.
WHAT IS UP FREAK NATION !!!!
its been a good half month into january, and more importantly 2023! i haven't really been listening to a whole lot until this past week. i'm excited to get into this post so im gonna go straight into the stuff i've heard in 2023!
1st thing i heard this year:
Come In, Weatherday.
i listened to this album on the first of january with my boyfriend, he had already heard it and wanted to show it to me. it's high rating and popularity made me think that it was going to be some technical masterpiece, though i don't really think thats the case.
Come In is a very cute album that gives me the homemade vibes, which is exactly the case, though i couldn't find anywhere the artist's age i can only assume they're close to my age which inspired me. seems like im not the only one making music for fun, and you can definitely tell this came from a place of passion, but i did find a lot of the tracks to be largely forgettable. that might be solved with a few more relistens though its not high on my list to come back to unfortunately. the positives i do have to say about this are very high though, as the guitar tones, and the production in general is incredibly creative, and 13 minute long
My Sputnik Sweetheart is an amazing song that definitely deserves a listen.
2nd thing i heard this year:
鏡中鏡 Mirror in Mirror, Skip Skip Ben Ben
only took two listens to get to girlboss rock... on january 2nd i stumbled on this album, a noise pop album from taiwan? and they can let it rock? i just had to merge without looking... in all seriousness this is an album i respect a lot, inspired by the more jangly vibe of 90s american pop music but with the guitar tones of a late 2000s shoegaze band it creates a vibe that is familiar in an unfamiliar way. the lazy vocals, the constant use of the crash, the heavy bass, and the roaring guitars lower in the mix all accompanied by bubbly cheery piano licks come together to make this incredibly creative atmosphere of jumpy, repetitive, and strangely catchy songs that oddly enough unironically make me want to merge without looking. hair in the wind, fuck it! girlboss rock.
3rd thing i heard this year:
Rodeo, Travis Scott
okay so there's this guy named ancient right, and he made me listen to this album with him. he had already shown me
90210 off this release, and i thoroughly enjoyed it, so i thought it might be fun to get out of my comfort zone, and listen to this record, and i'm very very glad i did. this album feels like being trapped in a night club at 3 am. its hard for me to share my thoughts on this album because of how much of a blur it was, in a really good way! every beat is incredibly atmospheric and each song flows well into the next. certain songs like
90210, and
3500 have such unique structure for a trap album. on top of all this the album feels incredibly personal while still maintaining that larger than life feeling. unfortunately i don't think he'll ever top it, which sucks but what can you really do, its still an amazing album.
4th thing i heard this year:
How I Spent My Summer Vacation, Truck Stop Love
no. no. no. no. no. no. no. this album is horrible. its just grading, and boring 90s grunge with a strange southern country music vibe to it, and i hate it. there is only one good song on this album and its the incredibly cute midwest emo sounding
Other Stars, the rest is horrible do not listen. i dont want to talk about this anymore and i wont its my thread i do what i want.
5th thing i heard this year:
OK, Blue Smiley
blue smiley. this is another kindof boring one unfortunately, but fear not! there are significantly more good songs on this project to talk about than the last one, being 3. my favorite being the incredibly catchy and adorable:
flower, with its fuzzy tone, and very catchy lazy vocals i knew i had to wait to listen to the whole album to hear it in full with my boyfriend. the tones on the whole album are really good though in the latter half the songwriting gets pretty boring, and uninteresting. an incredibly short project only being 18 minutes long, with the longest song being 2 minutes and 50 seconds. i guess it wasn't that big of a waste of my time? the other two songs i enjoyed off this project were
demon, and
warn. so if you wanna hear some incredibly short shoegaze tracks go check those out. otherwise this is an incredibly disappointing little album.
the 6th thing i heard this year:
Floating Coffin, Thee Oh Sees
i'm jumping. i'm jumping up and down. this is an incredibly fun noise rock, psychedelic, fuzzy album that put me in a trance the first time i heard it. the personality on this is nearly unrivaled in the modern psychedelic scene. the production on this album is absolutely gigantic,
toe cutter - thumb buster sounds huge, an amazing tone i haven't heard anywhere else. combined with the unique vocals from
john dwyer makes this truly a one of a kind thing, at least for this band as they have quite a few albums. i'm excited to dig more into their discography. oh, also i should mention that my boyfriend also showed me this album.
the 7th thing i heard this year:
In the Club, T-Dub
no one alive can describe the magic of this ep, go listen to it right now. this is also my 600th rating on RYM.
