Ready for the Weekend || A Review

I'm going to viciously defend this album against all the negativity from places like ArtRocker and Pretty Much Amazing.

This album has an increasingly more personal feel than Calvin Harris's debut. While it does mess with people's perceptions of what to expect from Calvin Harris, it messes with it in a way that allows room for growth, adaptation, and change - while keeping his distinct sound.

At first I was put off by the slightly different feel of the album: there was more singing, more lyrics, more featured artists, and more music that was not electronic based.

Nearly every song starts off with an intro of actual .. instruments.. playing actual music? That's not what I was expecting at all, but the electronic beats subtly and quickly creep in, transforming the tracks completely as they bloom electronically. I can see the incorporation of an instrumental intro for say, playing shows with a live band, and it doesn't detract from the music, but yes, it's something different.

So, now that we've gotten over the shock of actual instrumentation, the lyrics and vocals pose the following characteristics: Calvin Harris is definitely more vocal in this album, and I don't think it could have been any other way in order for this album to convey the unified feeling of a narrative. Harris may not have a naturally amazing ability to sing, but the depth of his emotions are apparent. Which I think is what music should really be about - the feelings that emotive music/lyrics/vocals invoke in the people that hear it.

From the first track to the last, an emotional journey that could only pertain to one's love life begins to unfold as the tracks waver between reminiscence, loneliness, rebounding, confidence, regret. The tracks flow into one another much like a person's emotive state. It's hard not to be able to relate. Compared to his debut, Ready for the Weekend is more intensely personal.

Calvin Harris tries his hand at singing more, at introducing a live aspect to his music. The cohesion of the new album is in many ways more masterful than his debut. It may be more upbeat but you kind of need that to balance the sad emotions. At the core you are able to hear the same kind of simple, electronic chords overlapping and synching that made us love him.