Sean Sharp's Diary

The production here is off the charts. For someone who was constantly deemed ahead of the curve with pop in the late 2010's, this album seemed to finally be when the popularity caught up with the style. Oddly enough, I think several songs on here work more as reloaded versions of 2010's EDM pop. "360" and "Von dutch", perhaps the two most well known songs, sound great but I don't think they necessarily embody what built the craze over the years prior. Ironically, the ohmage to a decade old style just with refreshing production makes it so good. There are a lot of songs on here that have a heavily amount of variety with each song and are surely what people deemed "the future of pop" too. "365" features some crazy switch ups that is respectable from any dance fan. A lot of the choruses also are fun and catchy. Truthfully, this thing wasn't entirely for me. I was not the target audience and even though I try to appreciate music regardless of my personal tastes... that's how music reviewing goes. I'm here reviewing what I like and don't like and some of the lyrical matter didn't hit that deep for me. Some of the choruses were a bit repetitive and some of the production does go a little over the top at times. I can certainly appreciate that she created something within the zeitgeist that critics and fans adore, but I am outside of those bubbles.

Where to even begin with this. Many cool moments and many head-scratching ones as well. I haven't listened to a Don Toliver project since "Life of a DON". I saw "OCTANE" getting a lot of talk and streams, at least more than usual for rappers in the mainstream right now, and thought this might be something unique and different. It is certainly not some visionary album with the instrumentals operating almost purely under an electronic header. It feels very inspired by the 2010's but definitely has some more updated sound design. A lot of the drums don't feel any different than what has been dominating rap for the last 5-10 years now. I was hoping for a bit more on that front, considering how some of the synth and vocal usage is more refreshing. The songs that really highlight the great vocal usage are "Secondhand", "Body", "Long Way To Calabasas" and "TMU". "Secondhand" and "TMU" in particular feature an unlisted vocalist that has immense amounts of vocal processing slathered over it and the nature in which it is presented feels like a futuristic sample. I personally love stuff like this and think this is something that has been around for a while but is underutilized in a lot of pop and hip-hop while being heavily used in EDM. The thing is, I think the more stripped-back backing actually does more favors for this type of vocal usage and should be used more in "radio-friendly" genres like hip-hop. The downside with these few tracks is that the vocals are used scarcely. Only at the beginning and end of the songs which is quite frustrating considering how good they would sound as choruses. Meanwhile on the other side of things, the production with synths and SFX are crisp on "Body", "All The Signs", "K9" and "Pleasure's Mine". "Body" is the prime hit ready song here and knows it with one of the only songs with innovative drums and production, all combined with the Timberlake sample. It does it's job too, it's hard-hitting and fun. Meanwhile, "All The Signs" and "Pleasure's Mine" feature heavily edited vocal chops. "All The Signs" is does this so effectively it reminds me a bit of a grittier Porter Robinson. Similarly as the issue I had in the last paragraph, I don't think it is utilized to it's full potential in "All The Signs". "Pleasure's Mine" is better at this as a whole but the neat use of those vocal chops can be used as a main attraction in the song but fades away not to return much until the end in "All The Signs". Irritating. This album is practically musical edging. Then there are the major downsides to this thing. "Excavator", "Gemstone", and "OPPOSITE" are just a drag to get through. By far and away the worst three tracks here and this album would be much better served with them never included in the first place. The closer just downright makes me laugh due to the extrapolation of "Sweet Home Alabama". The choruses are also pretty non-existent. Like they are there, but they just are not memorable in the slightest even on the best songs. Circling back to those vocals that should have been used as choruses, I think the most frustrating part was that this album went for something I am often a big supporter of: evolution. Many songs try to change as they progress but some of them lose what makes them interesting in favor of my traditional boring trap production or beats.

