28th July 2024

ZUTOMAYO - Hisohiso Banashi
J-Pop, Yakousei, Japanese, 2019


(Link to the rest of the album)

So I was originally planning to cover something else today, but I wasn't too sure if what I wanted to talk about was appropriate so I DMed some mods but they haven't gotten back to me soo...

Uhh ZUTOMAYO is pretty epic yeah hottest osu player take ik

I think out of all the albums I've listened in this thread so far this is probably the one that has the most history for me. I remember my interest in music properly started with anime OPs and EDs. I'd have a playlist of all the OPs from anime that I'd watch in a youtube playlist and I'd just listen to them on shuffle. FMAB OPs, Code Geass OP 1, OPM OP, AoT OPs, all that good stuff. At some point I started playing around with spotify, and while I was making a playlist I ended up checking out the songs that spotify suggested to add to the playlist. I remember, very specifically, that one of these songs was Kansaete Kuyashiiwa by ZUTOMAYO. I wasn't too impressed with the song at first, until I clicked on their page and had a listen to two songs. Byoushinwo Kamu and STUDY ME. Those two songs solidified ZUTOMAYO as my favourite artist until I eventually found Lamp sometime later, at the time when I was properly starting to branch out of anime OPs and starting to explore other music. Back then, it was ZUTOMAYO, YOASOBI, Yorushika and Polkadot Stingray, the big four for me. And ZUTOMAYO was my favourite. Like this album, Hisohiso banashi, was probably the first full album I listened to, as well as my favourite album (again until I discovered Lamp). And revisiting this album now was really a blast from the past.

Throughout the first four songs, this album was a straight 10/10. Absolute banger after absolute banger, with chaotic, fast paced, maximised instrumentals. It felt like listening to Unhappy Refrain all over again, with a similar style and energy. This honestly surprised me, had my tastes not changed in five years? Was this straight up just the most banger album ever made?




Uh I'm tired I'll finish this later bye

8/10

3rd August 2024

Braden Ross - Digilogue
Glitch Pop, American, 2023


(Link to the rest of the album. Also link to the spotify playlist because Kolon Dee suggested me to listen on spotify, presumably because it makes the cuts between the songs seem less jarring than on youtube, but idk I didn't listen to it on youtube)

Yeah it's been a few days but I'm back

Acroba you know that guy

Yeah this gave me the overwhelming impression of Acroba, like this sounds like something he'd make if he started to fuse his music with dariacore (there's probably a better genre to refer to but idk anything about hyperpop pls help).

Another thing was that because of the aesthetic and subject matter especially in the first three tracks, this felt like the most 2023 album ever.

It felt like Braden was trying to do something narratively but honestly idk exactly what, this doesn't seem popular enough for people to come out with their takes where I can easily access them, and the album itself didn't feel very clear.

Honestly for me this album is carried by it's interesting instrumentation/arrangement, like uhhh it was kinda epic idk what to say

Also why does this so listened to on spotify while having no presence anywhere else like wtf, millions of plays on spotify but only thousands on Youtube to 160k on the most viewed video, and google searching makes it seem very unknown. Very weird. He did mention making tiktok songs or something, maybe this is the tiktok song effect?

7/10

5rd August 2024

Lamp - Genso
Shibuya-Kei, Japanese, 2008


(Link to the rest of the album)

It's nice to just say I really like Lamp and give an 8/10 rating without writing 1000 words

8/10

25th August 2024

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
Industrial Rock, American, 2007


(Link to the rest of the album)

Hi

Thread not dead this time hopefully

So yeah I took a break from listening to an album a day (and OT as a whole) for a while. Not because I was busy or anything, but because I kinda fell off the wagon, and once I fall off it's really hard for me to get back to doing what I was doing before. But I managed to jump on again so here I am.

I don't want to get super introspective about how my brain works in this thread, this is something I've been tackling and I will continue to tackle as I keep living my life. So instead I'll get back on topic and say that yeah this album was epic.

(The reason I skipped Company was because I didn't feel like sitting through an entire 2 hour musical with a story and everything when I was trying to get back into this thread (although this album did end up being like that lol). I'll get to Company later.)

When I first started this album I wasn't really into it. I hadn't been listening to music for a while, and this style of music is not entirely my cup of tea. The dark synth instrumentals and overall vibe were really reminiscent of Massive Attack (I guess this is the stuff that Karmine is really into (hi Karmine)), but unlike Mezzanine it wasn't as super epic and atmospheric and it was sounds that I'd heard before so they didn't really grab me like Mezzanine did.

