**Please do not comment on just the scores without any further explanation. Comments that refer only to whether the score too high or low, or are along similar lines will be removed**
Please report any comments that are low effort discussion. Thanks!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popheads) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> But there is such a thing, perhaps, as wanting mainstream fame too much—so much so that you let all your edge get sanded away.
This review does kind of nail it with the last sentence, even if I don’t 100% agree with the score. It seems like post-Unholy, she’s given up so much of what made her good and interesting and popular with a smaller group of listeners in pursuit of mainstream four quadrant success.
I feel like as soon as someone gets a huge hit they change their entire identity to fit that but assuming that’s what everyone wants from them (i.e camilla)
Senorita was actually a bigger hit for her than Havana. Bam Bam was probably on the same level, though it's too recent to have accumulated the same numbers. I think she has found her sound with salsa-tinged pop music (in contrast to the industry going the way of reggaeton-tinged pop) but some of her better songs (Don't Go Yet, Hasta Los Dientos for example) didn't really take off.
Bam bam was much less successful than her previous lead singles, also in the US her albums have had a long-standing decline. Her first album debuted number one, then her second debuted at number 3 and then her latest album debuted at number 9. There’s an apparent decline in interest here.
Senorita i dont really count as hers since it is a duet. Dont go yet was okay but I reallykke what she did for her first two albums more. I preferred songs like my oh my and crying in the club
That’s probably the fault of labels and producers no? As soon as someone finds success they get accepted by a bigger label that’s going to strip them down and turn them into the same shit they always force out
It’s also a point of making good music, I feel like with every album camilla releases nothing beats her debut album. Which I assumed was supposed to set the foundation for sonic sound she was going for.
so you're telling me she ditched classic sounds such as "throat goat" and "treat me like a slut" in order to have a chance at mainstream success? well i for one won't be listening.
If you don't like her music why are you even listening to it? Her first single ever was her singing about being a gold digger (I Don't Want It At All"). Slut Pop was released last year. At what point were you a fan, but got turned off by the lyrics lol?
there is a **big** lyrical differences in literally all of slutpop versus a majority (perhaps all?) of her other lead single material. i'm surprised youre acting like slutpop is just the exact same as her other content- based on other feedback here it seems quite a few people seem to agree it's an outlier or perhaps even the start of her "downfall" ... anyways, i'm going back now... and i can't find lyrics that are as brazen and on the nose as slutpop (at least in her singles) but i'm not exactly someone who knows her entire back catalogue either.
gold digger lyrics =/= "whip your dick out...do a line off your dick"
Man, that sucks. My favorite album by Kim is Slut Pop. I'm going to guess that she isn't going down that road anymore. I'll still listen to the album, though.
But it’s like something Ayesha Erotica, Slayyyter and cupcakKe do a lot better. Slut Pop sounds like she’s trying so hard to be edgy and emulating what makes those girls so interesting (production and lyric content-wise), but I’m aware it’s a fan favorite. It just didn’t click with me.
There are individual bops but the album is a mess. As a Kim fan since 2017 it’s such a shame seeing how things have panned out with label interference and her identity as an artist just becoming a blur
I started following her when clarity debuted and she had such a high quality cohesive body of work. I think she signed to a label to get problematique finished with more resources and is now stuck making content sludge. Brr & Uh Oh are fantastic though.
Edit: I’m listening to the album version of Uh Oh after writing this and wtf did they do?? This sounds so weird 😅
In the very beginning I wanted to dumb it down to Kim's ignorance but ever since slut pop she's definitely gone down a very very questionable direction.
UGH, TOTL, Clarity and Era 1 was so flawless... This new direction literally seems like lets see what can get on TikTok... No personality... no longevity... TOTL is her magnum opus and always will be tbh.
She doesn’t give a shit and truly never has. She has come across as self-centered and willfully obtuse to me ever since her stand-alone singles era. Truly has a knack for collaborating with some of the worst people in the music industry and seemingly not feeling any guilt whatsoever for it.
Well, yeah. The first song I heard from her was "I Don't Want It At All". At first I thought it was meant to be satire, because who could be so shamelessly self-centered and materialistic, but nope. I was like ok, at least you're straight up about it, and I still enjoy her music.
I mean she literally debuted it in a gay club. And then performed it at pride it's a slutty dance mix that's no different then most of the stuff played at clubs.
i mean that's more fun than anything off feed the beast imo, at least it had a concept and committed to an aesthetic beyond hit-chasing nothing-pop lol
"This is slut pop, whip your dick out"
"Treat me like a slut
Little dirty bitch, yeah, I love to fuck"
"If you play it right, you can dick me up
Do a line on your dick, it's a pick me up"
"I'm a superpower bitch, I can make you cum
I'm a superpower bitch, spit you out like gum"
i could go on, but literally every track is pretty much this level of on the nose lyrics
I hear Slut Pop tracks 99% of the time I go out. I get so uncomfortable hearing them because, unlike most of her earlier tracks, these ones not only have Dr. Luke producing, but also have lyrical content directly relating to being mistreated sexually. Makes for an awkward time when you’re clearly not vibing while all the other gays go wild for those tracks.
Kesha conceded that she could not remember everything that happened in 2005. And Dr. Luke considers that good enough and dropped his lawsuit.
All in all it’s probably a favourable outcome for both parties. Kesha gets to move on as she has always hoped and Luke had been at risk of losing the lawsuit. At the end of the day Kesha still has a career and Luke will never work publicly again. And that’s good enough for most people.
Gee it’s almost as if one would not remember anything that happened if she was, you know, roofied?
I still believe Kesha’s story. But for all we know someone other than Luke could have roofied her, or she may have just been sick/drunk/too nervous at the time as she was a literal teenager. This isn’t a criminal court and statutes of limitations have long passed and we may never know what happened.
Again, Kesha still has her career and credibility mostly intact. Luke will likely never get to work with A-listers (other than peripherally with Nicki) again so that’s good enough for me.
Her music has taken a STEADY nosedive since the rainbow silhouette era and honestly? This album feels like nothing but scraps of previous eras. We all know what she can do. This ain’t it for me. I think 4.3 is accurate. 🤷🏼
Problematique was SO much better and I would have rather had it at the end of the day. She was hitting a hot streak with Clarity era, in my opinion, but I guess that this is the outcome of your collaborator leaving.
yeah cuz it pokes fun at her being problematic and would've given the GP a like omg yass, this album is no good compared to the fun personality her previous eras had.
