Thursday, 18 September 2014

2. Crush Songs by Karen O (2014) - new albums/albums from 2014 review

Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman Karen O wrote a track called “The Moon Song” for the film “Her” last year. If you haven’t seen this film, it’s basically about a man who falls in love with his computer (who has a female voice). It sounds very weird but the film is actually quite moving.

What do you do after you’ve written a song for a romantic film then? Write an album about love songs of course! That’s what Karen O has done anyway, and why not? If you’re feeling inventive about a particular subject then it’s logical that you’re going to try and keep those creative juices flowing for as long as possible. Basically, “Crush Songs” delves into the topics of relationships and love.  

Clocking in at a brief 25 minutes, “Crush Songs” is all about being short but sweet. Many of the songs on this album have a basic lo-fi production with incredibly, emotionally raw vocals from Karen O. That’s it. No epic sting sections or flashy synthesizers, just pure, simple songwriting.

With this in mind, you’d expect to the lyrics and vocal melodies to do most of the work, and they do. This is fine but these particular features are a bit hit and miss. “Rapt” and “Body” are the only songs that really pack an emotional punch, and “Singalong” is a charming way to close the album.

There’s no point in being ultra descriptive about “Crush Song” because there’s really not a lot to it. One thing that should be mentioned though, is the fact that most of these 15 songs aren’t even two minutes long so you might be left feeling majorly unsatisfied.

To sum it up, this album is for two kinds of people; those who’ll love it and be emotionally invested in it, and those who’ll just it see it as average, no thrills songwriting. Overall, “Crush Songs” simply doesn’t really have the appeal to make it an outstanding album.

OVERALL RATING: 5/10

BEST SONGS: RAPT, BODY, SINGALONG. 

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