Albums of the Week: September 22-October 6

This week, I’ve got another four albums for your listening ears. There will be three new albums from the past week (on a monday to monday basis) and one classic album we’re celebrating the anniversary of. 

The Life of a Showgirl – Taylor Swift

Unrateable/10

As a life-long lover of music, I am truly hesitant to review this album as if it is music. Music is written from the heart as an expression of emotion and as long as humans have lived, communion with each other and deeper parts of yourself have been achieved through playing, listening and writing music. This album does none of those things and instead represents the culmination of Taylor Swift’s descent from mediocre folk-pop artist to billionaire corporate drone. 

The album attempts to both celebrate and ignore Swift’s spotlight in the 1%. Swift– who is worth an estimated 1.6 billion (Forbes) and owns at least 8 properties (ELLEDecor)– can still somehow dream “about a driveway with a basketball hoop” on the track “Wi$h Li$t”. Even the album cover is emotionless and lazy looking, it doesn’t even try to evoke anything, the entire project is a 100 percent image. Swift– who in 2024 flew her private jet roughly 98 times, releasing about 768 metric tons of carbon dioxide (Simple Flying)– has completely inverted into a puppet of herself. 

Considering all her friends are Zionists (a fact she is proud of, as she says on the song “CANCELLED!”) it’s no surprise the amount of music on this album that is outright stolen from other pop artists. On that terribly named whine-fest, “CANCELLED!”, she rips the beat exactly from Lorde’s “Yellow Flicker Beat”– and that’s just the start. “Actually Romantic” rips off The Pixie’s “Where Is My Mind” and the titular “The Life of a Showgirl” is almost 1:1 a copy of The Jonas Brothers’ “Cool”. This is the same artist who attacked the young, industry-virgin Olivia Rodrigo and settled out of court with her for writing credits (and subsequently royalties) on multiple of her songs that she felt were too similar to hers. 

Genius lines like “I can make deals with the devil because my dick’s bigger,” from “Father Figure” highlight her terminal inability to sound edgy. Even on “Eldest Daughter” (which in my opinion, a track about the struggles of being the eldest child isn’t really that meaningful when you only have one sibling) when she tries to talk about her childhood, lines like “You know, thе last time I laughed this hard was, on the trampoline in somebody’s backyard, I must’ve been about eight or nine” feels like such a fake, AI-generated childhood memory. 

The most egregious of all is of course “Actually Romantic” her– for lack of a better word– stupid diss at Charli XCX. Charli XCX released “Sympathy is a knife” on her 2024 album “brat” about how female pop artists are pitted against each other by the music industry, and how she feels nervous to be included in mainstream music discussions alongside giant artists like Taylor Swift. Swift fires back with a song interpreting it as a diss track, and instead attacking Charli XCX for her cocaine usage, claiming Charli’s (single song) was “actually romantic”. Disgusting, misogynist and crude.

Listening to this album will do two things. First, it will make your day worse through its disgusting perversion of emotion (as India Block of The Standard says, “a parody album hallucinated by some porn-addled AI”) and fetishism yet ignorance of Swift’s billionaire lifestyle. Second, by streaming it on an app like Spotify, you will be sending that money directly to her. I implore you all to listen to the other wonderful albums by wonderful, less problematic women I’ve reviewed today– for your own sake, and the world’s. 

Also, the music sounds bad, like terrible. 

Letters – Hina Aoki

7.0/10

MyGO!!!!! is a japanese rock band where the real band members portray fictional characters for an anime series called “BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!”,”Letters ” by group lead guitarist Hina Aoki is her debut solo album as herself, rather than her animated persona, it’s a fun time.

There’s a specific sound associated with Japanese powerpop that makes it sound different than just pop-rock with a japanese singer; guitar tones, jazz-infused basslines and an evolutionary line rooted in traditional Japanese music rather than the blues-origins that rock has in the west. Specifically, the “royal road” chord progression (IV-V-iii-vi) that is found all over this genre– in addition to heavier use of secondary dominants that give the entire project a much more mature feeling.

