After June 16th, 1997, music would never sound the same. An album dropped that was so bombastically different, so adventurous and unique, that it would go on to shape much, if not all, of modern rock music. An album that carried love, fear, anxiety, loneliness, and everything in between on its shoulders into the unknown horizons. On June 16th, 1997, Radiohead released OK Computer to massive critical and commercial success.
Spiritualized were there too, I guess (I don't really know, I was only ... read more
it’s like a drive thru rap album but the really good kind of drive thru where the food doesn’t suck
a disappointing leap backwards into the most forgettable moments of his last album
so i wrote this for a college app that got denied (thx uva) so why not put this up here
As an avid fan of music, I've found many artistic ventures that have surprised, unsettled, and challenged me. None of these, however, has had a greater impact on me than Radiohead's 1997 album, OK Computer. OK Computer is a concept album that deals with themes of isolation and anxiety in an ever-expanding era of technology. Based on the description alone, the album already carries an unsettling vibe to it ... read more
Intensity. Such a flavor of word does not only serve notions of tempestuousness, but those of overwhelming, those of a slow-rolling ecstasy from which you cannot escape. In your mouth, an intense taste; in your mind, an intense drug; intense dreams, intense sex, intense sadness or happiness. I have heard intensity in one sustained note from one instrument, and I have seen intensity in the vastness of the sea. Were this an instrumental album the intensity would still last, assuredly, but most of ... read more
tldr: in his final artistic statement, mac miller explores the cycles and regrets that drive our everyday lives. a fitting farewell from one of the best rappers to ever live. thank you malcolm
if you aren't familiar with mac, his death was one of the most upsetting in the history of hip hop. a kid who started out as a "crushingly intolerable and bland version of wiz khalifa" (circa pitchfork) has, over time, evolved into an established multi-instrumentalist and master songwriter. he ... read more
![Fishmans - 98.12.28 男達の別れ [98.12.28 Otokotachi no wakare]](https://cdn2.albumoftheyear.org/100x0/album/53597-981228-981228-otokotachi-no-wakare_104548.jpg)
edit: after spending more time with this nothing compares. this is the best album of all time. no tldr
in just over 2 hours, fishmans have captured an emotion that only a handful of us will be lucky enough to experience in our lives. and it lives right here in this album, ready to be played at anytime anywhere. you can assign labels to it, sure, but there's a feeling that you will never be able to explain with words. it's a thin and fleeting atmosphere, but it's perfectly maintained over the ... read more
tldr: although not his most devastating release since a crow looked at me, phil elverum continues to grow both as an artist and a human
phil elverum's 2019 release is deceptively marketed as a successor to the lost wisdom album he recorded 11 years ago. interestingly, the only two things these albums seem to have in common are that they feature julie dorion and they're both crushingly sad (as pretty much all of phil's work is). from the first minute of belief, phil lets us know that he's still ... read more
tldr: nick cave blends his heaviest emotions into a rorschach ink blot. stare into it long enough and you might start to see yourself
ghosteen is hard to talk about. albums like these are always hard to talk about. it feels almost unfair to judge if you're not the man who made it, but i'll try my best. i see ghosteen as an expression of grief, but theres much more than that. nick uses these abstract lyrics to dance his way around what the album is really about: his son's death. sometimes he ... read more
tldr: ecco stands against his contemporaries and sets a new height for cloud rap with a dense and delicate 30 minute project
no this isnt ironic. ecco2k has a top 10 project in 2019 and probably the best cloud rap/dg record ever. im not a huge fan of cloud rap outside lean and (now) ecco since i could never get into the lazy flow and boring writing that a lot of these projects have, but ecco does it right. sure the lyricism isnt anything crazy and the flow isn't mind blowing, but ecco uses ... read more
tldr: the sad midwest dads have done it again
god fucking damn it i hate these guys. american football keeps improving on their sound and status as one of the best math rock bands today. this is (somehow??) mike kinsella's 3rd breakup album and i think the theme here is holding on to the past. in their previous releases they talked a lot about that but here he deals with feelings of regret and longing for someone or something. the lyrics are never super important in an american football album ... read more
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Recent Review Comments
On Spiritualized - Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
"into nothingness again, I can only imagine hearing that infamous voicemail echo one last time as a relic of what we once were."
On Spiritualized - Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
""Desert is any place without you /
Oh, my love, I'm pretty sure that you can feel that, too /
And loneliness, you know it hits me and it lasts for days /
'Cause you're so sweet, you make me feel like a child, my babe." It's fitting that Pierce ends this cosmic journey of unparalleled proportions the same way he started it, with the line "I will love you".
So there you have it. Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen has every right to stand among the greatest works of art in history. I understand the polarization surrounding this album but I believe it to be one of those albums that you either get or you don't. And even if you get it, you might not even get it fully, you get me? Theres always something to read in between the lines on this album and I discover new things with each listen. But no album has explored the inner workings of ourselves as extensively as this album. In about 5 billion years, when the human race is far extinct, when the sun collapses back in on itself and explodes"
On Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
"shits fun"
On Mac Miller - Circles
"ily max tysm"
On Mac Miller - Circles
""and everybody means something,
when they're stuck on your mind,
but every now and again, why can't we just be fine?"
once a day is the last track on circles. with a soft guiding synth and quiet drums, it's more of a conversation that mac is having with himself, something he's explored before on songs like colors and shapes and objects in the mirror. the repeated "once a day i rise, once a day i fall" ties it all together with the circles motif. he's living in a cycle and he doesn't know when it's gonna end. the tragic story here is that we, the audience, knows when it ended. throughout the song mac wonders how other people feel. it's a shame that he won't ever get out of this mindset. thank you, mac, for everything you've made.
i'm gonna hold off on rating this album because i need more time to sit with it. i wanna listen to everything he has to offer on this because we probably won't get any more cohesive and thematic projects. but it's a fitting conclusion to his legendary career."
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