Listed below are the overall rankings for the best albums in history as determined by their aggregate positions in over 59,000 different greatest album charts on BestEverAlbums.com! (Chart last updated: 5 hours ago).
"(It's a Julien Baker album, it's a good album. One of the contenders for the championship belt of badass sad sack songwriters comes back with a whole lot more production punch than she had on her last couple albums. The result is a lush, at times overly so, but mostly gorgeous album that will abs...""(It's a Julien Baker album, it's a good album. One of the contenders for the championship belt of badass sad sack songwriters comes back with a whole lot more production punch than she had on her last couple albums. The result is a lush, at times overly so, but mostly gorgeous album that will absolutely have you sobbing in solidarity with her if you aren't careful.)
This is easily my most anticipated album of 2021 thus far. I adore Julien's debut Sprained Ankle, and, while I found her second album considerably less cathartic and powerful, I still quite liked it.
From her first 2 albums I felt that As a songwriter Julien is pretty miserable, not like she's bad, I mean she is very VERY good at just completely expressing utter despair and self-loathing like few songwriters I've ever heard. This is perhaps the main feature and most obvious aspect of her music in her career thus far. This aspect is so much on the forefront that sometimes I think her other strengths are overlooked. Lyrically she does know how to plunge the knife in and then twist it for maximum effect. Melodically she isn't an all time great, but she generally can write a good hook and a good and memorable melody. And she knows how to make just a very consistent and engaging emo album to sob along with.
In the lead up to this album I was feeling kinda meh and in the dumps and as a result I was very eagerly anticipating this album. When I heard it the night it was dropped I was initially lukewarm. Then I woke up and listened a couple more times and I started to warm to it a bit more. Now as I write this and I listen yet again, I am starting to really quite like it.
The obvious change in her production is what is probably going to get the most ink. And for good reason. Cuz this album is indeed MUCH more adorned with big synth parts and walls of electric guitar and keyboard and just a lot of embellishments that are trotting along beside Julien's familiar emotional voice and songwriting themes. This upscaling of musical...stuff... is generally well done. What the album clearly loses in terms of that intimacy and cathartic power that her first album had, it gains in terms of just a lot of beautiful moments of epic earcandy. The absolutely badass chorus of "Heatwave" is something that just couldn't happen without the new production angle and to say it works in enhancing the emotional punch of the song would be an understatement. There are other moments when the increased production touches work quite amazingly alongside Julien's songs.
There are also songs which feel somewhat overproduced and made me briefly miss that stripped down sound featured in "Sprained Ankle". An example of this arguably over-adorned style somewhat hampering the impact of a song is on "Relative Fiction". That song for me is good but coulda been great if not for those damn silly percussion sounds. Maybe that touch will grow on me, but for now I don't love it, feels a bit much especially with the big bass sounds and the several guitars also being layered on top of it with Baker's vocals also being multitracked, idk it just kinda rubs me the wrong way.
Still, the hits here and the overarching feel and flow of the album are indeed fabulous and there are some pristine and incredible moments sprinkled on this album. Tracks like "Heatwave", "Hardline", "Ringside", "Song In E", "Ziptie" are very powerful songs that are some of her best in her career thus far. While I don't love this like I love her debut, I think its a better album than her sophomore album and its great having a new Julien Baker album in my life to absorb when I'm feeling like my whole world has been bled of meaning and color. She's one of the best singer/songwriters of her generation and this album is quite solid and already has that familiar warmth connected with it in my mind that will make me revisit it often over the next long while.
"Blacked out on a weekday
Still something that I'm trying to avoid
Start asking for forgiveness in advance
For all the future things I will destroy
That way I can ruin everything
When I do, you don't get to act surprised
When it finally gets to be too much
I always told you you could leave at any time""[+]Reply
"If you haven't heard this album, you are really missing out. A pivotal moment in hip hop music and creativity. The production on this is unreal. A forgotten great that is overshadowed by albums like Good Kid Maad City among others."Reply
"(Clairo gets in a spacious, calming, introspective groove with this album and sticks the landing. A beautiful, laid-back, Singer/Songwriter album with some cool folk/pop rock, Baroque/Chamber pop elements. The tracklist never veers far from that feeling of contemplative melancholy mixed with opti...""(Clairo gets in a spacious, calming, introspective groove with this album and sticks the landing. A beautiful, laid-back, Singer/Songwriter album with some cool folk/pop rock, Baroque/Chamber pop elements. The tracklist never veers far from that feeling of contemplative melancholy mixed with optimistic dreeamy youth.)
There is an impressive commitment to mood on this album. With few exceptions this Clairo project stays in a very introspective, hushed, and contemplative Chamber/Baroque folk pocket. This consistent sound, with few angles or almost anything metaphorically jutting out, may turn some people off. Not me, however. I quite like the mood and space this album puts me in. Sounds like a young woman making beautiful folk, filled with many vintage sounds and snippets of self-analyzing and discovery and conversational meandering.
The production is pretty ace almost all the way through. A few times I was a bit put off by the overly-lush and overly-used multi-tracked vocal oohs and ahhs, and I can't remember which track now, but at one point the drums sounded very flat and "off" I suppose. But generally the production is crisp and detailed and gorgeous. Jack Antonoff has a Type and a sound. I was actually unaware of who the producer was the first couple times listening, and I had a thought that this is yet another beautifully executed throwback to those beautiful early 70s folk singer/songwriter records. The other albums from 2021 that I was thinking made up this micro-trend were St. Vincent's 2021 album "Daddy's Home" and Lana Del Rey's 2021 album "Chemtrails Over The Country Club". When I saw a comment on RYM trashing Antonoff's production, I went to verify if this was true. Voila! It is! It's not true that the production sucks, lol, but it is true that the guy behind the last 2 LDR albums, the last St. Vincent album, the last folkie Taylor Swift album - or one of them - "Folklore" and the person behind the very different sounding from those 5 albums "Melodrama: by Lorde is the one who produced this one. Weird. Anyway, the combined work of Antonoff and Clairo make this a tidy, tender and balanced album.
This is just a really even, warm hug of a record. The soft, folkie rock upticks are beautiful, the lush chamber/baroque is solid, the lyrics are solid and the whole record is really well done. The maturity of Clairo before our eyes is almost astounding. At just 22 she has made a very beautiful album and I think she has many more excellent records in her in the years to come. "[+]Reply
"One of the best blues albums from the eighties. Mr. Cray's considerable talents are on full display throughout. Check out his solo on "Smoking Gun"."Reply
"This is thee classic Joan Armatrading album, the one that put her on the map. Full of great songs Love & Affection, Save Me, Somebody Who Loves You & Down To Zero being the stand out tracks but all the tracks are 80/100 or better, she would never improve on this collection."Reply
"Two years after disbanding Pavement, Stephen Malkmus was back, releasing his solo debut. The quality isn't any dropoff from Pavement either, and it sounds like he's got his creative juices flowing, moreso than on the last couple Pavement releases. Check out the lead track "Black Book" and my favo...""Two years after disbanding Pavement, Stephen Malkmus was back, releasing his solo debut. The quality isn't any dropoff from Pavement either, and it sounds like he's got his creative juices flowing, moreso than on the last couple Pavement releases. Check out the lead track "Black Book" and my favorite song here, "The Hook.""[+]Reply
"Really chill album. Nice drumming and flute. Reminiscent of Foxygen but with a more blues & early rock influence. Very different stylistically to 'I'm In Your Mind Fuzz' and 'Nonagon Infinity'. Track Picks: 'The Bitter Boogie', 'Sense' , 'Most of What I Like'"Reply