171: Jamiroquai (C+)

Jamiroquai in tier list

my first impression is just, dang this is groovy, I can get behind that. I like it a lot, I’m really enjoying listening to it. But. It is too long. When I’m listening to it as an album, when I’m not just listening to a song by them but am listening to them, I don’t even mind it too much. What’s it matter if one song is 8 minutes if I’m listening for an hour anyway, yknow? That’s already an unusual reaction for me, usually I’d be irked by overlong songs even as background music. But here the songs all blend into each other in such a way that when it’s chunked I don’t care all that much about where one song ends and the next begins. I think this is the first time I’ve ever felt like that sameyness/lack of distinction between songs is actually at all beneficial. But “at all beneficial” is not a high bar, and it does matter if a song is 8 minutes long. Partly out of the experiential side of things, 8 minutes is just too long for a song to be. That’s too long to hold my attention. Even when I don’t mind it, it’s because I’m kinda tuning it out, letting it become background noise— pleasant and thoroughly enjoyable background noise, but not anything really worth giving attention to. And, I think it’s too long partly out of principle, I just think if you keep making your songs so long over and over again it displays a lack of discipline and lack of intention in your songwriting process. A song that long either has way too much repetition than is warranted, useful, or wanted, or it has enough unique ideas that it should be more than one song. So yeah, right now I’m feeling, I like them a lot, I’d like to like them more, but they just go on so long. Enough that I do think it’s a genuine issue. Their saving grace I think is Rock Dust Light Star, it’s really quite good. I feel it really puts stuff together, it is still super groovy and fun while making everything shorter and tighter. Unfortunately, it is an outlier. I do really like the sound and the jam and the groove, it’s super fun. But I can’t justify how long everything gets, it causes the music to inevitably lose me. I’m open to it growing on me, but for now it’s a C+