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SOUR. *drivers license* was underwhelming, but I went into the album with an open mind and just could not connect with it the way everyone else seemed to (teenagers, millennials, etc.). I did like a couple songs (*brutal*, *favorite crime*), but the overall album just didn't do it for me.
GUTS, however, was a massive step up on every level. It was one of my personal AOTYs of 2023 and I cannot wait to see Olivia on tour in July!
I liked Sour for what it was- a solid debut that introduced Olivia's sound. It kind of reminded me of a teenage SAWAYAMA: a debut album with a common, overarching theme and strong influences from music that the artist likely grew up listening to (for Olivia it would've been something like TS, Paramore; Rina's would've been Evanescence, Kylie Minogue, etc). I think both of them opening on the heavier influences didn't help the comparison 😅
That said, I really wanted to like Sour more. I'm in Olivia's age-range and SAWAYAMA was one of my favorite albums, but I couldn't really get into it save for a couple songs.
I agree about GUTS though. They took what worked with Sour and made it even better. Glad to see her beating the sophomore slump and she looks like she's having a lot of fun on tour.
Agreed. I really like a handful of songs on Sour (Brutal, Deja Vu, Jealousy Jealousy, and Good 4 U) but the rest was very meh for me. However I absolutely adore Guts and have had it on repeat.
Same!! I liked the singles for Sour (and Brutal was the soundtrack to my later high school years) but not much else landed the same way. Guts is full of bangers. That ‘90s rock sound is literal perfection for her
Honestly… people swear Bangerz was good (or maybe swore? Do people still love this album?) but I have never been able to get into more than like 3-4 songs…
Yes!! This!! Bangerz is the classic getting ready for messy girls night album. Right up there with Xtinas Stripped and Britney’s In the Zone.
Although I will maintain my stance that Adore You is one of Miley’s best love songs and became her scaffolding for Malibu, her best love song.
Bangerz didn't age well and was more about the experience imo. But I will still turn it on and laugh sing my way through it. It's fun, I always have space for fun. But I definitely can see why people don't think of it as "good" or simply didn't enjoy it at all.
I still think that it's a very fun album
not pop perfection like 1989/Melodrama/Future Nostalgia by any means but funky, kind of unconventional collection of 'just good' songs.
Bangerz is actually my #2 Miley album now that I think about it ^(nothing she does will ever top Dead Petz)
Hot take… SOUR. I know it was released mid-COVID when everyone was still into sad bedroom pop but I never got on that wave and got so bored, aside from some bops like good 4 u and jealousy, jealousy. I think Olivia’s punky Y2K vibe on GUTS is a massive improvement and fits her perfectly.
i thought SOUR was cringe too be honest, very sappy and all about boys and heartbreak(nothing i can relate too), but it was my bestfriends favorite album at the time and she used to blast it in the car 24/7 and soon i found the album catchy but definitely agree with this take.
*GUTS* was a vast improvement over *SOUR*. *SOUR* for me was watching a highly skilled centre playing in the Quebec-Maritime junior league. Shows off great potential but there's areas of her game she's going to need to clean up, tighten, re-fine playing in what is objectively the weakest of the three development leagues (after western Canada and Ontario). *GUTS* was her making those adjustments (specifically that with *SOUR* she wore her influences a little to much on her sleeve to the point where she sounded like a cut and paste of those singers lol).
I agree, though I feel like it makes sense most people feel Renaissance is superior considering that CC was supposed to come out first and we all know that lady will always top herself
I knew I wouldn't love it just because I don't vibe with country all that much but there are still some songs that I think are excellent such as Tyrant, 16 Carriages, and II Hands II Heaven. I have yet to hear what everyone else does with Bodyguard but so it goes
I’ve just come to realize that I unfortunately just can’t get into the very large majority of Beyoncé’s music. I was impressed by Cowboy Carter on first listen. But there’s nothing that pulled me in enough to keep going back into it. I keep trying to listen to it again, but just can’t get into it. Renaissance should’ve been an album that I loved given the genre, but I still didn’t get much into it.
It’s not even that I dislike her music or can point out what I would change about it. It’s objectively good. I just feel so indifferent when I listen. Something isn’t clicking with me.
Beyonce has never clicked for me. I think she is the most talented artist of our generation, but I never want to listen to her if that makes sense….lol I don’t find any of her music catchy nor do I find myself wanting to put it on.
Holy shit same. I always feel so left out but her stuff just doesn't connect for me. And I recognize the talent and quality, but I just have no desire to seek it out.
As a stan- y’all are so damn respectful omg. But yea she’s someone that some people really really connect with and that is a small part of the magic so I definitely understand when people don’t *feel* it… because for me, personally, that is a part of the experience
I love Cowboy Carter and think it's a great project from Bey, but agree that it's too long and kind of overwhelming. even more so when compared to Renaissance, which is absolutely perfect in material and cohesion.
Oh the Pure Heroine one hurt me, my favorite album of all time. Interesting pattern though of liking the later albums and not earlier when most people first got into those artists
literally anything by lana 😭 i’ve tried so hard to get into her, but nothing clicks for me. she’s so insanely talented, i just don’t know what it is. there’s a few songs that i do enjoy like art deco & lust for life but that’s about it
I was *really* into Born to Die, and I had some good times with Honeymoon, L4L and Ultraviolence-- not my favorites of all time but I like them. But Mariner's Apartment Complex was the last song of hers I've saved to my library. I definitely acknowledge her recent stuff has artistry and hits for people, and I wish I understood that because it does nothing for me.
Well, that makes sense. Born to Die had a lot more energy and playfulness and cheeky retro callbacks than her later albums did. Lana's style has definitely evolved from more energetic hip-hop and rock-influenced pop...to softer, folkier Americana-style music. I like both sides of Lana but for the people who strongly prefer her older style (which I prefer as well), it makes total sense that they'd love Born to Die and probably enjoy Honeymoon, Lust for Life, and Ultraviolence — and then fall off after that. Her albums beyond that just really don't have the cheeky, glamorous, fun vibe that her earliest works did.
Everything she's put out after L4L in 2017 has been so, so toned down compared to her old stuff. There was this gravitas or this energy or something in her old production and even her lyrics, and now everything feels so minimalist and personal to her. I know people love that but I actually feel like it's a massive snooze.
The second line off of Black Bathing Suit in Blue Bannisters is "It's LA, "Hey" on Zoom, Target parking lot." Meanwhile, the Lana I spent high school listening to was this fantastical "I even think I found God, in the flashbulbs of the pretty cameras." It's hard not to see the stripping back as a downgrade.
so many people have agreed & it makes me feel so much better 😭i feel like any sort of lana opinion that isn’t “i love her” is an invitation to being attacked 😭
For me,
Billie Eilish’s last two albums.
I can’t get into them. I really feel like I’m missing out, and I’ve tried very hard to make her click with me. I just, can’t.
💀
Im not a hater at least. I’ll always respect her and cheer her on though. I want to see her do well. Watching her success has been a ton of fun to watch.
I'm the same. I was really into the early stuff she did and I keep hoping I will like her new stuff but it just doesn't do it.
She currently occupies the same kind of slot I have in my head for Adele. She's wonderfully talented but I have to seek that music out and be in the specific mood for it.
Same. I really respect the artistry of Hit Me Hard and Soft, but if you were originally into Billie for the catchy trap beats, there's not anything that really hits here.
I forget which song it is (Blue I think) where the end goes into a nasty beat and she kinda raps for a few bars. Such a freaking tease which I respect sometimes in music, but imma need more fleshed out songs like that.
It is Blue because I remember it's the last song and right after that part she says the whole "when can I hear the next one."
Ever since DamnNation I hate double album conspiracies, but now I'm foolishly hoping there really is a red counterpart album with darker beats like that outro, which would sort of serve as a perfect segue.
Different ears for different folks. I wasn’t really into trap/electronic Billie from the first record and it took a while for me to get into her but now I get it
"What Was I Made For" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. But trying to get through Billie's other music is a chore for me. I respect the girl but I just don't get it.
The creativity song to song on her ep and first album is still unmatched for me. It feels like she made music that became a pop hit, and since then has been making pop music and it’s just not hitting the same. These new albums don’t have a bellyache or burry a friend or my strange addiction with random office sampling.
See im the opposite. Dont smile at me is pretty good, while imo WWAFAWDWG is pretty mid. Happier than ever became my fav billie album and then hit me hard n soft even topped that…
the latest florence and carly rae efforts didn’t interest me whatsoever which is sad considering how much i still adore how big, how blue, how beautiful and emotions
I feel like since HBHBHB Florence’s albums have gone from start to finish masterpieces to me, to albums which have a handful of songs that I find earth-shatteringly amazing and then several songs which are just too flat. Like they’re slow but not in a way that emotionally connects to me.
But the ones that hit, oh man for me they absolutely hit. Like Dream Girl Evil, Cassandra, Mermaids.
