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Jul 5, 2017Funk Wav Bounces impresses not just with the marquee names, but with how effortless, communal, and fun Harris makes it all feel.
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Jul 7, 2017Funk Wav Bounces isn’t the kind of album that’s going to change the conversation in pop music, but it doesn’t want to. All it wants to do is sit by the pool, release, let go, and have a good time.
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Jul 6, 2017Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 is a triumph; a good-time album of wall-to-wall hits with a carefree, funky tropical feel and more than enough cool points to see him embraced by the hipster crowd as well as holding on to the pop kids.
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Jul 7, 2017He now realizes he is as much part of the product as the music he makes and seems happy to be taking a backseat to the performers he’s enlisted for his fifth studio album. At no point do Harris’ sandpapery vocals scrape against the beat; this time he lets his beats do the talking.
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Jul 7, 2017It’s a winning bid for artistic credibility: not going for smarter, more complex, or bigger, just better, more fun. Full of island affectations, soft-rock gloss, and chintzy good-life strings, it is, at last, the sort of fun you don’t have to feel bad about the next day.
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Jul 12, 2017Funk Wav Bounces manages to avoid the stench of corporate contrivances and instead offers a laid-back experience that evokes hanging out with your friends.
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Jul 7, 2017Neither reinventing pop nor changing the course of dance music, it’s a vacation of an album that doubles as the producer’s own stopgap until his next wave comes along.
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Jul 5, 2017Even if the tracks sometimes come off as a parade of pop stars whose music has little to do with one another, Harris still manages to create a cohesive fusion that transcends genre. After all, at the end of the day, pop isn’t supposed to be that deep.
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Aug 11, 2017At times, you catch a glimpse of a singer on the verge of something great, who is only able to suggest it due to limited time, space, or an aesthetic misalignment.
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Aug 14, 2017The album is custom made for summer parties and long drives, just do not expect more out of multiple listens.
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Jul 6, 2017Ultimately, Harris appears to have simply swapped one formula for another, and if there’s to be a Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 he will need to discover at least a few new tricks. ... [But] there are encouraging signs here that the Harris of old hasn’t been entirely lost for good.
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Jul 5, 2017Harris seems unsure whether an 80s boogie revival is the future of either dance music or mainstream pop, however. Elsewhere, there’s a sense of bets being hedged and versatility being demonstrated to varying degrees of success.
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Jul 5, 2017While Funk Wav Bounces hits all the right notes, Harris strains to maintain the relaxed vibe.
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Jul 5, 2017By showing little interest in challenging the clichés of men fixated on conquest and status symbols and women focused on “feels,” Harris undermines what could have been an inspired creative reinvention.
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Jul 5, 2017It’s a typical contacts-book R&B exercise, with an impressive cast of guests (including Frank, Pharrell, Snoop, Nicki, Katy, Ariana and others) on a fairly underwhelming series of grooves.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 119 out of 144
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Mixed: 16 out of 144
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Negative: 9 out of 144
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Jul 5, 2017
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Jul 6, 2017
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Jul 5, 2017