shady boots

I usually get on here to write about albums and other music opinions I feel very strongly on, but it's mostly pretty negative stuff. Things that bum me out or that I need to rant about or get off my chest. Everyone loves to complain, and my recent review/rant of The Life of A Showgirl was probably my most scathing post yet. While it was very cathartic to write, it also made me realize, you know what? I wanna write about something positive for a change, something I really love. I think that would be a much-needed palette cleanser from the negativity on this page.

Enter Ms. Jade Thirlwall, a woman who I believe is one of the most exciting pop stars we've seen in a long time. Her debut album, That's Showbiz Baby, is my personal AOTY and I just really need to gush about it. I've been telling anyone who'll listen to tune in to her, because she's really tapping into something here and she is such a student of the legendary pop girls that came before her. It hurts my heart to see greatness slept on.

If you haven't listened to this album, or you aren't familiar with Jade at all, then please stop whatever you're doing and get on whatever streaming service you use to change that ASAP. Quickly, go on! I'll wait. The review will still be here when you're done.

Still need some convincing? Alright then, read on. I'll make a Jade stan out of you yet.

Sigh.

Okay, just like I mentioned in my review of TTPD from last year, I made a post in 2020 about folklore and evermore and how those albums were so important to me that they made me become a Swiftie again. While that post is still accurate to how I felt at the time, and I still stand by the fact that those two sister albums are her magnum opus and I could wax poetic about them forever, I lowkey regret writing that post more and more every day. "Swiftie" has never felt more like a dirty word to me until this exact moment in time.

In that same review of TTPD, I'd said that I wanted Taylor to surprise me with her next release, and while she definitely did... This was not the kind of surprise I was hoping for. I was more... baffled than anything. That's the best word I could use to describe The Life of A Showgirl: baffling. Upon first listen, my jaw was open almost the entire time, and not in a good way. Not even close. I just didn't think it could get any worse, but somehow it went from worse to worser.

Let's talk about it. Strap in, I have way too many thoughts.

So, if you follow this account for some reason, you'd know that four years ago, I wrote about how the albums folklore and evermore made me a Swiftie again. Those two albums were a big part of my 2020 and represent the evolution of Taylor Swift that made me care about her work again. Before that point I suppose I had been more of a casual fan of Taylor, and I never really got into Pop Taylor that much save for 1989. But when she released her pandemic duology, it really hooked me, considering she was playing to her greatest strength--storytelling. I kind of consider them her best work by far. Fair warning, I'm going to bring up folklore and evermore a lot in this review, so to simplify, I'm just going to refer to the two projects as folkmore.

2020 was definitely a high point for me in terms of general Swiftie-isms. 2021 also continued that with the re-releases of Fearless and Red, albums I deeply loved as a teenager. And then in 2022, she released Midnights, her first brand new autobiographical pop record since Lover in 2019, and uhh... I never did a full-fledged review of Midnights, but needless to say I didn't like it all that much. I thought it was a downgrade from the masterpieces of the folkmore duo, and only a few songs stood out to me. A lot of the project I thought was bland and generic for Taylor. I didn't really consider myself a Swiftie anymore after the Midnights era.

Well, I didn't think she'd somehow manage to make an album worse than that one, but here we are.

As a longtime fan of Chloe x Halle, I knew from the moment that Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel that she was the perfect choice. Of course the racists were (and still are) whining and throwing tantrums about Ariel being black, because they never believe any person of color can truly earn a role with sheer talent, but for a long time I was sure that even if this movie ended up being an absolute dumpster fire, Halle would be the saving grace of that dumpster fire. She would be the best part, hands down.

Well, I wasn't surprised to see that I was right. About her being the best part, at least, but I don't think the movie itself is a dumpster fire at all. I actually really enjoyed it, and I've been very cynical of the Disney live action remakes for a long time like most people are. I had no confidence in this film but I had the utmost confidence in Halle to shine no matter what. However, there were things about this movie that pleasantly surprised me. Some disappointments though, I'll admit.

This is gonna be a long review, as my reviews always are. Spoilers ahead. I'd recommend you read this if you've seen the movie, but if you haven't and don't care about spoilers, read on.

If you were a teenager in the 2010s who listened to alt pop music, you most likely have crossed paths with Marina's music, back when she was FKA Marina and the Diamonds. I first discovered Marina through her sophomore album Electra Heart, which I always thought was a masterpiece of a pop album sonically and conceptually. To this day, that is an album that means a lot to me and helped me through some dark times back in those days.

Since then, I've been obsessed with Marina's discography and there isn't a single album of hers I dislike. The Family Jewels was an excellent debut and really highlighted her creativity. FROOT I maintain was very much underrated and it's probably my second favorite album of hers overall. Love + Fear is... Well, I understand why it's polarizing, considering it is her most commercial-sounding, radio-friendly pop album and probably her weakest in the discography, but there was still something about it that kept me hooked. It was one of my most listened to albums of 2019 because something about the songs, despite them being so basic by Marina's standards, was highly addictive for me.

So when this album was announced, I didn't really know what to expect in terms of her next musical direction. The singles she releases, namely Purge the Poison and Venus Fly Trap, gave me an indication that she was bringing back her signature Family Jewels-era style that is so distinctly her, and for the most part this album did give that quintessential, quirky Marina-ness that I really missed from her.

I reviewed Chromatica sometime last year and in that post I talked about how Gaga sacrificed a lot of her weirdness to adopt a more commercial, generic sound with Chromatica, and I feel like Love + Fear was that for Marina. Like Gaga, Marina is weird, and even though the songs on L+F I thought were enjoyable, they were definitely missing Marina's personality and snark for the most part. I'm pleased that we got to see that side of her come back for this album, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land.

I think Ancient Dreams maintains that energy, because even from the opening title track, you're already taken for a ride. It's such a strong opener and it sets the stage for what the rest of the album is going to be like sonically and thematically. Then she continues with songs like Venus Fly Trap, Man's World and Purge the Poison, and all of these songs consecutively paint quite a clear picture of what she's going for in terms of what the album's about. At least that's what it seems like at first, but then it didn't take me long to notice that this album kind of has a cohesion problem.

(Side note, while I think Purge the Poison is a banger, I always thought the lyrics are kind of like she just Googled "feminism 101" lmao. It's full of a lot of feminist cliches and "daughters of the witches you couldn't burn" energy, but with that said, I can't make the song not bop.)

Marina is normally the queen of cohesion, but it feels like there's two sides of this album, which is kind of hilarious to think about because she wanted to play with the concept of a two-sided album with Love + Fear that ended up sounding very same-y. In this one, it's supposed to be one continuous body of work with only 10 songs, but there's a clear divide between the themes and the sounds. Somehow the concept of L+F worked better for this album despite it not being her intent. It's like this one should've been called Politics + Heartbreak.

Basically in like the first six songs of this album, she's talking about universal topics like politics, feminism, existentialism, independence, etc. But then in the last four songs, she switches gears abruptly and now we're talking about breakups? So it felt kind of jarring to me that the album had a massive tonal shift not only in the overall theme but also in the sound as well, cause most of these last songs are breakup ballads.

Now around the time that this album came out, I was going through a pretty shitty breakup that broke my heart, so some of these songs did tug at my heart strings and made me feel things. Out of all the random breakup songs tacked on, I think my favorite is I Love You But I Love Me More. This one doesn't really count as a ballad since it's a little more uptempo, but it's probably the one that resonated with me the most and the only one I go back to.

Even though I was able to relate somewhat to these breakup songs and had an emotional reaction to a few of them, the critical side of me still felt a little perplexed by this album's direction. Maybe if the tracklist had been distributed differently and the breakup songs were more spread out, I might've overlooked it, but because those four songs were all clumped together at the end, the abrupt change in tone was extremely noticeable.

