We live in interesting times today. It seems that the expansion of EDM-based Electronic Music has genuine mainstream potential, as the older styles of Rock and especially Country Music have died out, replaced with much more urban-based music sounds. In any case, this is one of the hit albums of 2024. It was released to widespread musical acclaim by reviewers of most musical journalist outlets. This album was recorded with a load of different producers: A.G. Cook; Finn Keane; Cirkut; George Daniel (Charli xcx’s partner); Easyfun; Gesaffelstein; Hudson Mohawke; El Guincho; Jon Shave; Linus Wiklund; Omer Fedi and Charli xcx herself. The album was released on Atlantic Records in June 2024. Interestingly, the songs from this album have been appropriated for the Kamala Harris Democratic Party campaign for the USA 2024 Federal Election, after Charli xcx threw her support behind Kamala Harris in her fight against the former Republican USA President Donald Trump at the time of writing. All that aside, let’s take a listen to this popular album and we shall hear if it is any good.

360 begins with an excellent musical loop and launches into a catchy, interesting and decent tune that is a good mixture of beats, textures and singing throughout. A very awesome Pop Music tune that is based on Eurodance, but with postmodern sounds, this is a catchy, clever and minimal tune. If anything, this isn’t particularly an original mixture of sounds, innovation or genres but this music does have some great and excellent musical textures throughout. It sounds like a million dollars throughout. Catchy music.

Club classics begins with some cut-up and looped vocals, with heavy beats and enters into a really adventurous and interesting piece of music throughout. The main section of the song sounds really different. This tune is a very well built-up and futuristic-sounding piece of EDM Pop. There is some interesting organ throughout as well. A good example of how EDM has evolved to this day, this album is already a classic throughout. Very good to listen to.

Sympathy is a knife begins with some very Acid House-styled sounds, and has some excellent vocals enter the scene. This is a different tune that sounds like it is paving the way ahead for the future of music. The chorus of this song is very awesome and catchy throughout. This does have lyrics about suicide and psychosis, but it is very catchy that this is very much forgivable. Nonetheless, a very good listen and sound that is designed to be blasted through loudspeakers. A good tune, for all its dark lyrical themes. Excellent.

I might say something stupid begins with hi-hats and launches into a very ordinary song with autotuned vocals. This is nothing worth hearing, sadly. It sounds like an Electronic version of fingernails down a blackboard. Not very nice to hear. Fortunately, this is less than two minutes in length and sounds really poor and ordinary. A sad tune to listen to. Very, very bad.

Talk talk is a much better tune, with Justin Bieber-styled vocals from Charli xcx and launches into an okay but very Poppy song. This album has a very contemporary music feel to it and has a very sell-out feel to it. Which is either good or bad, depending on your view. Nonetheless, this song is okay but there has been better music out there in the name of EDM. The beats and textures throughout are very good, however. A different listen for what this music is. A good stab at a crossover of Pop and EDM. Different sounding.

Von dutch sounds okay, but also sounds discordant throughout. This quickly launches into quite an awful-sounding tune that is overrated and worth skipping. Seriously, this music with its pitch shifting does sound really awful musically. It is difficult to believe that this music is easily loved or appreciated today, as it is outright bad in some parts. Charli xcx makes a cliche and unimaginative EDM-based tune here, and anyone with ears should skip ahead. Very, very bad music to hear. Just outright poor.

Everything is romantic begins with some pitch-shifted string and melody sections, sounding super artificial. This is not good. Charli xcx raps away on this tune, and again, this is absolutely terrible to hear. Sufjan Stevens makes far better Electronic Music than this tune. This quickly launches into repetitive lyrics and a bad excuse for a tune. Again, this is a very pathetic and unexceptional listen throughout and has too much of a sell-out sound throughout. This is not about romanticism throughout and instead is about nothing in particular. A horrid and pathetic listen, this music is nothing wonderful or exceptionally good by this point. The looped and repeated vocals in the outro are so annoying that it makes Oasis’s Be Here Now (1997) album sound decent and short. A bad tune.