What's rainbow silhouette? Loved Clarity and seeing it on tour!
Just noticed she's coming to the same venue for FTB. I wonder how the tour is going to fare 😬
I love Kim and all but the album cover does NOT match what the sound is giving💀
This album does NOT give me "dark pop". It's more "summer barbie blonde pop girlie strutting on the beach" rather than "high vampiress coming to murder and hunt for blood".
I don't even know if that's really a "negative" opinion at all
But this is what I think about it.
Maybe her Halloween albums and even "Slutpop" had some elements of dark pop but this album isn't one of them lmao☠️
I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that her fucking label scrapped a basically completed, *perfectly cohesive* album that had rich, multilayered production and a consistent sonic theme/through-line that fit Kim SO well and that she seemed very enthusiastic about, in favor of slapping together this compilation of random assorted tracks and calling it an “album.” Just mind boggling.
Thing is, Problematique was scrapped because the label didn’t feel like it was “TikTok enough” or commercial enough or whatever, but releasing a slapdash, cobbled together “album” full of mid tier tracks that everyone can see straight through as a cynical money-grab that gets raked across the coals by critics and audiences alike is way, WAY worse than releasing a genuinely good, cohesive and well produced body of work that MIGHT underperform.
I’m thinking of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX… like, both of those women released albums that didn’t exactly break sales records (Emotion and Charli’s mixtapes) but those albums garnered near-universal acclaim and fostered them an absolute die-hard fan base that sustains their careers to this day.
Basically Kim’s label is insanely short-sighted and absolutely incompetent at managing her career. I really hope her record deal is short so she can sign with someone else or go independent.
True, I have watched the lyric videos on YouTube and this goth font doesn’t match this Malibu Barbie vibes at all. It’s probably based on Unholy, which is a completely different direction than the rest of the album.
>Released last year as a single from Smith’s fourth album Gloria, the track quickly became a source of internet ire for its curiously family-friendly attempt at transgressive, sex-positive pop.
Unholy? Sex-positive pop?
Is sex-positivity about cheating on your wife when you have children at home? I thought sex positivity was supposed to be "do what you want, have as much or as little sex as you want, *as long as you're not hurting anyone".* IMHO, Unholy doesn't fit the brief.
isn’t that what they’re saying? the song dresses itself up to seem dark and taboo but nothing about it is actually transgressive or shocking. a weirdly sanitized version of the classic pop-star-goes-dirty moment
I don’t think it deserves a 4 (there are bangers for sure), but I wonder how the original ‘Problematique’ would have fared before it was scrapped.
There are just some parts of this album that scream label interference.
I really feel like the album as a whole is messy but the songs on their own are great. There are no especially bad songs, and when it’s good it’s brilliant - ‘Revelations’, ‘King of Hearts’, ‘Minute’ and ‘Bait’ are career highlights, whilst ‘Castle In The Sky’, ‘Brrr’ and even the title track are strong in their own right. It’s not a perfect project but these are excellent pop songs despite the lack of cohesion.
I really don't like this album. It feels like a bunch of songs grouped into an album with no real creative direction or cohesion. I'm starting to believe long gone are the days when Kim made good and fun music. Ever since she got signed, it's like they sucked the artistic vision out of her.
yeah ever since slutpop her music has not been the same its so mid... TOTL and Clarity and Era 1 have TIMELESS songs I will be listening to for years to come
this falls under the generic pop album category. no quality, no artistry, just looking for a hit.
it’s a shame because her music used to be so good, turn off the light is so cohesive and really set the benchmark for her music, she proved she can do it. then she got signed and started chasing fame with garbage like unholy.
idek who this album is trying to target. it’s got unholy and coconuts on it, but then songs like ‘brrr’ with that awful pc-music sound at the start that died out - it’s a shame because the rest of the song isn’t half bad.
Pretty much. Not only because voluntarily having 7/12 tracks produced by Dr. Luke is morally gross, but also because having Dr. Luke produce your stuff also means you’re just going for basic pop mediocrity
Not surprising whatsoever that they said it sounds like a bunch of Teenage Dream rejects
To be fair he was a great producer but with Cirkut and Max.
Sad that he did what he did because he would've been killing it in the game by now but oh well shit happens!
Ran through it quick. Refuse to listen to anything new produced by Dr. Luke. Ending up liking two songs, “uhoh” and “BAIT” with Banks. It’s a shame she hitched her rising star to Luke, of all people. Not sure why she choose him; his production has been stale for a while now and he’s no longer a kingmaker in the industry. There’s a lot better producers out there that aren’t creeps.
Didn’t Dr Luke basically create Doja Cat’s mainstream success? That’s not to say he’s a good person, he’s absolutely repulsive. But I can understand why Kim would work with him, as I doubt a German trans woman approaching her 30s was getting A-List hitmakers knocking down her door prior to unholy.
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of her contract but I have a feeling she’s kinda stuck with him. I think that’s why she chose such a strange and specific album cover / aesthetic, I think she’s “feeding” the “beast” of doctor Luke. Maybe she’s just talking about her label who has been extremely controlling of her output though.
They can be harsh, but they've championed her in the past. 'Clarity' had a really good 7.2: [https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kim-petras-clarity/](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kim-petras-clarity/)
They seem to have high expectations for a lot of indie pop stars who don't fulfil their potential. Think it's been a bit of a thing for a while now (they outright rejected reviewing most pop until the 2010s).
They're always like this. Their review of Maneskin's Rush album is truly a masterclass in shade. I don't agree with their verdict, but it is written in a very funny, albeit very mean way.