the 8th thing i heard this year:
Dreamglow, Asian Glow & Sonhos Tomam Conta
this is an album i was incredibly excited to listen to, as i've been a fan of
sonhos tomam conta for a long time. when i found out it was gonna be a blackgaze album i was like this:
the black metal vocals from
sonhos tomam conta combined with
asian glow's incredibly catchy singing over a beautifully confusing array of echoing guitars, and synths. i was very delightfully surprised to hear
asian glow do some screaming vocals on this album, they're incredibly passionate, and add to the incredibly dense sludge of hypnotic blackgaze. being one of my personal favorite genres i have to say that this is the best album from the genre i've heard since 2020's
black line by
respire. if you're unfamiliar with the genre go listen to
hangthemall on this project its an amazing song. this is also my album of the year so far! being the only album i've heard from 2023, though despite being there by default i don't think it will be going anywhere soon.
the 9th thing i listened to this year:
Astroworld, Travis Scott
if your name is ancient i advice you do not read this part.
astroworld is the most disappointed i have ever been listening to an album. after the very coherent work of art:
rodeo i was expecting big things from
travis scott on this one. unfortunately this album is nothing compared to
rodeo. the cohesion is completely gone, the personality is gone, the personal attachment is gone, and i'm mad about it! this doesn't feel like a complete project it feels like a grab bag of random songs he had laying around. i have more songs i took away from this album than i did from
rodeo but thats absolutely not a compliment, for
rodeo i was so absorbed in the quality of the project as a whole as an art piece it was incredibly difficult for me to take moments from it, as for
astroworld i was praying after every track for something of quality. not one of my highlights from this album is anywhere near my least favorite track on
rodeo, i think i'd rather listen to
how i spent my summer vacation. its all incredibly safe, lifeless, corporate, and bland. on multiple occasions i thought i recognized a song only for it to just be different boring radio filler song that i was thinking of. there are 2 things i can say good about this album. the
dj screw homage is amazing, and that song is really really good, and the
beastie boys sample in the beat of
carousel was really cool to hear, the song itself is okay. this was agonizing to sit through and i'm surprised i gave it a 2.5 because looking back at even the songs that stuck out to me is giving me pain.
the 10th thing i heard this year:
Delaware, Drop Nineteens
this is an incredibly lame way to end this section of my post, but this album is very boring. its a shoegaze album from the early 90s so it was a toss up going into it. i've been listening to the song
kick the tragedy on this album for a few years, and finally thought it was time to listen to it. don't make my mistake just listen to
kick the tragedy in ignorant bliss its an amazing song definitely in my top 5 for the entire genre easily. awesome cover also its a shame it SUCKS!!
-----------------------------------------
RATING & RANKING ALL OF THE ALBUMS I'VE HEARD SO FAR
1. Dreamglow(4/5) rym rating: 3.35.
2. Floating Coffin (4/5) rym rating: 3.53.
3. Rodeo (4/5) rym rating: 3.81, and bolded.
4. In the Club(4/5) rym rating: 3.58.
5. 鏡中鏡 Mirror in Mirror (3.5/5) rym rating: 3.46.
6. Come In (3.5/5) rym rating: 3.71, and bolded.
7. OK(3/5) rym rating: 3.40.
8. Deleware (3/5) rym rating: 3.39.
9. How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2/5) rym rating: 3.23.
10.Astroworld (1.5/5) rym rating: 3.36.
UPDATED TOPSTER JANUARY 15TH 2023
EVERYTHING CURRENTLY ON MY RADAR:
frank ocean: nostalgia, ultra & blonde. (contemporary rnb)
unmanned ship: no more digital blood. (noise rock)
stevie wonder: songs in the key of life (soul)
japan: gentlemen take polaroids (art pop)
dabu: dwarf fortress original soundtrack (dark folk)
sadness & a rose dying in the rain: daydream flowers (blackgaze)
공중도둑: 무너지기 (neo-psychadelia)
lightning bolt: wonderful rainbow & hypermagic mountain (noise rock)
freestyle fellowship: innercity griots (west coast hip hop)
ask my bull: creature (prog rock)
QUICK UPDATE ON MY MUSIC
i released this little song that i made during the week before my album released, it was fun to make! thats all i have to say abt this really lol.
-----------------------------------------
this post took me 2 hours to make so if u give a shit abt music in the slightest i'd appreciate if u checked some of this out or come talk to me about this it'd make my day. k i'm gonna go do something else with my time now take care everyone!
Last edited by Nurse; Jan 16, 2023 at 01:38 AM.