The highs of this album are the high energy tracks like Purge the Poison and Venus Fly Trap, where Marina's snarky, quirky personality we fell in love with in The Family Jewels and Electra Heart really show through. The first half of this album shines so well and really grabs you, but unfortunately it's another one of those albums that fizzles by the last few tracks. Hell, I'd even say this album would've worked better as an EP with the last four songs removed. They just didn't fit with the rest of it.

Overall, is this album enjoyable? Yes, there's a lot of songs on here (mostly the ones in the first half) that I go back to all the time, cause this woman is still just really damn good at making music. I don't even think I can say that any of the songs on this album are bad, really, my biggest issue is just that it should've been more thematically clear or cohesive. Usually Marina's really good at that.

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d have not one but two Taylor Swift albums in my year-end favorites list, I would’ve thought you were out of your mind. Then again, stranger things have happened in this hellscape of a year.

I’m really not sure where the first time I heard the phrase “Life is too short to pretend to hate Taylor Swift” was. I have no idea who originated it, but it stuck with me when I started to unpack that about a year ago, during her Lover era. By then, my perception and feelings about Taylor had been very... inconsistent, to say the least. I started out as a full-on stan, then it dwindled from there overtime until I basically became a hater, which then turned into indifference but silent respect. Now, I’m pretty much on the road to becoming a stan again. Revisiting her catalog, analyzing her lyrics, watching interviews, the works. 

I wanted to examine what it was that made my opinions about her go through so many steep rises and falls within this entire decade. Part of it was her shift in musical style that I didn’t quite mesh with, but another part was owning up to the internal biases I had when I was younger and how gullible I was in going along with whatever the media or the popular conscious was saying about her and the kind of person she is. 

I’m somebody who’s incapable of separating art from the artist. I simply don’t listen to artists when I don’t like them as people or don’t agree with their actions. Examples include but are not limited to Kim Petras, Melanie Martinez, Azealia Banks, Grimes, just to name a few. I have my own personal reasons for just not wanting to engage with any of their music, and if you still want to, that’s none of my business.

At some point in my life, I think Taylor got on that list. Looking back on it now, I find that completely ridiculous, because she never really did anything or acted in a way that warranted that reaction out of me. So I wanted to delve into how that even came about in the first place.

With that said, I want to take a trip down memory lane and go back through her eras, and go through the timeline of my strange relationship with Taylor Swift’s body of work as well as her public persona. Fair warning, it’s gonna be really cheesy and emotional at parts, but it is fully my truth. Thank you in advance if you manage to read the whole thing.

Part 1: The Country Era

It’s 2010 and I’m in eighth grade. I’m in an extremely Muslim country, the only son of an extremely Muslim family that enrolled me in an extremely Muslim school. I’m getting bullied by the boys in my class for being too feminine and being ignored by the girls for being a boy. The last close friend I had from elementary school had just moved away the year prior, and I’d never felt more alone in my life.

I was a closeted gay kid still trying to figure himself out and hating who he was. I escaped to cringey online chat sites like IMVU and catfished as a girl, because at the time I thought the only way to get boys to like me and want to be with me was to pretend to be someone else, someone I actually liked.

When I think back on this era, I mostly remember the girls in my class obsessing over these three albums and singing her songs with each other all the time. I desperately wanted to join them and fangirl with them over her music, though of course they never gave me the time of day. I remember I would memorize so many of her songs and write them all down on a special notebook I kept. When I wasn’t paying attention in classes, that’s what I would do; scribble out a collection of all the songs of hers that I knew by heart.

To me, these three albums represented a certain kind of vivid fantasy. Taylor’s songwriting has obviously grown exponentially over the past decade, but even back then she was always so damn good at storytelling and detail, painting you a very clear picture of a scene and placing you right there. For a miserable, self-hating fourteen-year-old gay boy that was always seeking escapism from a homophobic environment, this was the perfect outlet for me to live out a different kind of life, to play pretend.

I honestly can’t explain what it is about her style of songwriting but she always made me feel like I was genuinely experiencing everything she was talking about. Things like kissing in the rain, riding around in the truck of the boy of my dreams in a tiny one horse town, shedding teardrops on a guitar that I definitely didn’t own, experiencing crushing heartbreak. This was stuff that my sheltered ass couldn’t comprehend.

Taylor perfectly captured that ideal, that small town girl with big dreams and storybook romances. I was in love with her discography at the time, having memorized pretty much the entirety of Fearless because that was my favorite of three. Middle school was hell for me, but her music was definitely something that helped me pull through, because she sent my imagination into overdrive.

This was a time in my life where I didn’t really care yet about an artist’s public image or the media’s portrayal of them, It was purely about the music for me. Of course, when looking at these albums now, there were a few questionable choices she made lyrically, I have to admit. Particularly with songs like “Better Than Revenge” and “Innocent”, both having aged terribly with the former being bafflingly misogynistic and the latter being about Kanye. As of my writing this, Taylor is currently in the process of re-recording her old catalog, and I assume that she would skip these two songs in particular, as well as several others that haven’t exactly aged well.

This era really got me through some tough times and she provided much-needed relief for me within each of these three albums. I’ll always have an attachment to them because of the bittersweet memories they represent.

Part 2: Red

Red I decided to put in its own category, because this was kind of a weird era for Taylor. Even back when I was an ignorant teenager that barely had any critical thinking skills, I felt the dissonance of this album and its Max Martin produced singles. This album represented Taylor dipping her toe into pop music, which she made abundantly clear when she decided to release We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together as the lead single.

I actually remember this moment quite clearly. She premiered the single at some kind of fan event that I believe was streamed live on YouTube, and either I watched it live or I watched the full recording of it later on. At the time I remember feeling it was kind of bizarre to hear Taylor adopt this style of music, because it was so drastically different from her previous work and it took me a while to adjust. Obviously I enjoyed pop music at the time as much as I do now, but I just hadn’t been expecting it to come from Taylor. 

Fortunately it was just the three singles that were full pop, and the rest of the album still had her signature DNA and also includes some of her best work. All Too Well, for example, is I think one of the best songs she’s ever made, if not the best. I think if I were introducing Taylor to someone that’s totally unfamiliar with her, that would be my first choice, because it’s a masterwork in songwriting and emotionality.

I do think the thing that irked me the most about this album and era, even to this day, was the lack of cohesion. Of course I figured that she would eventually venture into pop music, but the way in which she did it just felt a bit too jarring to me. Perhaps if the album had a more even distribution of pop songs and country songs, it would’ve been slightly more palatable for me. It’s not even that the three pop songs were bad; they were quite good for their time. Though to be completely honest they’re the songs I barely ever return to any time I listen to Red now. They’re the kind of catchy pop songs where it’s difficult not to get sick of them at a certain point in your life. I’ve grown to really dislike the lead single, and even 22.

Her image was also starting to get much more scrutinized by the media around this time. I think this era probably marked the sharp rise of the “Taylor Swift has too many boyfriends!” argument people loved to throw around. I wish I could say I was smart enough to not buy into that shit at the time, but I wasn’t. While it didn’t bother me, it was something that I wondered about, why she dated and broke up with so many guys at such a young age. It was something that I judged her for. Obviously I didn’t yet understand that it was normal for people her age to date around. Plus it gave her some great material.

By this time, Taylor was making the gradual transition of country sweetheart to pop star, and while Red was kind of a rocky start to that, naturally she managed to pull it off. But not quite flawlessly.

Part 3: The Pop Era

Okay, I have a lot to say about these girls.

I think this era started off strong with 1989. It was a more fully realized version of Taylor’s little pop experiment, and it actually had the cohesion that I needed to be able to fully adapt to this new style she’d cultivated. She wrote yet another one of her best songs with Blank Space, which I like to think was a precursor to Reputation (and dare I say that one song did Reputation’s concept better than that album as a whole?).

However... Shake It Off. I’m sorry, I just hate that song.

