John Glacier - Like A Ribbon (Album Initial Thoughts)

 The critics really liked this, it got 88/100.

Satellites. I love this. It stopped me in my tracks, made me focus, immersed me immediately.

Don't Cover Me. I'm speechless, I don't know what to say. But this is awesome. Simple, but in a good way. Sometimes simple is beautiful.

Money Shows. Is he British? He sounds British. -- Oh, her! I'm sorry! The name and the deep voice fooled me. But yes, she's a she and she's from London.

Emotions. This beat's interesting, I like it!

Nevasure. A little too repetitive.

Steady As I Am. See, in this song the repetition works. "Steady as a I am..." and then different ways she's actually not as steady as she thinks she is (I think, I got lost in listening to the flow and missed the lyrics). 

Found. -

Home. The style is getting a bit redundant where there's too much of it. Each song is about as good as the next, this and Satellites have been my favorites thus far and Nevasure my least favorite, but even Nevasure is a good song. It's just that they're all kinda the same, and blend together. Ask me in an hour and I could probably name like two songs from this album, if that. There's not enough variety in the sound to make each song stand out from the rest. This seems to be a thing in hiphop more widely. They should do something about it. Metal does that, too, though... Every other song has screamed verses in mid-range growl, clean choruses and a breakdown in the C part. Prog metal ruined other music for me, lol.

Ocean Steppin'. I didn't even notice the song changing.

Dancing In The Rain. I like the panning in the beat. Gives it that "something", you know?

Heavens Sent. -

I don't know why this feels so different from Playboi Carti, that I just listened to... The beats are a completely different style, and John Glacier has a better sense of rhythm/flow than Carti. This album also feels more effortless than Carti. I'm not sure if mainstream hiphop sounds like today what the Carti album sounded like, but to my ignorant brain, it sounded like Carti was trying to sound alternative and different, but it felt forced, where as John Glacier just naturally sounds like this. It's more effortless and therefore more real.

I liked this album A LOT more than Playboi Carti. This is a great album. Not as great as the metal I've heard this year, or as great as Balloonerism, but like a 2nd tier after that level of greatness. Like, if Balloonerism and Mirar are S-tier, the highest, followed by A, B, C, D, E and F, then Like A Ribbon would be B tier, maybe A tier. We'll see. I'm not that familiar with hiphop yet, I just got into it a couple of years ago and I'm still kind lost / familiar with only the select few artists I'm really really into, so I don't know how this compares to where the genre is as a whole...

But I like this idea of tier lists instead of top lists 🤔