again, fairly standard, like three extra but the rest are just alright
EDIT1: part of the initial big restructure of making Cs, Ds, and Fs useful
RELISTEN1: I was very curious to this going in- it was one of my earliest listens, before I had the strict process I do now. I remember feeling like all of Plain White T’s was pretty much the same, and all a little bit awkward. My hope was that coming back in I’d find it to be more than I remembered, because sometimes some of that awkward feeling can definitely be attributed to lazy listening on my end.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it was just lazy listening on my end. I am indeed feeling like these songs are samey and sometimes a little awkward. If anything I think that increased as a primary issue I had with them as I kept listening- not awkward musically so much as awkward lyrically and thematically, just off enough to be really distracting. That said, the last album (and to a limited extent, the album or two before it, but mostly just Parallel Universe) is actually pretty decent and much less of that awkward feeling, so props there.
This is a tricky one. They display lots of characteristics typically found in artists I really like and admire- albums are coherent and connected, the band grows and changes over time and isn’t constrained to just one kind of sound, the sounds/genres they do use are ones that I typically enjoy. But there’s also that awkwardness, I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a similar feeling I get for WALK THE MOON, but WTM mostly grow out of it after their first album. Plain White T’s don’t grow out of it for half a dozen albums, and even then I don’t know that I think they even entirely grow out of it, there are still artifacts of it they can’t quite banish. I’m a little bit wary of using the C-range as a crutch any time a tough decision pops up, but here I do think a C- is the right call
tunafruitsandwitch 