I’m not enthused. For the most part, it’s long, slow, instrumental, and repetitive. In other words, super boring. The movie scores I think are the right play for him, that’s an appropriate setting for this kind of music, where part of the design is taking up time and not necessarily actually being all that interesting all the time. I can see where it might be effective, but it’s not ever something that would demand my attention. I still don’t really like it, it’s still boring and long and slow and all that. I’m just saying that the soundtrack wrapping is a better fit than the standalone album wrapping. There were two and a half exceptions. The half exception is Fantasy, which had some fun parts and was fairly enjoyable to listen to but still sooooo loooooong, with 6 minute songs everywhere, not my jam. The other two exceptions were the two albums that I liked okay as albums: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming and Junk. Dreaming is still not my favorite, but it’s a little poppier, got some vocals and lyrics, got a little more energy and movement. Still pretty long, slow, instrumental, and repetitive, but I don’t hate it. Junk I kinda like, Junk is good. It’s got a fair bunch of songs I actually like, it’s a solid album. But yeah, altogether not my jam, I give a solid D
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tunafruitsandwitch 
I don’t know how to start this comment. I don’t know how to make this comment at all. There will be no humor, no clever remarks or witticisms (I don’t really know what this word means). And that is because I simply cannot comprehend the review that I have just read. In my mind, it was a universal truth that M83 made fire music. And that as a very intelligent and experienced music reviewer, you, Pod, would come to that conclusion as well. You would give it a listen, slap it in A, write how cool they were, call it a day. But that is not what happened. They are in D. And now I am left trying to figure out the answer to the question: “How can people have such different opinions?”
Like, this kind of disagreement is full 180. Completely radical. Like America declaring their secession from Great Britian on July 4, 1776 kinda radical. Like not ok. So from where does this disagreement arise? I think I can see it. Your critiques of M83’s music are what draws me to them. The long, slow, repetitive instrumentals. Simply put, I love them. To me, listening to M83 feels like being transported into another world. I can’t quite describe it how I want to in words, I’m not very good at that. But like the slow, ethereal sounds of “Temple of Sorrow”. Or the solo of some unknown instrument at the very end of “Do it, Try It”. Or the sax solo at the End of “Midnight City”. Or the crashing (I think drums/cymbals?) and synth in “Echoes of Mine”. Or the synth rollercoaster that is “Stevie McQueen”. I also might just really like synth. I have listened to more than my fair share of synthwave / retrowave multi-hour compilations on Youtube. Regardless, M83 songs to me make me FEEL. I like that they’re slow and slowly build up, I like that they’re somewhat repetitive (If you have a good thing going why mess with it?) and I especially like that they’re instrumental. They just bring me to a place that I have never before felt with other songs. You somewhat touch on that point in stating that due to its characteristics their style fits in better with Movie Soundtracks. But I don’t really like their Movie Soundtracks. I like their regular songs. Our difference in preferences is made most obvious, at least to me, by your favorite song selection of “Go!”. I listened to “Go!” on repeat for what I think was 4 hours straight after seeing at as your favorite song overall. And it grew on me, and I will say it’s a fine song. But the things that make it a fine song, the energy and overall “POP-ey” feel to it, are the exact opposite of what I like about M83 songs and M83 as an artist. This might be a total mis-characterization, and I apologize if it is, but it seems to me that you much more lean towards energetic and “POP-ey” songs. Thinking of the killers, their songs have quite a lot of that energy.
To sum up, I like M83 a lot, I was sad to see you had different thoughts just because I wanted you to enjoy the music, but that is how the world works. The fact we don’t see eye-to-eye is a great thing. Disagreement makes the world go around (at least the civil kind). Also, if I pulled things out of my arse in this comment, then that is my bad. I really don’t know jack about musical elements or stuff like that. All I know is that M83, to me, is good because it is slow and instrumental and moving, and it seemed that for these reasons you disliked it. Also I did not proof-read this so if there are spelling errors my bad.
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Different strokes for different folks, yeah. I’ve got reasons for not liking them and I can articulate those reasons, and you can articulate the reasons you do like them, but at the end of the day neither of us are really right or wrong, we’ve just got different preferences.
And yeah, I think it’s probably fair to say I lean toward liking more poppy stuff. There’s plenty of music I love that isn’t poppy at all, but I’m much less likely to dislike pop songs than other types of things. The floor is higher, is all
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