[Superpower]

7/11 has 3 requests, when will it starts? I think it will bring traffic to this thread.
Oh and my review is ready

[alexanderao]

Originally posted by Superpower

7/11 has 3 requests, when will it starts? I think it will bring traffic to this thread.
Oh and my review is ready

After throwbacks end on the 29th, 7/11 and Mockingjay begin. I'll add that to the OP.

[alexanderao]

An Update On The State Of atrlcritic

Here's a look at the reviewing situation (from the OP):

Lorde - 'Pure Heroine' [November 20th - November 29th]
Kanye West - 'Yeezus' [November 20th - November 29th]
Beyoncé - '7/11' [November 29th - December 3rd]
Various Artists - 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' [November 29th - December 6th]

So far, there have been a total of 7 Pure Heroine reviews (side note: my review is almost done) and 2 Yeezus reviews. Those end on Saturday night EST.

Immediately after the throwback albums end, 7/11 and the Mockingjay soundtrack will begin. There is currently no plan to review anything after December 5.

The first time we reviewed an existing release, Love Me Harder a few weeks back, the reception was overwhelmingly positive and 11 reviews were submitted.

I think we should do another existing release. My personal picks would be Habits, Waves, Jealous, and Ghost. Feel free to request other existing releases!

---

Statistics & General Reflection

I have been in charge of atrlcritic for 2 months and 2 days. In that span, 25 albums and singles (compared with 18 under the mods' management, which lasted 2 months and 10 days) have been reviewed (though 3 did not receive enough reviews to earn an official score).

According to the results of my atrlcritic survey conducted from October 18-25:

(34 people took the survey)

79% supported some form of Top Critic score
76% supported reviewing existing releases
68% had a favorable opinion of atrlcritic
68% agreed with the new review length requirements

I have made five changes to atrlcritic since taking over. First, I instituted the "3 requests = review" rule, which requires any album or single to receive three review requests before being reviewed. On October 4, I introduced the current review length requirements (80 words for singles, 150 for albums). These requirements replaced the old standards of 5 sentences for singles and 10 for albums. On October 25, I formally allowed existing releases to be reviewed; this rule was first taken advantage of on November 6, when the review period for Love Me Harder began. On November 5, I introduced the current experimental Top Critic score and flexible Top Critic panel (which currently consists of 8 members). Finally, on November 17 I announced that two throwback albums would be reviewed, a first for this thread.

Before the New Year, I would like to experiment more with increasing the visibility and credibility of atrlcritic. I would also like to make it easier for people who are not confident in writing reviews to do so.

If anyone has suggestions on how to improve the atrlcritic experience, just post it right here and we can talk about it (or feel free to shoot me a PM). I've been continually looking to better atrlcritic since I took over and I believe there's still a lot of work to do. That said, I have really enjoyed being the host of atrlcritic and I hope to continue with this position for a long time!

[Superpower]

Suggesting: Uptown Funk and Lips Are Moving

[B-Luke]

Do you request 7/11 just to destroy it? Here for it.

[Diarrhoea]

I'm here for reviewing Waves

Yeezus is a really weird album. It feels personal, disconnected, angry, sad, loving and destroying all in one song. The productions are some of the best he's ever done - they envelop you in their sonic ferocity, suffocate you with their claustrophobic compositions, and when you think they've finally let up, move in for the killer punch with a twist that was so unexpected it floors you instants. This album has so many potential Kanye classics - Black Skinhead and the knowingly pretentious I Am A God chief amongst them - that he may have actually achieved the seemingly impossible task of topping 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is no easy feat.

9.7/10

[holyground]

Imma pass on these even though I love Lorde and have listened to both of these albums a lot cuz I feel like my impressions of them aren't so fresh anymore.

[Bloomers]

I'm going to try and do both. The due date kind of snuck up on me.

Originally posted by holyground

Imma pass on these even though I love Lorde and have listened to both of these albums a lot cuz I feel like my impressions of them aren't so fresh anymore.

But you get to review them now with some of the hype gone. To see if they hold up. You should do it! I want to hear what you have to say about Lorde.

[alexanderao]

Maybe I should extend the review period. My review isn't ready yet either

[Superpower]

Extend it please. I want to do Yeezus but I haven't had time. I could do it tomorrow afternoon

[Bloomers]

I agree with Superpower. Another day would be perfect if you can.

[alexanderao]

Two more days for the throwbacks.

[holyground]

Originally posted by Bloomers

But you get to review them now with some of the hype gone. To see if they hold up. You should do it! I want to hear what you have to say about Lorde.

