Gavin's collection

Rating: 10.0/10.0

Favorite songs: “thousand eyes”, “mary magdalene”, “home with you”, “fallen alien”, and “mirrored heart”

Least favorite songs: “daybed”

Wow...this album is otherworldly. twigs’ voice combined with the unique production make “MAGDALENE” one of my favorite albums of all time. FKA twigs’ sophomore album cannot be compared to any other music I’ve heard, boldly defining a new era of music.

I first started listening to “MAGDALENE” back when it came out, November 8, because I was obsessed with “Two Weeks”, a popular song from twigs’ previous album, “LP1″. I had very mixed feelings upon my first few listens, and I eventually gave up. I enjoyed “holy terrain” and “mary magdalene”, but the others seemed to strange to me at the time. Although this album received amazing reviews from various sources at the time, I didn’t feel a connection to the album.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to “Art Angels” by Grimes (another one of my favorite albums, by the way), and after it finished, Spotify started playing “mirrored heart”. I was about to skip it, but then I was engulfed in the power of twigs’ voice. Her lyrics had captured me and begged me to keep listening. I did, and I ended up listening to the song a total of 20 times that night (thanks to last.fm for that stat).

Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to "MAGDALENE” on repeat. I’ve never heard anything like it; I’ve tried to compare it to so many artists, yet twigs’ creativity is unparalleled. I find something new and exciting after every listen, and that’s what keeps me returning.

Songs like “thousand eyes” and “home with you” are so immensely powerful; I don’t think I’ve heard songs with such emotional depth that can compare to these two. On each listen, I hear the story twigs is telling her listeners, and that story never gets old. After doing some research on twigs as a person, I understand the lyrics so much more. While she isn’t divulging her entire life story, twigs tells enough to listeners so that the songs aren’t shallow.

The lyric “Apples, cherries, pain” in “home with you” seemed to me like a random lyrics, but after learning about FKA twigs’ courageous and incredible story about her struggles with fibroids in her uterus, I found so much more feeling and life in that line. It’s moments like these that make “MAGDALENE” shine.

While I thoroughly enjoy every single song on the album, "daybed” to me is the weakest track. After looking at twigs’ Genius annotations, I undoubtedly felt more connected to the moral and message of the track, yet the song is somewhat bland compared to the other tracks on the album. “daybed” is still an incredible song, but after listening to “fallen alien” and “mirrored heart”, it feels out of place. Nevertheless, it is not a skip for me.

If “LP1″ wasn’t enough to establish FKA twigs as one of the world’s most important artists of the decade (and arguably, the century), “MAGDALENE” is. FKA twigs pours her emotions into each and every single track on this album in a way unlike any other artist, positioning her as an unforgettable figure in music.