Nightman Listens To – Taylor Swift – Folklore (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! We’re so close to the end of this series, I’m sure you can taste it. What should have taken no longer than 12 months, has so far taken me almost three years. What can I say – I have a lot of other crap on my plate, some of it more edible than what 2020 had to offer.

What do I know about Taylor Swift? I know she’s incredibly successful, I know she apparently has an army of rabid fans who are so obsessed that any perceived slight against her will result on your family being nuked. I think she started out Country and has since gone more Pop. I know she has had a number of high profile relationships but I couldn’t tell you who any of those people were, and I know her most recent tour has been making an obscene amount of money. Finally, as far as I know, I’ve only ever heard one of her songs; a song which I absolutely cannot stand, a song which I am subjected to at least twice a day because it’s one of the five which plays any time my wife says ‘Alexa, play cheesy pop’. It’s Taylor’s one, and that fucking awful ‘shut up and dance with me’ song. Which song, you ask? The one about going crazy, and calling her maybe. That’s Taylor Swift, right? All I can hope for, is that Folklore is nothing like that. Maybe it’ll be a surprise. By the time you read the next paragraph, I will have listened to Folklore multiple times.

Well… that was quite… lovely. There wasn’t anything irritating and nothing which reminded me of that ‘call me maybe’ song. In many ways it feels like a small and intimate album, so it’s a shame that it’s a few songs longer than it needs to be. Because it’s intimate it doesn’t have the most expansive sound or very much musical variety. You wouldn’t guess this from the first half of the album as each of those songs hits differently and feel distinct, while broadly falling in the ‘I’m sad and lonely’ thematic camp. Once we enter the second half, the album does run out of steam a little. The positive is that the songs are mostly short and if played in a shuffle, or individually, the songs are strong enough on their own to be pleasant.

Like most modern pop albums, I was apprehensive about the vocals going in. But these worries were swept away in the opening moments of The 1. Her vocals are warm, sad, without ever doing anything over the top or exposing some sublime craft. It’s the closeness, the conversational tone which works. Like I’ve said before about Gemma Hayes, the way Swift sings on Folklore is as if it’s just you and her in the room together. The near whispered vocal style seems to be ‘in’ now, but her they sound authentic and not put on because it’s the popular thing to do. They fit the tone of the album, and they fit the lyrical themes and approach.

Lyrically, I wasn’t expecting the album to be as good as it is. Outside of a couple of songs, there isn’t anything unusual thematically, but she makes the lyrics personal and gives twists on common phrases and pinpoints suitable metaphors to get her point across. I don’t think her lyrics are quite as incisive as Phoebe Bridgers’ – at the very least they didn’t hit me with as much impact. But they’re a cut above much of what we hear in the charts. I can see why she’s the success that she is.

Honestly, it has been difficult for me to select any clear cut highlights from the album. Not because there aren’t any, but because many of the songs are on a similar level in my estimation. August, Exile, Cardigan, My Tears Ricochet… honestly the majority of the album is good enough to make my infamous 2020 playlist, but there isn’t that single, standout killer song I can point to as ‘the one’ (pun intended). Even as the dullness and repetition sets in, there are no duds. This Is Me Trying and Epiphany are a little bland, I don’t like the dude on Exile, Invisible String is too sparse to hit like it wants to, and the final five songs are somewhat interchangeable. But I put that down mostly the fatigue of reaching track twelve and knowing there’s four more to come. It’s here that I think some song trimming would have benefited the album. There’s an excellent twelve song album in here.

These are very minor complaints, in truth. It’s doubtful that the album is going to be a personal favourite for me, but I understand why it struck so many people. The lack of one or two killer tracks to keep me coming back is tough, but the overall strong quality of the majority of the album means more than half of the album will be going onto my playlist – more than any other album from 2020 I’ve heard so far. It feels assured, it feels like quality. Her vocals, her lyrics, her storytelling are all solid, and I’ve learned that she’s better than that shite Alexa forces on me.

SCORE

Sales: 5. I think we go 5 here, based on how all of this currently works. It’s sold a couple of million in traditional sales – which is a lot given no-one buys physical anymore, but it broke a whole bunch of streaming records upon release – most listens in 24 hours for example.

Chart: 5. Number 1 around the world, including UK, USA, Canada, parts of Europe. By 2023 it was still on the charts in US and Canada.

Critical: 4. You could go 5 and I would have no issue. I think it’s more likely a 4, given some commentators did call it out for being too long.

Originality: 3. I don’t know how original it is for Swift in terms of her previous work. It’s an all American folk album with hints of Pop and Indie. There isn’t anything overly original, but it’s good at what it is.

Influence: 3. It has been three years since release and I don’t know how much impact the album has had or will continue to have, but given Swift herself is arguably the biggest musical star on the planet, she’ll be inspiring the next generation of artists.

Musical Ability: 3. There’s not a lot of technical skill on show, but it’s not that sort of album.

Lyrics: 4. Snippets of 21st Century life – romance, fame, growing, losing, remembering, all painted with refreshing imagery.

Melody: 4. Enough great moments to be considered a fine pop album, but lacking that knock out punch.

Emotion: 4. It feels more like a 3 to me, but I’ll give it the low 4. I guess I don’t connect with it as much as other might, and if you’re already a Swift fan or know her history, the songs likely have more meaning. Given I know nothing about her, any personal life references will be mostly lost on me.

Lastibility: 4. Could be a 5, as it seems like Swift is becoming the voice of her generation. In any case, it’ll still be played minimum ten years from now, so that’s good enough for a 4.

Vocals: 4. She doesn’t sound distinct or unique to my ears, and many singers these days are going for wispy waif-like approach which can becoming grating after a few songs, but she’s savvy and skilful enough that she has other tricks. I don’t like the male vocals on exile. 

Coherence: 4. The whole product feels earthy and lonesome, with its relatively lo-fi production and minimalist approach. It’ll be remembered as a ‘lockdown’ album when people want to know what such a thing sounded like.

Mood: 3. It’s mostly sad, but it’s also mostly independent and wise. I don’t think it hits me in the feels enough to get a 4.

Production: 4. Good for what it is, nails the tone of being stuck in a cabin at the edge of the world.

Effort: 4. It sounds like the sort of thing that little others had much input into. If I’m wrong, dock a point.

Relationship: 3. As most of you reading this will know, this isn’t a go to genre of mine, but I know good when I hear it, and I relate to music and lyrics with a little more heft than typical chart bait.

Genre Relation: 4. Happy to go 4 here because I think it will be remembered as an example of a lockdown album, and compared favourably to other releases.

Authenticity: 4. I don’t know much about her, perhaps unusually given the amount of praise and hatred she seems to get, but based on the music, the songs, the lyrics, and her performance, it all feels very personal, like a statement, her observations of life up till this point, with very little pretence.

Personal: 4. One of my favourite albums of this 2020 series, and a great way to close it out.

Miscellaneous: 3. This isn’t the album which she did the big tour and cinema screenings for, right? That wouldn’t make sense.

Total: 76/100.

I think that’s my highest score of the 2020 albums. Now I can move on to something else! Let us know what you think of Folklore in the comments!

Nightman Listens To – Run The Jewels – RTJ4 (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! Now that we skipped a couple of albums (which were actually released in 2019), we’re very close to the end of this series. It’s just this, and two more to go, I believe. Let’s hope they’re good.

I know nothing of Run The Jewels. Don’t know the name, don’t know anything about them, what genre it is, who they are etc. I assume from the album title that this is their fourth album. Perhaps the album artwork will tell me more.

Nope. Pink background, with two bronze/chrome/angular fists making signs. One a gun sign, which has a host of potential meanings, the other a closed fist which too has a myriad of possible meanings. Both can be symbols of violence, both can be ways of saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’. There are too many possibilities and with my knowledge so limited there’s little point in me guessing. With that, it’s time to listen. By the time you get to the next paragraph, I’ll have listened to the thing several times.

Thank fuck. This is a world apart from the other Hip Hop albums which have featured in this 2020 series. I’ve had the same criticisms for those albums – whiny vocals, a reliance on auto-tune, and repetitive lyrics on an extremely limited number of themes. Right off the bat, this improves hugely on both of those aspects, leaving me to simply enjoy the music. I spent no time being annoyed by the shite which annoyed me on those other albums, because no such shite exists here. That’s not to say I don’t have negatives, but it’s an embarrassingly superior experience to Lil Uzi, Lil Baby, and whatever other junk I listened to but have already forgotten. See Hip Hop fans – I do like Hip Hop, just this is the first of the 2020 list which hasn’t been garbage.

The duo get me on their side from the opening moments, Yankee & The Brave punctuated by thudding beats which wouldn’t be out of place on a Metal album. Indeed, there’s a breadth of influence and a wealth of genre from start to finish – A Few Words For The Firing Squad’s manic dinner party jazz offering an insane counterpoint to the rhythm’s stuttering threat. Elsewhere, there are Trap elements, the Blues, and throwbacks to the hip-hop of each of the last four decades. While the interesting guest stars have an impact – from Zach De La Rocha to Josh Homme – the real stars are EL-P and Killer Mike themselves. I can’t say I was familiar with either of them before listening to this, but this album is certainly strong enough to entice me to revisit the duo’s previous three albums as well as their non RTJ work.

Vocally, this is what I want in hip-hop. Solid vocals. Clear vocals. Human vocals. No slurring or drawling or tweaking. It’s not just the tone or the delivery, but the voices are put to good use for the melodies and what the guys are preaching is actually engaging. This isn’t surface sex, crime, and thug life bullshit. These guys have more to say, speaking on the political climate, the state of music, and they find a balance between the heavy stuff and the humour. I may not be a fan of the kid voices in Holy Calamafuck, but Pulling The Pin’s melodies lob a grenade into anything distasteful. There are issues with repetition – that’s part and parcel for the genre – but these are mostly mitigated by the production. There’s always something different going on in one of the many layers. There’s never a verse or a chorus which is exactly the same as the one before, and given the variety of the album along with its brevity, it’s an experience which is never dull or tires.

