Music reviews with Lena

Album cover rating: 5/5 perfect score. It has all of the characters from the songs and I would totally have this as a poster.

Overall Thoughts This one has given me some serious writer’s block for some reason so this review won’t be my best. Nevertheless, I will not be a quitter and I want to continue this blog so here we go! In classic Lena she/her fashion I must compare this album to something I love dearly, and in this case it’s Gorillaz. These people are totally unrelated but they are and English electronic music group that thrived in the early to mid aughts, so I can’t help but think that they were running in similar circles. There are certain songs where the lead singer has that wispy voice that sounds so much like Damon Albarn that I thought I was losing my mind. Honestly this whole thing just sounds like another Gorillaz album, which is a compliment! This album absolutely shines in its production and lush instrumentation. The female singer with a quirky 2000s British voice absolutely kills it in “Lust for a Vampyr” (my favorite on the album), which also has so much cool stuff going on in the background. Surf guitar, crickets, sax solos, and a clap along chorus!! Oh and a weird Middle Eastern inspired bridge?? All in one song that sounds cohesive! This album loses points in the fact that you have to dig through a lot to find the gems. While as a complete product it is very well executed, as it is able to balance many different genres, energy levels, and voices while still sounding like a cohesive album. I’ve found myself putting this album on as a unit from time to time when cleaning my room or going on a walk. Most of the songs do not have the power to stand on their own though, with “Lust for a Vampyr” being one of the few. “Dear John” also stands out as a foray into circus honky tonk that sometimes has visions of electronic grandeur, and “Wake Up Tony” feels like an homage to the weird bands of 80s past. I do think I will give their other music a try just because it seems to scratch that same weird, creative itch that Gorillaz does. I am just surprised it took me this long to find them!

Album cover review: fits the vibe perfectly and has some great fonts. 10/10

Overall Thoughts

We’re back in a random record store in Halifax for this pick, and unlike the TUNS album I am incredibly happy I listened to this one. 

On my first listen to the album I was struck by how authentically 60s every song on this album felt, and it was fun to pinpoint what exact subgenre they were going for with each one. The opening track “Fontaine à vœux” is full of “Kites are Fun” style flutes and dreamy vocal harmonies, and “Limonade” is reminiscent of “Season of the Witch.” You can tell that each of these songs was made with pure love and admiration for that style of music, something that made me absolutely fall in love with this album. 

Vocally this song is also incredible, and I am just taken aback by how professional and incredible they are as performers and singers. Their voices blend beautifully together and they are able to execute the perfect amount of melodrama and attitude when the situation calls for it (“En Californie,” “Jacqueline”). Oh and honestly the coolest part is that most of this album is in Acadian French!!! I’ve beet obsessed recently with the rolled r’s and fascinating code switching of New Brunswick French, and this album is just a beautiful example of it. 

Okay wait actually the coolest part of this album is that IT'S A CONCEPT ALBUM. Apparently these songs are based off of a box of letters (hence the title) they found in a thrift store. They’re from a young woman named Jacqueline who moved from Moncton to the big scary city of Montreal in 1965, and follow her time navigating this new life as an independent young woman in a world where that was a new concept. Certain songs (particularly “Jacqueline” and “Look At Me Now”) use actual lines from the letters and the 60s theme of the album comes from when these letters are from. Unfortunately the band has not been able to find and connect with the real Jacqueline yet, but it is so amazing to me that some forgotten box of 60 year old letters can inspire an album like this. It’s albums like this that make me love doing these reviews and how it makes me listen to random albums from across space and time. 

(cover review: fun idea but something about it feels uncanny valley. 5/10)

Overall Thoughts

As I’ve said several times before on here, I don’t like melodramatic music. I listen to music to boost my mood, and if I wanted to listen to something sad it would be more low-key. After all, my refined pallet only cries over 60s folk music and not stupid modern day pop. Olivia is the only current figure in contemporary pop that gives me pause and pushes me off my high horse. Something about the way she writes both lyrically and musically makes me feel like she actually means it, much more than any other person who’s put out a melodramatic ballad. 