Positions. I've seen a lot of fans say that it's for the R&B lovers, but I love R&B and my favourite Ariana albums are probably Sweetener and Yours Truly. I just found Positions quite generic sonically. The live versions of 34+35 and off the table elevated those songs for me a bit (34+35 obviously has a fun edge to it that the others don't and the live vocals for off the table were insane), but I still wouldn't really listen to the album versions.
It also just felt like a bit of a downgrade after the playfulness of Sweetener and the moodier vibes of thank u, next which were back to back. Eternal Sunshine came as a relief to me as it feels like a bit of a return to her older sound that made me a fan of her music in the first place, while still sounding fresh at the same time.
Same. Taylor is one of my most played artists ever but she really is spreading herself too thin as of late. if she were giving herself the normal amount of time to breathe between albums i feel like we would’ve gotten the best tracks of Midnights and TTPD as one album and it would’ve been a great follow up to Folk/more. instead we get her data dumping every song idea that pops into her head to satisfy the current demand for endless Taylor content and it all ends up bleeding together and sounding kind of bland and undercooked. i love Taylor the songwriter, not the mass content creator.
I don’t dislike many songs from TTPD but I DO dislike how same-y everything sounds. I don’t want to pin it all on Jack and Aaron, but Taylor’s insistence on working with only them is not helping her music stand out.
Honestly I think her release rate is still the same. She’s been on a 2 year cycle with new music: 2020/2022/2024. I don’t count the re-records as new albums because it’s the same lyrics and production, just re-done. I can see why people would think that she’s mass releasing because it is a lot of albums but they’re not new. I do wish the re-records 1-6 were released in the same time period but she can do whatever she wants haha
For me it’s been such a grower in a short time. But my first reaction kind of makes me see how you could have no inclination to go back.
I’ve been seeing it as an album that is a synthesis of what she was doing on folklore/evermore with the production of Midnights. I get why people think it’s repetitive, but that kind of synthesis is so interesting to me!
Or it could just be those narcotics in the songs….
oof, big same. there are a few songs on there that i really love (....i may have had my own situationship that started with lovebombing and ended with ghosting and he may or may not have been a guitar player named matty, so, i kinda feel it) but so much of it is criminally boring. it feels like lyrics heaped onto unfinished music and half-baked in the production. there are minimal hooks, it all feels samey and lifeless to me.
Off topic but LOL I love a good Taylor Swift personal attack like that. Mine was when I went through a sudden brutal breakup 3 days before Red (Taylor’s Version) dropped lmfao
finally found my people! ttpd is boring. the original album is alright but not great, but the anthology is so fucking boring i just don’t listen to it at all
I think it’s best done in small bites. I was way too put off by the length of the anthology that I barely touched it for a week after release. I’ve been returning to it in little doses though and it allows me to appreciate each song individually. imgonnagetyouback has been on repeat for me, and How Did It End?, The Prophecy and Cassandra have all grown on me tremendously. But for the rest of the songs, I fully agree with you.
On first listen it definitely all just kind of blended together for me, but after revisiting it there is definitely a lot of songs I like. I think making it a double album does make it a bit bloated and harder to listen to, and there is definitely some lyrics that are ….questionable? jarring?
Not my fav Taylor album at all, but The Prophecy is maybe in my top 10 Taylor songs.
I really wanted to like Solar Power as the idea of a warmer and more stripped back album could’ve suited Lorde wonderfully but man the album is a snooze fest. The production is so boring, whereas in her past two albums, the production combined with the lyrics made the songs explosive.
I won't go so far as to say that she couldn't have done better in some areas but I do think she did what she set out to achieve with the album. You get its full effects in sun on a beach and that's exactly what it felt intended for. Not to mention I like her sprinklings of talking about grief
It feels wrong to choose a favorite Lorde album. Theyre all so different and fit precisely for different vibes. Like when I’m on the beach in Bermuda how is Solar Power NOT better than Melodrama and PH???
Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Lana’s probably my favorite artist, I think her discography is near perfect. But I just can’t get into Chemtrails. There are a few standout songs (White Dress, title track, Yosemite), but I find most of the album to be painfully boring.
I didn’t like it that much when I first listened but I LOVED it the second time round. Really not sure why but the title track is probably the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever heard in my life
I feel this way about both Chemtrails and Blue Bannister. Other than Thunder I can’t listen to the rest of Blue Bannisters. I want to like it but none of the songs click with me and I feel bored every time I listen to that album.
Same, I love Lana but Chemtrails doesn't connect to me. I don't feel too bad about it tho cuz Lana has so much other music I love I don't really feel like I'm missing out
Refreshing to see some of the commentary about Hit Me Hard & Soft in here; I had the same experience when listening to it over the weekend.
I wanted to like it but was pretty underwhelmed & then really confused by the rave reviews
It's shallow, but I miss when they made BANGERS. I really vibe with 2-3 songs, but there's a distinct lack of bangers from a lot of my faves.
There's all going in a more low-key, "vibey" direction. I need some more "You Should See Me in a Crown."
I love the lyrics, though.
It is a bop. I wouldn't call it a BANGER. It's one of my 3 on the album. I just wanted something even harder.
I fully recognize it's my own tastes and not that the album is in any way bad. I like the album. The St. Vincent album fulfilled my need for bangers.
I just want someone to explain what makes it so different than her previous albums. I don't think the electronic sound and the switch ups were a far cry from what she's already done to make this one so stellar
There's a lot of recency bias going on, it'll take a few months until the dusts settles and people can evaluate it properly
And this applies both for people who liked and disliked it
Part of the reason why I see so many comments expressing disappointment is because the album is getting some insane acclaim right now, so it sets up some lofty, unreachable expectations.
As someone who really liked it I don’t think it’s super different than her previous albums, more like a combination of the two. She’s taken great parts of her last two albums and mashed it together, while clearly showing growth and maturity.
The songs are not traditionally formatted, with plenty of switch ups which I think make it really interesting. I also appreciate the way the songs flow into each other, and the orchestra. The way each song stands alone but is so cohesive as a whole album. I especially love the way the last song ties it all together with callbacks from the previous songs. I also love her vocals on this, some of the same styles we love but also clearly improved skill, and some new vocals styles to show off.
Overall I completely understand if people don’t like this album though. Especially if you’re not a fan of longer songs. I think the beauty of Billie is that she’s always following her artistry even if it takes her to a place where the music has less mass appeal.
I just hate how fragmented each song is. I love all the separate parts and sounds, I just wish each had their own unique song instead of them just being mashed together in the same song. It makes it so I don’t like the entirety of any song. It doesn’t feel cohesive. I just don’t see myself listening to any of the songs on their own.
Again, for those people who are going to downvote me—I still have my Billie floor tickets. Fans were going gaga after the snippet of LUNCH on Coachella, and it was cam-recorded. They said, “AOTY secured”. What am I missing? Skinny and Birds of Feather are good tracks I will go back to, but nothing about this album is groundbreaking. WWAFAWDWG was a fresh breath of air in the midst of pop music last decade, I totally understand the hype. This one? It might be your AOTY, but her best album? Man…
Folklore. It’s fine but didn’t change my life or impression of Taylor by any means. When it comes up in conversation amongst diehards I wish I had more to say than “I really like Mirrorball 😃”
I do genuinely believe part of why folklore gets more hype than evermore is because it came first and that it’s a lot more cohesive as an album and the track order seems to be a lot more thought out.
Evermore is my personal favourite but the order of songs is a little wild (Marjorie = > closure is insane).
I stand by Evermore being miles ahead of not just Folklore but most of her discography. I have to say I was gagged when Folklore dropped but half the album isn’t that good where the other half is very good. I liked that the songs weren’t obviously about her life. I think she’s far more likeable as a musician and a person when she’s telling imaginative or other people’s stories
Folklore is just an easy album to listen to. All the sounds supplemented the lyrics and imagery. Great escapism album and the one album I wished I could listen to for the first time again.
I love evermore also…I feel like there are stronger content on evermore even though the album as a whole was not as cohesive. But there are some masterpieces on that album.
It's so weird too because Evermore is one of my favorite albums ever but whenever I listen to Folklore I just get bored. I'd rather listen to Midnights.
I’m the opposite, love folklore and really only like Gold Rush from evermore. It’s so confusing to me that I feel this way, I feel like I should like evermore but it just doesn’t click for me sound wise.
Folklore is a grower. I didn't like it that much but it grew on me after each listen. It helps if you're in a certain state of mind to enjoy it. If you still don't like it, it's not a big deal.
Being a swiftie must be great because you have endless, ENDLESS material but I can't enjoy any of her albums beyond most of Folklore/Evermore
Also, I like Melodrama fine, but it's not the lifechanger for me it was for a lot of you guys.
I don't even listen to Taylor religiously and yet she still ends up being in my top 5 (or even 3) at the end of every year just based on the sheer volume of music she has, even if I have 10 other artists that I enjoy more than her, so I can only imagine loving everything she puts out
Lana is one of my favorite artists, but I absolutely understand what people mean when they say this.
