Album Reviews

Album: American Beauty/American Psycho
Artist: Fall Out Boy
Release Date: January 16, 2015
Label: Island/DCD2
Genre: Pop Punk/Pop Rock

American Beauty/American Psycho is Fall Out Boy’s sixth album. The album finally completes the band’s total transformation from one of emo’s least-inventive forerunners to one of pop rock’s most experimental groups. But their previous albums were so much fun! What happened? Fall Out Boy takes themselves so seriously now, and it sucks the personality right out of these mostly pretty good collection of tracks.

First of all, what happened to the band? It’s just become an electronic side project for Patrick Stump, since the only real instrument we can hear is his (granted) powerful voice. The other members are so masked by over-production that they just sound like synths and white noise. However, this doesn’t make the album bad, it’s got some really good songs on it, like “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” but then again, it has some really awful songs too, like “Favorite Record,” which is just a silly fluff song. Mind you, Fall Out Boy’s never been the face for great lyricism. It doesn’t take a harsh critic to point out that they mostly write about girls and dancing (Like on “Favorite Record”).

The title track concerns me for the future of the band, because they experimented with this sound on their EP PAX AM Days. A giant clashing of instruments fighting for the loudest spot; you know, if the background noise doesn’t eventually overtake them all and the band just becomes Merzbow (which I personally wouldn’t mind, but the transitionary period would be torture)! In regards to the popular singles, “Immortals” and “Centuries,” I really don’t have an opinion. They’re both songs with silly lyrics and an overly poppy sound, but a lot of good pop songs are that way. These are just fine.

Some songs really shine through, like the opening track, “Irresistible,” or “Uma Thurman,” despite the silliest sounding refrain on probably the whole record. They work sonically! The album isn’t grotesque or poorly made or anything, it lacks character and has meaningless lyrics (and I hope they’d agree to that second part).

Great tracks: “Irresistible,” “Uma Thurman,” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “Twin Skeleton’s (Hotel in NYC)”
Not-so-great tracks: “American Beauty/American Psycho,” “Novocaine,” “Favorite Record”

FINAL RATING: 5/10

Album: Uptown Special
Artist: Mark Ronson
Release Date: January 13, 2015
Label: Columbia
Genre: Funk/R&B/Pop

Uptown Special is producer Mark Ronson’s fourth studio album. Included on the track listing is the immensely popular “Uptown Funk,” a great track featuring Bruno Mars that’s been all over the radio.

I was a little upset to find out the rest of the album didn’t all sound like “Uptown Funk,” but that doesn’t mean the album wasn’t good. The strange thing was that a lot of the album is pretty mellow, as opposed to the impossibly catchy Bruno Mars-featured track. The album is filled with featured artists, most notably Kevin Parker and Andrew Wyatt. Kevin Parker’s first two tracks are low points on the album; while his airy, ethereal vocals may work well in his own band, Tame Impala, they don’t usually here, because they make for some pretty boring songs. “Daffodils” is very sleepy-sounding, with no real progression from beginning to end; the instrumentals are boring and repetitive from beginning to end. This is true, too, on “I Can’t Lose,” featuring Keyone Starr. While this track is more lively than “Daffodils,” it’s very repetitive and feels extremely dated, which is another problem facing the not as good tracks on this record (like “In Case of Fire”). I understand that there’s supposed to be a throwback sound, but it’s hit-or-miss on if it works right, and it certainly doesn’t on “I Can’t Lose.”

On to the good- Andrew Wyatt’s tracks are stand-outs, as well as the mega-hit “Uptown Funk,” and “Leaving Los Feliz,” Kevin Parker’s redemption track. At this album’s best, it becomes a Las Vegas soundscape for the mind (Las Vegas is mentioned on “Crack in the Pearl”). The most bizarre track has to be “Feel Right,” featuring Mystikal. The song is good, but it’s so unnecessary! It’s so explicit for a pop album with no other violent tracks. I’m not going to rate down a track for cursing, but damn, there’s a lot of it.