There was also the fact that I was kinda preoccupied with my listening device situation. The mystery earphones I had been using for years broke a few days ago, so I've been using the default Samsung ones that come with a phone. The thing is these sound noticeably shittier, so I was grappling with the idea that all the music I'd listen to these would sound shitty. I considered starting this thread when I got better headphones and I looked into the equipment that xch00f suggested a while back, but 400 USD feels like a hella pricetag just to listen to some music, and why should I get a seperate DAC, can't I just plug in my headphones into my computer, does it really make much of a difference? and like I'm just listening to everything on Youtube which I have no idea is good quality or not so would this high end equipment really benefit my listening situation? I figured it wasn't really worth it when I was this unsure of everything. I did find another pair of headphones though. They sounded about the same in terms of quality as the Samsung ones, but the sound felt "fuller", I'm guessing because these were over-ears so the base was a lot more powerful, like if you push your in-ear headphones deep into your ears.

Back to the actual album, even though I wasn't really feeling it at the start, I got really into it at around Capital G. This was also when I started reading along with the lyrics through random youtube comments that had them posted. And when I started getting into it this album became amazing. It felt like such an intense experience jamming along to all these industrial sounds. Reading the lyrics also made me realise that they were actually really interesting. And although I wasn't sure if there was a story or anything beyond themes of "America bad" and "Christianity bad", the track
The Great Destroyer and the following tracks convinced me there was something happening.

The Great Destroyer felt like some sort of peak in the story, specifically the part when he went "I am the great destroyer" and proceeded to destroy things I presume, that part was crazy. I'm guessing there's a narrative reason for this peak, but from a more emotional standpoint it felt like this was some huge outlet of all the anger of the previous tracks, anger from being critical at things, and the anger from the music as well. The music just sounds angry and intense in general, and it was like 40 minutes of this continuous anger and intensity was washed away by this track.

Another Version was the first time this album wasn't angry and intense, like the destruction and intensity lead to catharsis and calm, like the world was reborn anew from whatever was happening before. Idk, I really like when albums put effort into bringing you through a journey like this, it really makes it feel like listening to the album as a whole was really worthwhile, over just listening to the tracks individually.

I looked up the album after I listened to it, and apparently there's a lot of story? Like reading the wikipedia summary is kinda wild, my experience of the story was super bare bones because I wasn't researching and following along with it actively like I did with the Lamar albums. What's really interesting though is how relevant this feels with current day, with Trump and his supporters being so evangelical, and Project 2025 looking like the end of society or something (from what I've gathered from coming across it on reddit), it adds a incredible dimension to this album, where you can relate it to current events in a new, unintended way even though it was supposed to be related to current events 7 years ago.

In the end though, even though I really enjoyed this album and am glad that it's the one getting me back into music and made me remember how much of an experience music can be, it's still not really my cup of tea musically. I don't really feel like I'd want to ever listen to it again, even if I could with the story laid out in front of me so I can experience the album in a new way. I'm putting this at like the top of 7. Could be an 8 if I change how I rate albums.

7/10

Also Karmine, I'd be interested why you recommended this album specifically. I looked at Nine Inch Nails' RYM page, and apparently this album isn't rated that highly, but The Downward Spiral seems to be looked at as one of the best albums of all time.

26th August 2024

Snail's House - Ordinary Songs
Future Bass, Japanese, 2016


(Link to the rest of the album)

What a nice album to listen to in the morning.

I didn't know that the time of day could change how I enjoyed music, but I guess it does.

It's probably just an extension of how my mood can change how I enjoy music.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the latter half of the album would be a lot better to listen to at night lol.

The album overall felt very light, from the soft instrumentals and chords to the fact that it just felt like a few nice songs wrapped up together instead of some epic concept album.

There was a surprisingly pleasant amount of variety with the songs.

I got the sense that a lot of these songs were fairly experimental with their sounds, and although that lead to the asmr-like aid for your heart, there were also a few awkward sounding ones that I couldn't really get into, like Look at me ~❤️

Overall it was very nice though, it was very good at creating this certain comfy vibe with many interesting songs, even though not all of them hit.

7/10

27th August 2024

Stephen Sondheim - Company (2018 London Cast Recording)
Musical, American, 2019


(Link to the rest of the album)

(Yes this was released in 2019, not 2018 lol)

(Also I'm saying this is American because Stephen Sondheim is American)

30th August 2024

Sweet Trip - A Tiny House, in Secret Speeches, Polar Equals
fuuuuck genres are so annoying im just going to say dream pop idk, American, 2021

(VOLUME JUMPSCARE WARNING, the first track starts off really soft and goes really loud suddenly)


(Link to the rest of the album)

Seeing Kanye West coming up in the list of suggested albums, I knew that I needed to tackle this conundrum at some point. Because of this, instead of tackling it with a Kanye West album, I wanted to start off in a more controlled environment, which is why I chose to listen to this album.

