Since AOTY has like ZERO standards for what qualifies as a review, I think I can get away with stating that I found a longer comment some on social media somewhere, criticizing this tape as a jokey, unserious "mockery" of trap aesthetics, with a question to the reader to consider why Vylet chose to use hip-hop/trap sounds for her "ha-ha fun" project, and rock, electronic, and pop for a lot of her most serious and confessional songs moments. It followed with another paragraph ... read more

Day 153:
These three strange men have been invading my house non grata for five consecutive months now. Every morning, Fatty Spins barge into my room and wake me up by yelling the same vulgar, repulsive song...
“DOIN YOUR MOM, DOIN DOIN YOUR MOM
YOU KNOW WE STRAIGHT, WE DOIN YOUR MOM”
Every. Single. Morning.

I get out of bed and they follow me around my house. I go to the bathroom as I do every morning, and I see them in the mirror, dancing and singing this song. I sit at the ... read more

IN DEFENSE OF DOECHII'S WORST SONG
I'm making this the toughest of tough sells for that title alone. But I'm not gonna ease into this; I think the sensationalism surrounding this song has spiraled way out of control, and has curdled into something genuinely ugly. I'm sorry, but you all are blowing this song way the fuck out of proportion as if it's the fucking Antichrist or some shit. To have any chance at putting this into perspective, we need to understand where ... read more

I am VERY unhappy that Morgan Wallen is part of the American pop canon.
Like, his presence is a net-negative for popular music.

Between the i n c i d e n t that quite comically blasted him into stardom with the might of a thousand pasty suns, what it says about the type of people that like him, the fact that my collection of "pop country songs that I allow myself to like" has a lower acceptance rate than an Ivy League school, and the fact that he makes the absolute worst type of ... read more

I don't know why it is that I continue to keep an ear out for Teddy Swims. After a year of getting stomped on by Lose Control (which continues to sink towards "bane-of-my-existence" territory) and The Door (a successful follow-up only by sheer label force), and everything I said about his debut, you'd think I'd be more than ready to write him off.

Bad Dreams is the reason why I never did, and the keyword here is "improvement."
Teddy's voice sounds ... read more

Any semblance of emotion, struggle, personality, or human touch within this song gets overpowered by the fact that every part of it is complete… fucking… TRITE. EVERY LYRIC in this excuse for a song is a generic, played-out cliché. The melody on the verses has been written by a million other songs before it. The actual music itself sounds like white noise with how goddamn compressed EVERYTHING is. And I will never like Jelly Roll's slimy, gruff, cuntry man-voice.

And ... read more

I remember being a kid when the iconic I Am a Gummy Bear music video was making waves on YouTube. I also remember this one day, I was at a family friend's house, and I was watching and replaying this shorter version of the video on their laptop for some reason; I've long abandoned whatever mind frame I had then so I won't bother wondering why I would do that. YouTube kid's gonna YouTube kid I guess.

I also remember years later, my youngest sister briefly getting attached ... read more

He doesn't care.
Ava doesn't care.
Whoever in Alphaville allowed this happen probably didn't care.
Because he knows.
He is aware.
David Guetta is 100% conscious that this song is completely artless nostalgia-bait festival-filler SHIT, just like the last two years of his discography. If he cared, the negative reception of his last several rip-off tracks throughout the last decade would've got to him by now. He is desert-dry out of ideas, and is making it everyone's ... read more

While Come Undone wasn't the single that marked any official departure from the new wave sound Duran Duran were previously known for at the time (no, they were three records deep into pop rock by that point), to me, it is the freshest, most creative, masterfully written hit that pop-era Duran Duran ever got, and immediately my favorite song from them.

The production creates this atmosphere that occupies this midway point between trippy blissfulness… and totally badass. The band ... read more

Aye… I remember when this song came out; I have a memory of trying to force myself to like it with repeated plays. I don't know why. It sure didn't work, seeing I've grown to hate Charlie Poop, and realize I have no answer for what I've ever "seen" in Selena Gomez. (Even if Love You Like a Love Song is a permanent entry in my mental "childhood bangers" mix.)

The worst thing a breakup song can do is not commit, and "not commit" it does. ... read more

It's fine. It's certainly has more replay value than Flowers, but it's not far behind on repetitiveness.

Ah, yes, I remember the wave of 2010s Future Bass. I also remember my first encounter with this song, which was a cover of it that was paid to be put on my social media feed, which I permanently associate this song with. I also have no memory of hearing the original song until I got a job at a place with a radio.

Okay, tangent over. Mr. Lauv is to mainstream electropop music as Hoobastank was to rock music. Dreary, annoyingly soft, and indistinguishable from anyone else in their sonic lane. ... read more

It's quaint, it's saccharine, it wants to wallow in the past. It was a victim of overplay, there's a good chance you've totally forgotten about this song, and an even bigger chance that we'll never hear from Mr. Stephen Sanchez ever again.

But come on, it's just a smiley little Brill Building revival tune. It doesn't mean any harm. This production really does nail that early 60s crooner sound, I love that watery guitar tone, and Sanchez does sound a teensy ... read more

I've never once pictured Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars being in the same room. I was a kid when these two broke into the mainstream and became pop stars, and their career paths were radically different. Lady Gaga would consistently put out multiple albums and singles every year, meanwhile Bruno Mars has released FOUR albums in fourteen years, and would seemingly vanish from the public eye between album cycles. Lady Gaga entered the scene as this super flashy, glittery, occasionally polarizing, ... read more

This is the greatest song ever written until Kodak comes in.

God seems to have looked away from the music industry for a minute, because the most artless, commercial-sounding, edgeless, Feel Good Incorporated genre trend of the 2010s is seeing a resurgence. I assume that major labels saw 2023's giant new wave of Country Pop music as a masterful Trojan horse to sneak in Stomp and Holler folk-pop back into the mainstream, thinking no-taste normies wouldn't notice. BUT I DID!! That's right, you graph paper-brained boardroom tyrants, you think ... read more

White Men and Reggae: Not Even Once

I'd appreciate the sentiment on mental illness more if the song didn't sound like absolute shit. Hearing Mr. Shineman's awful howling voice twice every shift doesn't fucking help either.

First of all, I'm not reviewing the version with Jason Derulo. This is directed towards the original version "Kompa Pasion" by some producer named Frozy.

Now… let me tell you a little story.

I went on a brief vacation about two-and-a-half months ago. It was me, my mother, her weird boyfriend, my youngest sibling (who will be genderless in this review for the sake of privacy), and a shit ton of bags crammed in some rental car driving to Virginia Beach for hours. And per ... read more

The songwriting itself is as good ever, but the drums are played so damn softly and it holds the song back from that massive sound it's trying to have. If it were just performed with more power this would be one of my favorite Adele tracks ever.