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Post by when the pawn... on Jun 23, 2015 12:12:03 GMT -5
It's not that I'm upset there are no radio smashes on the album. As a fan, I don't care if it's a hit or not (I'm rooting for the guy but it doesn't affect my opinion of the album). And I'm OK with the album being a different thing than what I expected. What is frustrating is that there really just aren't great songs here. It's an impressive body of work and I like his style but there is not one song I'm dying to listen to again - there were many of those on Kaleidoscope Dream, even some of the songs that weren't super radio-friendly. I'll listen again and hopefully a couple songs will jump out at me.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 23, 2015 12:19:00 GMT -5
I'm starting to wish Adorn and its accompanying album never happened. Commercial success, in my opinion, was always destined to be a fluke for Miguel, given the type of music he makes/the artist he clearly wants to be. Unfortunately, now people can get their Clive Davis on and say "I don't hear hits!!!!" Also, what ever happened to making the word "pretentious" banned from the Pulse lexicon. It seems to be used any time someone doesn't hear enough radio ear candy on an album, art direction that is even slightly outre, or based on the way an artist dresses. It's also easy to throw that word around when you're not an artist, just saying.
Anyway, I am glad that people are citing songs that I haven't even heard yet as their faves or the ones with the most potential since I'm already diggin' the songs not listed (i.e. the ones that are available for preview on iTunes).
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2015 20:21:57 GMT -5
Slant gave the album 4.5/5.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 27, 2015 1:09:34 GMT -5
Per Metacritic, this has an 84, based on 5 reviews. Hopefully, more reviews come in and it holds up but I had a feeling critics would love this.
Edit: Wow. I didn't know he was dating the same chick for 10 years! She is gorgeous!
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Post by Wave. on Jun 27, 2015 6:42:12 GMT -5
He's Def going to be a critic darling with this one. "Coffee" recharted this week on the Hot 100.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2015 8:53:53 GMT -5
Favorites right now:
beautiful exit DEAL face the sun leaves waves
"leaves" is like the sister to "#Beautiful".
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 27, 2015 9:15:54 GMT -5
Favorites right now: beautiful exit DEAL face the sun leaves waves "leaves" is like the sister to "#Beautiful". Looks like you found some songs you like after all!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2015 19:25:08 GMT -5
How do you feel about being everyone's favorite, Wave.?
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Post by Wave. on Jun 27, 2015 23:35:55 GMT -5
How do you feel about being everyone's favorite, Wave.? Girl, you know I am EATING this up :)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2015 8:56:05 GMT -5
4/5 from All Music Guide. Places it behind Kaleidoscope Dream but ahead of his debut.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 29, 2015 9:43:49 GMT -5
Loving the reviews for this. Can't wait to pick up the deluxe today. I did a skim through all of the songs that weren't available for preview on iTunes previously and this album is right up my alley.
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Post by Honeymoon on Jun 29, 2015 11:35:45 GMT -5
I agree with that AllMusicGuide review of the album that notes it being more in the direction of "The Thrill"s and "Use Me"s of the last album. "Waves" is the clearest example of that to me- that and "leaves" are my favorites thus far. The rest is going to take more time to grow but seems promising- there's nothing on it that I immediately dislike.
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 29, 2015 11:58:26 GMT -5
waves over everything! That needs to be his next single because that is a summer jam.
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Post by Wave. on Jun 29, 2015 15:17:18 GMT -5
YES:kii:
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 29, 2015 15:40:08 GMT -5
I agree with that AllMusicGuide review of the album that notes it being more in the direction of "The Thrill"s and "Use Me"s of the last album. "Waves" is the clearest example of that to me- that and "leaves" are my favorites thus far. The rest is going to take more time to grow but seems promising- there's nothing on it that I immediately dislike. Those two songs (as well as Do You) were my favorite songs from KD so it's no wonder I like what I have heard from the new album so much!
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 29, 2015 19:37:36 GMT -5
HOT album and I like it better than KD for sure. It's so heady and intoxicating. My faves:
1. Coffee (my favorite song by Miguel right now, hands down) 2. Leaves (in case anyone doubted his vocal talent...beautiful vocal...he reminds me of a more vocally gifted Frank Ocean here and DAMN, the Smashing Pumpkins sample is so left-field but it works perfectly. I'm shocked that it hasn't been brought up anywhere because it's so prominent!) 3. Face The Sun 4. Hollywood Dreams 5. Simple Things 6. What's Normal Anyway 7. ...Goingtohell (Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat co-produced this?? Never woulda guessed! But yeah, such wicked production. It's like The Weeknd recorded live in studio.) 8. Flesh 9. Damned 10. gfg
The sound of his voice is a thing of beauty and wonder. So much passion and grit behind it. Definitely one of the best male singers in the game currently. gotta see him live again. Last time, it was when he opened for Alicia Keys and no one really cared about him. I hope even more critical acclaim comes his way for this because he deserves it even more this time around. I'm convinced the man is a genius. He's doing a show at NPR the same time as my Imagine Dragons show tomorrow, which made me so sad but the tickets to his show sold out in seconds anyway.
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Post by #LisaRinna on Jun 30, 2015 7:10:50 GMT -5
"waves" is Amazing.
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Post by allow that on Jun 30, 2015 9:49:38 GMT -5
"I want to [overenunciate]F*CK[/overenunciate] like we're filming in the valleyyyy."
Lmao, wtf am I listening to?
