As bad as AJR are, they don't question the ethnicity of Jews on a comedy meme album that's presumably for kids.

An album much stranger than it is good. What I'm most baffled about with this record is it's critical acclaim. What on this album are people hearing that makes them so enamored by it. Maybe it's somewhat heady or cerebral in pockets. Now and again a pleasant instrument or sound comes through the noise but it's like a radio with poor reception. Half of it is static, the sound is coming from nowhere, building little of interest then leaving without much reason. It's not even that I'm repulsed by ... read more

Will of the People is a baffling album because, on every level, it fails to do things that Muse has successfully done before. It sounds like every other muse album, just worse. If I had to portray it favorably, the best I can say about is it's not as bad as Imagine Dragons. Even then, I'm not so sure.

When I first encountered Gorillaz, it was exactly as musician Damien Albarn and Illustrator Jamie Hewlett originally intended. They were on MTV. I woke up one morning at my babysitter's to see that windmill island from their Feel Good Inc music video flash across the living room screen before my sister and I walked to our elementary school. I recall the forelorn punk boyishness in 2D's voice before I'd known what punk even was. In an interview about Demon Days, Albarn cites a train ride he took ... read more

The Best album of the 2020s thus far.

I remember listening to this in the car driving to school with my sister. Back when watching Anthony Fantano could make me feel like an eccentric, interesting person, I uncovered this album among his classic reviews. It seemed sufficiently odd and yet artful enough to spring it on her at the time. When I did, we hadn't even finished half a song before our commute ended. I've listened to it a few times since and I'll say it's ridiculously grand, one-of-a-kind. On revisiting it, I think it stands ... read more

In an odd way I respect this release. Obviously it doesn't pan out. It's not a good album but it was pivotal in changing our perceptions about Miley Cyrus. This is the abyss of her transition away from mainstream pop from which she'd return. I actually think it's very ballsy. Few other than Miley Cyrus have ever swung back from a record so abyssal. Still, on paper, it's an interesting experiment. Put Miley Cyrus, Mike Will Made It, and the Flaming Lips in a studio and have them make a 90 mine ... read more

"This don't feel like Disney."

Don't let anyone tell you not to make art because if AJR can have a career off the back of material like this, whatever you're doing can't be that bad. Initially, I don't think it's that bad on the overture but then the obnoxious instrumentation settles in. The vocal effects when he sings about talking to his dad are ridiculous and really the tragedy of AJR is that, by themselves, the pieces of music that comprise this record aren't bad. Some piano ... read more

Tiny Mixtapes really fumbled the Bag on this one. Arguably I'll Try Living Like This is Death's Dynamic Shroud's best album and I should know because I'm the one who argues for it.

I should appreciate Aesop Rock more than I do. But, even with previous work like The Impossible Kid, it's some ADHD white guy rap. He's going for this quirked up, artfully cartoonish vibe and most of the time it's just goofy to me, like he's trying too hard, doing too much. He's rapping a lot but not really saying much. Nothing really lands or sticks with me after listening. He's better than Logic mostly by virtue of being less popular, more artful, and less like his contemporaries.

How often does an album as good as Random Access Memories come out really? This was the album that really cemented the idea that Daft Punk could be a mainstream success beyond being the producers behind that Kanye West hit, Stronger.

Wandering through a bizarre capitalist dystopia wherein the market, like nature, has evolved, mutated and distorted the environment. Floral Shoppe is the soundtrack to living at the end of human history. It takes you to the same world we all live in, just as experienced through a warped perspective. What's remarkable about Floral Shoppe ten years removed is, despite how many artists have been influenced by it, nothing else sounds quite like it. It's far from perfect in my opinion but it's more ... read more

Almost 50 years since it's release Wish You Were Here still sounds as though it came from some distant alien world. Within me the album channels a truly cosmic grandiosity. Compositions are open, clean, and serene. Shine On You Crazy Diamond could've fit snuggly onto the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack. Still, in 2023, it registers like it's from twenty years in the future. At no point in either jam session, each over ten minutes in length, does it come off like the band are simply filling the ... read more

This enigmatic album cover is from a stacked plot of successive measurements, each represents an individual radio emission from a pulsar star. The album title and band name respectively reference anhedonia and, really, the music from Unknown Pleasures sounds anhedonic too. It's as though the energy from the instrumentation travels through lead singer Ian Curtis. His singing reads more like a kind of spiritual possession rather than a performance. The drums are dry as hell, the guitars are ... read more

They're on that late 2000s early 2010s indie breakthrough wave with artists like Foster the People, of Monsters and Men, and fun. The problem (and not the only one) is that they're about ten years late for it. I will say I've noticed improvement since The Click. Instrumentation is slightly less garish and ridiculous. The lead vocalist remains noxiously saccharine. He cusses often which is bizarre to me, as if anyone over the age of 20 would be interested in what they have to say. There's even a ... read more