Great tracks: “Uptown Funk,” “Crack in the Pearl (Parts I & II),” “Leaving Los Feliz,” “Heavy and Rolling”
Not-so-great tracks: “I Can’t Lose,” “Daffodils”

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Album: Evermotion
Artist: Guster
Release Date: January 13, 2015
Label: Ocho Mule/Nettwerk Records
Genre: Alternative Rock/Indie Rock

Evermotion is Guster’s seventh studio album, and their first in a little over four years.

Guster’s Evermotion is an extremely cohesive album, each song seems to flow into the next (if one were to listen to them altogether). However, this doesn’t do the songs any justice. Guster is seven albums in, they know what they’re doing, but it feels like they’re pouring creative ideas into a mold that washes away the personality from any of their songs on the album. There is not a single bad track on this album, but only a handful of standout ones, and you really have to listen for them, or else you’ll get sucked into the album, only returning when the album is over and you say, “that was nice.”

The really sad thing, as I said before, is that every song is better than okay, some are even great songs, but the album feels like watery. You stick your head under for a while and then resurface.

Great tracks: “Doin’ It by Myself,” “Simple Machine,” “Kid Dreams,” “It Is Just What It Is”
Not-so-great tracks: None

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

Album: Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
Artist: Panda Bear
Release Date: January 9, 2015
Label: Domino
Genre: Experimental/Electronic/Neo-psychedelia

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is Panda Bear’s fifth solo studio album. When he’s not working with the great Animal Collective, he’s creating great music on his own that has its own identity, different from that of Animal Collective.

The album feels like two separate albums, the first half and the second half. The first half is pretty good, but each composition fails to grow past a good idea. The main theme repeats and repeats and repeats until the song stops. This is most noticeable in the track “Boys Latin,” which is a frustrating series of refrains. Same with “Butcher Baker Candlestick Maker,” which never seems to build upon itself, no composition, just a beginning to end. The rest of this half is pretty good, the first single “Mr Noah,” is an excellent track, even if it tends to fall to the same pitfalls as the other tracks.

The second (loosely-defined) half starts with “Tropic of Cancer,” the undisputed best track on the album, a dreamy soundscape filled with Panda Bear’s beautiful singing. His singing can’t be over-appreciated, it is wonderful. Every track through the rest of the album is wonderful. “Principe Real” and “Selfish Gene” are surprisingly fun tracks, and the other ones play more with the experimental nature of the composer.

I listen to Animal Collective a lot, and for me, it’s impossible not to compare Panda Bear to his band’s work. This a very good album, but whenever I listen to Panda Bear or Avey Tare’s solo music, I feel like it’s missing something. It feels like they need each other to create one cohesive work. Otherwise, the album just becomes experimental and psychedelic ramblings. This can be fun as well, as evidenced by this album, but it’s really hard not to want more.

Great Tracks: “Mr Noah,” “Crosswords,” “Tropic of Cancer,” “Lonely Wanderer,” “Principe Real,” “Selfish Gene,” “Acid Wash”
Not-so-great Track: “Boys Latin”

FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

Album: Title
Artist: Meghan Trainor
Release Date: January 9, 2015
Label: Epic
Genre: Blue-eyed Soul/Pop

Title is the debut album by recent pop-superstar Meghan Trainor. Her EP, also titled Title, introduced us to the hit songs that we would later see on the full-length (and also hear dominating the radio). Yes, this is the “All About that Bass” girl.

I would like to start this review by saying something from me, so you can get to know me better. I have nothing wrong with pop music. There’s nothing wrong with using formulas that are proven to work to create music either meaningful or meaningless that ends up on the radio. I have nothing wrong with vapidity. That being said, I have to give this album the honor of being the worst album I’ve listened to in full.

The album starts fine. “All About That Bass” is arguably the best song on the album. It’s fun and it’s not forgetful. Although, the implications of the song are a bit off. Body positivity is something that we should all get behind, but “skinny-shaming” is very present in this song. The concept of skinny-shaming seems ridiculous, but the song is saying “move along, skinny girls, we don’t want you anymore,” while pretending to be a song about body positivity. It’s lyrics are contradictory and unfocused, and just upsetting.