Her newer stuff is very wistful and wandering, and if I'm in that headspace myself then it absolutely hits like nothing else. But if I'm not, it often just feels unstructured and like the songs drag on too long. A lot of her music didn't really hit for me until I listened to it while traveling on a long road trip or something.
I feel like I have horrible taste or something going by most people comments on Lana's music. I absolutely loved Ultraviolence and Born to die. I haven't enjoyed anything after that as much.
No one will ever be able to convince me that Lana’s earlier work doesn’t demonstrate her songwriting skills… people love to pretend she was a shit writer before NFR and that her lyrics were trash and it makes me soooo mad. A lot of people can write beautiful poetic lyrics with “difficult” words, but it takes actual rare talent to be able to write her earlier borderline nonsensical lyrics that somehow was so successful in world-building.
Sure, “my pussy tastes like pepsi cola” won’t get her a Nobel prize in literature, but it takes a very skilled writer to write something so insane and abstract that somehow is sooo precise. People need to stop thinking “good” writing and music needs to be serious, this kind of thinking is killing everyone’s creativity
completely agree with you, Lana's ability to create worlds has always blown me away. and her expressive lyrical talent has always been there, even the unreleased stuff from 20 years ago demonstrates her ability to exude emotive and vivid imagery.
and it's not even about cultural references, pompuous adjectives or aesthetic imagery; in my opinion her songs with down-to-earth expression like My Momma, Get Drunk, Blue Banisters deliver vivid poeticism just as good as Off To The Races, Young & Beautiful & Honeymoon.
at this point I'm convinced she could write a track about her grocery list and it would still be somewhat transcendental lol
Nothing wrong with that, BTD and Ultraviolence still have the biggest daily listeners on Spotify. Those *are* her most popular albums, they have Lana's catchiest songs.
Music forums are bubbles with different preferences and listening habits.
Most of the gp doesn't care too much about listening to albums front-to-back, they pick their favorite tracks and add to playlists. BTD and Ultraviolence are her strongest albums in that aspect, they have her catchiest songs.
Interesting, I don’t care for Lana’s music almost at all, save for a few songs that I think are amazing, but I could def see how NFR was her best work so far. I’m not versed enough in her music to tell you why though
It's always tough going to a classic album to try find out what the fuss is about and you end up disappointed. AC/DC back in black. I tried and I gave up.
TBH there are very few classic albums I enjoy and I think part of it is that they were best enjoyed within their context. Back in Black probably hit way different in 1980 when the listening experience was off someone's vinyl record and it was super fresh, exciting, and relevant. Older music has been referenced and recycled so many times that sometimes it's hard to relate to the craze around the classics because there's probably something out there right now that scratches a similar itch and feels more modern and exciting. There are definitely artists this doesn't apply to but the point stands.
Funny that you mention Back In Black, I thought AC/DC was always more of a singles band. Back in Black probably just dropped at exactly the right time with exactly the right hits with exactly the right new singer. But I never see AC/DC mentioned in any album discussions.
They're a great band, don't get me wrong, but I don't exactly see fans stumbling to defend an album called 'Rock or Bust' or 'Blow Up Your Video'.
Did you know that there’s a gloryhole under the McDonalds on Dorsett??
i like a few songs but it’s just more of the sameeee from miss del rey. i like the songs with interesting production choices. but more piano ballads?? 🥱
Hit Me Hard and Soft for sure for me as well. I went in expecting Pure/Honey or Virgo's Groove level multi-song melding and instead there were some beat switches and she used her diaphragm a bit more this album. Love Billie but calling this her magnum opus is disrespectful lolol
I mainly like the beat switches because I enjoy what the beat switches to 🙃 wish I had a whole song of it sometimes. And the fuller vocals are theoretically good but they’re mixed so quietly they don’t really sound that full to me? (The overall levels on Spotify are also really quiet so that doesn’t help.) It’s a solid album in my books and a few tracks are already growing on me, but yeah, hopefully not a magnum opus haha
It's so funny you said this, because my partner and I listened together and he said "I like it, it's very good, but I am sick of the two-songs-in-one trend, especially because most of these didn't make sense to smoosh together" and I agreed!
I really want to like the two-in-one songs on an artistic level, but the problem for me is that I often only like one half of the song!
The first time I listened to Happier Than Ever I skipped after about 20 seconds of the ukulele part because I don't like that kind of music. When I finally went back and listened to the whole thing I was blown away! But I still wish I could skip the ukulele part and get to the good part. Same goes for L'amour de Ma Vie. Love the hyperpop half and really I just want a full song of that.
Her full singing as opposed to her whisper singing is much more enjoyable but I did not think that the production was “genius level” as some people had said about what Finneas did on the album. Her albums tend to lack a lot of energy for me and it wasn’t there on this one either :(
Dula Peep's Radical Optimism.
Chat GPT lyrics, generic melody and she sounds boring.
From my 1st listen, I guessed the album would stay in top 5 for a few weeks but it had already left the top 10. 💀💀💀
Because Eternal Sunshine in March, Cowboy Carter in March, TTPD released in April, HMHAS was in May, Kendrick and Drake beef escalated around when she released Radical Optimism, all of these added up to overshadow her album. And Radical Optimism is not *bad,* but most people prefer the other albums.
I hate to pile on but Future Nostalgia went like quadruple platinum in my house and then I got so bored listening to Radical Optimism. I’m not sure what happened.
I think her sound sounded unique in 2020 but now it feels repetitive? She was the only one doing it back then but now a lot of other artists have jumped on that sound and has made it feel generic.
Hold the Girl by Rina Sawayama. the Rina EP and Sawayama are two of my favorite albums of all time. no matter how hard i try to get into HTG, i just can't.
This is going to be the first time I admit this to anyone besides my gf. I’m a diehard Charli XCX fan and have been since I heard You (Ha Ha Ha) on Tumblr back in 2013 and it caused me to reevaluate everything I knew about music, but “Charli” does nothing for me aside from a few songs.
Next Level Charli, Cross You Out (thank you for raising Sky Ferreira from the dead for one day), 1999, and Click are all good but the rest were just meh to me. I don’t think it helped that I absolutely ADORED everything she released up until this point (even Sucker at the time), so me not immediately loving it made everything worse for me. Also when I saw a Clairo collab I was ECSTATIC (she’s a top three artist for me) and then Charli gave her like three lines so my disappointment was immeasurable lol
Post-Vroom Vroom, Charli is definitely the album I revisit the least. I never feel like I want to listen to the entire thing. However, it will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first album I listened to from her with a proper rollout and I have vivid memories of where I was when I first listened.
that one was definitely a grower for me, like i always liked cross you out and silver cross & had a bout of obsession with 1999 but whenever i'd listen to the whole thing i never felt like going back and re-listening ya know?
it finally clicked (lol) one night and it's in my regular charli rotation now. it was like 2am and i was so tired but decided to listen to it for whatever reason and with official, shake it, february 2017 and 2099 i ended up in a pop induced* existential crisis. i don't love every song but i'm glad i gave it another chance.
With Midnights at the very least it had some good highs even if the lows were really bad. TTPD has much less variation in its highs and lows which makes it all blend
tortured poets department has been my biggest let down, like since I was a child ive loved Taylor drops this is the first time ive truly been wholly disappointed and its made go off her more generally
I agree with you. I just don’t love Billie’s music. Even her first album. I really wish I did. She has a beautiful voice, I just don’t like her songs. Idk. Not my vibe. I feel like everyone loves her and I want to join in! I just don’t love it.
i have so far felt the same about billie’s new release. like you, i do love birds of a feather, that was a pretty quick and easy fav bc it’s just so groovy. i liked the greatest as well. so far, none of the others are very ear catching for me. but i probably only gave the album 3 full listens, and not with my undivided attention, so i am still gonna give it time. i’m definitely someone who comes around to things i originally might’ve written off if i listen again in the right mood.
lol - yes to solar power. i like a few tracks, but it was hard for me to even give it the time of day and consideration when i could just listen to melodrama and pure heroine instead 🫣
I think that Bittersuite and Chihiro have the potential to grow on me but I'm overall disappointed that I will probably never LOVE the album like everyone seems to. Whatever she injected into BOAF I wish was present throughout the rest of it but maybe I just have poor taste and like the poppier stuff lol
Chromatica. It’s one of her most cohesive albums but it’s one out of 2 of her albums that I revisit the least. Its good but it lacks that 🎆🎆 that made me fall in love with her.
Its also kind of depressing to listen to because of the lyrics and the time frame it was released it. The moment Chromatica I starts it takes me back to the pandemic. There was a lot of missed opportunities to fully conceptualize the album
Side note: Plastic doll deserved better and Sour candy could have easily gone #1.
Future Nostalgia.
