#god that album is almost overpowering by how grand it sounds

[pizzaisgo]

feeling kind of euphoric right now

[jonathantaylorthomas]

18. London Boy

There are plenty of heavy moments on Lover, but "London Boy" bursts with cheeky joy, an homage to a transatlantic romance with a Idris Elba/James Corden snippet at the top and lines like “You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby” to prove Swift’s U.K. bona fides. “London Boy” is knowingly silly, and while it never quite pulls off its premise, it’s also entertaining enough as an indulgence on the track list.

17. ME!, feat. Brendon Urie

With or without the “Spelling is fun!” line, the lead single of Lover now sounds fairly removed from the album’s general tone, especially considering how prominently Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie is featured as a duet partner. Toss on “ME!” when you need a blast of kid-friendly euphoria.

16. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

With cheerleader chants punctuating her despair, Swift grasps at straws and a fractured U.S. reality: “American glory, faded before me, now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress,” she sings as the percussion lurches forward ominously. “Miss Americana” and its political subtext makes for the album’s most ambitious moment, and while the result isn’t quite pristine, it’s a fascinating pose for Swift to try and hit.

15. I Think He Knows

“I Think He Knows” finds Swift reaching into her bag of tricks and grabbing everything that will result in giddy fun, from pre-chorus rapping to sexual overtones to a falsetto-driven chorus to whiffs of funkiness. “Hand on my thigh/ We could follow the sparks, I’ll drive,” she declares with an alluring wink, pulling off the song’s primary objective.

14. I Forgot That You Existed

Feeling “in my feelings more than Drake” on the album opener, Swift spends the intro track shrugging off -- and literally giggling at -- her haters. The minimal, elastic production reinforces the playful mood and allows Swift’s personality to shine through.

13. Afterglow

“Why’d I have to break what I love so much,” Swift laments, as the drums widen and “Afterglow” barrels toward an epic chorus that echoes the most shimmering moments of 1989. Swift’s vocal take conveys an urgency that juxtaposes the sumptuous production, on a song that doesn’t bloom at first but arrests the listener after a few listens.

12. The Man

This biting look at gender dynamics within both the pop industry and celebrity-driven culture scores points for its wry humor and honest perspective; it’s also just a complete jam, with Joel Little co-writing another song with a rumbling beat and crackling synths. “The Man” will draw attention for its searing subject matter, but it’s also one of Lover’s most complete productions.

11. Paper Rings

Antonoff’s fingerprints are all over tambourine-shaker, which kicks off with the line “The moon is high, like your friends were the night that we first met” and races through a happy-go-lucky bubblegum vibe from there. With an electric guitar snaking through and a showy hook, “Paper Rings” is going to be an absolute blast on Swift’s next tour.

10. The Archer

“I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey,” Swift sings, referencing romantic ordeals but also nodding to the times in her public life that she’s been the target of derision, and other times where she’s had to strike back. Distant and melancholy, “The Archer” sounds even more effective in the context of the full-length.

9. Death by a Thousand Cuts

Swift sounds defeated as voices echo, bits of production whir around her and she shrugs during this aching breakup song “I get drunk, but it’s not enough.” Standard post-relationship fare for Swift, although there is a notable level of maturity -- even jadedness -- injected into lines like, “My heart, my hips, my body, my love/ Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch.”

8. Cornelia Street

Projecting a tiny moment of compassion onto a wide screen, Swift creates a classic story-song and allows her vulnerabilities to breathe. “Cornelia Street” peaks when the production drops out and the song morphs into a momentary piano ballad, creating one of the album’s most powerful moments.

7. You Need to Calm Down

Can we collectively admit that “You Need To Calm Down” is a knockout Taylor Swift single? Although some of the pro-LGBTQ lyrics feel like overreaching, the intent is pure and the words are meaningful; meanwhile, the hook packs a wallop, and the song title has already entered the cultural lexicon.

6. Soon You’ll Get Better, feat. Dixie Chicks

Intimate and blindingly sorrowful, “Soon You’ll Get Better” meditates on sickness by describing the shards of reality around it, from the harsh light of a doctor’s office to the feelings of selfishness that inevitably come with prolonged grief. The Dixie Chicks help with harmonies in a nifty bit of country-pop synergy, but this song is so personal it almost feels like eavesdropping to listen to it.