The bizarre thing about this album is how anti-feminist it is. In a progressive world, it’s strange how popular this conservative musician is. This album is targeted to 6 to 15 year old girls, and the album deals with topics inappropriate for those on the lower end of the spectrum, and dangerous to those on the higher end. This can be most clearly seen on the title track “Title,” the worst song on this whole album. This is encouraging girls to think of themselves as trophy girls (“You gotta treat me like a trophy, put me on the shelf”), and only have sex with people that they can call their boyfriend. This song, and others like “Dear Future Husband,” are dangerous to the youth, who might be learning that they must keep with the traditional concepts of “women’s purity,” and that only a prince can release them from their prude-like lifestyle through marriage or serious commitment. At this point, it’s backwards to think this way.

All the songs in between are just vanilla, I can’t even remember most of them. Definitely not future hits. Even a duet with the great John Legend can’t save “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” from being just as easily forgettable as the rest of the album. Also, she really needs to stop pretending like she’s a black girl. I know it’s a common criticism, but it’s just embarrassing to hear her rap and try to sound ethnic. She has no voice of her own.

I will defend my right to hate this album.

Least Annoying Track: “All About That Bass,” I guess.
Most Annoying Tracks: “Dear Future Husband,” “Bang Dem Sticks,” “Walkashame,” “Title”

FINAL RATING: 1/10

Album: SremmLife
Artist: Rae Sremmurd
Release Date: January 6, 2015
Label: EarDrummers/Interscope
Genre: Hip-hop

SremmLife is the debut studio album by hip-hop duo Rae Sremmurd. Most of the tracks were produced by Mike WiLL Made-It (if you can’t tell by the annoying audio-watermark at the beginning of a few of their songs). The album was definitely not made to listen to as a full work, because doing so would infuriate anyone. They have money and like weed and nobody can tell them what to do. That sentence can replace the whole album in terms of lyrical content. There’s nothing of substance here, it’s like the outside world is foreign to the young duo. As for how the songs actually sound, they range from tolerable to just bad. Swae Lee and Slim Jimmy’s half-strained-yelling/half-kind-of rapping do not work over the surprisingly bland production. The beats feel copy-pasted from one song to the next.

I’m just surprised by how little work seemed to go into the songs. Most of the songs contain an overlong and often annoying hook that pretty much take up the whole track length. Themes and phrases are repeated infinitely, and to be completely honest, I just finished listening to the album and I can’t even think of any verses specifically, because it’s just so bland. All I know is an instinctual feeling not to play any of these songs ever again.

Am I being too harsh? We get it, you’re rich; I should be jealous! Ha ha ha! The banality of the tracks can’t be overstated. There’s not even a so-bad-it’s-good factor, it doesn’t feel like they care about their own music. Usually I have a list at the bottom for “great” and “not-so-great” tracks, but I’ll have to change those terms to more accurately represent how I feel.

I still have the sound of Slim Jimmy yelling in my ear.

Least Annoying Track: “No Type”
Most Annoying Tracks: “Unlock the Swag,” “My X,” “Up Like Trump”

FINAL RATING: 2.5/10

Album: Fashion Week
Artist: Death Grips
Release Date: January 4, 2015
Label: Third Worlds
Genre: Industrial/Instrumental Hip-hop

I’m one of those people who stops doing things once they do those things for a short while, which is why this website hasn’t been updated in over a year. I guess I share this in common with Death Grips, who decided to break up last year simply because they made music, got popular, and got bored. However, due to the unconventional and aggressive nature of the band, being broken up doesn’t seem to really mean anything. Fashion Week is a surprise instrumental “soundtrack” album that the band just released for free on their website. I’m not going to complain about a new Death Grips album ever, but their volatility can be tiresome after a while. Regardless, it’s an album and it shall be reviewed.

Fashion Week is a collection of instrumental tracks recorded without any input from MC Ride. Despite the good idea and the total viability of instrumental music, this album has a few tracks that sound like they just should have had vocals in them. This seems more like a vocal-less version of an album than an instrumental main event. The songs never really develop either, they either go on way too long or they’re really great for the two minutes they exist. The main problem with this album is that some of it is just boring. Tracks like “Runway Y” and “Runway A” don’t really go anywhere and aren’t all that interesting to begin with.

