Yeah, there’s just absolutely no personality to it, which sticks out even more now because pop is so personality driven.
this being a bland nothing burger doesnt change the fact that man of the woods is likely a bottom 10 album by anybody. absolutely unlistenable album
hate motw but i wouldn’t say its without at least a couple redeeming qualities. chris stapleton, in particular
i also think that some of the flack was due it coming out at a time where the hate for JT was stronger than it ever had been to that point
With the bit of a country boom going on in pop I wonder if MOTW would have hit better today than when it was released.
i know that record has its apologists but it is sandpaper to my ears at every turn lmao. i dont even have the bias of jamming it from the time period since my first jam was a few months back and it is no contest easily the least ive enjoyed any lp ive jammed this year myself. do not really think it would have fared any better in 2024 but dropping it as the follow up to the 2020 era as a whole is one of the biggest falls from graces ive ever heard this is the most 2.5 that ever walked but at least has good songs on it occasionally lol. will never buy how its somehow worse but people are always more primed to hate the new album and get nostalgic for the last one. cant wait until the soft eitiw revival in 2030 when he drops another dud
went to the MSG show last night. was incredible. say what you want, but the man is a performer. flawless.
Spun 20/20 all summer when it came out. Was much less so with part 2 and cut my own tracklist and took out a lot. MotW didn't grab me at all..I think I heard the title track or Supplies first and couldn't bear to listen to the rest. Thought Selfish was pretty good but only returned to it once. All that to say..not hearing the "timelessness" of his most recent stuff. Shrugs all around.
I remember reviewing both parts of 20/20 on release and fuck, we went from a 9/10 stunner to a 5/10 record of leftovers that's still not even close to how bad MOTW was. No interest in hearing the new one.
My hot take is that 20/20 pt 1 was dramatically overrated due to the long wait between albums, and 20/20 pt 2 was marginally underrated because of oversaturation. I do think pt 1 is better than pt 2, but not as drastically as the reviews would lead you to believe. Plenty of fat on both.
I feel like the two parts are pretty equal and the reason part 2 gets a bad rep is the 2nd song sucks ass and is like 10 minutes long. It’s pretty good after that song
Part 1 is a no skip album for me, might be my favorite of his. Part 2 I honestly can't remember how a single song goes except for Not a Bad Thing.