Skipped all the prerelease tracks, liked but didn't love Strange Desire but I'm pretty into this on first listen.
Cowriters are good usually and are often very influential and very important to certain genres (hip hop, pop, jazz) so i don't take away the "use cowriters to bend the truth and emotions" thesis but the review isn't well written either way. Sometimes there's this feeling of "well if they use cowriters then it's not genuine!" Attitude, and I'm not saying anyone in here is saying that, but it's frustrating to just boil it down to that. Sampling in hip hop/pop gets treated the same way and it's really asinine. I have high hopes for this album
Co-writers are common in country, too, and a lot of them are very good at what they do. Hell, Stapleton, Lori McKenna, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby have all made some of my favorite records of the past few years, and they got their "big breaks" because they started as really damn good co-writers. I just think it's weird to suggest that someone "needs" collaborators, like the review seemed to. But you're right, it's not a well written review, to the point where I'm not even sure what the writer meant by that statement. I do think that too many co-writers working on the same song can water it down, but that's just "too many cooks in the kitchen" logic and is true of just about anything.
Yeah and sometimes it's just a matter of the wrong people, I know you and I harp on about this a lot but aside from Butch Walker Raditude had awful choices for cowriters. Sometimes it's also, like you said, just a matter of too many people trying to put their influence into a song and it comes across poorly. Country is another good genre with lots of cowriters. Garth Brooks and John Conlee come to mind as musicians that utilized them very well, whereas Brad Paisly is an example id use Of going to far out his comfort zone for writers
Listened to Let's Get Married two more times and it already grew on me, haha. Sounded repetitive on first listen but I was also working while listening.
I mean, obviously, that's why you wrote it, yeah? Again, I wouldn't say that's what this review does. It spends about less than half of its inch count on this idea. And that's even besides the point. If there's something about an album that turns you off to it, of course that aspect is going to inform everything you write about it. If this is her criticism, then it makes sense for her to be able to spend 800 words on it. I agree that earnestness can be cool, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. (I went to see Everything, Everything last night and that movie is the definition of earnest-to-a-fault but I still very much enjoyed the experience). It shouldn't get a blanket pass because it usually gets the opposite.
No one can make you see their perspective about why shutting down someone's open-hearted self-expression as overly earnest is wrong, but don't also expect others to see your point about how earnest people are "usually" overly sentimental.
I absolutely was. So, this album is damn near perfect, however I feel like 'Hate That You Know Me' and 'Don't Take The Money' should be swapped in the tracklist. Pacing is weird.
Oh shit i actually agree with this too. I feel like after that outro of goodmorning it sounds like it's about to go into Don't Take the Money and then things reset and it goes into Hate That You Know Me. (then again I have a stream with a bit of a buffer in between songs, so it might be more smooth in between goodmorning and Hate that You Know Me)
OK, I now officially have tickets to Bleachers and Paramore on the same night.... gonna mull this one over for a while, but I am pretty sure Bleachers are going to win out in the end
I like this soooooo much more than I thought I was going to, and I already expected to like it a lot. Bleachers and Paramore taking summer 2017 to another level Love love love all of the brass
Just gave this a listen, and I think I can say now that I officially don't get this project. I like this less than I liked Strange Desire, and I was mostly indifferent about that album. This is destined to be that record that so many people fawn over while I just don't get the appeal. I think the only song I liked at all was Don't Take the Money.
I'm dying over here. I'm not going to bother with the leak, but come like 11 pm when this hits Apple Music, I'm immediately diving in. All day tomorrow is probably going to be this on repeat (with some intermissions from the new All Time Low album).
Late pass since I stopped listening to the singles after Hate That You Know Me, but HOLY SHIT that sax on Everybody Lost Somebody