I don’t think it’s any surprise that, like everyone else, I love her more upbeat songs (“brutal,” “good 4 u”). “Brutal” and “jealousy, jealousy” are honestly some of my favorite songs of the last 5 years, perfectly capturing the frustration, insecurity, and crippling self-awareness that comes with being a teenager (I will note that Olivia and I are the same age, so maybe that makes her songs more realistic and relatable to me). There is no reason for me to like a song as self-pitying as “divers license” though, and yet I eat it up every time. I don’t know if it’s the rawness in her voice, or the bluntness of her lyrics, but I actually teared up when watching the tiny desk version. Her writing style isn’t super advanced and metaphorical (no mahogany grain here) but its simplicity makes her songs feel more realistic. If her goal is to make it clear to her audience what she is feeling and make them tap into the same emotions, she’s already nailed it in her first album. 

Now this album isn’t perfect though; the second half is heavily reliant on filler (“enough for you,” “favorite crime,” and “hope ur ok”) and a lot of this album hinges on interpolations. While I don’t agree with the “Cruel Summer” and “deja vu” connection, “good 4 u” quite clearly has the same chorus as “Misery Business.” I have absolutely no problem with interpolation or sampling, but it doesn’t seem to be an artistic choice here, just an accidental one. A lot of the songs could also be more complex musically. While I think the sentiment of “happier” is great, I think it would be better if it wasn’t just Pachabel’s Cannon. This is her first album so it’s clear she just needs time to grow, and already we’ve seen with GUTS that things are going up. 

(album cover review: it's cute, it would be a fun poster, although it feels a little too quirky 7/10)

Overall Thoughts

Whenever I see an album in a record store that I really want to listen to, it’ll be added to the “to review” list that is 100s of albums long. Some day (in this case almost two years later) the random number generator will pick it and it’ll appear on this blog! This album I discovered in a record shop in Halifax in the “local music” section, with the band name coming from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. While this was generally a fun listen, I can’t imagine ever coming back to it. 

This album sounds like a lot of things that are more interesting than what you can hear here. The opening track “Back Among Friends” has some clear Beatles inspired harmonies but the production and voices are just… not as good (a problem with allowing yourself to be compared to the Beatles). This can really be heard in “I Can’t Wait Forever” where each voice sounds like it's reaching way beyond what is comfortable. You can hear some voice breaks in the lead which is pretty rough. This is a low budget indie band though so I won’t be too harsh on the production (even though it’s not that great). 

The main problem with this album is that it’s not interesting. These songs meander around the same boring idea for three and a half minutes, which feels like forever when I’ve already lost interest after the first chorus. This is something that generally bugs me about indie rock (see my Strokes reviews, this is exactly what makes that band hit or miss for me), and it's just exacerbated here. I would say the most interesting song on the album is “Mind Over Matter” which seems to have the most energy behind it, but to me it just sounds like a more timid soy boy version of “Le Risque” by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. To me this whole album sounds like a mix of The Strokes, Cage the Elephant, and the albums Paper Mâché Dream Balloon and Flight b741 by King Gizzard, but honestly I would prefer sticking with those over listening to this album again. 

album cover review: okay so i looked into the painting on the front and its a 1500s Christian Ethopian painting of Saint George. It's owned by the Peabody Essex museum in Salem, MA but is not on display and their website has no way to search their collections (which i think is morally deplorable for a museum to do). This is the art style that inspired cubism so perhaps that's why it was chosen? As another example of "The West" taking inspiration from Africa? Anyways I really like how understated this is 8/10.

Overall Thoughts

There have been essays upon essays written about this album, a lot of them surrounding aspects beyond the music itself. Instead focusing on the album as a statement during the apartheid in South Africa, as a statement to world peace, and as the vessel through which many people heard music from African artists for the very first time. Now as someone who did not experience any of this while it was happening so I’m going to leave it to those people to write about that. This blog is foremost about what I think about music, and that’s what I’ll write about. 

I think the only weakness of this album is the man that made it happen. Paul’s lyrics, while interesting, ramble on interminably in a mousey, overly-sincere voice. That may sound a little mean to Paul but he sounds almost comical in songs like “I Know What I Know” and “All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints.” Robert Christgau refers to him as an insufferable English major and I can’t hear it any other way. 