5. Lover

The title track is true to its name, all wide-eyed romance in a bewitching waltz buoyed by guitar strums. As a pre-release track, “Lover” is significantly different than singles like “ME!” and “You Need to Calm Down,” but its attention to detail and confidently expressed emotion recalls some of the early highlights of Swift’s career.

4. It’s Nice to Have a Friend

Distant harmonies, steel drums, vocals from the Regent Park School of Music and a story of the way simple gestures and schoolyard infatuations can morph into everlasting bonds mark one of the most original songs in Swift’s entire catalog. Short and sweet, “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” could potentially unlock new avenues for Swift as a songwriter moving forward; for now, it’s a poignant reminder of what she can accomplish as a writer.

3. False God

A Taylor Swift slow jam? Yes, please. This sultry faux-R&B track features saxophone blasts, pinpoint lyrical passages and an absolutely killer beat drop near the midway point. “False God” feels like both new territory for Swift and a major mood; keep this on repeat, because it’ll go down smooth every time.

2. Cruel Summer

With Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent, providing a co-write and some guitar work, this standout is constructed around a massive, dreamy chorus that Swift handles expertly. “I’m drunk in the back of the car, and I cried like a baby coming home from the bar,” she declares on a provocative bridge that recalls “Out of the Woods,” another Jack Antonoff co-production.

1. Daylight

A grand finale that encapsulates much of what precedes it, “Daylight” is overpowering as a self-referential coda (“I once believed love would be burning red/ But it’s golden, like daylight,” she sings) and an exaltation to the healing power of love. Although there are strands of “Daylight” throughout Lover, this is one of the most successful instances of Swift’s maximalist pop sound to date.

[makistar2018]

Every Song Ranked on Taylor Swift's 'Lover': Critic's Picks

8/23/2019 by Jason Lipshutz

First thing’s first: Taylor Swift’s seventh studio album, Lover, is 18 tracks long, and none of the tracks are bad. It’s a testament not only to Swift’s skill as a songwriter and curator of different sonic approaches, but of the album’s ability to avoid huge missteps, or even slow stretches.

Upon its release, Swift fans have been exploring the long-awaited new full-length and deciding on which songs are their favorites. We offer our own humble opinion in this practice.

18. London Boy

There are plenty of heavy moments on Lover, but "London Boy" bursts with cheeky joy, an homage to a transatlantic romance with a Idris Elba/James Corden snippet at the top and lines like “You can find me in the pub, we are watching rugby” to prove Swift’s U.K. bona fides. “London Boy” is knowingly silly, and while it never quite pulls off its premise, it’s also entertaining enough as an indulgence on the track list.

17. ME!, feat. Brendon Urie

With or without the “Spelling is fun!” line, the lead single of Lover now sounds fairly removed from the album’s general tone, especially considering how prominently Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie is featured as a duet partner. Toss on “ME!” when you need a blast of kid-friendly euphoria.

16. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince

With cheerleader chants punctuating her despair, Swift grasps at straws and a fractured U.S. reality: “American glory, faded before me, now I’m feeling hopeless, ripped up my prom dress,” she sings as the percussion lurches forward ominously. “Miss Americana” and its political subtext makes for the album’s most ambitious moment, and while the result isn’t quite pristine, it’s a fascinating pose for Swift to try and hit.

15. I Think He Knows

“I Think He Knows” finds Swift reaching into her bag of tricks and grabbing everything that will result in giddy fun, from pre-chorus rapping to sexual overtones to a falsetto-driven chorus to whiffs of funkiness. “Hand on my thigh/ We could follow the sparks, I’ll drive,” she declares with an alluring wink, pulling off the song’s primary objective.

14. I Forgot That You Existed

Feeling “in my feelings more than Drake” on the album opener, Swift spends the intro track shrugging off -- and literally giggling at -- her haters. The minimal, elastic production reinforces the playful mood and allows Swift’s personality to shine through.