RTJ4 is easily the best hip-hop album I’ve heard in my 2020 albums travels, and it’ll take some beating.

SCORE

Sales: 3. Decent sales upon release and since. Released for free too. Possibly a 4, but who the fuck knows with this anymore?

Chart: 3. Their first top ten album. Which, assuming their previous albums were as strong as this, is a pretty damning indictment given the shite which regularly tops the charts.

Critical: 4. Lets go with a 4 – it ain’t a 5, but I have a feeling we should give a high score here before we get to the other categories.

Originality: 3. I was very tempted to go with a 4 purely because this is so much better than the other hip-hop albums in the 2020 list, but taking the entire genre and all of music into consideration, I’m not sure I can give it the 4. It’s a solid 3.

Influence: 3. It’s probably a 2, because how many hundreds of albums like this are released every year, but with her being a big artist, future creators are bound to find it and take from it.

Musical Ability: 3. Choice samples, good all around.

Lyrics: 4. Much more my speed. Memorable one liners and more, with a range of topics covered.

Melody: 3. It’s not a genre I expect great melodies from, but there’s plenty of good moments here.

Emotion: 3. Urgent in places, funny in others.

Lastibility: 3. I think it will not last as long as it deserves to. Unless there’s a widespread change in public taste, the masses are going to migrate and stay with much more simple works than this, sadly. The more discerning fan will continue to find it.

Vocals: 4. Aside from the child voices, everything is great.

Coherence: 4. Each song flows into the next. There’s social venom tying it all together.

Mood: 3. Sure.

Production: 4. Good.

Effort: 3. Fine.

Relationship: 3. As most of you reading this will know, this isn’t a go to genre of mine, but I know good when I hear it, and I relate to music and lyrics with a little more heft than typical chart bait.

Genre Relation: 3. Sure.

Authenticity: 4. The guys have been in the business for ages, they know what they’re doing, and the fact that it’s available for free suggests they mean what they preach.

Personal: 4. One of my more pleasant experiences of this whole 2020 business.

Miscellaneous: 3. Good artwork. Introduced me to a new act whose other work I’ll have to track down.

Total: 67/100.

Let us know what you think of RTV4 in the comments!

Nightman Listens To – Roisin Murphy – Roisin Machine (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! To get you up to speed, here’s what I know of Roisin Murphy; She was part of Moloko. I think I saw Moloko live once, but a combination of being drunk/high/not liking them means I can’t honestly remember anything about it. I can only name like two Moloko songs, and I can’t stand either of them. Many moons ago, someone claimed my wife looked like her. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard any of her solo material.

It’s an interesting look they’ve gone for for the cover art – a top shelf lad’s ‘rhythm magazine’ veneer circa late 80s. Is the music going to be all sexy, sleazy, and retro? At least it’s not the sort of artwork you tend to see on an album cover very often. Lets hope the music approaches being this vaguely interesting too. In my now famous words – by the time you get to the next paragraph, I’ll have listened to the thing many times.

The album is sort of sexy, sleazy, and retro but at no time to it give me anything more than a semi; it’s not as interesting as the cover art suggested it may be. Dance music isn’t my thing – certainly not in the long form of an album. Certain songs in the genre are excellent for getting me pumped, but an album rarely does anything unique or exciting enough to hold my interest. Where dance albums often excel is in their production and coherence – Roisin Machine does well in both respects. Where dance albums fall apart is in their repetitive nature and lack of emotional content – Roisin Machine ticks both boxes. In that respect, it’s a perfectly acceptable, perfectly expected dance album.

The album does feature a few songs which are longer than your typical pop standards. I’ll admit this had me curious, but outside of the album highlight Kingdom Of Ends, the songs don’t justify this length. Most run out of steam by the third minute, and most have run out of ideas my the second – we don’t need another four minutes of the same thing. There are moments of creativity which raise it above most chart dance fare – some nods to the idea of a concept album, flirtations with character building, humour, experimentation, and string swells. But it never goes beyond the limited confines of its genre – it needs to be repetitive, monotonous, have a simple beat. All of these may be positives for listeners already into the genre and the artist, but in Roisin’s own words, ‘I want something more’.

Roisin points out in the opening track Simulation, that this is her world, her simulation where she is free to do what she wants and that essentially haters are not part of it and it’s free from all criticism. Nice try, but that’s not how this works. For starters, there’s absolutely no need for the track to be over eight minutes long when there’s about three minutes of material. But, the artist can do what they want. I agree, your own creation is your own world and you can design it as you see fit. But it’s never free from criticism. All of this is very tongue in cheek, of course. She’s simply setting out her stall, from the opening moments and repeated throughout the album, that this is her baby, that she is in control, that she can do what she wants. It’s an idea which isn’t just a motif, it’s a core theme of the album, and one which is built upon, to the point of becoming monotonous. It’s the musical equivalent of that one friend who won’t quit talking about that same topic no-one else is interested in every time you’re together.

I’d have had a lot more fun and interest in the lyrics if they went any further, but they don’t. It’s base feminist stock quotes of the sort you might find framed in a newly divorced woman’s bathroom; that’s great as a place to start, but how is it built upon? There are no off-shoots, there are no other topics of discussion, there are only repeated platitudes. The idea of a simulation opens us up for a world of possibilities, so it’s frustrating that her entire world seems to be a single, blank room.

It’s an album of independence and defiance, and yet it doesn’t feel convincing in the slightest. It feels like someone announcing that they’re the first person to come to some starling revelation but has somehow missed the fact that millions of other people throughout time have gained the same understanding countless times. It’s like the child who celebrates thinking they’ve won when they get to stay up for five more minutes without realising their parents are making them go to bed 10 minutes earlier than usual. It’s like some other illogical and unrelated comparison. It either never feels authentic, or makes me care in any case.

Musically, the album is consistent and is packed with beats and funky moments which are sure to sound good coming out of the car stereo just as much as they’re sure to fill the dancefloor. The atmospheric synths on Something More along with a more nuanced lyric and more interesting vibe ensure it’s a song I’ll come back to, and have already added it to my car playlist. Joining it is the hypnotic Kingdom Of Ends – the first example of the album piecing its tracks together, and another which is happy to build over its six minutes to the point just before it feels like it’s going to go completely off the rails. For me, Dance music works best when it’s either very experimental, when it’s very chilled, when it’s very silly, or when it does go off the rails. It’s no surprise then that my favourite songs on the album meet one of those criteria.

The more traditional, funky moments are weaker than the atmospheric ones, with We Got Together and Jealousy being the exceptions. Album closer Jealousy is nicely frantic, with the beats and bass seemingly trying to outrace each other to the finish line, while We Got Together is a groovy throwback which doesn’t do anything new, but does it all well. Unfortunately, too many of the songs are nothing – Game Changer is only memorable because it’s so irritating, Murphy’s Law offers nothing beyond what any previous songs provide, and Incapable too tuneless to be anything other than forgettable. The few spoken word parts scattered throughout are cringeworthy, and I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy Roisin’s vocals, with their faux-Americana and cheek-chewing tone.

Production wise, I don’t have any issues. The songs blend together well, if not like a Concept album, more like one of those terrible 4 hour DJ Dance sets I was subjected to on Northern Irish Radio stations on a Friday night, circa 2001. The bad news, as we’ve established is that it’s not an album for me. Beyond a few of the more interesting songs which I’ll continue to listen to, it’s one I won’t revisit. The good news is that, it probably is an album for you. I’m usually in the minority when it comes to these things, and my taste is all over the place. It was obviously well-received and people more involved with the genre are sure to get a lot more enjoyment out of it than I did.

SCORE

Sales: 3. Not a smash, not bad. Just fine.

Chart: 3. Her best charting album in some territories, but not exactly a chart-topper all over the place.

Critical: 4. Lets go with a 4 – it ain’t a 5, but I have a feeling we should give a high score here before we get to the other categories.

Originality: 2. Like a few of the other albums I’ve reviewed form 2020, a lot of it feels like a throwback to another time – here it’s a mixture of Disco and 90s club hits.

Influence: 3. It’s probably a 2, because how many hundreds of albums like this are released every year, but with her being a big artist, future creators are bound to find it and take from it.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 2. Not much going for it, too focused on one subject, and too focused on simple platitudes.

Melody: 3. The highlights are good, everything else is average fare.

Emotion: 2. Maybe people can get a 3 out of this, but not me.

Lastibility: 3. A low 3. I believe she has a new album out now, as of 2023, though I may be the only person currently talking about her 2020 release.

Vocals: 2. She can sing, just about, but the tone and sound and style of her vocals is not for me to the extent that they almost ruin the handful of songs I did enjoy.

Coherence: 4. Each song flows into the next. Every lyric talks about the same thing.

Mood: 3. Sure.

Production: 4. Good.

Effort: 3. Fine.

Relationship: 2. Little to me to relate to.

Genre Relation: 3. It sounds like other dance albums, in my incredible expert opinion.

Authenticity: 3. I’ll allow a 3 – I didn’t find it authentic, but I think Roisin believes she is.

Personal: 3. It scrapes a 3 because a couple of the songs are cool.

Miscellaneous: 3. Good artwork. The music made me think of being a teenager, both the good and bad.

Total: 58/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of Roisin Machine!

Nightman Listens To – Pop Smoke – Shoot For The Moon (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! Since starting out on this 2020 journey, a small number of the artists who I had absolutely zero knowledge of at the outset would come to be peripherally known to me by the time I got around to hearing their output. Maybe it was seeing their name in a magazine, on a poster, or someone else recommending them. It’s now 2023 and I still have no clue what Pop Smoke is. Is is a band? A solo artist? Is it indeed pop, or R’n’B, or Rock? I  have no clue. Lets see if the album cover tells me anything.

