This album is like, I forced an AI to listen to 1000 hours of 80's pop hits. The beats and synths are good, but the melodies and harmonies just feel aimless and trite. As if they were trying to make the hooks easy to remember, while not realizing that that's not what makes them catchy.
it's good. story is whatever, but I like when songs have a very apparent meaning, so at least it helps with that. Christmas, The Acid Queen, Pinball Wizard, We're Not Gonna Take It, and particularly Go to the Mirror (it took me way too long to recognize how good this song was, ngl) are highlights. I like the vocal harmonies and the use of drums to emphasize certain sections.
I like when they actually sing. I wish they would do it more lol I have a love/hate relationship with the pixies. Their music is definitely a vibe but they have some parts where it seems like they're deliberately sounding bad. Which I get was a statement, made them unique, got them attention, whatever. It still sounds bad :X This album mostly doesn't sound bad though. The chords and melodies are pretty basic and same-y, that's not inherently bad, but it makes it a bit dull especially with the weak harmonies. I also don't think Black Francis is an amazing singer, at least not one I'd actively want to seek out to listen to more. They also have this thing where they like phrasing in 6 beats instead of the usual 8. I've heard them do it before (e.g. Tame) but it seemed like they do it a lot here. It's cool, keeps you on your toes a bit which is what they're going for. The intro track was surprisingly good. Alison, Is She Weird, and especially Down to the Well were the tracks that stood out the most.
I like pitches. I wish this album had them. Like sure, the beats are fine. They're kinda cool. I'm not usually that into the looped samples. And there just isn't really much else that can keep my attention here. The Private Psychedelic Reel was really good and surprised me right at the end. I was wondering if it was enough to singlehandedly raise the album to a 3, but even it has too much dead space, and I don't think that's really how it works anyway.
This album is like, I forced an AI to listen to 1000 hours of 80's pop hits. The beats and synths are good, but the melodies and harmonies just feel aimless and trite. As if they were trying to make the hooks easy to remember, while not realizing that that's not what makes them catchy.
This is a decent album. I liked the beginning, might just be that I remember it best but I do like Ha Ha I'm Drowning quite a bit. (The synth riff really helps that one.) But as it went on it felt a bit boring, the songs just repeated the same musical themes and didn't really stand out much in any way? I didn't really notice many interesting harmonic or melodic lines further into the album, and since I listened to the 17-track remastered version, it went on for quite a while. Not bad, it was a vibe for sure, but I don't think I'd probably want to listen to it front-to-back again.
This album has a lot to like. It's also got a lot to dislike. It's just got a lot in general. The theme is... pretty cringey, and a bit obnoxious and overblown at times. But, I *think* it's mostly satirical, which seems to be supported by the nuanced lyrics in a lot of the songs. That said, the weird spoken intros/interludes are very much not my jam. And the singer has a very melodramatic singing style which can get annoying as well, although it's usually not that bad. There are some garden-variety tracks on there, ones that just kind of exist and are pleasant to listen to but don't really go anywhere special. But most of the tracks have at least some kind of hook to make them interesting. In the first half of the album, Something For The Weekend and Charge stood out to me, the former for its build-up and plot twist, the latter for its interesting use of harmony and rhythm. I was all ready to give this album a 3, but then I was completely blindsided by Through A Long & Sleepless Night. That song isn't singlehandedly what raised it to a 4, but it is a massive tonal shift that conveys a sense of agitation and discomfort incredibly well (most of the beginning part is in 7!) and has a very satisfying build and resolution. The two closing tracks were also very solid and helped to frame the album as a cohesive unit instead of just a collection of songs about a guy being a sleaze. And that caused me to reinterpret some of the earlier songs, and I went back and listened to parts of them, and I'm pretty happy giving this a 4.
This is pretty standard Michael Jackson. The hooks for a lot of the songs were pretty good, but what was in between got a bit dull, with the background (particularly the percussion) leaving something to be desired. Bad and Smooth Criminal were songs I already knew and liked. Dirty Diana was the standout of songs I didn't already know. MJ is a talented singer of course, I didn't care for some of his weird vocal stuff, but the harmonies were pretty good in general.
I tried not to listen to the lyrics lol. When I did I mostly regretted it. Whatever, it's Alice Cooper. Musically it was fine, there was actually a lot of cool harmonies in there. It's early 70's rock, you can't expect that much, but it wasn't too bad. Unfinished Sweet and Sick Things, weird though the lyrics were, were good musically (particularly harmonically).
Kim Gordon's singing drops this like one and a half stars. It is out of tune and not very musical and it makes it pretty hard to enjoy the songs that she sings in. The others are decent, when they're not making random noise.