[Photo courtesy of Hudson Forman]

By the ACRN Editorial Team

8. Melanie Martinez – PORTALS [Atlantic Records]

Melanie Martinez had a lot of buzz and media surrounding her between her previous two albums, Cry Baby and K-12. However, it seems that even with all the attention, she still managed to drop the ball on PORTALS. While this album definitely builds off the sound and world that Martinez had already started with the first two albums of this trilogy, this album just does not have the memorability or attention to detail as the prior two. This album felt very standard and generic outside of its overall visual elements. While the story was present, the musical creativity was lacking. 

Throughout all of Melanie Martinez’s career she has failed to show an overall growth or change in her music sonically, even with the extreme amount of attention and appreciation for her “classic” music. With only two stand out songs (being two of the three singles for the album), “Void” and “Evil” carried most of the record without too many other standouts. This album definitely feels more like an art piece than a fleshed out record, which is not necessarily a flaw, just disappointing for where Martinez could have taken her overall ideas for this piece of work.

• Joseph Turiano, Contributor

7. Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS [Geffen Records]

While I’m a sucker for a good pop record, Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS disappointed me for many reasons after its release in September. For one, it just sounds like a copy and paste of her debut album, 2021’s SOUR, with many of its tracks sounding exactly like their predecessors. After a few listens, “bad idea right?” bleeds directly into “brutal”, both containing the same repetitive laments about making bad choices and feeling frustrated with societal expectations. Likewise, “vampire” and “drivers license” directly parallel one another in sound and storyline, and for someone as young and talented as Rodrigo, you’d think she’d have more ideas to write about.

Another flaw to this album is the lack of originality, as Rodrigo seems to have had a problem with this in the past. Remember when she had to add Paramore to the writing credits for “good 4 u” after not listing her interpolation of “Misery Business”? For example, “ballad of a homeschooled girl” and “get him back!” feel like the singer tried to imitate the artistry of Avril Lavigne and Hayley Williams, pulling too closely from early 2000s influences. If Rodrigo would’ve tried to be a little more authentic, her sophomore follow-up would’ve hit the mainstream a lot stronger.

Overall, the only reason GUTS got as much praise as it did was because of Olivia Rodrigo’s notoriety and the viral nature of her songs, but when you look beneath the surface, there’s nothing worth truly noting with this album.

• Grace Koennecke, Incoming Reviews Editor and Copy Editor

6. Swans – The Beggar  [Young God Records] 

To save you the two hours of monotony that gorges Swans’ latest exploration into overdosing the human attention span with a lethal smashing-your-head-against-the-wall boredom, I intend to summarize their sixteenth album’s thesis within a short few sentences: 

Repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting, repeating something uninteresting doesn’t make it any more interesting.

• Rocco Prioletti, News Editor

5. Post Malone – AUSTIN [Mercury Records/Republic Records]

Recently, I’ve begun to realize that the idea of the ‘catastrophically bad album that suddenly kills a pop star’s career’ is actually quite a rare occurrence. More often than not, you end up with something like AUSTIN – an album so bland, over-polished, and unwilling to take risks that I struggle to recall much of anything about it at all. One would not be remiss for having missed the release of this album, either. Despite Post Malone’s considerable stature within the music industry, the album seems to have received little in the way of promotion at all, a predicament not helped by the fact that, while listenable, none of the songs contained on it are particularly catchy or engaging in the first place.

The only aspect of the album that did stick out to me, however, was the perplexing, heavy tremolo effect applied to many of the singer’s vocal mixes, which ends up elevating the album to being actively annoying at times rather than ignorable background music. If Post Malone is truly writing these songs from a place of sincere emotion, as it seems he is, then they really ought to be treated with more care and personality than AUSTIN provides.

• Grant Kelly, Contributor

4. Metallica – 72 Seasons [Blackened Recordings]

I hoped that after promising lead single “Lux Aeterna” and newfound interest in thrash-era Metallica by the general public initiated by Stranger Things, 72 Seasons would be the return to greatness that would justify Metallica’s continued reign atop heavy metal. Unfortunately, I was wrong. There are good ideas in this record – some decent riffs, cool solos, and catchy hooks, but for the most part, every song on 72 Seasons dramatically overstays its welcome.