It seems to be a flower? A rose? A chrome rose, shot in darkness? I suppose it suggests darkness shrouding something beautiful? But if I’m trying to guess the genre of music, it could be anything from Pop to Metal. Ah well, lets just get on with it.

It didn’t take me long to learn about the tragic story of Pop Smoke, or Bashar Jackson. Gunned down at the stupidly young age of 20 it’s another story of a talent taken too soon. I didn’t read too much about the details concerning his life or his death, but this knowledge does inevitably lend a certain context and tone to the album. It’s a Hip Hop album and it isn’t wildly different to the other Hip Hop albums I’ve listened to on this journey, at least to my untrained ears. It stays away from the Sci-Fi music and surface imagery of those albums, instead honing in on a more traditionally modern sound. But lyrically, once again, it’s song after song about violence, sex, and wealth. While Auto-tune rears its inevitable ugly head, there isn’t as much of it on Shoot For The Moon, and the vocals are likely the biggest distinction. Smoke has, for lack of a better term, a smokey voice. It’s deeper, rougher than any of the rappers I’ve heard on the 2020 list. We do get the expected host of guest voices, but none of those sink to the annoying depths of some of the failures from the last few Hip Hop albums I’ve listed to.

With that being said, I struggle to write anything else about the album. I can’t relate to it, and it’s not my kind of music. The Production is excellent and it’s more to my tastes than any of those Lil Whatever The Fuck Is Name Is. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s more of an introspective sounding album, but it’s less of a party album than My Turn or Eternal Atake. It still has clear, defined beats, you can still dance to it, cruise to it, chill to it, but it doesn’t feel like the sort of thing which is filled with room filling bangers. It’s more of an album to slouch in a couch to, drenched in low purple neon lights, while other people dance around you to a completely different song. In that sense, it’s an album I could see myself having on the background without giving it too much attention. My Turn or Eternal Atake I would have to switch off, this could just be there doing its thing without getting on my nerves.

It’s not completely annoyance free – some songs such as 44 Bulldog have a lot of annoying vocal tics and shouts which add nothing. Do it once or twice and it would be cool, but on that particular song these tics are incessant from start to finish and are like an annoying child screaming for attention when you’re trying to record an important Zoom call with a client. Compare that to Gangstas which has its fair share of this bullshit, but it never becomes the focal point and the brooding piano riffs are not harmed by the childish grunting and trilling.

Until Hip Hop becomes less about beats and more about… something more, it’s not something I’m ever going to be able to call myself a fan of. I realise that’s a bit of a ridiculous statement akin to saying ‘until Metal becomes less about loud guitars I won’t be a fan’. But I know Metal is incredibly diverse. I assume Hip Hop is more diverse than what I have heard, but when the focus is on beats then I struggle to care. It’s why I don’t care much for EDM or Dance music in general. I need something more, or at the very least something else. I consider Public Enemy and Eminem as two of my favourite artists because they offer more. Their music is almost never focused on beat, and as such their beats are more potent to me. Shoot For The Moon has plenty of potent moments and a lot of the music is darker and more interesting to me than some of the other albums I’ve heard, but then I remember that the lyrics are still focused on crap I don’t care about that the flow and the smarts of individual lines get lost. As mentioned, if I don’t think about it too much, this is a perfectly average album that I can play for some base ambience, but it’s not anything more.

SCORE

Sales: 4. It has been very successful so far, both in streams and traditional sales.

Chart: 4. I was going to say that I was surprised by how popular this was, given the fact that I didn’t know it existed – but then I remembered I’m both old and do not listen to any kind of chart show/playlist/whatever there is now to tell you what’s popular. Having listened to it, I don’t really understand why it has been so popular versus any other Hip Hop album. I don’t want to attach the whole posthumous thing, but I imagine that had an impact.

Critical: 3. Again, it’s difficult to separate critical thought from the guy’s death, and almost every review speaks of his talent and where he could have gone next. The temptation is always to imagine an improvement, but it’s equally possible he peaked here.

Originality: 2. Not my wheelhouse, but to these untrained ears it doesn’t sound drastically different from a lot of similar music, nor does it seem to be breaking boundaries.

Influence: 3. Too early to say of course, but the fact is that when a young artist dies it does give them a certain mystique which is often more appealing to the listeners and up and comers.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 3. We know it’s going to be about sex and being rich, so what I’m looking for is, at the very least, some funny lines or double entendres about fucking. There’s one or two in there.

Melody: 2. A week after my last listen and I can’t remember a single melody. But there wasn’t anything annoying during my listens.

Emotion: 2. On face value, there isn’t much. Go to 3 or even 4 based on the context surrounding the album.

Lastibility: 3. It’ll last given its success and context.

Vocals: 3. The guest vocals aren’t particularly strong, Smoke himself is much more to my tastes.

Coherence: 3. I may be wrong, but I think this was likely not the final product which Smoke would have wanted, and as such maybe lacks the coherence of what could have been. The context again lends its own retroactive coherence.

Mood: 3. Sure.

Production: 4. Good.

Effort: 3. Fine.

Relationship: 2. Little to me to relate to.

Genre Relation: 4. Sounds by and large like most of the other recent hip hop albums I’ve heard.

Authenticity: 3. I’ll allow a 3.

Personal: 3. This is a very low 3, given the fact that I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I equally can’t say I disliked it. I naturally score high.

Miscellaneous: 3. Again, context pushes this up from maybe a 2.

Total: 60/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of Shoot For The Moon

Nightman Listens To – Punisher – Phoebe Bridges (2020 Series)

Greetings, Glancers! We’re back for another album I’ve never heard by an artist I’ve never heard of. At least that was the case when I first started this journey – but since then I have come to learn the name ‘Phoebe Bridgers’. I still don’t know who she is, what type of music she performs, and as far as I can tell I haven’t heard any of her songs. I do know that she provided dome vocals for the last Perfume Genius album I listened to – does that hint at her own sound?

Does this album artwork provide any additional foreknowledge? It seems to be someone in a skeleton outfit, standing in a stark, moon or desert like surrounding, looking up at the starry night. She looks very tiny. Nice colour contrasts. Does the red signify something is shining back at her? Like a UFO? If so, that’s like at least the third 2020 album artwork which has depicted such things. You know the drill – by the time I write the next paragraph, I’ll have heard the thing a few times.

Man, this is an album I so dearly wanted to love. There is so much to love for someone with my tastes and possibly with more time I would get to that point. However, it’s one of those albums where my feelings could go one of two ways; either I’ll completely fall for it, or the pieces which I don’t currently enjoy will swarm and force me backwards.

My first impression of the first few songs gave me some pause for concern; I was worried it was going to be too twee, too hipster. Like so many modern or recent artists of this introverted, lighter folk style, there is the risk that the entire lack of substance and focus on style (no different from the mainstream pop stars they enjoy mocking), and the pseudo-intellectual naval gazing would turn me off completely. You just know there’s going to be at least one person in the band with a beard and a ridiculous hairdo. These artists tend to follow a particular playing style, and the vocals are almost uniformly tepid. Thankfully, Punisher has a lot of lyrical depth and emotion to make Phoebe stand out from the crowd she may find herself associated with. Her vocals rarely show any dynamics or force or edge, but they are so earnestly fragile that they largely avoid falling into the twee category.

Speaking of the fragility of the vocals leads me to my prime impression of Phoebe, and the album as a whole. Whatever the aural equivalent of a double-take is, is how I reacted when I heard her voice for the first time. She sounds incredibly similar to Gemma Hayes. It’s not just the fragile softness, but it’s the tone, it’s the vocal intonations and inflections, the rasp and whisper. Like Gemma, Phoebe sounds like she’s right there in the room with you, singing directly into your ear and no-one else’s. I went as far as looking into Phoebe’s influences, because it seems impossible for someone to come along and sound this much like a doppelganger without having been influenced, but I couldn’t find anything to say she knows Gemma exists. So either this is all some ridiculous coincidence or there’s some knowing disguising of this emulation. Listen to something like Moon Song from this album, and then listen to something like This Is What You Do by Gemma Hayes. Two very different songs, but two very similar vocals. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if such comparisons are warranted.

Even with the blatant comparison in how the two singers sound, Phoebe has a much more limited style at least on the evidence of this album. Admittedly I haven’t heard anything from her outside of this album and haven’t heard her perform live. Gemma has a much wider range with her vocals, even if she does remain in a similar style or genre for most of her output, and in the live setting Gemma has the ability to truly belt out some of the bigger choruses and giving them greater urgency over the studio recordings. Based again on this album alone, Phoebe has the edge when considering lyrics – these are more involved, more picturesque and cynical and poetic, and often darker than what Gemma does. Gemma is no slouch when it comes to lyrics, but these hit differently. I will add that I love Gemma’s lyrics – she’s one of my all time favourite artists – but Phoebe’s certainly stand out and have a more alluring quality.

Musically, the album did take a while to shine through for me. My initial listens were frustrated by the lack of variety. It’s an album which does take some effort and time for the musical depth and variance to bubble through, but even after many considered listens there remains a sameness to both the music and certainly the vocals. Phoebe has her style and her favoured inflections and melodies, and absolutely will not veer away from them. Breathy and letting notes fall off and drawl away for that lazy, almost incomplete resolution. Even in the more peppy, poppy songs like Kyoto which are one of the few occasions when her vocals are stretched, the same tricks are applied.