WANEGBT, the first single off of Red, isn’t exactly the best song either but it made sense as to why she chose that as the first single. It was to signify her dabbling into pop. Reputation’s first single I also am not the biggest fan of, but again, made perfect sense as an introduction, but I’ll get to that later. Shake It Off, though? For the life of me, I have no idea why this song was the first single. Or to be frank, why it was even on the album at all. 

I’m sorry y’all, I just hate it. Everything about it. The verses, the chorus, the appalling rap bridge. She should’ve kept that song in the drafts and released Blank Space as a first single, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. Sorry Shake It Off stans, but I’m sure all three of you will get over it. ❤

That said, 1989 had some excellent songs, and I was finally starting to get used to Taylor doing pop. However, my excitement and enthusiasm for her music started to falter due to my weak mind at the time once again getting swayed by the media. 

This time, I began to see Taylor as someone that seemed to be very calculated and conniving in the way she curated her image. Something that didn’t sit well with me was the “girl squad” stuff, and how all of the women she surrounded herself with were essentially these supermodels with unattainable beauty standards, and also believing the rumors about how certain famous women were given private requests to join Taylor’s “squad”. And then of course, the Kim and Kanye thing happened. #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trended worldwide, and that was probably my earliest exposure to an instance of a celebrity getting canceled, so I was just happy to join the bandwagon. My opinion of her shifted like that, and it’s crazy to think about it now, how I barely had the capacity to form my own opinions and was easily influenced by everything I heard.

Despite me kind of joining the Taylor hate train, I did like Reputation as a concept. I liked how she disappeared from the public eye and came back being like, “You want me to be the villain? The snake? Fine.” Look What You Made Me Do, as I mentioned before, was the perfect choice for the first single despite the song itself being sonically....not the best. The music video and the line about how the old Taylor couldn’t come to the phone was an iconic moment in pop culture, I have to admit that.

I didn’t listen to the album as a whole until later, though. I was having my own hang-ups about Taylor that I think are silly now, but at the time when I didn’t like an artist I would mostly avoid their work. When I did listen to the album, though, I thought it was... okay. There’s one standout track to me and that is Getaway Car, and it’s the only song from Reputation I can say I fully adore to pieces. The other songs on there I either just like, or I find to be meh at best. (Also I know Ready For It is objectively a bad song but I really enjoy the chorus, don’t @ me, @ god)

A few years later, Lover happened and.... Once again, horrible first single. ME! is a genuinely atrocious song, and I have no idea how esteemed, prolific songwriter Taylor Swift managed to reach a point where she had a song with the phrase “spelling is fun!” in it. I feel the exact same way about this song as I do about Shake It Off. It had no business being in the album whatsoever.

As far as Lover the album goes, this came out around the time where I was kind of feeling indifferent toward Taylor (which is hilarious if you know what the first track on it is). I was much more politically aware and had learned not to put too much faith in white women, and I was focusing on other artists so much that Lover barely even came onto my radar. I listened to it once, thought it was meh, and moved on. I revisited it earlier this year and realized I was a bit too harsh on it the first time around. Sure it was her weakest album overall, but it wasn’t bad by any means. It was perfectly alright, and there were songwriting moments within it that were still quite strong. The title track and also Miss Americana comes to mind as standouts.

She started to become more vocal politically around this time. A lot of people thought it was too little too late, which was a fair point. However to me it made sense that she stayed tight-lipped about politics when she was younger, considering she was operating within the realm of country music. Plus, upon watching her documentary, it was pretty clear she had old white men behind the scenes telling her what she should or shouldn’t say, to make sure she maintained that all-American country girl sweetheart image. Still, I do agree with the people who thought that she should’ve used her platform sooner.

Oh and for the record, I think You Need to Calm Down is a terrible song. The video was cute, and the message behind it is fine, but I just hate it sonically.

At this point my interest in Taylor was probably at an all time low. The era started off strong with 1989, but it progressively got weaker. She just wasn’t really giving me much in terms of lyricism, and her pop productions were starting to blend together to the point where a lot of them were sounding very same-y. Lover to me marked the point of stagnation in her music; it was solid enough, but it just wasn’t going anywhere. We’ve seen Pop Taylor, she was cute for a while, but what else? Where does she go from here?

Well... She went into the woods.

Part 4: The Cottagecore Sisters

When I heard about Taylor dropping a surprise album, I suppose I was intrigued. She is one of the few artists that are successful enough to be able to make a move like that and cause a lot of buzz and excitement. I didn’t think much about it though, because my 2020 at that time was still inundated with SAWAYAMA and Ungodly Hour on repeat. On a whim, though, I decided to listen to it one day, not expecting much out of it.

Earlier when I was talking about her country era, I mentioned that Taylor’s storytelling and her penchant for detailed descriptions were my favorite parts of her writing. Her innate ability to transport me into other worlds, to provide escapism when my life became too much to deal with. I feel like these aspects were missing in the several years that Taylor focused on pop music. There were flashes of it in some of her later work, sure, but very few. She was becoming a huge mega superstar and her songs started to lose that sense of relatability that had been easy for me to latch on too. These things definitely contributed to my loss of interest for her work in general.

And then Folklore managed to bring me back to that place of fantasy I described before, but heightened. Elevated. Evolved. This is why I think that Folklore is Taylor Swift’s magnum opus.

Storytelling is without a doubt her strongest skill as an artist. To be able to construct not just a narrative but an entire world through songs is not something anyone can pull off. Throughout her pop era, there was always that something missing because I knew that she was capable of more. I couldn’t explain it well back then, but despite her penmanship still being commendable during those years, it still felt oddly lackluster. I knew she could do better, but I didn’t have the proof yet.

This is it. Both Folklore and Evermore showcase exactly what I knew she was capable of. This is Taylor Swift at her most creative, at her full power.

I think in a recent interview I watched (though I can’t remember which one), even she herself acknowledged how it would’ve been a disservice to continue strictly writing autobiographical songs, and so she decided to write from the perspectives of multiple different characters while also occasionally inserting herself and her life experiences into these narratives. She essentially created her own folklore and managed to make me invested in characters that don’t even exist.

I have to talk about the love triangle trilogy: cardigan, august and betty. It’s a testament to her songwriting ability that these fictional characters feel like real people. The story of Betty, James and Augusta/Augustine is just so well done to the point where I forget that it’s Taylor Swift singing. When I listen to these songs, I am fully imagining the characters she conjured up. 

The song that I find the most profound out of the three, and also happens to be my favorite song on the album, is august. To me, it is the most heartbreaking song out of all of them. I relate so much to that girl who’s hopelessly in love with someone that just doesn’t give a shit about them and is merely using her for a summer fling. And it’s not even like I’ve experienced something similar to this in real life, Taylor just somehow made it relatable with the sheer power of her pen game. It’s even more heartbreaking considering we don’t know what happened to this girl, if she ever managed to find happiness, because in the Long Pond Sessions Taylor mentioned that Betty and James eventually got back together. They got their happy ending, but what happened to Augustine?

I can’t believe she’s got me this deep in my feelings over non-existent teenagers, I swear to god.

Just when I thought Folklore was going to be the end of this new side of her for a while, she releases Evermore in December, its sister album. While I don’t think it’s quite as strong as Folklore, it still delivered immensely in terms of lyricism, productions and vocals. Evermore’s release pretty much solidified the realization that I was basically becoming a Swiftie again, a whole decade later.

I was embarrassed by that thought at first, but honestly now I’m at a point where I don’t think there’s anything to be embarrassed about. Taylor is too skilled of a songwriter for me to consider her a guilty pleasure. I just needed something to help me come to that conclusion, and these two albums did just that. She finally gave to me what I was waiting for.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really stan artists the same way I used to now, which I mentioned previously in my review of Chromatica. I don’t deify them or hold them to an impossible moral standard they could never live up to anymore. I see them as flawed human beings that have the capacity to make great art. So when I say I’m becoming a Swiftie, I’m still fully aware that Taylor Swift is a thirty-one year old rich white woman who is bound to have shortcomings and missteps as a person. In my mind, she hasn’t done anything drastic enough or stupid enough for me to become uncomfortable in listening to her work. I had my own ideas about how she could’ve been fake, conniving, manipulative or whatever else the media was trying to convey about her, but there really is no way of knowing who she truly is as a person.