Rewind begins with heavily autotuned vocals, and launches into a better tune but still sounds very average. It is catchy for however ordinary this is but is an excellent example of why music has generated to such a lowest common denominator degree. A good listen, but certainly not a great one. Even so, there have been better efforts in the history of music. The processed vocals and sounds present aren’t the best, even with the breakdown in the second half. Better songs and albums have been made than this. Rather ordinary.

So I begins with some more processed electronic melodies and launches into another really ordinary listening experience throughout. This is a poor attempt at making a melancholy song that doesn’t make any sense being on this album. Not a good listen about being in despair, this music is really isn’t groundbreaking or really listenable. It sounds too processed and much of a musical cliche to be enjoyed. There is nothing in particular memorable or enjoyable about this song, and skip ahead now, if you wish. A bad attempt at a digital ballad that doesn’t make sense. A real drag in a musical way. Avoid this rubbish, it sounds completely awful. The outro is terrible. Enough said.

Girl, so confusing sounds really awful from the start. It is not a good listening experience and sounds really horrid. This is becoming clearly quite a rubbish album to hear as it goes on. The tracks and vocals are so digitised that this music is difficult to enjoy. Not at all a good listen, this sounds like a real drag of a song to hear. Also, this has some rather lesbian sexually oriented lyrics, which don’t make sense if Charli xcx has a boyfriend. This is officially a pretentious musical statement in that case. Not a good song to listen to or enjoy, skip ahead again. This is rubbish.

Apple begins with some New Order-styled sounds and melodies and enters into a really poor and pathetic tune about apples. Honestly, why? This music has zero sonic sounds worth hearing and no sense, either. The rhythms and melodies are really ordinary as well. Again, another failure and this album is packaged rubbish for most listeners out there. A head-shakingly bad listening experience, this is not what people with any musical interest should listen to today. Again, avoid this nonsense.

B2b begins with some liquid Acid House sounds, and has some ordinary vocals that are repetitive and this tune is another failure. Junk food music is the best way to describe this pathetic attempt at sounds and beats. This is bizarre, ordinary and a new low for Pop Music. Older listeners especially will find this awful and repetitive postmodern Pop Music a really bad listen. If you want real EDM, go and find a playlist on Spotify or SoundCloud and enjoy that much more instead. “I don’t want to feel famous,” is one of the looped lyrics here. Tell us something we want to know, or something that we don’t know. Absolutely appalling.

Mean girls begins with some more ordinary lyrics about a chick who goes out nightclubbing. A really awful and pathetic joke of a tune, it seems that the future of music is absolutely doomed if this garbage is popular. A tune about a lady who is a party lover, but it is beyond bad. There is some piano in the midsection of this song, followed by processed vocals and some Roland hand claps. Enough to roll one’s eyes to, there is absolutely nothing worth listening to or enjoying throughout. Junk this album right now, and put this commercial nonsense into the dustbin of history. Really bad. It ends with the sound of a crowd talking. Boring.

I think about it all the time begins with some truly awful electronic textures and launches into a tune about finding a lover. This is not good music and deserves to be laughed at. This music is just so bad that it deserves to be listened to once, laughed at really hard and never ever heard again. Charli xcx’s awful accent is autotuned to death on this song, and to be fair, nothing more can be said about this tune. This album points out that having the latest and greatest electronics in your music doesn’t necessarily mean it will sound great. A really terrible listen from start to finish.

365 begins with looped vocals and goes into a slightly better tune. This sounds okay, but it is definitely not the sort of music that one can claim that sounds great. A really awful and ordinary tune. One could strongly suggest that if you want good time music, you’d better much better off hearing something like LMFAO or Flo Rida. Even their music from 10 years ago was better than this puerile junk that nobody will ever remember in 10 years’ time. This music reeks of a pretentious attitude throughout as well. Appalling, like polishing a bad product to the point that it is fake. The second half is beyond awful, with some static grooves and sounds that are outright bad. Enough said, just don’t listen to this album.

This is an indication that the music of today has gone incredibly downhill, at least from this album. There is very little good to be said about it. It starts off okay, but gets worse as it goes along. Everything about it, from the no-name artist, the fact that it is such appalling music that nearly 20 producers are involved, to the album cover which was probably created in five seconds, says everything. Do not listen to this album at all. It is just not worth it.

An incredibly bad joke.

3/10