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Like The Source used to be for hip-hop, Cliffs Notes have been the "bible" for slacker students since 1958, when Clifton Keith Hillegas founded the company with a series of study guides for Shakespeare plays. You know the type: the perma-late-passer who spent all semester on party patrol and so, rather than actually reading an entire book, cops one of the distinctive yellow-and-black pamphlets for a quick cram session the night before the final exam. You've probably been the type.
Nowadays, in our hyper-competitive information era, everything can get to feeling like school. Even something as ostensibly non-school-like as following pop music. There's so much stuff out there, so much to keep up with, it sometimes feels like you're being tested by your peers when they ask your opinion of a song at a party.
Plus, the Internet has made everything so hyperbolic. To a point where everybody talks in terms of LOVING something or HATING something, even when we're often too cynical to honestly give a fuck either way. (Generation X? More like Generation "Eh.") But what if you're too busy to care about actual music but, because you're sort of a poser, you care about looking like you know about music? Welcome to Complex Cliffs Notes! Here's a cheat sheet for chatting about the year's most important music at parties, considering that New Year's Eve is like finals week packed into a single night.
If you were too busy or ADD to really go deep with any albums this year, this is a sort of choose-your-own adventure for one-liner opinions you can drop authoritatively before the ball drops—ideally impressing potential midnight make-out partners and definitely provoking animated arguments between your friends while you slip away and grab another drink. Behold: your official cheat sheet! And for the love of Blue Ivy, remember to study next year.
Intro by Dave Bry. Written by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (@jawnita)
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Drake
To love: "Nothing Was the Same is the most important rap album of the year. It marked Drizzy's continued takeover of the radio and supremacy among our generation as a rapper and feelings-haver. This is a dude who is finally coming into his own, musically! He is the realest mix of toughguy and ladies' man since LL Cool J, but LL needed someone else for his hooks! GIVE THIS MAN A GRAMMY!"
To remain neutral: "Drizzy's aight. There's some sad-man tomfoolery on Nothing Was the Same, but is 27 a reasonable age to still be going through a quarter-life crisis? Tracks like 'Worst Behaviour' and 'The Language' knocked. But you know what else is knocking? Saturn, baby. He better get his life together before the fourth album."
To hate: "Drake's emo-boy steez is played. It's one thing to say he 'Started from the Bottom' because yeah, Canadian television is pretty low-priority on the must-see TV scale. But once dude started calling out 'Courtney from Hooters on Peachtree,' I knew it was over. Who goes to Hooters? Is Drake a 55-year-old pervy uncle from the '80s? FOH."
Beyoncé
To love: "Beyoncé went more personal and risque than Bey's ever gone, but musically she took it there. Even the ballads stripped vocal pageantry for emotional rawness. Also: have you seen the videos? The booty don't lie."
To remain neutral: "SURFBOARDT. Wait—is marriage sex awesome?! Does anyone here know?!"
To hate: "Please stop talking about her. There were more thinkpieces about Beyoncé one day after it dropped, than tracks were on the album."
Jay Z
To love: "He's the first rapper to drop crazy lines into his 40s, the first rapper to make $5 million on the album before the album dropped, the first rapper to reference Homeland, the second rapper to take Watch The Throne's race and class commentary to Bergdorf's—which he donated to his charity!"
To remain neutral: "I bought the album, but my Samsung app broke the night it dropped."
To hate: "Magna Carta...Holy Fail, amirite?"
Macklemore
To love: "Macklemore and Ryan Lewis came up from an independent label and made thrift shopping the coolest thing in the country, plus they critiqued the hip-hop industry and still won every award they were nominated for. The last big rapper from Seattle was Sir-Mix-A-Lot from the '80s! Macklemore started from the actual bottom and makes real music with substance."
To remain neutral: "Macklemore has good intentions so I can't knock him. He's not for me but he's definitely making his money on that independent shit so good for him."
To hate: "Elvis, do not even speak to me."
Miley Cyrus
To love: "Miley's voice has always been awesome, but she's growing up and seeing her become a true crossover pop icon is so satisfying—especially cause most of the songs on Bangerz are anthems. And weed-smoking, tongue-wagging, 'a little chill up my thighs' Miley (#GetItRight) is better than 'Miley forgets to register for school under her government name' Miley (#HannahMontana)."
To remain neutral: "Bangerz had a couple, and yeah, she's a girl gone slightly wild. But imagine growing up in Disneylluminati™ zone and finally being able to cut loose? If she gets "ratchet" tatted on her forehead, the psychology is already on the books. Let's see if she remembers Mike Will's number for her next album, though."
