I think this may be my first album review that I’ve written for this website. I’m usually not the album review type either. An album I recently got is so worthy of an album review. It is incredible and like nothing I’ve ever heard before. As a bonus, most of you have not heard of this band. They’re called the xx. They released their third album called I See You on Friday, January 13, 2017. Today is January 17th, 2017 as I’m writing it and I still love it. I bought the album yesterday. My rule of thumb with buying albums is that I have to listen to it a full five times before buying it. I think I’ve listened to it fully three times before buying it. The xx is what I’d describe as atmospheric chill band. They have a male and female singer and other people that play instruments. I’ve been into them for a while. Their first album (self-titled) is really good. Their second album Coexist wasn’t as good and I impulsively bought and was disappointed except for a couple songs. This album is nothing like I’ve heard in a very long time. There’s not one song on it that I strongly dislike, just songs that I don’t like as much as the others. That hasn’t happened in a long time. I’m gonna go through track by track and write about what each track means to me.
Track #1 Dangerous
Dangerous is the first track. It’s a good starting track for this. I wasn’t TOO impressed with it the very first time through, but I kept on listening to it to get the full experience of the album. Now after a couple times of listening to it, I can say that I like it. It’s about a relationship with someone that kinda gives a bad vibe but you want to continue being with them. My favorite lyrics of the song are right in the chorus with “You are dangerous, but I don't care. I'm gon' to pretend that I'm not scared. If this only ends in tears; then I won't say goodbye.”
Track #2 Say Something Loving
This was their second song that they released to promote the album, which is a pretty good song. It wasn’t as good as the first song I heard but it was enough for me to await the release. It is such a love song about the thrill of getting into a relationship with lyrics like “Say something loving; I just don't remember the thrill of affection.”
Track #3 Lips
This one took me a couple listens as well to really enjoy it. This is another love song. On this album, I feel as if they have more love songs than normal, which is okay. It’s different than the others. It’s about being so captivated in someone that you don’t want to come down from your high of being in love. It shows in lyrics such as “In my head, in my veins; in the way you give and take; in the way that you weigh on my body, on my brain.”
Track #4 A Violent Noise
I’m still trying to figure out what this song is about. It’s good that I automatically don’t know about some songs about what they mean. The one thing I do know is that the male and the female are singing two different parts of a conversation. It’s kinda cool. Here are the lyrics from the first part of the chorus “Now I go out but every beat is a violent noise. Dries my eye, with every beat comes a violent noise.”
Track #5 Performance
THIS SONG IS THE BEST SONG ON THIS ALBUM. Putting that out there so everyone will know, if you don’t like the first four songs, this song makes it worth it. I don’t identify with it because I am not per se “a performer,” but I can identify with feeling like I have to put on a performance for people so that they don’t see me hurting. It was so hard to pick the lyrics out that I loved the most because the entire song I just love. But in one of the verses it says “I want you to notice but you just don't see. The show is wasted on you, so I perform for me.” This is discussing the singers social anxiety and how she does perform for herself and not for anyone else. I read an article that reviewed this album and discussed the lead singers social anxiety, the writer quotes as follows:
“It addresses two varieties of performance: The kind she does professionally on stage, and those she performs every day as a human being. At one she embraces a confidence that comes with her vocation as a musician and an artist, but she grounds it in the minutiae to which anyone with a semblance of social anxiety—and the fear of performing in front of peers every day—can relate.” (Miller, 2017) - and look, I even cited my source!
Track #6 Replica
This song was the perfect track to go after the previous emotional song. It is a groovy song with good rhythm. It talks about becoming the same as everyone else. The lyrics that make me think the most are “do I chase the night, or does the night chase me?” Think about it, and you’ll understand what it means.
Track #7 Brave for You.
Everyone should have those people to be “brave for.” These are the people in our lives that encourage us and push us through our fears and anxiety. But if you look closer to the lyrics it discusses about someone not being there but if they were they would tell her “be brave”, which means this person in someone’s life has passed on but still lives through them. We all have those people too that are gone that help us push through life and live life to the fullest.
Track #8 On Hold
This was the first song that was released to promote the album. I think I listened to just this song ten times. This really made me excited for this album. This song does sampling from a Hall & Oates song, which I’m not a fan of sampling but it got the point across and I still like to listen to it a bunch. The part of the song that I kept rewinding to repeat went like this “The stars and the charts and the cards make sense only when we want them to. When I lie awake staring in to space; I see a different view.”
Track #9 I Dare You
This is another love song, even more sappy than the others. But like I said I don’t mind. The lyrics I really identify with are “I've been a romantic for so long; all I've ever had are love songs.” I’m such a romantic. I do love love songs and seeing people in love.
Track #10
This is the other very intimate song on this album and it’s the last track, which is where most bands put their most intimate track to end the album preciously. It is such an intimate song of possible verbal abuse. They’re saying “test me, see if I break and tell me this time you’ve changed.” Fighting is hard, but it isn’t good to take your anger out on someone. I tend to do that sometimes.
There you go, an in-depth review of what may be the greatest album of 2017 within 17 days. If more music is like this, I’m gonna like 2017! Go listen to this album, whether on Spotify or Youtube! Go check out their other albums as well!
