OK OK FEEL ME
Goddamnit. I had a shit ton of stuff that I typed copied from the last thread and I copied my tripcode right after I closed the thread. Let's try again.
February 20th
Pavement - Wowee Zowee
I've only listened to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and only once before, so I'm not sure if this was a good second step into the world of Pavement. I can say however that I enjoyed this a lot.
The subject matter on this album is fuckin' goofy, bruh. If what I read is correct, they were all stoned off their asses when they made this album. Adds quite a bit of character.
Normally, early indie rock kind of bores me. But this is really fucking magical. In terms of instrumentation, it seems pretty simple, but it just feels really genuine and raw.
Really pleasantly surprised. Highly satisfied. Need to look into their other stuff, as well as re-listen to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. 8.3/10.
February 21st
Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded
This is better than Loud, for one thing. This one feels less like streamlined pop, and more like more modest R&B (heavily influenced by pop music, of course.) Feels a little more genuine.
The best stuff here is when Rihanna gets REALLY sappy, in her lyrics or her instrumentation, like on "Hate That I Love You", with Ne-Yo, or on "If I Never See Your Face Again", with Maroon 5, which sounds like an 80s-inspired pop song if I've ever heard one. "Take A Bow" is also a god example.
A lot of the other, more poppy, stuff is pretty OK for the most part. "Don't Stop The Music" is a great single. Otherwise, however, the more clubby tracks are pretty underwhelming. "Disturbia" was pretty good for it's time, but it's kind of lost it's charm. It's one of the earlier uses of auto-tune as far as I can tell, and it's definitely spotty, to say the least.
Overall, pretty fun pop album. Feels less plastic than Loud. 7.7/10.