Print is dying, and just like articles, music reviews are staying exclusively online nowadays. The added benefit is being able to read more of them very easily, and any user can rate, chat, and post about those same albums on numerous websites. At the peak of this era of music journals moving to near-exclusivity online, here are the major albums that saw thousands of reviews from publications and users at the height of the changeover.
To put it plainly, pretty much everyone is okay with Daft Punk. The return of the French dance duo after eight years was a huge deal, so naturally, everyone had to chime in with their two cents on the overall well-received Random Access Memories.
The National’s previous album, High Violet, was seriously beloved by music nerds on the Internet. On every website you go to, High Violet has tons of usually positive ratings and remarks from fans, and Trouble Will Find Me followed in a stylistically similar manner.
Despite ranking lower in the legendary band’s discography, Reflektor was perhaps the most discussed on this list, because so many Arcade Fire fans basically lived online. In addition, the direction the band took was something of a hot topic, since fans were expecting a progression but not exactly this major deviation.
Another remarkable return came from Radiohead, who desperately needed a follow-up after the relatively panned previous record The King of Limbs. Critics glommed onto the classic sound drawing particularly from the early days as well as their last comeback album In Rainbows.
Arcade Fire continued down a more alienating path from their original sound set by the first three albums, creating a satire of commercialism by using highly commercial sounds for their songs on Everything Now.
A major return after seven long years, American Dream could easily have been a phoned-in resurgence and eager fans would still have hung on every song. Luckily, it was actually really good.
One of the best indie acts became one of the best alternative-pop acts overnight thanks to MASSEDUCTION. Such an exciting pop-leaning grand statement deserved the kind of attention St. Vincent received for this album.
More songs from these records are available to stream on all major services.