13. Afterglow

“Why’d I have to break what I love so much,” Swift laments, as the drums widen and “Afterglow” barrels toward an epic chorus that echoes the most shimmering moments of 1989. Swift’s vocal take conveys an urgency that juxtaposes the sumptuous production, on a song that doesn’t bloom at first but arrests the listener after a few listens.

12. The Man

This biting look at gender dynamics within both the pop industry and celebrity-driven culture scores points for its wry humor and honest perspective; it’s also just a complete jam, with Joel Little co-writing another song with a rumbling beat and crackling synths. “The Man” will draw attention for its searing subject matter, but it’s also one of Lover’s most complete productions.

11. Paper Rings

Antonoff’s fingerprints are all over tambourine-shaker, which kicks off with the line “The moon is high, like your friends were the night that we first met” and races through a happy-go-lucky bubblegum vibe from there. With an electric guitar snaking through and a showy hook, “Paper Rings” is going to be an absolute blast on Swift’s next tour.

10. The Archer

“I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey,” Swift sings, referencing romantic ordeals but also nodding to the times in her public life that she’s been the target of derision, and other times where she’s had to strike back. Distant and melancholy, “The Archer” sounds even more effective in the context of the full-length.

9. Death by a Thousand Cuts

Swift sounds defeated as voices echo, bits of production whir around her and she shrugs during this aching breakup song “I get drunk, but it’s not enough.” Standard post-relationship fare for Swift, although there is a notable level of maturity -- even jadedness -- injected into lines like, “My heart, my hips, my body, my love/ Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch.”

8. Cornelia Street

Projecting a tiny moment of compassion onto a wide screen, Swift creates a classic story-song and allows her vulnerabilities to breathe. “Cornelia Street” peaks when the production drops out and the song morphs into a momentary piano ballad, creating one of the album’s most powerful moments.

7. You Need to Calm Down

Can we collectively admit that “You Need To Calm Down” is a knockout Taylor Swift single? Although some of the pro-LGBTQ lyrics feel like overreaching, the intent is pure and the words are meaningful; meanwhile, the hook packs a wallop, and the song title has already entered the cultural lexicon.

6. Soon You’ll Get Better, feat. Dixie Chicks

Intimate and blindingly sorrowful, “Soon You’ll Get Better” meditates on sickness by describing the shards of reality around it, from the harsh light of a doctor’s office to the feelings of selfishness that inevitably come with prolonged grief. The Dixie Chicks help with harmonies in a nifty bit of country-pop synergy, but this song is so personal it almost feels like eavesdropping to listen to it.

5. Lover

The title track is true to its name, all wide-eyed romance in a bewitching waltz buoyed by guitar strums. As a pre-release track, “Lover” is significantly different than singles like “ME!” and “You Need to Calm Down,” but its attention to detail and confidently expressed emotion recalls some of the early highlights of Swift’s career.

4. It’s Nice to Have a Friend

Distant harmonies, steel drums, vocals from the Regent Park School of Music and a story of the way simple gestures and schoolyard infatuations can morph into everlasting bonds mark one of the most original songs in Swift’s entire catalog. Short and sweet, “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” could potentially unlock new avenues for Swift as a songwriter moving forward; for now, it’s a poignant reminder of what she can accomplish as a writer.

3. False God

A Taylor Swift slow jam? Yes, please. This sultry faux-R&B track features saxophone blasts, pinpoint lyrical passages and an absolutely killer beat drop near the midway point. “False God” feels like both new territory for Swift and a major mood; keep this on repeat, because it’ll go down smooth every time.

2. Cruel Summer

With Annie Clark, better known as St. Vincent, providing a co-write and some guitar work, this standout is constructed around a massive, dreamy chorus that Swift handles expertly. “I’m drunk in the back of the car, and I cried like a baby coming home from the bar,” she declares on a provocative bridge that recalls “Out of the Woods,” another Jack Antonoff co-production.

1. Daylight

A grand finale that encapsulates much of what precedes it, “Daylight” is overpowering as a self-referential coda (“I once believed love would be burning red/ But it’s golden, like daylight,” she sings) and an exaltation to the healing power of love. Although there are strands of “Daylight” throughout Lover, this is one of the most successful instances of Swift’s maximalist pop sound to date.

