You ever felt so irked at something you were compelled to waste your own time complaining about it? That’s me, right now, with this album. Normally, when I find an album underwhelming, I keep it to myself (read: the bestie group chat). This review, however, was born from the sheer annoyance of the constant glazing in every major music outlet leaving me to wonder if we actually all heard the same collection of songs. Everyone’s losing their minds over the Geese “psyop” but we’re all somehow cool with multiple magazines refer to OR’s “rock bona fides” and “generational talent”? 8.3/10 on Pitchfork? Babydoll dress controversy everywhere? Sure, Jan. I love concept albums and I’ve been a casual fan of OR’s since SOUR. Unfortunately, “You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love” was lacking both lyrically and musically, drowned in references that OR doesn’t seem to fully understand. The result is a body of work missing direction, voice, and identity. OR’s lyrics have never been particularly poetic (“skin like puff pastry”), but that’s never been why we listen to her. On both SOUR and GUTS, she captured the anger, frustration, and insecurity that plagues the experience of girlhood in a relatable way. Songs like “Brutal” and “All-American Bitch” are cathartic and reflective. Both of those albums, however, highlighted a weakness in OR’s storytelling. While the upbeat, poppier (sometimes pop-punk) songs tap into something that feels universal, her slower songs have always come across at an attempt to be deep when the pool is shallow. This has been the case from “Hope Ur Ok” to “Logical”. Instead of leaning into her strengths, OR gives in to the call of the saccharine, overwritten void that haunts talented pop musicians. The songs on this new album lack in punch and quality. “Stupid Song” loses itself in clichéd and mismatched metaphors. “Purple” felt like a bargain bin version of Halsey’s already corny “Colors”, only without full commitment to the colors-as-a-metaphor theme. “Begged” would’ve been more at home on the soundtrack of a Disney Channel Original Movie than on an album about grownup heartbreak. I was originally willing to blame some of this failure on the inclusion of Amy Allen, the great homogenizer of pop music. On further review, however, she isn’t actually listed as a writer on most of these songs. OR and Dan Nigro did this to themselves. Whether it was an attempt to appear more adult or an appeal to the broadest audience possible, the listener is left with blandness and wanting more. The lyrics are not the only thing about this album that’s bland. There’s no better way to say it: the music and production are flat out boring. OR loves her references to the point of getting sued for it (though I think we all agree that that was unfair) and clearly is reaching for the 80s and 90s as a sonic mood board. This is not inherently a problem, except that she isn’t doing anything with it. There’s no innovation and no leaning into the sounds fully, leaving the instrumentation feeling empty and plain. It’s almost like she’s afraid to leave the pop sound behind, so she tries to hide it behind production techniques of different genres which doesn’t work. The blame here, however, is likely largely on Dan Nigro. The only song on this album that I came close to liking in its unaltered form was “The Cure”. The verse was interesting and I liked the guitar. Then the chorus hit and that was the end of my enjoyment. The lyrics were weaker than the verse but that would’ve been fine if there was a strong musical undercurrent to support it. I listened to a rock version of it and, while I still didn’t love it, it was much better. The emotion was sustained without losing momentum. I’m not sure what Dan Nigro’s goal was, but I can’t help but feel like this album would’ve been more cohesive with a different producer at the helm. How else does a song featuring Robert Smith end up sounding like 80s easy listening music? Now, a quick list of things I liked to balance this out: -The melody on the lyric “Looking like an angel on the wall of Versailles”. -The melody on the lyric “I thought I found the antidote this time”. -The piano on “less” was pretty and was more effective at conveying the emotion of the song than the lyrics. -OR made an album as opposed to a random collections of song. It is legitimately a concept album. -OR’s voice sounded really good. Nice high notes! OR, both herself and through media outlets, tries to portray herself and her music as indie and subversive. She references rock and punk artists both visually and with her music, but either doesn’t fully understand what it is she’s referencing or isn’t willing to give up the comfort of being well liked to fully explore it. She references Courtney Love in couture but maintains a very clean aesthetic overall. It’s “rock” but we all know it’s pop. This album demonstrates the desire to project an image, but is too wrapped up in the status quo to execute its vision. (wrote this for musicboard.app, encouraged to share it here)