Aside from the aforementioned lead single, almost every song on this record is in the five to seven minute range. Unfortunately, Metallica does not deliver creative enough ideas, or the musical complexity to justify this run time. For the long-awaited return of metal’s biggest band, 72 Seasons felt half-baked. Metallica has been riding their first five albums’ legacies for half their career now, after 72 Seasons, they’re still going to do that.

• Nicholas Kobe, Staff Writer

3. Jeff Rosenstock – HELLMODE [Polyvinyl Record Co.]

Jeff Rosenstock may very well be the greatest punk artist of all time. He is, at the very least, the king of punk in the 21st century. He has a massive discography with very few misses. However, with a discography this long and consistent, it makes sense that not everything can live up to the highs of WORRY. and NO DREAM. In Rosenstock’s tremendous discography, HELLMODE is admittedly a bit of a blip. Following up NO DREAM was already going to be a difficult feat, but it was one he unfortunately struggled with.

See, NO DREAM had movement behind it. It came out at the perfect time to be a defining moment of punk music in the 2020s. Released relatively on in the COVID-19 pandemic, NO DREAM saw a fit of political and personal angst fully realized that was perfect for those rotting in their bedrooms unable to do little else than listen to music. The album was bleak, depressing, and overall expressed a great deal of frustration. It was the moment, it was the movement.

HELLMODE was unable to deliver the promise of another defining moment. It was apparent from the singles that the album was not going to be as energizing and revitalizing as NO DREAM, lyrically or musically. Upon the album’s release, it failed to excite me, and based on its placement on this list, others as well. This does not mean one should give up hope on Rosenstock. He has such a great catalog, and will nearly certainly deliver upon his greatness once again. However, HELLMODE has missed me. I can only hope it will click later on down the line.

• Venus Rittenberg, Editorial Director

2. Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version) [Taylor Swift]

Taylor Swift’s re-release of 1989 falls short of her better works. Recently winning TIME’s person of the year, Swift has had the entire spotlight on her, along with an incredibly successful ‘Era’s Tour.’ Swift is one of few artists left that can sell out entire stadiums from name alone, and that seems to be a bit of a struggle from this new album. Because Swift is such a household name, this seems less effortful than some of her other re-releases. 

The new songs give some insight into Taylor’s current life, but don’t fit with the format of this album. The new songs are all added toward the bottom of the album, making the 81 minute album more of a slog to get through than just re-recording the original songs. It also falters where the original does, with stretches of the album feeling meaningless, where the biggest hits are the weakest songs.

• Cody Englander, Staff Writer

1. Doja Cat – Scarlet [Kemosabe Records/RCA Records]

I am new to being a Doja Cat fan, and honestly, after the year she’s had, I was hesitant to get into her music. However, I have to be honest, Hot Pink and Planet Her are two of the best pop rap albums I’ve ever heard. One of the songs that convinced me to check out her music more in-depth was “Paint the Town Red”, the opener and a single from her album this year, Scarlet. However, as good as that song is, there is a very real case to be made that it is the only good song on the album (I could probably be persuaded to say there’s a few other ones, but “Paint the Town Red” is the only one that holds a candle to her previous releases).

Scarlet suffers many issues, the most elementary being that it is bloated and boring. The album is 17 songs, and nearly an hour. However, due to the second issue (boring), it drags on even longer than it already is. I could easily be convinced the album is an hour and a half based on how slowly time moves when listening to it. And then, as I said, it is also very bland. Hot Pink and Planet Her are fun, bouncy, poppy, and flirtatious. Scarlet has shaken off all of these positive qualities for the sake of a style that offers nothing, and a production quality that leaves a great deal to be desired. Overall, the album feels like a slog, which is the exact opposite of what I lift from her better releases. There is very little desire to return to this album except “Paint the Town Red” when everything she does right is presented so well on other releases.

• Venus Rittenberg, Editorial Director