The Daily Spin
May Rundown
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. We’re 5 months through!
As always, Eli’s with me for the monthly recap, as he’s been with me reviewing these albums the whole way. Additionally, Preston Pack of The Wild Pitch will have a recap up with their opinions, since they’ve been with us too.
And as always, here’s the playlist containing my favorite song from each of the albums I’ve reviewed so far. Each day, going forward, it’ll be updated with my favorite track from that day’s album until we’ve got a full portfolio of 365.
Fear not, your regularly scheduled album review will go live later today. I got you.
Making The Grade
In the process of listening to music and grading albums, nothing is perfect, and as such, we’ve all elected to make some adjustments to our grading.
D: I was talking about this with Preston and Eli, and I think what I’ve realized is that there’s been a pretty distinct ratings creep - partially because 5/7 days a week, I’m reviewing suggestions from friends and family and others dear to me, and as such, don’t want to be too harsh unless it absolutely warrants it (e.g. AJJ, Deceit).
As such, I’m just gonna go ahead and do a mid-year adjustment at the end of next month’s wrap-up, as well as a full-year calibration. If this series comes back for a second year, I’ll need to be a lot more on top of that.
E: Y’know, I don’t even know why y’all read this section. I’m not publicly rating these on a daily basis like David is. You have no way of knowing if I’m actually editing my ratings or if I’m just making stuff up.
That said, upon further reflection, I have raised Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots from a 0 to a 10.
I’ll Give You The Best
D: With How To Be A Human Being, Glass Animals absolutely murdered my expectations for their sound. That’s an album that has been a slow burn for me - truly, since it was released in 2016, it’s only grown on me from the mid-7s to a high 9 and the top score this month. I think that’s got to be worth something, even if it was my own suggestion.
Other albums worth noting that scored at 9 or near it that were not my own suggestions are:
Montclair, Pinegrove’s lovely live finale. That is one hell of a way to send a band off, and the live elements only give emotional depth to what’s already a pretty powerful collection of hits.
Roosevelt, the self-titled work that I had somehow never heard before really getting to know Eli? I don’t know how I missed it, but I know that he has flown up my artist rankings in the past year with his dreamy but driven dance-pop.
KAYTRAMINÉ, a collaborative work between two budding stars in the hip-hop scene that left me wanting just a little more in the summery sense, but what we do get is a very bright star indeed.
E: I feel the need to defend my perfect 10/10 rating for The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots for two reasons: 1) I don’t give out many 10s, and 2) David was abnormally low on this record.
Yoshimi is so abstract that a lot of critics and even fans struggle to determine what it’s about as a whole. Some have miscategorized it as a concept album despite frontman Wayne Coyne insisting it isn’t. What exactly the concept would be is beyond me, as the “robots” theme doesn’t really show up beyond tracks 2-4 (and maybe track 1 if you’re expanding it to the general concept of standing up to confrontation).
Many have theorized that the title track is about a woman battling breast cancer. This hasn’t ever been confirmed and is a rather odd conclusion to me given that the album was named for (and includes backing vocals from) an actual person—legendary Japanese drummer Yoshimi P-we—who was not battling breast cancer at the time (but coincidentally would in 2017, 15 years after the album’s release). In any case, that’s made it somewhat of an anthem for breast cancer sufferers and their loved ones, and the song is actually about nothing but a girl beating up some robots, so if they find power in it, who am I to take that from them?
But, though the front of the album, robot theming and all, is good—great, even—the record really comes into its own in the back half. It becomes this murderer’s row of incredibly produced, well composed tunes that manage to walk the tightrope of tackling some pretty heavy topics in Coyne’s signature lighthearted style without going overboard on the wackiness. It’s every part of The Flaming Lips at their absolute best. It’s their magnum opus.
Several bands have tried to recreate the aura the Lips radiate on this album in the two decades since its release. We reviewed one of them—Evangelicals, with their 2008 album The Evening Descends—in January. I gave that record a 5/10 because to me it honestly sounded like an insult to The Flaming Lips’ style. While that rating (and the previous sentence) may have been harsh, it’s this record that shows why The Flaming Lips are the genuine article and no one else ever really could be.
How To Disappoint Completely
D: The vast majority of the albums this month were pretty bog-standard - the only one that I actively rated below a 6 was illuminati hotties’ label-defiant effort that frankly, from my perspective, shouldn’t really have been acknowledged? The entire album was designed to say “hey, fuck you” to a shitty label, and giving it press seems somewhat contrarian to the stated goal of the record. Whatever.