To hate: "Can someone get that girl to an African-American Studies class, stat?"
Kendrick Lamar
To love: "Best rapper alive, deserves every award and plaque for good kid, m.A.A.d. city even into 2014. 'Control' was battle rap arson. Drake don't want it with him."
To remain neutral: "Yeah, unintentional side effect was disturbing the beast—aka, resurrecting the careers of 50 rappers you don't care about that he didn't even mention. Drank."
To hate: "'Control' was cool but Joell Ortiz killed him."
Lady Gaga
To love: "Yaaas, Gaga, yaaaas!"
To remain neutral: "She sang the lyric, 'You're just a pig inside a human body,' which made me hungry for turducken."
To hate: "ARTFLOP is selling nothing because people are finally realizing Gaga's big ideas don't match up to her music. It sounds like the YouTube screaming goat remixed by a bar DJ. Maybe she really is Jeff Koons?"
Lorde
To love: "Lorde made weird, beautiful, real-talk pop that was like reading her diary but also critiqued social issues. And she hasn't even graduated from high school. And she got famous off Soundcloud. 'Millennials' are 'lazy'?"
To remain neutral: "She sings 'Don't you think it's boring how people talk?' on 'Tennis Court' and I'm like YES! I FEEL YOU. So yeah, I'm gonna go get another drink."
To hate: "'Royals' is criticizing rapper clichés like Cristal and gold teeth like, do they only show hip-hop videos from ten years ago in New Zealand? Isn't she supposed to be young and cool? Stop acting like she is a magical unicorn just cause she's 17. Michael Jackson got famous at eight."
Chance the Rapper
To love: "Remember when College Dropout dropped and you felt like the game changed? Acid Rap was like that, except instead of R&B and a wired-shut jaw it was juke and... acid. Watch, next year this kid is gonna blow for real."
To remain neutral: "Dude put out one tape and the critics hyped him up. We'll see what he does next year."
To hate: "I love Chip the Ripper!"
Justin Bieber
To love: "After #musicmondays, I think he might actually become most relevant R&B sexer we've had since he was born in 2010. Also, he's sooooo cute!"
To remain neutral: "Biebz has got the songs, the fans, the voice, and the cosigns. So did Joe Jonas?!"
To hate: "Speeding, weeding, owning illegal animals...dropcrotch pants. Making Anne Frank about himself. Gaga's littlest monster is right here."
Eminem
To love: "He's one of the best rappers alive and one of the best to ever do it. With one of the best albums of his career, he proved again that Rick Rubin will work wonders for you if you're over 40. This dude took spiritual Rogaine to the face."
To remain neutral: "Let's make a pact that Marshall Mathers 2 is the bar for his next album."
To hate: "I have no interest in hearing anyone over 40 rap."
Childish Gambino
To love: "This man is every bit as creative as Kanye: rapping, acting, writing, comedian-ing, plus Because the Internet puts everything he's done before to shame. 'We in here like Coltrane/We leave it like Cobain!'"
To remain neutral: "Dude is cool. We all love Drake. But how am I supposed to think of him as anyone but the dude from Modern Family? Wait...what show is he on?"
To hate: "Have you heard him rap?"
Mac Miller
To love: "Been saying Mac Miller is the whole package. He produced almost all of Watching Movies with the Sound Off, he improved his rhymes by 100% since Blue Slide Park, and somehow, in less than a year, he became cool with hip-hop heads and hipsters. All while wearing a fanny pack."
To remain neutral: "I was not feeling Mac Miller, but he really stepped it up on his second album—great beats, nice little flow, features with TDE, Odd Future, Pharrell, FlyLo. And he reaches the college audience: rich white frat boys love screaming along to 'Fuck a day job!'"
To hate: "Do not care who is on any of his albums, no amount of co-signs can take away from the fact that dude is the Mayor of Corn Town. He invented Corn Town, is its sole resident, then appointed himself Mayor, President, King, and Ombudsman of Corn Town. That is how seriously he takes being a corny dude."
Kanye West
To love: "Yeezus was the most important album of the year. Your mans was in real-mad mode about race, power, money, and contradiction, but was also like eff it and hired a crew of underground producers to juice all his ideas into The Matrix. He dropkicked the clone-cop with the Oakleys, then promo'd 'New Slaves' on the sides of random buildings around the world. Innovation king. Greatest artist of our generation. Anyone who doesn't like Yeezus is just basic."
To remain neutral: "Your mans invented leather jogging pants. Zane Lowe told me. Case closed."
To hate: "I don't get it."