twenty one pilots

relistening to trench today, even better than i remembered, probably better than i characterized it upthread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_9Kf0D5BTs

aiight maybe i've done the full heel turn, i love this song

"bandito" is so good, i nearly forgot

also i will halfheartedly defend most of blurryface at this point. i... like "ride" now?

here let me ruin vampire weekend for you *slowly turns up volume dial on twenty one pilots "ride"*

most 21 pilots superfans would tell you that blurryface is a mainstream concession and vessel is the real shit but i find vessel real juvenile still. some of the hooks are wonderful ("ode to sleep") but many of the almost-good songs are still like rube goldberg machines of bad decisions. what's worse than the rapping? nearly every time this band breaks out the ukulele

of course, trench is >>>>>>>>>>

even the uke tracks work

"shy away" is underwhelming, just feels like part of that small wave of major label pop rock bands who tried to sound like the strokes (neon trees etc.)

it's not bad but kinda forgettable and uninteresting which is the last thing this band should be. even when they've been horrible they were at least interestingly horrible making the worst musical decisions possible etc.

on the plus side: no rapping!

idk it’s a really well-written song imo. everything a hook

been stuck in my head for a week

I will rep for blurryface. Great songs, great visual aesthetic too. Saw them twice live in this time (w/ my teen kids) and the energy start to finish was impressive (band and crowd). Surging quasi pit filled most of the room. Many backflips were flipped. Show climaxes with Tyler on a 30 foot steel pillar above the crowd singing Car Radio.

i really like blurryface at this point. even lowlight “lane boy” has a sick dnb freak out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sBRnnnZyFw

really good imo

it's good until the second half where it goes into half-time and then the outro rap is dreadful

god what a weird record

like in many ways it is deeply unweird, cf. "saturday" is just a groovy song about the weekend! until it consumes itself pixel by pixel

they largely make the weirdness work for them for this time instead of making you go "that is one of the worst musical decisions i've ever heard"

"bounce man," tho... i don't hate it but they gotta lock the uke in the closet

and his rapping too, though it's not quite as bad on this one as it's been in the past

"bounce man" isn't good but it's not like bafflingly in the way say the "guns for hands" bridge is or anything

i think dude's rapping majorly improved between blurryface and trench, so for the most part i think it's rad, another tool in the unexpectedly deep toolbox this band's working with. still a few lines that make you clutch your forehead and wish you didn't know what words are

in mood/songwriting/everything else this feels like a complete photonegative of trench and i'm really about bands that make these kind of hard right turns between records

"mulberry street" -> "formidable" is the part of the album i could credibly describe as sophistipop

it's mostly just i hate the sound of his rapping, he just sounds like a less technical eminem or something and it's not pleasant

his rapping is more pleasant than his singing

https://i.ibb.co/fQn4050/21pilots.png

no security or anything - just now on Rock Werchter (Belgian festival)

the grin when he walks back to the stage at the end

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu9UOzYPu24