Review Summary: Do your worst.
Still, house music continues to entertain the more fun side of the mainstream. Played everywhere from the club to the radio, bringing with it many forms of remixes and provocative dances, this musical style is extremely prevalent today -- thus, born in a time when twerking and grinding are the obvious clichés, producers like Madeon, Big Data and especially Zedd scramble to produce something cutting-edge. Do most of them fail?
Miserably. Here, something about Anton Zaslavski’s sophomore full-length under the alias Zedd,
True Colors, remains extremely generic. He borrows ideas from a lot of modern EDM (along with vocalists). Diabetically sweet complextro melodies and a melodramatic aesthetic (“Straight Into the Fire”) makes for an album that, while listening to it, these ears could’ve sworn they’ve heard time and time before. In 2015, where the whiniest lyrics and perseverance lead the way,
True Colors has the ambition of Katy Perry’s “Firework” (and, unfortunately, qualitatively similar to the latter). This album is about as impersonal as it is overproduced.
The hilarious thing about this LP is that it isn’t vaguely catchy (“Papercut”, “Daisy”); no, instead, Zedd begs to create something more progressive, as displayed by tracks such as “Bumble Bee” and “I Want You to Know.” As alternative an idea as it is a plain bad one, it prevails as the main hindrance that
Colors audibly emits, because catchiness, a vital characteristic of the genre he attempts, is painfully sacrificed. Consequently, the scene that Zedd immerses himself in suddenly becomes clear on “Beautiful Now”, where the opening lines are “I see what you’re wearing / There’s nothing beneath it / Forgive me for staring.” The subsequent track shows a similar lack of talent when the rapping remains extremely sedentary and tamed, making it very hard not to get bored for the four-minute duration. The lyrics don’t emerge as any consolation either: “Feeling outdated, everybody inebriated / Feel like I'm automated, / I'm automated, I'm automated”, exhibit my sentiments for
Colors at whole.
However progressive, this album sees some major trendy aesthetics. Juvenility is recalled on track 5, “Done With Love”, as the artist proclaims the melodrama and insecurities the typical teenager faces. While this auditor did enjoy this song at a sonic level, it seems like the composition is over-complexified (although all of these songs feature a similar drum beat at similar tempos). Most songs feature repetitive bridges and extremely similar structures, which are akin to a much lower enjoyment than possible. Disney clichés and one-hit wonders appear on “I Want You to Know” (why the hell is Selena Gomez still alive?) and “Illusion” (Echosmith has other songs?) which become the worst songs on the album.
Whether or not Zedd will stay a major icon in the EDM industry is beyond me -- I see no potential on
True Colors. Instead, I see a good musician who has submitted himself to trendy sounds and has completely ruined an already bad idea with bad singers and lyrics. Impersonal and, at times, too complex, Zedd is a good example of a typical house music artist.
I’m sure the radio stations and club DJs will eat it right up.
1.8/10
