2018 Portfolio
A collection of reviews and articles I’ve written for SPIN, The Singles Jukebox, The Line of Best Fit, and others.
You can contact me at joshuacopperman1@gmail.com
SPIN:
Father John Misty — God’s Favorite Customer: “A record about self-loathing where the actual remorse is absent, where its creator would insist that’s the point.”
LUMP — LUMP: “The album itself is structured with dream logic: songs connected only with a droning, heavily processed flute and a bent towards the surreal.”
“Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande’s Hazy “Bed” Is Post-Post Malone Pop:” “Of the two Ariana features, ‘Dance To This’ is actually danceable; ‘Bed,’ meanwhile, buries its groove in pure atmosphere. Yet they both sound similar and have nearly identical, hyper-contemporary, Instagram-influenced, faded album art.”
Mumford & Sons’ New Album Delta Is Doing Too Much of Everything: The Mumfords’ new album takes every possible next move at once: their synth-pop record, their big-budget orchestral record, and their back-to-basics record. Working with producer Paul Epworth, who splits his time between smaller acts like Glass Animals and mega-successes like U2 and Adele, the band stretch themselves as far as possible, clinging to their folkish roots while also embracing their arena-headlining status.
“The Rover” Hints at a More Experimental Direction for Interpol: “Sounds like past Interpol with [Dave] Fridmann’s trademark fuzziness on top. The guitars have the same boxy, ringing tone they’ve had since “Untitled,” Sam Fogarino’s drums remain frantic and deceptively simple, and Paul Banks’s lyrics, while better than they’ve been (“That’s enough for excitements today” should be instantly iconic), are still impenetrable.”
THE SINGLES JUKEBOX:
Jukebox The Ghost —” Everybody’s Lonely:”: “To hear Jukebox the Ghost epiphanize that songs are happy because “everybody’s lonely” bugs me because one of the biggest songs of last year had the chorus “Push me to the edge/all my friends are dead.””
Mitski — “Nobody:” “The song… runs through two key changes in the last 45 seconds — when Beyonce’s “Love On Top” did the same thing, it sounded like pure joy, but with Mitski the key changes represent a turn into straight-up delirium.”
Kacey Musgraves — “High Horse:” “Musgraves sets up and lands every punchline, no matter how corny.”
Blue October —” I Hope You’re Happy:” “A band — and frontman — with as complicated a history as this one, with increasingly baffling creative decisions and unpleasant lyrics, makes “I Hope You’re Happy” all the more rewarding to those who kept in touch.”
lovelytheband — “Broken:” “I like that you’re broken/broken like me” is “you don’t know you’re beautiful/that’s what makes you beautiful” for the “suicide/if you ever try to let go” generation.
Charli XCX ft. Troye Sivan — “1999:” “An ode to a past we were never in, released in a present that’s coming undone for queer people in front of our faces, and a song that won’t be remembered in the future even if we get one.”
MEDIUM:
Sweet Instincts: Sidney Gish on Creating No Dogs Allowed, Using Samples, and Freeing Herself of Expectations: “Sidney Gish is a firmly 2018 songwriter, taking influence from everywhere but creating something original in her own right.”
What Your Favorite Album of 2018 Says About You: Twice as long [as last year’s list] for the year that felt twice as long.
POPMATTERS:
Twenty One Pilots — Trench: “Their honesty is what got them to success in the first place; not through high-concept mischief or big-budget flourishes, but through their baseline humanity.”
THE LINE OF BEST FIT:
Foxing — Nearer My God: “The otherwise radio-friendly title track concerns the fantasy of selling out and living the ’70s version of a rock star life, not the struggling late-2010s version. It’s no coincidence that the first ten seconds of “Nearer My God” (“Iiii waaantt it allll”) could easily slot on an Imagine Dragons album; the Dragons actually did sell out, evolving from earnest pop-rock to major-label jock jam mayhem.” (as Hannah Jocelyn)
SOPHIE — Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides: “As if a direct response to the accusation that trans women are mutilating their bodies, SOPHIE’s face literally gets cut up in a terrifying, strobe-heavy video (because apparently the SOPHIE utopia is not for epileptics), [with] exaggerated prosthetic cheekbones to boot.” (as Hannah Jocelyn)
Olivia Chaney — Shelter: “For an album Chaney describes as ‘Simplicity versus sophistication… [and] folk culture versus modernity,’ she couldn’t have found better collaborators in Thomas Bartlett and Pat Dillett. Bartlett is an underrated force in all kinds of modern music, contributing production to records by The National and his contemporary folk band The Gloaming. Dillett is a frequent collaborator with Bartlett’s (working with the aforementioned groups) whose specialty seems to be pristine, yet still intimate, mixes.” (as Hannah Jocelyn)
SPUTNIKMUSIC:
Camp Cope — How to Socialise and Make Friends: “Camp Cope has been called the ‘sound of #MeToo’, but the album was already written before that movement reached the mainstream. What’s changed now is the confidence that these songs will find an audience, though that doesn’t make the music any less visceral or intense.”
POPCRUSH:
The Chainsmokers Think “Everybody Hates” Them — But Does Anybody Care?: “Despite some lyrical repetition… the only thing really tying together the singles released so far is that they’re all melodramatic, unnecessarily confrontational, and self-absorbed.”
Indie Tracks With Crossover Potential In 2018: “‘&burn’ is just Gothic enough for fans of Halsey to love, but Billie Eilish’s natural songwriting instincts put her above her potential peers.”
