Somehow, even the last-picked-in-gym-class losers of The Academy Is… seemed menacing when they told haters to “ take a long walk off of the shortest pier” the best MGK can do is count his toes (he’s got all 10!) and threaten to “stomp the shit out of you.” Almost two decades since Panic! At the Disco sang, “Well we’re just a wet dream for the webzine,” and Fall Out Boy declared, “This ain’t a scene, it’s a goddamn arms race,” MGK is retreading long-dormant Myspace subculture wars without the wit or self-awareness to pull it off. When he’s not threatening self-harm or screaming “fuck your feelings,” Machine Gun Kelly uses mainstream sellout to settle scores: “I hear too many interviews/From these artists in the news/Speaking on my name,” he roars on “WW4,” a followup to his previous record’s breakup anthem “WW3.” If Tickets to My Downfall was built from the restless pitch of the American Pie soundtracks, this record is closer to emo’s brooding, fame-obsessed LiveJournal era. The distorted riff on “papercuts” sounds suspiciously like Green Day, but perhaps without the draw of controversy, Machine Gun Kelly didn’t feel the need to give them the same credit. “maybe” includes the requisite “Misery Business” interpolation and a metalcore verse from Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes for good measure. And while Baker’s vocal tics-“ums” and “yeahs” thrown in for emphasis-are catchy in spite of themselves, as a guitarist, he can barely bother with an original melody. It does little to transcend its tropes and despite Smith’s admirably yelpy delivery, it still lands like a TikTok-ready meme. “emo girl,” a duet with fellow pop-punk revivalist Willow Smith, feels both too serious to laugh at itself and too absurd to take seriously. “born with horns” and “god save me” feel thin to the point of approaching parody, like “ Emo Kid” without a shred of irony. Sure, there are suggestions of deeper traumas-late fathers, broken homes, forbidden love-but most of the album is cartoonishly rendered via graveyard walks and vague references to mental illness. mainstream sellout never bothers to show you how twisted and broken Machine Gun Kelly is when it could just tell you: “I’m damaged,” he whines on “5150.” “make up sex,” featuring blackbear, is somehow more hollow than their collaboration on Tickets to My Downfall, mixing crass sexual references with such lyrics as, “I love chaos/I love toxic/I love wreckage/I love falling.” MGK leans into the worst tendencies of his Victory Records influences, blaming his rampant narcissism and misogyny on his exes and his vices. MGK and Barker aren’t exactly known for subtlety, but their latest collaboration is painfully prosaic to the point of meaninglessness. These songs feel cut-and-pasted together from a grab bag of adolescent clichés and recycled three-chord solos the eyeliner and lip ring seem even more like a costume when Baker opens the record with an impassioned “Why is it so hard to live?” Barker joins MGK again on mainstream sellout, but this time, their pairing feels less inspired and more paranoid. Situated among his fellow Barker-ians, most of whom were in short pants when Blink first broke up in 2005, it’s understandable why the 31-year-old might feel a sense of ownership over the Zoomer-led Hot Topic revival.
Mgk me against the world album professional#
He tapped Travis Barker to produce Downfall before the Blink-182 drummer became a professional studded-belt whisperer, adding a jagged edge to music from disaffected Hype House e-boys. Machine Gun Kelly, born Colson Baker, is wading into a far more crowded pool than the one he left in 2020.