I mention this not because the sameness and lack of variety is an issue in itself, but because it results in a lack of melodic potency, which is one of the key characteristics of my enjoyment of any music. You can have as expressive and intelligent and interesting sounds as you want, but if the same melodies are repeated then my enjoyment will be limited. In isolation, many of these songs are strong and their emotion is potent – the title track, Halloween, Garden Song, I See You Chinese Satellite – but when taken on a listen through the entire album, that sameness does drain on me. Possibly it’s the placement of the songs, leaving the melodic highlights of Kyoto and Graceland Too too far apart, but the album feels like it needs another song of that ilk somewhere in the middle to scrape away some of that sameness.

If the melodies feel lacking in places, the lyrics remain a constant source of intrigue and interest. A wide array of topics and emotions are covered, and it’s never less than highly personal to the point of being invasive, and yet easily understood for anyone with a heart. It’s a stark and welcome departure from the majority of the albums I’ve listened to in my 2020 journey and is easily the best of those from a lyrical perspective. It’s often lyrics which have me invested in an artist and keep me coming back to them even if I’m not as enamoured by the music – get both right, even if only semi-consistently, and I’ll be a fan.

It’s an album then that did leave me somewhat frustrated, but that’s on me. I didn’t get what I wanted – sucks to be me. It’s a great album, but the lack of variety in the melodies and the lack of oomph in the vocals does keep me at a distance. As mentioned, I want to love it and I hope that further listens will pull me in further. It’s an album which has the potential to become a favourite, and Phoebe is an artist who could become a favourite. Even if it turns out that I don’t accept the whole album, I’ll certainly retain I Know The End, Graceland Too, and Kyoto in my playlist for their respective haunting, cathartic, beautiful, and joyous qualities.

SCORE

Sales: 3. As far as I can tell, it didn’t set the world on fire. I’m totally open to be corrected on this. It may more likely be a 4, but the lack of information online tells me that it wasn’t a smash.

Chart: 4. Top 10 in the UK, outisde the Billboard Top 40 in the US. Yet it was Top 10 in many of those ‘alternative’ charts and hovered around the Top 40 in other territories. Maybe this one should be 3 and Sales is a 4. Does it matter?

Critical: 4. Maybe gets to a 5, but we’ll let time decide. There’s always some newness bias with the latest critical darling.

Originality: 2. Possibly harsh, but beyond being of a younger generation and speaking about the world through those eyes, there isn’t anything revelatory in her lyrics and the music is similar to many many other artists.

Influence: 3. I think she has the voice and the intelligence to inspire others musically, perhaps more importantly even beyond music, but whether she has the reach to influence the next big thing, I don’t know.

Musical Ability: 3. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Lyrics: 5. Perhaps I’m being overly generous and this is a 4, but considering the complete embarrassment of most of what I read in lyrics these days, at least from the charts and from the 2020 albums I’ve heard, this is head and shoulders above anything else.

Melody: 3. Outside of 4-5 songs, the album recycles the same melodic styles.

Emotion: 4. It’s an open, honest, and dark album. There’s a focus on sadness, worry, anger and regret, but there is also love, joy, and tenderness.

Resilience/Lastibility: 3. It remains to be seen, but as mentioned above there’s always the risk that the latest critical darling can be ascribed an immense amount of hype, attention, and acclaim, only for that to be transferred over to the next new thing the moment critical darling A makes the slightest slip-up. Having said that, this does feel topical and seminal – a product of the Cov-Id times – and as such will be an important historical document in the future to show how people at large felt.

Vocals: 3. She adopts a style a like, and has an enjoyable voice, but doesn’t take it to any extremes or in any other direction.

Coherence: 4. Holds together well, and ties into the next category.

Mood: 4. It’s a mostly downbeat album, and that mood of sleepy darkness clicks in from the evocative instrumental opener, all the way through to the screaming closer. Phoebe manages to pull together darkness from her personal life and create a mood which is reminiscent of the chaos, closed in and closed off nature of the last few years.

Production: 4. Much of the album takes a close to minimalist approach, which suits the overall mood and fragility, but rather than being a quiet album, it instead accentuates the chaos of a mind trapped in a small room.

Effort: 3. A high 3, maybe on another day I’d go with 4 because of the lyrics, but on the musical front I’m not sure it gets a 4.

Relationship: 4. As I always preface this category with a direct comparison to myself – I’m not a white American twenty something woman, but I am a human in the 21st Century who lied through lockdown in a Developed nation. Even without Cov-Id, I can relate to isolation and pain.

Genre Relation: 4. Sounds like a lot of the other twee Indie folk stuff, but not as lily-livered or pretentious.

Authenticity: 4. I’ll allow a 4 here. I don’t doubt the feelings and experiences are authentic, but with this genre in this day and age, there’s so much which is false and so much which is reliant on the fact that the artist is a self-claimed quirk with no other talent beyond the ability to purchase cloths from the local Bohemian joint.

Personal: 4. Over time this could drop to a 3. I don’t think it will get to a 5 because so many of the songs follow the same pattern and tone – patterns and tones which don’t do a lot for me. But the lyrics and vocals and the handful of better songs are enough to warrant a 4, and if a couple of those others go up in my estimation, then a 5 may be within reach.

Miscellaneous: 3. The usual – let me know if there’s anything I should be aware of.

Total: 71/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of Punisher!

Nightman Listens To – Lil Uzi Vert – Eternal Atake (2020 Series)!

Mother-fuh… Just when we thought it was safe to return to the 2020 series after last time’s dismal effort by Lil Baby, we have Lil Uzi Vert. Without hearing a single second of this guy’s music or voice, I’m already thinking it’s going to be crap based on his name alone. But let’s give him the due time and attention we give to everyone in this series, and who knows, surely it can’t be as bad as My Turn was. Right?

Even if it is better, I still anticipate cheap beats, lyrics about money, counting money, spending money, misogyny, coming from the streets, and more autotune. Such is the way with modern Hip Hop. That’s fine, but at least make it good. Does the album art give any more hints about what the music will be like? It looks futuristic, three people (or two people, and one disco-ball headed entity) standing on what appears to be a moon or an asteroid, staring at what appears to be Earth while an old school Space Saucer hovers in the distance. So… a little bit weird? Something Sci Fi or futuristic sounding? Leaving? Distance? Or is it just cool artwork with no meaning? By the time you read the next paragraph, I will have listened to the album multiple times.

It’s a better album than My Turn, lets get that out of the way. It suffers from the same flaws as Lil Baby’s stain – auto-tuned vocals, repetitive lyrics and lyrical themes which barely go beyond sex and money, but it improves in both areas and is significantly stronger in other key aspects. It’s still not very good, and it’s not something I’ll ever listen to again, but at least it’s not as obnoxiously awful.

I’d like to continue with the positives but it seems easier to continue scooping the tripe first. The name – we know how I feel about having ‘Lil’ in your name. Why not just call yourself Uzi Vert? A perfectly good name. The album has 18 tracks – way too many, but as previously discussed that’s what people do these days. The more songs on an album, the more streams it gets. It stifles creativity and encourages repetition. It encourages putting crap on an album which otherwise would have been left aside. But that’s just another example of the album fading as an art form. Although, as a positive, this album does feel like a coherent whole thanks to the production allowing one song to flow into the next and the little skits throughout.

Still, even as none of the songs are over the four minute mark, 18 songs is a lot. There is variety in the music, but not enough to keep from it feeling like a slog in a single sitting. A 14 or 15 song album would have likely given me a more positive outlook – throw out a few of the lesser tracks and you’d have an album I could see myself popping on in the car. I begrudgingly accept that most listeners will not be listening to this in a single sitting though, so this may not be a criticism depending on how you consume music.

The autotune is front and centre and Uzi often sounds like he raps, straining from the back of his throat. Like he’s taking an unending series of Lil Dumps. The breathless delivery is impressive, but when he’s going on one of his faster runs the lyrics often descend into repetition – the same lyric repeated and zero variance in the delivery, no change in tone or emotion. Which suggests he likely said it once in the studio and it was then copied and pasted. It probably sounds better live, if he can even do it live.

It’s unfortunate, because the album is peppered with moments which reveal a stronger voice; the little skits, the moments when he does allow himself to scramble free from the overly produced, digitized vocals which seem to populate the charts these days. Those moments show someone which a flair for humour and performance, but for 90% of the delivery this is blocked. As much as the vocal delivery is held on a leash and any imagination and individuality is dragged down, the lyrics allow this to escape. The humour is mostly juvenile, but I’m a juvenile kind of guy who isn’t averse to the odd chuckle over sexual double or single entendres. I get the impression that the guy wants to make a full blown comedy album, but either lacks the talent and scope to do it, or that he’s too afraid/been advised not to do it. You can be funny without talking about sex and the dude needs to find a way to write about other shit. But maybe this is all his life is – being rich and having sex. Eventually that gets incredibly dull for the listener.

I may not be giving the album enough credit when it comes to musical variety. Every song does have a different hook, whether that be a variance in the beat or a nod to a particular instrumental style. The impression that the album lacks variance comes from a mixture of the repetitive nature of the vocals, the similar lengths of each track, and the similar pacing and structure of each song. This is where the improvements could be made and to truly push the album into B grade territory. There’s good stuff here, but it’s prevented from coming out or restrained by reliance on cliche and marketability. It’s two steps forwards/one and a half steps backwards music while Lil Baby’s was like walking backwards into a volcano. A volcano of shit.

While songs do vary, none of them stand out. I could just as easily pick any of them as a single, or none of them. Each song seems designed to groove to – there’s nothing to chill to, nothing to completely bust out to. The vibe is one note and overall there is no peak, no trough. It cruises along, never going about 20 mph, like one of those chavs who circle beachside towns in their mutant Toyotas, except it doesn’t even have the decency to obnoxiously rev or impatiently overtake an elderly driver. It just rolls slowly along, doing little to draw attention to itself.

