I honestly love all the Tilian albums, especially now that Acceptance Speech got the remaster. Artificial Selection still rules even it would probably be at the bottom of the rankings of Tilian albums. The quality difference is way overblown. Mothership = Afterburner > Instant Gratification > Acceptance Speech 2.0 > Artificial Selection
Art Sec tops AS for me solely because of Hair Song. I like an even amount tracks off both, but both are the two Tilian albums that have actual disliked tracks for me out of any. I really don’t like Carve, Doom Gloom, Demo Team, and while I really love the first half of Death of the Robot... the mid-section with Jon/Will is unbearable to me. Terrible in fact, but also not surprising to see those left field bridges and transitions from this band. As for Art Sec, it has some amazing highs for me (Count Bassy, Hair Song, Shelf Life) but I don’t ever revisit the first 3 tracks and hate The Rattler, Bro Story, Slouch, and Bloodsucker. Really have gotten over Tilian’s call out lyrics and he seems to have the need to write at least one track like that per album with the exception of the first one.
Listening to Mothership for the first time right now. This thing rules. *before this I only heard Afterburner.
Gospel Burnout was one I skipped because I hate the chorus vocals but that song is otherwise really cool imo
Yeah I love Parallels it's one of my favorites. I don't revisit Prisoner or Born To Fail at all, but every other track on the album I have grown to really like. With time I could wind up saying I like Afterburner as much as Mothership.
I don't really care for Calentamiento Global because A) I don't know any Spanish and B) it feels very gimmicky, and Born To Fail has some guitar and melody lines that really wind me up for some reason (lol), so those are the only two I will skip on any playthrough. Even so, CG has some great guitar parts and Born To Fail has a good chorus - when the songs you don't really like still have clear strengths then you know the overall quality of the album is good as hell.
yeah I’m not in the mood for Calentamiento Global a lot of the time, I do admire the instrumentation a lot though. Weird how that happens. I think it shouldn’t have been the third track on the album.
Love Calientamiento Global and it's probably top 3-4 on the album for me. That's still hard to say though, One In A Million, Parody Catharsis, Strawberry's Wake, Nothing Shameful... this will probably top Mothership for me over time.
Various thoughts: -I was worried calentamiento would sound gimmicky but I think they absolutely nailed it. -parallels gets a lot better after 0:40 -Say hi, night away, born to fail are kinda interchangeable for me, a little to close to each other on the tracklist -surprised people don’t like prisoner more. Has a really cool ominous vibe that seemed to be the only type of song missing from the Tilian era.
Yeah, both Tilian & Jon's first verses in Parallels are pretty bad lol. I do like the last line of Jon's ("I love myself and I love youuu tooo!") & from that point on the song gets 10x better. And Prisoner definitely rocks, unfortunately I overplayed it and Lyrics Lie when they came out so I find myself tired of those songs sometimes.
I actually love Tilian’s intro on that song. Don’t think it’s bad at all. Different for them, and fun.
anyway i would go acceptance speech > artificial selection > instant gratification > mothership > afterburner i love them all to death
Bought the physical copy at Target today so when I’m in the car I can listen to through speakers and louder than through my iPods. Very rarely do I buy physical copies but this one is worth it.