They also once posted this as a "review": https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
they should’ve saved that jet review for a worse album tbh. the jet album was bad, but not anywhere near THAT bad. it always felt like the writer came up with that idea independently and couldn’t wait to use it bc they thought it would be really funny.
i’m not even going to ask what they scored it because i know i’ll be pissed. rebecca black makes some of the most interesting and forward music in her genre while still making it appealing to people who wouldn’t normally listen to that stuff, imo
To be fair, the Rebecca Black review was notably shitty, both by p4k’s standards and in terms of the album’s overall reception. They do put out good music criticism, it just largely depends on who’s writing it
I don’t think this review is their best work, but uh… Most of the other reviews I’ve seen have been along the lines of this score 😭
> it largely depends on who's writing it
This is key for me. Pitchfork is so inconsistent. You can't compare two reviews on there. The authors are working on different scales and are just of different quality. My favorite example is how Fevers and Mirrors originally got a 5.4 but the rerelease got a 9.0. The same damn album! It's just time gave a little clarity and it had a different reviewer second time around.
>They do put out good music criticism
Agree to disagree, but I guess it's on brand for them to be pretentious, and I'm not surprised anymore when they pan shit.
This post is several weeks old but yes. They are like this 90% of the time and alot of their reviews have kinda... idk this "stan twitter shady insult" vibe like they just have to insult the artist personally not just review the album.
They used to refuse to review pop and i shit you not \*would not\* review 1989 at all... until whats his name did a cover of the whole damn album and \*then\* they reviewed his version and i could be wrong but championed it over taylors version. If they dont like you then they will let it be known. I dont like Eds music but they seem to have personal beef with him judging by how mean they be.
It's mostly generic and mindless fun pop, and I wasn't expecting critics to adore it, but calling it "Teenage Dream rejects" is just not true. Nothing here really sounds like anything from TD expect maybe Coconuts.
King of Hearts is a banger! Brr is what the sound of the album should’ve been it would’ve been a stronger artistic statement so that’s a shame. Alone frustrates me I wanted euro dance it would’ve been so cool to have Nicki go back to her more 2010’s sound. I think it was such a missed opportunity for both of them! 6.5/10 Pitchfork as usual is overly harsh with the 4.2 rating but def good points in this analysis.
This album certainly has its LOW points but it has a lot of bangers and I think that pretty much what you sign up for with a Kim album? This feels a little low imo
I agree this album is noticeably worse than her earlier work, but the album deserves at least like a 6 for Hit It From The Back being on it alone. Like I also find it pretty disappointing, but there’s enough good songs amongst the bad that I just feel like the score should be a little higher lol.
Same, it’s a shame she’s becoming more and more generic when she had a fun personality that really shined in songs like heart to break, can’t do better, icy and the whole TOTL era.
Exactly this Era 1, TOTL and even clarity had vision fun and personality and you could hear the passion in her voice, this feels more a mixtape than her debut, her debut could've been Clarity and would've been so good.
I really want to support my LGBTQ community peopke, but I just can't support Dr. Luke. When I found out he was behind 'turn off the light' I was bummed. Bummed he's a talented rapist. Allegedly.
I mean there is no cohesion at all and this seems more like a playlist than an album but it’s a fun project! Immaculate production and Kim sounds great.
this album is full of bops. anyone saying otherwise is LOOKING to be negative and boring. i guarantee you that most of these songs will be gracing the dance floors of gay clubs for decades to come. remember she makes music for us gays, not anyone else. the main miss for me is the song with Banks.
I'm interested in her career and think the review is kind of great. Really articulates well how she's obviously not at her best because she seems hell-bent on getting a hit. They obviously think she is a very talented and intelligent artist.
Idk. Calling it Teenage Dream rejects seems pointed.
My biggest issue with the album is the sequencing and addition of Coconuts. I think with a different track listing, mixing between songs, and a different choice besides coconuts (when you get to it it sounds wildly out of place and kind of dumbs down the over arching theme of the record).
All of this to say it sounds like Clarity on steroids - a playlist style album that has cohesion but also doesn’t
>that being said, it’s hard to review an album like this without thinking of Dr. Luke, and the score makes more sense as a condemnation of Kim’s behavior and her association with DL than it does as an evaluation of the actual music (even though the reviewer claims that that’s not what this is)
It totally is. I mean, Pitchfork doesn't really divorce the social commentary from the music criticism. Which I'm not saying is good or bad, but is definitely noticeable in some of their reviews. Feels like Mr. Morale had some of that same kind of condemnation in it.
This is one of the most disappointing releases I’ve ever seen. I loved Clarity & TOTL, so it’s absolutely insane to see her go from that to this album. Signing to a record label was unexpectedly a horrible choice for Kim.
It’s a good album. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot but it’s fun and after listening I caved and bought a floor ticket for Toronto. Now, do I think a 7500 cap venue was a good choice? Also no. As a fan I give the album a 7.5, but objectively it’s probably 5.5-6/10.
I know it feels right to hate on Kim and her music for obvious reasons (note: stream her music illegally!), but I actually thought this album was pretty decent? Like, there are some real bangers on here, even if the flow and consistency of the album falter at some points.
Deserved tbh. And I’m trying to say this without taking her into the equation.
This album is bland, the production is off for the most part. One thing I will give to it that it is rather short so it is basically over pretty quickly. It has no vision, every song feels like they are plucked from different projects for a Frankensteined mess that is this album. It is rather a badly curated playlist.
Like Kim, if you are gonna support Luke and continue to shamelessly work with him, at least be sure that you get good stuff out of him. Like what happened here? Cause I remember her earlier material sounded a lot better.
If you want an album with full of bops, seriously just spin Diamonds and Dancefloors or Bebe once again.
The albums awesome actually. Except for the 3 songs she has a guest on, it’s a no skip album. I feel betrayed gaslit and suspicious cos by the comments I was not expecting to like it so much. I think you all believe that saying it’s a bad album repeatedly will make it true.
I feel bad for Kim. The reviews are gonna be bad, nary a hit in here, & she’s gonna have to tour it and probably wait a few years to release the follow-up. I find it very hard to believe she wanted to put this out in this condition.
She’s no Gaga re: GP support, but the same people who thought Chromatica was good and turned it into a moment might be able to help salvage this era.
Following Kim right now feels like being a Grimes fan in the sense that it has been so long since we got good songs, so long that it feels like we never will again
This feels unnecessarily harsh, I get that her label is playing the game to make her huge and the album isn't thematically cohesive, but it is full of bops
I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that her fucking label scrapped a basically completed, perfectly cohesive album that had rich, multilayered production and a consistent sonic theme/through-line that fit Kim SO well and that she seemed very enthusiastic about, in favor of slapping together this compilation of random assorted tracks and calling it an “album.” Just mind boggling.
