sweetenermore ballot

Username: vayyiqra

ALBUM: Sweetener Good album! The discourse about it was awful! But good album! Well, mixed-to-good album. But when it's good sure it's good. "Objectively" this is the frontrunner [2025 UPDATE: is it? nah] and even though I'm going full Selenator mode, I'd rather a song from it wins than from Demi's album, so sure do your thing Popheads. yuh

raindrops (an angel cried): 6 Too short and not memorable but pretty. yuh

blazed (feat. Pharrell Williams): 10 Passes the Get Lucky test of "can a song still be good even if Pharrell sings on it" and the bassline rules so it's doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Good ditty! yuh

the light is coming (feat. Nicki Minaj): 8 Lol sample bad Nicki bad yes we know good song though! Amusingly stupid line about Chun-Li who is not a "bad guy" in any way shape or form. The chorus is weirdly catchy (emphasis on "weird"). Neat ditty! yuh

R.E.M: 8 Yes the panting is bad! Cute song though. Good alternative rock band and important stage of deep sleep. yuh

God is a woman: 6 When this album came out my friend messaged me to complain that her roommate kept playing this album and that this song is annoying. Even though I don't hate it, maybe points were made. I go back and forth between thinking this is good and not very good so today it caught me on an off day. yuh

sweetener: 4 Deeply annoying and the whiplash between the pretty verses and obnoxious choruses (gidditgidditgiddit! sheesh!) is too much. Haha what if someone made a joke like "this song is like pouring too much sweetener into something" I bet I am the only one to make this joke just watch. yuh

successful: 8 Slightly obnoxious but also very funny song! Will assume it's meant to be ironic and "camp" and so on. Also true she is very successful, that is just a fact. yuh

everytime: 8 This is very Selena Gomez-coded. See she even said "back to you" ahahah (I'm being goofy). Uh this song's good but I never remember it's here. yuh

breathin: 11 Definitely the best song on this album (shoutout Max Martin, dude rocks). I remember being in the lab while this was playing on the radio and my partner was singing along. That dude rocks too. This proves this song rules. yuh

no tears left to cry: 9 This song is so jarring every time because it begins like it's going to be the most dramatic ballad ever and then the rest is nothing like that! It's catchy though; I like the line "we vibin'"'; sure it's pretty good I guess? I didn't like it at all at first! Weird song but not an awful winner. yuh

borderline (feat. Missy Elliott): 6 "Objectively" this is pretty underwhelming and repetitive and yes it has a mediocre verse that was a waste of Missy's feature (what feature? I blinked and missed it) but I kind of like it anyway for reasons beyond my understanding. Petition to stop naming pop songs "Borderline" though we have more than enough! yuh

better off: 7 I forgot this song existed but sure it's alright! Some pretty arpeggios. yuh

goodnight n go: 8 By this late in the album I tend to forget everything else in it, but sure this song's good. I want to like it more because I like Imogen Heap and she was a big influence on my music taste, but this is a good score. yuh

pete davidson: 8 Yes we know it "aged like milk" whatever. It's cute and she was happy! But too short. yuh

get well soon: 7 It's cute, maybe a bit longer than it needs to be but it's a solid closer. I don't really like the song itself that much but I like the wholesomeness of it. "A mental hug" I love that concept! That rules. yuh

ALBUM: Evermore i've tried. i don't like this album. i just don't. it came out at such a bleak time, when it's near the darkest part of the year and turning from fall into winter and the ground is frozen and lightly dusted with snow. i didn't want to listen to it at this time. it filled me with existential dread. it's a bit better if i don't think about that time and don't look at the cover. maybe it was all pavlovian conditioning but it simply wasn't the right time to try to get into this. i still don't like it that much. i don't know what you all see in it. folklore is better. maybe i'm not cut out to be a true swiftie. maybe that's for the best. don't attack me for it. this album will be fine. have mercy on me pray for me

willow: 3 90s trend lol [2025 update: what did i mean by this]

champagne problems: 1 more like. aha private jet. problems. aha. o no she's doing the taylor-y thing with the bridge. "FUCKED in the head" ugh please don't. i'm sure someone thinks this is a lyrical masterpiece and maybe it is and i have no taste but i don't like it

goldrush: 6 proto-midnights (this not a bad thing in my world) one of the better tracks but neil young >>>

'tis the damn season: 3 this reads like a diary entry of a bunch of random things that happened ("confessional" they call it) and that lyrical style is very not my thing

tolerate it: 3 i'm trying

no body no crime (feat. HAIM): 0 No. I keep telling you, Popheads, I don't want to rate songs about topics like this. No more songs about true crime, no revenge, and no murder ballads. Why? It's not that I can't handle them. I can handle a lot of disturbing things - dysfunctional relationships, abuse, violence; it is literally my job to hear about things like this. I'm fine with them. It's that I don't trust everyone else to handle them. I've seen the internet discourse on things like this, I know it's bad, and I know it often pisses me off. Therefore I can't listen to this without getting preemptively annoyed. I could go into more detail about why, but I don't want to right now. I'm cutting myself off now before I launch into even more of a rant.