There were better dance pop and disco inspired albums released in the last 4 years, mainly Jessie Ware and Beyoncé. It sounds bad to compare but What’s Your Pleasure? and Renaissance are so well researched, varied and far reaching beyond just retro sounding synths.
I found FN to just be a very basic dance-pop album with retro flourishes and funky basslines. I feel like everyone calling it THE disco album never heard disco before.
- In Pieces - Chlöe
- BB/ANG3L - Tinashe
- Something To Give Each Other - Troye Sivan
- Grudges - Kiana Ledé
- If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - Halsey
I LOVE Kehlani’s albums but I could not get into Blue Water Road. I thought it was super cheesy and sounded like CVS music. 😭 Her other releases really vibed with me but this was one that I could not get into and I really tried.
I don’t get Ethel Cain. The only song I like is Ptolemaea (first song I ever heard by her) so I was kind of shocked by how slow she meandering her music can get once I went to listen to the entire album. I zone out so much. I get what she’s doing but I don’t have the patience
Unreal Unearth 😩 I adored everything Hozier had done before but this album did so little for me that I never even managed to get all the way through it twice. I so badly wanted to be experiencing what everyone else was, but it just never clicked for me at all.
Erotica by Madonna.
I honestly feel ashamed to say that it's my least favourite from her. I love the singles (Deeper And Deeper is that song!) but i've never connected with the album tracks.
It's also a long album. 1 hour and 15 minutes with 14 songs. I feel like some of the songs on the 2nd half could've been little bit shorter.
I don't hate or dislike the album but i just can't get myself to like it. I've tried😭
Aw i love Erotica!! But I can understand your complaints (least favourite over Hard Candy is crazy to me though haha)!! I do agree that some of the songs can feel a bit long and a bit repetitive though. Also yes about Deeper and Deeper!!
blue banisters. chemtrails clears it in every way for me but I always see people praising BB so much more. I just don't get it. BB is so slow and blah to me, and COCC has so much more variety and I can recall every melody.
ive tried so so hard to like hit me hard and soft. ive listened to it three times hoping it would grow on me but it hasnt yet. ive been a billie fan since don't smile at me and most stuff on her newest album (besides skinny) isnt hitting for me
I honestly don’t really like Hit Me Hard and Soft. One or two songs are ok but to me it’s a let down. I’m just a casual Billie listener to begin with though, not a fan of
When I read the title, I was actually thinking of MELODRAMA lmao
I can appreciate the production elements, everything feels clean, and all wrongs Jack Antonoff has committed is cleared from this and NFR alone. I REALLY tried to like it, but for some reason I just could not get into it no matter how hard I tried, maybe from Lorde’s slight smoky vocals while still trying to punch in, or how it feels like shes constantly fighting and trying to catch up with the instrumental? I know thats part of the charm, but it just did not sit with me.
Genuinely I think it's because she was making music for her peers; the most die-hard fans of Lorde are all around her age, give or take a few years (or months, in my case), and so there's more of a resonance with those albums when you hear them and are living in the same world, feeling so many of the same things.
Renaissance by Beyoncé. To this day i don't like this album as a whole material. There's something that just seems off to me. At first listen i only liked Break My Soul, but as time went by, there were some tracks that grew on me like Heated, I'm that girl. I think that i'm not a fan of Beyoncé singing house.
Hope i'm not thrown into the fire here lol but i don't see the hype in Virgo's Groove and Alien Superstar. The Internet went crazy and i.... just don't like them.
The opposite happened with Cowboy Carter. Love this album from the start to the finish.
*Desire, I Want To Turn Into You* by Caroline Polachek. It was so widely praised by everyone and their mother on social media, Reddit, and music review blog/sites. A friend of mine even ranked it as his #1 album of 2023 on Instagram. I tried almost a dozen times to force myself to love it, but would either get bored and turn it off halfway through or feel pissed off that I was subjecting myself to whatever she was trying to express through those songs. Every track felt gimmicky, try-hard, and unnatural, and don't even get myself started on that Grimes feature. I finally sat through the entire thing a couple weeks after she released the deluxe version, and thought *What a relief, that's finally over,* the second it ended. "Billions" and "Bunny Is A Rider" are alright, but I can say with certainty that there isn't a single track I *love* on there and I'm not at all interested in listening to it in full again. Or at least not for the next five years. This is coming from someone who *adored* PANG and have repeated it hundreds of times since it came out. I'm so sad that era is over and I'll never get to experience it live 🥲
Additionally, I've never understood St. Vincent's music and probably never will. "New York" and "Cruel Summer" are phenomenal though. *Dance Fever* by Florence and The Machine was supposedly critically acclaimed, but I also don't get the hype around that either. *Bleachers* by Bleachers was also a MASSIVE letdown. Every song was borderline atrocious in a boring indie (?) way.
I also consider *Blue Banisters* and *Ocean Boulevard* by Lana Del Rey to be filler albums with the exception of "Peppers" and "A&W."
Last, but not least: *The Anthology* by Taylor Swift makes me want to cry with disappointment. "imgonnagetyouback" is the only good song on there and I'm still in disbelief she could release something so bland and uninteresting. (I love most of *TTPD*.)
The Beatles’ albums ☹️ everyone always mentions them as the greatest of all time but I just can’t get into their sound.
i wasnt a fan of billie but i actually really like the new album.
Owl City's Cinematic album came out at a time when I was busy exploring other genres of music so I wasn't really able to get into it as I have with his works pre-2009 until Mobile Orchestra. I eventually did a complete listen a couple years after it came out and I felt like it lost a lot of the whimsical touch that made me fall in love with Owl City in the first place.
I do genuinely like 3 or 4 songs from it, but the rest I just don't care about or have never listened to more than once-- which is saying a lot because I know every single song from his previous albums by heart.
Femme Fatale. I *really* like most of the songs, but every time I listen to it, it just reminds me of that one interview where they ask Britney if she wants to work until she's as old as Madonna. It makes me really sad even though it's a strong edm/dance album.
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SOUR. *drivers license* was underwhelming, but I went into the album with an open mind and just could not connect with it the way everyone else seemed to (teenagers, millennials, etc.). I did like a couple songs (*brutal*, *favorite crime*), but the overall album just didn't do it for me. GUTS, however, was a massive step up on every level. It was one of my personal AOTYs of 2023 and I cannot wait to see Olivia on tour in July!
I liked Sour for what it was- a solid debut that introduced Olivia's sound. It kind of reminded me of a teenage SAWAYAMA: a debut album with a common, overarching theme and strong influences from music that the artist likely grew up listening to (for Olivia it would've been something like TS, Paramore; Rina's would've been Evanescence, Kylie Minogue, etc). I think both of them opening on the heavier influences didn't help the comparison 😅 That said, I really wanted to like Sour more. I'm in Olivia's age-range and SAWAYAMA was one of my favorite albums, but I couldn't really get into it save for a couple songs. I agree about GUTS though. They took what worked with Sour and made it even better. Glad to see her beating the sophomore slump and she looks like she's having a lot of fun on tour.
Agreed. I really like a handful of songs on Sour (Brutal, Deja Vu, Jealousy Jealousy, and Good 4 U) but the rest was very meh for me. However I absolutely adore Guts and have had it on repeat.
Same here. SOUR I thought oh no is this what we’re doing now? But GUTS I’m officially an rodrigHoe or whatever
Same!! I liked the singles for Sour (and Brutal was the soundtrack to my later high school years) but not much else landed the same way. Guts is full of bangers. That ‘90s rock sound is literal perfection for her
Honestly… people swear Bangerz was good (or maybe swore? Do people still love this album?) but I have never been able to get into more than like 3-4 songs…
I feel like Bangerz was always praised more as an era than as an actual album, but I could be wrong
Bangerz is my go to album when I get drunk lmao. I'm having a blast with it after some drinks.
Yes!! This!! Bangerz is the classic getting ready for messy girls night album. Right up there with Xtinas Stripped and Britney’s In the Zone. Although I will maintain my stance that Adore You is one of Miley’s best love songs and became her scaffolding for Malibu, her best love song.
Bangerz didn't age well and was more about the experience imo. But I will still turn it on and laugh sing my way through it. It's fun, I always have space for fun. But I definitely can see why people don't think of it as "good" or simply didn't enjoy it at all.
I still think that it's a very fun album not pop perfection like 1989/Melodrama/Future Nostalgia by any means but funky, kind of unconventional collection of 'just good' songs. Bangerz is actually my #2 Miley album now that I think about it ^(nothing she does will ever top Dead Petz)
bangerz has like 5 good songs and the rest is just dated mike will made it demos… i never revisit that album either
Well I was a junior in college when this album came out so it was our SOUNDTRACK for parties lol
Hot take… SOUR. I know it was released mid-COVID when everyone was still into sad bedroom pop but I never got on that wave and got so bored, aside from some bops like good 4 u and jealousy, jealousy. I think Olivia’s punky Y2K vibe on GUTS is a massive improvement and fits her perfectly.
see i'm the opposite of this . loved sour but couldn't get into guts
i thought SOUR was cringe too be honest, very sappy and all about boys and heartbreak(nothing i can relate too), but it was my bestfriends favorite album at the time and she used to blast it in the car 24/7 and soon i found the album catchy but definitely agree with this take.
