big, borderline insane, ideas. Google X created self-driving [...]
Thonis, the legendary port city that served as an entryway to the Egyptian empire, was long considered to be a myth. The tales of its immense power and vast riches conflicted with the evidence of its existence—mainly that there was none. Cities of such grandeur do not typically disappear off the face of the earth. [...]
Kanye West says the darndest things. On his unrelenting quest to become his own species of hip-hop artist, he has established a reputation as irreverent, controversial, and unapologetic. Though he makes time for public grandstanding by claiming a US President “doesn’t care about black people” or interrupting the VMAs, he remains mostly quiet when it [...]
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