Happiness: 3 she said midnight see its proto-midnights

dorothea: 3 she said bleachers thats jack antonoff get it

coney island (feat. The National): 5 this other voice isn't lana

ivy: 4 taylor please stop talking about being cold and freezing i'm trying to not think about that

cowboy like me: 2 "let's go down to the tennis court" idk ok i want this album to end

long story short: 6 i love the postal service

marjorie: 4 no joke comment doesn't feel right

closure: 6 i love trent reznor

evermore (feat. Bon Iver): 2 i can't do this anymore i want this to end please stop talking about winter and bleak stuff. lmao bon iver is here. right. i like his music but i don't like this song sorry to that man

right where you left me: 4 this is definitely a country song by taylor swift

it's time to go: 4 this is definitely a country song by taylor swift

ALBUM: Pop 2 A great album (mixtapes aren't real) that took me a while to get into, not because of finding it inaccessible (I love weird takes on synthpop) but ... I don't even know. Resistance to the hype it was getting? See, I used to be kind of bitter about how all the attention and praise Charli's music got after 2016 when she began her hyperpop era, as a former diehard stan of her *True Romance* era. But now I'm over it and see that this is one of her best works and even though sometimes I feel like she needs to be told "more features isn't always more better and there is such a thing as a chorus that is too repetitive", damn the hooks on this are good and the production on this is outstanding. (Shoutout to A.G. Cook, dude rocks.) As well, Charli's lyrics sometimes feel empty when they're just "lol cars and partying", but this album isn't all like that - there is some real emotion here. While as I wasn't that big on it at first, this is a project that does deserve a lot of respect for what it achieved and the influence it had. Having said that, if you like Charli I beg you at least give her debut a chance, it's good! But this was a step she needed to take to get her career on track after her planned third album didn't pan out, and it paid off.

Backseat (feat. Carly Rae Jepsen): 10 What a good intro to this album. Ambient metal-scraping sounds have got to be one of my favourite music aesthetics. What I love is when songs can capture a very specific vibe incredibly well, and this song nails the vibe of being in a vehicle (doesn't have to be a car, could be anything) at night, staring out the window, lost in your thoughts ... love that feeling. Of course Carly's hook is wonderful too; this whole song is just ear candy.

Out of my Head (feat. Tove Lo and ALMA): 10 A song that's hovering in between "this seems weirdly controversial to me" and "yeah okay I get it". The chorus is *very* repetitive, and I have my issues with Charli's sudden pivot towards "more repetitive = more better" songwriting from 2016-onward (uh ... about that score for I Got It that I gave ...). As well I didn't care for Alma's raspy vocals, and can't help but think Tove's feature was a bit wasted. However I love the instrumental to this so much, those little stabs of synth especially, that it grew on me and now I think it's underrated.

Lucky: 10 One of the biggest draws of *Pop 2* to me, much as the energetic songs are fun, is how it has this ambient feeling to it (as I said of "Backseat", and many of you love about "Track 10") which meshes well with its electronic sound. I get this song has next to no drums and is slow, and it brings the energy down a lot, so this song may be boring. However the vocals are beautiful with the layering and harmonizing (I don't know much about singing so pretend I do). It's the slower approach to hyperpop that you hear on Hannah Diamond's music which may not go off in the pit at a concert but on the album it's a nice moment.

Tears (feat. Caroline Polachek): 8 Yeah we know, Caroline's screeching like she's being strangled to death is maybe not to everyone's taste and seems like a love-it-or-hate-it thing. As a not-that-big enjoyer of her music (I wish I liked it more), she is a very good singer, and one wonders if that was the best use of her here. However the chorus to this is great with Charli's vocals over those synth arpeggios.