The high rating comes from how flawless the rest of this album is though. The instrumentals are jaunty no matter how monotonous the lyrics, with a bass that injects life into every single track. While the obligatory 80s sax can sound cheesy at times, it just adds another layer of fun to songs like “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” and “You Can Call Me Al.” And the vocals from Ladysmith Black Mambazo on songs like “Homeless” and “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” are just otherworldly. The random zydeco interlude with “That Was Your Mother” also blew me away, with Paul’s comically sincere little boy voice over frantic accordion. 

Coming away from this album I think it is a masterpiece of fusion between Paul Simon folk and South African music styles, but I find myself just wanting to listen to the latter without the former. That is part of the importance of this album, as it introduced America to these artists for the first time. In the end though, minus the singles from this album I would rather reach for a Ladysmith Black Mambazo record than hear English major Paul. 

Overall Thoughts

This album has two themes (car and surf) and three kinds of songs (6/8 ballad, happy fun time, and instrumental you didn’t want). The two themes are a little silly and sometimes they don’t seem to fully buy into them, like in “South Bay Surfers” where it sounds like they are about to fall asleep. Other songs have just ridiculous lyrics like “Surfer’s Rule” and “Our Car Club” which just feel embarrassing tbh. Lyrics aside though, this song has a lot going for it musically. 

The happy fun time songs and the instrumentals are nothing special, but the ballads are where I absolutely fall in love with The Beach Boys. The album opens with “Surfer Girl,” a perfect swaying 50s ballad, with voices that make you feel like you are swaying in the waves. “Surfer Moon” continues that feeling, and “In My Room” puts them on another level musically. It is amazing to me that this song came out in 1963 when Brian was only 21, as it just so perfectly captures the cautious comfort in loneliness, the perfectly in sync similar voices assuring you you’re not alone. It’s a clue to what masterpieces they have to come, and it makes sitting through songs like “Hawaii” worth it. 

The final ballad of the album is “Your Summer Dream,” sung by Brian alone. I think it's easy to look at all these beautiful ballads and decide that what makes them so powerful are the lush harmonies, but this song proves how important the song writing is. This song feels so vulnerable and heartfelt, a testament to Brian’s power as a songwriter and performer. 

(This cover is just so aggressively sci-fi 70s funk that you have to respect it, 9/10)

Yes I'm switching to rating things out of five, I think it just fits better with how I feel about the album.

Overall Thoughts

This isn’t my first time reviewing an album that is a response to a music trend, formed to hit while the kettle is hot with the hopes of being the next big thing. Formed in 1974, a year when “Come and Get Your Love,” “Jungle Boogie,” and “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” are topping the charts, I think it’s clear that Chocolate Milk thought they could get in on that. Something that sets them apart from a sea of derivatives is that they are damn good. There is some incredible talent here, and it honestly shocks me that the best any of their songs ever did was get to 14 on the US R&B charts. 

Each of their songs fit in that beautiful aspect of funk and R&B that is yearning on the dance floor. Frank Richard's vocals are smooth and expressive, a voice that makes me close my eyes and fall in love. From the comforting crooning in “Groove City” to the desperation in “Save the Last Dance” I never get annoyed by the melodrama, because I fully buy into it. I truly believe that if he does not get his girl it is the end of the world for him, and frankly after serenading us like this he deserves the world. Perhaps it is the fact that I can dance along to his yearning that keeps it from getting tired, with the album keeping an interesting mix of upbeat and ballad to stop any kind of lull from forming. 

Of course I have to specifically mention the reason I started listening to this album, the song “Doc” which was never a single but is now their most listened to song on Spotify. There is something so fascinating about a song randomly becoming popular from the Spotify algorithm almost 50 years after it came out. Frankly I am surprised they didn’t choose it as a single because it is definitely the best of the bunch. Every single instrumental punch is perfectly timed, with the song switching between completely different vibes for the verses and chorus. Also I can’t think of another song that has a chorus quieter than its verses, something that instantly hooked me. This is a beautiful example of fun funk storytelling, with the drama turned up to an eleven making it all the more entertaining. 

The only thing that keeps this album from being perfect is the corny “concept album” they were going for. The album title and cover are space themed, but only an interlude and outro actually go with that theme and it's not linked to anything else on any of the other songs. The interlude doesn’t even act as a segue between two different parts of the album, it's just kind of stuck there, sounding like an SNL parody of old sci-fi funk songs. 

