It was [YEAR], and these were the things that were popular. The artist was born that year, and she couldn’t have taken in any of those things, yet they infuse her music. A certain pungent stench of historicism pervades her latest album, [ALBUM].

Here are some thoughts on the historicity of pop/indie/rap music. I want to quote Pavement and say, “You can never quarantine the past.”

There are a few songs that manage to crawl out from under the weight of thought and musical innovation that’s heretofore lacking in the artist’s milieu. Track one, of course, and track four and track six. There’s this one figure that takes the classical drum beat/guitar tone/vocal delivery of [YEAR], and turns it on its ear, reinventing it subtly by recapitulating it in a new context.

The clothes they wear these days. Definitely not going to say “Skrillex” (whatever that is - right?). The past was no better. Mention tie-dye/rap-rock/cocaine.

[ALBUM] is pretty good. I won’t mention the fact that most albums we review on this site are pretty good. You won’t necessarily realize that, and if you really like [ARTIST], you will think this was a negative review. If you’ve never heard of her, then this review won’t make you seek her out. If, for some reason, you already really disliked her, you’ll think the review didn’t go far enough in playing spot the influence. You still have tracks one, four, and six in your iTunes.