Sky's Music Reviews

Expectations  is the long awaited, LONG delayed debut album by singer-songwriter Bebe Rexha. She has a long repertoire of hits: "I Can't Stop Drinking About You", "Take Me Home", "Hey Mama", "Me, Myself, and I", her most recent and biggest hit, #2 single "Meant To Be", not to mention all of the other hits that she's penned for other artists. She's dropped three EPs, including the two-part  All Your Fault  EP; apparently, there was supposed to be a third part that was replaced by this album. Her career as a star spans back to 2014, and it's a wonder that it's taken her so long to drop an album, but here it is, on June 22, 2018. Can it live up to our  Expectations? Expectations  tends to stick to Bebe's pop roots, but the span of styles used on this album is quite diverse. Like most new pop girl albums (Anne Marie and Camila Cabello, for example),  Expectations  consists of a few tracks that exist mostly to sh...

Might as well put my take on the drama here as well. You've been warned. First, the song itself. The first part that I've got to mention is the production. Most of it is very generic, but then there are those weird chanting noises in the background. They ruin the flow of the song for me, detract from the actual lyrics, and just sound bad. For each artist's part: Rita Ora's chorus and verse seem very uninspired. The "I'm 50/50 and I'm never going to hide it" part is good and shows that this song had potential to be a bi anthem, but it's squandered. "I'm getting down with her, uh huh" is just boring. Charli's pre-chorus is decent if not weird. Her obsession with weed is annoying and doesn't really go with the rest of the song at all. Bebe sounds pretty good, but since when is she LGBT at all? I guess I missed the memo. Still, the best singing part of the song. Cardi's part (side note: why do they say "Rita...

Going back to the old format for a while! Expectations is the debut album by Hayley Kiyoko, AKA "Lesbian Jesus". It was released on March 30th, 2018. The majority of production is handled by 4e, and it should be noted that all but two songs have at least four songwriters. It is 11 songs long, with an intro and an interlude track. Hayley Kiyoko is quite the interesting character, and this album definitely shows that. She started as an actress in Lemonade Mouth; later, she went on to release three EPs. Though most of them were not memorable at all to me, "Gravel to Tempo" is one of my favorite songs and everyone should definitely give that a fair listen. Anyways, I digress. A very big part of Kiyoko's character is her being a proud lesbian. The fact that she has absolutely no shame about this (to the point where the original cover has a nude girl on it, I had to edit it) and sings loud and proud about her female lovers is extremely admirable to me and defini...

Bobby Tarantino II is Maryland rapper Logic's sixth mixtape, released on March 9th, 2018. It's a fairly standard hip-hop/trap mixtape; it's full of hype music, fairly standard lyrics, and doesn't try to get much more fancy than that. I FAR prefer this to Logic's previous album, Everybody , where it seemed like he tried to fit the same message about being biracial every 30 seconds. It just got tiring and seemed fake deep. That's not to say that this album is totally free of messages, but Logic is a lot more subtle about it this time and the relatively rare moments when he tries to fit a message in make every lyric about it more meaningful. The intro, "Grandpa's Space Ship", is a Rick and Morty skit. This isn't his first time associating himself with the show. In the episode "Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender", Logic starred as himself at a concert at the end of the episode. It seemed really strange the first time I saw the ...

The Chainsmokers - Sick Boy +1 for the single cover. That's amazing. The general consensus for this song seems to be that it's fake deep, and I agree. However, I don't think that it's quite as cheesy as most people think. After reading a lot of the Chainsmokers' reddit posts, I do think that they are a LOT deeper than they let on. That being said... this is a little too much. The concept that they're trying to project could use a lot of work. I do think that the whole east side / west side part of the song is getting misinterpreted. I believe that it means that no matter where The Chainsmokers go in America, their ideals supposedly still make them the "sick boy". Doesn't really make the concept better... but, that's just my two cents. I also lowkey like the "how many likes is my life worth" part. The production is really great. I LOVE that gun cocking sound throughout the song, and the synth for the post-chorus is really ni...

First review of 2018! Camila is the debut album by former Fifth Harmony member Camila Cabello. It was released on January 12th, 2018. It was extremely hyped up in the pop world, with Camila's lead single "Havana" topping many charts worldwide, beating any of the past placements of her former group members. Personally, I was extremely excited for this album. Camila was always my favorite part of Fifth Harmony, due to her very distinctive voice and the spotlight that usually shone on her. I was actually rather excited to see that she was leaving 5H, because I felt that a solo career would be the best choice for her. Her initial two songs, "Crying in the Club" and "I Have Questions", were both pretty okay. Nothing amazing, but I still had hope for her. Finally, the two follow-ups, "Havana" and "OMG", were both amazing. I'll talk about "Havana" later in the review, but "OMG" ended up being cut off of the al...