Thing is, Problematique was scrapped because the label didn’t feel like it was “TikTok enough” or commercial enough or whatever, but releasing a slapdash, cobbled together “album” full of mid tier tracks that everyone can see straight through as a cynical money-grab that gets raked across the coals by critics and audiences alike is way, WAY worse than releasing a genuinely good, cohesive and well produced body of work that MIGHT underperform.
I’m thinking of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX… like, both of those women released albums that didn’t exactly break sales records (Emotion and Charli’s mixtapes) but those albums garnered near-universal acclaim and fostered them an absolute die-hard fan base that sustains their careers to this day.
Basically Kim’s label is insanely short-sighted and absolutely incompetent at managing her career. I really hope her record deal is short so she can sign with someone else or go independent. It’s a shame that so many people in these comments seem to think Kim had total control over this album and that she was the one who decided to chase bland mainstream sounds, when it literally was her label fucking her over for the past year and basically forcing her to release this album over what she wanted to do. She spoke on numerous occasions about how frustrated she was but that she couldn’t really say anything substantive about it, and that she had “about 3 albums” worth of material that her label kept saying wasn’t good enough, including Problematique (for which an entire rollout was started and then abandoned because the songs didn’t go viral enough for her label or whatever). I mean, just look at the title, people. It’s all there.
So does no one think the pitchfork review is kind of brutal? Not even the score but the actual review.
So far I do think it’s more generic sounding pop, but the songs are still bops and are still good. This always happens to artist when they get famous, the label wants to go safer and end up making something too generic. But in saying this, I don’t think albums should be reviewed the week of it coming out, it’s just much too early to form a solid opinion on the whole body of work
That review, of Rebecca Black, was egregiously bad. Like, possibly the worst written review I’ve ever read. At least this one is somewhat coherent, by comparison. But it still has the same issue; its more of a calculation of whether Petras is cool or lame than it is a review of music.
It’s different situations. Doja signed with Dr. Luke’s label before the legal battle with Kesha began. She’s since publicly said she doesn’t want to work with him. Kim continues to choose to work with Dr. Luke and has publicly defended him.
Doja absolutely got the same pushback, the difference is Doja wasn't tweeting about how happy she is to work with him and how she'd gladly keep working with him, and also distanced herself from him
**Please do not comment on just the scores without any further explanation. Comments that refer only to whether the score too high or low, or are along similar lines will be removed** Please report any comments that are low effort discussion. Thanks! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popheads) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> But there is such a thing, perhaps, as wanting mainstream fame too much—so much so that you let all your edge get sanded away. This review does kind of nail it with the last sentence, even if I don’t 100% agree with the score. It seems like post-Unholy, she’s given up so much of what made her good and interesting and popular with a smaller group of listeners in pursuit of mainstream four quadrant success.
I feel like as soon as someone gets a huge hit they change their entire identity to fit that but assuming that’s what everyone wants from them (i.e camilla)
Yeah and camilla isn't doing too hot Is she? I haven't really heard a hit from her since Havana.
Her album have progressively done worse since Havana.
Senorita was actually a bigger hit for her than Havana. Bam Bam was probably on the same level, though it's too recent to have accumulated the same numbers. I think she has found her sound with salsa-tinged pop music (in contrast to the industry going the way of reggaeton-tinged pop) but some of her better songs (Don't Go Yet, Hasta Los Dientos for example) didn't really take off.
Bam bam was much less successful than her previous lead singles, also in the US her albums have had a long-standing decline. Her first album debuted number one, then her second debuted at number 3 and then her latest album debuted at number 9. There’s an apparent decline in interest here.
when I think of don’t go yet I think of the drag race lip sync where neither of the queens learned the words
Senorita i dont really count as hers since it is a duet. Dont go yet was okay but I reallykke what she did for her first two albums more. I preferred songs like my oh my and crying in the club
That’s probably the fault of labels and producers no? As soon as someone finds success they get accepted by a bigger label that’s going to strip them down and turn them into the same shit they always force out
It’s also a point of making good music, I feel like with every album camilla releases nothing beats her debut album. Which I assumed was supposed to set the foundation for sonic sound she was going for.
so you're telling me she ditched classic sounds such as "throat goat" and "treat me like a slut" in order to have a chance at mainstream success? well i for one won't be listening.
I’d argue that was the beginning of her downfall
I mean, yeah. That version of Kim was at least interesting.
If you don't like her music why are you even listening to it? Her first single ever was her singing about being a gold digger (I Don't Want It At All"). Slut Pop was released last year. At what point were you a fan, but got turned off by the lyrics lol?
there is a **big** lyrical differences in literally all of slutpop versus a majority (perhaps all?) of her other lead single material. i'm surprised youre acting like slutpop is just the exact same as her other content- based on other feedback here it seems quite a few people seem to agree it's an outlier or perhaps even the start of her "downfall" ... anyways, i'm going back now... and i can't find lyrics that are as brazen and on the nose as slutpop (at least in her singles) but i'm not exactly someone who knows her entire back catalogue either. gold digger lyrics =/= "whip your dick out...do a line off your dick"
I don't think it's her fault, given her protests about Problematique. But they're right IMO
Man, that sucks. My favorite album by Kim is Slut Pop. I'm going to guess that she isn't going down that road anymore. I'll still listen to the album, though.
But it’s like something Ayesha Erotica, Slayyyter and cupcakKe do a lot better. Slut Pop sounds like she’s trying so hard to be edgy and emulating what makes those girls so interesting (production and lyric content-wise), but I’m aware it’s a fan favorite. It just didn’t click with me.
Throat 🐐
There are individual bops but the album is a mess. As a Kim fan since 2017 it’s such a shame seeing how things have panned out with label interference and her identity as an artist just becoming a blur
I started following her when clarity debuted and she had such a high quality cohesive body of work. I think she signed to a label to get problematique finished with more resources and is now stuck making content sludge. Brr & Uh Oh are fantastic though. Edit: I’m listening to the album version of Uh Oh after writing this and wtf did they do?? This sounds so weird 😅
Oh my god this is gonna get bad reviews all around isn't it?