(bruh this album cover is so funny they look like such dorks 3/10)

Overall Thoughts

This was the album they released with all of their X Factor covers and only two original songs, so you may be wondering why this even matters enough for me to review it. Well, one of the covers on this album is “Beggin’” of course! Unfortunately it is the best song on this album but that isn't to say that the rest of them are bad, just… pretty good. 

The album starts with the two original songs done in the exact same style as the covers that fill the rest of the album. You have a faux badass lead singer that loves to rap with a strong Italian accent, some great bass playing, and your standard rock guitar and drums. The songs are not memorable but not bad, you can tell that things will definitely go up from here. 

The five covers are an incredibly funny selection to be honest. Their genre is rock with rap verses, which is much much more common than I originally thought! I guess if you up the tempo of any song you can make it rap! We first have a Caprezza (an Italian rapper I love) song which sounds much much more natural for them, to the point I’m beggin them to stop doing just English songs. Then “Let’s Get It Started” which is a great fit genre wise but the production makes this version just so lackluster! It’s basically a karaoke cover minus the winds of the original that make it so dense. Next is “Somebody Told Me” by the Killers, which again is just a fine Karaoke cover, but they at least brought out a killer bass part in the chorus. Last is a cover of an Ed Sheeran song I had never heard of “You Need Me, I Don’t Know You” where I’m pretty sure he gave up on the English lyrics and was saying gibberish. 

Something that didn’t sit right with me about all the covers (and the originals but it was less obvious there) was how empty everything felt. Perhaps it was just that there were only guitar, bass, and drums without any seasoning, or maybe it was the production, but something felt off. This was especially clear for the songs that are covers, because I come in expecting the lushness of the original songs. The interesting instrumental or production choices, the personalization that made these songs so famous. Instead Maneskin’s marker is emptiness, which makes these covers useless. I think that this will get better with time, as their later music does not have this problem, but for now it's pretty rough. 

That brings me to this review’s raison d’être, “Beggin’.” This is the one song on the album that doesn’t have that empty feeling to me, which is why it was able to become so huge. I honestly like this one more than the original, with the frantic energy filling in all the empty spaces. This is the only one on the album worth listening to more than once, and that’s because it feels whole. 

I am back from the dead! I recently moved to East Asia and will be teaching here for the next year, so I've been busy adjusting to everything. Nonetheless, I'm not going to break my five year streak, so here are my top songs of Eurovision 2025.

I'm going to be so honest with you, this year absolutely sucked when it came to the music. That is part of why it took me so long to put this post out. Only my top three are songs I think actually have memorable merit, the rest were complete throwaways. I feel like the quality of eurovision ebbs and flows each year, and this is just the price we have to pay for the "entertainment" that surrounded last year's events. Oh and to be clear I hated the song that won this year. Absolutely detest it. These were the only songs I would ever sit through and listen to again out of the batch this year, and I'm glad to be leaving most of them in the past.

For those who are new to my rating system I grade on singer, song, catchiness, performance, and bonus points (ex. not in english, not a pop song, minus points for someone falling into the water in the music video) meaning that a song could get above the max. Oh and this ranking is based purely off of which ones are my favorites, so sometimes the order won't match that.

5. The UK - What The Hell Just Happened? by Remember Monday

Score: 32/40

Notes: they sound american :((

Final Ranking: 19th

I think this is the first time the UK has ever made one of my top 5 lists because they usually don't send anything strong. This however is a wonderful girl group that belt and harmonize beautifully. The song is a wonderful mix of melodramatic singing and fun lyrics, and each person is smiling and looks like they're having a great time. The song changes a bunch from ballad rock to synth pop to acapella, but you can hear their smiles come through their singing in each part. I just only wish they didn't sing with American accents, as British ones would have been way more fun.

4. Australia - Milkshake Man by Go-Jo

Score: 38/40

Notes: benson boone not constrained by mormanism

Final Ranking: 11th

Does this guy make me uncomfortable? Yes. Does the Benson Boone blue jumpsuit ruin this music video for me? Yes. Is this a really fun, catchy, and honestly good song? Yes. I love the eerie driving bass, the mix of fun and creepy, and whimsy around it all. I love listening to this one and how inconsequential it is, something that unites this whole list i suppose.

