by Alex Goode
Having gotten Nectar out of the way, I will now move on and talk about the new Machine Gun Kelly album. MGK is a name that, let's face it, you most likely only know from either Bird Box or the Eminem beef from a few years ago. There's much more to him than just that, though. The Cleveland-born musician has been at it since 2006, releasing a plethora of smash hit tracks like "Wild Boy", "Let Me Go", and (more recently), "I Think I'm OKAY". His 2019 album Hotel Diablo is one of my favorite LPs ever, featuring songs like "Candy", "Glass House", "Floor 13", "Hollywood Whore", and other songs that I would rank as MGK's best work to date. To say that I was excited for the release of this new record, Tickets to My Downfall, would be an understatement. His quarantine musical antics have been really enjoyable, my favorites being "Pretty Toxic Revolver", his "What's Poppin" remix, and his cover of Rihanna's "Love On the Brain". I've enjoyed the random covers, non-project singles, and other fun material he's been putting out lately, so perhaps a full album that is made under those same circumstances would be good? It's time to buy a ticket and enjoy the show. It should be worth noting that I'm talking about the 15-track first edition that came out on September 25th, not the deluxe edition or the Target version. Just to clear the air before I get started.
Okay, I'm just gonna come right out and say it: Tickets is not as good as Hotel Diablo. I liked Tickets for what it was, but I wouldn't say it's his best work. This album sees Kells completely abandoning any sort of rap influence and sticking to a more pop punk style from front to back. Personally, I don't see this as a bad thing. I think MGK works better when he's making more rock-heavy songs, which is why I like Hotel Diablo as much as I do. I just don't think Tickets is a great example of it. It starts out on a pretty good note, though, with the title track (titled "Title Track"). The guitar sounds clean, Kelly's vocals are nice, the lyrics are decent. I love the tempo changes that happen throughout, they're done really well. Very solid way to open the album, which is unfortunately muddied almost immediately by the very next track. I don't care for "Kiss Kiss" all that much. The drumming is a little bland, same goes for the lyrics, MGK's vocals sound boring. The guitar playing is pretty catchy, though, that's the only high point for me with this song. It's not a bad song, I just don't particularly get much from it. And, while we're on the topic of things in this album that I don't get much from, "WWIII" sucks. It's just straight-up bad. It's a minute long, it's mixed very poorly, the lyrics are cringy, Kelly's vocals are at their worst here, what is this? Why is this here? What does this add to the album except make it longer? You could've put anything else here and it would've been better off.
I wanna go ahead and talk about the singles for the LP right now, because I feel like they are the best songs on the album. "Bloody Valentine" is a very groovy track. It has a wonderful instrumental, I love Kelly's voice on this song, the lyrics are genuinely great (special mention goes to the wet cement line), the chorus is catchy. "Concert for Aliens" is probably my least favorite of the singles, but it's still a solid track. It's got a very slick groove to the beat, the guitar is once again great, as is the drumming. I like the lyrics are nice, Kelly's vocals sound decent, and I like the studio gag that was left in at the end. And then there's "My Ex's Best Friend", which is a very good track. Blackbear's verse rocks, the concept is enjoyable, the instrumental is well-made, the mix is great. It's one of the few times the album delivers a somewhat trap influenced hihat section, and it makes the track bop that much more. I really like this song. While I'm talking about my favorite tracks off the album, I wanna give a special mention to "Lonely". That song is great. It's emotional, it's well-written, you can feel the pain in Kelly's voice when he's singing. This is a major highlight, and I really hope Kelly is doing okay today. The sample of what sounds like a doctor (or it might've been his father, I don't really know) talking about Kelly's birth at the end was a nice touch.
There's a couple pretty cute interludes, "Kevin and Barracuda" and "Banyan Tree" respectively, that pop up here and there, and they're both quite nice. "Kevin" is a funny conversation between Kelly and Pete Davidson, and "Banyan" is a sweet moment that sees Kelly and Megan Fox reminiscing about their lived together. Both of them are nice spots on the record. They probably didn't need to be there, but they're fun. "Drunk Face" is also a pretty decent track, I like the beat quite a lot. The reference to "Hollywood Whore" is a little meh, but it doesn't break the song for me. Unfortunately, I've now come to a point where I don't find very many of the other tracks to be particularly standout moments. "Jawbreaker" is bland aside from Kelly's vocals sounding good. The instrumental is pretty appealing, but the lyrics are just two minutes of meh. It honestly doesn't do much for me. The same goes for "Forget Me Too". Halsey is great for sure, but she's the best part of it. The kick in the drumming is way too loud, the mix is kinda meh, the lyrics are average at best. The chorus is pretty catchy, though, I'll give it that. I dig "All I Know" quite a bit, though. The instrumental is pretty cool, Trippie Redd is great on here, the lyrics are decent, Kelly's voice sounds good, the hook is catchy.
I think "Nothing Inside" is a good idea in concept that is mostly done well in execution. The lyrics are a little much at times, but the instrumental is very funky. I like the drumming and the guitar a lot, and I think I also caught a slight synth but I'm not sure. Iann Dior's contributions to this track are great, him and Kelly's energies blend together very well, and it makes for an all-around pretty enjoyable track. This is a song I would probably end up posting on my Instagram story after I've had a pretty rough mental health day, which is not a bad thing. And the ending track, "Play This When I'm Gone", is a good closer. The "I'LL MISS YOU, I'LL MISS YOU" refrain on the bridge is pushing it, but the emotion is told very nicely on the rest of the track. It's honestly really sad. According to Kelly, it was written for his daughter. It's a really sweet, but also tragically real message for her. It's easy to mask your sorrow with a smile, so major props to Kelly for dropping the front and flat out saying what he feels. That's the mark of a good artist, and I'm glad the album ends on such a nice (if somber) note. I like it when Kelly opens up about himself the way he does here, it's always good to see inside the mind of an artist. More songs like this and less like "WWIII", please!
Overall, Tickets to My Downfall is an album I like but not love. It feels like Hotel Diablo 2 in a sense, but I would compare the transition from Diablo to Tickets to that of the transition from Rocky Horror to Shock Treatment. It looks the same, but something about it just doesn't feel the same. That probably made no sense at all, but you know what I mean. Tickets is an admirable project, but, at least when I compare it to some of his earlier works, ultimately a little disappointing. It has good songs, but none of them are particularly standout to me. I'll be blasting "I Think I'm OKAY" until the day I die, but I don't see myself coming back to a "Bloody Valentine" or a "Drunk Face" anytime soon. I wouldn't turn them off if they autoplayed on a playlist, but I probably also wouldn't actively seek them out. I'm gonna give Tickets to My Downfall a 6/10. It's very underwhelming. I'd rather listen to Hotel Diablo, or Bloom. This is probably the most controversial hot take I will ever make, but I'd argue that the Binge EP was more memorable than Tickets was. Sorry if I'm bringing up Diablo too much, by the way, but both of these projects have similar vibes so I kinda feel like I have to. I want to make it known that I liked Tickets, I just wish more had been done with it. But yeah, that's about it. I hope you all enjoyed this nice double upload day. I really want to make these blogs are more regular thing, so we'll see what happens next.