Wew, I haven't posted in quite a while. It's winter break for me, but I don't have much motivation for the blog right now, and I feel like there weren't any albums worth reviewing recently. I will, however, be reviewing the new Camila Cabello album that comes out in 5 days. Anyways, here's my ranking for all of the albums and EPs that I listened to last year. Combined, there are over 70 projects, all organized into tiers. If you'd like to discuss one of my placements, just leave a comment! I'd really like to see more comments and discussion on this blog. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gXQCRxoPm5x4mQu9jNCOwwOnteNXszeJQ4XAGfm2zio/edit?usp=sharing

Blue Lips is Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo's third solo album, released on November 17, 2017. It is the second half of a two piece concept album; the first half is last year's Lady Wood , which is one of my favorite albums. It features the final two chapters of the concept album; Light Beam and Pitch Black. It was a hard choice to decide to review this album. This is simply because Tove Lo is definitely my favorite artist ever; Queen of the Clouds is my favorite album. Thus, I figured that I would be too biased. However, after listening to this album many times, it seems like I am in the right mindset to accurately review it. It certainly has flaws and strengths that I can address through a mostly unbiased lens. I'm going to return to my older format of reviewing for this album, track by track, because it's mostly chronological. I'd like to address the cover. It's frankly horrible, and I didn't want to really put it on my blog because my parents re...

Reputation is "pop goddess" Taylor Swift's sixth studio album. It was released yesterday, on November 10th, 2017. Taylor made the rather predictable choice to keep this album off of streaming services for at least a week, in order to boost sales. That effect definitely happened; about 700,000 sales on the first day of its release. It could've been worse, of course; the rest of Taylor's catalog was only recently added to streaming services, after over a year as purchase exclusive. Thematically, I never really had high hopes for the concept that she was trying to push with this album. When I heard "the old Taylor is dead" lyric from the lead single, I knew that there were two possible options for the sound of this album. One: Taylor can actually recreate herself with a new, darker and more raw image. Two: Taylor can act like she's totally reinvented with a few darker tracks, but for the most part, stick to her normal, safer sound. Of course, she...

I wrote this on another website but I figured that it would fit just fine here. I consider myself to be a pretty big Kiiara fan. I love low kii savage , and "Whippin" is also great. But with all that being said, my opinion on Kiiara was getting worse and worse. I thought that she'd keep dropping basically the same song over and over; just that dirty sounding, vocal-chopped EDM track. Then, she drops this. And all of my faith is restored. This song is quite frankly amazing, one of my top songs this year, and my favorite Kiiara song (maybe tied with Feels). It gives me new hope for Kiiara; it displays how she can be versatile if she wants to, how she doesn't need to totally rely on producers, and how great her voice is. First, I'm not going to say that the production is anything bad at all. In fact, it's quite amazing. The beautifully crooning violin, that elegant piano riff, and the little vocal cut after "bricks" all combine together with the...

Poppy.Computer is the debut album by viral internet persona Poppy, formerly known as That Poppy. It was released on October 6th, after three promo singles and two lead singles, though it is only 11 songs left. Sonically, it employs a variety of styles. Bubblegum pop is the most prominent, but there are a few rock and acoustic sounds.  It's her second project, after her debut EP Bubblebath , containing "Lowlife" and "Money", both extremely good pop songs. Poppy has been signed to Diplo's label, Mad Decent. In my book, that means that Poppy has reached the "big leagues"; she's not an independent artist anymore like she was on  Bubblebath .  However, this really does not seem to have any effect on her music. It's still quirky, even more so than before. There are some major standouts on this album. The first "real" single, "Interweb", has a really mystical feel with some great production. The whole song is downtempo, b...

GEMINI is Macklemore's first solo studio album in a very long time, following the two joint albums with Ryan Lewis, The Heist and This Unruly Mess I've Made . The former was what made me a Macklemore fan in the first place; I always adored his unique, over-enunciated rap flow, and great blend of socially conscious and "fun" songs. Unlike Macklemore's first studio album from 2005, The Language of My World , GEMINI , released on September 22nd, 2017, does not contain powerful political undertones. Instead, this album is characterized by an overlying feel of joy and happiness. Now, I'm not sure exactly why Macklemore thought that this was the path to take. He's always been very socially conscious, and it seems like society would reflect with those issues now, in our period of social turmoil, more than ever. He tackled issues like his white privilege, his vision for his child, and more on This Unruly Mess I've Made.  I believe that it was a very bad d...

"dont smile at me" is the debut by the absolutely amazing singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, released on August 12th, 2017 (a date I had on my calendar for a long time). This is my favorite project from this year so far and I'm so happy to review it. A little bit about Billie Eilish; she was homeschooled for most of her life, just like me, and she's 15. She was only 13 when she sang "Ocean Eyes" from the EP. It just dazzles me that someone two years younger than me is more talented than not only me, but the vast majority of people. Her voice is soulful and versatile, and her songwriting is so very mature. Her brother, Finneas, was a minor Glee actor, but at 17, he found his true calling with producing and songwriting. He produced this entire EP all by himself and co-wrote every single song. The two together just can't be stopped. They remind me a lot of Karmin, but strangely, all representation is given to Billie; perhaps Finneas is just content with b...