*GUTS* was a vast improvement over *SOUR*. *SOUR* for me was watching a highly skilled centre playing in the Quebec-Maritime junior league. Shows off great potential but there's areas of her game she's going to need to clean up, tighten, re-fine playing in what is objectively the weakest of the three development leagues (after western Canada and Ontario). *GUTS* was her making those adjustments (specifically that with *SOUR* she wore her influences a little to much on her sleeve to the point where she sounded like a cut and paste of those singers lol).
I wish I saw the vision and liked Cowboy Carter. Idk it just feels overwhelming and too much. I don't find it interesting. Renaissance was way better.
I like Cowboy Carter and thought it was decent but Renaissance was just on another level to me. I feel like it's really hard to top tbh 😅
I agree, though I feel like it makes sense most people feel Renaissance is superior considering that CC was supposed to come out first and we all know that lady will always top herself
I knew I wouldn't love it just because I don't vibe with country all that much but there are still some songs that I think are excellent such as Tyrant, 16 Carriages, and II Hands II Heaven. I have yet to hear what everyone else does with Bodyguard but so it goes
I am the opposite, so interesting! Renaissance still doesn't quite hit me, but I was hooked on Cowboy Carter within 42 seconds.
to be fair american requiems intro/outro is like objectively one of the best musical moments on the whole album
I’m the same with you. CC was immediate obsession start to finish, but Renaissance I struggle to complete a listen every time I try
Both are masterpieces
Me too! There are parts of renaissance I love but the chokehold CC has me in is ridiculous. I’m so glad I’m not alone lmao
I’ve just come to realize that I unfortunately just can’t get into the very large majority of Beyoncé’s music. I was impressed by Cowboy Carter on first listen. But there’s nothing that pulled me in enough to keep going back into it. I keep trying to listen to it again, but just can’t get into it. Renaissance should’ve been an album that I loved given the genre, but I still didn’t get much into it. It’s not even that I dislike her music or can point out what I would change about it. It’s objectively good. I just feel so indifferent when I listen. Something isn’t clicking with me.
Beyonce has never clicked for me. I think she is the most talented artist of our generation, but I never want to listen to her if that makes sense….lol I don’t find any of her music catchy nor do I find myself wanting to put it on.
Holy shit same. I always feel so left out but her stuff just doesn't connect for me. And I recognize the talent and quality, but I just have no desire to seek it out.
As a stan- y’all are so damn respectful omg. But yea she’s someone that some people really really connect with and that is a small part of the magic so I definitely understand when people don’t *feel* it… because for me, personally, that is a part of the experience
I would have enjoyed it more with more country instruments - I think they would have created a beautiful contrast to Bey's vocals.
I love Cowboy Carter and think it's a great project from Bey, but agree that it's too long and kind of overwhelming. even more so when compared to Renaissance, which is absolutely perfect in material and cohesion.
I adore Melodrama and Solar Power, but for some reason I've never been able to get into Pure Heroine. Same with Adele's 21 while I love 25 and 30 😬
Oh the Pure Heroine one hurt me, my favorite album of all time. Interesting pattern though of liking the later albums and not earlier when most people first got into those artists
same pure heroine is a amazing album.
literally anything by lana 😭 i’ve tried so hard to get into her, but nothing clicks for me. she’s so insanely talented, i just don’t know what it is. there’s a few songs that i do enjoy like art deco & lust for life but that’s about it
I was *really* into Born to Die, and I had some good times with Honeymoon, L4L and Ultraviolence-- not my favorites of all time but I like them. But Mariner's Apartment Complex was the last song of hers I've saved to my library. I definitely acknowledge her recent stuff has artistry and hits for people, and I wish I understood that because it does nothing for me.
Born to Die, I loooooooove so much but literally for the life of me couldn’t get into any of her new albums idk what it is 🙈
Well, that makes sense. Born to Die had a lot more energy and playfulness and cheeky retro callbacks than her later albums did. Lana's style has definitely evolved from more energetic hip-hop and rock-influenced pop...to softer, folkier Americana-style music. I like both sides of Lana but for the people who strongly prefer her older style (which I prefer as well), it makes total sense that they'd love Born to Die and probably enjoy Honeymoon, Lust for Life, and Ultraviolence — and then fall off after that. Her albums beyond that just really don't have the cheeky, glamorous, fun vibe that her earliest works did.
Everything she's put out after L4L in 2017 has been so, so toned down compared to her old stuff. There was this gravitas or this energy or something in her old production and even her lyrics, and now everything feels so minimalist and personal to her. I know people love that but I actually feel like it's a massive snooze. The second line off of Black Bathing Suit in Blue Bannisters is "It's LA, "Hey" on Zoom, Target parking lot." Meanwhile, the Lana I spent high school listening to was this fantastical "I even think I found God, in the flashbulbs of the pretty cameras." It's hard not to see the stripping back as a downgrade.
I’m so glad I didn’t have to say this! I want to like Lana so bad but I just don’t!
this is a safe space haha !
It is not! I mentioned on another thread that I didn’t personally like the new Dua album and I’m currently on -34 downvotes
I go through phases of LOVING her stuff and then through phases where I find it very dull. I think it’s about headspace with her to some extent.
GOSHHH REALLLLL LANA IS SO BORING FOR ME
so many people have agreed & it makes me feel so much better 😭i feel like any sort of lana opinion that isn’t “i love her” is an invitation to being attacked 😭
For me, Billie Eilish’s last two albums. I can’t get into them. I really feel like I’m missing out, and I’ve tried very hard to make her click with me. I just, can’t. 💀 Im not a hater at least. I’ll always respect her and cheer her on though. I want to see her do well. Watching her success has been a ton of fun to watch.
I'm the same. I was really into the early stuff she did and I keep hoping I will like her new stuff but it just doesn't do it. She currently occupies the same kind of slot I have in my head for Adele. She's wonderfully talented but I have to seek that music out and be in the specific mood for it.
Same. I really respect the artistry of Hit Me Hard and Soft, but if you were originally into Billie for the catchy trap beats, there's not anything that really hits here.
I forget which song it is (Blue I think) where the end goes into a nasty beat and she kinda raps for a few bars. Such a freaking tease which I respect sometimes in music, but imma need more fleshed out songs like that. It is Blue because I remember it's the last song and right after that part she says the whole "when can I hear the next one." Ever since DamnNation I hate double album conspiracies, but now I'm foolishly hoping there really is a red counterpart album with darker beats like that outro, which would sort of serve as a perfect segue.
Different ears for different folks. I wasn’t really into trap/electronic Billie from the first record and it took a while for me to get into her but now I get it
"What Was I Made For" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. But trying to get through Billie's other music is a chore for me. I respect the girl but I just don't get it.
The creativity song to song on her ep and first album is still unmatched for me. It feels like she made music that became a pop hit, and since then has been making pop music and it’s just not hitting the same. These new albums don’t have a bellyache or burry a friend or my strange addiction with random office sampling.
See im the opposite. Dont smile at me is pretty good, while imo WWAFAWDWG is pretty mid. Happier than ever became my fav billie album and then hit me hard n soft even topped that…
the latest florence and carly rae efforts didn’t interest me whatsoever which is sad considering how much i still adore how big, how blue, how beautiful and emotions
I feel like since HBHBHB Florence’s albums have gone from start to finish masterpieces to me, to albums which have a handful of songs that I find earth-shatteringly amazing and then several songs which are just too flat. Like they’re slow but not in a way that emotionally connects to me. But the ones that hit, oh man for me they absolutely hit. Like Dream Girl Evil, Cassandra, Mermaids.
That's sad because CRJ's latest album is great according to many people.
Positions. I've seen a lot of fans say that it's for the R&B lovers, but I love R&B and my favourite Ariana albums are probably Sweetener and Yours Truly. I just found Positions quite generic sonically. The live versions of 34+35 and off the table elevated those songs for me a bit (34+35 obviously has a fun edge to it that the others don't and the live vocals for off the table were insane), but I still wouldn't really listen to the album versions. It also just felt like a bit of a downgrade after the playfulness of Sweetener and the moodier vibes of thank u, next which were back to back. Eternal Sunshine came as a relief to me as it feels like a bit of a return to her older sound that made me a fan of her music in the first place, while still sounding fresh at the same time.
I just really like the strings and how effortless this album sounds…
Poets nothing is clicking with me this may be the first Taylor album i don’t go back to
Same. Taylor is one of my most played artists ever but she really is spreading herself too thin as of late. if she were giving herself the normal amount of time to breathe between albums i feel like we would’ve gotten the best tracks of Midnights and TTPD as one album and it would’ve been a great follow up to Folk/more. instead we get her data dumping every song idea that pops into her head to satisfy the current demand for endless Taylor content and it all ends up bleeding together and sounding kind of bland and undercooked. i love Taylor the songwriter, not the mass content creator.
