way mellower than my typical mood but consistent and high quality. newest album is really good, some great songs that are more my speed
RELISTEN1: slow songs have been growing on me, some of the songs I already liked have super grown on me, are absolutely fantastic
RELISTEN2: I definitely needed to do this relisten, there was definitely adjusting that had to be done to my model of McAlpine, to my model of my feelings about her. In my head, I liked Give Me a Minute pretty well, When the World Stopped Moving a good bit less, five seconds flat a ton, and then was subsequently super disappointed by Older. There are parts of that that are still true, but most of my impressions this time around were totally different.
Give Me a Minute is way better than I gave it credit for. It’s such a vibey album, in the sense that it tunes into such a specific channel, such a specific energy, and if the mood is right for that then it’s kinda a perfect album. It’s also chock full of songs I love individually, that have seriously grown on me over the years I’ve listened to them.
When the World Stopped Moving I remembered liking a lot, but on this relisten there’s a couple songs I like and the rest are just mid. five seconds flat I remembered adoring, but on relisten I felt it’s just pretty good. Less good than Give Me a Minute, even, which is not a take I ever expected to have. The highs of five second flat are super high, I’ve got some all time favorite songs in there, and it’s got good construction as an album, it makes sense. But it’s also got a good bundle of songs that I just… don’t love. Like, they’re fine, they’re alright, but that’s all. It’s still a really good album, but before I thought it was something pushing McAlpine into being one of my favorites, one of my keystone artists, and now I think it’s not that.
Older was super disappointing for me when I first listened to it, but after getting some time to sit on it and listen to it more, I think a lot of that was coming from my (not entirely grounded) perception of how great five seconds flat is. Older isn’t bad. There’s a lot about it I didn’t like that I still don’t like– I think it’s mopey and self absorbed, I think some of the songs feel samey (or even like they’re cribbing from her own past songs), and most of all I don’t like the stylistic choice that was made to tone everything down. On most of these songs, instrumentation and general production was reduced to a level that’s slower and emptier than anything McAlpine had down before, and I think that was a huge miss.
I did this relisten thinking I would bump up McAlpine to an A+ if I decided Older was good enough, and leave her as is if I decided it wasn’t. Instead, I find myself having to make a new decision about everything. And, amusingly enough, coming to roughly the same conclusion I did when I first listened to her (almost exactly, what are the odds) two and a half years ago. I’m gonna bump her up past Lovejoy and Smallpools because I think there is more in her music that is meaningful and personal to me, but all things considered I think a low A fits her pretty well.
There’s so much she does so well that I wish she played into more. Her harmonies are incredible and she definitely uses them a lot but I still feel like they’re underutilized for how strong they are. Her high energy stuff is so fun, and when she does interesting things with rhythm it’s always so engaging. She tends toward simple arrangements, but her bigger and more complicated arrangements I almost always feel like are rich and well done and I wish there were more of them. There’s so much she’s good at, but I feel like she plays into other stuff. Her priorities are not my priorities, and that leads to what can often feel like hit or miss. Lots of hit, to be sure, but the miss is still a bummer. So yeah, keeping a low A
tunafruitsandwitch 