3. Iceland - RÓA by VÆB

Score: 44/40

Notes: Techno sea shanty!

Final Ranking: 25th

This one is again just a fun and silly time, which is what I turn to Eurovision for! It's a techno sea shanty with a ridiculous low budget music video and two blond Icelandic brothers messing around. While this has a really high score and I loved it at the time there are a couple of things that keep me from coming back to this song. I think the autotune is funny here and makes the mix of traditional sea shanty and techno really interesting, I have to be honest and say it's pretty rough on the ears. I also feel like these boys wrote a great chorus and post chorus, and all the verses were them stalling until they got to that point. It's a 2:50 minute song that would thrive on tiktok, and I think that was the goal the whole time.

2. Sweden - Bara Bada Bastu by KAJ

Score: 42/40

Notes: soo nordic

Final Ranking: 4th

Okay look, this one isn't doing anything groundbreaking and there is a large gap in musicality between this one and first place. It's just a fun time with three Nordic guys singing about going to the sauna with their bros. This is a song that really embodies the silliness that keeps me coming back to Eurovision and its incredibly catchy. Like I had this stuck in my head intermittently for a month. Heck, I'll probably have this stuck in my head for the next week after writing this. And the fact that I'll be nodding along as I sing to myself for the millionth time puts this in second place.

Latvia - Bur Man Laimi by Tautumeitas

Score: 44/40

Notes: woah

Final ranking: 13

This is one of my favorite songs ever entered in Eurovision, and one of the very few that was so awe inspiring I was completely speechless. All I could think of how absolutely beautiful every part of this song and video was, and how genuinely happy it made me feel at each listen. The perfectly blended voices that seem to float around you and disappear into the clouds, percussion that teeters between frantic and measured, and video that presents these girls as the goddesses they are. I absolutely adore that there are modern elements mixed into this song, with a subtle drum machine and bass recreating a sound from long ago. The structure is also incredibly odd for a eurovision song, and while it takes the listener out of their comfort zone it leads them to a new world where they instantly feel at home.

(where's the honky? where's the chateau? 1/10)

I have finally graduated college, so we are sooo back

Overall Thoughts

Look I’m going to be honest, if I linger on doing an album review too long it's because I just don’t know what to say. I lose steam and just put off writing the review, which is why I haven’t written anything on this blog for 6 months. But I have to give this album its fair treatment (especially because it's honestly a good album), so here’s my best attempt to capture the feeling of Honky Chateau. 

I loooovveee honky tonk music. It’s the reason I reviewed that Dr John album last year, and why ragtime music became my go to study music during finals season. That beautiful mix of choppy piano, deep scooping saxophone, and silly crooning transports me to a barn in the woods, a couple of beers in with cicadas and owls adding backing vocals. This is the feeling “Honky Cat” captures and “I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself” jokes about, but the rest of the album is a little different. 

My favorite parts of the album were when Elton John decided to be bitchin’. “Susie (Dramas),” “Amy,” and “Hercules” have punchy bass and guitars going crazy, while Elton sings with a “Fuck you”  attitude that feels a little silly from such a 5’8 British man. The problem is that these songs lose their momentum once they keep going past the four minute mark, often with outros that stay past their welcome and fade into oblivion. There is absolutely nothing bitchin about ending a song that way, which makes me a little disappointed when it comes to those. 

Then there are the slow emotional songs, a genre I generally don’t enjoy. “Mellow” screams forgettable dad rock, “Salvation” is too holier than thou, “Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters” is hymnlike and not a Panic! At the Disco song as you would expect from the title, and “Slave” is folky but just missing the legitimacy that makes folk pack a punch. Of course the last song I haven’t mentioned is “Rocket Man,” which I think I have just ruined for myself. Like everyone else I have heard this song a million and one times, and while it was incredible to hear live I don’t know if I really want to hear it again for the next 5 years at least. Objectively this song is really good, the lyrics are sharply written and the instrumental is just as lonely. The popularity from the movie mixed with the awful Dua Lipa remix oversaturated the world with this song, and I think if I were to come back to it in 10 years it would have its magic again. For now though I’m ready to move on. 

