After releasing “My Mind Makes Noises” in 2018 and seeing commercial success with the track “There’s A Honey”, Pale Waves release “Who Am I?” in 2021. With that sentence, i reveal the album’s biggest flaw. It came out in 2021. What i mean by this is that the type of music this album attempts to revive has no place in 2021. This albums draws HEAVY influence from 2000’s pop rock. And this leads to it immediately sounding dated in the year of its release. While there is definitely a place for albums inspired by older music, the majority of albums that take inspiration from older music manage to bring original and modern ideas to older genres. Artists such as The Weeknd and Dua Lipa manage to make 80’s inspired music that appeals to people who don’t even listen to 80’s music. This is because as i said earlier, they add new ideas. Meanwhile, Pale Waves rely purely on nostalgia. Most of the artists who rely purely on nostalgia are met with extremely harsh reactions. Take Greta Van Fleet as an example. They shamelessly rip off 70’s Hard Rock and in result are constantly panned by critics and music fans alike. But the thing about Greta Van Fleet is that they are also met with high commercial success. I don’t see Pale Waves seeing the commercial success of GVF any time soon. This is because GVF profit off of an audience who is too busy hating on any modern music that doesn’t sound like what was being made 50 years ago that whenever something modern sounds like what they listen to, they’ll eat it up without thinking. Most of the people who grew up in the 2000’s have probably moved on and discovered more modern sounding music that they are enjoying. I’ll give Pale Waves this. They are FAR more talented than Greta Van Fleet. But that doesn’t stop them from ripping off Avril Lavigne as shamelessly as GVF rips off Led Zeppelin. Even the cover of this album looks like a parody of Avril’s Let Go. While this album isn’t necessarily terrible, it fails to bring anything interesting or original to the table. Favorite Track: Tomorrow Least favorite: Run To
Album Rating: 5/10