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: 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: 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

Album: The 1975
Artist: The 1975
Release Date: September 2, 2013
Label: Dirty Hit/Polydor
Genre: Alternative rock/Indie rock/Electronic rock/Indie pop

The 1975 is the eponymous debut album by The 1975. Although the band has been around for 10 years, they first started gaining momentum this past one, where they released 4 EPs in preparation of this debut studio album. The English band suddenly blinked on the radar as something to watch and wait for. This album can be seen as the grand finale to the act that includes all of these short releases.

The album starts with the intro track “The 1975,” a more ethereal Imagine Dragons-like track that comes in and fades away quickly, leaving us wondering why they didn’t just fade into the next track. Surely it was not intended to be a full song on its own and it falls short of being an overture for the album since it does not quite reflect the album we are about to hear. Regardless, after the introduction, we come to “The City,” a song with an instantly catchy drum beat and fun, albeit “poppy,” sound. The track follows a very straightforward composition, a familiar one, and yet, they do not need to reinvent the wheel, they just have to decorate it to keep it interesting. This track accomplishes the decoration by adding smart production involving rewinds, an audible and catchy bass and drum track, and a very friendly and inviting guitar. A problem I have is with the sound of the keys, which make the track seem dated. Not in a nostalgic way, like a Smashing Pumpkins homage, but more like it should’ve been on British radio just under a decade ago. It’s not a big problem, it really only appears during the refrain, and it’s not even necessarily a “bad” thing, it’s just my opinion.

“M.O.N.E.Y”‘s instrumentation sounds like it’s ripped off of LSD: Dream Emulator (look it up), which is a great thing to hear, as I am a huge fan of the game and the soundtrack is a very strange and interesting companion piece. Even with the claps and vocals present, it still retains this sound, (especially with random sounds thrown in to the song). The song is the complete package that one looking for a great new indie rock band could want. The vocals sound like they were recorded a million times and they’re just echoing in your head. The beat gets inside of you and every strange, random thing thrown in there triggers an image in your head, almost like you ARE playing the aforementioned video game. Wah-wah guitars, extreme vocal production changes, everything that makes this song up is gold.

The next track is “Chocolate,” a song that may not be memorable amidst the relatively long track listing of this album. It sounds like they took the wheel I discussed before and just gave it to us again. If someone were to ever say, “that song sounds like a song by The 1975!” it would sound like this song. It’s catchy, but it’s meant to be, it doesn’t go anywhere except towards the end of the song. The last track (“M.O.N.E.Y.”) kept layering on top of itself and washed your brain, this one stays still. It’s not a bad song, nor is it a boring song, it’s a good one, but it sounds like I’m going to hear this track again later in the album with different words, and after everything is said and done, I won’t be able to tell you what this song sounded like if you pointed it out to me. After that track is “Sex,” a track that is about what do you think? The track is very enjoyable, with a guitar playing the same chord over and over again, but it energizes the track and moves the track forward- when it’s over, you feel as though it only lasted a minute. There’s a bridge with a sound that sounds like it comes out of a Killers track, and it’s wonderful and well-placed. The band is able to make their own sound over the course of this album, and with that, they make too many songs that sound alike, but then, all they have to do is change something subtly, and the song sounds very refreshing. This is a very refreshing track.

“Talk!” is next, a song that really establishes the band as an electronic group and makes the album one that is able to be dreamy, yet fun, pop, yet rock. It’s got a very electronic-like production, but it does it in a very unorthodox way, in the sense that the drums are very off-beat and the singing comes in at very abrupt and interesting ways. The song sounds like its stuck in a moment of time that keeps repeating itself, like the song loops itself, but it doesn’t. It sounds like a spiral, and I love that. This then follows into “An Encounter,” an interlude track that sounds like it came off an m83 album, but not as good. This band needs the human aspect of their electronic pursuits, because they can’t pull off just instrumental electronic. It then goes into “Heart Out,” which is one of those “The 1975” tracks I explained before, but this one is BETTER. This track would work perfectly as a single if they want to truly show off what they sound like. It’s also the most indie-sounding track off the album thus far.

“Settle Down” is the next track on the album. It’s very light-sounding, more human than many of the other tracks off the album. But at what cost? It’s kind of boring. Not enough is happening. Not really any emotion, and it doesn’t have enough music to it, it’s too redundant for a song that sounds like it’s trying to really say something as opposed to “Talk!” which was repetitive, but was allowed to be because it didn’t really say anything except “Why ya talk so loud?” “Settle Down” fades directly into “Robbers,” a mellower track that in contrast to “Settle Down” has much more emotion, and the translation of that emotion is successful. It tells a story that is all too familiar in the realm of songwriting, but the singer begs “Let’s give it one more try,” and you care about the response to this cry. When he belts out his heart near the end of the song, it’s dramatic and wonderful and I see the woman he cares about standing outside in the rain, and I want him to run after her and give her a jacket and take her upstairs.

This is followed by “Girls,” one of the singles off the album, which I find to be oddly placed after the emotional and great previous track. This one sounds more like a boy-band track sung by one person. It’s like they intended to release this track for the sole purpose of drawing attention to the band, and I disrespect that. I thought the band was better than that; the lyrics and meaningless “happy” guitar sounds are quite stupid. This goes into “1:20,” another meaningless interlude on an album that I question its importance on. This album would be unchanged without these electronic interludes. Either way, the next track is “She Way Out,” another more poppy track, but not as dumb as “Girls,” in fact, it’s another “The 1975” track, yet it doesn’t really have any substance. It’s doesn’t have smart instrumentation, yet it does have structure and movement.

“Menswear” is a track that ebbs and flows like an electronic pop ocean for the first half, and it does it in a very smart way, and I’m actually surprised considering the earlier instrumental tracks. I wouldn’t have minded if the whole track was a continuation of that. But even so, the addition of the vocals and the rest of the band act as a kind of expansion to the track as it was. The only issue is, the song feels totally incomplete WITH the lyrics. The song should have had no words, more words, or another two minutes of no words at the end. The way they made it didn’t feel like a finished product. Then it’s “Pressure,” a nice pop song with a catchy hook that works as a song with nothing particularly special about it. It’s another good song that may not be remembered except for the fact that it was near the end of the album. Speaking of, the final track of the album, “Is There Somebody Who Can Watch You,” is a slow piano melody, a seemingly traditional thing to do (I’m not complaining!). For me, it’s hard to criticize these kinds of songs, and I don’t know how genuine the lyrics are to this person, but the way I hear it and the way he sings it is emotional and wonderful and although not fitting to the context of the album, which was mostly upbeat, it works as a last track to this album filled with many songs.

The album overall feels very long, even though it’s under an hour, because it’s filled with songs that are repetitive and don’t stand out on their own. It’s like dead weight on the album. I know the band has been around for a while, but it still is an impressive debut album, especially because they’re able to make that “1975” sound. Every band wants their own sound and this one has it, shared with few others. But, I may have mentioned before but been unclear, this band is at its best when they DON’T stick to that sound. I like the risks they take, they’re usually worth the chance. I hope this band is able to really impress me in the future.

Best tracks: “M.O.N.E.Y.;” “Heart Out;” “Robbers;” “Sex”
Not so great tracks: “Girls;” “Settle Down;” all the interludes

FINAL RATING: 6/10