Celebrities and influencers have the power to curate their image however they want. The relationships they have with us, the audience, are entirely parasocial, so of course we base our judgments of them based on very limited knowledge, or just the surface-level view of what they’re like. I don’t know if Taylor is as down to earth and genuine as she appears to be now, and I honestly don’t need to know. If she does things I disagree with or acts a certain way that deserves criticism, of course I’d still call her out, and depending on the severity of what it was she said or did, it might end up with me not wanting to engage with her work anymore.

But the reality is, as a person, I’ve realized that she is just fine. I was holding on to a certain idea of her in my head where I think at one point I dubbed her “the Anne Hathaway of music”, meaning someone that comes across too perfect to the point where it seems calculated and disingenuous. But honestly, I just don’t feel that way about her anymore. I don’t feel particularly attached to her as a person, either. 

But I do feel an attachment to her music. At the end of the day, that’s where I’m standing now when it comes to her. I don’t have any expectations or delusions about her as a human being, and I’m not going to remain devoted to her if she does something dumb, but I believe that she is an insanely gifted artist who has written so many songs that genuinely speak to me and make me feel intensely. She lost me for a while, but now I’m right back in it.

So I never really use Tumblr, but when I do go on here, it’s pretty much to review something long-form. As you can tell from my profile picture here, and from my glowing review of ARTPOP from 7 years ago, I am and have always been a Gaga stan. Just read the melodramatic first paragraph of my ARTPOP review and you’ll get the gist of how much I idolize this woman. Well, idolized. Past tense.

That’s not to say I suddenly hate Gaga–I’m still going to follow her career and listen to whatever she puts out. There have just been several factors this past year that have changed my perspective on how I view her, this album being one of those factors. But I’ll get to those later. First I just need to lay out all my issues with this album.

Yes, this is going to be that type of review, so if you’re a fellow Gaga stan that isn’t able to criticize her work, this probably isn’t for you. Otherwise please read to the end if you can, because this is honestly about more than just the album.

Issue #1: The Mismatch Between Music & Aesthetic

When the cover of the album came out, I was so gagged. Like, just look at it! It’s striking, and Gaga has rarely ever disappointed me when it came to visuals. Actually, I can’t even think of any visual choices she made in previous eras that disappointed me. Even in the Joanne era, the pink cowboy hat became iconic and all of her aesthetic choices fit with the overall vibe of that album cycle.

So naturally, when she revealed to us the new visual direction she was taking for Chromatica, I assumed it would give us some insight into how the music would sound. The aesthetic of this era always gave me grungy cyberpunk and heavy machinery tease. When I look at the album cover for example, I can hear a song produced by SOPHIE in my head, the clink-clank queen herself. (There were rumors that Gaga was going to or did work with SOPHIE but that was never confirmed, unfortunately for us.)

For those unfamiliar with SOPHIE, here’s Ponyboy, which was most recently used in the ad campaign for Beyoncé’s Ivy Park clothing line.

That was the kind of production I was more or less expecting when taking the visuals into account; dark, metallic, basically similar to ARTPOP’s production (to be honest ARTPOP sonically fits better with the Chromatica aesthetic; think about it). 

But what did we get? Light, garden variety dance pop, a stark contrast to what the album cover and the promo images teased us with.

In the album, we get these orchestral interludes that are beautiful but don't really mesh that well with the actual tracks. The songs don't have any orchestral elements by themselves, so the interludes felt a bit misplaced to me. I wish they'd incorporated more of that into the individual songs, so that there could be an orchestral through-line to give more cohesion, like what Ariana did in her album positions by using strings. However I will say, the transition from Chromatica II into 911 remains unmatched.

I get that the album is supposed to sound happy, that it was her returning to her “dance pop roots” and singing about serious topics like mental health over happy-sounding beats, because it’s supposed to reflect her current mental state. I get all that. But if that was the case, I think she should’ve gone with a different visual direction to match. Personally I wish she went a different direction musically instead, but even if it was just the other way around and she changed the aesthetic of this era, my opinion of the album would probably improve slightly, cause at least there would be cohesion between the visuals and the sonics.

I look at that album cover, and promo images like the one below, and then I listen to songs like Fun Tonight or Plastic Doll for example, and there’s a noticeable dissonance there. 

You might be thinking “why are you so hard on her for this?” and I guess it’s because I’ve always held Gaga to a high standard when it comes to how she links those two elements. Think of every era she’s had in the past, and you remember how the visuals always just worked with their respective albums.

And that’s before I’ve even talked about the videos. Oh lord, the videos.

Issue #2: The Videos Are Lackluster (Except For 911)

It started with Stupid Love, the lead single. I had mixed feelings about that song in the beginning, but because I was so thirsty for new music from Gaga at the time, I played that song like hell when it leaked and it was on rotation for a good while. But when Gaga premiered the Stupid Love video, I’m not going to lie; I really didn’t like it.

The whole “shot entirely on iPhone” schtick really did the video a disservice. I’m sorry but it had to be said. If I imagined the video with a higher budget and more of a plotline as opposed to just being a dance video, I think it could’ve worked a lot better and been a decent introduction to not only Chromatica the album, but this fictional world/planet that she’s created. Which by the way, she didn’t really deliver in that regard either. 

The concept of Chromatica being a fictional world could have been expanded on further; she could’ve showcased all of the different factions (I know they were called “tribes” at first but that’s appropriative so I’ll call them factions) and perhaps had an overarching storyline about how these factions are at war, and it’s Gaga’s job as one of the “Kindness Punks”, as she calls it, to bring everyone together for a rave.

This is why I will always say it: Chromatica needed to be a visual album. Just imagine the storyline I mentioned just now being turned into a full-length feature, and now imagine the album’s orchestral intro playing as they’re essentially opening the gates to Chromatica and Gaga discovers this world for the first time, and then it goes into the first song Alice where she’s meeting all the factions and getting acclimated to her surroundings.

Honestly I could go on and on cause I have thought about this for SO LONG now and I’ll never shut up about it. It’s just such a missed opportunity cause the concept was just begging for a visual album. Anyway sorry for my tangent: back to the Stupid Love video.

The whole “shot on iPhone” gimmick really was unfortunate. Like she really ruined the quality of a music video because she wanted that Apple check??? Come on, Gaga, there could’ve been some other way to secure that check.

And then there was the Rain On Me video, which definitely have visuals that are a massive improvement from Stupid Love because it was professionally shot and cinematic. But even that was another purely dance video with not much in the way of storyline. Not that storyline is always required for music videos, but I think specifically when it comes to Chromatica, not having storylines in the M/Vs does a disservice to the overall concept.

I guess my issue with these two music videos, but mostly Stupid Love, is that Gaga isn't fully utilizing her COIN. Like she's successful enough to the point where she has budgets for these videos and can go all out, but doesn't. She has the capacity for extremely high production value, but up until 911, the last video she did that had that level of extraness was G.U.Y. I miss the days when her music videos were an event. I still remember where I was and what I was doing the exact moment the Telephone video came out. That's impact.

Taylor Swift I think is somebody who really knows how to blow her budget on a video. Look What You Made Me Do may have been a terrible song, but I always thought the video was sickening.

Anyway, I have no notes on 911. She's a masterpiece. If there was a music video category at the Oscars, I'd be campaigning for it right now.

Issue #3: Any Other Girly Can Do This

The thing I always loved the most about Gaga's music was that nobody was doing it like her. Everything she put out always felt like it was distinctly hers and hers alone, it's unmistakable. Even in Joanne, despite that album being a major departure from what she normally did.

