Salem

Target has once again put the CDs out early, just like they did with K-12. I’ve seen 2-3 people on TikTok who managed to buy them, as well as one person who found a bloodshot vinyl at a random local record store, but they’ve all been gatekeeping for clout as far as I can tell. That said: the album comes out in five days (four in some time zones), so there’s no real point in wanting it to leak anyway.

Play Date and Show & Tell were both on the original setlist, so I left them be apart from changing their positions to make a bit more sense. I only really changed enough to make smoother transitions and include some under-performed songs while taking out some that were feeling a little repetitive or just didn't fit with the vibes of what she was trying to do. That said, I do hope she drops Play Date from the setlist on the tour.

^^^ To me something closer to this would've made more sense with the story she's trying to tell in these shows of going back to the start to ease the transition. 1. Dollhouse 2. Soap 3. Play Date 4. Mad Hatter 5. Show & Tell 6. Numbers (Or really any of the other AS tracks since they've only been preformed 3 times) 7. Test Me 8. DEATH 9. VOID 10. THE CONTORTIONIST 11. LEECHES/WOMB (Neither have been played yet, so one could be done as a final live-promo for the album. If she really doesn't want to play another new song, TUNNEL VISION is a safe bet.) 12. FAERIE SOIREE (very well received by the fandom and just a fun closer, especially if following a ballad.) Starting on a well-loved classic, going through in order of albums while playing some of the more popular songs and more smoothly transitioning to the new content from the old by using some of the more sonically similar tracks. The track listing choice of having EVIL and BOTL for every show has kind of gotten repetitive (so has VOID but it's well liked so I understand it's importance on a setlist) while The Contortionist has only been performed once.

I honestly don't mind either way but the transition from it into death isn't my favorite. I kind of wished she had done Test Me as that transition since she always said that was the "bridge" so to speak.

I did it in windows media player just dragging tracks in between the sessions and the official album tracks to experiment with making a track list I liked. I posted it a few pages back but here it is again. I finally figured out how to use the spoiler feature.

I had to suffer it to make my new track list but I won't be streaming any more until we get HQs because... they are FOUL.

Just took a look, and the ones from last night seem to be a little better just in terms of not being quite as boomy in the bass. I'll just go ahead and do the clipping work with what I've got. My track list, so far, is something around the lines of: 1. Death (Final) 2. Void (Demo) 3. Sirens 4. Tunnel Vision (Demo, I like this intro better. I might make an edit adding the demo intro onto the final's beat, but I'm not sure if that would be worthwhile yet.) 5. The Contortionist (I'm going to remove the extra bone cracking from the outro once we have the full HQ from the album) 6. Faerie Soiree (Demo) 7. Garden 8. Dragon's Blood 9. Leeches (Final) 10. Tunnel Vision 0.1 (I tagged it 'Tunnel Vision - Reprise' for this. I'm aware it's just a concept demo but I liked how it flowed.) 11. Synchronicities 12. Fingers Crossed (Can be swapped with Needle & Thread, but Fingers Crossed makes more sense to me thematically) 13. Light Shower 14. Womb I decided to change the casing to all standard casing because I prefer how it looks to all caps. Another thing that was particularly difficult within this track list was finding a way to make everything cohesive without choosing any songs that sounded too similar or some that were too unfinished sounding. Some of the transitions are pretty messy just because of the quality of recordings we have but when we get the final masters I'll do whatever editing I need to. I did keep Death + Womb as the intro/outro to keep the "cycle" vibe Melanie was going for, but otherwise majorly changed track positions and added in some of the highlights of the scrapped tracks.

I am working on my own tracklist and making it cohesive while also keeping some of the new content is difficult with the transitions. I'm holding out on editing because we will have full HQ next week when the album drops. The tracks I'm keeping from the finalized album (that I didn't use their demo versions for) are all in very different positions, so we'll see. Where can I find those? Those could be a huge help for finalizing my track list idea.

I kind of expected her to keep with the prosthetic thing for all of the videos, but I thought it would at least look a bit better with post-production. I think the fact she keeps going for close up shots in it doesn't help with lessening the appearance of the seams or how lifeless the eyes look, because typically that sort of thing is designed to be looked at from a few feet away. DEATH was a song that could've had a better video, but I think with Melanie being stuck on only being seen as the new creature that really holds her back a lot. That said I will forever find it HILARIOUS the way the dancers just start dancing while still at the funeral, because I was joking about that last night and I didn't think they'd ACTUALLY do it.

For sure, Milk Milk Lemonade is far better written, my point was more so that it's thematically similar, and I kind of wish it had, just as MML did, remained an outtake.

