The Internet - Purple Naked Ladies (Odd Future)

Matt Martians and Syd tha Kid — part of the controversial L.A. hip-hop collective Odd Future — have a specific target in mind for their debut album as the Internet: Tumblr fans who crave some late-'80s pop-R&B to get high to. Dinky synthesizers, nakedly bathetic guitar arpeggios, and tinny drum breakdowns stew in a basement-studio murk where Syd's vocals — a bit of Sade, some Suzanne Vega — whirl and pivot coolly in defiance of the wobbly carousel vertigo upending everything else. On Purple Naked Ladies, the Internet does right by quasi-Neptunes funk ("Lincoln"), Soulquarian uplift ("They Say"), Tracy Chapman-gone-electro ("She Dgaf") and full-frontal trip hop (the shamelessly Portishead-esque "Love Song") — enough that you may be compelled to accept their frequent and outright thievery.