just total banger after total banger. I think S- is about as high as a comedy band can go for me. Part of it is it’s hard for me to not feel like they’re missing chances to be more, even if they’re doing what they’re doing really well: there’s a sense of superiority that probably isn’t super useful, and maybe it’ll fade with time and maybe it won’t. The other, bigger part (specifically for Jazz Emu), I think, is the quality of album- all albums feel more like compilations of singles than cohesive works in and of themselves, which is definitely a missed chance to be more. I think to have a chance to qualify for a full S an artist needs to have at least 1 album that I really like, and that I like as an album. So, S-. I can see it lowering or not, we’ll have to find out. Fantastic either way, can’t recommend enough, maybe I do have a favorite genre after all and it’s funk.
EDIT1: new album I think is better as an album, but individually don’t love as much, and by and large Jazz Emu hasn’t grown on me the way I hoped he would
RELISTEN1: I think in my head he’s kinda been degrading for a while now. When I first listened to him I was kinda enamored, he was fun and funny and entertaining and, jokes aside, I liked the general sound of his music. The more I listened, the more his pointier details have stuck out to me. Lyrics that weren’t just quirky but quirky and aggressive, songs that were made more to catch attention than to sound good. So going into my relisten I was hopeful but wary.
On the whole, I like him a good bit. I wanted to like him, but there are a good number of songs that are just misses and songs that go a more distracting direction than I can really enjoy. What was a pleasant surprise is, even (perhaps especially) in the context of these other songs that missed, I really liked the songs I liked. All my favorites, the ones that got me into him in the first place, they’re really good. Unironically, without qualification, full stop. The dilemma I’m resolving is not actually “is this too distracting for me” but “do the few songs I love outweigh the many that I don’t”. Which is a) something I’m much more familiar processing and b) a question that already tells me A+ is almost certainly too high of a rank.
The first three albums all have at least one song each that I actually really really like, they all have at least one song that I think is unironically a great song. The fourth album doesn’t have that for me. I for sure don’t like the second two albums as much as the first. They both (and in particular the last) make more of an attempt at an albumic coherency, but I don’t think it really hits. It’s hard to make a coherent album when your whole schtick is a general lack of coherency. It reads here to me as inauthentic and smarmy, and not in a charming way. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate the attempt, because I honestly do, I just don’t think it worked out. I also just don’t like the songs as much. That’s all a bit of a mouthful but- altogether I still like him enough to keep him in the As, no need to demote to a C or B. But… only just barely, I think, low A-
tunafruitsandwitch 