Billboard

[pinupgalore-lanadelrey]

Snippets

13 Beaches - This sounds like it should be on the 2nd half of the album.. like the record feels like it’s 2 albums in one because of the stark contrast.  This song seems so sad and haunting. It sounds beautiful though. <3 Cherry - does she randomly say “fuck” before the chorus?? Idk I like it but the beat sort of overpowers the rest of the song

White Mustang -  I just love the melody.   Summer Bummer - I don’t like the beat, I’m not big on the rap.. and I hate the annoying “what what what what what what what what what” but I swear to God I can’t stop listening to it. Her backing “menacing” vocals HAUNT me and I have such mixed feelings but this song has lured me in with her witchcraft!!! I don’t even wanna like it but it’s so hot & sexy and catchy! I keeping singing “Don’t be a bummer babe” at my boyfriend for no reason lol

Groupie Love - I’m not big on the rap, beats, or how excessively repetitive the 2 words are but I love the chorus, it’s beautiful and just sort of grand.. it gives you just this little sweet taste of Paradise with the orchestra <3  In My Feelings -  Damn.. who is this song about!! The attitude! THE FUCKING CHORUS IS SO HOT HOLY FUCK 

Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems - IT’S SO HAUNTING, I cannot wait to hear Stevie’s unique voice with Lana on this track!!! Coachella - I’m sort of indifferent to it honestly..  

God Bless America - the verse sounds BEAUTIFUL. “sweetest melody”, the piano/ guitar sound so perfect.. I feel like I get strong New York vibes from it.. I’ve never been there but the song paints the picture for me.. I honestly would love if Lana were to be so bold as to make this into a music video.. It would be controversial though and I don’t want her to get backlash.. but it could also call even more attention to the women in America. Love what this is about <3 We Just Kept Dancing - OH MY GOD I am in love!! The lyrics even fit one of my fav aesthetics of like Victorian girls in white dresses <3 lol. The acoustic guitar and instrumental sounds so pretty and then we get this chorus that is.. like Lana really getting into it and I feel like this is so different for her and I LOVE it.. 

Tomorrow Never Came -  THE FUCKING SURF NOIR GUITAR, THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR.. LANA STARTS SINGING LAY LADY LAY AND I SWEAR I’M WEEPING. I already know this song will be one of, if not my favorite.  I get goosebumps every single time I hear it. It gives me such overwhelming nostalgia and makes me so emotional <3 

Heroin - yet another beautiful track, it’s almost like a lullaby <3 Change - I’m loving all of the piano, it’s so perfect with Lana’s voice, just so beautiful.. I keep saying beautiful but these tracks just are! Get Free - Getting some very strong Honeymoon album vibes & I like!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 21st October 2018

Ughhhhhhhh

Okay so we have an episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS. All this week I’ve not been in either the right physical state or mental state (and I’m probably still not in either of those) to do basically anything and I’ve felt like keeping up with this is a chore. It’s late as all hell, but here is a shorter – and probably crappier-written – episode of RTC. There’s going to be a Halloween special on a Charlie Brown special sometime near Halloween so check that out but let’s just stop wasting time.

Top 10

To my nonexistent surprise, “Promises” by Calvin Harris and Sam Smith replaces last week’s debut and returns to the number-one spot for what I believe is its seventh week.

“Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo, however, has not moved as much as I thought it would have, dropping only one space down to the runner-up spot.

“Happier” by Marshmello and Bastille, however, is not moving at all at number-three.

“Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper moves up two spaces to the top five at number-four.

There’s a debut at number-five – yep, that’s “Woman Like Me” by Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj, the lead single from their upcoming fifth album, also the first time their lead single hasn’t gone to #1 initially in a while.

“Let You Love Me” by Rita Ora, meanwhile, is down a position to number-six.

The meme seems to be wearing off at number-seven, fortunately, where “I Love It” by Kanye West and Lil Pump featuring Adele Givens is down three spots, although it may rebound soon due to either YANDHI or Harverd Dropout, whenever the hell they’re dropping that is.

“In My Mind” by Dynoro and Gigi D’Agostino is down a spot to number-eight.

As is “Electricity” by Silk City and Dua Lipa at number-nine.

Finishing off the consecutive trio of one-downers is “All I Am” by Jess Glynne at number-ten.