All that being said, the album is not a bad one. It works better if you think of it as a compilation of tracks as opposed to a cohesive album. Some tracks just attack you and engage you right until their end. “Runway H” (both of them!) are fantastic tracks. The second featuring a fitting guitar. That track in particular doesn’t even really feel like a Death Grips song, but it’ll slide.

I’m afraid there’s not much more to write about this album. It’s good, but it’s not stellar. It’s not even really an album. Think of this is as a mini-review for the new year.

Great Tracks: “Runway E (I),” “Runway N (I),” “Runway H (I & II),” “Runway W”
Not so great Tracks: “Runway Y,” “Runway A”

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Album: B-Room
Artist: Dr. Dog
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Label: ANTI-
Genre: Indie rock/Blues rock/Neo-psychedelia

B-Room is the eight album by Dr. Dog. I don’t really know anything about the band except that I’ve heard of them before. Time to listen!

The album begins with “The Truth,” which is a very nice song to hang out to. It’s like something you’d listen to getting high with your friends, if that’s what you’re into. But it’s not exclusively that, it’s just a very “chill-out” track. Right now, it’s helping me calm down for an exam I have later this week. It’s like I don’t have a care in the world right now. The song has movement throughout and keeps your attention while it simultaneously allows you to totally ignore it while listening. This quickly fades into “Broken Heart,” which is a bit louder, and by the refrain sounds an awful lot like Animal Collective, but less electronic. The vocals are bouncing around playfully while the music keeps it steady. The short guitar solo is a nice little bit. That coupled with the outro’s chants make this a very good song.

Next is “Minding the Usher,” which uses an unusual chord progression in the guitar. The track kind of swells in a very slow way throughout its length. It starts off soft, then grows louder and then drops again. The bridge of this song is also really interesting, just soft little muffled stabs while the singer says “on and on and on…” Then, “Distant Light” starts off in a marching band like way, and the song sounds sort-of anthemic. If “Broken Heart” was the neo-psychedelia, this track is the blues rock. It’s very different from the other tracks on the album and I really appreciate that on this album, because they’re not all too different genres. And it sounds good! There’s no way around that fact.

“Phenomenon” creates this indie-rock-meets-farm sound that sounds extremely unique. This sound is very delicate and I’ll be very upset if they use it again on the album, because it has to be something used all on it’s own. The song’s strings are very well orchestrated, and it’s nice to see that they’re mostly played by real musicians and not just electronic instruments. After that it’s “Too Weak to Ramble,” which is another bluesy track, but less rock than the past one. The singer in this song sounds as though he really suffered the struggles of the old blues singers, and it’s a little sad to listen to, because this sound is created so effectively and so honestly that it’s totally believable. I’d be upset if I learned that these lyrics meant nothing and he was just trying to create a sound. I love this song.

“Long Way Down” is very interesting. It’s a true indie rock track and very difficult to describe. It makes me want to move and bop around. It’s guitar work is very cool, as well as it’s use of horns. The drums keep the beat while adding its own fills that are actually audible and good! The singing and lyrics are both great and the track makes me feel good. The next song, “Cuckoo,” goes back into that bluesy sound- this time more Black Keys than White Stripes. The sound is a bit dreary in this track, but that’s not bad, especially because, you know, it’s a blues song. The song forces me to tap my foot to the beat. It’s use of keys adds a nice old-school vibe to such a new cool song.

The song fades right into “Twilight,” which starts with a nice theremin that could have been part of the Titanic soundtrack, and then becomes a very strange piece that sounds straight out of a David Lynch movie. I really like this track, but my issue with it is that this is the track where I suddenly realize that this whole album is not cohesive. This is 12 different bands playing 12 different songs, like a compilation record of a music label. In terms of this song, it’s very cool, very eerie and interesting enough to be one of my favorites. Then, with no transition, “Rock & Roll” starts, which is very old-school sounding. It’s a great recounting of the artist’s past (if it actually happened, but either way, it’s a great story), much like “Jukebox Hero.” It’s sexy, it’s angsty, and it’s awesome, but it sounds a bit derivative of older artists. Is he trying to emulate the older artists? Maybe. It wouldn’t surprise me.

“Love” is another song that sounds very derivative and totally different from the rest of the album. But damn, the band’s music makes it so hard for me to be mad at them. I LOVE this song. If you ever hear someone complain that they don’t make music like (insert old band here) anymore, show them this song, it should be able to silence them. It’s the Beatles. It’s beautiful.

