Man's Best Friend Review

 *General Blog Update*

Hey gang, it's been a spell!!! Unfortunately after this it's gonna go back to being that way. In the long term I hopefully will come back to this as a side project but don't hold your breath, that won't be until this next summer at the soonest (possibly never). I did just want to write my little review of Man's Best Friend here because it is the perfect spot for it. Other stuff like this are the most likely things to be here at any point before I ever get back to writing here weekly again. 

General Album Review:

So I listened at midnight upon release (of course) and to be honest my initial response was that it was ok. I wasn't blown away by it like I was the first time I listened to Short 'n Sweet but it has already grown on me faster that Emails I Can't Send did (Though boy did EICS grow on me!!!).  I was very surprised to see the whole album maintain the retro sound established by Manchild. It does have a very distinct sound while keeping a fair bit of variety amongst its songs which is generally what I value most in an album. For those of you wondering where I would rank it compared to SnS and EICS, for now I would put it in third place. Granted that isn't saying much given my love for the other two. And it's also worth bearing in mind that I'm a grower not a shower, time does all songs huge favors with me (That is what that means, right?). But overall I'm not amazed by the album as a whole but I do really like most of the songs. Sabrina did hint that the track listing is important but so far as I can tell without doing research (which will be coming soon) it's simply certain musical motifs which, although is my favorite part of some albums, I feel like it comes at the expense of the later songs featuring the motifs from the earlier songs (specifically Tears having motifs that appear later).

Track Rankings:

12. When Did You Get Hot?: Not my cup of tea. It is already growing on me, I like most of the song, I just hate the chorus. Being last in a Connor ranking of anything Sabrina really isn't saying much so bear that in mind as well. It just isn't for me and I can't imagine me ever putting this on outside of listening to the album as a whole.

11. Sugar Talking: Not a fan. Upon first listen I really didn't like it but at least now I don't passionately dislike it anymore. It's just not something I like, it just feels clunky to me. The music and the vocals just don't jive together for me. Something about it just really doesn't work. This is only above When Did You Get Hot? purely because theres a chance that I might not skip it if it came on autoplay.

10. Don't Worry I'll Make You Worry: This one just really comes down to, despite being one of the gals, I'm not actually girl. Though having said that, sometimes these songs do still grow on me and Sabrina's songs have a 100% success rate of doing so. It's not bad, I don't dislike it, it's just not for me. This is also the last of the songs that I'm not a fan of so all songs ranked above this I rather like.

9. Goodbye: Yet another one I wasn't a fan of upon my first listen but it has since grown on me. I don't like the intro, whatever you'd call that, and i don't like it in the rest of the song either. That's the main thing holding it back but I still like it.

8. Never Getting Laid: Here's one that is just now, two or so days after release, really growing on me. If I made this list upon release this would not have been above the cut off of songs I like. But boy do I like it now! We've finally gotten up to songs I really like. So good!

7. House Tour: This is the first song I've talked about that has actually drastically fell down my rankings since my first listen. The night the album was released I told a lot of people this was in my top two and now it's 7. I still think it's a rather fun song though. It kinda feel's like this album's Nonsense with it being the metaphor song. I feel like this would be great to see live, hopefully this will be treated like Juno. 

6. Tears: Having heard the intro as they played it ion the teasers for the music video I was not expecting to like it at all but it's a good song. I was going to say that this might be the raunchiest but then again there's a lot of that on this album. I suppose the reason I want to say it here is because 1. it's very on the nose and 2. the surprise of it, you might expect it to be a sad song as I did so I was a tad caught off guard to here the titular tears were running down her thighs.  Good song though. I really like it.

5. Go Go Juice: This one has climbed my rankings by a lot!!! Originally it was just too country for me, I said that Manchild was a country/folksy as I was willing to get but alas, here we are with it in my top 5. It's a grower, not a shower! It's very fun and I surrendered myself to its country-ness; something only Sabrina could get me to do. Shout out to John and Larry.

4. Manchild: Originally I thought the single would hold its ground. On my first listen of the album, the familiar Manchild was sitting pretty as a strong contender for 1 but now that the dust has settled it falls just short of the top 3. Absolutely love this song though. Only Sabrina could make a retro-pop and folk fusion a summer hit.

3. Nobody's Son: A last minute climb from this one to knock Manchild out of the top three. I thought this song was pretty forgettable on my first listen but now I absolutely love it. It's amazing. And all songs in the top three are fair game to replace each other. I just love what a strong flow it has. Amazing song.

2. We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night: A great swelling song, big fan. Along with the rest of the top 3, this is what I have been and will continue to be listening to over and over again.

1. My Man on Willpower: Perhaps it being at number 1 gave this away but I love this song. It was instantly a hit with me (though not an instant number 1, that didn't happen until the next day) and most impressively has held onto that. This would be a perfect song if it weren't for the motif from Tears that comes in the middle. Why is that here!!! My dear Sabrina, why get artsy with it now?!? Very frustrating but that frustration is born out of love cause this is my favorite nonetheless. 

Closing Remarks: 

(With the exception of 1) my reviews got shorter towards the top of the rankings because I just like them and that's it, deal with it, whereas the ones towards the bottom I feel like I have to justify putting them there and explain it away. But like I said in my overall review, I like the album but I like many of the individual songs more so than the album as a whole. I hope you enjoyed my review and I didn't upset you too much. Tell me how wrong I am in the comments if you're that upset. 

Thanks for reading all this if you actually did!!! If you just skimmed, I'll take what I can get! And if you are seeing this having just scrolled to the bottom to see how long it is then I don't like you!

-Connor Falkowski