January was pretty wild when it came to music. Not much music came out this month and most of it was lackluster at best. The month was mainly fueled by Twitter beef between artists, and even against world renowned scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Well-known rapper, B.o.B, went off his rocker this month and began tweeting about how the earth is flat and Tyson had to interject and call him out. This led the rapper to release a diss track focused towards Tyson called “Flatline.” The track has since been deleted from SoundCloud, but not before it was everywhere on YouTube. Take a moment to listen to it because it’s probably one of the most ridiculous songs I’ve ever heard.

https://youtu.be/nZ4Vg_3jRQE

Twitter beef aside, some of the most anticipated music of 2016 came out this month and many people, including me, are disappointed. Starting with Rihanna, her 8th album, “Anti,” came out on January 27th. After almost a year of releasing singles and expensive promotions, this album still feels unfinished with some poor production choices and overall an unclear vision. Also, the three singles she released last year weren’t even on the album, which just confused me. She changed up her sound a bit from pumping out club bangers to a sort of soft hip-hop R&B style, which I’m a huge fan of, but if you’re going to change your sound you have to at least deliver and differentiate. There are still some good songs on the album, like the DJ Mustard-produced “Needed Me,” a confident, strong proclamation, and “Consideration,” a beat-heavy jam that features SZA. This is definitely a case of too much hype and not enough great content.

Another disappointment from this month was the release of Zayn Malik’s first solo single, “PILLOWTALK.” Although this song is 10 times better than any One Direction song (sorry to all you Directioners out there), it’s not too great. I was really interested to see how he does on his own, and I think he’ll do well, but I want to see him try new things rather than just add a couple curse words and a song about sex to differentiate himself from 1D. He also looks extremely bored in the far-from-boring music video.

Not all was lost this month, though—Panic at the Disco released its new album and it was quite good. The one true standout song is “Death Of A Bachelor,” a Sinatra-esque modern jazz song that has lead singer Brendon Urie singing his heart out. The emotional band Daughter also released an album this month that

has even more sad and powerful songs, including the somber and grungy “Doing The Right Thing.”

January didn’t quite meet my expectations for music. Although some things were disappointing and overall outlandish and weird, some good music came out of it. I’m just hoping this isn’t a trend of 2016.