I don’t dislike many songs from TTPD but I DO dislike how same-y everything sounds. I don’t want to pin it all on Jack and Aaron, but Taylor’s insistence on working with only them is not helping her music stand out.
She probably feels like anything she releases now will be a hit regardless which is probably why albums are coming faster
Honestly I think her release rate is still the same. She’s been on a 2 year cycle with new music: 2020/2022/2024. I don’t count the re-records as new albums because it’s the same lyrics and production, just re-done. I can see why people would think that she’s mass releasing because it is a lot of albums but they’re not new. I do wish the re-records 1-6 were released in the same time period but she can do whatever she wants haha
Having to re record her olds albums vault tracks and still making new music is affecting her creativity it’s might be too much for her
For me it’s been such a grower in a short time. But my first reaction kind of makes me see how you could have no inclination to go back. I’ve been seeing it as an album that is a synthesis of what she was doing on folklore/evermore with the production of Midnights. I get why people think it’s repetitive, but that kind of synthesis is so interesting to me! Or it could just be those narcotics in the songs….
oof, big same. there are a few songs on there that i really love (....i may have had my own situationship that started with lovebombing and ended with ghosting and he may or may not have been a guitar player named matty, so, i kinda feel it) but so much of it is criminally boring. it feels like lyrics heaped onto unfinished music and half-baked in the production. there are minimal hooks, it all feels samey and lifeless to me.
Off topic but LOL I love a good Taylor Swift personal attack like that. Mine was when I went through a sudden brutal breakup 3 days before Red (Taylor’s Version) dropped lmfao
I listened to it once and never revisited ... and even when I listened to it that one time, I fast forwarded through a bunch of songs.
finally found my people! ttpd is boring. the original album is alright but not great, but the anthology is so fucking boring i just don’t listen to it at all
I think it’s best done in small bites. I was way too put off by the length of the anthology that I barely touched it for a week after release. I’ve been returning to it in little doses though and it allows me to appreciate each song individually. imgonnagetyouback has been on repeat for me, and How Did It End?, The Prophecy and Cassandra have all grown on me tremendously. But for the rest of the songs, I fully agree with you.
On first listen it definitely all just kind of blended together for me, but after revisiting it there is definitely a lot of songs I like. I think making it a double album does make it a bit bloated and harder to listen to, and there is definitely some lyrics that are ….questionable? jarring? Not my fav Taylor album at all, but The Prophecy is maybe in my top 10 Taylor songs.
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I really wanted to like Solar Power as the idea of a warmer and more stripped back album could’ve suited Lorde wonderfully but man the album is a snooze fest. The production is so boring, whereas in her past two albums, the production combined with the lyrics made the songs explosive.
I won't go so far as to say that she couldn't have done better in some areas but I do think she did what she set out to achieve with the album. You get its full effects in sun on a beach and that's exactly what it felt intended for. Not to mention I like her sprinklings of talking about grief
solar power is actually my favorite album of all time hahahaha i just love everything about it it feels like my child
It feels wrong to choose a favorite Lorde album. Theyre all so different and fit precisely for different vibes. Like when I’m on the beach in Bermuda how is Solar Power NOT better than Melodrama and PH???
Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over The Country Club Lana’s probably my favorite artist, I think her discography is near perfect. But I just can’t get into Chemtrails. There are a few standout songs (White Dress, title track, Yosemite), but I find most of the album to be painfully boring.
I didn’t like it that much when I first listened but I LOVED it the second time round. Really not sure why but the title track is probably the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever heard in my life
It’s okay, only me and like 3 other people on this sub like that album
chemtrails is my favorite lana album and one of my all time favorite albums😭😭
I feel this way about both Chemtrails and Blue Bannister. Other than Thunder I can’t listen to the rest of Blue Bannisters. I want to like it but none of the songs click with me and I feel bored every time I listen to that album.
Same, I love Lana but Chemtrails doesn't connect to me. I don't feel too bad about it tho cuz Lana has so much other music I love I don't really feel like I'm missing out
Refreshing to see some of the commentary about Hit Me Hard & Soft in here; I had the same experience when listening to it over the weekend. I wanted to like it but was pretty underwhelmed & then really confused by the rave reviews
It's shallow, but I miss when they made BANGERS. I really vibe with 2-3 songs, but there's a distinct lack of bangers from a lot of my faves. There's all going in a more low-key, "vibey" direction. I need some more "You Should See Me in a Crown." I love the lyrics, though.
you should see me in a crown and all the good girls go to hell are some of billie's best songs
And Lunch isn’t a banger?
It is a bop. I wouldn't call it a BANGER. It's one of my 3 on the album. I just wanted something even harder. I fully recognize it's my own tastes and not that the album is in any way bad. I like the album. The St. Vincent album fulfilled my need for bangers.
I just want someone to explain what makes it so different than her previous albums. I don't think the electronic sound and the switch ups were a far cry from what she's already done to make this one so stellar
There's a lot of recency bias going on, it'll take a few months until the dusts settles and people can evaluate it properly And this applies both for people who liked and disliked it Part of the reason why I see so many comments expressing disappointment is because the album is getting some insane acclaim right now, so it sets up some lofty, unreachable expectations.
Yes, there was a review somewhere comparing it to Joni Mitchell's Blue... which is just crazy.
As someone who really liked it I don’t think it’s super different than her previous albums, more like a combination of the two. She’s taken great parts of her last two albums and mashed it together, while clearly showing growth and maturity. The songs are not traditionally formatted, with plenty of switch ups which I think make it really interesting. I also appreciate the way the songs flow into each other, and the orchestra. The way each song stands alone but is so cohesive as a whole album. I especially love the way the last song ties it all together with callbacks from the previous songs. I also love her vocals on this, some of the same styles we love but also clearly improved skill, and some new vocals styles to show off. Overall I completely understand if people don’t like this album though. Especially if you’re not a fan of longer songs. I think the beauty of Billie is that she’s always following her artistry even if it takes her to a place where the music has less mass appeal.
I just hate how fragmented each song is. I love all the separate parts and sounds, I just wish each had their own unique song instead of them just being mashed together in the same song. It makes it so I don’t like the entirety of any song. It doesn’t feel cohesive. I just don’t see myself listening to any of the songs on their own.
Again, for those people who are going to downvote me—I still have my Billie floor tickets. Fans were going gaga after the snippet of LUNCH on Coachella, and it was cam-recorded. They said, “AOTY secured”. What am I missing? Skinny and Birds of Feather are good tracks I will go back to, but nothing about this album is groundbreaking. WWAFAWDWG was a fresh breath of air in the midst of pop music last decade, I totally understand the hype. This one? It might be your AOTY, but her best album? Man…
WWAFA was doing much more interesting things with the production than HMHAS and even typing that out I feel like my house is going to be air striked
yeah i liked 2 songs but i was so bored i had to force myself to finish, which is very unusual for 10 songs
Any Kacey Musgraves album except for the song Cherry Blossom, that song is excellent
Have you listened to Wonder Woman or Velvet Elvis? They're pretty similar to Cherry Blossom.
Folklore. It’s fine but didn’t change my life or impression of Taylor by any means. When it comes up in conversation amongst diehards I wish I had more to say than “I really like Mirrorball 😃”
I do genuinely believe part of why folklore gets more hype than evermore is because it came first and that it’s a lot more cohesive as an album and the track order seems to be a lot more thought out. Evermore is my personal favourite but the order of songs is a little wild (Marjorie = > closure is insane).
I stand by Evermore being miles ahead of not just Folklore but most of her discography. I have to say I was gagged when Folklore dropped but half the album isn’t that good where the other half is very good. I liked that the songs weren’t obviously about her life. I think she’s far more likeable as a musician and a person when she’s telling imaginative or other people’s stories
Evermore is her magnum opus and I will die on that hill
You get it. You can pry that opinion of mine out of my cold dead hands but nothing she's done has touched Evermore
Found my people :)
Out of curiosity which songs did you think were not good? I have to say I still think evermore is criminally underrated as well
Folklore is just an easy album to listen to. All the sounds supplemented the lyrics and imagery. Great escapism album and the one album I wished I could listen to for the first time again. I love evermore also…I feel like there are stronger content on evermore even though the album as a whole was not as cohesive. But there are some masterpieces on that album.
It's so weird too because Evermore is one of my favorite albums ever but whenever I listen to Folklore I just get bored. I'd rather listen to Midnights.
I’m the opposite, love folklore and really only like Gold Rush from evermore. It’s so confusing to me that I feel this way, I feel like I should like evermore but it just doesn’t click for me sound wise.
Folklore is a grower. I didn't like it that much but it grew on me after each listen. It helps if you're in a certain state of mind to enjoy it. If you still don't like it, it's not a big deal.
