Aug 2

Aug 2 Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets To My Downfall

Machine Gun Kelly
Tickets To My Downfall
Release Date: September 25th, 2020
Genre: Pop Punk
Label: Bad Boy/Interscope Records

I know that it’s been almost a year since Tickets To My Downfall came out. I know that Machine Gun Kelly can be a divisive figure in pop-punk, and for what reason, I simply cannot understand. Why? Because he said that he wants musicians to wear Doc Martins and not Vans on stage? This is what is causing wars within the pop-punk community?

The point of reviewing and writing about any artistic medium, whether it’s food, film, music, television, or books, is to be honest with the audience. My job as a reviewer for this outlet is to listen to a piece of music, digest it, and then come back and tell you exactly what I thought about it. That includes saying I didn’t enjoy something even if it goes against the public’s perception of it, or saying whether I liked an album that a lot of people really fucking hate. So why, nearly a year later, am I choosing to now review Tickets To My Downfall?

Because it took me completely by surprise. I have a tendency to jump out and say that a piece of music, a movie, etc. is one of the best things I’ve ever seen, only to go back to it a year later and see that it was not everything I thought it was. I have viewed a lot through rose-colored lenses over the years, and here is an artist that is coming into a genre that has been on its death bed for the last year, coveted only by those gatekeepers who feel like “you had to be there” when bands like Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Blink-182 reigned supreme over the mainstream music collective that dominated the airwaves on both modern rock radio and MTV. I needed to make sure that Tickets To My Downfall and my first reactions to this were purely comprised of me falling victim to a marketing gimmick, an artist trying to take advantage of a devoted fan base of another genre.

Out of any take that I’ve seen in the recent “rappers-turned-rockers” universe, Tickets To My Downfall seems to be the most genuine take on the genre from an artist that is coming in from outside the pop-punk hemisphere. It’s not perfect, and Baker’s voice is not necessarily as pretty as any of the vocalists that dominate this genre, but it somehow manages to work. And that’s literally all I could ask for. I know that many people have criticized Interscope Records for trying to push MGK into this direction, but that statement doesn’t make any sense. If pop-punk is “dying”, then why would a multi-million dollar major label want to push one of its prospects (who let’s be honest, wasn’t a household name before this album) into this genre? Hip-hop is the dominant genre in the modern world. No, this album comes off as a genuine attempt by Baker (and co-producer Travis Barker) to make music that honestly seems more suited to him than rap, while managing to blend the two genres together.

“Title Track” takes what sounds like the beginnings of a modern pop track (self-reflective lyrics, not-very-subtle metaphors, and lightly plucked acoustic guitar strings) before merging into something far more reminiscent of a Sum 41 concert. Baker’s singing voice is more gravel-like than the prettier-sounding vocalists that make up the pop-punk spectrum, but it works for most of the tracks on this album. “Title Track” leads into “kiss kiss”, a guitar-laced pop track that leads into the spacey “drunk face”, meshing tales of youthful abandon with 808 hi-hats against Travis Barker’s in-your-face drums.

At this point in Tickets To My Downfall, we get two of the best tracks: “bloody valentine”, an apocalyptic love song that would fit in well amongst the blink-182 echelon, and the upbeat “forget me too” that features a powerful guest vocal spot from Halsey, a tale of quarrelling lovers set against the backdrop of 2019-2020 Los Angeles. We get a taste of the hip-hop stylings Baker is used to offering on his albums, with “all I know” (which features a guest verse from Trippie Redd). I found this to be the weakest song on the album when pitted against the others, and it only reaffirms my belief that Baker has hit his stride with this new venture into pop-punk.

“lonely” is a heartfelt ode to Baker’s father (who passed away months before the album was released), and it’s a sobering moment on an album filled with tales of lost love, partying, and being young. The contrast to this moment, however, are the pop-punk-heavy “WWIII” (which easily would have fit in on Enema of the State) and “concert for aliens”, my favorite track from this album. It’s produced incredibly well and provides one of the best moments on Downfall.

When I first heard “my ex’s best friend”, I wasn’t sure how it was going to fit on a pop-punk album. It was a great pop song, and blackbear worked nicely, but it seemed like an odd pairing given that the other singles I’d heard up to a certain point were “concert for aliens” and “forget me too”. Yet “my ex’s best friend” fits in well, and it shows that Baker is capable of writing a pop song that fits well on a rock album, a skill that tends to be surprisingly difficult in a genre-fluid generation.

The album tends to feel like it’s going a bit too long with “jawbreaker” and “nothing inside”. I don’t know if it has to do with the structure, but I felt like they were just placed into second half of Downfall because they couldn’t figure out a place to put it. They’re both great songs, but it feels at odds with the structure of the album as a whole. The iann dior-guested “nothing inside” leads into an interlude track called “banyan tree”, which features a memo straight from the voice app on Baker’s iPhone while he sits with his girlfriend (actress Megan Fox) as they reminisce about their relationship and the state of the world.

As with the aforementioned “lonely”, Baker manages to place the most emotional moments in just the right places. The album ends on a somber note with “play this when i’m gone”, a letter that Baker appears to be leaving for his young daughter. It’s a heavy moment, and one that shows Baker at his most emotionally vulnerable, on the brink of death, using music as his therapy.

Tickets To My Downfall is one of the bigger musical surprises to come out of 2020. What seemed like a label attempting to cash in on revitalizing a nostalgia-filled genre ended up being a cavalcade of songs that illustrate a range of emotions, weaving seamlessly (for the most part) through genres both familiar and new. I didn’t hate the music that Machine Gun Kelly made as a hip-hop artist, but I do feel that Tickets To My Downfall is one of the better representations of his talent as an artist. His vulnerability is on full display here, and it works incredibly well for a genre like this one.