OK ORCHESTRA

OK ORCHESTRA is one of my favorite albums currently, it and Neotheater are truly masterpieces in my eyes. If I continue listening to them at this rate they'll be my top on this year's Wrapped lmao, this album is truly amazing to me. Every single song sounds amazing and fills my ears with just pure bliss, the lyrics aren't perfect by any means but they don't irritate me at all so I can look straight past that. I originally listened to this in early 2022, but I forgot about it later until I started reviewing music on AOTY and in February I was listening to it expecting to completely shit on it, but obviously that wasn't the case. It's gone through 4 rerates, from an 80 to an 85 to a 97 earlier today, to the final rating of a 100. Yes, this is an excuse to listen to the album again.

Ok Overture - 100/100
This is an amazing way to start off the album, I absolutely love the way all the instruments come together and the way they combined elements of all the tracks, my favorite part is definitely the instrumentation tho, though it sounds fucking amazing. Honestly, some of my favorite production choices on this entire album are in this song. I love the singing part towards the end, and the way the song ends is a great wrap-up and transition into Bummerland.

Bummerland - 100/100
The way the song starts off is incredibly nice, the instrumentation coming together is very good and it works well, the vocals also sound really nice on this track, no gripes I have with it. The lyrics sound pretty emotional to me. I love the trumpet coming in at the end as well.

3 O' Clock Things - 100/100
This is my most listened song on this album and for good reason, I love the way the song transitions from the last one, the beat and instruments are almost addictive to me and they sound incredible here. The vocals also complement the fuck out of this track. The way the track progresses also feels awesome. This song is just a fuckin' bop.

My Play - 100/100
The song starts out with nice effected vocals to the tune of the song, and then the actual vocals come in, and again, they sound great as usual. The bass coming in is also perfection. That drop is my favorite one of this album, the way the vocals change and the chorus is sung just sounds beautiful. The way the chorus drop comes back down sounds amazing as well, the vocals feel heartfelt and this song puts me in my feels. The ending on this track is perfect as well as the way it transitions out. I'm probably going to be repeating myself for some of these tracks too.

Joe - 100/100
This song starts with some really nice piano and then the beatboxing comes in and I think it complements the song very well. The piano in the background is beautiful. Then the way it transitions into a more choppy sound is also very nice. The drop on here is amazing as well. The part from about 2:20 I absolutely love.

Adventure Is Out There - 100/100
The intro to this song is beautiful, the instrumentation on it is great, and the piano background is awesome as well. The vocals are some of my favorite on the album, it's got a beat that's great too with its almost beach sound. The vocals with effects leading up to the part where it goes quiet at about 1:20 sound really good to me. This is one of the songs on here that gives some emotion to me. I love this one a lot.

Bang! - 100/100
This song was my first experience (that I remember) of AJR, I heard it in piano class for a bellringer where my teacher wanted us to rank it 1-5 and describe it as a color. I said 4/5 and it was yellow because it was energetic. This song has definitely grown on me since. The piano on it sounds quite nice and I love how the vocals are incorporated at the beginning. The vocals are solid throughout as well. I love the announcer on here when the song says "Here we go" before the drop and "metronome" before bringing the metronome in. The drops on here are some of my favorites on this album. The inclusion of the metronome is a really nice addition. The last here we go is also my favorite announcer on here, this song almost reminds me of Super Monkey Ball.

The Trick - 99/100
The beginning weird-sounding vocals I actually like on here, the lyrics are a bit goofy admittedly but they don't irritate me all that much, but this is a rare occurrence where they somewhat do. The way it transitions into the actual vocals with the string instrument in the background is a really nice touch I noticed on my last listen. The vocals in the midsection are also really nice and I absolutely love the almost dreamy-sounding instrumentation. The ending of the song feels emotional as well and I love it a lot.

Ordinaryish People - 100/100
The starting instrumentation gives me the vibe that something big is about to happen and this song definitely delivers on that. The beat is really nice and the instrumentation is great as always. The build-up to the drop has some of my favorite vocal performances of this entire album. This song has a really nice beat to it and combined with the signature AJR sound it goes crazy. Absolute fire. The part before the end one also goes incredibly hard and I love the feel of randomness I get from it.

Humpty Dumpty - 100/100
The song starts with a pretty sharp sound which I think goes really well transitioning into the song. The beginning instrumentation and beat go insanely hard. The OK with effects on it sounds great, the buildup here is also really good. The chorus sounds beautiful with the way the vocals, instrumentation, and high-pitched singing in the background go together. The lyrics here I actually like quite a lot they feel pretty feel good. The way the song goes into a vocoded singing section also is nice, along with the vocoded singing.

World's Smallest Violin - 100/100
I have a history with this song. If you've played Geometry Dash or really just watched content of it recently you'd know that there's a ton of short-form content that uses this song, and I absolutely HATED this song for a while just because of that. The overexposure has died off now though and I do enjoy the song. The "my"s at the beginning really feel good with the song. The clapping sounds really nice as well with the bwomps in the background. The vocals are some of my favorites on here, along with lyrics. The way the song goes into the chorus is amazing. Along with sounding immaculate the chorus on this song is my favorite one on this entire album. The way the instruments transition into each other in the chorus really scratches my brain, I love how creative it feels. The parts in between also sound quite amazing and are absolutely fire. The ending chorus bit is the one that gets me... Every damn time I hear it I think of a Geometry Dash level god damn.

Way Less Sad - 100/100
The beginning is excellent. This has my favorite beat and melody on here, the vocals are really good on here, my favorite of the album. That chorus though, it's got fucking amazing instrumentation and vocals. The lyrics of the chorus are very pretty too. The ending is pure joy and it works so well to wrap the song up.

Christmas In June - 100/100
The "ok I'm ready" is amazing, and the beat on here is magnificent as well. The vocal performance is once again great. I love the way the instruments leave and only the guitar stays. The affected vocals in the background also really help this song out. The way the track goes more chill in the middle is quite good too. The vocals brought in at 3 minutes are incredibly blissful as well. The trumpets that come in near the end really ramp up the song and sound amazing while they're at it. The outro is impactful as well, it sounds great and it works well as an outro.

Overall, perfect album. Loved everything on here. The reason this is perfect to me is just the way it sounds, it makes me feel so good and there are no weak moments on here. The only thing I'm not too crazy about is the beginning of The Trick, but everything else makes me feel incredible. The lyrics aren't that bad honestly, even when there are parts that are "cringy" I just don't mind that about this.