E: So I didn’t like Different Class by Pulp. It got off to a really bad start and didn’t noticeably improve from there.
The opener, “Mis-Shapes”, has production at least a couple decades out of date, even for when the album was released in 1995; it sounds like an extended theme song to a ‘70s cartoon.
Track 2, “Pencil Skirt”, is a frankly odious song about two people having an affair that it sounds like the narrator is pushing on the woman he’s singing at despite her not really wanting it. In itself, this isn’t that abnormal a subject for a song, but the vocal presentation is so deeply wretched that the overall vibes are just horrendous.
Track 3, “Common People”, is the song that broke Pulp into semi-popularity after two decades of obscurity, and I just hate it. It’s a cynical “life sucks” anthem that starts out mildly clever and then beats its message into the ground and goes on two minutes too long (Spotify insists this song is 5:51 long but it sounds like 9:51).
At the risk of this review being overlong, I will not go track-by-track over the other nine songs and I’ll just say this: the lead singer’s Robert Smith impression needs some work if he doesn’t want to sound like a total creep, and the record’s production is super dated and never really rises above merely average.
I did somewhat enjoy “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.”, which Preston over at The Wild Pitch listed as their favorite track on the album. I’d say it’s my favorite too. This is kind of like being the best pitcher on the Athletics.
Throughout the record, I kept looking for a life raft—some sort of musical idea or lyrical quality or catchy hook or anything—to grasp onto and help me understand why David and Preston both rated this near their yearly average. It never came. By the end of the album, there was almost nothing I wanted to revisit and quite a bit I actively disliked.
Shock Value
D: Gotta mention Yoshimi here - not that I was necessarily surprised that I rated it how I did, but seeing how low I was to Eli and Preston - I believe it’s the furthest I’ve been from consensus outright in either direction. I think it just didn’t really get me, and part of that could very well have been my headspace, but sometimes it just doesn’t land, and that’s what happened here. I was definitely disappointed - having never listened, I was hoping for a much more enjoyable experience than the one I wound up with.
Similarly, both of kent’s albums didn’t really click for me, but vapen & ammunition was a particular case where I was again well below consensus. Sometimes, it just doesn’t hit right, and that’s what happened here. I found myself wishing for the evolved sound that we’ve since seen come out of Sweden when listening to this act, and I think that hampered it more than anything else could have.
E: Normally what I’ll do here is go over one album I was surprised to like as much as I did and one album I was surprised to dislike as much as I did. I can’t really do that this month because more than half of the albums we reviewed were albums I was already familiar with1, and most of the other albums didn’t really stray too far from my expectations for them going in.
The lone exception this month was Vansire’s The Modern Western World, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been that shocked it was so good; we love our Minnesotan kings. I quite liked the jazzier moments of this album. They sounded Jon Bois-esque: a term fans of Jon’s work seem to use to describe this easy listening woodwind muzak despite Jon not actually being a musician (I think). Some of the record’s poppier moments evoked Roosevelt to my Roosevelt-superfan ears.
The album cover’s muted, modern flair—a shot of the Oculus in New York City—does well to sell you what you’re getting in these 46 minutes. Visually and sonically, this is an album I want to exist in.
In A Word
Quick-hit recaps for each album.
First Two Pages of Frankenstein (The National)
D: Sadbois of the world, unite!
E: Not really for me but still obviously good.
Before the Waves (Magic Man)
D: FIFA could take a lesson in making FIFA music from these guys.
E: Unfathomably catchy but lacking depth.
Roosevelt (Roosevelt)
D: Hypnotizing dance music with just enough edge to keep my attention.
E: Trance-inducing dance pop that puts me at ease when I hear it.
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (The Flaming Lips)
D: A highly-regarded classic that all wound up feeling just a bit plastic.
E: Walks a perfect tightrope between lightheartedness and sincerity.
Chromatica (Lady Gaga)
D: It’s 2009 again in Gaga’s world and honestly, I’m not mad about it.
E: Gaga’s artistic evolution stopped turning as the world did in 2020, but the album is still excellent.
Chris (Christine and the Queens)
D: Variety is the spice of life, and this is hospital food.
E: Impressively well written songs that kinda drone into lifelessness when put back-to-back.
Superdream (Big Wild)
D: Super spaced out. Big room doesn’t mean it should sound like an iPhone in a concert hall.
E: A certain emptiness keeps this from reaching true greatness despite most of the tracks being net positives.
