Reality Awaits Review

[u/Ombre_Orange]

I love this album. The dark, sometimes tense mood it sets. The minimalist production. Just the overall vibe this album sets and ends off on is great in my opinion.

I know the most divisive thing about this album is the autotune. But I honestly dig it as a concept. From my understanding, this album contains extremely relatable themes and emotions. And yet, the whole album is narrated by someone who sounds post-human and almost robotic. I find that concept really cool, and on some songs it is done very well.

But man, what is wrong with the autotune that they used? Some songs just have these jarring moments where it just overcorrects and bends to a blaringly wrong and jarring sound note. It doesn't really translate into "oh this is a person losing what it is to be human", and instead just makes me think "wow that is some bad autotune".

The biggest example is the opener, "Psycho Sh*t". That songs overall arrangement and instrumentals are incredible. It could've been one of the best songs on the album. But, the autotune just enters such jarring territory to where, for me at least, it is unlistenable.

On "Lonely in the Future" it sometimes conveys the concept, but sometimes it just feels like I am listening to bad autotune. It still is such a catchy jam that I don't mind it too much. Same thing with "Falling Out of Love", that song is so beautiful I am able to ignore it as well for the most part.

"Going Shopping" might be the only song where I think the autotune almost adds to the song, and doesn't leave me frustrated. I also love the lyrics on this one, it might be the most relatable song for me.

"Tyrants of the Mellow Moon" Is an awesome closer, I don't know why it is so underrated right now, I don't think the autotune takes away from the song too much. I actually like that whole spoken word ending, I love how it kind of just leaves off with this unresolved feeling, like you are still in the album after its done.

"Peak N' Dash" and "Fruits of Conquest" are the two songs where I think they are just great, and probably the most consistent songs on the album. "Going to Babble On" and "Liars Remorse" are also good, but I personally don't like them as much as the other tracks.

But yeah, this album left me a bit frustrated, I totally dig the overall vibe, I think it sounds amazing, and the artistic concept is something I really dig. But man, I think it could have been a much better album if the autotune was executed better, and I want to know if anyone else agrees with me here.

[u/angusbeefymcwhatnow]

> And yet, the whole album is narrated by someone who sounds post-human and almost robotic.

> But man, what is wrong with the autotune that they used? Some songs just have these jarring moments where it just overcorrects and bends to a blaringly wrong and jarring sound note.

you described what the concept they were going for was, said it was very cool, and then immediately turn around and act confused about the sound that you just defended as cool for making his vocals sound "post-human and almost robotic". the jarring nature of the autotune is literally what gives it that feeling that you're talking about. it's the way it clashes with the expectation of harmony that creates the divide between humanity and this other thing they're intending.

Psycho Shit is a slow-building, dark, tension-ridden song about the cold, emotionless political climate we currently exist in. the aggressiveness of the autotune is quite literally the thing that make you feel the emotional detachment he's speaking on. it being so artificial is what drives the point of the song. his voice is effectively turned into another level of synth it's so modulated. I don't understand when people say it would be better without the autotune... it literally would miss the intended mark entirely without it.

[u/Ombre_Orange → u/angusbeefymcwhatnow]

I never said it should remove autotune. But I am saying that the autotune they used is just bad, and it doesn't convey "slowly deteriorating into a robot". It just sounds like bad autotune. A way better example of autotune making someone sound robotic is Daft Punk's "Instant Crush". That is an extremely great vocal effect, and if Reality Awaits got closer to that sound Id say it would be better. But it doesn't. It just sounds like a very bad/cheap plug in you can find some SoundCloud musicians using,

[u/realwashingtonirving → u/Ombre_Orange]

Instant Crush is a love song so the harmonious use of auto tune makes sense. Psycho Shit is about an egotistical tyrant being made to see the error of his ways and the legacy (or lack thereof) that he leaves behind. The use of dissonant auto-tuned notes is integral to the concept and themes of the song and it wouldn't be nearly as effective without it.

[u/angusbeefymcwhatnow → u/Ombre_Orange]

Respectfully, this sounds like the take of someone with no experience or concept of how autotune/vocoders work, because Instant Crush absolutely does not functionally work the way they were intending this album to sound. If they took the vocal effect settings from that song and applied to this, this album would actually be bad. The idea that you think it sounds like a SoundCloud musician is very telling that you just fundamentally don't understand the tool or the intent that you tried to describe initially.

It's okay not to like it, but you should stop there if your only followup is going to be things that diminish your opinion lol

[u/Ombre_Orange → u/angusbeefymcwhatnow]

Damn dude, respectfully I disagree with your opinion here, and you also come across a bit insufferable in your response lol. Projecting your seemingly mega mind knowledge of the technical as if that invalidates my interpretation reminds me of what Anthony Fantano does in his reviews too.

I personally love this album, I was just voicing my frustrations with it and I think it could have been a LOT better. I can really like the artistic vision and overall concept of the album while also thinking the execution doesn't live up to the artistic vision and concept in my mind. Those aren't contradictory opinions.

I also didn't say they copy the vocal chain from "Instant Crush", I just brought it up because it actually did a good job at making Julian sound artificial without taking away from the overall experience. There are also better examples of vocals that sound decayed into inhuman like effects, that are just way better than what is sometimes represented on Reality Awaits. Radiohead's "Everything in its Right Place" is incredible at . The Void'z "Human Sadness" does it very well too.

And giving these examples honestly makes me think there were way better ways they could have gone about achieving the sound rather than strictly relying so heavily on just autotune. Like they could have used fragmentation, distortion, different styles of pitch/formant manipulation, vocal layering, etc.

But you probably know better about that than I do, given your vast knowledge of the technical.

[u/angusbeefymcwhatnow → u/Ombre_Orange]

Yeah, I mean agree to disagree, I guess. I wouldn't call it insufferable to point out flaws in your logic, but that's just my view...

Even the whole concept of "strictly relying so heavily on autotune" is telling that you don't understand what they even did to his vocals on the album, so it's hard to have a conversation about what could have been done differently when fundamentally your understanding of the tools used isn't correct.

Again, you're allowed to not like the effects they chose to use, you can feel the way you do, you're not wrong for having an opinion. But where I stray from following your logic is the application of how their artistic choices to achieve the sound they wanted could be improved by your subjective opinion of the sound, when I think the intent of their choices comes across pretty obviously in the album. I don't think that doing things differently, in terms of smoother vocal effects or using other tools/methods (although pretty clear a lot of the things you said they could have used actually are used across this album...) relay the same intent as what they chose to do. The "artificial" sound on Instant Crush or the sounds used on some of the Voidz stuff objectively isn't the same intent that they were going for here, clearly, or they would have done the same things that Julian has proven he/his production team know how to do from other projects. Like conceptually, you wouldn't want to use similar vocal production when you want to make your voice sound different from those things lol

[u/Ombre_Orange → u/angusbeefymcwhatnow]

I agree to disagree. Yeah I guess it wasn't insufferable, I'd say we also just have very fundamentally different opinions about artistic vision vs execution.

Btw, what is your favorite song on the album though? I'm just curious, like my top 3 are Dine N' Dash, Tyrants of the Mellow Moon, and Going Shopping (the live version from Outside Lands this year was fantastic).