(05.02.2017) By Jared Martin — In just three short years, The Chainsmokers have gone from complete obscurity to one of the world’s most popular music acts.
Riding high after dominating the charts with their single “Closer,” the producer-singer duo have released their debut album, Memories… Do Not Open, a collection of twelve songs with, in my opinion, boring piano based-production, awful singing courtesy of Drew Taggart, and lyrics that come off as whiny and privileged.
The first three tracks of the album star Taggart as the vocalist, and while he seems to have improved marginally since “Closer,” he still sounds like an amateur karaoke singer, not someone singing a major pop song.
After the opening tracks Taggart mostly takes a backseat on the rest of the album to featured vocalists, though he does show up on the single “Paris” and the particular lowlight of the whole affair, “Young.”
Songwriter Emily Warren is called in to provide vocals for a couple tracks, and while she’s a serviceable singer, she doesn’t really bring anything compelling to the table in the form of personality. Along with Warren, Coldplay is featured on the album’s other single, “Something Just Like This.”
Jhené Aiko and Florida Georgia Line also star in “Wake Up Alone” and “Last Day Alive” respectively.
All of these tracks are accompanied by piano-based, light electronic dance music that comes across as bland and generic.
Memories… Do Not Open is, in my opinion, a boring experience that never really goes anywhere or does anything interesting. If The Chainsmokers are here to stay, hopefully they can learn to write more interesting songs. Do Not Open indeed.
Leave a Reply