Reading about this album it seems to be when Taupin and John hit their stride, and you can hear that while they are exploring a lot of different genres here they are doing it well and not half-assedly. I love Elton John but I feel like I just lingered on this one a bit too long and my brain got tired of it. Give me a decade and maybe I’ll come around. 

(I fully thought this was a robot skeleton arm until today, and now i kinda wish it was. Also has a lot of text and none of it is the title 5/10)

Overall Thoughts

Finally, we’re back to my bread and butter, Kpop. While this isn’t the genre I listen to the most, it is by far the most fun to write about. Its existence is due to cultures colliding and I think this current era is so fascinating because it is now shaping the western music it originally was building off of. I’ve written essays about how bizarre this genre is but that’s for a different day. Today is all about Kiss of Life. 

This album follows the classic kpop route of doing everything to see what will sell. You have a vaguely latin hit, krnb, trap, 2000s pop, and Chainsmokers crap (I suppose I’m showing my hand with that last one but I stand by it). The single (“Get Loud”) has some really fascinating stuff buried under a rather forgettable chorus and vocal part, with bongos and latin guitar subtly weaving through a standard kpop background. “Chemistry” is my favorite by far since its Krnb, and I’m gonna be honest, if you have a great baseline, beat, and harmonies I’m an easy sell. These are fairly boring to write about though, let's get to the fun stuff. 

“Too Many Alex” is a really fun throwback to the bombastic kpop songs of the early 2010s, and similar to American pop from the early 2000s. There’s a piano and funky bass going crazy with a sax solo and happy vocals. Think Vulpeck but Kpop. “Back To Me” and “No One But Us” are just bad imo. I hated the Chainsmokers era of 2015 and nostalgia cannot and will not change that. I saw people online loving how nostalgic these songs made them feel and good for them but Jesus Christ are these just bad. You can say all you want about contemporary music but at least we left that era. Kiss of Life, you have absolutely no reason to bring it back. 

What struck me the most about these songs though is how Western they sound. Like if you told me they played on the radio here in 2014 I would totally believe you, heck “No One But Us” is entirely in English! This leads me to my love-hate relationship with “Igloo.” 

This one is… well I don’t know exactly what genre under kpop, perhaps trap? Knock-off Brat? The point is it's got one of those bouncing synth bass beats, bass so low you can’t hear a particular note, a classic trap high-hat, and a harmonizing chorus? The premise of the song is that they’re so hot they can melt an igloo and just wow these lyrics suck really bad. I had trouble telling that the whole song was in English because a lot of it just didn’t make sense, and like none of it rhymes? Slant rhyme at best sometimes. It's just vague words about being hot and a baddie? And I hate that because the beat itself is so good!! The harmonies in the chorus are so cool! But the rest of it is kind of laughable in a way that undermines the badass look it's going for. 

I think this song also highlights a general discussion that has been happening more and more in the kpop world, how a lot of the stuff they are drawing from comes from Black artists. Look I am a firm believer that you can make whatever kind of music you want, but the lines start to blur when you have braided and crimped dark hair in the music videos. I do think there has been some kind of shift recently though, as all of their background dancers in their recent music videos are black. Like all of them. Not a bad thing at all obviously, but it definitely wants to make me look into when that shift happened. See this is why I love writing about and looking into kpop music, there is some weird stuff going on. 

That being said, this album is good when it tries to do weird stuff. I may hate parts of “Igloo” but I kinda love its failed attempt and something badass (unfortunately its too serious to be camp :( ). “Get Loud” works pretty well because you can tell someone is experimenting in the background. The album fails when it falls into formulas. 

(I mean not the worst album cover I've ever seen but it's linked to something so bad it cannot get a good score. 3/10)

Overall Thoughts

You know me, I love to be a hater, and this one deserves the hate. This just sucks man no way around it. When I listened to the Iggy Azalea album, at least parts of it were funny (“got green like Luigi”), this was just a waste of my time. 