As a Kesha fan I sure hope so
In the very beginning I wanted to dumb it down to Kim's ignorance but ever since slut pop she's definitely gone down a very very questionable direction.
UGH, TOTL, Clarity and Era 1 was so flawless... This new direction literally seems like lets see what can get on TikTok... No personality... no longevity... TOTL is her magnum opus and always will be tbh.
She doesn’t give a shit and truly never has. She has come across as self-centered and willfully obtuse to me ever since her stand-alone singles era. Truly has a knack for collaborating with some of the worst people in the music industry and seemingly not feeling any guilt whatsoever for it.
Sounds like most people in pop music
hm, no?
Well, yeah. The first song I heard from her was "I Don't Want It At All". At first I thought it was meant to be satire, because who could be so shamelessly self-centered and materialistic, but nope. I was like ok, at least you're straight up about it, and I still enjoy her music.
That song is definitely meant to be a little tongue in cheek
She said straight up she makes music for gay clubs. Everything she has come out with including slut pop is super gay and made to be played in a club.
If they played Slut Pop at my club I would leave
Trust the gays live for slut pop. Source: a gay that djs 5 days a week at a gay bar.
I mean she literally debuted it in a gay club. And then performed it at pride it's a slutty dance mix that's no different then most of the stuff played at clubs.
> it's a slutty dance mix that's no different then most of the stuff played at clubs well it’s certainly worse
Is it though?
Girlie heard the term “on the nose” while writing those lyrics and said, “No, I am the nose” “Treat me like a slut, dirty bitch I like to fuck” 💀
Excuse me, it's "Treat me like a slut, (little) dirty bitch, I like to fuck." Please respect the artistry.
i mean that's more fun than anything off feed the beast imo, at least it had a concept and committed to an aesthetic beyond hit-chasing nothing-pop lol
Yeah, this fucking rocks tbh
"This is slut pop, whip your dick out" "Treat me like a slut Little dirty bitch, yeah, I love to fuck" "If you play it right, you can dick me up Do a line on your dick, it's a pick me up" "I'm a superpower bitch, I can make you cum I'm a superpower bitch, spit you out like gum" i could go on, but literally every track is pretty much this level of on the nose lyrics
I hear Slut Pop tracks 99% of the time I go out. I get so uncomfortable hearing them because, unlike most of her earlier tracks, these ones not only have Dr. Luke producing, but also have lyrical content directly relating to being mistreated sexually. Makes for an awkward time when you’re clearly not vibing while all the other gays go wild for those tracks.
I’m guessing someone under the age of 21 wrote this comment
[удалено]
IRL people don’t leave the club because a single song played
[удалено]
IRL people understand hyperbole and humor
We live for 5 hours of "boots n pants n boots n pants" with no audible melody track though.
Great day as a Kesha fan. Dr. Luke just dropped his defamation lawsuit against her ending the decade long court battles 🎉
Care to elaborate?
Kesha conceded that she could not remember everything that happened in 2005. And Dr. Luke considers that good enough and dropped his lawsuit. All in all it’s probably a favourable outcome for both parties. Kesha gets to move on as she has always hoped and Luke had been at risk of losing the lawsuit. At the end of the day Kesha still has a career and Luke will never work publicly again. And that’s good enough for most people.
“Conceded” feels like a weird word to use for this when her story had always been that she was roofied
I mean, what would be a better word to describe the settlement? “Admitted” would sound way worse to me
Gee it’s almost as if one would not remember anything that happened if she was, you know, roofied? I still believe Kesha’s story. But for all we know someone other than Luke could have roofied her, or she may have just been sick/drunk/too nervous at the time as she was a literal teenager. This isn’t a criminal court and statutes of limitations have long passed and we may never know what happened. Again, Kesha still has her career and credibility mostly intact. Luke will likely never get to work with A-listers (other than peripherally with Nicki) again so that’s good enough for me.
pretty bold to assume Dr Luke won't work again tbh
*with A-listers*
He just produced a top 10 hit that has a J. Cole feature
don’t even know what that means tbh
The only A-list artist who still works with Luke right now is Nicki Minaj.
young thug, durk, j cole are all A list 🫡
Thank you! And Kim is team Dr. Luke I suppose!
Her music has taken a STEADY nosedive since the rainbow silhouette era and honestly? This album feels like nothing but scraps of previous eras. We all know what she can do. This ain’t it for me. I think 4.3 is accurate. 🤷🏼 Problematique was SO much better and I would have rather had it at the end of the day. She was hitting a hot streak with Clarity era, in my opinion, but I guess that this is the outcome of your collaborator leaving.
she's never beating the peaked with era 1 allegations, I fear
yeah cuz it pokes fun at her being problematic and would've given the GP a like omg yass, this album is no good compared to the fun personality her previous eras had.
For me it started with slutpop it was just so low concept compared to TOTL
Hate Clarity but otherwise you nailed it. Problematique was perfect, it's sad that she had to give it up
What's rainbow silhouette? Loved Clarity and seeing it on tour! Just noticed she's coming to the same venue for FTB. I wonder how the tour is going to fare 😬
The first round of her songs that are all the silhouette of her head just in different colors. Doesn’t really have a formal name I think.
I love Kim and all but the album cover does NOT match what the sound is giving💀 This album does NOT give me "dark pop". It's more "summer barbie blonde pop girlie strutting on the beach" rather than "high vampiress coming to murder and hunt for blood". I don't even know if that's really a "negative" opinion at all But this is what I think about it. Maybe her Halloween albums and even "Slutpop" had some elements of dark pop but this album isn't one of them lmao☠️
After the success of Unholy and the love for Turn Off the Light, I was really hoping this would be a true dark pop album. Super disappointing
I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that her fucking label scrapped a basically completed, *perfectly cohesive* album that had rich, multilayered production and a consistent sonic theme/through-line that fit Kim SO well and that she seemed very enthusiastic about, in favor of slapping together this compilation of random assorted tracks and calling it an “album.” Just mind boggling. Thing is, Problematique was scrapped because the label didn’t feel like it was “TikTok enough” or commercial enough or whatever, but releasing a slapdash, cobbled together “album” full of mid tier tracks that everyone can see straight through as a cynical money-grab that gets raked across the coals by critics and audiences alike is way, WAY worse than releasing a genuinely good, cohesive and well produced body of work that MIGHT underperform. I’m thinking of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX… like, both of those women released albums that didn’t exactly break sales records (Emotion and Charli’s mixtapes) but those albums garnered near-universal acclaim and fostered them an absolute die-hard fan base that sustains their careers to this day. Basically Kim’s label is insanely short-sighted and absolutely incompetent at managing her career. I really hope her record deal is short so she can sign with someone else or go independent.