With that said, I struggle to recommend any individual songs as highlights, or to even recall which one is which after several listens. There’s the one with the funny bit. There’s the one with the sci-fi stuff. There’s the ones with a choir style backing. There’s the Backstreet Boys one. There’s the one that goes BUHLISSYBUHLISSYBUHLISSYBUHLISSY. There’s positives in how coherent it is, how connected the album is, and how it could be argued as being in the style of a concept album, but there’s negatives in there not being a stand-out and in there simply being too much of it. The greatest positive I can give the album is that at no point did it piss me off, have me skipping songs, or have me punching the stop button due it being crap. Like a certain other recently reviewed album by one of the Lil clan.

SCORE

Sales: 4. We’ll keep it a 4 because it’s so difficult assessing what sales even are these days. It’s platinum in the US, but has done significantly less well everywhere else. Few people outside of the US gave a toss.

Chart: 4. It stayed at the top of the charts for a couple of weeks in the US. It also topped the charts in Australia and Canada.

Critical: 4. Mostly positive, made many end of year lists.

Originality: 3. Not my area of expertise – to me there seems to have been an endless series of rap albums mixing Trap and synth-wave and other shite. But other critics have commented on it breaking new ground, so who am I to argue.

Influence: 3. I guess. It sold lots. Plenty of kids will hear it and dream about being rich and ‘playing with kittens’.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 3. Thematically, there’s a limited range. But stylistically, a fair amount of flair, personality, and humour.

Melody: 3. A solid set of semi-decent hooks and moments, frequently brought down by greater moments of repetition and monotony.

Emotion: 3. I’m being generous with the 3, it’s maybe a 2. But I rate humour highly, so any album which clearly is trying to be funny, and sometimes succeeding, gets an extra half-point from me.

Lastibility: 3. People who like this sort of thing will surely keep listening.

Vocals: 3. They’re fine. Nothing special, sounds like every other person who performs in this style.

Coherence: 3. Holds together nicely with some songs flowing neatly into the next, and the little skits suggesting a running story.

Mood: 3. Fun, stick it on with friends. Not much else.

Production: 4. Very solid, very sci-fi oriented with samples in the same vein. As always, the digital beats never pack enough punch.

Effort: 3. No comment. Except that one.

Relationship: 2. It’s the humour which connects me. Not much else in the lyrics or music I can relate to.

Genre Relation: 4. For better or worse, it sounds like everything else.

Authenticity: 3. Sure. Though at some point all this crap about shagging a thousand women a week and buying Lambos loses its credibility.

Personal: 3. Do I go 2 or 3? It seems odd to say I’ll never listen to an album that I’ve rated a 3 again, but I won’t. It’s a very low 3. I can appreciate it for what it is and understand that others will love it, but within a week of this being posted I doubt I’ll be able to recall a single melody. Still, I mostly enjoyed it while listening.

Miscellaneous: 2. Decent artwork. A double album version was released a week later. Not enough to get a 3.

Total: 63/100

A decent overall score considering what other albums have been getting. Let us know in the comments what you think of Eternal Atake!

Nightman Listens To – Lil Baby – My Turn (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! I now anticipate that my reviews of the best albums of 2020 will be complete around 2030, with me posting roughly two each year. I know I’m slow, it’s just that I like jumping from thing to thing. Which isn’t great for anyone who’s following or anticipating any particular series. Forgiveness, please.

But I have a new one for you today! Some chump who made the decision to call himself ‘Lil Baby’. I can’t fucking stand anyone who puts ‘Lil’ in their name. Who does that? And there’s so many of them. Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s not cute. It’s not clever. It’s not anything beyond a guarantee that I’ll never listen to anything you make and ridicule you without any evidence to support what I’m saying, and I won’t even care.

In spite of the above biased nonsense, I am here today to listen to Lil Baby’s My Turn. As he so shrewdly predicted back when he wrote this album, it is now his turn to be heard and reviewed by me. It goes without any glimmer of hyperbole to say that me posting about him is the single most significant moment of his life thus far, and that everything will be downhill. In many ways he is fortunate to have the opportunity of gaining my attention for the briefest of moments, to have his turn. After all, my time is limited and there’s only so much music I can listen to. He may even gain a new fan.

At the time of writing, I know nothing about him. He may not even be a ‘he’. But I’m assuming he is. And I’m assuming this will be some sort of hip hop album, not a genre I pretend to be educated in. Outside of Public Enemy and Eminem and a bunch of random singles from the last 40 years, I know next to nothing. Maybe he’ll convert me. Maybe I’ll end up making a Youtube React channel – Metal Fan Reacts To Hip Hop – the opposite of all of that junk that’s already out there. Or maybe it’ll be crap and I’ll hate it, which seems more likely. By the time we jump to the next paragraph, I’ll have listened to the album several times.

Before we get into the meat of the album, such as it is, let’s talk about that album artwork. To its credit, it doesn’t exactly scream Hip Hop. It looks like a classic piece of art, a pastoral piece depicting goats (lambs?) frolicking on rocks beside the sea. Except some modern dude has been pasted into the middle of it. Something to do with the old clashing with the new? The streets meeting the country? Escapism? Peace? It’s eye-catching. Good cover. None of what it conveys comes across in the album.

Lyrically, it could be cynically argued that it’s a checklist of Rap cliches, with opener Get Ugly covering all the bases; coming from the hood, being poor, hustling, getting rich, material goods, gold diggers, haters, name-dropping, mocking others for having less, etc. It’s embarrassing when someone who knows as little about the genre as I do could have guessed that each and every one of these would come up – and little else. It’s hard to latch on to or appreciate any themes when it’s all the same shtick we’ve heard a billion times. It’s difficult to care about any of it when every other rapper has been telling the same stories since day 1. There’s nothing new and nothing unique about how it’s written or delivered.

As limited as the range of subject matter is, the delivery is done with pace and skill. The guy seems talented to someone like me with little experience of the genre. It’s unfortunate that the voice, when not buried under auto-tune, is either whining or mumbling. It’s a far cry from the clarity and depth of Chuck D, the satirical vitriol of Eminem, or even the crisp, unavoidable delivery of Ice T, Tupac, or Dre. But those guys are from another era. Maybe this just how we do now.

On the less cynical side, I’m at least aware that Rap lyrics have plenty of poetic techniques which don’t really appear in other genres. I couldn’t tell you what they’re called or how to differentiate from them because when someone tries to explain them to me I usually fade to grey and start thinking about boobs instead. But I know they exist. Trying to read the lyrics off the screen doesn’t work like it does in a rock or pop song. The syntax is all ‘wrong’. Lines rhyme unconventionally, there’s heavy use of slang, possibly personal usage of, abbreviations of, and changes to existing slang, and plenty of what (in my slang) we would call Shleggin. Bitch, I ain’t ’bout to ‘splain that. If that’s what you’re in to, if you enjoy staying in your lane and not being challenged, then this is a perfectly apt and uninspiring effort.

We’re just going to have to live with Auto Tune at this point. I don’t instantly hate it. It’s another way to express yourself. But how is it being used here? Why make the decision to use it? It doesn’t seem like a creative decision. It seems more like following a crowd. It seems like you’re afraid of your own voice, like you don’t believe in your own talent or that you’re admitting your voice is crap, so you need to wrap it in digitized shrouds. How would it sound without Autotune? Prove me wrong. Have the balls to show yourself. I guarantee peope will respect you more for it. Rapping, singing, performing is a talent. Not everyone can do it. It’s exposing. If you’re going to be a performer, then be honest, be real, don’t hide.

Beyond the autotune, the vocals are monotone. Regular glancers will know I thrive on emotion and melody in music. I can tolerate a monotone, emotionless approach to vocals if the surrounding music is powerful, or if the lyrics have something vital to say. The lyrics are the same old shite, so we can check that off the list. The music on the other hand, is good. There are a lot of positives in the musical approach and the production. On a personal level the beats are too prominent. I get that most hip-hop fans will be looking for that beat and rank it higher than I would. As prominent as the beats are, they’re repetitive, feel cheap, and are the weakest part of the overall production.

The underlying music deserves better. It creates a sense of threat and paranoia. That darker vibe created by the faux orchestra does set the album aside from most hip-hop efforts I have heard. The best moments of the album are when the music is allowed to breathe, free of cheap beats, free of mumbling vocals. The vocals and autotune brings things down – autotune has a childish tag attached to it like stink. You can’t maintain threat or quality when you’re being childish. Your attempts at being serious are dismissed.

The whole album is very consistent, in tone, in quality. This has a downside – it’s an hour long. 20 tracks. There’s no need for the album to be this long. There’s a much stronger 12 track album in year. What would you cut? The songs are so interchangeable that it really wouldn’t matter – you wouldn’t lose anything by cutting any songs, and you’d be left with a more manageable, restrained whole. It just keeps going, song by song with little variance outside of a couple of more chilled songs or those with an interesting intro, such as Emotionally Scarred or the backing piano in Sum 2 Prove.

A fairly sorry effort then. We’ve heard it all before, from more talented people, from one hit wonder chart hacks, from the early 80s all the way through to today. It’s a poor reflection of today’s music and audiences if this is ranked as one of the best albums of the year. It’s an album with no surprises, nothing to say, nothing to hear, and little to recommend it. There’s an interesting approach to the music, but it’s clawed back by a litany of cliches and crowd-following platitudes that anything positive is picked clean off the bones.

SCORE

Sales: 4. There’s no escaping the success of the album, going 4 times platinum in the US. It was apparently ‘the most consumed album of 2020’ in the US too, whatever that means. Whether those sales last over time, we’ll see.

Chart: 4. It made to the top of the charts, twice, and stayed in the Top Ten for months. Around the world – less successful.

Critical: 4. Mostly positive, made many end of year lists, but plenty of vocal detractors too.

Originality: 2. I don’t think you can go higher than 3 here. Admittedly, I’m not an expert on the genre and maybe this did change the game. But rating it against other albums I have heard in the genre, it’s noticeably weaker on all accounts. I would give it a 1, but the music kicks it to a 2.

