|
| |
|
|
|
Review Summary: Another victim of unnecessary internet hype; a decent album and nothing more This album is akin to having a one-night stand in your 30s. It was alright in the moment, and there was really nothing to dislke, but you still have slight feelings of regret and confusion, of the sense that you've had much better before, and you wonder why you care about sex anyway.
It's not Jamie's problem that this album has amassed the amount of hype it has-though working with Gil Scott-Heron and being a member of indie superstars The xx didn't help-but I still can't help feeling that this album is another in a long line of similar genre-revivalists that just don't live up to the hype. Like most electronic albums in the 21st century, the production is great, the bass is heavy, and every melody twinkles and shines beautifully above the rhythm of each track. The mix is great and the lush qualities of each little added effect and sound employ great dynamics to draw your attention and keep it there. The album also flows quite nice; it has the nice effect of appearing as one long song, at least for the first few tracks. Opener "Gosh" is quite boring until the key change later in the track, though that's really all it has to offer. "Sleep Sound" and "Seesaw" are pretty great, though even when this album succeeds it sounds like it's trying too hard; the aesthetic portrayed here is of someone destined to have the most likely Urban Outfitters soundtrack ever. Jamie has a nice mix of influences between modern pop music and '90s rave music, but between everyone from Disclosure to Hudson Mohawke, the ambient mix of '90s revivalism (future garage, trip hop etc.) and modern trends (trap, EDM) is hardly new, and Jamie is about 4 years late on this album. Other than bringing the occasionally beautiful melody, there is nothing new or unique about this album.
He also, unlike Disclosure, fails at vocal centerpieces. "Stranger in a Room", is a dumb piece of wannabe ballad-like drivel and its terrible lyrics, boring vocal melody and (ironically) second-rate xx instrumental helps the track go absolutely nowhere. It's not even bad in an entertaining way, just in an extremely boring one. "Loud Places" suffers the same fate, featuring "Romy Madley Croft" on a painful hook of "I go to loud places, to search for someone to be quiet with" (really, it hurts typing that) and the boring ass chord changes are just the nail in the coffin. The closing tracks are alright, and sound fine, but these songs stick out like a sore thumb and really weigh down the whole album in an extremely bad way.
The unexpected highlight and by far best track here is the Young Thug featuring "(I Know There's Gonna Be) Good Times", a song that, if given to the right target audience, would probably hit number one in the states. And it should. Young Thug's insane personality goes off the rails as he drops "I'm gonna ride in that pussy like a stroller" and other wondrous one-liners over a quirky looping beat complete with a Persuasions sample. The beat is wonderful, the hook is wonderful, the whole damn song is miles above everything else on the album. If Jamie would've stuck to things he's good at (bangers, chill drum-n-bass) and not ballads throughout the album, maybe the whole thing could've been this good. Oh well.
Maybe I just don't get it, but this album isn't really cutting it for me. As a whole, it's alright, and has a few really good tracks, but considering like-minded acts that came out earlier and are doing it better (Disclosure, Jon Hopkins etc.) I don't know why Jamie is stealing the spotlight right now. For now, though, "Good Times" is an undisputed banger and will stay as such through all of eternity. And the rest is the album is ok for an H&M shopping visit. Not much else, though.
| other reviews of this album |
|
Album Rating: 4.2 | Sound Off
can definitely understand this perspective. disagree with a few things said here but it's all subjective and I came out of this album differently than you did haha. good review, have a pos, can provide more detailed criticism if you'd like :]
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
yeah feel free, i had just checked out the album and figured since everyone seemed to love it I'd share my opinion. It's not necessarily bad just kind of bland to me outside of a few tracks
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
Yeah, a good read. Pos'.
I disagree on 'Loud Places' though. I was pretty indifferent to it as a pre-album single, but in the context of the album I love it.
his album is akin to having a one-night stand in your 30s... and you wonder why you care about sex anyway.
Damn, I have a lot to look forward to...
| | | Album Rating: 4.0
30s are the new 70s
| | | Album Rating: 4.2 | Sound Off
ok, I've got some time to give some feedback. here goes:
quick formatting points:
-spaces between dashes, like so - this is continuing that sentence.
-punctuation goes inside quotation marks. so instead of "Stranger in a Room", you want "Stranger in a Room," (though in that specific case the comma isn't necessary at all).
overall, I really like the tone of this review. it reads like you're describing why you don't like this album to a group of friends at a party, and I think you've made the casual tone work pretty well. I will say that the "casual tone" argument isn't an excuse for using the word "great" four times in the second paragraph - your vocab is definitely bigger than that!
I also think, on that note, that it's worth taking a look at how you describe individual tracks. you use two sentences to describe tracks as either "boring" or "pretty great" in p2, and it might be wise to describe the tracks themselves better. I know you have it in you, given that I think you capture the color (no pun intended) of most of these tracks quite well.
along those lines, though, you might do well with some edits. you use the word "boring" twice to describe "Stranger In A Room," for example. also, adding "in an extremely bad way" to "weigh down the album" is kinda redundant, since the assumption when something weighs something else down is already that it hinders the quality.
overall, pretty sweet review. I think there's something to be said for cutting some of this stuff - you talk briefly about the closing tracks, for example, but that bit doesn't really add anything to the review as a whole, so it might be worth dropping that. that said, though, this was really good, and I hope to see more of you around these parts :]
| | | Album Rating: 3.0 | Sound Off
"-punctuation goes inside quotation marks. so instead of "Stranger in a Room", you want "Stranger in a Room," (though in that specific case the comma isn't necessary at all)."
depends. in this case the quotation marks aren't denoting dialogue, they're simply indicating a song title (like how some people use bold or italics, for whatever reason). I've seen other .. "professional" review sites do it like he does here, for what it's worth
| | | Album Rating: 4.2 | Sound Off
I was taught you always put it inside but I also wasn't taught by bloggers so idk what the actual consensus is
| | | Album Rating: 3.0
yeah, looking back i should have varied my words more...and thanks, that's kind of the tone i was going for, i like a wordy but casual type of approach
in regards to loud places, i dunno, i just think that style of ambient house music is overdone to shit and the song is unbelievably corny (in my opinion). If you're gonna go for that larger-than-life instrumental w/ an emotive vocal melody i feel like the lyrics and melodies have to back it up, and it just doesn't...
| | |
| |