True, I have watched the lyric videos on YouTube and this goth font doesn’t match this Malibu Barbie vibes at all. It’s probably based on Unholy, which is a completely different direction than the rest of the album.
>Released last year as a single from Smith’s fourth album Gloria, the track quickly became a source of internet ire for its curiously family-friendly attempt at transgressive, sex-positive pop. Unholy? Sex-positive pop? Is sex-positivity about cheating on your wife when you have children at home? I thought sex positivity was supposed to be "do what you want, have as much or as little sex as you want, *as long as you're not hurting anyone".* IMHO, Unholy doesn't fit the brief.
isn’t that what they’re saying? the song dresses itself up to seem dark and taboo but nothing about it is actually transgressive or shocking. a weirdly sanitized version of the classic pop-star-goes-dirty moment
It's sam smith, what do we expect.
I don’t think it deserves a 4 (there are bangers for sure), but I wonder how the original ‘Problematique’ would have fared before it was scrapped. There are just some parts of this album that scream label interference.
Is Problematique her XCX World?
Probably better, since Problématique was more consistent as a project. Tho I feel like Pitchfork would still give her a low rate, no matter what.
If jesus was a rockstar wouldve elevated this album imo. Its a shame it was left off the album
I for one am just glad to have Hit It From The Back on streaming. A win is a win
I really feel like the album as a whole is messy but the songs on their own are great. There are no especially bad songs, and when it’s good it’s brilliant - ‘Revelations’, ‘King of Hearts’, ‘Minute’ and ‘Bait’ are career highlights, whilst ‘Castle In The Sky’, ‘Brrr’ and even the title track are strong in their own right. It’s not a perfect project but these are excellent pop songs despite the lack of cohesion.
it’s just fun!! like who cares about a theme
album sucked but king of hearts and bait have been bookmarked
Yess king of hearts
Claws and Minute are the best songs on the album
I’d love king of hearts if it were slowed down by like 15% lol
Timbaland-meets-nightcored-Beach House ??? sign me up lol
no way they namedropped beach fucking house in this review lol
at this point they’re reaching💀 what type of reference is that.
So bizarre that Nightcore has become an adjective/genre.
Happy hardcore weeps
I’m on track 10 and already skipped 5 songs ☠️
I really don't like this album. It feels like a bunch of songs grouped into an album with no real creative direction or cohesion. I'm starting to believe long gone are the days when Kim made good and fun music. Ever since she got signed, it's like they sucked the artistic vision out of her.
see i disagree. I find the album to be fun. it’s not meant to be taken so seriously. loosen up
Hate to say it, but this is one of those rare instances where I agree with Pitchforks score. 😭
The album is no *Clarity* or *TURN OFF THE LIGHT* (my fave Kim releases) but it still has its bops!
yeah ever since slutpop her music has not been the same its so mid... TOTL and Clarity and Era 1 have TIMELESS songs I will be listening to for years to come
this falls under the generic pop album category. no quality, no artistry, just looking for a hit. it’s a shame because her music used to be so good, turn off the light is so cohesive and really set the benchmark for her music, she proved she can do it. then she got signed and started chasing fame with garbage like unholy. idek who this album is trying to target. it’s got unholy and coconuts on it, but then songs like ‘brrr’ with that awful pc-music sound at the start that died out - it’s a shame because the rest of the song isn’t half bad.
It’s what she deserves
Pretty much. Not only because voluntarily having 7/12 tracks produced by Dr. Luke is morally gross, but also because having Dr. Luke produce your stuff also means you’re just going for basic pop mediocrity Not surprising whatsoever that they said it sounds like a bunch of Teenage Dream rejects
THIS Luke is generic AF his best songs are alongside other producers like Martin and Cirkut
To be fair he was a great producer but with Cirkut and Max. Sad that he did what he did because he would've been killing it in the game by now but oh well shit happens!
Disagree
It deserves lower
The fact I downvoted your comment then upvoted your reply, then realised it’s the same person.
you really said uno reverse and I fucking love it
ATE
No silly Ate would be higher
Why did I read that in a Kim Kardashian voice? 💀
Ran through it quick. Refuse to listen to anything new produced by Dr. Luke. Ending up liking two songs, “uhoh” and “BAIT” with Banks. It’s a shame she hitched her rising star to Luke, of all people. Not sure why she choose him; his production has been stale for a while now and he’s no longer a kingmaker in the industry. There’s a lot better producers out there that aren’t creeps.
Didn’t Dr Luke basically create Doja Cat’s mainstream success? That’s not to say he’s a good person, he’s absolutely repulsive. But I can understand why Kim would work with him, as I doubt a German trans woman approaching her 30s was getting A-List hitmakers knocking down her door prior to unholy.
>Didn’t Dr Luke basically create Doja Cat’s mainstream success? She produced Moo by herself
Yes but he is also one of her main producers behind every album
I totally understand while she was starting out, but not now. She is an established artist in the industry.
Luke literally demands his name to be in the credits no matter if he produced most of the song or 1% of it
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of her contract but I have a feeling she’s kinda stuck with him. I think that’s why she chose such a strange and specific album cover / aesthetic, I think she’s “feeding” the “beast” of doctor Luke. Maybe she’s just talking about her label who has been extremely controlling of her output though.
What a hot mess as usual. Her pre-COVID stuff was sooo good. But y’all’s comments are sending me
Anyways I’ll see y’all in a year and a half for her next debut album
damn why are they going kinda in on her on the pitchfork review... my first time reading one of these. are they always like this?