I know Joanne is a very polarizing album, even for Little Monsters, but personally I've always loved it. Joanne was an album that I always knew she would make and I thought was essential to her career and body of work. Despite her straying away from pop for a more earthy, grass roots sound, it still sounded very much like her music. Even from the first track, Diamond Heart, her DNA is all over that.

It's difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say there's a certain signature "Gaga-ness" or that she has a very specific DNA injected into her songs. If you've been a fan of hers for a long time or followed her career, you probably understand what I'm referring to. It's the way she laughs maniacally in the beginning of ARTPOP on Aura, how she says "I don't speak German but I can if you like, OW!" and proceeds to recite broken German on Scheiße, how she invented the phrase "disco stick", literally the ENTIRETY of The Fame Monster.

These examples probably give you the gist of what I'm trying to convey. Gaga is fucking weird. She has always been fucking weird and I love that so much about her. And her brand of weirdness was so specific that if any of the other pop girls tried to do what she did, it would have been cringey as hell. To me, the most disappointing thing of all with this album was that this weirdness that was so uniquely hers was missing.

It's there in brief moments, in tracks like Sour Candy, 911 and Babylon, but most of the album doesn't really sound like her music. It sounds like songs that she wrote for other people, like her old unreleased stuff. OG Little Monsters probably remember songs like Second Time Around and No Way. These were leaked unreleased songs that Gaga had written for other artists, and even though they were absolute bops, they didn't sound like her. They weren't supposed to.

A similar feeling I had was when her song The Cure came out a few years ago. I genuinely thought that was something she wrote for someone else, cause even though it was a solid pop song, it absolutely had zero Gaga-ness and any current pop girl could sing it. This pretty much encapsulates how I feel about the majority of Chromatica.

I was gonna say it sounded like songs that were written for Ally, her Star is Born character, but I think even those pop songs from the soundtrack sounded more Gaga than Chromatica does. 💀 I can easily imagine Hair Body Face being on The Fame.

Final Thoughts

It's funny that the last review I had posted on here before this was my review of Kingdom Hearts III. The Kingdom Hearts game series is something that's very near and dear to my heart, and I waited a wholeass decade for the third game to come out. And then it did, and I was so disappointed.

So you know what happened after that? What helped me deal with my disappointment of that game was my anticipation for Chromatica, or at the time it was still called LG6. I had no idea I would feel the same exact way about this album the way I do about KH3. Now when I think of both of these things, I'm mostly frustrated by all of the potential and the missed opportunities, but I also look at them with a certain fondness. I had fun playing KH3, and I also had fun listening to Chromatica, despite both of them disappointing me overall.

In the beginning of this review I said that there were certain factors that have stopped me from idealizing Gaga too much. Firstly it's because I'm much older now, and secondly it's due to the sheer state of the world this past year. The pandemic really precipitated the fall of celebrity culture, and all of that made me really examine how putting someone on such a high pedestal can be damaging in the long run.

Gaga is a human being and I haven't agreed with everything she's done, particularly how she handled the whole R. Kelly situation back in 2013. And also the simple fact that she's a white woman, we know how a lot of the time they can't help but show their asses and are bound to disappoint us in some way. I'm forever grateful for her artistry and how she saved my life when I was a suicidal little eighth grader, but I'm also going to hold her accountable for any of her mistakes, and I'd be ready to stop supporting her entirely if anything she does ever goes too far.

Now I stan artists for fun. It's not healthy to idolize them to the point of revering them. I mean, I like to make jokes like that about Beyoncé, like "no way on Beyoncé's green earth", etc. But even she is just a person that we shouldn't deify for real.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Chromatica being a lackluster album and era ended up being a good thing, because it helped me grow out of idolizing celebrities too intensely. Chromatica was pretty much the best disappointment I've ever listened to.

If you've read all the way to the end, thank you! Writing this was very therapeutic but also stressful; this is a second draft cause Tumblr fucked up my first post. 😭

Anyway, SAWAYAMA & Ungodly Hour are albums of the year. Argue with the wall.

I never use this site but I needed some place to put all my thoughts down and this was the only place I could think of.

I’ve probably waited for this game for around 12 to 13 years. KH1 and 2 brought me so much joy as a kid, and it wasn’t until later that I played all the other spin-off games in the series. This game was the primary reason I got a PS4 in the first place and, as fucked up as it sounds, one of the things that kept me going in life. The impact of this series runs that deep for me.

Because we got inundated with a ton of gameplay footage last year, I knew I was going to enjoy this game. I had a few worries that the combat would feel clunky/floaty/stiff when seeing some of the earlier footage, but within the first hour or so of the game I couldn’t deny how good the combat feels. It’s satisfying, fluid, flashy and so much fun. I’d say the keyblade transformations offer much more variety than Drive forms ever did, cause you could use them a lot more frequently. There’s also other things like the shotlock, team attacks, link attacks, flowmotion attacks, so much stuff that you can utilize to really mix up battles every time. It’s probably the most addicting combat I’ve experienced in the entire KH series.

Another change I liked is the gummi system. I used to dread the gummi ship portions in KH2 because they were annoyingly difficult and they served as blockades to the worlds that are unavoidable. In this game, the gummi portion is instead a huge open area of space that you can explore and find treasures in. Battles can be avoided and the way to initiate them is to approach the enemies on the field, which was a huge sigh of relief for me. The actual gummi battles themselves work somewhat the same way as it did in KH2, but it’s not as busy or frenetic anymore so it eliminates the annoyance.

The Disney worlds were well done for the most part. They made the levels pretty big and explorable, and the story/time you spend within each world is elongated so there isn’t a return trip. I guess I understand why they did that but I really liked how in KH2 you could come back to the worlds in the second half of the game and experience a new story within it. In this one, once you’ve finished a world that’s pretty much it. One world would probably take around 2-3 hours to complete, depending on how much you explore. Unfortunately this game was a lot shorter than I was hoping it would be, but it’s still packed with a lot of content so it wasn’t that big of an issue. I was particularly impressed with the Pirates world; it suddenly turned into Assassin's Creed Black Flag. You get to control your own ship and explore different islands and have ship battles. I hated the Pirates world in KH2 but had loads of fun with the one in this game. I also enjoyed the Toy Story world very much, because it’s essentially a giant 3-story toy store and you can explore virtually every inch of it.

Something that disappointed me was the 100 Acre Wood. I actually loved what they did in KH2 because it spanned throughout the entire game, since you had to find the missing pages and gradually see the story unfold. However in this one, I’m pretty sure the 100 Acre Wood was just an afterthought. You go in there and it’s pretty much just 3 mini games that are practically slightly different variations of the same game, and that’s it. It was way too brief, and they definitely could have done something to make it more interesting. Sure, 100 Acre Wood was never my FAVORITE world in either KH1 or 2, but they were much more well done in those games than here because they actually had stories and a lot of creative mini games. It’s pretty clear they didn’t put much thought or effort into this world, and since it’s one of the minor worlds I guess it doesn’t matter that much, but it’s still disappointing nonetheless.

The final act of the game was a bit messy, to say the least. Light spoilers ahead.

I never really try to question or make sense of the convoluted mechanics and plot holes of the KH-verse so I just rolled with it and was along for the ride when it came to the story, but I think in this game nothing hugely significant really happens in the story until the final act. They just packed everything into that last part of the game, throwing boss after boss at you and solving plot line after plot line. It felt a lot like the recent season finale of Steven Universe; a lot of unnecessary buildup until you just throw everything but the kitchen sink in the end.

If you think about KH2′s story structure for example, it was a lot more eventful because between the Disney worlds you also visited certain worlds like Hollow Bastion and Twilight Town and whatnot to advance the main story and have things actually HAPPEN. In this game, the non-Disney worlds were basically given little to no effort. Twilight Town just becomes a little hub area that has the bistro for the cooking mini game; which you can go to via the world map or save points anyway, so essentially Twilight Town is useless cause you never need to visit it again for story purposes. The penultimate area of the game, the Keyblade Graveyard, is pretty much just a gauntlet of bosses. There’s nothing to explore, it’s just a linear path to every possible boss in the game. Fighting all of them in one place like that made it feel oddly anti-climactic. 

