Helplessness Blues (studio album) by Fleet Foxes
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Fleet Foxes bestography
Helplessness Blues is ranked 2nd best out of 9 albums by Fleet Foxes on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Fleet Foxes is Fleet Foxes which is ranked number 130 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 10,790.
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Helplessness Blues track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 85 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
Helplessness Blues rankings
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Helplessness Blues ratings

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Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 1,308 ratings for this album.
Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
85/100 ![]() | 5 days ago | AngelBecerra | ![]() | 78/100 |
80/100 ![]() | 04/21/2025 01:50 | ![]() | ![]() | 84/100 |
70/100 ![]() | 04/16/2025 16:07 | NickD89 | ![]() | 69/100 |
80/100 ![]() | 03/05/2025 15:10 | mafonso | ![]() | 88/100 |
75/100 ![]() | 02/25/2025 13:39 | Milhaud | ![]() | 76/100 |
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Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 1% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 81.9/100, a mean average of 80.6/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 82.0/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.9.
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So much modern indie folk is afraid to embrace ANY minimalism. Many of these songs, most notably "Sim Sala Bim" and the title track, would work better as stripped-down acoustic ballads. Why does everything have to eventually crescendo into a chorus of wailing? Plus, more often than not, the harmonic content of the gigantic chamber-orchestra arrangements and obnoxiously loud vocal harmonies is not even interesting enough to justify its inclusion in the mix. Even on "Bitter Dancer," a relatively quiet moment, the vocal harmony blocks accompanying the main melody are mixed obscenely loud, to the point that they sound horribly pitchy. "Blue Spotted Tail" is a beautiful moment, and proof that lots of these songs are complete just with a guitar and a single voice. In short, Helplessness Blues' bloated instrumental accompaniments just feel tasteless and empty due to uninspired arranging and bad mixing. Complaints aside, I will commend it for some lovely acoustic guitar sounds, decent folk-pop songwriting, and commitment to a melancholy mood.
Takes the sounds of their first album and makes them into something more grand and mature. Lyrically not as catchy but with a lot more to say.
While it is executed with the subtlety and beauty that Fleet Foxes always show, I can’t help but feel at times towards the end it starts to drag. The debut is still the record I go to more frequently.
Fave songs: Helplessness Blues, The Shrine/Argument, and Montezuma.
There is a lot of beautiful moments on this record but the album on the whole drags on a little too long. This record does have some amazing songs in the form of Helplessness Blues, Montezuma and Battery Kinzie. All of these stick to the folk style they are going for and they work very well. They have done a great job in making this modern folk sound that really suits their vocalist and the instrumentation is of a high quality as well. The acoustic guitar being a stand out for me especially on songs like Blue Spotted Tail. However, the album is to drawn out and it does get very repetitive by the closing track. There are quite a few cuts I find to be unnecessary as well that could be removed. Overall, the record is amazing in spells but is let down by the filler and the bloated nature of the release.

Folk rock of the 2010's
Disco correcto
A charming and beautiful record. I’d like to propose that the title track be adopted as the new US national anthem.

Lindíssimo, mas não é fácil de escutar.

Runs a little long, but holy cow it's amazing. Definitely better than the eponymous debut.
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