Lav's Music Corner

On todays edition of rapid fire reviews we are giving in to our simple side and indulging on some plain old pop rock. Bands that won't test you with complicated things, but try to lull you in with measured pleasures. Does it work? Rarely. But they continue trying. Music Of The Spheres   - Coldplay "Coldplay averages out to be a pretty good band". That was always my line. I'm an adamant defender of the bands first three records and I really enjoyed their last album Everyday Life  in 2019. So yeah when you average everything out, the good outweighs the bad. They are stretching that formula to its absolute limit here. Believe it or not this isn't the worst album Coldplay has ever released which I promise you is not a compliment directed at Spheres . Believe it or not I didn't even approach this album with the critical cynicism that most do for a new Coldplay release. I thought the lead single Higher Power  was actually one of their more tasteful pop crossovers an...

Jesse Rutherford is the frontman of pop rock band The Neighborhood who blew up on the back of their breakout single Sweater Weather  in 2012. The band's first two albums we're moderately successful and met with mixed reviews as well as their hip hop inspired mixtape #000000 & #FFFFFF . In 2017 Jesse released his debut solo effort &  to mostly mixed reviews and underwhelming commercial performance before The Neighborhood returned in late 2017 and 2018 with a series of critically acclaimed EPs and their 3rd project The Neighborhood .  Review By Lavender: I was never really a die hard fan of The Neighborhood or Jesse Rutherford during their rise. Songs like Sweater Weather and R.I.P 2 My Youth  are great pop rock tracks but it didn't seem like there was much depth to what they were doing. This all changed after the band went on an absolute tear last year, Releasing numerous EPs and their 3rd album that all ultimately culminated in more great Neighborh...

Weezer is the legendary California alternative rock band that rose to fame in the 90s after dropping two universally acclaimed albums. Following into the 2000's commercial success continued to find its way to Weezer becoming an alternative radio staple and culminating in the biggest hit of the band's career the often maligned Beverly Hills. In the 2010's Weezer traded out their commercial success at large for a return to critical form beginning with the well received Everything Will Be Alright In The End  and peaking with the fantastic Weezer (The White Album). But the stylistic approach changed rapidly in the wake of The White Album  and its follow-up became a much hated return to form making Pacific Daydream  largely viewed as a disappointment, with prominent critics calling out its lead single Feels Like Summer  as being a particularly disastrous pursuit. So with the dropping of largely varied and critically confusing singles in the lead up to The Black Album ...

Avril Lavigne is a legendary rock and pop singer who made a name for herself with a trilogy of commercially successful albums throughout the 2000's and a number of huge singles including, Complicated, Sk8er Boi, Girlfriend and My Happy Ending . Over the course of her next two albums Goodbye Lullaby and Avril Lavigne she began a shift away from rock into a pop/vocalist approach to her music and Head Above Water represents her complete transformation from rebellious rock singer to mature pop songstress. Review By Lavender: I do not like Avril Lavigne's music, it's important I make that very clear. I grew up with all these songs and at no point in my life have I considered myself a fan. Complicated has become one of the most grating and poorly aged pop singles of my lifetime over the course of the nearly 20 years since it was first released. Even tracks that I could sing along to today like Sk8er Boi and Hello Kitty are far more in the realm of nostalgic meme music...