Rating: 0.5/5 Stars
I am very hard on mainstream music of almost any genre. I will be quick to call out awful things that appear on the Hot 100 for the Pop, Rock, or Rap charts. I will be sure to call out music that is obvious trend-hopping, and isn't trying to do anything new. But when you have an "indie" band like AJR, I think almost any faults of the mainstream can be forgiven. In 2017, they released the awful album "The Click", which just had so many bad things about it that I can't even really get into in depth for this review. That's because their third and newest album, "Neotheater", is almost as bad, if not WORSE, than its predecessor.
Who exactly is AJR? Well, they are a band of three brothers who got famous off a song called "I'm Ready", which is more known for its usage of sampling the SpongeBob quote of the same name. That should tell you everything you need to know about this band. They are also clearly inspired by twenty one pilots and Jon Bellion. I almost cringe saying that, because saying that this band is "inspired" just feels disingenuous to me. I think a totally different genre name might be fitting for them: "Obvious Industrial Product". If you look at this band on the surface, you'll see that they classify themselves as this cutesy DIY group who just make music in their apartment. They may be under a record label of their name, but if you look who they're distributed by, you'll see Warner Brothers right there. The band tries their best to hide it, but you can't. And even if I didn't know this tidbit of information thanks to a YouTuber I watch, I'd still call BS on them putting themselves under the label of "indie". Nothing about this band's sound comes across as genuine, profound, or remotely interesting. In fact, it's all the complete opposite. For anybody that has already heard this album, I feel genuinely sorry for the sonic torture your ears had to go through. I'm not going to be forgetting this release any time soon, and that's not a good thing. Things get off to an immediately awful start with "Next Up Forever". This song gives the overall tone that this album has: unpleasantly immature and childish. You would think that the Baby Boomers are right about millennials being entitled, annoying whiners if you were to ever listen to this album. Jack Met whinges and wails about how he's not ready to grow up yet. He wants to always be in this perpetual state of limbo and transition, where he can always feel the thrills of graduating or the idea of the next big thing, but never actually having to deal with the hard stuff. Wow, what a horrible way of looking at life. The musicality here is something of its own to behold, with these absolutely overbearing vocal effects thrown in, along with insufferably messy electronics.
And that is only the beginning of this disasterpiece. Up next is the mind-boggling "Birthday Party". No joke, my mouth was hanging open with just how incompetent this song is in almost every way. I'm not even quite sure what the band was attempting to do with the music. The song ultimately sounds like no genre with the cacophony of sounds they put together. Nothing makes a cohesive product. There are once again the awful vocal effects, and they're even more obnoxious in this song. But even more confusing to me are the lyrics. This song has Adam going into the perspective of himself as a newborn. Already a bit of a weird idea for a song. Then, he weirdly literally says in the perspective of a BABY things like, "I bet my country's nice to immigrants" and "I bet I'll see a female president". Yep, that's definitely what I was thinking about when I was born. I was certainly concerned with the politics. I hope you see how stupid this is. In fact, it almost seems like AJR minimizes their own political views in the way they frame them. This song really rubbed me the wrong way and stands out as easily one of the worst moments here. Lead single "100 Bad Days" is one of the worst songs to hit Billboard Hot 100 this year. This song actually made me feel ill on the inside with its obnoxious usage of brass instrumentation. Was there not a way that the band couldn't make the sound so headache inducing? Up to this point, I haven't talked about Jack Met's singing, so I'll just say it now: I hate it. All he's doing is trying to do his best impression of Tyler Joseph, and it's awful. Awful, awful, awful. "Don't Throw Out My Legos" continues this album's insufferable thematic arc of refusing to grow up or remotely mature. I think this is because these brothers are actually just man children in real life. Apparently all the band members just moved out of their parents' house. Now I don't have any objection to people staying in their parent's houses in their 20s (and I shouldn't, because I'm 22 and still living in my parents' house). But from the way this song is presented, you'd think all the members are still 8 years old and the only contributions they have are playing with their Legos. It's this whining idea again of "I don't want to grow up and accept responsibility". I don't know how this is a remotely positive message, and yet the band seems to think there's something inspiring about being mentally childish for the rest of your life.
For a couple tracks, this album just turns straight up forgettable, which is a God-send considering the absolute trash we get in the second half of the album. "Break My Face" and "Turning Out pt. ii" left little to no impression whatsoever on me. "The Entertainment's Here" brings back the annoyingly over-produced brass instrumentation, but at this point I'm so used to that sound, so it
it's now just another senseless noise. And then, we get the double-hitter of two of the worst songs I've heard since 30 Seconds to Mar's atrocious album from last year. "Karma" made me want to yell in anger. Its sound would work great as a form of torture against terrorists. The lyrics sound so entitled as Jack talks about how he does so much good for the world, so why doesn't he get good karma? News flash, AJR: this isn't unique to you all, and you're not getting my pity. If this band could present even a degree of irony or satire in their sound/lyrics, I could forgive this message. But, everything here is just so literal. My anger reached its peak at "Beats". I was almost tempted to stop the album here, because this song is everything I loathe about the worst aspects of pop music. The band shouldn't even be able to call themselves indie with the whoring out of a certain product they do here. Sorry for the harsh language there, but it is what it is. The song is pretty much the band begging Beats by Dre to sponsor them. That's it; that's the song. Just a literal product promotion, and it doesn't even try to hide it. Just despicable. The band tries to play coy and innocent at the end by asking "And every star that I used to mock/Was probably paid, am I the same?" Yes, you are the same AJR. In fact, in some ways you are worse. At least other bands that have been sponsored by Beats have done songs that have a meaning or message behind them. I could almost find myself cynically laughing if I were to discover that this song was, in fact, sponsored by Beats. That would make the lack of awareness of hypocrisy that much more potent. But, I don't know if I could find the energy to laugh because of how despicable this song is. It's worthless, and belongs in the deepest circle of Hell. You are an industry shill, AJR. Are you proud of that? You probably are, as your surface level, "lol-I'm-so-relatable" lyrics imply that you don't really care about making music for an audience in the slightest. Your audience is only one thing, and it's cash.
I don't even want to take the effort to talk about the final three songs. This album just begins to go into oblivion at a certain point. I think the only song that is redeemable here might be "Dear Winter". This song has some weight to it in writer Ryan Met talking to his future unborn child. I'm not quite sure how he could have a connection to an unborn child given that he hasn't even found a girl to have the child with yet, but the song at least has something going on. The same can't be said for the rest of this awful storm of an album. For the most part, the impression I get from this band is they want to relate to a young audience, but they just can't do it in any deep way. So instead, they try to bring across these faux-relatable messages that ultimately lack substance. Say what you will about almost any other pop artist. I can name a song by even the artists I hate the most that have substance- I can even do this for 30 Seconds to Mars, whom I consider my least favorite band. Can the same be said for AJR? I don't think so. I hope this group fades out sooner rather than later. They don't deserve any type of spotlight with their despicable messages and awful musical composition. Don't listen to this album, please. This is your final warning, as it's almost certainly the worst release of the year. Is it worse than 30STM's "America"? Not quite, but it's close. Congrats to you, AJR!
Favorite Songs: "Dear Winter" (I guess)
Least Favorite Songs: Special mention to the horrible "Beats", IN SECOND PLACE IS LITERALLY EVERY OTHER TRACK HERE BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL EQUALLY TERRIBLE
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