Charlie Puth released his second studio album Voicenotes on May 11th following the success of Nine Track Mind. Puth’s new music includes two radio bops with ‘Attention’ and ‘How Long’ but the rest of the album falls flat for the most part. Some moments along the track list have the right feel and others showcase an excellent 80s vibe, but overall, it feels like an album fighting between indie pop and top 40 pop, never finding its footing.
We would never want to give an artist we love a fully negative review so we’re going to share which songs really stand out. We mentioned the 80s feel some of the songs gave us, above, and they are ‘BOY’ and ‘Somebody Told Me’. You would not be surprised to find either, or both, of these songs on the soundtrack to a John Hughes’ film. Additionally, Puth’s songs where another artist is featured alongside are all highlights for Voicenotes. James Taylor duets with Puth on the poignant track titled, ‘Change’ which is heavily influenced with Taylor’s sound. We are very ok with that. ‘Done’ featuring Kehlani closes Voicenotes with a bang, earning itself as, probably, Puth’s best effort on his sophomore record.
We slow down a little as Puth takes on the ballad ‘Through It All’ which is another huge point in the positive side of the album’s entirity. He shines on half of the album’s songs where the others fail to really grab the listener, not that they’re bad songs but they aren’t amazing either. Overall, our biggest issue with this record is its inability to decide on a unified sound. Throughout the entire listen, even with the songs we loved, there is nothing connecting one song, or the lyrics other then heartbreak, from one to the next. If the songs had a more fluid feel then we would be recommending it more excitedly, but instead we’ll call this one where you should download a few tracks but not the whole work.
