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Nine Criticisms.


Kay

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3 minutes ago, Kay said:

Lol it definitely does, hell Untitled is one of the worst for blink regarding simplistic guitar work and overused progressions (of the Tom era anyhow) but the songs themselves and how they were crafted makes it much less important. 

Tom might use similar ideas but i was taking about generic pop ideas, and you know you basically contradict yourself saying that it's simplistic and then saying that it's nicely crafted, Untitled has the strongest guitar work by Tom, so much stuff going on compared to anything else

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Just now, alex_dept. said:

Tom might use similar ideas but i was taking about generic pop ideas, and you know you basically contradict yourself saying that it's simplistic and then saying that it's nicely crafted, Untitled has the strongest guitar work by Tom, so much stuff going on compared to anything else

the parts are simplistic, I meant he doesn't go super riff heavy or any lead parts or anything, it's mostly chordal work with very little picking parts. it's simpler. I meant the songs themselves are crafted well. 

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3 minutes ago, Kay said:

the parts are simplistic, I meant he doesn't go super riff heavy or any lead parts or anything, it's mostly chordal work with very little picking parts. it's simpler. I meant the songs themselves are crafted well. 

well, all Tom's guitar work is mostly easy to play, but I think Untitled just has more of simple ideas one over another in total, which makes the songs more complicated in total

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Just now, alex_dept. said:

well, all Tom's guitar work is mostly easy to play, but I think just has more of ideas in total, even if they are easy to play, which makes the songs more complicated in total

That... sentence doesn't really make much sense. I'm not slagging off Untitled just saying purely from a guitar perspective it's a little narrower than older blink, but the songs are put together well enough where it matters a lot less. 

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8 minutes ago, Ry-Bread said:

I love Mark's verse on No Heart To Speak Of,  his lower voice coming in with the  "Nothing left but scars..." is just beautifully haunting.

Though I do get the vibe that Skiba wrote it, or Mark is mimicking a very Skiba-esque delivery. That song is everything I could ever want in a Skiba/Mark/Trav mashup.

Yeah, it has a big Skiba feel to it. I know it's completely far fetched, but that verse makes me think of the Alk3 song Sleepyhead from min. 2:05. Not because it sounds like similiar (it's completely different) but it's just the vibe. 

 

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1 minute ago, Kay said:

That... sentence doesn't really make much sense. I'm not slagging off Untitled just saying purely from a guitar perspective it's a little narrower than older blink, but the songs are put together well enough where it matters a lot less. 

i think i missed some words, i changed it)

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i think a lot of nine is still woefully formulaic... a lot of the tracks stick to rigid pop structures in ways blink has always abused but also, i felt, moved beyond in small but significant ways with albums like untitled and neighborhoods. much like california, the band is still in a hardcore identity crisis ... most of these songs could have been written by anyone (and they were). they’re certainly a breeze to listen to, pleasing to the ear for sure. but matt and mark still seem mismatched as a songwriting partnership, with matt only seeming to exert a slight impact with songs like no heart to speak of. and there’s quite a few tracks i like independent of everything, like the first time. and travis as always kills it.

in the end though, much of it often feels pretty empty for me. i think mark’s depression is linked to the loss of tom and the ensuing identity crisis...he knows this music is pretty lame

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I agree with the lyrics issue. It’s funny because the lyrics are both a high and low point for the album. Some of Mark’s lines make you scratch your head as to how they made it onto the album. It’s weird since they wrote so many songs last minute, they should have just bumped the album back a month or two to clean up the cheesy lines.

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I don't

1 minute ago, boxelder said:

i think a lot of nine is still woefully formulaic... a lot of the tracks stick to rigid pop structures in ways blink has always abused but also, i felt, moved beyond in small but significant ways with albums like untitled and neighborhoods. much like california, the band is still in a hardcore identity crisis ... most of these songs could have been written by anyone (and they were). they’re certainly a breeze to listen to, pleasing to the ear for sure. but matt and mark still seem mismatched as a songwriting partnership, with matt only seeming to exert a slight impact with songs like no heart to speak of. and there’s quite a few tracks i like independent of everything, like the first time. and travis as always kills it.

in the end though, much of it often feels pretty empty for me. i think mark’s depression is linked to the loss of tom and the ensuing identity crisis...he knows this music is pretty lame

Interesting point.

This reminds me to a thoughi that has been on my mind lately about the moment when people was 'scared' of blink sounding too much 'Matt', so to say. And I remember how some songs, on the older lineup, were so polarized that you could tell who wrote which song. Yeah, some may say: yes, but was Tom or Mark. But then... isn't Matt a member of blink? Isn't this the new incarnation of the band? So, it's still a mistery to me how the possibility of a song being too 'Matt' is rejected by some people, while being Matt an official and accepted member of the band.

And moreover, I think this is a fear which sleeps inside the band itself.

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1 hour ago, Ari said:

From a writer's head. The lyrics aren't shit. Is this thread for only criticism? Or discussion? 

objectively, this:

Now I'm looking back at the city
The one that they say never sleeps
How things get so dark and shitty
Sunrise always gives us the creeps

is lazy.  it’s clunky and feels like a placeholder 

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This seems very MLK for how soon it just dropped ? just being honest, but here are my 9 criticisms of Nine:

1. Poppy, desperately poppy at times.  I don't mind pop, but it seems like some choruses are just thrown in there, or heard it somewhere before.

2. Yelly, please stop yelling.  I don't mind it now and then, but Mark sounds dreadful with these angsty yells sometimes and Matt gets annoying (to their credit much less this album). Kind of ruins some songs for me.

3. Do You Kids Like Chorus? Chorus. Chorus chorus chorus chorus. Don't bore us! Get to the chorus!  While we all enjoy a good chorus, it gets to be a bit much when every song has some massive emphatic one, to the point I can't tell you what Pin The Grenade vs Hungover You vs Black Rain is off memory. 

4. Lyrics, 182 degrees, Blinkstreet Boyz, BlinkSync, whatever you want to call it, you get that vibe sometimes they are just writing really vague topics again that used to be a thing.

5. Matt Skiba, while he's 10x better on this album, no exaggeration, I cannot stand the long dramatic solo pieces, Black Rain for example, it's very talented but it's just not something I like, this is blink afterall, we aren't here for the choir vocal perfection.

6. YaY CoMPuTErZ, while I do love some of the effects, they're actually pretty awesome, it doesn't need to be every song.

7. Singy Songy Harmonies Perfect Everything Awesome Me N Matt R Great Vocalists -Mark. Just want something a little more raw every now and then.

8. Live, I still just don't like their live show. Boring to me. Will they play these songs or more greatest hits? This is a bit premature, but I don't really have 9 criticisms.

9. Blame It On My Youth. a stain on America.

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I gave it another two listens.

I hate the drums. The hip hop beats, the effects on them, sounding like a drum machine. Travis is talented yes, but a lot of it is out of place to me and just bad sounding to me. Sometimes less is more.

I hate the electronica. I don't like it. It's not blink.

Lyrics are kinda weak. I hate that they're using songwriters. We know both Mark and Matt can write so they should be.

I like the first track minus the drum effects, Darkside, Ransom (minus the electronica half), Generational Divide and Pin The Grenade. A few of the others I can take it or leave it. I absolutely hate BIOMY, IRWIHY, the last track and Black Rain. Just not my thing.

If the bar wasn't set so low to begin with I'd probably hate the entire record altogether. I like California more. It's ok but nothing special. Just my two cents.

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