The instrumentals were fine? Most of the songs sound so similar that you feel deja vu the entire album, but some of them do short interesting things. “I Don’t Need Her” has a neat punchy bass part before the horrible voice comes in, “Mystery Man” has a synth solo (you know it’s bleak when I’m praising an 80s album for having a synth), and “Taking My Chances” is vaguely prog rock with a tolerable vocal part. These were all generally okay instrumentally but one after another they were just mind-numbingly tedious. They all seemed to have the exact same structure, and part of what makes “Your Love” stick out as the best song of the album is its unique bridge. But it still has the same vocals as the others which is the main problem of the album. 

This guy’s voice is just awful. You can tell in “Taking My Chances” that when he sings in his range he sounds totally fine, but that is the only song where he does that. The rest of them are in an ear piercing falsetto that sounds like someone is taking a cheese grater to his vocal chords. I wouldn’t be surprised if this man completely lost his voice at a certain point, after pushing it to the point of death. With melodramatic songs like “Everytime You Cry” and “Nervous Alibi” I genuinely wished my phone would die and put me out of my misery. All that got me through was laughing at the Phil Collins-esque drum fills that came out of nowhere in the slower songs. 

I cannot emphasize enough to not listen to this album ever. “Your Love” is a pretty good song and I don’t want it to be ruined for you like it has for me. Spare yourself. 

(Album cover fits the music well, it just feels a little uncanny valley to me... 7/10)

Overall Thoughts

Ultimately the main goal of this blog is to force me to listen to new music, as I feel like my music taste/exploration has stagnated recently, and I think it’s done a good job! It means that I’m always reviewing albums long after they’ve come out, which can really change the impact it has. Sometimes this tints my views with nostalgia, sometimes it means I’ve overplayed an album for myself by the time I get around to reviewing it, and sometimes the album is so characteristic of the era it can’t be seen as separate. 

It’s interesting reviewing this album seven years later, in a time where Tyler, The Creator is known for being vulnerable and intimate in his music, for showing his internal struggles with his sexuality, which was a huge shock when this album came out. This was the first of his that did any of that, and so going back and listening to it there is less of an impact. When “Garden Shed” (a song about being stuck in the closet) came out with this album, it totally recontextualized all of his previous work, but to a listener in 2025 that’s just part of his who he is and his songs. 

A lot of these songs also feel VERY 2017. Rex Orange County (a name I haven’t heard in years) is on a couple tracks (“Foreword” and “Boredom”) and that spaciness finds itself in other songs like “Glitter” and anywhere Frank Ocean appears (once again a name of this era). Despite this review being the first time I have heard this album the full way through all of it felt really familiar to me. I think this is more Tyler being the blueprint than him being unoriginal, but it made me realize how difficult it can be to review an album that is pretty fresh in people’s memory, but old enough that it’s changed popular music. 

Anyways, what did I like about this album? The instrumentals are fascinating! 

The first two songs (“Foreword” and “Where This Flower Blooms”) are pretty mellow except for an intrusive trap synth that leave the listener unsettled the whole time. 

“Who Dat Boy” sounds like a “Night on Bald Mountain” remix, a weird instance of rap horror music? 

“Ain’t Got Time” (my new favorite from this album) features an awesome "We're going to dance" sample made famous by “Groove is in the Heart,” and even acknowledges how cool that is in the first line “God I love this sample.”

“911/ Mr. Lonely” has a backing track so smooth and sexy that only Steve Lacy (featured on the song with Frank Ocean) can be behind it. 

There are also a million and one things happening in each song, with the two halves often sounding completely different. For me this makes a really fascinating album from a musical and art perspective, but my silly little pop catchy brain can’t really latch onto much. I’d listen to this album again as a whole but other than “See You Again,” “Ain’t Got Time,” and “Glitter” I don’t think this album is going to occupy my thoughts too much beyond writing this. I think this album marks the start of something great, which he’s surpassed with Call Me If You Get Lost and Chromakopia. 

(album cover: 6/10 its cute, but surely they could have been more creative)

Actually the worst semester of my life. But the end of college is in sight (ignoring that i will be going to grad school). 

Overall Thoughts

Gonna keep this one short and sweet like the album, although I hope this review has more substance. I’m glad I reread my Yesung review before this one, because the problems I had with this are very very similar: 

Not everyone is meant to be a soloist. 

Falsettos lose their power if the whole thing is sung high. Also it hurts to listen to. Stop doing this. 

