You & I

The music you're forced to listen to when you forget your headphones at the gym:

This dance-pop album is of the "in one ear and out the other" kind. It's mostly harmless, but also quite forgettable. The fact that the best song by far, "Praising You", is a reworked version of a far better original hit by Fatboy Slim says it all.

You'd think at least ONE of the 60000 people who wrote this album could've come up with something better than semi-literate, Bonnie and Clyde-themed garbage. Guess not. 1/5.

This artist keeps coming up in my New York Times crossword puzzle, so I guess its about time I figured out what she is about. Beautiful singer - great dance songs. What's not to like? Great remake of "Praise You". "That Girl" - while I thought Eddie Murray's "Party All The Time" was pretty atrocious back in the day, using the chorus in this made me smile and I kind of love it! I thought this was a pleasure to listen to. Terrific!

I will admit this is not the type of music i usually enjoy and was therefore not looking forward to this when it popped up. I can’t say why, but I was so wrong. Nothing about this lands in my usual listening profile but I enjoyed it. I’ve tried to figure out why so maybe I could try a little more with those elements. Couldn’t do it. Just don’t know why I liked this.

Very respectable entry in the romantic diva kind of pop genre. While well-written most of the lyrics hew fairly close to the standard tropes of that genre, some self-empowerment curveballs are a welcome contrast. A littlendifficult not to get distracted by the thought that all these effusive declarations of romance are about Taika Waititi?

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: You & I, Shape of me

Pretty standard/decent 2020s fem-power pop. Not as good as your Keshas, Chappells, or your Gagas, but still nice. I liked when she sampled Fatboy Slim

This is a nice pop album that I listened to

Easy listening pop-album.

Rita Ora? In 2023?!

Melodic generic pop in a world already filled to the seams with melodic generic pop.

Ora has an incredible voice, just can't help but feel the production and songwriting has let her down here. The backing tracks sound like they were scrambled together using Ableton presets, and so many of the tracks have repetitive verses and pretty bare-bones lyrics. I enjoyed a few songs off of this one, but felt it could have had a much larger impact.

A pretty simple pop album. Nothing too ground breaking here. There has to be a few of these every decade for the tweens to love and cherish. But I’m no tween. I’m a man. I’m 40. 4.2/10

It’s not the worst pop album Iv heard, but a strange choice all the same.

Largely cliched lyrics over pretty generic pop tunes.

No idea why someone would put You & I on his, it's standard modern pop, not bad, not good, has a few hooks that come from sampling or covering other songs so you get that little hit but otherwise it's very beige. She can sing but her voice is poorly over-produced/tuned on this, as a stylistic choice, and that's annoying. 2.

Style and personality-less autotuned generic rubbish

Five takeaways from this suggestion: - It's nice that newcomers can contribute to the generator if they want to, and therefore pick an album at an early stage. It's nice for them, and it's also nice to help Alexander. - I always hope those newcomers won't give up the project after accomplishing like 10% of it. I've seen that before in that sort of situation. So I encourage this person to not let it go if they read me. Leaving more reviews could be nice as well. And it could also help us understand what makes you tick and where you came from when suggesting this Rita Ora album. - Let's be honest, this is a terrible choice in my humble opinion. But it gave me the occasion to compare this contemporary commercial pop record to Charli XCX's *Brat* -- not so far from it on paper -- to understand where the difference lies. And the difference lies in one single word: *personality*. Whether for the tones or the vocal lines, there are more daring turns in one song from *Brat* than there are to be found in the whole of *You And I*. Same if you compare it to a lot of other commercial pop singers (Dua Lipa, Jesse Ware, Chappell Roan, Foxes...), either using "writing committees" or not. One song manages to stand out: "That Girl". It's supposedly a deeper cut, yet it's the only thing that doesn't sound like a tune made up in an assembly line, as mindless and sugary as it is. But the rest just come off as particularly bad for me. Extra cringe points for the "na na" parts on the opener. When you have so many extra (shadow) writers on a payroll helping Rita "pen" her lyrics, the least they can do is finish the job correctly. - Only two years after the album's release, none of the songs from it are buzzing on Spotify -- apart from that cynical cover / reworking of Fat Boy Slim's "Praise You", bringing absolutely nothing interesting to the original, mind you. The nine other songs showing a significant uptick of streams these days are either from older albums, or one-off singles, or featurings... It's supposedly a free world, so yeah, go ahead and select contemporary pop if that's your thing. But when a commercially-minded effort fails to leave a lasting imprint -- in spite of the traction streaming services automatically give to that sort of blatantly self-indulgent music genre -- this simply means said effort doesn't even respect the standards it sets for itself. Yes, the streaming numbers this album has garnered since its release are huge compared to less accessible music. But you can bet your boots no one will remember this thing in ten years. It's already half-forgotten today, actually. - That album artwork is ridiculous. And its sleazy undertones are now suggesting things in my mind I won't even put into words. If only that sort of hint (about the music industry?) had been explored in the songs from this record, at least you would have some real provocative intent here. Remember Lana Del Rey's "Fucked My Way Up To The Top"? But I probably expect too much from Rita and her producers here, lol. 0.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 1. 5.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for musical competency and production values + 0.5 for the artistry). Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 37 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 45 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 92 (including this one)

I'm sorry but this does nothing for me and is indistinguishable from so many other singers of this ilk. They are so polished and well produced. Their songs are generic and devoid of originality.