G-Side's album, The ONE...COHESIVE is my album of the year. It dropped 01/01/11, which strikes me as an odd date to release an album as everyone on the fucking planet is pre-occupied during the end of the holiday season, but that's just me. If the album was released a day earlier, it would have been my album of 2010. In fact, I am having a hard time remembering the last time an album floored me from the moment I put it on my stereo.

Learning (or trying to learn) to produce music made me an even harsher critic. The more I listened to what I was trying to make, the more problems I heard. It became apparent that the best form of editing was constant repetitions. Errors became apparent, eventually. John used to insist, rightly I believe, that if you listen to something over and over again and it sounds great each time, if no mistake jumps out at you and if there is nothing you would change about the song, then it's done. When I hear music with obvious composition flaws, with bad transitions, boring sounds or poorly chosen tones, I can't help but be annoyed. It sounds lazy to me.

G-Side's album is brilliantly produced. These aren't hyper-compressed, club-ready bangers that are mixed down to be blasted at top volume from shitty car speakers. These beats are balanced and solid, great at any volume, and deep enough to demand repeat listens. You unpack these songs, not throw them in the background and check back in for the hook. The instrumentation nods to everything from piano ballads to stadium rock to 90s West Coast rap production. The timing changes, percussion cuts in and out, hi-hats deteriorate and crescendo in waves that overtake the song just in time to pull back and expose depth and tension. It is just gorgeous, through and through.

The rhyming is wild, smart, and hungry. Flea once said that he loved punk rock because the musicians play each note like it's their last, like someone is about to walk through the door and kill them at any moment. G-Side raps like this is their last album and they still haven't shown the world their potential. There are no references to violence, there are no misogynistic verses (although there is plenty of sex), there are only clever rhymes and stories of growing up hungry, working to put out great music, and dealing with the aftermath. It is so refreshing to go an entire album and not hear some auto-tuned bullshit about asses.

In short, I think I should thank G-Side. Albums like theirs remind me of why I fell in love with music in the first place and how great it feels to never lower your standards and still have them surpassed. It's so refreshing to hear an album that has been carefully constructed and produced, that reflects the love and attention it hopes to garner from its audience. Everyone else, you're on notice.

Listen to the whole thing, for free, here.