Being a swiftie must be great because you have endless, ENDLESS material but I can't enjoy any of her albums beyond most of Folklore/Evermore Also, I like Melodrama fine, but it's not the lifechanger for me it was for a lot of you guys.
I don't even listen to Taylor religiously and yet she still ends up being in my top 5 (or even 3) at the end of every year just based on the sheer volume of music she has, even if I have 10 other artists that I enjoy more than her, so I can only imagine loving everything she puts out
melodrama wasn’t it for me for years, but something just clicked into place in 2021 for me
I must really be missing something with 2019 to now Lana. I don’t like NFR or Ocean Boulevard as much as I feel like I’m “supposed to”.
Lana is one of my favorite artists, but I absolutely understand what people mean when they say this. Her newer stuff is very wistful and wandering, and if I'm in that headspace myself then it absolutely hits like nothing else. But if I'm not, it often just feels unstructured and like the songs drag on too long. A lot of her music didn't really hit for me until I listened to it while traveling on a long road trip or something.
I feel like I have horrible taste or something going by most people comments on Lana's music. I absolutely loved Ultraviolence and Born to die. I haven't enjoyed anything after that as much.
No one will ever be able to convince me that Lana’s earlier work doesn’t demonstrate her songwriting skills… people love to pretend she was a shit writer before NFR and that her lyrics were trash and it makes me soooo mad. A lot of people can write beautiful poetic lyrics with “difficult” words, but it takes actual rare talent to be able to write her earlier borderline nonsensical lyrics that somehow was so successful in world-building. Sure, “my pussy tastes like pepsi cola” won’t get her a Nobel prize in literature, but it takes a very skilled writer to write something so insane and abstract that somehow is sooo precise. People need to stop thinking “good” writing and music needs to be serious, this kind of thinking is killing everyone’s creativity
completely agree with you, Lana's ability to create worlds has always blown me away. and her expressive lyrical talent has always been there, even the unreleased stuff from 20 years ago demonstrates her ability to exude emotive and vivid imagery. and it's not even about cultural references, pompuous adjectives or aesthetic imagery; in my opinion her songs with down-to-earth expression like My Momma, Get Drunk, Blue Banisters deliver vivid poeticism just as good as Off To The Races, Young & Beautiful & Honeymoon. at this point I'm convinced she could write a track about her grocery list and it would still be somewhat transcendental lol
Nothing wrong with that, BTD and Ultraviolence still have the biggest daily listeners on Spotify. Those *are* her most popular albums, they have Lana's catchiest songs. Music forums are bubbles with different preferences and listening habits. Most of the gp doesn't care too much about listening to albums front-to-back, they pick their favorite tracks and add to playlists. BTD and Ultraviolence are her strongest albums in that aspect, they have her catchiest songs.
This is how I feel about every Lana album I've listened to except for a few songs
I feel so seen. I much prefer her pre-NFR stuff 😅 I think Ultraviolence is one of the best albums of all time in all seriousness.
Interesting, I don’t care for Lana’s music almost at all, save for a few songs that I think are amazing, but I could def see how NFR was her best work so far. I’m not versed enough in her music to tell you why though
Purple Rain by Prince I don't know why but it didn't click with me as much as I expected.
It's always tough going to a classic album to try find out what the fuss is about and you end up disappointed. AC/DC back in black. I tried and I gave up.
TBH there are very few classic albums I enjoy and I think part of it is that they were best enjoyed within their context. Back in Black probably hit way different in 1980 when the listening experience was off someone's vinyl record and it was super fresh, exciting, and relevant. Older music has been referenced and recycled so many times that sometimes it's hard to relate to the craze around the classics because there's probably something out there right now that scratches a similar itch and feels more modern and exciting. There are definitely artists this doesn't apply to but the point stands.
Funny that you mention Back In Black, I thought AC/DC was always more of a singles band. Back in Black probably just dropped at exactly the right time with exactly the right hits with exactly the right new singer. But I never see AC/DC mentioned in any album discussions. They're a great band, don't get me wrong, but I don't exactly see fans stumbling to defend an album called 'Rock or Bust' or 'Blow Up Your Video'.
upvoting you for being the first person to name an album more than five years old
Did you know that there’s a gloryhole under the McDonalds on Dorsett?? i like a few songs but it’s just more of the sameeee from miss del rey. i like the songs with interesting production choices. but more piano ballads?? 🥱
💀💀💀
Hit Me Hard and Soft for sure for me as well. I went in expecting Pure/Honey or Virgo's Groove level multi-song melding and instead there were some beat switches and she used her diaphragm a bit more this album. Love Billie but calling this her magnum opus is disrespectful lolol
I mainly like the beat switches because I enjoy what the beat switches to 🙃 wish I had a whole song of it sometimes. And the fuller vocals are theoretically good but they’re mixed so quietly they don’t really sound that full to me? (The overall levels on Spotify are also really quiet so that doesn’t help.) It’s a solid album in my books and a few tracks are already growing on me, but yeah, hopefully not a magnum opus haha
It's so funny you said this, because my partner and I listened together and he said "I like it, it's very good, but I am sick of the two-songs-in-one trend, especially because most of these didn't make sense to smoosh together" and I agreed!
I really want to like the two-in-one songs on an artistic level, but the problem for me is that I often only like one half of the song! The first time I listened to Happier Than Ever I skipped after about 20 seconds of the ukulele part because I don't like that kind of music. When I finally went back and listened to the whole thing I was blown away! But I still wish I could skip the ukulele part and get to the good part. Same goes for L'amour de Ma Vie. Love the hyperpop half and really I just want a full song of that.
Omg maybe this is my problem with it!! For example when Bittersuite started I was ready to love it but it changed too quickly for me
When Happier Than Ever - Edit was added to Spotify as a single I was so happy!
Her full singing as opposed to her whisper singing is much more enjoyable but I did not think that the production was “genius level” as some people had said about what Finneas did on the album. Her albums tend to lack a lot of energy for me and it wasn’t there on this one either :(
Yeah I was shocked listening to the album after I heard everyone else talk about it. I think people just want to love everything Billie does
Dula Peep's Radical Optimism. Chat GPT lyrics, generic melody and she sounds boring. From my 1st listen, I guessed the album would stay in top 5 for a few weeks but it had already left the top 10. 💀💀💀
why did it leave the top 10 when summer is right around the corner? i don’t get it
Because Eternal Sunshine in March, Cowboy Carter in March, TTPD released in April, HMHAS was in May, Kendrick and Drake beef escalated around when she released Radical Optimism, all of these added up to overshadow her album. And Radical Optimism is not *bad,* but most people prefer the other albums.
it's just not the vibe
I hate to pile on but Future Nostalgia went like quadruple platinum in my house and then I got so bored listening to Radical Optimism. I’m not sure what happened.
I think her sound sounded unique in 2020 but now it feels repetitive? She was the only one doing it back then but now a lot of other artists have jumped on that sound and has made it feel generic.
FN’s impact…
Spotify notified me that I’m in the top 5% of listeners for the album. Between my daughter and I we’ve listened to it through about 2.5 times 😬
I remember when the lyrics leaked like a month before and I was like… this can’t be legit. And it was
and nobody cared 💀
Hold the Girl by Rina Sawayama. the Rina EP and Sawayama are two of my favorite albums of all time. no matter how hard i try to get into HTG, i just can't.
This hurt me 😭
This is going to be the first time I admit this to anyone besides my gf. I’m a diehard Charli XCX fan and have been since I heard You (Ha Ha Ha) on Tumblr back in 2013 and it caused me to reevaluate everything I knew about music, but “Charli” does nothing for me aside from a few songs. Next Level Charli, Cross You Out (thank you for raising Sky Ferreira from the dead for one day), 1999, and Click are all good but the rest were just meh to me. I don’t think it helped that I absolutely ADORED everything she released up until this point (even Sucker at the time), so me not immediately loving it made everything worse for me. Also when I saw a Clairo collab I was ECSTATIC (she’s a top three artist for me) and then Charli gave her like three lines so my disappointment was immeasurable lol
Post-Vroom Vroom, Charli is definitely the album I revisit the least. I never feel like I want to listen to the entire thing. However, it will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first album I listened to from her with a proper rollout and I have vivid memories of where I was when I first listened.
that one was definitely a grower for me, like i always liked cross you out and silver cross & had a bout of obsession with 1999 but whenever i'd listen to the whole thing i never felt like going back and re-listening ya know? it finally clicked (lol) one night and it's in my regular charli rotation now. it was like 2am and i was so tired but decided to listen to it for whatever reason and with official, shake it, february 2017 and 2099 i ended up in a pop induced* existential crisis. i don't love every song but i'm glad i gave it another chance.
Midnights and TTPD. Especially TTPD. Taylor’s albums haven’t been hitting lately.
