'Cool Choices' a Disappointing Turn for the Bland

“Cool Choices,” the fourth solo album of S, AKA Jenn Ghetto, couldn’t have had a more spot-on title. That is, if cool meant cold in a lifeless, disengaging sort of way. Coming from indie rock band “Carissa’s Wierd,” known for their mumbled lyrics and ghostly chamber rock music, Ghetto incorporates much of the same uninflected, muted tones into her songs. It comes as no surprise that the opening track already feels tedious, a sensation that carries on throughout the rest of the album.

Although there are more instruments used in this album compared to her previous album “I’m Not As Good At It As You,” which consisted of only the strumming of simple guitar chords, the repetitive lyrics in songs like “White Horse” and “Let the Light In” make it easy for this soundtrack to lose focus and fade into the background. It doesn’t help that many of her lyrics are unadorned to the point of sounding like a laundry list of an angst-ridden teenager. This is especially noticeable in “Vampires,” in which Ghetto delivers a line of short fragments: “I’m crazy. You’re fucked up. Mind games. Thrown back. T-shirts. Left out. Airplanes. Phone calls. New friends.”

If the simplicity of the lyrics isn’t the problem, then the lack of them is. In “Muffin,” long periods of instrumentals drag on only to be interrupted by awkward pauses, which disorient the listener and make the album sound unstructured. There is a constant bombardment of jumbled sounds in the majority of the tracks on the album. This uneasy ambiance is compounded by the blunt way in which her lyrics confront the listener. Ghetto’s matter-of-fact delivery of her lyrics is unconvincing and at times off-putting.

The intention of S’s style does have its merits; her minimalistic approach gives her songs a sense of honesty. Her lyrics are a direct result of her saying whatever she feels like saying, without embellishment and without the need to conform to any specific genres, which deserves applause in its own right. The lack of conspicuous emotions in the intonation allows the listeners to interpret the meaning or reasons behind the words as they wish. In that way, her album is pure; it provides a blank canvas for the listener to create his or her own auditory image. However, the problem with this ambiguous execution throughout the songs is that more often than not, it creates the impression of being monotonous and, for lack of a better term, drab. Her determination to communicate the same one emotion leads to an album that largely consists of uninspiring, homogenous beats.

The goal then, for Ghetto, is to achieve a balance between capturing and maintaining the attention of the listeners with more variation, and still conveying the honest emotion. Potential for this can be heard in the song “Remember Love” and the penultimate track, “Pacific,” in which S employs more sophisticated lyrics and hints at emotions in her song. In the chorus of Pacific, she sings, "Know there is someone who loves you. I'll find the hope on the floor of the ocean / I won't have to see you with someone else. Leave you a note with all the things that I never said / Believe there is someone who loves you." However, these significant increases in complexity are few and far between and not enough to distract from the lyrical shortcomings of the remainder of the album.

It all comes down to mindset. If the listener is willing to pause, take a deeper listen, and really pay attention to emotion conveyed through the uniformity of the songs, “Cool Choices” can prove to be a rewarding, emotional experience.