I’ll be the first to admit that growing up, I went through a bit of an emo phase. Luckily, for both me and my parents, it wasn’t half bad. I never dyed my hair, attended Warped Tour, or did anything too rebellious in my teenage years. However, my uniform for a decent portion of my high school career was a plaid shirt, often worn with a band tee underneath, and skinny jeans or black leggings that were tucked into a pair of black Dr. Marten’s. I also hung out with people at school who liked emo and pop punk music and were self proclaimed practitioners of “pop punk” subculture. My taste in music during this time (and somewhat still to this day) was almost anything that was found under the umbrella of “rock” music. Oh, and of course I had quite a bit of “teen angst” to share with the world. While I thought I had (mostly) grown out of this phase, my inner angsty teen was revived as soon as I heard the latest from rapper turned pop punk rocker, Machine Gun Kelly.
Recently, Machine Gun Kelly released an album titled Tickets to my Downfall. The album is a breakaway from his usual hip hop and rap sound from his previous albums, and is instead his take on the pop punk genre. At first I was a bit confused as to why he would make such a drastic change, but as soon as I heard the first track, I was instantly transported to my middle school/ high school “emo” phase. Heck, the album title alone was enough to take me back to my black gel eyeliner days. The album starts off with the song “title track” (my personal favorite), in which he talks about self destructive habits that I will not mention for the sake of some being triggered by them. After listening to this song, a memory was pulled from the archives of my brain, and it was, for some reason, listening to the song “King for a Day” by Pierce the Veil and Kellin Quinn of the band Sleeping With Sirens, two bands I would listen to frequently in eighth grade. In that song, they talk about similar destructive habits in the same angry, “f you” sort of way, making it the sort of song I probably shouldn’t have been listening to at the tender age of 14.
Other songs like “concert for aliens” and “bloody valentine” have a strong pop punk sound. When I first heard the opening riffs to “concert for aliens”, I couldn’t figure out what I was being reminded of even though they sounded so familiar. Then it hit me. They reminded me of every pop punk song I had ever heard. Yes, the song “concert for aliens” bears a strong resemblance to Blink-182’s old school pop punk sound, one of Machine Gun Kelly’s biggest influences for this album, but I was also reminded of my days listening (and dad dancing) to All Time Low in my bedroom and shamelessly blasting “Poppin Champagne” in my car. The song “bloody valentine” also had the same effect on me; the riffs, the lyrics, everything really brought me back to my semi emo/pop punk phase.
The first time I listened to this album, I became concerned as more and more songs played and I didn’t hear MGK rap once. I thought to myself, “I thought he was a rapper, what happened”. However, I was glad he changed his sound for this album. Not just because I was overwhelmed with nostalgia, but because he is exploring his other talents. Before this album was released, I had no idea he played guitar, but turns out, he’s multi talented when it comes to music. He also has a great voice for pop punk and can perfectly produce the angry, somewhat whiny sounding vocals needed for an entire genre custom made for angsty teens. Whenever I hear about artists talk about how they want to “change their sound” because all I can think of is that episode of Hannah Montana when Miley/Hannah tries to do just this so she wouldn’t seem boring, but fails miserably. Plus, other artists have tried this in the past, and the results are usually just as bad. Not Machine Gun Kelly. He not only perfectly mastered the art of the old genre-switcheroo, but he produced an album that made me want to relive my days as an angsty teen. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put on my dad’s old flannel shirt from 1995, a band tee, Dr. Martens, and my gray floppy beanie and blast Green Day to the point where my neighbors can hear Billie Joe Armstrong’s voice.