Influence: 2. No idea. I can’t imagine something so bland and unoriginal and similar to everything else would be very influential.

Musical Ability: 3. Sure.

Lyrics: 2. It’s the same crap we’ve heard in any chart friendly Hip Hop album ever.

Melody: 2. Vocally, it’s a 1. Musically, there are a few interesting moments and rhythms, but nothing you’re going to remember.

Emotion: 1. Any emotion is drowned out by the monotone and autotune approach.

Lastibility: 3. People who like this sort of thing will surely keep listening.

Vocals: 2. Not great. Objectively bad. Flow, is that what we call it? That’s fine, but outside of the rhythm of delivery, by any of the vocalists, it’s poor stuff.

Coherence: 3. The album holds together well. I could go 4 here, except there’s a minimum of five songs too many.

Mood: 2. A shorter album and a less monotone approach would have pushed this up. There’s the makings of a solid, ominous mood.

Production: 3. I would have gone 4 if not for the focus on and cheapness of the beats, and the repeated sticky keys noises.

Effort: 3. I’m sure everyone involved tried their lil hearts out.

Relationship: 1. How do I, as a white, 30 something male from Northern Ireland who grew up in a relatively affluent area of a literal warzone and ignored it all by listening to pop, rock, and metal music relate to this? Not at all.

Genre Relation: 4. For better or worse, it sounds like everything else.

Authenticity: 3. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It all sounds wanky to me, but I’m sure he means it.

Personal: 1. One of the worst albums I’ve heard in my 2020 journey so far. Nothing here I’d choose to listen to again.

Miscellaneous: 2. It’s a nice piece of cover artwork.

Total: 51/100

Let us know in the comments what you think of My Turn!

Nightman Listens To – Lady Gaga – Chromatica (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! This could be a biggie Out of all of the pop acts on the 2020 Series list, Gaga is probably the biggest. It’s her or Taylor Swift, right? They’ve both been around for ages and both have a bunch of hits. I can’t actually name a single Taylor Swift song, but I can tell you a few by Gaga. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed any of those songs – Poker Face…. the one from The Oscar…. the one about glory… but they’re fine. She seems like a good vocalist, she has her own visual style, plus she claims to enjoy a bit of Metal. If she had come up when I was a teenager, I probably would have had much stronger words for her one way or the other. But I’m old and I don’t care. Now, it’s all about the music. Does it move me? Does it challenge me? Does it beckon me to stretch these gnarled joints and shuffle them about in a pseudo-rhythmic mockery of dance? I wouldn’t say I have high hopes for this one, but there’s a bit of anticipation around it. I’ve never listened to a Gaga album before, and most of the pop albums from 2020 I’ve listened to have been okay. Pleasant. The odd bop. Nothing on the levels of what I personally love in pop, but not bad. Lets see what Gaga has to say for herself.

I can’t say I’ve paid attention to any of Gaga’s previous album covers, but I do know she’s into fashion and image, and has a defined style. This all seems a little raunchy, a little BDSM, a little cyber-witchy. Lots of spikes and sparkles. Does this imagery bleed into the music, the lyrics, themes, tone, and atmosphere?

Looking down the track-list I don’t recognise a single song, but I’m immediately curious to find out if this is an attempt at a pop concept album. A few of the song names hint at this, but plenty of pop acts over the years have attempted similar things to little or no real effect. Gaga sure has the clout, and hopefully the creativity to give it a shot – to make something more than just another pop album. By the time you read the next paragraph, I will know for sure.

Chromatica is just another pop album, but it’s a very good pop album. It’s brazen in its confidence and displays songwriters at the peak of their craft, and while its aspirations at being a full blown traditional Concept album fall short, it has enough thematic through-lines that we know it’s an album with something to say, an album which is as much a journey of catharsis as it is a batch of dancefloor favourites. I knew nothing about Gaga’s life before this album, beyond that time she wore a meat suit and that time she sang at The Oscars, but having lived in this album’s orbit for some time I feel closer to her know as a human and artist.

Chromatica follows the similar signature moves as many of the other pop albums from 2020 I’ve listened to so far, particularly how it wears its influences on its sleeves. There’s no escaping the comparisons to Madonna, something I understand has plagued Gaga her whole career. There are worse artists to be compared to, but every artist wants to stand on the quality of their own input instead of being labelled a knock-off. There are obvious call backs to Vogue era Madonna, but they are respectful, knowing, and are merely used as a jumping off point to make something new. This is where Chromatica succeeds over those other 2020 throwbacks; this is not a throwback, it’s a forward thinking dance pop album with one stiletto firmly planted in the 90s.

What I was most interested in when I wrote the intro to this post was whether or not this was a Concept album. The answer likely depends on what you think a Concept album should be – is it a series of songs loosely based around the same idea or topic, is it a full narrative with characters, a beginning, and ending? Chromatica is closer to the first definition – there isn’t a set narrative with the lyrics telling a clear story, but the songs and lyrics do still tell the story of Gaga’s journey through pain and out the other side. The musical threads weave a chronology from Disco through synth-pop to the House inspired underground movement of the 90s and the expansion of EDM, but it never loses its focus on melody and fun, even as each of the genres it cribs from often looked towards more experimental ends. It’s not enough to say that musical connective tissue makes a Concept album – after all, all albums without exception have the same connective tissue. A Concept album tends to have recurring motifs – snippets of the same musical notes repeating at different points throughout the album, the tone of the instruments unwavering in their commitment to the album’s atmosphere, and songs often running into one another making it difficult to determine when one ends and the next begins. Chromatica touches on these points in a cursory way – there’s a bit of sound bleeding from track to track but in terms of tone and motif there is little to suggest a wider Concept.

Yet, the album does hold together, conceptually. The three title-track instrumental interludes seemingly break the album into three acts. Musically, they’re not obviously distinct and thematically they chart an uneven, non-linear journey. That journey starts in a place of reflection, uncertainty, and even hope, proceeds to a darker, more angry middle, and concludes in a finale which attempts to reconcile with the past and to heal. Throughout each act there’s a inward search for answers, a self-loathing kink, and some accusations pointed squarely at others, an in each act there’s a clawing defiance that we can all be better, we can overcome and move on.

I would have preferred more variance in the album – most of the songs are upbeat, up-tempo floor fillers and as such early listens feel repetitive with only a handful of songs standing apart. With additional listens and examinations of the lyrics those subtle variances begin to drip out, never becoming a downpour. My early standouts remain my favourites – Fun Tonight and Sine From Above are the GOATs, with a few struggling to get that bronze position. Stupid Love is ridiculously catchy and even with its annoying quirks it nuzzles its way into your brain-meat. Alice is a fun, brief Conceptual opener with well-worn lyrical metaphors worn proudly while Rain On Me brings the always youthful spirit and vocals of Ariana Grande to an already energetic tragic tale.  There isn’t a weak link – from the instrumental linking tracks to the less eventful non-singles, there is always something to enjoy; a thumping beat, a neat vocal, a jarring lyric which opposes the care-free action of the music.

While the lyrics never scratch my personal itch of being raw, personal, and unique, as a whole they present a not-quite defeated heroine punching her way through the soil and back to life. There are recurring references to identity and uncertainty, escape and rescue, freedom and feeling trapped, frustration and death, addiction and honesty. Having not paid any real attention to Gaga’s music or lyrics previously, I can’t say if this is a step up, down, or sideways for her as an artist. Thematically she has a range to write about here, but the next level in her evolution could be to nail the lyrics in a more overt poetic fashion. That’s not necessary by any means, but from my personal standpoint, that’s what increases my connection to an artist.

You’re going to question the necessity of each song in any album that is sixteen tracks long – the three instrumental pieces are brief and bridge the gaps between each section of the album, and justify their position. Neither is the most breath-taking or interesting piece of music, but they’re short and inoffensive. 911 is about as average as the album gets and is skippable outside of the Concept, Plastic Doll is better but forgettable amidst everything else, and Sour Candy is the best of a dull mid album sequence due to it’s interesting structure. Enigma isn’t quite the anthem it wants to be – it’s close, but the chorus doesn’t live up to the hype of the verse and lead in, while Replay fuses any number of genres and hits together to make a solid dance mashup. The final three songs are a stellar conclusion, led by the album’s high mark Sine From Above. I’m not Elton John fan, and I didn’t recognise him until I read that it was him. It’s a furious, euphoric club classic the likes of which you’d expect from Sweden’s hit-makers, hitting the sweet spot of melody and emotion which makes music special. 1000 Doves is sweet and hopeful and feels more like an album closer than the Vogue sequel Babylon. Babylon isn’t exactly a dud closer because of the fun lyrics and antics going on in the production, but it isn’t a floor filling or emotive climax.

As far as my first Gaga experience goes, this was mostly positive. I can see why she’s adored, I can see myself listening to roughly half of the songs regularly in the future, and there’s enough good stuff here to make me curious about the rest of her discography. I’m also curious to see how I score the album in relation to Jessie Ware’s album – both ostensibly pop albums with similar tones.

ALBUM SCORE

Sales: 4. This will likely increase to a 5 over time, but at the moment it’s difficult to determine sales. It seems to be around 1 million worldwide, low when comparing it to A Star Is Born’s 6 million sales.

Chart: 5. As easy a five as you’ll ever get. Number 1 in Australia, Canada, France, Italy, UK, US, and others. Top 5 in most Countries which buy music.

Critical: 4. I feel like I need to be harsh here otherwise most albums in this series will get a 5 by nature of being included in the series. The album didn’t get many Number 1 Best Of The Year picks, but plenty of top 10s. While praise was positive, it wasn’t super gushing.

Originality: 3. You could go 2 here, I don’t think you can go higher than 3. It’s another album taking its cues heavily from previous artists and periods of time. That’s fine, but it doesn’t do anything particularly innovative to bring that time period up to date.