Climbers

There aren’t many, but they’re bigger than I expected, actually. “Always Remember Us this Way” by Lady Gaga is up eight spots to #31 – I think this may be because of a video? That’s also probably why “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B is up six to #25, after God knows how many weeks. “Taki Taki” by DJ Snake, Ozuna, Cardi B and Selena Gomez, the Godawful trash volcano that it is, is up 12 spots to #21. Meanwhile, “No Stylist” by French Montana featuring Drake inexplicably has a 10-space boost into the top 20 at #19. Guess the Drake verse is all you need these days.

Fallers

Fallers, on the other hand? Oh, trust me, we had plenty. Let’s start with pop and dance:

“Eastside” by benny blanco, Halsey and Khalid is down five to #16, “breathin” by Ariana Grande is down eight to #26, “Thunderclouds” by LSD (Labrinth, Sia and Diplo) is down 12 spots to #29, right next to “Body” by Loud Luxury and brando down 11 to #30.

We had a pretty sizeable handful of rock or rock-adjacent hits getting hurt too, like “High Hopes” by Panic! at the Disco is down five to #18, “Shotgun” by George Ezra is shot down six spots to #20 and “Falling Down” by Lil Peep and XXXTENTACION is doing just that to #33.

Hip-hop and R&B suffered too: “Venom” by Eminem is down seven to #23, “Best Life” by Hardy Caprio and One Acen is down five to #35, right next to “Drip Too Hard” by Lil Baby and Gunna down eight to #36, as well as “Lucky You” by Eminem featuring Joyner Lucas down 14 to #37, and “Taste” by Tyga and Offset down 13 to #38.

Dropouts

We didn’t have any returning entries this week, and I don’t know if we had any dropouts either, to be honest, because the website that I can quickly extract that info from has yet to update in weeks. I can tell for a definite “KILLSHOT” by Eminem is gone but otherwise I’d just be guessing or checking other websites and examining the info and I don’t want to do that, I have some common sense, and I don’t want this episode to be out any later. New arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Advice” – Cadet and Deno Driz

For our weekly dose of tropical faux-dancehall faux-grime, we have a dude who sounds like a mixture of Swae Lee, Sean Kingston and MC Smally, and his more aggressive friend and/or dodgy uncle who relies on ad-libs to finish his rhyme scheme. Honestly, despite the nonsensical premise of roadman Sean Kingston and his uncle talking about girls they get on Instagram, I kind of like this actually. I love how they trade bars in the pre-chorus, and they’re giving each other advice about picking up women, kind of like “Without Me” by Shaggy and RikRok but British, if that makes sense. The steel pans and cheap synths can’t back up the admittedly pretty fun content and energetic flows from both Cadet and Deno Driz (no, I don’t know which one is which and I don’t care), however, and it ends incredibly abruptly. If these guys got better production, I can see myself enjoying them in the future. For now, well... Cal Chuchesta and Rob Scallon did it better. Just saying.

#24 – “Thursday” – Jess Glynne

So this is the break-out track from Jess Glynne’s sophomore effort, Always in Between, and what I imagine she’s pushing as the next single due to its success. I figured it would be a dance track like Glynne does best, but no, the label seems to be pushing a strong almost ballad-type song, with an incessant acoustic guitar riff that just continues in a building up of airy, foamy synths, until after the first chorus, we get a cheap-sounding but effectively nonexistent instrumental; yes, I complain about production being so bland it’s basically not there, but here, it works, putting more emphasis on Jess Glynne’s powerful vocals here. They’re not fantastic or even pushing her voice to any limits as such, but they feel raw, fitting in with the desperate lyrics, with the chorus reading “I just want to feel beautiful”. Yes, it’s kind of cheesy, yes, it’s kind of “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten (that should always be your go-to adjective for this type of song), but you know what, it just clicks. I don’t appreciate the “oh, oh, oh” repetition in the hook because it feels unnatural despite all of what I just said, so that kind of disappoints me, but if there were any empty spaces for the instrumental here, this wouldn’t exactly feel like a song. It’s on very thin ice and I feel like with just one more touch, this could easily be made either awful or awesome, but for what it is as it was released, it’s pretty good. Maybe I should check out that album after all, I mean, I heard “These Days” is on it and I loved that.