I Got It (feat. Brooke Candy, CupcakKe and Pabllo Vittar): 1 Yeah ... I'm well aware that this is a fan favourite and so I'm singling myself out here (be sweet to me) but I can't get past my longrunning visceral dislike of this song. First of all, it has my old foe, Brooke Candy. While I like the idea of Brooke and her appearance in the video for Grimes' "Genesis" is kind of cool, my first time running into her musically was on "Cloud Aura" from True Romance, where she delivers a truly godawful verse that I feel is far worse than either of the much-derided features by Jay Park and Tommy Cash. I tried her debut album, but did not like much of anything about that either. [This is all aside from her infamous opening line to the song, which I guess doesn't help.] Aside from that, CupcakKe does have some memorable one-liners in her verse and I like Pabllo's verse just fine, but the Achilles heel of this song is that I can't stand the chorus and find it *super* obnoxious. Given that I hardly ever listen to this song when playing the album, and the last time I saw Charli live (2019) I used this song in her set as a convenient time to go to the bathroom, I think it's fair to say I do not like it ... so I feel bad for tanking my album average for this, but I cannot help that I simply don't like this song lol.

Femmebot (feat. Dorian Electra and Mykki Blanco): 10 As a big sci-fi enjoyer, these kind of goofy-but-charming lyrics appeal to the dork in the me. Dorian is also an underrated artist (*Flamboyant* is good!) whose voice I like the sound of, and the anthemic chorus (listen to those keyboards!) tickles my brain cells just the right way. Mykki's verse is the perfect mix of silly and fun and won me over right away with the shoutout to *Ghost in the Shell*, as well as the thudding electronic drums and Daft Punk-esque vocoder. Another nice touch is one of my favourite moments in the song, when the beat cuts out and Charli's vocals stutter a bit before the last chorus. One of the best tracks on the album for sure.

Delicious (feat. Tommy Cash): 7 There's a good chorus on this by Charli, which I don't think is talked about enough, because we can't seem to get over talking about Tommy Cash's verse with his bizarre lyrics and heavy accent. Having heard his solo music (my friend loves it) his voice is not my thing, but still his lyrics here are silly enough to get away with it. Also, who doesn't love the subtle troll moment with the "Boom Clap" sample? (A song that's a 10, by the way.) I can't hate on his part too much when Charli has a line as awful as "switch it up, bipolar".

Unlock it (Lock It) - feat. Kim Petras and Jay Park: 10 Another song that fills me with the warm fuzzies with its chorus being a case where Charli's "more repetitive = more better" approach works well. The pitched-up vocals and "beautiful" sample add another nice touch. Another "elephant in the room" moment, but do you all really hate the Jay Park verse that much? I don't get it. It's so in one ear and out the other for me, barely notice it's even there. It's so inoffensive to me. Also shoutout to Kim for saying "maraschino" right.

Porsche (feat. MØ): 8 An underwhelming collab at first, given MØ is an old favourite of mine (was heavily into her debut album in 2014-15) and as well I don't quite get Charli's fascination with cars and her need to work them into so many songs. It's grown on me though and even though its placing in the tracklist is kind of weird with the whiplash between this and the song after it, it's at worst "pretty alright". The way MØ's voice almost cracks when she hits high notes is musical ASMR to me as well. Maybe underrated song!

Blame it on your Love (feat. Lizzo): 10 lol nice try with the bait and switch but i enjoy both these songs for different reasons

ALBUM: 25

Hello: 3 bad meme and boring however i have a soft spot for the line "after all these years you'd like to meet" as i once had a relationship with a woman i met online where we talked to each other for about 5 years before meeting and were very happy together once we did worth it !

Send Your Love (To Your New Lover): 5 mid 2000s radio r&b. mid as in mediocre as well

I Miss You: 6 not blink-182 (10) but i guess it's fine. in fact i'm getting strong florence + the machine vibes

When We Were Young: 4 boring. the killers - when you were young (11) >>>>>>>

Remedy: 7 not little boots - remedy (10) but i like the piano

Water Under The Bridge: 9 not timeless classic simon & garfunkel - bridge over troubled water (10) but pretty good. clears the rest of the album for me easily

River Lea: 5 eh electric organ? river mention? vague gospel influence? are you bishop briggs? (a bit underrated singer)

Love in the Dark: 6 i know dramatic ballads are her thing but idk. if i tell myself this is ambient it's alright

Million Years Ago: 3 if i wanted acoustic coffeehouse music i'd. go to a coffeehouse at night in the 2000s. which as a teenager i did in fact do a lot. anyway this one's boring

All I Ask: 3 i love a good piano loop but this is a bit too repetitive for how sparse it is. i need a beat or whatever chappell roan says

Sweetest Devotion: 6 gets a bit of a boost for being less dull than the last two songs not a bad closer

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