The album I chose for this assignment is titled Skin, made and produced by Flume. This unique album was released on May 24th, 2016, and was Flume’s second album ever. Skin really hit it off and boosted his career, as two of his top ten songs are songs from that album, including the top number one song. This masterpiece of an album has sixteen songs, and the overall length is an hour. When I first heard some of the songs, it sounded pretty techno, which was accurate because the genre of this album, along with most of Flume’s music, is Australian electronic music.
Flume is an Australian musician, DJ, and record producer. His real name is Harley Edward Streten, and he is regarded as a pioneer of future bass who helped popularise the genre. He was born on 5 November 1991 in Sydney, and started getting into music at age eleven. Before the album Skin was being started and produced, Flume had also worked with some other well known artists, which includes Lorde, Sydney DJ, Moon Holiday, Chet Faker, and more. Flume didn’t stop at Skin, and still continues to make and produce music, constantly working on new projects.
I found this album because there were two songs from it that I already knew and listened to on a regular basis, but I wasn’t expecting what the album actually was. Although it wasn’t terrible, or the worst album I’ve listened to, it definitely wasn’t my favorite or my particular taste. Some examples of why I wasn’t a huge fan of this album is “Free”, which was one of my least favorites overall because I disliked the beats, the vocals, and how there wasn’t much variety throughout the song. I felt that all the songs either had too many confusing busy beats, or the entire song was kind of boring and sounded the same. Another example of this would be “Pika” because I feel like there was no variety throughout the entirety of the song, it was just the same beat that I didn’t enjoy at all.
Although there were a lot of unlikeable things about the album, I found many enjoyable parts too. In the song “3”, I felt that even though some of the beats were a little too much and unlikeable, I enjoyed the overall vibe of the song. There were a few songs like this that I felt kind of fifty-fifty about, but there were also some that I fully enjoyed, like the song “You know (feat. Allan Kingdom & Raekwon)”, which I hadn’t heard before this album, but now I have in my favorite songs playlist. Even though I did really like these two, my favorites that drew me to the album in the first place are “Never be like you” and “Say it (feat. Tove Lo)”, which I really love the beats, vocals, and overall sound and mood of. Every song definitely sounded interesting and unique, but some were more than others in my opinion.
Overall, I don’t regret choosing this album. Although I wouldn’t care to hear most of these songs again, I do like a few, and I found a few more that I liked. I would rate Skin by Flume a 4.5/10. I think the overall vibe and mood of this album and the type of music genre that this artist likes to pursue is interesting, but I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t really fully fit my likings and taste, but I know that that doesn’t make it bad or unlikeable at all. I would definitely recommend this album to the techno lovers and the upbeat dance party music enjoyers.