The last track on the album is “Nellie,” is also really good. Yeah, yeah, you get it. It’s the lighter song (except that’s lame, don’t do that), it’s the slow clap song, it’s the sing-along song, shout with them “Oh Nellie!”

There’s not a single bad song off of this whole album, which is the qualification I have for giving a great score to an album. The problem is that in order to make each song great, they had to make an album that is not cohesive at all. They can be themselves without sacrificing their quality!

Great track: All of them
Not so great tracks: None

FINAL RATING: 9/10

Album: Innocents
Artist: Moby
Release Date: October 1, 2013
Label: Little Idiot/Mute
Genre: Electronica

Before I review this album I’d like to apologize for my absence during September. I want to write these reviews, because it is something that I enjoy doing, but I got very behind during the month of September on my work and therefore the albums just passed by like a breeze and it became impossible for me to catch up. It would make more sense anyway to restart here in October with the start of the fourth quarter of the year of music. Thank you, and I will not stop posting if I can help it.

Innocents is Moby’s 11th studio album and is more “electronica” than his past few releases which were mostly IDM and often ambient.

The album begins with “Everything That Rises,” a song whose simple chords and drum beat suddenly become extremely atmospheric and never boring despite being somewhat redundant. With artists and songs like these, it’s the small changes that count. And when the cymbal sounds start coming, everything comes to a glorious climax of electricity that swells within the room. When the cymbals and drums leave, it feels like part of you has left and the other part is being held on to by the clinking melody that hasn’t changed since the start.

The next track is “A Case for Shame,” featuring Cold Specks, which is the leading single from the album. The song throbs in and then Specks starts singing in a very clear voice while humming in another track. Then the drums stop and Specks really starts the lyrics and shows off her voice. The instrumentation is very pretty, but seems textbook. It’s as if he took the standard chords used to create pretty music and added a drumbeat. People have been doing that for years, centuries even, and I’m not mad, I just think that if he’s going to do that on the instrumental tracks on the album, it’s going to be boring. Fortunately, this song is not instrumental, and needless to say Specks’s vocals are the standout feature of the song and her beautiful voice fits wonderfully with the song, or rather, expands upon the song in a  great way.

Next is “Almost Home,” featuring indie singer-songwriter Damien Jurado, and sounds like a mix between an electric sea and a western movie. Jurado’s gentle voice gives the song a sound reminiscent of Bon Iver. The instrumentation is not exceptionally redundant, it kind of emulates the wind at parts, it feels random, but is controlled. The track ends with a wonderful culmination and a second singer with a wonderful voice as well and then the track fades out. It is followed by “Going Wrong,” a slow song accompanied by brush drumming. The song starts off with a piano riff that is soon accompanied by string instrumentation and is put together wonderfully. When the song opens up to the higher register and the strings get louder, it becomes overwhelmingly pretty while still retaining the darkness present within the track.

“The Perfect Life,” featuring The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, starts off happy and springy, but also restrained. However, it soon becomes very electronic. Here, the focus is on Coyne’s vocals and the lyrics. We all want the perfect life, it’s all we need. The song could easily be a Flaming Lips track, and that’s my only complaint with this track. It became the guest’s song. However, I very much enjoy The Flaming Lips and this is a great song and one of my favorite tracks off the album. The next track is “The Last Day” featuring pop artist Skylar Grey. The song’s downbeat music and atmospheric production complements Grey’s voice nicely, but at the same time, the song is somewhat boring because it’s so consistently dreary, like it’s weighing you down.

“Don’t Love Me,” featuring Inyang Bassey, has a walking bass piano part and charges the song through Bassey’s sexy singing, organ stabs, and a looped drum part that sounds like it’s playing backwards. This is all good stuff, by the way! This is easily one of the standout tracks on this album because it’s so conventionally pop-structured but has such a sexy twist to it. Then the next  track is “A Long Time,” whose production sounds vaguely European. The samples in this song kind of get annoying after a bit. The song definitely has movement, but it has a very similar structure to all of the other songs on this album. The song gets tiresome very quickly. This 4 and a half minute song feels twice its length.

