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Celeb News: 61/100 @ Metacritic ~ "The World From The Side Of The Moon"
Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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61/100 @ Metacritic ~ "The World From The Side Of The Moon"
Phillip Phillips has so far garnered a 61/100 rating on Metacritic with five reviews, with other reviewers leaving numerous positive reviews 
Go do your part and buy his album today!!
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Summary: Each song is crafted with musical precision and when you listen to this album, the cohesion is evident and natural.
6 of 6 thought this review was well written
The performer so nice, they named him twice. Phillip Phillips from Leesburg, Georgia is a 22-year-old singer-songwriter and musician. Most notable for his season 11 victory of American Idol, Phillip’s performances have left critics and fans in admiration. Phillips is often compared to his hero Dave Matthews. With a comparable voice and acoustic bravado, his November 20th debut album The World from the Side of the Moon, will surely satisfy the music community.
Phillips knew that winning American Idol came with the glory of debuting an album under Interscope Records. However, like some of his predecessors, Phillips refused to be another disposable musician in the pop-music machine. Instead, Interscope producer Jimmy Iovine gave Phillips free rein during the creation of The World from the Side of the Moon. “He had a lot of trust in me,” Phillips said. “I felt really good about that. He wanted me to make the album I wanted to which I thought was really awesome of him”.
In between Phillip’s inspiring lyrics and catchy melodies, he intentionally left space for future improvisations. Phillips said, “I didn’t want to overproduce anything. I wanted to keep it the way I could do it live and have fun and have some solos in there and everything. I mean, every artist has a little bit of something they make a little spicy, but I wanted to keep it as raw as possible”; yet another reinforcement to the Dave Matthews comparison. When Dave himself was asked about Phillips, he stated, “Oh I don’t feel threatened. I am what I am. Maybe I paved the way for him. I wish him the best of luck! He should kick my ass. Maybe I can retire and he can take over my band”.
Not to be mistaken with DMB’s Away From the World, Phillip’s The World from the Side of the Moon is an unbelievable milestone. For a 22-year-old, his lyrics and perspective on life surely convey maturity. On the memorable “Tell Me a Story”; Phillips sings, “Hope is just a ray of what everyone should see. Alone is the street, where you found me, scared of what’s behind, you are scared of what’s in front, live in what you are now and make the best of what’s to come.” On “Where We Came From”, Phillip's bluesy guitar sounds akin to Gary Clark Jr. He managed to compose grooves that were almost disobedient. By writing these defiant grooves, perfectly represented on “Drive Me”, the listener will be left entertained and the songs will play out effortlessly.
On The World from the Side of the Moon, listeners also receive a glimpse of Phillip’s intimate side. “Gone, Gone, Gone" is that song that breathes revival. For 3 minutes and 30 seconds, you will feel as if you’re on a road to happiness with the person that matters most. Conversely, a song like “A Fool’s Dance” is scripted like the denouement of a novel. During this song you’ve left your climatic road to happiness and have made a wrong turn down a road to perdition. Yet the album (not including the deluxe edition) ends eloquent and hopeful with “So Easy”. Each song is crafted with musical precision and when you listen to this album, the cohesion is evident and natural.
It is true that Dave Matthews will one day have to pass his torch down to someone else. However, we must ask ourselves, does Phillips distinguish himself enough to be categorized separately from the legendary Dave Matthews? Will The World from the Side of the Moon circulate throughout the United States with unparalleled momentum? And finally, will Phillips be able to fight his way to stardom or will he vanish alongside American Idol’s countless departed?
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75/100 ~ Entertainment Weekly
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White Guy With Guitar. That's the popular term (and inevitable #WGWG Twitter hashtag) often used to describe the past five winners of American Idol: David Cook, Kris Allen, Lee DeWyze, Scotty McCreery, and, most recently, Phillip Phillips.
So when the gravelly-voiced strummer, 22, earned the confetti shower in May — beating out bellowing diva-in-training Jessica Sanchez — Idol cynics rolled their eyes. But then the decade-old reality competition did something unexpected: It gave him a genuinely excellent and culturally current coronation song.