And then my biggest disappointment: Scala ad Caelum. This was the area that was hyped up in the trailers, huge and gorgeous with cables connecting everywhere. I thought it would be the final dungeon and you could explore every inch.

Nope. It’s literally just a fancy stage for the final boss. It just breaks my heart to think about all the wasted potential. Maybe they focused all their efforts on the Disney worlds (besides the Winnie the Pooh world), so the non-Disney ones were just afterthoughts? They could have done SO much more with the set pieces in this game, like I just think back to how incredibly well-done Hollow Bastion was in KH2 and how much of the story unfolded in that area. KH2 really made good use of all the worlds and tied everything together. With this game, each of the worlds kind of just play out their own story and it feels very disconnected to everything else that’s going on. 

The great thing about KH2 and the fact that you could go to each world twice is that, the first time you go it’s all about playing out the story of whatever movie it is they’re basing it on; and then the second time you come back, it’s about how that particular world fits into the bigger Kingdom Hearts story itself. It tied everything together and it made it feel like the worlds were actually connected. In this game there’s a big disconnect, and I’m very disappointed in that. Also, I don’t understand why they didn’t have any Final Fantasy characters in this game whatsoever, not even Sephiroth who I thought had become a staple. 

I know it seems like this game let me down, and in some cases it did because of all the things that they could have done that for some reason they chose not to do, even after this game being in development for so long. This game took me about 30 hours to complete but I wish it was 30 hours longer. They could have added at least one more Disney world, they could have done something to make the worlds feel more impactful or connected to the overall plot, there’s just so many things they could’ve done. But even with all that said, I still enjoyed myself a lot in this game because the gameplay was enough to keep me engaged and it felt so good to actually have the game in my hands. 

I’ll give the game a 8/10. I can’t believe I’m doing that because I thought I would have given it a 10, and I was hoping I’d be able to, but it just feels like there’s a big chunk of this game that’s missing and I wish they did more. Still, the things they got right they got right, and I can’t deny that I had so much fun playing it and still am with the post-game activities. I just got the Ultima keyblade recently and it’s a dream to use. I’m eager for them to add a New Game+ feature, because I want to replay it but I want to carry everything over; I’d rather not just start from scratch.

Man, 2017 was a great year for pop music especially. This year was also when I started actually using Spotify, subscription and all, for the first time, so the new music I discovered just kept on piling up and I was so here for it. I decided I’d compile a top 12 list of my favorite albums, since it’s the end of the year, why not. And yeah I know the “normal” format is top 10, but bitch I have 12 favorites, whaddaya want. And even these I had to really narrow down. If you follow me on Twitter at all though, you probably know exactly what my number one album is. It’s an album that’ll probably be on many people’s number one spots, but I think I’ll do this list descending. This is also only the music that I’ve discovered personally, so if a big pop album/EP from this year wasn’t mentioned, means I either didn’t really like em that much or I have yet to discover them.

#12. BETTY WHO - THE VALLEY

Spotify | iTunes

I actually first heard of Betty Who through Troye Sivan’s song “Heaven” which she featured in. She strikes me as Australia’s equivalent of Carly Rae Jepsen because her songs are all just the completely infectious, bubblegum pop sound that I find irresistible. Some of my favorites from this album are “Mama Say”, “You Can Cry Tomorrow” and “Human Touch”. This is a great album to put on when you’re getting ready with your friends or just wanna jump around and be crazy. If you’ve never heard of her and you’re a pop music freak like me, this album is right up your alley cause it’s chock-full of bops. I’d also recommend checking out her debut album, Take Me When You Go, which has more of the Carly Rae-esque 80s-y feel to it than this one.

#11. TOVE LO - BLUE LIPS (LADY WOOD PHASE II)

Spotify | iTunes

Oh, Tove. What else can I say? If you love pop music then you know exactly why this album made the list and it probably made yours too. She is just the ultimate master of making unapologetically sexual bops. She’s always been very sex positive and seriously, the production on her songs is always spot on as fuck. I’d say “shivering gold” is one of the songs that I keep coming back to the most, as well as “stranger” and the addictive lead single “disco tits”, but this entire album is filled with solid and sultry pop songs that you can pop your pussy to any time. Tove is just always so unabashedly nasty and honest, I always love that about her.

I should probably preface this by saying that the screenshots I’m using for this review are not my own, since Atlus has extremely strict policies about sharing footage of this game; PS4 Share features are completely unusable. The ones I do have, I got off of Google.

I should also probably mention that this is my first Persona game; I never played the previous titles, so I’m not biased towards the franchise in any way and I had no idea what to expect going into it. 

I was originally pretty iffy about getting this game, despite my love for JRPGs. I think I was a little worried about the micromanaging aspects and the deadline system. After Lightning Returns, I sorta avoided games with deadlines and limited time since I didn’t want to deal with the anxiety that comes with it. I like playing games at my own pace, and I also like to completely see EVERYTHING a game has to offer, and games with a limited time system obviously means you’ll have to miss out on certain things unless you follow a strict point-by-point guide that somehow lets you do all the things. From what I saw of this game, it seemed like it would be stressful having to manage social stats, relationships with people, a school life, etc, all while being a magical thief that literally steals hearts. 

So yeah, this game was definitely an impulse buy for me and, truth be told, I don’t regret it for a second. I got totally taken for a ride.

The first thing you should know if you plan on playing this game is that you need to have a lot of free time on your hands. This game is such a time sink that I basically lost track of the days. Once you’re in, you are IN. You immediately become attached to these characters and basically live out your life as this unnamed protagonist, raising various social stats such as knowledge and charm to name a few, maintaining strong bonds with the people around you, tackling high school life including getting pop quizzes and doing exams. It can be pretty overwhelming the first time around, at least probably if you’re a newcomer to the franchise like me. I even got a game over very early in the game cause I procrastinated too much and was met with the deadline. I overestimated how much time I actually had to do the stuff I wanted to. It takes a while to get into the groove of this game, but once you know where everything is, you start planning what you want to do, which skills you wanna develop and people you want to spend time with. It can be a lot to deal with, but it does feel rewarding when you max things out and learn to become more efficient.

The story, for a JRPG, is pretty impressive. You play a regular young Joe Shmoe who got unfairly tried for standing up to a shady powerful man and is now labeled a delinquent. He gets sent under the care of a cafe owner for probation and becomes a student in Shujin Academy where he ends up stumbling upon some weird shit, forms friendships with various other young misfits and they form the Phantom Thieves, a group of kids who seek to change the hearts of criminals and horrible adults so they’ll grow a conscience, own up to their horribleness and redeem themselves. That’s all I want to say about the story since I don’t want Atlus to sue me for posting spoilers. But like I said, I was extremely impressed by the story in this game, especially being a JRPG. I say that because, let’s be honest, JRPG stories are normally very predictable and endlessly cheesy. Of course, this game has those moments where it’s so clear how Japanese and Anime the game is from how the characters speak and whatnot, but there were a lot of points in the story where I genuinely had no idea what to expect and certain plot twists I didn’t see coming. 

Not to mention pretty much all the characters were very interesting and likable that it’s so easy to form attachments to each of them. Well, except for the protagonist, of course. I’m not sure what it is with JRPGs but it’s very often in games like this where the protagonist is completely mute and not even the slightest bit interesting. Maybe it’s so that it makes it easy for you to put yourself in their shoes, but I was never a fan of that. I prefer protagonists that have their own voice and distinct personality, so I personally wouldn’t mind if more Japanese games started taking a page from Western games when it comes to this kind of stuff rather than just have milquetoast, blank protagonists. That’s one gripe I have in regards to the story elements. Another big one is how empty and meaningless a lot of the dialogue choices really are. Oftentimes you’d see two or three options that basically consist of different versions of saying the same thing. And as far as I can tell, the options don’t really have any lasting effects either. If you’re a dick to somebody, they won’t remember you were a dick. A lot of the options also give you the illusion of choice; the game makes you think that there’s a decision to be made when really there’s only one outcome anyway. These things are basically my biggest problems with the game; it lacked weight when it came to the protagonist and the dialogue system. (Oh yeah, you also can’t be gay, which I was a little salty about but eh, I guess I’ll let it slide. It probably would’ve been too much to expect anyways.)

