{"id":15129,"date":"2018-09-01T05:30:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-01T09:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15129"},"modified":"2018-09-01T10:28:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-01T14:28:13","slug":"album-review-taylor-james-insane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/01\/album-review-taylor-james-insane\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Taylor James &#8212; Insane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-15130\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/taylor_james.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/taylor_james.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/taylor_james-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/taylor_james-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>For me, the use of numbers and capital letters in place of, y\u2019know, <i>actual words<\/i> is a red flag: it was kinda dumb when Prince did it, and it\u2019s wholly unoriginal now, a generation later. So the discovery of the opening track \u201cBack 2 U\u201d caused me to lower my expectations in regard to finding much in the way of originality on <i>Insane<\/i>. The tune itself isn\u2019t bad, but it\u2019s nothing you haven\u2019t heard eleventy-billion times before, a harmless and nice enough smooth r&amp;b joint with slightly strange production values (at one point, those backing vocals are really loud!). Some of the tunes have a vaguely Stevie Wonder feel about them, though there\u2019s nothing here that approaches his greatness. The keyboard textures seem straight out of a 1990s Kurzweil synth, and the styles seem to draw from acts like Earth, Wind &amp; Fire and \u201880s r&amp;b\/pop.<\/p>\n<p>Strangely, a few tracks feature what sounds like a control booth voice letting us know that here-comes-the-guitar. \u201cRock (Throw Back Mix)\u201d featuring Cassandra Wilkerson is a tasty neosoul\/dance number, but the production is oddly thin and tinny, calling into question why the title calls attention to it. \u201cGood Times\u201d playfully injects a bit of politics into the mix. The soulful slow jam of \u201cMake it Right\u201d features some slightly over-emoting vocals, but one supposes there\u2019s a market somewhere for such a thing. Again, the balance of the lead and backing vocals seems way off. Overall, the production and mixing shortcomings make <em>Insane<\/em> sound like a rough mix. In this era of DIY production, there\u2019s really no excuse for that. Spending more than five minutes on the album cover design might have been a good idea as well.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the album actually improves at it unfolds; as long as one takes it for what it is, <i>Insane<\/i> is a pleasing way to invest three quarters of an hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For me, the use of numbers and capital letters in place of, y\u2019know, actual words is a red flag: it was kinda dumb when Prince did it, and it\u2019s wholly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,49,60,65],"tags":[3550],"class_list":["post-15129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-new-release","category-rb","category-review","tag-taylor-james","cat-39-id","cat-49-id","cat-60-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15131,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15129\/revisions\/15131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}