I'm TRYING to get into this album, but I find myself skipping to the next track before a damn song even finishes. I was eagerly looking forward to "waves" seeing the acclaim here, but... that's it? The song's not bad but not special either. Seems like a case of overcompensating for SOMETHING to grasp onto on this mess of an album. I loooooved his first two, this album may just be my biggest musical letdown of 2015.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 30, 2015 10:11:25 GMT -5
Just listened to it again on my headphones at work. LOVE the bonus tracks. Waves, unfortunately, is not among my favorites but I am still obsessed with the 1979 sample in leaves. Just...ace.
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jun 30, 2015 10:35:08 GMT -5
"I want to [overenunciate]F*CK[/overenunciate] like we're filming in the valleyyyy." Lmao, wtf am I listening to? I'm TRYING to get into this album, but I find myself skipping to the next track before a damn song even finishes. I was eagerly looking forward to "waves" seeing the acclaim here, but... that's it? The song's not bad but not special either. Seems like a case of overcompensating for SOMETHING to grasp onto on this mess of an album. I loooooved his first two, this album may just be my biggest musical letdown of 2015.
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Post by Live Your Life on Jun 30, 2015 20:39:50 GMT -5
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Post by SHOOTER on Jun 30, 2015 22:42:14 GMT -5
"I want to [overcompensate]F*CK[/heterosexuality] like we're filming in the valleyyyy." I know right! That is one of the 3 songs I like though. The whole album sounds crisp in headphones though; whoever mastered it did an awesome job. It will be interesting to see what gets released as singles. It seems like a lot of people are obsessed with face the sun but I feel like anything will be an uphill battle at Urban radio.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jun 30, 2015 23:45:47 GMT -5
I missed his NPR performance tonight because I had an Imagine Dragons concert though I am not mad at all at my decision.
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jul 1, 2015 7:21:35 GMT -5
Welp...I knew this would happen. Critical DarlingYESSSSSSSSSSSSS. Some may note that he is down to 83 on Meteoritic now that the rest of the press seems to have woken up but Pitchfork's Best New Music-ordained review hasn't been posted yet.
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Post by Rican@ on Jul 1, 2015 10:34:50 GMT -5
I gave it a listen, it is still meh, but I'm liking "What's Normal Anyway", "Hollywood Dreams", "...goingtohell" and "FLESH". The latter two are the only ones that sound like R&B tracks while everything else is so experimental. There isn't anything wrong with that, but there are so many tracks without melodies. I don't care for much of vocal layering either. This is such a letdown though.
I think "FLESH" should be released next.
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jul 1, 2015 10:50:07 GMT -5
coffee ...goingtohell waves what's normal anyway Hollywood Dreams
That would be my current Top 5 off the album. I think the reason why I love this so much is because I gravitated to the more experimental and rock infused tracks like "Use Me", "Arch N Point", and "The Thrill" on KD. Yes, it can get unnecessarily vulgar at times but I'm a Prince fan some I'm used to odd sh!t like that coming and going without warning.
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Post by allow that on Jul 1, 2015 10:53:51 GMT -5
I gravitated to the more experimental and rock infused tracks like "Use Me", "Arch N Point", and "The Thrill" on KD. I gravitated towards those too, but they had rich melodies to accompany their experimentation which is what this album lacks. That "Use Me" chorus is like a punch in the face. I agree that "Going to Hell" and "Hollywood Dreams" are the most similar here, and probably the two I like most (still not enough to download, sadly, but I'll at least give these two another shot).
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Post by Hurricane Lee on Jul 1, 2015 11:20:41 GMT -5
I'm guessing that Miguel is a lock for a Grammy nomination for this album, along with D'Angelo (another experimental R&B album that fuses rock to soul successfully.) Also, I love how Pitchfork used to word "heady" to describe Miguel. It's almost as if I wrote that review, LOL.
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Post by Linnethia Monique on Jul 1, 2015 11:23:07 GMT -5
I gravitated to the more experimental and rock infused tracks like "Use Me", "Arch N Point", and "The Thrill" on KD. I gravitated towards those too, but they had rich melodies to accompany their experimentation which is what this album lacks. That "Use Me" chorus is like a punch in the face. I agree that "Going to Hell" and "Hollywood Dreams" are the most similar here, and probably the two I like most (still not enough to download, sadly, but I'll at least give these two another shot). His last album also had the assist of great producers and writers in Pop & Oak, Fisticuffs, Salaam Remi, Elle Varner, Jerry Duplessis, and Happy Perez. Maybe he's just not "there" yet to take in a whole project on his own which this is with 80% being all him. The exceptions are "...goingtohell" and "Hollywood Dreams" which has the assist of Cashmere Cat/Benny Blanco and Fisticuffs respectively.
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Post by allow that on Jul 1, 2015 11:26:21 GMT -5
I gravitated towards those too, but they had rich melodies to accompany their experimentation which is what this album lacks. That "Use Me" chorus is like a punch in the face. I agree that "Going to Hell" and "Hollywood Dreams" are the most similar here, and probably the two I like most (still not enough to download, sadly, but I'll at least give these two another shot). His last album also had the assist of great producers and writers in Pop & Oak, Fisticuffs, Salaam Remi, Elle Varner, Jerry Duplessis, and Happy Perez. Maybe he's just not "there" yet to take in a whole project on his own which this is with 80% being all him. The exceptions are "...goingtohell" and "Hollywood Dreams" which has the assist of Cashmere Cat/Benny Blanco and Fisticuffs respectively. That's an excellent point... and I'm sure it's no coincidence that the exceptions are the two tracks I like lol. [The track with Lenny is actually nice too]
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