Review Summary: The Chainsmokers continue their streak of ripping off their own songs and other points in the music industry as their own with a painfully mediocre album that suffers from painfully processed mediocre vocals, cheesy lyricism, and overused instrumentation.
Earlier down my timeline (referring to my Instagram), I briefly mentioned in my Worlds by
Porter Robinson review (see @TatremyMusicReviews on Instagram) that the industry of EDM is in a very flawed and painfully generic state.
The Chainsmokers is the very definition of this flawed state. Ever since dropping their smash hit single "Closer", which featured alt. pop singer
Halsey, the DJ duo have repeatedly released music that have either ripped off "Closer", their earlier hit "Roses", or other various sources in the music industry, and have watered them down so much that both the lyricism and instrumentation have become utterly generic. However, after giving this album a listen, I will say that it SLIGHTLY exceeded my expectations.
This album has many many flaws, but there is a little bit of a diversity in terms of production on the outside that I did not expect. However much of this album still suffers from lead singer Andrew Taggart's mediocre auto tuned, processed vocals, and extremely poor and cheesy lyricism. Take "Break Up Every Night", the second song in the track listing, for an example. The title of this song should already give a clue to how bad it is in terms of lyricism. I can (sort of) appreciate the overall instrumentation of this song and the song structure itself (slightly reminiscent of a watered down pop rock song), but it is completely ruined by lines like "She wants to *** me back to life, I can't help it if I like the way she makes me feel". Comparing it to the rest of the song, it simply does NOT flow well together at all.
The same goes for the song "Bloodstream", which features the following line: "I'm ***ed up, I'm faded, I'm so complicated". Most of the lyricism on this album, in fact, features Taggart trying to play an obviously fake down to earth impression of himself, or just him simply being completely full of himself. Bloodstream, however, has some nice chill synthesizers backing the track, even if the lyrics here are painfully simple and way too direct that it just does not work well whatsoever. The drop on this song is slightly similar to the progression of "Roses", which is a song that they pull from quite often throughout the track listing. "Something Just Like This" featuring
Coldplay is the best example of this. Although the lyricism is easily the best on this album (thanks to Chris Martin), the drop on this is nearly identical to "Roses" to the point where it is just way too obvious to miss. Coldplay end up saving the song with the entire band making an appearance, thank God.
The song "Don't Say" feat.
Emily Warren was a pretty okay song (hearing elements of
ODESZA-like background synths. Drop is very cliche among the industry) until the end, which featured a sample of the duo and few other people talking in their studio with a woman saying "Quans" over and over again (very annoyingly). There are similar samples throughout the album which don't really flow well together at all and really just end up making the album even more cringe worthy than it already is on the surface . The lead single "Paris" is a painfully obvious ripoff of "Midnight City" by
M83 (Seems like everyone in the industry wants to copy this song) and "Robbers" by
The 1975 (seriously, the instrumentation ripoff cant be ignored). However, I will say that there are a few sparks of life here and there excluding "Something Just Like This". The intro track
"The One" is a nice little piano ballad with some very chill sounding and smooth vocal chops. Lyricism here is still pretty direct, but I guess that's what is to be expected from a Chainsmokers song. Very different from what they've done so far and certainly a highlight for me. The track "Last Day Alive" featuring
Florida Georgia Line of all people actually surprised me. It ended up being a nice closing track. Slightly similar to M83's style (the duo seems to pull from this specific act a lot), but it isn't as obvious as Paris.
Overall, very mediocre album, do not recommend excluding a couple of tracks. So when the title says "Do Not Open", perhaps just the smallest of a peek inside these "memories" is an okay thing to do. *4/10 (2/5)* from me.