Influence: 3. I imagine anything Gaga does will be influential in the pop landscape – along with some of the other retro-type pop albums of 2020, there seems to be a backwards looking movement. I can’t say whether this individual album will do anything to influence other artists more than any of Gaga’s previous work already has.

Musical Ability: 3. It follows a tried and true approach with little musical variation. Everyone knows what they’re doing.

Lyrics: 3. The album has lyrics. They’re fine. Other may enjoy them more and take the score to a four. It’s certainly not a two, but not personal enough for me to get higher.

Melody: 3. Possibly harsh, but most of the solid melodies miss out on being quite as anthemic or ear-bait as I’d like. I can see plenty going for a 5 here, for me it’s close to a 4.

Emotion: 4. I’m happy to go 4 here. There’s a range of emotion which is often hidden by the music rather than accentuated by it, but those emotions bubble up with further examination.

Lastibility: 4. It’s a solid collection of floor-fillers, good for summer driving and winter clubbing. The singles will likely live on and be recalled in years to come.

Vocals: 3. I’m a little disappointed here, hence the 3. I know Gaga can wail, but there’s not much of that in this album. There are a few nasal moments too, and quite a few instances of one of my biggest pet hates; putting an ‘o’ sound in front of an ‘I’ sound, to make a weird Irish/Cockney ‘oi’ disaster. It’s one of the reasons I could never get invested in certain sections of Punk, with their obnoxious ‘oi oi oi’ chants. Even the otherwise excellent Sine From Above suffers from it.

Coherence: 4. Ignoring the assumption that it’s a Concept album, it holds together well in terms of genre, atmosphere, and tone. Taking the Concept into consideration, its coherence runs deeper, even if there isn’t a pure narrative thread from start to finish.

Mood: 3. Go 4 here if you must, but for me to give a higher score in this category – I need to feel it. Even with the Concept and the emotion involved, this is primarily a dance record and there’s only so much mileage in in Mood I can get out of it.

Production: 5. There modern day pop albums know how to sound good. I don’t know shit about Production, but I couldn’t find any significant faults here.

Effort: 4. Gaga seems to pump out albums very quickly, so she’s driven and still at a personal peak. This takes inherent effort. Add in the push to make this a personal Concept album and you can imagine this took more effort than just another Pop album.

Relationship: 3. The universal personal stuff I can relate to, but more so I can relate to the artist wearing her heart on her sleeve and exposing herself, regardless of the specific details. I don’t think she went personal enough for me to give this a higher score.

Genre Relation: 4. It sounds like a lot of the other pop albums I’ve heard this year, and aside from the obvious improvements in tech, it sounds like the early 90s albums it draws inspiration from.

Authenticity: 4. I see no evidence to doubt its sincerity, either when acknowledging its influences or being open about its emotions.

Personal: 4. It’s a lowish 4. I don’t think I can go three because I enjoyed it more, as a whole, than some of the other albums I’ve given a 3. But because it lacks 1 or 2 more big chorus bangers, it’s a low 4. Still, it’s an enjoyable modern pop album which I can see myself listening to again – that’s something.

Miscellaneous: 4. A rare 4 in this category, because a big all guns blazing tour followed, along with one of those re-release remix albums too.

Total: 74/100

Is this our highest scoring album so far? If so, I wasn’t expecting it to be, but I guess it’s justified. I think it’s maybe a match with Future Nostalgia, which is fairly apt.  Will anything else top this score? There are plenty more albums remaining on my 2020 list, so stick around to be find out! Let us know your thoughts on Chromatica below!

Nightman Listens To Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? (2020 Series)!

Greetings, Glancers! We’re deep into the 2022 Heat Wave and yet we’re far behind in our coverage of the best albums of 2020. I’m giving you this shite for free, don’t complain. If you wanted to give me money to get this stuff out sooner, let me know – I like money.

Jessie Ware. Jessie Who, amirite? I’m almost certainly not right, but I have never heard of this person. She made an album that was deemed one of the best of 2020, so she’s clearly better than me. Yet here we are, with me about to destroy her piece of art. Who knows though, maybe it’ll be good. I don’t know what genre Jessie performs in or what this album is, but I’m going to guess it’s more on the pop side than the heavy side, and so far in this series it has been the pop albums I have responded to more positively. Based on the album name, I’m getting cheesy Swing vibes, but factoring in the side eyed resting grump face of the album cover, maybe this is more sexy. Is there a dominatrix vibe here? That would be marginally more enjoyable than some pseudo Sinatra throwback. All in all, I don’t know what this is, but by the time I type the next sentence I’ll have listened to the album multiple times.

What’s Your Pleasure is a throwback party album, peppered with radio friendly unit shifters and floor fillers. Amidst its highs and lows it cribs from a variety of sources – most noticeably 80s superstars like Madonna and Michael Jackson, but further back to the disco era and the more recent synthwave revivals. For me, this is where the album lacks strength; the lack of a unique voice. Out of all of the pop albums I’ve covered in my 2020 posts so far, this has the least to say. It’s not that it doesn’t say anything – it’s simply that we’ve heard it all before, and not only from the artists who have influenced it.

It’s a glossy release, a polished and warm production which raises even the least adventurous idea to attention craving levels. Jessie can sing, her welcoming vocals straddling the line between sultry and distant. There are less irritating quirks in the songwriting, in the performances, and it respectfully ignores much of the distasteful tones, vocal tics, sampling, and subject matter of today’s chart darlings in favour of nostalgic, light-hearted fun. In essence, as a fan of this sort of 80s pop, it’s something which could have made specifically for me, but that unique magical essence which elevates an everyday pop song to a timeless anthem is missing.

As much as the album lacks a unique voice, it treads too familiar ground from song to song. We’ve heard these songs before, and within the album there isn’t much variety. This enhances the overall product’s cohesiveness, but heightens that sense of boredom, that sense that something is missing. The lack of variance pulls down the best songs more than it pulls up the lesser tracks. As a standalone, Save A Kiss is a flawless pop smash, a gloriously exuberant explosion of freedom and joy. Spotlight feels like a logical later born cousin to the darkly toned sythn beats of Baby Be Mine, and as an opener it gets the dance juices flowing. It’s a minute too long, with an unnecessary extended outro which attempts to undo much of the good work of the preceding few minutes. By the time we reach Soul Control – the album’s fourth track, the play is already running somewhat thin.

Outside of the gleaming quasi modern production, the album’s greatest asset is also it’s Achilles heel. The songs work well as standalones, but in sequence they are a bore. It’s not music to listen to as much as to have in the background – at a party you’d be equally well served having someone stand in the next room and bang the wall rhythmically. In the club setting, or driving in the car with the radio on or a random playlist booming, if any one of these songs were to come on you’d be guaranteed a positive response. It’s good time music which doesn’t require much thought or attention, but expose yourself to more than a couple in a row and their sweetness and lack of emotional or creative sustenance will have your reaching for something more substantial.

What’s Your Pleasure is a question easily answered – I’d prefer listening to the artists who influenced it. In one moment a song is aping Michael Jackson, and in the next it’s reminiscent of the people who have made a career off aping MJ – Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, the guy who did that incredibly annoying Happy song. If you enjoy those people, you’re sure to enjoy this too given that it’s more of the same. The pop nostalgia wagon rolls on, trampling creative new voices under its creaking wheels.

In Your Eyes is one five minute slog too many, a dirge of forgotten synth bass loops which would have been better served popping up in an Amiga game, Step Into My Life is a decent chorus enveloped by melodies we cared about forty years earlier, and Read My Lips could have been lifted from Stranger Things if that show had been written by a Rom Com fan rather than a horror one. The Kill would have made a spirited, atmospheric closer had it been the last track and is perhaps the only song on the album which feels like it could grow in my estimation over time into I’d love.

To repeat myself, and further share that I didn’t have as negative an experience with this as my words may suggest – many of the songs are funky and fun and likely pulsating in the live setting. Even the ones I enjoyed least are inoffensive and no single song is less than C Grade quality. Only Save A Kiss comes close to that precious A Grade, leaving us with an album of Bs and Cs – a perfectly above average student who applied themselves as boldly as they could, but couldn’t quite get out of the shadow of their peers, while seemingly not even knowing how to do that.

ALBUM SCORE

Sales: 3. I’d be tempted to go with a 2 here based on the information I have. It’s certified Silver in the UK – not Gold, not Platinum, and this is where it sold best. But albums don’t really sell any more unless you’re an Adele or Sheehan. 3 is the absolute cap here.

Chart: 3. Similar to Sales, it did well in the UK – not great, but did reach the Top 5. Elsewhere it charted sporadically. If you want to reward it for a decent UK showing, go with a 3, but in terms of Universal performance it is underwhelming.

Critical: 4. If I was more positive with the previous two categories, I’ll drop a point here. You might want to go with a 5, but I’ll stick with 4. Its acclaim was universal and it obviously featured highly on year end lists, but much of this seems like bandwagon hopping consensus.

Originality: 2. It’s yet another throwback pop album. The original era was stronger, and we’ve had stronger throwbacks.

Influence: 2. It didn’t sell anywhere near enough to be influential, and given the lack of anything new it’s little more than the latest in a very long line of disco nostalgia bait.

Musical Ability: 3. Lets keep it right down the middle – what’s there suits the need.

Lyrics: 2. No single lyric stood out during any of my initial listens, so I had to go out to Google for a read along on a subsequent listen. Disco and club hits, at least first time around, are not known for their lyrics or smarts, but typically the modern approaches place more emphasis on the words to offer a twist. It perhaps says a lot that the opening line references words not being enough. It’s an album which makes its point through its music. You’d be hard pressed to find a single line in the entire album which hasn’t been sung by another artist. You’d be hard pressed to find much in the way of insight with such nuggets as ‘if you’re gonna treat me nice you can love me one time’.