After that is “Saints,” which sounds like a mix between church mass and a dance floor. This song I think really captures IDM very well, a song that you can go out to dance to, but also comfortably listen to in your living room. I know a lot of musicians resent the IDM term, but I don’t use it as “Intelligent Dance Music,” I use it like MTV or AMC, where the meaning is the initials themselves. The song’s drums and swelling electronic chords make a very great track, and this time the vocal loops are very additive. They do make the song sound European like the last one, and that sound to me is a bit corny, but it’s still very good.

“Tell Me” features Cold Specks again, and starts like nighttime on a country road. Specks sings beautifully again, and the track pushes along with echoes and electronic washes. I imagine a video for this song, very simple, a car on a path, green on both sides, at night, and Specks singing in the passenger seat with Moby driving, if he’s there at all. Then the next track is “The Lonely Night” featuring Mark Lanegan, former singer of Screaming Trees. The track starts off very softly and Lanegan begins singing in his Leonard Cohen-like voice. This whisper is very pleasant. The song is very quiet and restrained, and doesn’t get loud even at the bridge and second verse. It builds up like a song to the heavens, but never shouts to show off the possibility of loudness. It’s just a very beautiful song.

The last song on the album is “The Dogs,” and actually features Moby’s voice singing. It’s actually very nice. The song quickly becomes like his other ones off the record and sounds like it uses the same chords and everything. I was able to predict exactly what happened while listening to the beginning. The song is not bad, it’s just predictable. The lyrics are very emotional, it’s an affirmation of a loss of hope. After the lyrics have ended, about five minutes in, the song changes subtly. Like an afterthought of sorts, the last few minutes are building up the same idea to a climax. It doesn’t come, but it does reach a state of euphoria that is satisfactory to ending the record.

The album all in all is very good, there is nothing wrong with any of the songs in particular, it’s just that they get very boring and repetitive after a few songs. One can predict the instrumental part exactly just after listening to the first third of the album, and you don’t really want that. Another thing is that there isn’t much identity to the tracks. Sometimes the featured artist takes over and Moby becomes irrelevant, which is fine, it doesn’t change the quality of the song, but it’s something that should be resolved.

Best tracks: “Everything That Rises;” “Almost Home;” “The Perfect Life;” “Don’t Love Me;” “Tell Me;” “The Lonely Night”
Not so great tracks: “The Last Day;” “A Long Time”

FINAL RATING: 6/10

Album: Trouble
Artist: Natalia Kills
Release Date: September 2, 2013
Label: will.i.am/Cherrytree/Dandyville/Interscope
Genre: Pop/Electronic rock

Trouble is the sophomore release of English singer Natalia Kills. Her first album was released to mixed reviews and is generally considered to be lighter than this release- which includes more rock elements and heavier beats.

The opening track “Television” washes over you with static, a dead-cold heart thumping as a bass and tells us that we don’t know what love is. It’s a great way to start the album, and then it cuts- like changing a channel- to a more upbeat and rocking track. While I don’t care much for the static transition, I do like the second part to this song. The entirety of this track you can imagine a music video, a dark night in the city and a group of girls going around and having fun, causing trouble. I don’t know how the first part of the song connects to the later part thematically, but that’s nitpicking, because it sounds like it’s connected. Then the sirens ring in and “Problem” starts playing. Natalia sounds like an English Katy Perry, if Katy Perry wasn’t afraid to be a fucking badass. The track is loud and heavy, but it retains its pop sound. She sings like she’s pissed about how many times she’s heard that she’s a problem. Singing some of these songs must have cathartic for her. The song keeps the theme of city life- in my head anyway. I imagine this whole album taking place at various parts of New York City (I know it doesn’t, but I’m trying to relate).

“Stop Me” is the song I want to hear on the radio tomorrow. It has all of the qualifications to be a top 40 single, but it’s edgy, spiteful, and sung beautifully. We get the idea by this song that she really feels these angry feelings and abandoned emotions, and this is her singing from her heart and soul. When other people sing about running away or dancing, it’s superficial, but when she sings about, she’s really singing about escape, and we’d be crying if the song didn’t make you want to dance so much. “Boys Don’t Cry” sounds like retro-pop, but then makes it sound new with clever guitar, heavy beat, and static additions. The song reminds me of a darker “Teenage Dream” – sorry for the multiple Katy Perry references, but that’s what I hear. Also, I can’t help but smile when she says in her sexy spoken word voice “what is the limit, really?”

