Review Summary: Lights puts out the years best synth pop album
The new craze in music seems to be this sugary sweet synth pop music. Artists such as Owl City have taken this scene by storm and garnered a horde of fans that embrace their every move. My personal opinion of this style of music was always extremely prejudiced, as I saw Owl City (and other artists) as a creative mind, but one who put out really boring music that never held my interest for longer then 20 seconds. This made me nervous when I decided to check out Lights, who, for comparison reasons, is the female version of Owl City, except a whole lot better.
The first track I heard off of Lights debut album
The Listening was the first track Saviour. This track instantly hooked me as it was catchy, upbeat, and had quality lyrics that actually made sense. (hint..hint Fireflies) After this initial enjoyment though, my experience started to go downhill.
Although
The Listening is filled with catchy, hook-sautéed songs, these songs really hold nothing beyond that initial hook. They’re musical quite blad, as they usually revolve around some sort of synth loop with other instrumentation such as strings thrown in for texture. This may be some listeners cup of tea, but it caused my interest level to drop considerably.
This is not to say that The
Listening is a terrible album by any means. In the world of synth-pop it is one of the better albums out there. To pick on my hometown artist Owl City again, synth pop like this is a lot more convincing when you have a female vocalist singing instead of a guy who never left his basement and dreams all day.
The
Listening is best listened to as a collection of songs, versus as an album as a whole. Giving this album a full listen is a challenge whereas if a song or two pops up on shuffle, It will catch your ear and you will enjoy it. So pick up
The Listening if synth pop is your thing, otherwise just stick to the singles like everyone else.
