More Adventurous: Albums to Listen to #5 (Taylor Swift, Riley!, SeeYouSpaceCowboy)
Albums I'm listening to the week of April 22
God Bless the people who put out albums the week that Taylor Swift also did. While I allocated two hours to listen to the full version of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, I do need to catch up on some newer music that will not be as soaked in lore.
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department
I’m probably going to expand on Taylor Swift’s new record in a full piece, but for the time being, I’ll say that it has a few jams. The title track and “But Daddy I Love Him” go hard.
Riley! – Keep Your Cool
Unfortunately, Taylor Swift did not have the catchiest record to drop last week. That honor belongs to Texas punks Riley! The Counter Intuitive-signed band go through loneliness, discontent, anxiety, and anger with songs that match power-pop tunes and melodies with the occasional emo, throat shredding screaming and a math-rock riff.
While there are moments the band leans into memes and humor, there’s a lot of depth to their songs, including jokey titles like “[cries in spanish]” or “God is an Algorithm and I’m Fighting for the Attention of a Million Strangers on the Internet.” Even a song like “Kill yr Boss” is a genuine expression of anger, frustration and cutting someone off, but there’s a random “see you later alligator” in the first verse. It’s an immediate album that makes me excited to hear all of the places that Riley! may go in the future. Even though there are some downers in the lyrics, the tone is upbeat, and this will surely get a lot of airtime from me in the warmer months.
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