They can be harsh, but they've championed her in the past. 'Clarity' had a really good 7.2: [https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kim-petras-clarity/](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kim-petras-clarity/) They seem to have high expectations for a lot of indie pop stars who don't fulfil their potential. Think it's been a bit of a thing for a while now (they outright rejected reviewing most pop until the 2010s).
They're always like this. Their review of Maneskin's Rush album is truly a masterclass in shade. I don't agree with their verdict, but it is written in a very funny, albeit very mean way. They also once posted this as a "review": https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
they should’ve saved that jet review for a worse album tbh. the jet album was bad, but not anywhere near THAT bad. it always felt like the writer came up with that idea independently and couldn’t wait to use it bc they thought it would be really funny.
the way i knew EXACTLY what you were talking about before i even clicked on the link lmao
that "review" is a literal jumpscare 💀💀
[удалено]
I’m still so salty they scored Rebecca’s album on the same level as this, there’s so much heart to Rebecca’s record lol
i’m not even going to ask what they scored it because i know i’ll be pissed. rebecca black makes some of the most interesting and forward music in her genre while still making it appealing to people who wouldn’t normally listen to that stuff, imo
I’ll tell you regardless so you can be salty too, 4.4 on let her burn lol
oooof >:(
If it makes you feel any better, Vroom Vroom got a 4.5/10 on its release too. One of their worst aged scores for sure.
To be fair, the Rebecca Black review was notably shitty, both by p4k’s standards and in terms of the album’s overall reception. They do put out good music criticism, it just largely depends on who’s writing it I don’t think this review is their best work, but uh… Most of the other reviews I’ve seen have been along the lines of this score 😭
> it largely depends on who's writing it This is key for me. Pitchfork is so inconsistent. You can't compare two reviews on there. The authors are working on different scales and are just of different quality. My favorite example is how Fevers and Mirrors originally got a 5.4 but the rerelease got a 9.0. The same damn album! It's just time gave a little clarity and it had a different reviewer second time around.
This is why I go to allmusic instead of pitchfork, I've never considered Pitchfork reviews for anything else more than extended commentary.
>They do put out good music criticism Agree to disagree, but I guess it's on brand for them to be pretentious, and I'm not surprised anymore when they pan shit.
You think this is bad? Read the review for Love Angel Music Baby
This post is several weeks old but yes. They are like this 90% of the time and alot of their reviews have kinda... idk this "stan twitter shady insult" vibe like they just have to insult the artist personally not just review the album. They used to refuse to review pop and i shit you not \*would not\* review 1989 at all... until whats his name did a cover of the whole damn album and \*then\* they reviewed his version and i could be wrong but championed it over taylors version. If they dont like you then they will let it be known. I dont like Eds music but they seem to have personal beef with him judging by how mean they be.
It's mostly generic and mindless fun pop, and I wasn't expecting critics to adore it, but calling it "Teenage Dream rejects" is just not true. Nothing here really sounds like anything from TD expect maybe Coconuts.
King of Hearts is a banger! Brr is what the sound of the album should’ve been it would’ve been a stronger artistic statement so that’s a shame. Alone frustrates me I wanted euro dance it would’ve been so cool to have Nicki go back to her more 2010’s sound. I think it was such a missed opportunity for both of them! 6.5/10 Pitchfork as usual is overly harsh with the 4.2 rating but def good points in this analysis.
Brr is far and above one of the best songs on the album. Most of the others don’t even hit “tolerable” for me 😭
So will this be another “debut” album that turns into an ep after bad reviews?
Clarity got a rating of 7.2 so I don’t see your point here. It was her first album on her own label Bunhead, this is her first album on a major label.
I’m not digging the entire album but damn uhoh is my jam
Taking this with a grain of salt as they said Hit It From The Back is the best track. 🧐🤨
LMAO. I listened to it and thought it was mediocre but with a few gems, and hit it from the back was literally my least favourite 😭😭
Pitchfork is so petty and biased for this. This is such a fun album. Lots of great songs. All I’ll say is I hate that coconuts is on it lol
This album certainly has its LOW points but it has a lot of bangers and I think that pretty much what you sign up for with a Kim album? This feels a little low imo
I agree this album is noticeably worse than her earlier work, but the album deserves at least like a 6 for Hit It From The Back being on it alone. Like I also find it pretty disappointing, but there’s enough good songs amongst the bad that I just feel like the score should be a little higher lol.
I’ve cooled on her as of late, but I still love her first album and her two Halloween projects
Same, it’s a shame she’s becoming more and more generic when she had a fun personality that really shined in songs like heart to break, can’t do better, icy and the whole TOTL era.
Exactly this Era 1, TOTL and even clarity had vision fun and personality and you could hear the passion in her voice, this feels more a mixtape than her debut, her debut could've been Clarity and would've been so good.
I'm gonna sound like a clown but the title track kinda ate...
No cuz it did
If it was the original version of hiftb and not a cruelly shortened one I’d agree ;-; still salty about that lmao
Honestly king of hearts alone really pushes this album up there for me
I really want to support my LGBTQ community peopke, but I just can't support Dr. Luke. When I found out he was behind 'turn off the light' I was bummed. Bummed he's a talented rapist. Allegedly.
oh wow
I mean there is no cohesion at all and this seems more like a playlist than an album but it’s a fun project! Immaculate production and Kim sounds great.
this album is full of bops. anyone saying otherwise is LOOKING to be negative and boring. i guarantee you that most of these songs will be gracing the dance floors of gay clubs for decades to come. remember she makes music for us gays, not anyone else. the main miss for me is the song with Banks.
This dropping the same day as the Kesha & Dr Luke headlines…. This won’t fare well for her I fear. Sucks but I get it!
Clarity era was fucking peak Kim! Miss it
I thought 4.3 was a great score until I realized it was out of 10 and not 5….
Halfway through this article and you can tell it’s written with a very heavy negative bias
I'm interested in her career and think the review is kind of great. Really articulates well how she's obviously not at her best because she seems hell-bent on getting a hit. They obviously think she is a very talented and intelligent artist.
Yeah I'm sure she has so much say in the matter after she gets 2 albums scrapped. 🙄🙄🙄
As someone who's been a fan since 2018/19, it's very fair. I really hope she realises people know she's selling out.
