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Lea Michele - Louder Reviews: 47 on Metacritic
Current Metacritic Score: (47 Based on the 4 Reviews so far)
Billboard: 72/100 - 72 on Metacritic
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The album benefits from Michele's highly trained voice, and she doesn't sound out of place within the context of the dance-oriented club anthems and soaring ballads that are the hallmark of "Louder." But lyrically, "Louder" is rather one-sided, as she often sings about the perils of relationships, over and over, in ways that we've all heard many times at this point. Still, it's a solid effort that shows she has promise as a bona fide pop artist. Next time, hopefully, she'll dig deeper into the Lea soul.
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There's nothing wrong with Lea Michele's debut, and that's its biggest problem.
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Louder is like ordering a radio-friendly milk shake and getting a kale smoothie.
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Michele is determined to be a pop singer, specifically following the Katy Perry template of streamlining EDM while retaining its bombast, then softening her surroundings by dropping an occasional ballad. Where Perry has a limited vocal range, Michele doesn't hesitate to push to the wide ranges of her limits, so her singing winds up as assaultive as the gilded production.
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Perhaps this wouldn't sound so exhausting if Louder didn't consist primarily of songs cut from the "Firework"/"Dark Horse" cloth, or if those songs did have melodies that would focus on either the singer or the production; but instead, the album consists entirely of songs begging for a singer that could give them their own personality...
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On Glee, Lea Michele’s Rachel Berry is an overly determined perfectionist with incredible pipes—but she shows enough self-doubt and dorkiness to humanize her robotic willpower… the record is caught in an unfortunate stylistic limbo between fun-loving, youthful pop and the maturity of adult contemporary artists.
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Louder is monotonously slow to maintain focus on Michele’s vocals.
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Sadly, a compilation of tracks randomly culled from the best Rachel Berry solos recorded for the show would yield a stronger album than this one made up of originals.
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The title of Lea Michele’s first solo album, “Louder,” doubles as a warning.
If you thought she was loud before, gird yourself. In order to listen without suffering permanent damage, you’ll need earplugs, a safety harness and, for all I know, a hazmat suit.
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The faster tracks draw on ’80s disco, à la Laura Branigan, hoping to connect like a big-voiced singer with a record of contemporary hits — Kelly Clarkson.
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Her attempt at breaking out as a solo artist has been rocky – lead single "Cannonball" sank like one – and this album of insta-dated EDM-pop anthems and half-cocked bass drops probably won't help her cause.
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the album will make a decent audition tape for Julie Taymor's inevitable production of Teenage Dream: The Katy Perry Musical in a few more years.
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Non Metacritic Counted Reviews:
Critic of Music: B - Would be 73 on Metacritic
Headline Planet - Very Mixed Review
Click on the publication to read the full review.
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and Billboard gives everyone over 70 so 
