i mean...is he wrong about this being designed for mass appeal? it feels pretty clear to me that's exactly what this is.
Obviously but that doesn't need to be a negative. I guess where I disagree is where he argues that the album fails to be memorable because of essentially trying to appeal to the biggest possible audience. Like I said I don't think he's wrong in a lot of his assessments of the album's content, I just disagree with the conclusions he reaches about its quality and lasting impact. I also definitely wouldn't argue that the Lana track is the strongest thing here, like @Letterbomb31 said I'd rank it as one of the lesser moments overall.
Just me or does Reminder have the same flow as Low Life? I legit feel like I could pull he vocals on either and swap it.
Got the physical! I had to tell the Barnes and Noble employees that it came out physically today and to take it out from the back of the store
He literally said the album is too long by "at least 6 songs" and described the album's length as "extreme", hence why I disagree as I think every song is great and therefore makes for a highly consistent listen. My other point was that it's bizarre he describes the Lana song as the most "alive", as if the other tracks don't have as much energy or sincerity when they very clearly do. As I said before, most of the songs actually do more for me than that interlude. During the Beats 1 interview with Abel, he mentions that Starboy is an actual character on this album who makes several appearances throughout, so clearly some thought has been put into giving this project some kind of narrative. I don't know how you can say "the piece isn't even really down on this album", when at best it's basically the author just dishing out a series of backhanded compliments haha. It's not exactly a positive review.
Oh I like Lemonade more than this for sure but this album is super fun, not everybody gotta change their shit all the time if they do it well. Yeah it's not 100% on point but I'd argue a good amount of it is.
According to Wikipedia (so I don't know how reliable this is), "Six Feet Under" contains interpolations from "Low Life". I can't see anything about "Reminder" though.
s/t is totally better than Lemonade, but boy did that album grow on me. I feel like Lemonade gets too much shit for NOT being s/t but rather it's own thing.
I like Lemonade a lot but I still haven't heard s/t. I'm not a huge fan of the tracks I have heard from it though.
"false alarm" is awesome but the songs surrounding it are really tedious, idk how long i can stick with this
i dont know why im in the position of defending someone elses words but calling it backhanded compliments is just flat out not accurate. a backhanded compliment is something like "it's really good for a pop song!" which isn't what he says. he says its competent, well-executed music but little more than that. that's not a backhanded compliment. that's a very direct assessment.
also it's borderline offensive to me to even try and compare this to lemonade let alone say this is better lol