Reviews by giddy

Because of its nerdcore tendencies, there are some parts of this I roll my eyes at a little, but for the most part this was pretty solid and personal hip hop.

Lots of different flavors here, but it's pretty consistent in quality. Just wish it hit higher highs.

I'd think you'd gain more from a Neutral Milk Hotel listen, but this is alright.

This is the bridge between Ween and Sparks' 21st output that I really admire. I do think both of those bands do this oddball stuff better, and I of course think anything from They Might Be Giants debut to John Henry probably deserved to be here more than this, but this is still great. In fact, I struggle to imagine a "bad" TMBG album, so I guess anything is really a safe bet.

I kinda thought My Morning Jacket would be one of those bands I thought was just okay, with a hit here and there that I love (shout out One Big Holiday) but this was pretty good.

A neat album with a lot of potential energy, but it seems disorganized and like they're throwing too many ideas on this record at once, making it feel bloated and a bit boring. I would guess You Forgot It in People would be a bit better.

Reminds me a lot of Adrianne Lenker's vocal style, but injects enough twee energy (or lack thereof?) into it to make its own thing, and it's great! This is the first user album I am completely unfamiliar with to get a five, and I think that's pretty neat.

I prefer Ben Gibbard's work on the Postal Service rather than Death Cab for Cutie, but this is pretty solid work from this group, feels less wishy washy than their later work.

This is the kind of music that people online like to share as something unique or fascinating, purely because of location, genre, and style. What isn't known is all the other bands who, dare I say, perfected this sound years ago. As one of the top reviews says, let's get some Midori in here.

Denzel has to be one of the best rappers right now, and while I probably prefer the more aggressive sound of TA13OO, this is still great. Opening couple tracks and closing couple tracks are both fantastic.

I mainly know of these guys because they did the music for Disco Elysium, but I need to play more of that before I can comment on that game's soundtrack. This, however, was nice, albeit a bit predictable for the time. Some good noisy bits, just could use some of its own identity more often.

You guys gotta stop adding albums I'm excited to listen to for the first time, they always seem to disappoint.

Not at all what I thought this album would sound like, thought it was more twee, but it was pleasant enough. Feels like it could've been, like, ten minutes shorter, though.

I'm actually shocked at how good I found this to be. Not that I think it was great or anything, but blink-182 has always been one of those nothing bands to me that everyone seems to love. I found the vocals grating, and the hits especially predictable. However, the deep cuts, the more skater punk like tracks, are pretty solid, and I'd even say I liked a song or two. I think that equates to some amount of proper recognition, no matter how little.

I guess at least this is more... uh... colorful than most brostep albums? I don't know, this is rough. Boring at best, downright obnoxious at worst, and no offense person who added this, but it's hard to not think you know this artist or are this artist, because this seems like it was pulled from out of nowhere. It's just not good.

I kind of liked a Dave Matthews Band album? My parents must never know...

Has some pleasant moments, but I can't imagine finding this to be anything more than semi-okay, semi-annoying background music.

I'd love to see the timeline here, because this does not seem to be a very big album, which means it must have a pretty close connection to the person who added this. That's completely respectable, so no judgment there, but this album has so many inspirations that it wears on its sleeve, so I wonder how those albums continue to slip through the cracks. Things anywhere from Talk Talk's discography and Blue Nile's second album all the way to even some stuff that's pretty niche itself like Momus. This album isn't necessarily bad, but I just wanted to listen to, like, five other artists while sitting through this. It just doesn't leave much to be desired.

The production courtesy of Madlib does a lot of heavy lifting in this album, to the point where I would say this album is only truly worth listening because of him, but it does benefit Freddie Gibbs due to the fact that the start the album, Gibbs is incredibly dull, but over time you come to appreciate him more, to the point where you're generally enjoying the whole package. Some of the bars are generic gangster stuff, yeah, but there's more introspection here the deeper you get than you would expect, and there's a solid groove throughout that makes it so you start to kind of just sit back and enjoy the ride. Again, this is mostly due to Madlib's production being phenomenal, with great samples and crisp loops, but its still a smooth enough experience, despite the talk of violence and sex permeating throughout the album. It does go on a tad long, however, as I think, to compare it to another Madlib project, Madvillainy, knew when to cut it off in the forties, while this has some fluff that repeats not only topics in the lyrics, but also samples and beats that sound very similar to songs sometimes just before it. At first this can make it feel cohesive, but as it nears the ending you tend to be ready for things to wrap up. Still, a very good release, and I'm happy to see that seemingly anything Madlib touches turns to gold, as I may not have explored Gibbs' catalogue without his contributions.

Well this was pleasant. Not too much more to say, but you can certainly hear the Vampire Weekend-ness of it all.