Yena was originally a member Iz*One, which disbanded in 2021, after which she made her solo debut in 2022. She is a great singer technically, but again her voice is breathy and forced in its upper range for each and every song and it just sounds tired. I’m not saying that you need to be able to sing along for a song to be good, but it sounds like she’s struggling a bit. Western pop has moved away from this but Kpop has embraced it head on, making it really difficult to listen to (especially “VACAY,” the worst offender on the album). 

The songs themselves don’t stand out in any particular way, with the single “Smiley” hanging off of the BIBI guest verse and desperately trying to be the song of the summer, despite being released in winter. The rest are just generally upbeat songs, with my favorite being “Pretty Boys” which is just a fun junk food song. None of these songs are particularly bad, and I find myself bopping along to them, but I would be happy never hearing anything from this song, and it makes me feel like writing this review was a waste of time. 

(album cover: very americana, very iconic, but who is this guy???? 7/10)

Worst hiatus yet so sorry gang. Senior year of college started and this is the first time I’ve been able to breathe. 

Overall Thoughts

Look, you came here for my opinion right? Not some cowardly rolling stone review that calls everything art and won’t give below an 8. Objectively there are a lot of beautiful things going on in this album. Subjectively, I just don’t like Lana Del Rey’s music. 

This all boils down to two things: I hate melodrama and I need texture/grounding in what I listen to. I feel like given the first thing it's not a surprise I didn’t like this album, most of the songs are half-note chord piano ballads. Luckily Lana is such a good writer that her lyrics distract me from my annoyance. I end up listening intently and get sucked into the imagery, forgetting that the musical parts of the piece sound like Lana is lost in a cave and can only play three notes at a time on the piano. The world needs sad songs and she’s great at writing them, this was moderately annoying but not my real problem with this album. 

The real problem is how soulless it is. I’ve talked about before how I don’t like spacey indie music because it feels like there’s nothing for me to latch on to. It's so slippery it falls through the sewer grate into oblivion, despite how much I try to reach for any part of it. The piano is always sustained and has an echo filter on it, every percussion and instrument part is electronic, and the vocal part is double, triple tracked and autotuned to the point all of the personal-sounding lyrics feel like they're being echoed by a robot. 

The final track on the album “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have – but I have it” exemplifies this undermining of emotional vulnerability perfectly. The piano is fuzzy but mixed so low that this song might as well be acapella, something that would make an incredibly personal song feel even more vulnerable. Except this vulnerability never feels real because her voice is echoey like someone who is bad at karaoke. From a musical point of view I just think this is cowardice, hiding behind a computer filter unnecessarily, especially when we all know she has an amazing voice. God it just pisses me off so damn much. 

For all of these reasons, I’m fine never listening to another Lana song. Jack Antonoff has stolen her musical genius away and drowned it, running it through enough machines that there is no human resemblance on the other side. A real shame because songs like “Venice Bitch,” “The greatest,” and “Happiness is a butterfly” are almost perfect. They just need to dry out a little. 

(Damn, this is an incredible album cover 10/10)

Overall Thoughts

This review is two weeks late because honestly, I don’t know what I have to say about this album. I don’t have much of a thesis, no crazy social or musical commentary, this was just generally an enjoyable album. 

This album getting a rating this high is saying a lot because this album had to overcome the big hurdle of me having never heard a single song off this album and having little familiarity with traditional Turkish music. Despite having the clear calling cards of the genre (call and response with a high-pitched instrumental, the Arab music scale, vocal emphasis on the verses over the chorus), all of the songs are incredibly distinct and fascinating in their own way. The best way I can describe this album is as Turkish music using a western instrumental font. The instruments are all familiar (electric guitar, synth, drumset, bass guitar, distortion out the wazoo) but their execution is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It pulls you into the album as you are trying to guess what they will do next to no avail. 

Upon listing to this whole album a few times there are only a few songs that stick out to me as particularly great though: “Leyla” with distorted angry guitar, “Kolbastı” with its mesmerizing guitar solos, and the finale “Süpürgesi Yoncadan” with its super catchy synth riff that would fit right in with 1980s new wave. I don’t love any of these songs enough to add them to my liked songs, yet I like the album as a whole enough to possibly download it and add it to my travel catalog. Its soothing yet interesting enough to keep your mind from endlessly wandering.