Spirit Phone

Another Neil Cicierega album? Man it's like I'm a young man again. Cabinet Man is infectious as hell! a fine internet time.

I didn't realise that an album could be intensely irritating in a good way. Reminds me of Mansun and Prefab Sprout, but playful and a bit more 8-bit. Goes all over the place but is somehow gestalt. I love saying gestalt at the moment. I don't really know what it means.

If life was Nintendo it would sound like this

Spirit Phone Is the seventh album by Lemon Demon (Neil Cicierga). It is an eclectic synth pop record by an artist known as a youtube content creator. It is a comedic album like the one of this list of Bo Burnham. This one is a lot more subtle, but still these lyrics are not very sharp either. For example the outro of the first song being a sort of parental advisory is rather boring. Musically it goes all the way with fast melody, rhythm changes. In comparison to other eclectic artists like Cardiacs or They Might Be Giants these songs are nowhere as good. This album does not add anything to his other work. His remixes (“Bustin’”) and smashups on youtube are far better. Great album cover though.

Unlike the abject horror of the other Neil Cicierega release on this list, I find this bright synth-pop with strange stories very alluring. I’d been exposed to this album previously, so I was no stranger coming into it, and it was a pleasant revisit. Standouts: Lifetime Achievement Award, Touch-Tone Telephone (so catchy), and Spiral of Ants.

I like it, it is different and interesting. Kind of takes me back to the 80s. Someone commented that the album was too long. It's 59 minutes long - which is a standard album in the 2010s-2020s. The bonus material doesn't count - it's BONUS - if you like it and want more, then listen to it. It isn't part of the actual album. I'll give it a solid 4/5. Thanks to the submitter. :)

This album reminds me a bit of Bo Burnham in that it's comedic pop rock from a dude that made it big through viral videos on the internet. Lemon Demon were the band responsible for that viral video "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" in 2005. The whole album is like that. Kinda catchy pop music that doesn't take itself too seriously. Full of NES sounds and electronica, but not so much as to be annoying. It's not bad. Favourite songs: Angelfire, Touch-Tone Telephone, Cabinet Man, Pizza Heroes, Sweet Bod, When He Died, I Earn My Life, Reaganomics, Angry People, Crisis Actors, Geocities Least favourite songs: Spiral of Ants 4/5

DUE TO MY STRONG PERSONAL CONVICTIONS I WISH TO STRESS THAT THIS RECORD IS A CERTIFIED BANGER I’m so hyped that someone actually added this autistic — I mean, artistic masterpiece to the list! I listened to it back around 2021 and I’d never had an album capture a sense of fixation and mania quite like this one. All of it is undeniably fun but “Cabinet Man” and “When He Died” are definitely my favourites.

Mad as a box of frogs, and a whole heap of fun. I sometimes worry about the brain that created Lemon Demon, but not for long!

The vocals are okay, and the melodies don't break with convention, but they are extremely well executed and the lyrics add all the novelty I could ever want.

Theater kid music but one of the good ones

Honestly, looking at the album title and the artist name, and the image for the album, I wasn't expecting that I'd like this. That said, it was fun, interesting, somewhat out there... many of the things I look for when I want to listen to new music. Thank you for adding this to the user submitted list!

I don't know what, how, or why I listened to, but I like it. 4/5

Very synth-y. Reminds me a bit of They Might Be Giants, only darker. I enjoyed it. 4 stars.

It sounds more 80s than any 80s artist ever did. I haven't heard Nik Kershaw in ages, but it reminds me of him. And of old computer games. It's fun synth pop. The lyrics don't match the vibe of the music at all, but that's cool.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Touch-touch telephone, I earn my life

Neil Cicierega— I’m pretty fond of his mashup albums but haven’t heard much of Lemon Demon. I had a friend in university who swore by him though, so this one’s for you m8 Hm I apparently already saved "Spiral of Ants" to my 'Favourite' Apple Music playlist like a year ago, but it was like listening to it for the first time >_< Phew that was a lot, but I can finally 100% confirm he can make good songs beyond sampledelic shitposts. If it wasn't clear with the Mouth series, Neil is haunted by the 1980's. I'm glad it comes across in this project as well. I will save the bonus tracks for another day, as two hours of Lemon Demon at once may be too much HL: "Touch-Tone Telephone", "When He Died", "Eighth Wonder", "Reaganomics", "Spiral of Ants" June 18, 2026

Jäkligt snyggt omslag. Musiken är inte heller så pjåkigt. Dock minuspoäng på att albumet är evighetslång.

