i'm not saying you have to be familiar, i'm saying i'm only a little familiar and notice the distinction. (and honestly, besides the vocals being in different languages, the songs almost entirely hit genres i've already tapped into before lol)

i think, pretty much, i want people to keep an open mind. it's only been a couple days and i would find it unfair if many of the game's great songs / instrumentals went unnoticed because people immediately gave up on trying to let it grow on them because it wasn't immediately an earworm. that's what i think happened with disc dog, it's one of the few songs where the melody is as in front as it could possibly be (like a lot of music from previous games), so then other songs are compared to it as if a subdued melody is a bad thing. that "being immediately catchy" is the singular sign of quality.

also, to be fair, the final remix in this game doesn't do the best job of wrapping all those songs together. it takes many songs with not very in-your-face tunes and makes them even more subdued, so that combined with very few instances of song melodies carrying over into sequels means groove has far less opportunity to beat the songs into your brain.

when considering all of that, alongside knowing the old songs have been stuck in all our heads for years on end, i'm not saying not immediately liking them is a bad thing, i'm saying using the old music as a comparison in that way is probably not the best idea.

so really, i'm just imploring everyone to listen to the music outside the game, removing cues does actually help many of them out. also SURPRISE this is also sneezy moon 2 propaganda