But enough of that, let’s get to the good part; the combat system. You have no idea how much I adore turn-based combat in JRPGs. I haven’t had this much fun with a JRPG since World of Final Fantasy and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, which are pretty similar to Persona 5 now that I think about it. I loved the hell out of the combat in this game and also the Persona collecting and creating. It did a great job of teaching you how everything worked and letting you differentiate between the skill types, Persona types, etc. Unlike the real-world aspects of the game that overwhelmed me, I was able to digest the combat system pretty quickly. Fusing Personas to create new, more powerful ones is also a lot of fun, I find. I could spend an hour or two just in the Velvet Room alone fusing and strengthening Personas, filling up the Persona Compendium (gotta catch ‘em all, after all). So yeah, honestly I don’t think I have anything bad to say about the combat system. It’s extremely enjoyable and easy to get used to. 

By the way, I have to say that this game is one of the most visually intriguing games I’ve ever played. Stylish is honestly the perfect word to describe it as a whole. Everything is constantly moving and the transitions between battles especially are just cool as fuck. The dungeon designs and especially the Persona designs are something to behold. It all just looks sooooo damn good. I’m always so excited when making new Personas cause I can’t wait to see what they look like. I also get very excited whenever it’s time to go to a new dungeon--or Palaces, as they’re called in-game. Each one has its own unique setting and theme depending on the person in charge of it. It was all just so.... cool. I know I sound lame right now, but I swear to god I don’t know what else to say about it, I was just so thoroughly impressed by this game’s style and aesthetic.

Oh yeah, and I rarely talk about the music in games, but the soundtrack meshes perfectly with the overall look and feel of the game. I found myself humming and singing along to the songs after a while, and they got stuck in my head afterward. As far as the English voice acting goes, I also liked it for the most part. Of course there are some cringey parts, that comes with the territory, but overall I think the VAs did really well. I think I recognized a couple of their voices, too. 

I spent around 80 hours in my first playthrough of the game, and with all the stuff that carries over from that save data to a New Game+, my experience with this game is far from over cause there’s still so much I haven’t seen from it even despite the amount of time I’ve spent on it. It is a HUUUGE game with a lot of content, so you definitely have to keep that in mind before buying.

Right, gimme a moment to compose myself after the INCREDIBLE RIDE that was this fucking game.

Okay. So. Picture it: E3 2015. There I was, minding my own business, completely PS4-less and only scoping out upcoming PC titles since at the time I was a proud PC gamer. Deep down I was always bitter that I probably would never get a PS4, though, so I usually knowingly avoided any footage of PS4 games like inFamous: Second Son, Uncharted 4, etc. I’ve always been a naturally jealous person, so seeing footage from those games at the time sorta stirred up some jealousy there.

But regardless of that, I still end up seeing the original gameplay trailer anyways. And holy fuckballs, I was so pissed. There in front of me was footage of a game that was literally MADE for me, I swear to god. It had all the elements that I loved in a game. Let’s list them, shall we?

Lush open world with gorgeous vibrant landscapes and incredible graphics: check and check

Female protagonist that looks badass and is voiced by ASHLY FUCKING BURCH: check, check and check

Bow and arrow combat: check

Stealth: check

RPG elements like side quests, skill trees, dialogue trees, etc: checkcheckcheckcheck

Intriguing and mysterious story: check

Platforming and climbing mechanics a la Tomb Raider & Uncharted: check

Honestly, I could go on and on but you get the idea. I never thought I’d see the day where a game could so perfectly fit the criteria of everything I like. So 2-Years-Ago-Me was completely heartbroken since at the time I was convinced that I’d never own a PS4. It was up there with Kingdom Hearts III as the games I thought I’d never get to experience.

Flash forward to now, having been a PS4 owner for about several months. This game was pretty much top priority on what to get, so as soon as it was available for preorder, I clicked that shit so fast I almost broke my mouse. So naturally, when the game finally became playable, I completely immersed myself in it.

This may be a bold statement, but I think Horizon is going to be one of my favorite games of all time. For real.

Once upon a time, there was a little chubby gay boy sitting in his living room and watching MTV. You know, back when it was still actually MUSIC Television and still, well, mattered. He was catching up to the latest music video releases and countdowns. In one particular countdown he was watching, the number one spot of that countdown was a song called Just Dance by a singer he had never heard of before: Lady Gaga. When he first saw her stage name on the title card, he scoffed and raised an eyebrow. "What kinda stupid name is that?" he thought to himself. And yet, as he watched the video and listened to the song, he was intrigued. He wanted to know more about this enigma popstar that calls herself Lady Gaga. Over the next few months he ended up listening to more of her songs and seeing her music videos and he thought, wow, she's actually quite good. So he bought her album and liked it very much, but he wasn't too overly taken by her. He enjoyed her songs for a while before he moved on to other artists.

Cut to the next year, when she burst onto the scene once more with a certain song called Bad Romance, and the boy had no idea what happened. All of a sudden he fell in love with her, just like that. He thought everything about that one song was so compelling and iconic, and the video solidified that thought. It was not long after she released her EP, The Fame Monster, that the boy realized this woman was incredible, and was proud to call himself a little monster. And when Born This Way was released, he knew that Gaga also had the same deep love for her fans that they have for her, and somehow her music and the fact that she was just being herself was extremely empowering for the boy, and it helped him become a little more fearless.

Fast forward to now, Here I am writing this with headphones on and ARTPOP playing for about the hundredth time. Yes, I know it isn't released yet. I'm well aware of that. But after two years of literally no new Gaga music, how could any little monster resist? There are still those ones that are staying true to November 11th and will not listen to the album until then, but I just couldn't do it. Gaga has released snippet after snippet and performed a number of songs from the album live, and I just needed to experience the full album for myself.

And what an experience it was.

I do feel like ARTPOP is more than just an album. It's an experience. It's a journey. Every song has its own uniqueness to it, and each one, as Gaga had quoted once before, has a certain kind of adrenalin to it. She wanted us to feel those, and I definitely did. Oh did I ever. There's probably not an inch of ground in my room that I didn't cover, because I was dancing and jumping around all over the place as I listened to the album. I don't even know what came over me. The album just has such an impact on me. I felt like I was being transported elsewhere, to some type of rave in outer space or something. It's indescribable.

The album starts with a bang with the first track, Aura, one of the songs that we heard on the iTunes Festival Swinefest, and also the soundtrack to Machete Kills, Gaga's movie debut. The song goes hard with amazing production by the one and only Zedd, who I'm quite certain is my favorite EDM producer ever. The beat is pounding and the chorus is soaring. The vocals, however, I would say that I preferred the demo version a lot more. I just thought it fit with the tone of the song a lot better. Aura isn't one of my most favorite tracks on the album, but I think it's the perfect way to kick it off, because it gives you the feel of what the rest of the album is going to sound like.

Then we go right to Venus, which is definitely in my top 5 of favorite songs on this album. This was the song that Gaga produced herself, and I have to say, it sounds very very HER, if you get what I'm saying. It's very her style sound-wise but also lyrically. When I heard the first snippet back in October, I almost fell off my chair. I immediately thought, "Whoa, this sounds so 80s! It's giving me every bit of David Bowie!" And I loved that. Somehow Gaga managed to make this song sound so different and yet so authentically HER. And you can't deny the line "don't you know my ass is famous" is iconic as hell.