#13 – “MIA” – Bad Bunny featuring Drake

A Drake debut not in the top 10? Preposterous.

Okay, when I first saw this song, I figured it meant MIA as in a member of the armed services, because Drake likes to make up this little “gangsta” persona for himself. Then I saw “MIA” and thought maybe Bad Bunny and Drake were going to compare their girl to an independent, strong, not afraid to experiment (I figured Bad Bunny wasn’t above making Katy Perry references, I guess) and incredible woman and artist, M.I.A., the rapper we all know for “Paper Planes”... although, then I looked into it, “Mia” is a female first-name, right? Is Bad Bunny seriously just name-dropping his real-life girlfriend or ex in the song? No, well, “mia” means “my” in Italian, so it’s just about “everyone wants my girl, but she’s my girl, so step off, fellas”. Maybe I thought too much into the title but damn, it has so many possible meanings, and hell it could mean all of those things but I highly doubt Bugs and Daffy put that much thought into it. This whole title ramble is me trying to covering up how I have nothing to say about the song other than I think I actually really like it. It has a pretty nice groove, albeit almost completely drowned-out by the watery synths (which, yes, I like to). Bad Bunny’s voice has always appealed to me, especially his little “I’m a dog who just went out in the rain and I’m washing it off by just spreading it and flapping my fur” ad-lib. You know the one, the “bgdrrrhr!” Mostly, however, they’re gone, instead he has a really sweet high-pitched vocal harmonising with him and Drake, who sounds beautiful on the hook, by the way. Yeah, didn’t expect to like this one, but maybe I should check out more Bad Bunny. His song “Amorfoda” is one I dig too, check it out, I’ll be talking about it on my worst list as almost a comparison piece for what my #1 did wrong, hopefully that doesn’t spoil my incredibly predictable choice or anything.

#11 – “ZEZE” – Kodak Black, Travis Scott and Offset

“ZEZE, do you love me?” No, frankly, you’re quite boring, although D.A. Doman’s production is pretty competent, at least. I guess the steel pans don’t do as much for me because I hear them every week on this show, but it’s still alright, I’m pretty sure he produced “Taste” too so I’ll check out what he does nowadays, he can be pretty good. Everyone else ruins it, though. How can you get such a cleanly-produced, airy-sounding beat and just puke all over on it with ad-lib madness? Seriously, with the vocals, this feels cluttered as all hell. The bass is overpowering but Travis and Kodak Black’s autotune both make everything so hard to listen to, especially with the amount of reverb-addict ad-libs throughout. In Kodak’s typically off-beat verse, there’s extra vocal harmonisations as well, that I think are the same guy from “Taste”, to be completely honest. Offset raps well but the ad-libs, again, are too much, it’s just way too much in so little time, like a shoddy BTS song by a rapist and a homophobe. Oh, yeah, and it was a meme three weeks before it released, leading it to debut at number-one in Canada, because Canadians seem to have lost their capability to both make AND listen to good music this year. Sad.

#5 – “Woman Like Me” – Little Mix featuring Nicki Minaj

This new album by Little Mix, (lazily) titled LM5, is going to be women and women only! Just female stars and vocal powerhouses on this record, baby... until you realise two frat boy-looking dudes are on the bonus track and this song was written by Ed Sheeran. It’s safe to say I’m never excited that much for a Little Mix album, and the addition of Nicki Minaj as a feature has never given me much to write home about since “Monster” by Kanye West, so expectations were low, and somehow I was still disappointed... because it leads me in with that sassy guitar and intro, before immediately plunging me into suck. The trap beat kicks in, with a badly-mixed autotuned Jesy rapping pretty awfully, to say the least, before sloppily cutting to the pre-chorus with that guitar, but also the trap percussion and “whoop!” vocal effects, and that ear-piercing falsetto note that acts like a synth during the drop, where the bass overpowers everything. Hell, everything about this song is sloppy. They take vocals from other takes and make no effort to connect them together in any comprehensible manner. The autotune constantly put on Jesy is not only unnecessary because she and all of the girls have great voices but it feels cheap. When Nicki Minaj comes in, it actually gives me some space to breath with the empty space between “b****es is my sons” punchlines and a blunt, boring flow as she simply states, “I want all the money”, without any jokes or any wordplay or anything, just she wants all the money. Why does Nicki have to come in during the last chorus and outro, too? Why is everything so all over the place in this song? This is an atrocity. What a half-hearted failure. Steve Mac produced this? What—actually, no, that explains a lot, in fact, it makes me believe anyone on this song tried, because when Steve Mac doesn’t try the end result is listenable (i.e., “What About Us”, “Shape of You”) but when he does we get stuff like “Alarm” by Anne-Marie, “Rockabye” by Clean Bandit and this? Wait, Steve Mac also produced “Thursday”? Well, that explains the shoddy vocal mixing present in both, but God, he’s not having the best of weeks. Take a few months off, Mac. You need it, and maybe during then, don’t try at all so you get into the habit of phoning everything in. That’s the only thing you’re good at.

