Lea Michele - Places

Lea Michele
Places
2017
Spotify

The career of Lea Michele has been quite the journey. From staring on Glee to a somewhat ill fated pop career this new record Places is a more mature, adult contemporary outing. First there is the voice, which in a word is stellar. Vocally Michele is able to do thing that normal human beings cannot, it is almost like everytime she opens her mouth chills swarm your body. She also can sell the shit out of a song live or in a music video type of situation, however that is where it ends. Places is a Mom album, filled with songs for Moms and nothing else. The soaring vocal runs and big orchestral music sound razor sharp but have nearly zero impact. "Proud" is this epic about just trying to please someone in your life, but the bombastic track doesn't match the lyrical content and it ends up a jumbled mess. "Believer" follows suit with the female empowerment vibe, but when the entire record is track after track of the same sentiment does it really even matter anymore? By the fifth track you have literally heard almost the exact same song, with the exact same pace over and over again but Michele makes no attempt to switch it up. The pinning she does becomes so grating after awhile that you can't even figure out if she is looking for divine salvation or a boyfriend. The songs seem to think they are quite a bit more important than they actually are.

On "Getaway Car" she uses all these slant rhymes and actually sings words in some odd accent so that they fit together. There is seriously not a single moment of surprise or delight on this entire album, just a dreary look at love that goes no where. For the life of Me I cannot figure out why there is zero variety on this album because it serves no one to make that choice. The crawling pace just wears on you even with the records relatively short runtime. "Tornado" is one of the more beltier songs, and is really very annoying. Michele sings like she is making this grand point or really taking you somewhere but because the lyrical content is so base she is selling bullshit that no one cares about. "Hey You" which may or may not be about former her former boyfriend who died of a drug overdose does not feel like a real sentiment, but instead the song intended to make you feel bad for her, it is pandering at the highest level. There is just so little to like about this record its hard to even pin down who actually is in to this. Just not a good album. Pass.

1.3 out of 10