Twenty One Pilots - Blurryface (2015)
I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment, but nothing that'd actually make someone consider me to be a masochist. For instance, I had tacos the other night with a fuckin' SHITLOAD of hot sauce straight from Mexico on it, and I was still feeling the burning in my stomach the next morning, as I woke up from the pain and just laid there like a decomposing burnt body, but the flame was inside of my body rather than coating my outside like the best defense against a cold winter. I guess I'm also a glutton for punishment in some people's eyes by listening to the Twenty One Pilots discography to see what they're all about, but I don't really see that because I actually do enjoy some of the songs that they crank out, angst and all, and I don't even hate the smash-hit "Stressed Out" (does that opening beat remind anyone else of 50 Cent's "In Da Club"?) despite some of the chorus sounding awkward. I don't know, dude, I just don't think it's a bad song. I don't really like it, but I don't think it's bad at all, it's definitely got its catchy bits and I think anyone who attempts to deny that is full of shit. Sure, it may be annoyingly catchy to a degree, but credit is given where credit's due.
On this album, the duo's love for reggae is shown more than ever before, with some reggae guitar styling (aka that thing you hear in literally ever ska band ever) in a lot of the songs, and they do really like to switch things up genre-wise, like with how "Doubt" has this catchy kinda hip-hop thing going on with a cut-up chorus, and "We Don't Believe What's On TV" almost comes across as a folk-punk tune with a nice low bassline underneath the ukelele (can ukeleles be used in folk? fuck you), and trust me, there's a few songs on here that I threw into the shuffles playlist that I have, with my two personal favorites being "HeavyDirtySoul" and "Lane Boy", but most of this album just doesn't have much fucking bite to it and gets noticeably weaker in its second half. This album definitely doesn't deserve the hate that it got from its smash-hits, but at the same time, I don't really see much to be entertained by in large or even just moderate doses. You can tell that these guys genuinely love what they do and are pretty creative at times, but at the same time, a lot of their attempts just fall a bit short, kinda making them like the musical equivalent of flat soda in the way that flat soda tastes good, since the flavor is obviously still there, but you -know- it's missing something.
6/10
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