The Chainsmokers: Memories…Do Not Open Review

Image from Wikimedia.org

At first I wanted to start with a joke on the album title. Why would you put “Do not open” in your album title? Do you not want people to listen to it? Oh wait, no, no, no. I get you. This is your way to play with psyche of your listeners to propel them to open the album, your way of attracting listeners. Oh shit! I decided not to talk about the title I still did. Goddamn! these guys are good at getting people to talk about their stuff.

Moving on to the album, I heard their singles “Paris” and “Something Just Like This” at that time I wasn’t very happy with what I heard even though I totally adore Coldplay I thought that the song was too dumbed down lyrically and recently The Chainsmokers did say that Chris Martin free-styled his lyrics for the song so that explains a few things. The drop for me was the worst part of the song particularly because I was disappointed in the choice of sounds chosen for the drop. Paris felt like an attempt to milk the cash cow that the sounds of their previous hits have been for them. Now an album is what generally defines the career of an artist. An album is the complete body of work and the defining moment of someones artistic style and approach. The success pushed them to make an album and they do talk about the success and its effect on their lives during the course of the album, they talk about the problems in their life but the “problems” wouldn’t really and shouldn’t really bother a grown up. The other topics are break-ups (because when you’re famous you do get to have a lot of them) and betrayals. Not saying that these topics aren’t supposed to be on an album the problem is that the lyrics that describe the aforementioned subjects have the same panache and enigma that the last text message sent by any person anywhere on the might have.

The album holds up its style i.e. commercial EDM inspired by the sounds of The Chainsmokers songs that one has already heard in last few months or so. I am not really going to point out the originality of the album because I don’t think anyone expects it to be a ground breaking piece of art. I didn’t expect it to be an experimental project too because The Chainsmokers and moreover, not everything needs to be experimental. You can make an album full of generic sounds that turns out to be enjoyable. A good commercial album. But is this good commercial music? Well it fails to do so. Yes, it would sell, it would lead the streaming charts worldwide but its all too forgettable. I didn’t really enjoy the singles but upon their release but after listening the album those were the songs that stood out. Well not everything here is bad. I do enjoy the song “It won’t kill ya” it has an enjoyable beat, a nice drop that entertains and actually feels like serving a purpose. The drops aren’t the major part of this album or should I say the drops aren’t meant to be the stand out points (according to their use and placements) but the choice of sounds for these album only makes them irritating.

The sound choice throughout the album is bland and drab. I mean, this is probably as uninteresting an album can get. There isn’t much to decipher or look out for in further listens and most of the songs feel really long in the second listen itself. The opens with a fine song but even song that reaches a bad climax, the album closing track, “Last Day Alive” feels like an awkward end. Its like the album wasn’t meant to end with it and the Florida Georgia Line feature offers nothing notable too. Jhene Aiko is wasted on a bland and tasteless beat that the song isn’t able ooze out any emotion at all. Some of the songs over here do start well but become tiring at the half way point.

Overall, I would say with better lyrics, sharper topics and better vocal performance this could have been a much better album. Its not pointless, the album has a point, the problem is that the lyrics don’t help it execute any of those points. Even adding better vocal effects to Taggart’s voice would have helped the cause. The album fails to generate any experience and I personally wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. If I gotta give a rating it would be 4/10.

That’s it guys and have you given this one a listen? What do you feel about it? And what else have you been bumping the past few days?