THE RAT ROAD (SBTRKT)
D: Good vibes, meh work.
E: Consistent in vibe but not in quality.
Gravity the Seducer (Ladytron)
D: I genuinely don’t remember anything about this album. That seems less than ideal.
E: I love “Ace of Hz” but the rest of the album feels hollow, sometimes on purpose.
What Now (Sylvan Esso)
D: They’re not afraid to push boundaries!
E: Blatantly eschews trying to fit lyrics into the meter correctly, for better.
Our Own House (MisterWives)
D: I only ever read this album title in the voice of the hook from the titular track. Anyways.
E: Classic power pop that unfortunately goes a little too hard a little too often.
How to Be a Human Being (Glass Animals)
D: Don’t take lessons from this album on being human, but the music’s worthwhile.
E: I think I like the concept more than the execution, but both are good.
Keepsake (Hatchie)
D: Airy, free, and floating.
E: Weightless in presentation, making it seem effortless on Hatchie’s part.
Vapen & ammunition (kent)
D: I listened to this and found myself parked outside of IKEA. Weird.
E: So good that it makes me want to learn Swedish and visit Sweden.
Montclair (Live at the Wellmont Theater) (Pinegrove)
D: It’s a live Best Of from an artist I love. Sometimes that just hits your soul a little bit where it needs to.
E: Didn’t really inspire anything in me.
Presto (Pigeons Playing Ping Pong)
D: I’m not sure what I expected but in no world was it what I got.
E: Vibes music sung by a man who sounds like a cartoon dad.
Within and Without (Washed Out)
D: They took the band name a little too literally sometimes, but this slaps.
E: Falls apart a bit if you listen to it actively for, say, review purposes, but great background music.
Young Enough (Charly Bliss)
D: Costco-brand CHVRCHES but it kinda rips?
E: I feel like more people should know that the lead guitarist in this band is Spencer Fox (the voice of Dash in The Incredibles).
The Slow Rush (Tame Impala)
D: If this is Tame Impala stumbling, then we are so lucky to have him making music.
E: Easy to be disappointed in when it came out, but viewed favorably with the benefit of hindsight.
Röd (kent)
D: How’d I wind up with a DUNKELSKOG and a BLAHAJ in my cart?
E: A dynamic album that remarkably mixes bombastic, electric synthpop tracks with softer, more reserved instrumentation.
Waiting to Spill (The Backseat Lovers)
D: When it gets going, it has a great oomph to it. Just takes a minute to get there.
E: Good in a “lofi beats to study to” kinda way.
KAYTRAMINÉ (KAYTRAMINÉ)
D: I wish this had more Kay but it’s still full of summery goodness.
E: A thoroughly whelming album that just so happens to include a contender for “song of the summer” and an actually good Snoop Dogg feature.
From 2 to 3 (Peach Pit)
D: From 2 to 3 AM, maybe.
E: The production is way too drowsy and it feels like that’s on purpose.
The Modern Western World (Vansire)
D: This is just really nice. I don’t know what else to say.
E: An album I want to exist in.
White Lighter (Typhoon)
D: Try less?
E: At its best when it’s not so complex.
Because the Internet (Childish Gambino)
D: Better than I feel like it ever had any right being.
E: Legitimately excellent production backing lyricism that’s probably better than you remember.
Different Class (Pulp)
D: Working-class power ballads can only carry you so far.
E: A Robert Smith impression so bad as to sound creepy, singing lyrics with all kinds of horrendous vibes over dated production.
Free I.H: This Is Not the One You’ve Been Waiting For (illuminati hotties)
D: Actively trying to make a mid record yields (gasp) a mid record. More at 10.
E: This album doesn’t want to be reviewed, so I won’t.
Reflections (Sufjan Stevens)
D: Reflect on the states you could have made albums about instead of this.
E: Pronounced jazziness that too often sounds like it’s just haphazardly plunking at notes.
RTJ4 (Run the Jewels)
D: Powerfully political without preaching.
E: The album of summer 2020, for better or worse (but definitely better).
Fences (The Altogether)
D: I enjoyed it, and I have already forgotten it.
E: Sounded pleasant going in one ear and out the other.
And there you have it!
June 1st’s review will be along later today. Thanks, as always, for tuning in.
Every album from May 1 through May 20, except for those on Fridays (reserved for David’s favorites) and Mondays (reserved for new music), were my own suggestions. I was also already familiar with (and fond of) Chromatica, The Slow Rush, Because the Internet, and RTJ4.