The sophomore album of synthpop duo Magdalena Bay Imaginal Disk released on streaming services on August 23. The album has seen many acclamations, including a 4.08 out of 5 rating on RateYourMusic and a critic score of 85 out of 100 on Album of the Year. On both of these websites, Imaginal Disk sits at the top for user-rated albums of 2024.
Pop music as a genre has plateaued – there’s not a lot more to do with pop without turning it into an entirely different genre. Enter Magdalena Bay. Composed of members Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin, the pair have released two albums together since their formation in 2016.
As of now, Imaginal Disk sits at an 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, earning it the title of “Universally acclaimed.” To explore the reason why it has been earning such high ratings, I decided to give it a listen on my own.
Opening with the song “She Looked Like Me!” I wasn’t going in with the highest of hopes. I had heard from other critics that the album is really good but the beginning song wasn’t necessarily my favorite. I had actually begun to be really disappointed with how it was sounding. That was until the second track, “Killing Time,” had turned on.
The second song wasn’t really the best compared to what was upcoming, but it was leagues better than the first track and I found myself beginning to “feel the rhythm.” The bass of the song was the defining factor for its futuristic grooviness. It was as if Thundercat had blessed Matthew Lewin with his godlike bass playing skills in order to make some of the grooviest melodies I’ve heard. I’m getting carried away however, and the song has ended.
Imaginal Disk has two interludes, “True Blue Interlude” and “Feeling DiskInserted?”. They’re really nothing special, just some regular interludes that you would expect to hear in a 15 song long album.
What came after the interlude was what made the album special. While the very next song “Image” wasn’t anything special, “Death & Romance” was what I would call the true beginning of the LP. The electronic funk alongside Mica Tenenbaum’s heavenly vocals paired with the bass skill of Matthew Lewin led to one of my favorite songs of the year, and that was the moment I knew why people were saying this album was special. However, I was only four songs in.
Skipping forward a few songs, “Love is Everywhere” began and I felt like something was familiar. The funk of the bass alongside its melody just sounded like something I had heard previously in another song. After some research, I found out it was because Magdalena Bay had actually produced the song “running out of time” by fellow artist Lil Yachty, however Magdalena Bay put their own twist into their sampled, well, sample. Despite the same sample being used, the two songs when put together are completely different from each other in every good way.
The album concludes with the song “The Ballad of Matt and Mica.” At first, I was confused when I saw the name, until I found out that Matt and Mica ARE Magdalena Bay. After that little mishap, I continued to listen to the song to listen to the most heavenly choir of Mica Tenenbaum’s perfectly layered vocals alongside the production. Hearing the same lines given from the first track, this “ballad” concludes the album in the best way possible. It starts off kind of weird, beginning with some dubstep-rooted production which then leads into the pop we all came to love from this album. It couldn’t have ended any better in my opinion.
Overall, Imaginal Disk is an incredible album, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were to end up winning some type of award. It is definitely one of the highest praised albums of the year alongside Charli XCX’s Brat and Vampire Weekend’s Only God Was Above Us. Magdalena Bay has completely won me over with this incredible record and I will definitely be checking out the rest of their discography in the near future. I give this album a VERY high rating of 97 out of 100. The only problem with this album is the interlude tracks and the less than stellar opening song. If it weren’t for those minor issues, this album would have gotten a perfect score.
I recommend this album to those who are fans of Taylor Swift’s 1989, current Carly Rae Jepsen fans (which I applaud), or to those that just love some good pop music to feel good and dance to.