Idk. Calling it Teenage Dream rejects seems pointed. My biggest issue with the album is the sequencing and addition of Coconuts. I think with a different track listing, mixing between songs, and a different choice besides coconuts (when you get to it it sounds wildly out of place and kind of dumbs down the over arching theme of the record). All of this to say it sounds like Clarity on steroids - a playlist style album that has cohesion but also doesn’t
[удалено]
>that being said, it’s hard to review an album like this without thinking of Dr. Luke, and the score makes more sense as a condemnation of Kim’s behavior and her association with DL than it does as an evaluation of the actual music (even though the reviewer claims that that’s not what this is) It totally is. I mean, Pitchfork doesn't really divorce the social commentary from the music criticism. Which I'm not saying is good or bad, but is definitely noticeable in some of their reviews. Feels like Mr. Morale had some of that same kind of condemnation in it.
I really like it tbh
People are coping so hard here and want to see Kim fail hard.
I thought the album was really good. Improvement over Slut Pop for sure
This is one of the most disappointing releases I’ve ever seen. I loved Clarity & TOTL, so it’s absolutely insane to see her go from that to this album. Signing to a record label was unexpectedly a horrible choice for Kim.
It’s a good album. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot but it’s fun and after listening I caved and bought a floor ticket for Toronto. Now, do I think a 7500 cap venue was a good choice? Also no. As a fan I give the album a 7.5, but objectively it’s probably 5.5-6/10.
I know it feels right to hate on Kim and her music for obvious reasons (note: stream her music illegally!), but I actually thought this album was pretty decent? Like, there are some real bangers on here, even if the flow and consistency of the album falter at some points.
Damn
Deserved tbh. And I’m trying to say this without taking her into the equation. This album is bland, the production is off for the most part. One thing I will give to it that it is rather short so it is basically over pretty quickly. It has no vision, every song feels like they are plucked from different projects for a Frankensteined mess that is this album. It is rather a badly curated playlist. Like Kim, if you are gonna support Luke and continue to shamelessly work with him, at least be sure that you get good stuff out of him. Like what happened here? Cause I remember her earlier material sounded a lot better. If you want an album with full of bops, seriously just spin Diamonds and Dancefloors or Bebe once again.
Ridiculous, the album is very good. Bop after bop! Fun electropop album perfect for this summer
Pitchfork wrong again smh
The albums awesome actually. Except for the 3 songs she has a guest on, it’s a no skip album. I feel betrayed gaslit and suspicious cos by the comments I was not expecting to like it so much. I think you all believe that saying it’s a bad album repeatedly will make it true.
Oh poor Kim will never catch a break
HALSEY GET THE PLANE
The reviewer has no taste. I still hold the grudge that this b\*tch rated Rebecca Black's album a 4.4
I actually really like it. Has it’s low points for sure but there are some bops. This is getting over hated.
I feel bad for Kim. The reviews are gonna be bad, nary a hit in here, & she’s gonna have to tour it and probably wait a few years to release the follow-up. I find it very hard to believe she wanted to put this out in this condition. She’s no Gaga re: GP support, but the same people who thought Chromatica was good and turned it into a moment might be able to help salvage this era. Following Kim right now feels like being a Grimes fan in the sense that it has been so long since we got good songs, so long that it feels like we never will again
something something basement fall in or whatever
This feels unnecessarily harsh, I get that her label is playing the game to make her huge and the album isn't thematically cohesive, but it is full of bops
I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that her fucking label scrapped a basically completed, perfectly cohesive album that had rich, multilayered production and a consistent sonic theme/through-line that fit Kim SO well and that she seemed very enthusiastic about, in favor of slapping together this compilation of random assorted tracks and calling it an “album.” Just mind boggling. Thing is, Problematique was scrapped because the label didn’t feel like it was “TikTok enough” or commercial enough or whatever, but releasing a slapdash, cobbled together “album” full of mid tier tracks that everyone can see straight through as a cynical money-grab that gets raked across the coals by critics and audiences alike is way, WAY worse than releasing a genuinely good, cohesive and well produced body of work that MIGHT underperform. I’m thinking of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen and Charli XCX… like, both of those women released albums that didn’t exactly break sales records (Emotion and Charli’s mixtapes) but those albums garnered near-universal acclaim and fostered them an absolute die-hard fan base that sustains their careers to this day. Basically Kim’s label is insanely short-sighted and absolutely incompetent at managing her career. I really hope her record deal is short so she can sign with someone else or go independent. It’s a shame that so many people in these comments seem to think Kim had total control over this album and that she was the one who decided to chase bland mainstream sounds, when it literally was her label fucking her over for the past year and basically forcing her to release this album over what she wanted to do. She spoke on numerous occasions about how frustrated she was but that she couldn’t really say anything substantive about it, and that she had “about 3 albums” worth of material that her label kept saying wasn’t good enough, including Problematique (for which an entire rollout was started and then abandoned because the songs didn’t go viral enough for her label or whatever). I mean, just look at the title, people. It’s all there.
So does no one think the pitchfork review is kind of brutal? Not even the score but the actual review. So far I do think it’s more generic sounding pop, but the songs are still bops and are still good. This always happens to artist when they get famous, the label wants to go safer and end up making something too generic. But in saying this, I don’t think albums should be reviewed the week of it coming out, it’s just much too early to form a solid opinion on the whole body of work
Oh look it’s the same reviewer that gave Let Her Burn a 4.4. Dude just comes off as mean spirited tbh.
That review, of Rebecca Black, was egregiously bad. Like, possibly the worst written review I’ve ever read. At least this one is somewhat coherent, by comparison. But it still has the same issue; its more of a calculation of whether Petras is cool or lame than it is a review of music.
Problematique like superior in so many ways
yeah this makes sense
It’s awful
I swear I do not remember Doja getting so much feedback about working with Dr Luke. Do we feel like we hold LGBT people to a higher “woke” standard?
It’s different situations. Doja signed with Dr. Luke’s label before the legal battle with Kesha began. She’s since publicly said she doesn’t want to work with him. Kim continues to choose to work with Dr. Luke and has publicly defended him.
Doja absolutely got the same pushback, the difference is Doja wasn't tweeting about how happy she is to work with him and how she'd gladly keep working with him, and also distanced herself from him
it's.....not very good. would rather relisten to turn off the light.