Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeke.
The interludes on NEXT LEVEL are the best she's ever had. But I feel the futuristic sound it was going for is always interrupted when the singles come into play.
Actually, looking at the track list again, the only songs that fully commit to that ambiance are EnergizE, Sparkle, Rollin', and of course the interludes. Seriously the interludes are the most "futuristic/digital" sounding pieces on the album. There are fragments of that ambiance lightly peppered into the other album tracks, but not enough to really drive the concept home. She didn't commit to the sound enough. Additionally, the digital sound she went for, came off as a bid dated. Almost like a parody of electronic music. Look at LOVE'n'HATE as an example - what the Hell is it trying to be? Lol. It's like a rejected angry Destiny's Child song trying to be rock and electronically edgy at the same time.
Going further, I found many of the album tracks less-than-stellar. Rollin' is a little annoying, LOVE'n'HATE is bad, and Curtain call is not my thing. It took a while for the title track to grow on me, and my love for identity faded rather quickly. I felt this album was the least authentic to her persona. The concept was wonderful, but the execution for me was just very amateur. I didn't feel like she was part of the music - her voice and the arrangements weren't in perfect harmony and there's a clear division between her and the other layers. Like she's just singing stop them instead of amongst them.
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...I just like the album as a whole, though I see what you're saying. It is not 100% coherent, but that's one of the things I like about it. I just really enjoy playing the whole thing, which anymore, is kind of rare for me when it comes to albums. The only song I might come close to skipping is Rule because...I just don't know why.
One thing I actually love about NL is the juxtaposition of the more upbeat, "peppier" songs next to the more emotionally driven, sadder songs. I feel like she must have been seriously manic while writing those lyrics, like at one moment she's super energetic and loving life and the next she's slowly sinking down into a melancholy sadness.
The album of hers that I feel is the most consistent in style throughout is LOVEppears. Those songs go together excellently, and none of them seem like they belong to some other genre that somehow just happened to make it onto the CD.
The thing is, I can totally see how legitimate your criticism is of NL so I don't completely disagree with you but I just love that album. It could have more to do with the time it came out and how it resonated with me, IDK. I mean, I was depressed during GUILTY and that album couldn't come out at a better time, but as far as I can remember, I was pretty happy when NL came out. XD