I love the fact that G.U.Y. plays right after Venus, because these two fit perfectly together. And that's because the beginning of G.U.Y. is a spoken part where Gaga is greeting Himeros, the god of sexual desire, and telling him to "lay back and feast as this audio guides you through new and exciting positions." The 20-seconds or so of the beginning of this song, my jaw was open the whole time. And when the first verse started, I nearly came. This would also be among my top 5, because G.U.Y. is so infectious and amazing from start to finish. Zedd's production especially shines on this song, and if I were him, I'd be pretty damn proud of it.

Then comes Sexxx Dreams, another Swinefest premiered song. Although I was still extremely excited to hear the studio version. One word I'd say about it is that it is really fuckin' HOT. The song talks about being in a relationship with someone but having dirty thoughts about someone else, and the production + vocals did an awesome job in giving off that sexual, forbidden lust type of energy. Right after the bridge, there's this small moment where Gaga goes "I can't believe I'm telling you this but I've had a couple drinks and oh my god" and then she laughs, it was so adorable and honest. I wouldn't say this song is in my top 5, but it definitely stands out, and it's one of my favorites.

Jewels n' Drugs is next, but to be completely honest it's pretty much the only song that I mostly skip over. Not that I think it's a bad song, because it isn't. I just generally am not that big of a fan of songs that feature, like, many different rappers in one song. Hell, I don't even like rap that much in general. It's a good song, and I appreciate Gaga for doing something she's never done before. And I do love the production of the song, the beat is siiick. Still, it isn't one of my favorites.

MANiCURE wastes no time in starting, because it kicks into high gear right after Jewels n' Drugs ends. This song is electrifying and catchy in every way possible, and I love the play on words Gaga uses in the lyrics, as she talks about getting actual manicures but also getting man cured. The studio version differs slightly from the version she'd premiered at Swinefest, however. The "heal me" part that was in the chorus of that version is sadly only in the bridge of the studio version, and at first I was a little bummed by that because that was my favorite part of the song. But I love the new version of the chorus as well, now that I've listened to it multiple times. And I'm also glad that she kept the guitar breakdown at the end, cause I just live for that.

Do What U Want was the second song Gaga released as a promotional single. You know, the one with Gaga's gorgeous derriere on the cover that I know have made lots of you question your sexuality. It's also a collaboration with R Kelly. I think this song has sort of a The Fame era feel to it. It's a song with a very prominent R&B feel to it, yet an awesome electronic beat. In the words of Tamar Braxton, you DID THAT with the production, DJ White Shadow! I totally got my life. Lyrically it's also a very powerful song, because Gaga's basically saying that the critics and haters can just do whatever they want with Gaga's body but they'll never get her heart, mind or voice. They'll never get to her, because she's gonna keep doing what she loves to do regardless of anything they say. A great message on top of a highly danceable song. One of my favorites, hands down.

Next comes the title track, ARTPOP. To me this was the standout song of Swinefest. I was so captivated by her performance, and I desperately wanted to hear what the studio version of this song sounded like. I remember Gaga had once said that this album was especially made to be listened with headphones, and even though I notice that in every track, I think this particular song is the perfect example of one that is much better to be listened to via headphones. It has a trance-like beat you can groove to but Gaga's vocals are soft and airy. I always can't help but just close my eyes when this song plays and I just get lost in it. The song ends with "free my mind, ARTPOP. You make my heart stop." And yes, the song and the album did both of those things to me.

But the tone quickly shifts from ethereal to gritty and dirty as Swine begins. Immediately I just heard the Zedd-ness in the production, because of his signature bass. What I love about this song is that you can tell it was written in anger. Gaga's emotion just really shines through. This song also has a killer beat drop that I swear to god made me cum. Out of all the songs on the album, this is one I'm pretty sure is meant to be played in raves and underground dance clubs. Oh and no, the studio version has no pig squeals, unfortunately. xD

Oh but the energy doesn't stop there, because Swine is immediately followed with another club-banger also produced by Zedd: Donatella. This song was inspired by Donatella Versace, although I wouldn't say it's directly ABOUT Donatella but more about what women like Donatella go through. It starts off with the sound of I'm pretty sure Gaga pouring champagne into a glass, and then she goes "I am so fab. Check out, I'm blonde, I'm skinny, I'm rich, and I'm a little bit of a bitch." I could totally see this song being played on a runway show. The chorus vocals sort of remind me of that Icona Pop song, "I Love It", and the beat is just straight-up orgasmic. This was one of the songs that I knew nothing about prior to hearing it, so I was extremely excited to hear it. Totally did not disappoint.

Fittingly enough, the song that comes after Donatella is called Fashion! And it's about, well, fashion. Haha. xD This is the song that will.i.am produced, and it has a very cool vibe to it. I adore the small parts where will.i.am says "Slay! Slay!" and nearing the end, where he speaks French. Although to be truly honest, as much as I like the song, I do feel like it's the most filler-esque out of all the songs. It stands out in its own way, but compared to the other tracks I don't really think it's as unique. It's still a pretty catchy song, though.

Ladies and gentleman, introducing Mary Jane Holland! Now this song, I'm aware that a lot of monsters have mixed feelings about it, but honestly, I think it's pretty fuckin' awesome. xD I mean yeah, when I first heard the snippet, I wasn't that sold, but the snippet totally didn't do the song justice. After listening to the full studio version, I thought it's really fun and playful and sounds like something that Gaga wrote when she was high, lol. And that "I am rich as piss" part? Slayed me.

It wouldn't be a Gaga album without a piano ballad. If Dope sounds familiar to you, it's because she'd performed a different version of it in Swinefest. It was called I Wanna Be With You. Gaga has said that this song is the most personal song she's ever written, and not only is it clear lyrically, but also in her vocals. That's one of the things I adore about Gaga's music so much. She's amazing at getting her emotions across and having us FEEL those emotions along with her as we listen to her sing. I've seen a lot of monsters bitching about how this song is bad and that they prefer IWBWY over it but, to be honest, I completely disagree. I feel like this song is a much less cheesy version of IWBYW. Lyrically it's a much more real and emotional song, and it gives us more insight on the struggles Gaga went through with addiction. When she sings "I need you more than dope," she's not only singing to us, but she's also singing to every person in her life that she loves. Despite all the backlash this song is getting, I think it's beautiful, and it never fails to get me all choked up.

Gypsy is actually playing right now as I'm writing this part. I'm grinning from ear to ear and my eyes are slightly watery. I have to say that Gypsy is without a doubt my most favorite song on the entire album. It's not even only top 5 anymore, it straight up tops the list. Words that come to mind are euphoric and liberating. Somehow the song makes me want to dance and cry at the same time. The first time we heard this song Gaga performed live as a piano ballad, so I had no idea what to expect with the studio version. My first time hearing it, I was so overwhelmed with this feeling of joy that I nearly burst into tears because...goddammit, this song is just so fucking good. Like, holy crap. It's very reminiscent of Born This Way, because the production has an Edge of Glory feel to it. Lyrically I also adore this song, because it gives us a peek at Gaga and Taylor's relationship, and it also lists off countries and cities at the end. She even said "Someday in Jakarta" which brought a big smile to my face, because as you know this friggin' country of mine didn't allow her to perform here, much to the dismay of Indonesian monsters everywhere, including myself. And she also gave a nod at Scheiße with "I don't speak German but I try." I could go on and on gushing about this song and how wonderful it is but it's better if you listen to it yourself, and hopefully you'll feel the same emotions I felt. <3

And of course, last but not least, Applause, the first single. I think it's a great song to end the album with, because after that exhilarating ride, it really does deserve a huge round of applause. I don't need to elaborate more on this song really, because everything needed to be said about it has already been said. Although a part of me does kind of wonder why Gaga released this song as the first single since I feel like, to be completely honest, the rest of the songs on the album are much, much better. Still, I love Applause and its legendary video, and I also love that this album both started and ended with a bang.