This album is shimokita-kei– that’s the genre name for this kind of japanese pop-rock– at it’s purest form and at 47 minutes long, it managed to keep me interested from start to finish with its catchy guitar solos, funky bass riffs and of course Aoki’s beautiful voice. Though she doesn’t do lead vocals for MyGO!!!!!, she’s able to replicate that classic j-rock sound seemingly effortlessly on this record.

This album proves her ability as a standalone artist– though I doubt any success from the album would cause her to depart from MyGO!!!!!. Songs like the title track “Letters” or “Dokuso Showtime” showcase her ability to lay down excellent-sounding, technical guitar riffs, and others like “MeguriMeguro” are evidence of her incredibly catchy choruses. 

Objectively speaking, this album is not as impressive as I am ranking it to be– there are piles and piles of records that sound effectively exactly like this one, but j-rock is my weakness. I’ve heard the same chord progressions, same piano flourishes and singers with the same vocal range. Though after all this time I still love the genre. Give this album a listen, for my sake. 

Don’t Trust Mirrors – Kelly Moran

6.9/10

Minimalism– or in Kelly Moran’s case post minimalism– as a genre seemingly doesn’t open itself up to much analysis and a part of me wants to agree; after all the music is “minimalist”, right? At the same time however, Claude Debussy once said “music is the space between notes”, a quote that (though at times I disagree with) heavily applies to music like this. 

The album utilizes instruments of all kinds, various synths, pianos, handpan drums, kalimbas, all kinds of traditional instrumentation that all serve their purpose and never overstay their welcome. Kelly herself plays the piano, and composed all the works, but there’s no shortage of talent in her ensemble alongside her.

The music has this natural, lush feeling to it, and while it is good music to listen to on its own, it serves as excellent background music where applicable– studying, reading, I could even see someone sleeping to this. This isn’t an insult at all, dare I say ambient music that can be background music has achieved its goal, but there are levels to the composition that I can not fully comprehend that go into making it so relaxing yet interesting. 

For those who enjoy the escape into a fantasy world you might find from a video game like “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, take a deep breath, brew some tea and enjoy this record. 

Time ‘n’ Place – Kero Kero Bonito

8.6/10

In the modern world, Kero Kero Bonito is often reduced to simply “the band who made ‘Flamingo’, that meme song”, and what a sad reduction that is! This album– what many consider to be their best work– is a wild blend of twee pop, electronica and psychedelia that results in a short and sweet adventure through genres.

The album starts like any indie-rock album would, with powerful guitars, and danceable lyrics. It isn’t until the third track, “Only Acting” where towards the end of the song lead vocalist Sarah Bonito’s voice starts stuttering– like the record is broken, creating a distorted effect before the song abruptly ends into the next track. From this point on, it sets the tone, Kero Kero Bonito start to introduce more experimental and psychedelic elements into the track, less sensical lyrics, higher reverb on the vocals, stronger implementation of electronic elements and a more unique feel.

The unique musicality is not limited just to their ability to produce evolved power pop. The track “If I’d Known” has a rap verse towards the end– and “Sometimes” drops all amps and drums to present an indie folk track. “Rest Stop” literally uses a sound from the Super Mario 64 soundtrack during the intro. 

Lyrics on the album have varied meanings, but there is a central idea of confusion, trepidation and growing old. The track “Dear Future Self” is exactly what it sounds like, a cute, heartfelt letter to the singer’s future self expressing her fears with growing older. On “If I’d Known” there is discussion about the endlessness of the universe. “Visiting Hours” talks about meeting someone in the hospital and wishing for them to come home. There’s something here for every kind of confusion and worry. 

The album crescendos in “Rest Stop” and ends with a beautiful finale of industrial synths cranked up to the max, while Sarah Bonito softly sings to herself in the background– the final line of this song says “As the trumpets echo around, you don’t wanna be-” and then cuts off– leading us back to the opening track “Outside”, because you don’t wanna be outside. 

This album is a masterful display in making a dense, jam-packed collection of ideas that in just 33 minutes allows you not only to hear music across the spectrum– but feel emotions across it too.