Idk, I don't feel inspired to say anything

[Maiko]

  SINGLE REVIEW

Seven Twice, Seven Twice!
A 7/11 Review

 
 
 
 
 

---

      Beyoncé's 7/11 is a neatly packaged on the way to the club jawn released to promote the re-release of her self-titled album. It's unlike anything Beyoncé has ever done before: she uses autotune unsparingly, the lyrics mean little more than nothing, and it is thoughtless, uninhibited, fun. It's apparent that any marketing involved with the release of this song was an after thought, because there really isn't much of a market for it. Internet aside, Yoncé clearly needed to release some tension on a record and doesn't seem to care who listened.

It's nice to know that Blue Ivy earned her first writing credit at such a young age. I use.

---

VERDICT

19
This Knocks
 

 

[Kang.]

YEEZUS
//Kanye West

---

It's all in the title. If My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was the intentional masterpiece, a pained retreat from and grand re-entrance into the eye of the public, then this is the soul-searcher — ~40 minutes of song pulled together by a team of 40+, and there's no topic on anyone's mind throughout that isn't KANYE. It's June of 2013 and our hero is soon to be married, with child #1(? hmmm) on the way. He's long past looking to conform for or reconcile with the world at large – the album's (deceptively catchy) hooks are buried far beneath a sea of exotic abrasion, and a Parkinson's joke 44 seconds into the opening track goes against a horrifyingly self-centered reappropriation of Nina Simone's lynching anthem "Strange Fruit" for the title of Least Culturally Sensitive Moment here. I could interpret Send It Up's "Tight dress dancing close to him/ Yeezus just rose again" as a sign that the name of the album comes in sole reference to Ye's penis, fueling the purely id-driven rage that's on full display here, but it doesn't really matter. There's a big "throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks" mentality going on, and as Yeezus would have it, the end result comes out real sticky.

Because this is The Future, synths everywhere, and the lightning quick ones such as on I Am a God and On Sight combine with the murkier vibes of tracks like Guilt Trip and Hold My Liquor to make for a slightly impenetrable first listen. But there's warmth in places too; the vibey reggae toward the end of (****ing BANGER) Send It Up {"MemoRIES.../ they'll always 'memba you"} leading into back-to-basics Kardashian Prom Night bump Bound 2 is a prime example. Kanye has gotten criticism since the album's release regarding his repurposing of already existing underground-ish trends that make up a lot of Yeezus's core sound, but the way I see it, what he's doing here is more like rewarding his committed listeners. What became the fastest selling release mainstream hip hop had seen in 2 years was also by far its most experimental. Yeezus isn't simple, and it for sure isn't for everyone, but it's also nothing short of boundary pushing, and it came to us in era when hip hop was (still is) in need of such more than ever.

So is there a hidden message waiting in its shadows for only the most careful listeners to unravel? I would say the answer to that is a resounding #KANYESHRUG, but what we get in place is a lot of fun, surely more than on either of the two solo albums that came before it. New Slaves as a political discourse is a load of ********, but as a LITERAL audio realization of a classic live Kanye rant, it's a full-out masterpiece. For all the slimy ways that one Blood on the Leaves sample should make a truly good person feel, damn if those beat drops lifted from the other one doesn't get the floor jumping (dj was playing on the night-before-my-bday-night, WHILE the clock rolled over past 12, AND... ). Right around the halfway point, drunk super-sulking transitions into sex of the freakiest order — doing so totally devoid of ANY kind of winking self-awareness — in a way that should make you just take a step back and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It's a big ass contradiction, the most Kanye of Kanye albums — the man pushing himself maybe to his limit only to circle back into borderline mindlessness. If this world he's created for himself is a "hellish" one, as some have described it, then I'm really all the way down for a one-way to hell.

9.4/10

[Kang.]

I ****ing love Kanye, man.

[bluth]

kang that review

[Jackson]

I've been gone all week and busy before that, I'm excited to be able to get more reviews in starting tomorrow

[alexanderao]

Sorry, I've been busy tonight but should be able to start 7/11 and Mockingjay around 11am tomorrow; I'll extend them a day because of the delay.

[alexanderao]

7/11 - Beyoncé Beyoncé | Columbia | Release Date: November 25, 2014 | Review Period: November 30, 2014 - December 7, 2014

dddddddddd 69 Member Score Generally Favorable Reviews based on 6 Reviews ddddd. dddddd 5.8 Experimental Top Critic Score Mixed or Average Reviews based on 4 Top Critics

dddddddddddddd Summary: The lead single off of the re-release of the singer's self-titled effort, Beyoncé: The Platinum Edition. Record Label: Columbia Genre(s): R&B

Member Reviews d .iPositive: ████████████████ 4 d ....iMixed: ████ 1 d Negative: ████ 1

Top Critic Reviews d .iPositive: ████████████████ 2 d ....iMixed: 0 d Negative: ████████████████ 2

Overall Score (members + top critics): 64.8 (10 reviews)