Melody: 3. Does the job for the odd floor filler, but there is nothing immediate or anthemic enough to be considered a new classic.

Emotion: 2. Most of the songs are about sex, dancing, or sex after dancing. It’s not entirely hollow and the pervading emotion is one of fun, naughtiness. If you’re into that, increase the score by a point, but there’s precious here for me to care about.

Lastibility: 3. I don’t doubt that the hits on this album will continue to be played and enjoyed for the next few years – at time of writing we’re two years post release. As pop, and the majority of music, is incredibly disposable, this will be replaced by the next thing very quickly.

Vocals: 3. One of the things which most irks me with respect to vocalists these days, is their similarity. Few singers take a risk or attempt to sound different. Each person has their own tone, but most singers will mimic what is popular. Throw in the copycat inflections and accents and we’re left with a huge pool of voices which you cannot differentiate between. I’m being very generous with a 3 here, especially considering the vocals are largely restrained and there are few peaks of volume, force, emotion, and little shades of colour in between.

Coherence: 4. On of the major positives is that the album holds together well. This also means it’s a slog to get through, but it all fits.

Mood: 3. There isn’t much in the way of differing moods; it’s a party album and it does it well.

Production: 5. Top notch work from all involved, warm and glossy to suit the vibe.

Effort: 3. Sure. It’s a bunch of songs which sound like other songs.

Relationship: 2. Songs designed to be danced to as their primary goal are songs not designed for me. It takes something exceptional to get me on my feet. The lyrics hold no interest for me, and even the overall retro fun time vibe which should hit me in the nostalgic feels instead reminds me of music I’d rather listen to.

Genre Relation: 3. It sounds like any number of recent throwbacks – Dua Lipa, Sia, Gaga – but it isn’t as good as any of those.

Authenticity: 3. I’m sure Jessie and her team really meant it. Unfortunately, five similar albums all saying the same thing were probably released the same week. Your authenticity as an artist can only go so far when you’re in an echo chamber.

Personal: 2. I could go a 3 here, but the more I think about it the more disappointed I become. There are great elements here, some fine ideas and momentary hooks, but the end product falls flat. A handful of the standalone songs I’ll gladly listen to in isolation – there are a couple of bangers – but the majority of the album is forgettable retro pop which doesn’t attempt to stand out from the crowd.

Miscellaneous: 3. My standard score for this increasingly meaningless category.

Total: 58/100. A low to average score for an album I can’t see myself listening to again in its entirety. Outside of a couple of songs, this one didn’t do a lot for me, but once again I’m happily in the minority. Let us know your thoughts in What’s Your Pleasure? in the comments!

Nightman Listens To – Bon Jovi – 2020

Greetings, Glancers! This is it. We’re in the future (past… or present) and have caught up to Bon Jovi’s most recent release 2020. I’m listening to this for the first time in 2021, so hopefully I’ll actually post this before the band’s next album comes out. It’s been a journey. I’ll continue to give my thoughts on any new albums the guys do make, and I have the small matter of briefly going through the bands B-Sides and Rarities to come. Before then though, we have to talk about 2020. I don’t know a single thing about it beyond the unusual choice of having the artwork focus solely on Jon. Interesting to cut the rest of the band out. Interesting that he kind of looks like Iggy Pop having swallowed a fly in the middle of a news interview. For possibly the last time then, lets do this.

‘Limitless‘ doesn’t exactly blast out of the speakers, but it’s a clear single. We’re in firm classic Bon Jovi territory with ‘woo-oohs’, and grainy vocals. It lacks the punch of their 80s beasts or the subtlety of their best 90s work, and as such comes across as just another middle of the road BJ song. The production is glossy and lacks the vocal and musical issues of much of the album – though Jon’s voice here still sounds like it’s had too much tinkering. Lyrically, the song, and the album, is all about hanging on, dealing with and overcoming struggles both personal and global, but it’s less on the nose here.

‘Do What You Can’ is the first of several heavily patriotic songs on the album. Not necessarily patriotic in the ‘God Bless The USA (and her guns)’ sense, but more in the universal, humanist way. It’s a message of togetherness in the midst of the pandemic and the lyric ‘when you can’t do what you do, do what you can’ just about works. The other mentions of PPE, social distancing, and other Pandemic speak already sound dated and out of place in a bouncy pop song. It’s cheery and hopeful and fans will lap it up, but it’s too far into cheese territory to convert anyone else.

‘American Reckoning‘ deals with the many protests which have spread across the US in recent years – racial hatred, gun attacks, the abuse of power by those who are supposed to protect the innocent. It’s certainly touching and sweet, it would have been provocative if it came from an artist with more mass popularity than Bon Jovi have now, and the lyrics work well. But Jon’s voice is all over the place – at best he sounds like he’s singing while eating, and this warbling does lessen the impact and enjoyment of the song. The main guitar melody is very similar to that bit at the end of Every Breath You Take. 

‘Beautiful Drug‘ continues a decent run of easy, relaxed hits. The lyrics once again have the subtlety of a pig on a spit at a Vegan convention, but the ‘ooh ooh’ hooks should be enough to please the existing fans. It’s not quite a carbon copy of Limitless, but it feels like more of the same.

‘Story Of Love‘ is very sweet. Saccharine. It’s a song about family, love for sons and daughters, but it’s ooh so sickly. I’m sure he means it, but the Cliff Richard Mistletoe & Wine swaying and swooning rhythms, the strings and piano, they’re all too contrived to tug at the heartstrings. I’m sure the mums who were kids in the 80s when Jon was on their bedroom walls will be in floods of tears, but it tips over from genuine sentiment into cutesy bunnies and baby cuddles. The lyrics are actually poignant and well constructed.

‘Let It Rain’ is good old fashioned blue collar American defiance of the Springsteen/Jovi/bring it on we can do this style. It just lacks a bit of oomph to be considered one of their stronger anthems. Had this been written in the 80s, there would have been thicker guitars, a more prominent solo, and more focus swarming around the chorus, but melodically it’s one of the most memorable songs on the album.

‘Lower The Flag‘ is probably the emotional centrepiece of the album. While it’s far from the first song about gun violence in the US, it’s maybe one of the most significant to come from a band who probably have a large Conservative audience. That’s somewhat of a sweeping, problematic statement – many Democratic Party voters have firearms and many Conservatives would be in favour of greater gun controls, and Bon Jovi have a widespread fanbase across the nation and the world. But, a big 80s Rock band hitting their peak during the Reagan administration, a band who has never been obviously political but is very patriotic, it’s not a stretch to say a large whack of their US listeners lean Right. The song isn’t pushing a narrative or any opinion beyond ‘Jesus, there has been ANOTHER mass shooting, what the hell are we going to do about this?’. The lyrics are among Jon’s best, listing any number of towns which have been attacked, and pointing fingers at (essentially) everyone and the triviality of it, the routine of it; there’s a shooting, people die, others offer meaningless thoughts and prayers, some protest, the media makes it a talking point until the next shooting takes place and the cycle starts anew. Musically it does the job – somewhat sombre, not depressing or beating us over the head with sentiment. Good song, better lyric, though when nothing changed after Sandyhook, when all those wonderful children were killed, the US admitted it didn’t give a fuck and the rest of the world shook our heads in shame.

‘Blood In The Water’ is a suitably downbeat follow up, almost like that shame has seeped in and all that is left is a sorrowful man walking a hollow road. It feels like a song which could have fit on These Days, just that little touch of Cowboy, that sprinkling of class which dragged the band into a more mature period from their 80s Party days. The guitar and overall vibe is very Dry County, and I can only assume it was intentional but the intro synth and guitar and atmosphere is very similar to Dire Strait’s Brothers In Arms which, oh look, happens to be the name of the next track. Lyrically we’re on topic again with all of the media mass manipulation being equated to Satan. Sure, I get it, but at least we know one of those things exists, and is not some hoof-clad furry trident poker.

‘Brothers In Arms‘ has little or nothing in common with the aforementioned Dire Straits song – instead this is more like a shit-kicking rocker which they filled their early albums with, except with a slower pace and a more interesting collection of melodies. The chorus comes close to being a copy paste of Sleep When I’m Dead. It gets the band pumping again after a couple of darker songs – another likely fan-pleaser, but a solid, by the numbers song for the rest of us.

‘Unbroken‘ closes the album, another statement song, this time tackling the kids drafted into the military by choice or by ‘choice’. Another decade, another war in a foreign country, another generation of kids wiped out or jaded by its government’s ill-informed choices, another group led by a lie and uncovering truth and the aftermath of that truth. War, guys… war is not patriotic, war is not a thing to put on your CV, war is not a badge of honour, war is bodies, grief, horror, and stepping stone to a life of regret if you’re lucky enough to avoid an early grave. The song is a dedication to those kids, the ones who made it, the ones who did it, and while it does feel rousing and patriotic, and could be misread by any number of listeners, it’s still a poignant and thought-provoking way to close the album.

Bon Jovi have become a little more political (for lack of a better term) in their recent output, which could be nothing more than a by product of getting older and seeing the state of the world they’re passing on to the kids, or it could be a by product of the various cultural events which have struck the country and the world since 2001. This album is the most overt example, tackling global and localised hatred, US politics, the military, gun violence, climate change, the pandemic etc etc. Some of the early songs feel rushed and lack the lyrical nuance of the later tracks – it’s largely in the second half where we’re reminded the band has the ability to pen something meaningful which isn’t a silly love song. The album’s strength lies in those subtle moments, turning back the clock to a time when they could craft a slower, powerful song, while the more upbeat tracks are serviceable, probably work well in front of a crowd, but won’t be a substitute for their hits. Will this be the final Bon Jovi album? I think not, but for now we’re all caught up, beyond checking out their rarities. What did you think of 2020 – let us know in the comments!