Conclusion

Little Mix and Nicki Minaj get Worst of the Week for “Woman Like Me”, no question, but I didn’t expect to give Best of the Week to Bad Bunny and Drake for “MIA”, with Honourable Mention going to Jess Glynne for “Thursday” and Dishonourable Mention to Kodak Black, Travis Scott and Offset for “ZEZE”. What a messy week, and quite a few pretty messy songs, actually. Few of these songs feel like they were made by competent producers, honestly. See ya next week!

[pinupgalore-lanadelrey]

13 Beaches - This sounds like it should be on the 2nd half of the album.. like the record feels like it’s 2 albums in one because of the stark contrast.  This song seems so sad and haunting. It sounds beautiful though. <3 Cherry - does she randomly say “fuck” before the chorus?? Idk I like it but the beat sort of overpowers the rest of the song

White Mustang -  I just love the melody, I’m really feeling this song   Summer Bummer - I don’t like the beat, I’m not big on the rap.. and I hate the annoying “what what what what what what what what what” but I swear to God I can’t stop listening to it. Her backing “menacing” vocals HAUNT me and I have such mixed feelings but this song has lured me in with her witchcraft!!! I don’t even wanna like it but it’s so hot & sexy and catchy! I keeping singing “Don’t be a bummer babe” at my boyfriend for no reason lol

Groupie Love - I’m not big on the rap, beats, or how excessively repetitive the 2 words are but I love the chorus, it’s beautiful and just sort of grand.. it gives you just this little sweet taste of Paradise with the orchestra <3 It’s so sexy honestly

In My Feelings -  Damn.. who is this song about!! The attitude! THE FUCKING CHORUS IS SO HOT HOLY FUCK

Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems - IT’S SO HAUNTING, I cannot wait to hear Stevie’s unique voice with Lana on this track!!!

Coachella - I’m sort of indifferent to it honestly..  

God Bless America - the verse sounds BEAUTIFUL. “sweetest melody”, the piano/ guitar sound so perfect.. I feel like I get strong New York vibes from it.. I’ve never been there but the song paints the picture for me.. I honestly would love if Lana were to be so bold as to make this into a music video.. It would be controversial though and I don’t want her to get backlash.. but it could also call even more attention to the women in America. Love what this is about and.. Fuck Trump

We Just Kept Dancing - OH MY GOD I am in love!! The lyrics even fit one of my fav aesthetics of like Victorian girls in white dresses <3 lol. The acoustic guitar and instrumental sounds so pretty and then we get this chorus that is.. like Lana really getting into it and I feel like this is so different for her and I LOVE it..

Tomorrow Never Came -  THE FUCKING SURF NOIR GUITAR, THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR.. LANA STARTS SINGING LAY LADY LAY AND I SWEAR I’M WEEPING. I already know this song will be one of, if not my favorite.  I get goosebumps every single time I hear it. It gives me such overwhelming nostalgia and makes me so emotional <3

Heroin - yet another beautiful track, it’s almost like a lullaby <3 Change - I’m loving all of the piano, it’s so perfect with Lana’s voice, just so beautiful.. I keep saying beautiful but these tracks just are!!

Get Free - Getting some very strong Honeymoon album vibes & I like!