Usurped only by this year's "Apples" in terms of being her most heartbreaking song.
Somehow they missed the most important chapter in the “How to Copy Liars” handbook: there needs to be a moment of reprieve.
Her best record. She doesn't reinvent the wheel, but rather presents a set of well-organized and well-performed songs. The stronger sense of optimism is a welcome change after the morose feeling of her first record, and a limited set of bolder production choices (satellite beeping on "Look No Further," eerie recorders on the Brian Eno-assisted "Grafton Street") help make the instrumentals a little less cookie cutter than on previous albums. The two biggest standouts succeed ... read more
Unfortunately this project seems to have run dry at this point as even Poppy's surreal Youtube videos have begun to fall out of relevance. I can credit Am I A Girl? for having a huge production step-up from the low-budget cringe of certain Poppy.Computer numbers, but she remains just not a capable enough of a singer or writer to carry these tracks. The bizarre pop-metal direction of the final three songs is interesting if only because it shows her experimenting with tempo changes and ... read more
The least interesting of the singles she's released so far (as third singles tend to be). Despite being underdeveloped, it continues to push Rosalia's modern Flamenco initiative. Still no reason not to be excited about the album.
LGBT stands for "Lady Gaga & Beyonce - Telephone"
~~~~~~~~~writing more because the 'Review Guidelines' frighten me~~~~~~~~~
In his fantastic analysis of Lady Gaga's early hits (and "Bad Romance" in particular) for Slate, Owen Pallett posits six main songwriting rules that helped make solidify Gaga's brand and make her initial run of singles so successful. According to Pallett, a classic Gaga song would:
1. Only use minor keys
2. Begin most verses and ... read more
Someone asked, "What is the essential meaning of Buddhism?"
The Master said, "[Countless dead bodies] fill all the chasms and valleys."
Someone asked, "What do you think about: 'The moment discrimination arises, one becomes confused and loses one's mind?'"
The Master said, "Kill, kill!"
Three songs from their sophomore record that were removed from the US release for being too violent. All three reference murder pretty explicitly, and their disinclusion blunts the parent record's focus to food fights, zombie apocalypses and relationship drama (but still with a few stray references to self harm ("Twisted Nerve"), pill-popping ("The Kelly Affair") and lying about doing anal ("Bitches Leave")). Of course the standout is "Becky," a girl ... read more
UPDATE 12/2/18: Subtracted 2 points bc the clipping makes some of the songs kinda difficult to listen to :(
Baier + Bunyan + Perhacs = Sacred trinity of 70s folk ladies who receive their due recognition in the 21st century
Favorite Tracks: Tonight, I Lost Something in the Hills, William, Driving, Forgett, Give Me a Smile
Me: So many musicians don't put enough thought into their lyrics and think they can just be overly esoteric or deliberately oversimplified and that that alone makes good art.
JH: I am in love, what can I do? I shall love x40056
Me, crying and ordering John Cage's "Silence: Lectures and Writings" on Amazon: A true masterpiece, the voice of a generation, what did we do to be given such a talented soul??
It's nice, but occasionally Taylor takes a backseat to the samples (which are pretty great so shoutout to Kanye's interns for finding them). "WTP" is a huge missed opportunity - could have been the gay anthem of the summer but it's underdeveloped and spends half its runtime in subdued bass drum purgatory.
Unfortunately, this record largely forgoes the experimentation that made Sympathy so addictive. The textures are pretty but unobtrusive and kind of just float away when the song decides it's done. There's a few more out-there moments, especially when GABI writes more audacious lines in her upper register ("Until the End," "Let's Not Exist") or adds a surprise instrument into the mix ("Whole With You") but the reservations of the surrounding material frequently ... read more
For at least a few years the first sentence of Brooke Candy's wikipedia said she was mainly known for being in Grimes's Genesis video.
If you are STRAIGHT and work for a MUSIC PUBLICATION IN 2015 but want to seem WELL-ROUNDED when it comes to POP MUSIC then it's very IMPORTANT that you OVERHYPE this record.
Not quite fully-formed enough to be my AOTY, but still a pretty fascinating record that continues to push pop music forward through an updating of much older genres.
A few of the more forward-thinking ideas are somewhat underdeveloped, like "De Aquí No Sales," which uses some exciting car engine samples in its first half but then shrugs into yet another syncopated handclap-assisted dance beat. "Reniego" is a surprising orchestra-backed number with a very belabored ... read more
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