That song, ''Home,'' which went on to become an unofficial theme of the Summer Olympics, forsook string-swelling schmaltz, instead plugging into the booming acoustic-folkie wave currently led by Mumford & Sons. Given the double-platinum success of ''Home,'' it's no surprise that much of Phillips' debut sounds similarly, appealingly Mumford-esque. His raspy Georgia drawl turns evocative campfire sing-alongs (''Gone, Gone, Gone,'' ''Can't Go Wrong'') into stadium-size anthems.
Where he doesn't go Mumford, he goes Matthews, as in Dave — especially when left to his own devices. Many of the more circuitous, brooding songs here are penned by Phillips alone, and they're less compelling than co-writes like the horn-blaster ''Get Up Get Down,'' even if they seem to hew closest to his true taste. But that sonic schism doesn't ruin The World From the Side of the Moon. It's still the most relevant debut album the Idol machine has cranked out in years, and it nicely justifies this particular WGWG's burgeoning career. B
Best Tracks:
An epic companion to ''Home'' Gone, Gone, Gone
A sly funkfest Get Up Get Down
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71/100 ~ Billboard
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At the beginning of his major-label debut, "The World From the Side of the Moon," season 11 "American Idol" winner Phillip Phillips laments, "It's hard to know where I stand." He certainly has reason to. Like most "Idol" winners, the Georgia-born singer/songwriter was treated as a blank canvas, judged on skill at the expense of identity. Even Phillips' coronation song, "Home," aligned him with the Mumford & Sons nu-folk movement.
He continues that path here on "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "Can't Go Wrong," but the album actually plays out more like the year's second-best Dave Matthews Band release. Working primarily with producer Gregg Wattenberg (O.A.R., Train), Phillips displays that same Southern jam inclination, driving "Hold On," "Tell Me a Story," the gentle "Wanted Is Love" and especially "Get Up Get Down" with acoustic guitar and percolating dynamics and sonic enhancements (plenty of strings). Phillips even has the same kind of throaty timbre and a tendency to roll his r's like Matthews. But Phillips sounds natural enough within that style, more acolyte than imitator, which makes the album one of the more engaging champion debuts in the show's inconsistent history.
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70/100 ~ Boston Globe
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Perhaps no “American Idol” winner has been more transparent about his or her musical intentions than Phillip Phillips. Week after week, the grumpy-voiced reigning champion stayed so unwaveringly true to his vision that anyone who watched already knows exactly what “The World From the Side of the Moon” sounds like. It’s essentially a magnet with two poles — Dave Matthews (his true north) and Mumford & Sons — and it’s just a matter of how far each song swings the needle from side to side. With its drum clop, Phillips’s adenoidal syllable-gnawing, and wide-ranging, across-the-neck acoustic funk, “Where We Came From” is indistinguishable from Matthews, while the Mumfordish “Home” glides on warm, oaky strums, a cut-time stomp, and a liberated, wordless chant. The latter also showcases a theme he uses song after song, the comfort of home as beacon. Phillips may be an artist of just a few ideas, but he believes in them. And he’s not afraid to use them over and over. (Out now) 70/100
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50/100 ~ Rolling Stone 
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Jody Rosen
November 20, 2012
Like his name, Phillip Phillips' music often seems redundant: When we've already got Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz, why do we need another earnestly raspy balladeer with ace acoustic-guitar skills? The American Idol winner is especially hard to take in covers, like his scary-in-the-wrong-way version of "Thriller" (from the Target deluxe edition). He's far better in originals like "Gone, Gone, Gone" and his hit "Home," which build from folksy picking to hooting power-ballad choruses, a pleasantly popified take on Arcade Fire. Those songs are redundant too – but the tunes leaven Phillips' overbearing self-seriousness
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50/100 ~ Slant Magazine
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What American Idol winner Phillip Phillips may lack in artistic mettle, he makes up for in impeccable timing, as his debut, The World from the Side of the Moon, arrives in the throes of the roots-rock revival that's seen acts like Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers scoring big commercially. To that end, Phillips, an unapologetic Dave Matthews Band acolyte, has the good fortune to sound relevant in a way that few American Idol winners ever have, as The World from the Side of the Moon often plays like Mumford & Sons' Babel with training wheels. As a more polished, radio-friendly reiteration of what a host of other artists are already doing, the album positions Phillips for broad commercial success, but it also raises significant questions about whether or not the singer-songwriter has the chops to maintain relevance once this folksy bubble inevitably bursts.