I made the unfortunate connection that Moon Cycle is her Milk Milk Lemonade... which came with the reminder that Milk Milk Lemonade exists. Except it came with the bonus that Moon Cycle is loved by Melanie and on the album...

They haven't in any of the looks so far, so they probably don't unless some kind of CGI was done. I'm really getting tired of the mask thing at this point because at first it was at least interesting to see what new look would be next but now it's clear she's struggling to wear it during the live shows on top of it just... imma be honest being kind of ugly up close. I'm half expecting her to advertise the vinyls like she did with K-12 where she posts a video with them but she's in the costume and prosthetic thing

The outro is attempting to transition into Light Shower, but it's one of the worst transitions we've heard of the album so far just because the songs are so different. I'll probably just be clipping it off the track in FL Studio when I make my own album track list.

^^^ I hope for the next release Melanie is a little more realistic with the transitions. Transitions can be great, but if they don't fit into the song they ultimately do take away from the experience. The average listener is most likely going to put the songs they enjoy into a playlist alongside music from other people and just press shuffle. I think she markets her work with the idea that people will sit down and listen in track list order every time, which just isn't what most people do.

After hearing everything either live or from the listening event recordings, there's only 5-6 tracks I really see myself going back to after I listen through the album once. I don't really like the way transitions are added into every single song to try to force the album to feel more cohesive when they don't really match (ex: the poetry-esque thing at the end of Faerie Soiree trying to force a transition into Light Shower just sounds odd and doesn't fit into the track, the same can be said for the nature sounds stuck onto the end of Spider Web to transition into Leeches). I will likely be taking the tracks I do like into FL Studio and clipping off the transitions where they don't fit, because I would definitely prefer to listen to the mastered tracks over the demos. I feel like an album can exist without tracks being super similar so trying to do the transitions just made it feel more like a problem than it is.

Obsidian Pearl on youtube, they're still uploading the rest of them but they have a good few up already.

The particular video I'm listening to was recorded right next to a speaker and generally sounds pretty clean, you can definitely tell the chorus is over-produced in comparison to the verses from this quality. I'd post it here, but the songs aren't out yet so I'm not sure that that'd be allowed.

I decided to make another post for the rest of my opinions, so here we go. Womb - The verses are nice, and I actually really enjoy them because they match the writing style of some of the earlier sessions which I preferred to the writing style of some of the later tracks, but I am not huge on the mixing of the chorus. We will see what it sounds like when we get the HQ. A bridge would've been nice since so far a lot of the tracks don't have bridges, but I think along with Leeches this is going to be one of the best. Spider Web - The verses are fine in the way of production, but they don't really transition into the chorus well. As for the production, I feel like the chorus/post chorus are the highlights of that song in terms of being interesting, though I share the opinion with much of this thread that the Spider Web chorus is one of the worst. The outro having nature sounds is nice, but the lyrical portion doesn't transition super well into that. It just feels like the production didn't get cleaned up all the way, which sucks because if it had I think it generally would be a more liked song by a lot of people. BOTL - My opinions haven't really changed from what they were with the live performance. The mixing still feels off in the studio version, I think hearing it in HQ will be the only way to know if it's actually like that or not though (I seriously hope it isn't because many of the songs have this same strange mixing both live and in the listening party recordings)

So we got a full recording of Nymphology from the listening party (albeit in LQ) and... am I the only one who gets the vibe she tried to write a song similar to Sirens and it just didn't work? I particularly find the "Being a manic pixie dream girl like you fucking outta be," line in the chorus to be... odd, along with the "push your penis into your mouth, I'll make you choke on your doubt." it just sounds like something that would've come from a 16-17 year old on tiktok more than a 27 (almost 28) year old adult. That said, we also got uploads of Womb, BOTL, and Spider Web from that account so I will update this with my thoughts on those.

I've not listened to Nymphology but I hope these are fake... the chorus gives me the vibe of like, a Bella Poarch type song and the verses don't really match it imo? I'll take the word of whoever has listened to it though.

Yeah, I heard something about an 808 being added and I was like "nooooo" but after listening it sounds more like it's some sort of string thing? Not my favorite final master, but I can live with it. It'll definitely be one of the best that made the final cut in my book even if the new water pad isn't what I expected.

Was Leeches changed significantly to the demo that was leaked a few years back? That's the one track I have the most hope for personally, so I'm really worried that it may have gotten replaced with that pop-rock sound just because of it's position on the track list along with sounding so similar to Light Shower.

Yeah, it's the only video I could find so figured it would be better than nothing while we wait for full uploads.

I doubt anyone got them from the streams because they kept going down. Most likely someone who was at the show will upload later tonight. edit: the contortionist is up, haven’t found light shower. Edit 2: light shower

That’s true, I’m just worried 😭 here’s to hoping she left it untouched beyond a little finalized mixing.