Always let Neil cook

Neil Cicierega is just such a creative person. This music is something I would never search for myself, but kinda enjoyed the album

So here we go - more nerd music. Look, it's OK. There's some method to it. If you heard They Might Be Giants when you were 12 or 13, and maybe you were the sort of kid who did maths challenges for fun, then you need this kind of music in your life. You are soothed and comforted by the almost cynical catchiness of it. And that's fine. Seriously, it's OK. I also found Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny very catchy - for the couple of minutes it runs for. This, though, is an hour and three quarters long. Sure, whatever, everything after track 14 is listed as a bonus track and therefore I won't listen to it, but yeah... A whole album of nerdgasm is way, way way too much, and a whole album with another album's worth of "bonus" tracks sellotaped onto it is escaping into the realm of mental torture. Somebody really should have told him "no".

Hot garbage

Goddamn *somebody's* listened to a lot of Devo. I might have to give this another spin, paying more attention to lyrics, because I gotta be honest with myself that I probably wouldn't give this the time of day if I didn't already have a lot of goodwill for the guy who made it, and I know from past experience that there's going to be stuff in here that rewards close listening. EDIT: yeah alright this album's got the goods. I'd stopped before the bonus tracks on the first listen, and turns out they whip. I forgot that bonus track means something different when it's an album from the digital age

Unique sound and style. In the right mood, this would be real fun in the background

Good to listen to. 3.5

Not bad

Demonstrative, forced, overkill, overabundant, tiring... Those are the words that came into my mind after four or five tracks of this record went by. Some heavily lyrics-driven albums in the pop rock / synth pop umbrella genres are really getting on my nerves, as shrewd and witty as the songwriters are, and Lemon Demon's *Spirit Phone* is one of them. So my first impulse would be to file the thing next to other YouTubers releasing 'music albums' after going viral, such as Bo Burnham, or next to that Marvin's Mechanical Museum nonsensical word vomit by whatever band who released that somewhat annoying project. There's a caveat, fortunately, but I will only address it at the end of this tentative review... Not to say that *Spirit Phone* doesn't have melodic compositions. In fact, it has a LOT of melodies. Yet maddeningly, you could argue that the album has too many of them in a sense, and that a large swath of them end up cancelling each other in a "whatever" hypertext where they don't matter that much in the end (worst offenders: "No Eyed Girl", "Ancient Aliens", "Soft Fuzzy Man"). Neil Cicierega is objectively a very talented musician, and this project of his is a far better and substantial one than the opportunistic mashup LP *Mouth Sounds*, also submitted in this generator. Yet as a whole, this record doesn't get the "less is more" lesson, and it also feels like an awfully derivative pastiche of more pivotal progenitors of "nerd rock" anyway, Devo being the most prominent one among them (see the admittedly catchy "Cabinet Man", for instance). Also, I kind of hate it when vocal performers sing as if they have a broom stuck up in their ass. I know it goes with the territory here, but it's still a shortcoming when I can't bring myself to take the music over which those singers perform seriously enough, as "rich" as it is. Worse, "I Earn My Life" is playing right in my headphones right now and it is an extremely grating dud on a purely musical standpoint, even if I can admit the song is a short minimalistic foray not exactly representing the whole LP. So whatever gears he is switching, Neil thus keeps on making me feel queasy to an extent. Here again, I understand this might be the point of what is obviously a very sarcastic tracklist. But it's not because I get the point on an intellectual level that I can be *automatically* thrilled, mind you. Now with all that being said, Neil is *indeed* a shrewd and witty songwriter, and this is where I can find redeeming aspects in the project. "Reaganomics" is a lively, hilarious lambasting of Libertarian / Randian con artists and snake oil salesmen. Picking up that thematic thread in the tracks that follow and conclude the record, Cicierega can also be a little more understated on a musical standpoint, and this is where "Man-Made Object" and "Spiral Of Ants" almost reach the quality level of Human League and Hot Chip at their best. And of course, it's not only the end of the album that's strong, its first two tracks -- "Lifetime Achievement Award", about the music industry zombifying dead pop stars, and "Touch-Tone Telephone", where a conspiracy theorist hilariously goes berserk and harasses a girl on the phone -- are also bangers for sure. So all in all, I can admit this was an interesting listen. When Neil goes "Don't hang up yet, I'm not done" on "Touch-Tone Telephone", I can't help having a good laugh because the line perfectly encapsulates how some of the other songs in the album can quickly wear out their welcome for me. But I can still say "live and let live" after exploring *Spirit Phone*. I still think the nerds and internet addicts so easily falling in love with this record should go outside more and touch some grass. But if I can't bring myself to advise this to the three or four same people *constantly* chatting on the Discord forum for this generator, why should I bother telling anyone what to do with their lives? Live and let live, as I said. 3/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums,. 8/10 for more general purposes (5 for the musicianship and production values + 3 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: 120 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 137 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 303 (including this one) ---- Salut Émile, Tu pourras lire ma dernière réponse sous le *Little Criminals* de Randy Newman. A+.

