Daði Freyr — I Made An Album — Album Review

From modern Eurovision legend Daði Freyr comes his new album, which is his first in English (bar one song). It continues to highlight his speciality which is electronic style pop, and although most of it has been released as part of EPs, I have avoided listening to them to go into this fresh.

The only song I have heard is the first single from this album: “I’m Fine”, so with 12 songs, 11 of which are new to me, it was an exciting prospect to finally listen to this record. The expectations were fairly high, especially after the fantastic songs from Daði Freyr such as his two Eurovision entries, as well as songs like “Somebody Else Now”, released over the last few years.

“I Made An Album” is a very competent and pleasant collection of music, especially for someone who is relatively fresh in the music industry, but overall this album didn’t really live up to the hype for me. There were simply too many songs that I don’t care for, and even the high points were not mind blowing, but there were no songs I wanted to skip, so this is an album I could play fairly often and not get tired of.

While there are some good highlights such as the songs “Shut Up”, “Moves To Make” and “If You Want To”, the rest of the album is just okay. I wouldn’t call any song here bad, but many are just a bit forgettable, and a few songs are very short, not leaving much room to stay in your head. The German song to round off the album is a nice addition, but once again isn’t really that exciting, especially compared to the many fantastic songs Daði Freyr has released in the past.

Along with this album, the artist is launching a tour, and admittedly these songs may be quite elevated when performed live. From the many live performances Daði Freyr has had, many of his songs have been modified and changed up due to additional synth sounds and other tidbits, which could make these songs sounds a little better, but music can hardly be judged based on a remixed version performed live.

Quite recently I listened to Daði Freyr’s first album, “& Co.”, and went in with a mindset of just ‘ticking this one off’ to be ready for the new one, but I have to say that the first may be slightly superior. The songs are mostly in Icelandic, and that may even be more suited to the artists style of music. Maybe that’s just my Eurovision preferences talking, but songs in an artist’s native language just hit different… At the very least, I would say that the first album has higher highs such as fantastic songs like “Kemur Þér Ekki Við” and “Heyri Ekki”.

Perhaps I am being a bit harsh here, as this doesn’t in anyway make me think less of Daði Freyr, but this album had a lot to live up to, and has been hyped for some time, so while it is very solid and well put together, it is not necessarily all that I hoped it would be. With that in mind, I think that 6/10 is a fitting score. There are many fine songs, but also quite a few uninteresting or forgettable ones, making this just an okay album.