The purest form of insanity.

DO PEOPLE STILL FIST PUMP?

EDM is basically Calvin Harris’ landmine. He’s built the beat up and dropped it back down on countless appearances, performances, and albums. And besides the variety of collaborators on Motion (a perfect title by the way), the formula hasn’t changed and the head banging bass doesn’t stop.

You don’t really have to be a fan to jump on this bandwagon. Calvin Harris is the most mainstream of blended electronic dance music, being pop and heartfelt and dramatic, even with opening track “Faith.”

What’s crazy is the songs are good. There is singing from Gwen Stefani, Ellie Goulding, and Hurts that are justifiably deep. But then here comes that exact same build up plummeting down on that goodness and landing the rest of the record in nostalgic territory.

Sometimes the noisiness of Motion, which is expected because instrumentation is the sole purpose of the DJ, overshadows the fluidness of this project. It’s structurally in tune and set up on a paradigm. It flows… even when it doesn’t. “It Was You” is the noisiest of them all but also one of the best, which is way less to say of Big Sean’s entire purpose on “Open Wide.”

Listen to “Slow Acid,” one of the only fully instrumentals, and that’s exactly what the rest of the project sounds like minus the vocals. It’s interestingly humorous — just as interesting as the EDM ballad “Ecstasy”

Standout Track: “Summer and Love Now”

THE BREAKDOWN

Motion does what it’s supposed to do, and maybe that’s just because there isn’t much you can really do with this genre besides getting a bunch of kids together in a mosh pit, who knows? But Calvin does as much as he can to add a sense of something.

Still fist pumping? Hit the comments below.

*This review of Motion is based on the 15-track Standard Edition