With his wacky lyrics that would make “Weird Al” Yankovic proud, and his mastery of the synthesizer, Thomas Dolby is mostly unknown to the newest generation. One of Dolby’s more recent full-length albums, A Map of the Floating City, was released to the world in 2011. The last full-length album Dolby dropped was Golden Age of Wireless in 1990. While Dolby’s previous albums have definitely had more 90s vibes, A Map of the Floating City takes a giant leap into the 21^st century with eleven expertly arranged songs.

What better way to do that than mock today’s pop songs? That seems to be the mission of the song “Nothing New Under the Sun,” which is about the creative drought that the musical community seems to be experiencing these days. Dolby pokes fun at modern musicians with lyrics such as “sniffing my armpit” and “Hey any fool can write a hit.”

Unlike most music today, you can usually understand every single word that Thomas Dolby sings, which is a good thing because otherwise you might miss lyrics such. Dolby is definitely a skilled when it comes to writing songs full of cultural references and satire. Where else would you hear someone rhyme “Mozzarella cheese/ Diplomatic deep freeze” for the sake of music? It’s full of cultural references such as “He said he liked the Beatles/And she liked Tears For Fears” and verses like “They ate Mars bars for love.”

Each song on the album has a great foundation beat and then the hilarious lyrics are the cherry on top. As a result, the songs sound just as incredible listened to on shuffle as they do in order. The acoustic indie album is chockfull of different songs infused with jazz, rock, and pop elements. Dolby unifies the album by playing a synthesizer, keyboard and guitar, in the majority of the songs. The only exception is the twangy, country song “The Toad Lickers”, which doesn’t really seem to fit in with the rest of the album. Overall, though, the stunning blend of instruments, Dolby’s rich, soothing vocals that are just right, and inclusion of other skilled musicians, such as Imogen Heap and Mark Knopfler, makes A Map of the Floating City worthy of being replayed again and again.

One of the best songs on the album is “Evil Twin Brother.” It features the vocals of the talented Regina Spektor, and is one of the most storytelling of all the songs with a slightly more pop reminiscent tone. The chorus “I wasn’t there-that wasn’t me/It must have been my evil twin brother” is guaranteed to give listeners an earworm.

Thomas Dolby’s newest album is absolutely hilarious and aesthetically pleasing to the ears. It is proof that great musicians don’t burn out, but just get better with time. They can even adapt to survive in this pop-obsessed world, that’s clearly in need of a floating city.