Aesthetically, there's nothing distinctive about the competent acoustic-guitar strumming or the occasional banjo flourish or string section on tracks like "Hold On" or "Tell Me a Story," and there's nothing else in the production that would make those tracks definitively, recognizably Phillips's work either. Songs like "Drive Me," on which Phillips plays up the most graveled tones of his voice, and the country-adjacent "Can't Go Wrong" are so derivative that whatever unique POV Phillips might have offered is completely overshadowed by the work he's imitating.
Even on the set's obvious standouts, the lead single "Home" and the propulsive "Gone Gone Gone," it's only Drew Pearson and Gregg Wattenberg's studio sheen that distinguishes them from more rough-hewn cuts from the Lumineers' self-titled album or from DMB's Away from the World. The slick production is mindful of the material's potential for crossover airplay, allowing songs like "Home" and "Where We Came From" to build to rousing, spirited choruses while keeping Phillips from creating too much of a ruckus. Although his voice has a weathered timbre, his performances are generally laidback and avoid Marcus Mumford's style of overwrought, adenoidal bluster.
The World from the Side of the Moon is ultimately a polite, conservative album that balances Phillips's genuine affection for roots music with the commercial bent that comes with being part of the American Idol franchise. But for the egregious, conceived-in-a-nightmare incorporation of Maroon 5-style pop-funk on "Get Up Get Down," the album is never more or less than a pleasant listen. But as doggedly likable as Phillips and his aw-shucks grin might be, he spends far too much time sounding like he's doing impressions of artists he likes rather than figuring out the artist he wants to be for himself.
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Member Since: 4/20/2011
Posts: 26,993
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Member Since: 5/19/2012
Posts: 25,222
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Great score for an amazing album 
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by conseeded
Great score for an amazing album |
Definitely! Love your sig
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Member Since: 5/19/2012
Posts: 25,222
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Originally posted by MuhMuhMuhMarry
Definitely! Love your sig |
They better listen to our signatures.
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Member Since: 4/20/2011
Posts: 26,993
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Finally a good wgwg
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by slobro
Finally a good wgwg
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Watch this album do amazing. I'm hoping it does because it seriously is amazing.
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Member Since: 4/20/2011
Posts: 26,993
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Originally posted by MuhMuhMuhMarry
Watch this album do amazing. I'm hoping it does because it seriously is amazing.
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Rihanna getting blocked again
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by slobro
Rihanna getting blocked again
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and 1D's second-week sales are no match for Phillip Phillip's power. 
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Member Since: 4/20/2011
Posts: 26,993
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Originally posted by MuhMuhMuhMarry
and 1D's second-week sales are no match for Phillip Phillip's power.
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The King is getting that #1 album
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by slobro
The King is getting that #1 album
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With no effort? Who else?
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Member Since: 3/27/2010
Posts: 6,259
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by JasperX
two reviews?
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Yes, it is coming out this week so the reviews will be rolling in soon.
All the other reviewers who aren't included in Metacritic have been giving positive reviews so I'm looking forward for the score to stabilize around 70
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Member Since: 5/7/2012
Posts: 8,404
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I hope the Freddie Mercury/Michael Jackson cd comes out the day ArtPop gets released...
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Originally posted by DimmiFenty
I hope the Freddie Mercury/Michael Jackson cd comes out the day ArtPop gets released...
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 . Let's just say that if Phillip doesn't get the #1 album, I hope that Rihanna does. 
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Member Since: 4/20/2011
Posts: 26,993
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Originally posted by MuhMuhMuhMarry
With no effort? Who else?
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Let me keep it cute..
The opening track is so good. What kind of country smash 
Where We Came From is great, I'm not sure if it's the right second single but I love it. They shouldn't rush a second single, Home is far from done and the Christmas freeze is coming.
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Member Since: 1/27/2006
Posts: 51,546
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I enjoy the album.
Congrats my fellow Georgian
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Banned
Member Since: 5/15/2010
Posts: 15,858
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KING. Not even a single doubt. 
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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The World from the Side of the Moon
#25 United States
#68 Estonia
#75 Canada
#109 Slovenia
#130 United States
#359 Philippines
Let the slayage begin
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Member Since: 8/10/2012
Posts: 11,988
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Hate you Rolling Stone
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