Although TV Girl is my favorite band of all time, their latest album Grapes Upon the Vine unfortunately fell short of my expectations.
The indie pop band TV Girl began recording music in 2011 and released their first hit album Lonely Woman in 2013, then went on to make many popular albums over the next few years.
Prior to releasing this sub-par album, what made TV Girls music so appealing was their technically pleasing sound, and seamless incorporation of samples and audio clips into their songs. While their most recent album Grapes Upon The Vine still uses this method to form semi-auditorily pleasing sounds, I can’t help but feel like they could have dug a little deeper into the differentiation of the tracks.
The album takes inspiration from gospel music, and while I am always happy to see artists experimenting with different styles of music, each track sounds very much like they followed a formula as all the songs sound fairly similar.
Gospel sounding audio clips are integrated throughout every song, yet somehow the album still feels religious but also sacreligious at the same time. For some, TV Girl generally has what some would consider questionable and suggestive lyrics, but in the context of this album their delivery seems a little controversial.
This album didn’t completely miss the mark, though. The band still includes their trademark funky sound effects, and each song is cohesive and flows well, but it lacks much differentiation in the sound of each track, I will say I missed their signature use of 1960’s talking audio clips featured in previous songs including, but not limited to “Natalie Wood,” “Louise,” “The Getaway,” and the most popular “Cigarettes Out the Window” and “Lovers Rock.”
I consider myself to be pretty open-minded when it comes to music. I have listened to the entirety of the TV Girl discography, and occasionally songs that I used to not be a huge fan of have grown on me, so perhaps it will be the same in the case of this album. As of now though I would give Grapes Upon the Vine a 6/10 for lyrics, 8/10 for cohesiveness, and a 4/10 for execution, leaving it with an overall rating of 6/10 from me.
Though I would rank this album average at best, I will remain a huge fan of TV Girl, and hope their next album redeems them, and showcases more of the unique music that I know they are capable of producing.