I didn't hate this, but didn't really love any part of it, either.

Estilo entre pop y algo de electrónica. Estilo definido que hace que muchos temas tengan cierto parecido. Recuerda un poco a grupos como Depeche Mode, salvando las distancias.

More one man band electronica. I did not succeed in drawing much anything out of it lyrically. I know he does not intend to encourage a belief in the occult. One song was about turning a mummy into potions? Maybe? This did not do a whole lot for me.

Broken record but why make a 60 minute album with only 40 minutes of good material? Everything goes on slightly too long. It's perfectly fine but just exists I guess? I didn't feel anything from the songs. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

I’m not the target audience, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t alive in the 80s to be proper nostalgic, but it was fun enough.

Second Neil Cicierega album. A better showcase of his actual talent than the Shrek mashup album (although I probably think that's still the better "user list submission" since it's really fucking funny to unleash 40 minutes of Smash Mouth samples on unsuspecting users). Lots of fun, even if some songs end up sounding way too similar. Even ignoring all the bonus tracks, would have probably been for the better if this was like 10 minutes shorter. That being said, the first three track run is really good and I will absolutely have "Cabinet Man" stuck in my head for the rest of the week. Strong 3/5. Needs more Full House samples.

Indietronica, pop, synth-pop, synthpunk, geek rock. Ni fu ni fa.

I applaud the intention but it really hails from the 80s. Sounded bitty and uninspiring which is the fine line between genius and just pretty good.

Fun to see another Cicierega LP on the list, giving us both Neil’s shitpost and serious sides in equal measure here on the list. Per usual, the composition here is insane - the man has such a gift for writing synth lines that sound alive, dancing over exceptional instrumentals. I do feel the editing is lacking on this one, though, as most tracks seem to overstay their welcome by a chorus or two. Still listened to all the bonus tracks however, and had a great time taking in some excellent composition and tongue-in-cheek styling on this LP. Perhaps not fully 1001 worthy, but a good listen nonetheless.

I want to like this one more than I do… it falls into that sort of manic, videogame-adjacent category that can be hit or miss for me. I didn’t hate it but didn’t love it, but it has a lot of moments I feel like I might like more if I listened more.

You need to calm down theater person pop music

Like if Oingo Boing never left quirky new wave 80s for their darker 90s. And then like if Danny Elfman ever said “i can has cheezeborger?”

Weirdly nerdy.

This gave me weird creepy stalker vibes for some reason :(

Sounds very dated for a 2016 album,

Was this not on the original list? Guess not, don't know what I am equating it with

Truly bizarre new wave

I don’t know what this was other than long. I think I didn’t mind it.

First album in a few weeks that I actively disliked. This felt like it was appealing to some retro, science rock a la Styx or Thomas Dolby. But I didn't find anything here redeeming. Made it about four tracks in while cutting my grass the other day. Tried to give it another shot, but couldn't get past the same point. Rarified 1/5 territory for me

I don't know what Spirit Phone was meant to be but I didn't like it, it was shit. 1/5. Turns out we had another album from this Neil Cicierega guy and it also got a 1/5 from me. Not personal mate.

After hearing two of his albums because of this list, I can safely say that “Bustin’” is the only piece of music by Neil Cicierga you truly need to hear before you die: https://youtu.be/0tdyU_gW6WE?is=aqpdOplsIs6kjrDS

My true rating is probably a 2, but I'm using this as an opportunity to take revenge on Lemon Demon for writing the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

I will always write this when albums are ridiculously long. Nobody must create an album of almost two hours of music. Nobody is so talented to create so many great songs. I got so tired I was waiting for this to finish. I would have given it one more star, but I am removing due to ridiculous length.