I have a bit of a history with Sweet Trip, I have been a fan of Velocity : Design : Comfort and You Will Never Know Why, two of their other albums, for quite a while now. However, even though I knew this album existed and found out about it very soon after it's release, I never got around to giving it a listen.

And now a bit about Sweet Trip, because who they are is very important to my experience of this album, as well as the discussion I want to have. Sweet Trip has consisted of multiple members over their existence, but the two most important in our are Roberto Burgos and Valerie Cooper. Burgos is the main songwriter/instrumentalist for the band, with Cooper being the primary female vocalist. Sweet Trip entered a hiatus in 2013, but would come reform in 2019 with just the two of Burgos and Cooper to release this album.

But you read the title, "Art vs the artist". I will admit this title is a bit misleading, because I don't want to discuss the debate of whether we should separate art from the artist. I am of the camp that it's better not to, as the context behind the art is essential for the art itself, and that knowing the context can lead to a deeper and more profound understanding and appreciation of the art. Or at least for me, I can't separate the art from the artist when I know about the artist.

However, this can also be a double edged sword in the enjoyment of art, as what if the context behind the art is bad? This is the question I wanted to explore with this album.

In 2021, Burgos SAed Cooper in a hotel room. This event came from an unrequited love that Burgos had for Cooper, a love that has been described as an "insane, creepy, pathetic, unrelenting, longtime obsession" by Cooper's husband, Daniel Cooper. Cooper had been married for 15 years at this point.

In addition to that, A Tiny House, in Secret Speeches, Polar Equals is about the feeling of love, specifically the love that Burgos felt towards Cooper. A literal love letter for Cooper. Although both were involved in songwriting, Burgos wrote all of the lyrics. Cooper sung these lyrics, lyrics about Burgos' love for her. She did not know about the true nature of the album until "late in the process".

And it was with this knowledge that I went into this album.

Firstly, although I like it less than the other two albums I've mentioned, the music in this album is good. It feels like an evolution of their third album You Will Never Know Why, but with a lot more of an experimental influence from the likes of Velocity : Design : Comfort, while still keeping itself very grounded. Each track drips with feelings of love and adoration, like For Lovers by Lamp. The album is slow but methodical, dreamy but focussed, and loud or soft when it needs to be. There are moments in this album that are beautiful.

But the album is unable to fully click for me. I will admit a bit of this was because of how sleepy I was while listening to it, the album wasn't really high energy enough for me to feel awake. But the main reason was how fucking creepy all the lyrics sound knowing the context behind them. Especially with tracks like In Sound, We Found Each Other where it's so painfully obvious that's it's written by Burgos and addressed to Valerie, and tracks like Eave Foolery, Mill Five, an anagram of "Valerie, Love of My Life", which Cooper didn't even know about until internet people found out about it, serving as the "In Secret Speeches" part of the album cover. The cool little glitchy effects that are reminiscent of the stuff in V:D:C I would have said feel out of place in this album about love, but with this context they take on this horrifying quality, like this album is corrupted, the love is corrupted.

In the end, I did enjoy the album, but it felt tainted by the story behind it. I think in this case, the positive aspects and negative aspects of the album get added together, and my ultimate enjoyment is the result of the sum of them. When going into the album I thought that maybe the negative context behind this album might make it interesting in maybe a morbid kind of way, and I guess it kind of did because thinking and writing about what I thought about it was interesting, but mostly not, it just ended up being unpleasant.

However, I do think I would still be able to enjoy Velocity : Design : Comfort and You Will Never Know Why, because neither of those albums are directly about these feelings and this situation (I think). They feel kinda separate from all the stuff going on between Burgos and Cooper, and they were made way in the past, before a lot of this bad stuff happened. Maybe this is what people mean by "separating art from the artist". But I don't think I was entirely wrong in my previous statement of being unable to separate the art from the artist. I think that going forward these two albums will have an asterisk over them, maybe not enough to significantly impact my enjoyment, but it will be forever there.

6/10

I'm probably going to do You Will Never Know Why soon in this thread to further explore this before Kanye West. I'm choosing this album because it's a lot more straightforward and approachable so I can focus on this idea, while Velocity : Design : Comfort has some crazy shit going on that might complicate things.

And on a positive note, 1989 by Taylor Swift is getting upgraded to a 5/10, Taylor Swift stays winning in this thread