The song “Daddy’s Girl” starts with and then riffs off of Hall & Oates’s “Rich Girl,” adding her own feelings about growing up with “daddy.” She is explaining a man that she loves, whether it be a boy or her father, who’s involved in gangster activities. It’s a cute song, and written very well. “Saturday Night” pays respect to 80s dance music, but at the same time she sings like Lana Del Ray. I don’t know how I feel about this song. It’s introduction was cool, but the sound to this song is derivative, not expanded like the other songs on this album, of modern pop music. It’s nothing special in a world dominated by this kind of music. Don’t get me wrong, I like pop music, this album is very good, but this song is a letdown.

“Devils Don’t Fly” is an emotional pop (I’m going to keep ambiguously using this term) song that almost moves into R&B-style music. It’s clear through this and other songs that she has a rather negative view of herself, or rather she’s afraid of having lived a sinful life. Does she care or not? We don’t know, but it does occupy her mind enough to write songs about it, and this one is golden. Then “Outta Time” keeps that similar theme from “Devil’s Don’t Fly,” where the guy just can’t come back to the girl (her) for whatever reason. Although this song doesn’t use as much metaphor as the previous one, I prefer this song much more. I like the style more and the lyrics flow better. I wasn’t super crazy about the R&B crossover in the other song (I’m not a big fan of people trying to add other genres into one song, unless it’s done extremely well or it at least has its own section in the song, such as Between the Buried and Me, a prog metal band I like very much adding country or polka sections to their songs).

“Controversy” blasts its beat like a tribal rhythm, and the lyrics and singing style are reminiscent of Azaelia Banks’s bad work if her bad work was actually cool. This track is seedy and dark and it perfectly describes the modern High School and its tortures (at least American ones), and although it says that this isn’t high school, it is able to translate the parties and the pressure of going to them and doing things you don’t want to. It’s not an educational song, but it’s a damn scary WAKE UP THIS IS REALITY IT HAS CONSEQUENCES track. It’s easily one of the most relatable songs for angst-ridden teens and immature twentysomethings.

The song “Rabbit Hole” has a weird lead instrumentation, the backing music is made up of something like a bubble popping. The song just makes you want to move around and the lyrics are so dirty you can’t help but grin (or be disgusted, whichever kind of person you are). It’s edgy and it just adds another good song to this album’s repertoire. “Watching You” is another ballad-like track about a boy who broke her heart, with lyrics that grab your heartstrings and play you like a harp. I personally relate to this song, not entirely, but some motifs and specific lyrics affect me, as I’m sure they will many people. The refrain’s “ohhwhoaa!” is just tormentingly sad, but in a beautiful way.

“Marlboro Lights” is another sad personal song. I know how sentimental I was on the last song, but too much of a good thing is still too much. Does she think she’s Adele? How many songs can she have about men (or one man)? It’s a beautiful song, I’ll be honest, I just question the number of these kinds of tracks on a single album. The final track is “Trouble,” a song similar in theme to “Problem,” but it’s sung war-chant style now and it’s a great way to end the album. It feels like it’s really taking everything that makes this album HER album and combining it into one track. There aren’t many other closers as satisfying as this one.

You’ve found one of the best new pop artists around now. She’s smart, she’s witty, sexy, dark, emotional, powerful, and she knows how to make you move your body. This is a collection of songs that for the most part just fit, and every song stands out as its own, which almost never happens. Even if some songs are similar in theme, they all sound like different, individual, and personal songs. It’s just the right length, the right number of tracks, and the right performer.

Best tracks: “Problem;” “Stop Me;” “Boys Don’t Cry;” “Outta Time;” “Controversy;” “Watching You;” “Trouble”
Not so great tracks: “Saturday Night” (Ironically, because it was apparently critically lauded as her best track to date. I’m not playing Devil’s advocate, I just wasn’t a fan)

FINAL RATING: 8/10