Nearly a decade late to the party, but glad I made it eventually. I recently ran into "Moving On" and like I do with most artists that I find a song I like, I dive into the album it derives from. While "Moving On" is the highlight, the general vibe of this thing is pretty in line with the style of the time in 2016 with heavy synths and party beats. Portions show signs of fun guitars, but overall, this is about as 2016 as 2016 EDM/pop gets. That's not a dig necessarily as I loved music during this period. I found it fun and it's a part of my youth so even if it isn't seen as refined by a lot of harsh critics, I still love it. However, the genre is very much a sign of it's time. The nostalgia has it's allure and the songs from that time I did listen too, still hit hard. Anything else that I dodged from then that I finally find now, doesn't scratch that itch. Roosevelt included. The self-titled album still is on the "good" side of things so to speak. It's pretty face value and the vocals are well paired for the energy it portrays. The synths are straight out of a pre-loaded synthesizer but the highlights that Roosevelt's achieves come from a more musical sense. Tension. Complimentary sounds. Track evolution. This kind of thing. It doesn't always rely on "wow cool sound" to carry it's weight. "Wait Up" is the other track that stood out to me a bit more than the rest and it's not much to note but I found it catchier than most of the others. He has a handful of other albums to listen to and I hopefully will get around to at least one of them but I'm curious to see how he keeps his sound updated as I speed through the years.

This album has me torn. While it seems that the general consensus on YUNGBLUD is improving with each album he releases, I am struggling to find that same mentality. At the time when his debut dropped, I thought it was pretty solid. Now that I've aged a bit, I do find it pretty juvenile and several things I used to like I no longer do with it's concept or execution, yet I can still appreciate it for how I used to like it. Then came "weird!" which I absolutely love even to this day. While a lot of the same scatterbrained production and vocals are there like his first, I found it to be an improved upon version of his debut and it really scratched an itch for me. Since then, his self-titled effort left me with not much to say. I found it to be his most boring project. Finally, we have arrived at "Idols" which shows some serious appraisal to his inspiration. This album in particular really focuses on the legends of rock and integrates parts of what built not just brit-rock but rock as a whole. "Hello Heaven, Hello" and "Ghosts" are presented in these longform, evolving rock ballads that are a testament to what traditional "good" classic rock is. I personally struggle with these even though I love certain parts of them, even more so than all the other songs besides the few I will mention later. I want to listen to these songs and I think they work well on the album so the project definitely gets some positive reputation on my end for this but just how I listen to music on a day to day basis means I will never listen to them. Only within the setting of the whole album, but when an album doesn't reach a certain level of quality, I don't want to listen to the whole thing, so I just never end up listening to songs like those again. Bit of a conundrum. A hefty amount of the tracks on here are pretty standard rock just with YUNGBLUD's distinctive voice. I find these all quite boring. Nothing too good, nothing too bad. The two tracks that I found to stand out a bit more were "Monday Murder" and "War" and both share a similar thing. They delve deeper into that symphonic element that is used at times. I think YUNGBLUD's voice pairs well with it, which is odd considering how unpolished some of his vocals are next to these instrumentals. I get this was an ohmage to a larger scaled version of rock than just that style, but it's got me feigning for more.

So he disappears for 7 years, drops an EP with a complete tone switch, but it's pretty quality, then returns 6 months later with a new EP and a new tone switch. This one keeps it short and sweet, only featuring 4 songs this time around. "UP" was oddly the first track he released after his hiatus last year, even before "SHARK", and I absolutely loved it, finding it odd that the song and its style were not found anywhere on "SHARK". For whatever reason, he delayed "UP" from appearing on "SHARK" and instead it shows up here, and it is much more fitting in all fairness. While "SHARK" embodied a darker synth experience, "GRACE" plays as its counterpart. "GRACE", the song, is quality. A fantastic use of vocal mixing and ambience in the glittery synths. Reaper has almost nailed down the art of slow-moving production. He finds ways to keep the music interesting while maintaining certain chords or noises for a good length of time, and "GRACE", the song, is a great example of this. The middle two tracks, "HEAVEN" and "LIBERATION," do falter slightly, not matching the same quality as the opener and closer. They suffer a bit from not capitalizing on the same strengths as the other songs do. The slow production I mentioned earlier hinders these a bit. It's not like they are unlistenable, but a bit more time in the oven, and I think these could have at least neared the quality of the others. I hope Reaper sticks around and continues doing whatever he's doing. It seems every time he releases something, it's pretty different, but I am consistently a fan. While I wish this could have been a song or two longer and a few tweaks to keep the interest in a few songs, I'm still satisfied with the EP, especially considering how close together he released this to his previous outing.