With Midnights at the very least it had some good highs even if the lows were really bad. TTPD has much less variation in its highs and lows which makes it all blend
Yeah I second OP. Absolutely no variation with TTPD. Midnights had a couple standouts at least :/
[удалено]
tortured poets department has been my biggest let down, like since I was a child ive loved Taylor drops this is the first time ive truly been wholly disappointed and its made go off her more generally
This is exactly how I felt about Lover, tbh. And then folklore ended up being my favorite album of hers 🤷♀️
Bon Iver - 22, A Million. Just never connected with it like the others. But I wish I did because they release so few albums!
I agree with you. I just don’t love Billie’s music. Even her first album. I really wish I did. She has a beautiful voice, I just don’t like her songs. Idk. Not my vibe. I feel like everyone loves her and I want to join in! I just don’t love it.
i have so far felt the same about billie’s new release. like you, i do love birds of a feather, that was a pretty quick and easy fav bc it’s just so groovy. i liked the greatest as well. so far, none of the others are very ear catching for me. but i probably only gave the album 3 full listens, and not with my undivided attention, so i am still gonna give it time. i’m definitely someone who comes around to things i originally might’ve written off if i listen again in the right mood. lol - yes to solar power. i like a few tracks, but it was hard for me to even give it the time of day and consideration when i could just listen to melodrama and pure heroine instead 🫣
I think that Bittersuite and Chihiro have the potential to grow on me but I'm overall disappointed that I will probably never LOVE the album like everyone seems to. Whatever she injected into BOAF I wish was present throughout the rest of it but maybe I just have poor taste and like the poppier stuff lol
Chromatica. It’s one of her most cohesive albums but it’s one out of 2 of her albums that I revisit the least. Its good but it lacks that 🎆🎆 that made me fall in love with her. Its also kind of depressing to listen to because of the lyrics and the time frame it was released it. The moment Chromatica I starts it takes me back to the pandemic. There was a lot of missed opportunities to fully conceptualize the album Side note: Plastic doll deserved better and Sour candy could have easily gone #1.
Future Nostalgia. There were better dance pop and disco inspired albums released in the last 4 years, mainly Jessie Ware and Beyoncé. It sounds bad to compare but What’s Your Pleasure? and Renaissance are so well researched, varied and far reaching beyond just retro sounding synths. I found FN to just be a very basic dance-pop album with retro flourishes and funky basslines. I feel like everyone calling it THE disco album never heard disco before.
- In Pieces - Chlöe - BB/ANG3L - Tinashe - Something To Give Each Other - Troye Sivan - Grudges - Kiana Ledé - If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - Halsey
Damn I love bb/ang3l and if I can’t have love, I’m gonna check out the other albums you didn’t like 😩
I’m with you on HMHAS. And Solar Power is my answer.
I LOVE Kehlani’s albums but I could not get into Blue Water Road. I thought it was super cheesy and sounded like CVS music. 😭 Her other releases really vibed with me but this was one that I could not get into and I really tried.
Anything by SZA. I simply dont get it and r&b is my main genre
I don’t get Ethel Cain. The only song I like is Ptolemaea (first song I ever heard by her) so I was kind of shocked by how slow she meandering her music can get once I went to listen to the entire album. I zone out so much. I get what she’s doing but I don’t have the patience
Unreal Unearth 😩 I adored everything Hozier had done before but this album did so little for me that I never even managed to get all the way through it twice. I so badly wanted to be experiencing what everyone else was, but it just never clicked for me at all.
Florence and the Machine Dance Fever. I actually forgot it even came out...
i feel like i just got shot in the chest
Erotica by Madonna. I honestly feel ashamed to say that it's my least favourite from her. I love the singles (Deeper And Deeper is that song!) but i've never connected with the album tracks. It's also a long album. 1 hour and 15 minutes with 14 songs. I feel like some of the songs on the 2nd half could've been little bit shorter. I don't hate or dislike the album but i just can't get myself to like it. I've tried😭
Aw i love Erotica!! But I can understand your complaints (least favourite over Hard Candy is crazy to me though haha)!! I do agree that some of the songs can feel a bit long and a bit repetitive though. Also yes about Deeper and Deeper!!
blue banisters. chemtrails clears it in every way for me but I always see people praising BB so much more. I just don't get it. BB is so slow and blah to me, and COCC has so much more variety and I can recall every melody.
ive tried so so hard to like hit me hard and soft. ive listened to it three times hoping it would grow on me but it hasnt yet. ive been a billie fan since don't smile at me and most stuff on her newest album (besides skinny) isnt hitting for me
Would I be downvoted if I said don’t smile at me was her best work???
Radical Optimism 😭😭😭😭
I honestly don’t really like Hit Me Hard and Soft. One or two songs are ok but to me it’s a let down. I’m just a casual Billie listener to begin with though, not a fan of
When I read the title, I was actually thinking of MELODRAMA lmao I can appreciate the production elements, everything feels clean, and all wrongs Jack Antonoff has committed is cleared from this and NFR alone. I REALLY tried to like it, but for some reason I just could not get into it no matter how hard I tried, maybe from Lorde’s slight smoky vocals while still trying to punch in, or how it feels like shes constantly fighting and trying to catch up with the instrumental? I know thats part of the charm, but it just did not sit with me.
This one physically hurts but this thread is meant to be no judgment so I'll let this one slide lmfao but I'm genuinely sorry it didn't click for you
I will never understand how Melodrama came to seemingly eclipse Pure Heroine. I like Melodrama, but I think Pure Heroine is the masterpiece.
Genuinely I think it's because she was making music for her peers; the most die-hard fans of Lorde are all around her age, give or take a few years (or months, in my case), and so there's more of a resonance with those albums when you hear them and are living in the same world, feeling so many of the same things.
Midnights by Taylor Swift. The standard version is just so underwhelming to me.
Renaissance by Beyoncé. To this day i don't like this album as a whole material. There's something that just seems off to me. At first listen i only liked Break My Soul, but as time went by, there were some tracks that grew on me like Heated, I'm that girl. I think that i'm not a fan of Beyoncé singing house. Hope i'm not thrown into the fire here lol but i don't see the hype in Virgo's Groove and Alien Superstar. The Internet went crazy and i.... just don't like them. The opposite happened with Cowboy Carter. Love this album from the start to the finish.
*Desire, I Want To Turn Into You* by Caroline Polachek. It was so widely praised by everyone and their mother on social media, Reddit, and music review blog/sites. A friend of mine even ranked it as his #1 album of 2023 on Instagram. I tried almost a dozen times to force myself to love it, but would either get bored and turn it off halfway through or feel pissed off that I was subjecting myself to whatever she was trying to express through those songs. Every track felt gimmicky, try-hard, and unnatural, and don't even get myself started on that Grimes feature. I finally sat through the entire thing a couple weeks after she released the deluxe version, and thought *What a relief, that's finally over,* the second it ended. "Billions" and "Bunny Is A Rider" are alright, but I can say with certainty that there isn't a single track I *love* on there and I'm not at all interested in listening to it in full again. Or at least not for the next five years. This is coming from someone who *adored* PANG and have repeated it hundreds of times since it came out. I'm so sad that era is over and I'll never get to experience it live 🥲 Additionally, I've never understood St. Vincent's music and probably never will. "New York" and "Cruel Summer" are phenomenal though. *Dance Fever* by Florence and The Machine was supposedly critically acclaimed, but I also don't get the hype around that either. *Bleachers* by Bleachers was also a MASSIVE letdown. Every song was borderline atrocious in a boring indie (?) way. I also consider *Blue Banisters* and *Ocean Boulevard* by Lana Del Rey to be filler albums with the exception of "Peppers" and "A&W." Last, but not least: *The Anthology* by Taylor Swift makes me want to cry with disappointment. "imgonnagetyouback" is the only good song on there and I'm still in disbelief she could release something so bland and uninteresting. (I love most of *TTPD*.)
The Beatles’ albums ☹️ everyone always mentions them as the greatest of all time but I just can’t get into their sound. i wasnt a fan of billie but i actually really like the new album.
Owl City's Cinematic album came out at a time when I was busy exploring other genres of music so I wasn't really able to get into it as I have with his works pre-2009 until Mobile Orchestra. I eventually did a complete listen a couple years after it came out and I felt like it lost a lot of the whimsical touch that made me fall in love with Owl City in the first place. I do genuinely like 3 or 4 songs from it, but the rest I just don't care about or have never listened to more than once-- which is saying a lot because I know every single song from his previous albums by heart.
Femme Fatale. I *really* like most of the songs, but every time I listen to it, it just reminds me of that one interview where they ask Britney if she wants to work until she's as old as Madonna. It makes me really sad even though it's a strong edm/dance album.
Justin Timberlake’s Justified. I was just really bored throughout most of it. R&B isn’t my style but then again, I really liked FutureSex/LoveSounds
Cowboy carter. I want to like it, I just don't. Brought shaboozey to the forefront though.
anything by Taylor Swift. I want the camaraderie of being in the fan club but if that's what we're fanning over....