modern pop punk's album that fans can point to and go "see look at this. THIS is what the genre can be." jeff rosenstock is such a standout artist amongst a sea of modern emo rock contemporaries and this is some of his best work. every song has so much emotion pouring out of it, but theyre also so fun to listen to. it has all the energy that a pop punk record should have but with a maturity thats rarely found in the genre. this is something you can listen to when youre 13 or 30 and enjoy it either way for different reasons. and on top of just that, the songwriting is just so creative so it never really gets boring. like just when you think you might be in for standard pop punk song #7 he hits you with a 9 song pop punk medley which again is SUCH a fun and compelling idea. so many bangers and so many songs that will fill you with the deepest sense of melancholy imaginable it does not get better than this.
place where i can put all of my thoughts about my interests into writing ^_^ mostly talking about music/games/movies/random internet stuff
Revengeseekerzzzzzzzzzz
ive listened to this album a bunch of times already since it came out earlier this year and ohhh my goddd its so good. genuinely might be my album of the year i just think everything about it is so well put together. its one of the most complete jr records weve seen and i really like the sound direction theyre going in with the more electronic stuff. like people went crazy for census designated and i definitely liked some of the songs on that album but i am just not a big fan of jane remover shoegaze im sorry :( i think their best songs are the more high energy and intense ones although i know this is just a personal preference of mine.
personal preference or not though there are a TON of high energy intense tracks on here !! its just so fun it makes me wanna jump around or headbang or move my body around. and jane remover screaming on a bunch of these songs is something i didnt know i needed. and the different electronic influences and crazy sounds on here just make it a joy to listen and relisten to because it just never ever gets boring. trying to put a genre on this album is so impossible like ive heard people call it hyperpop, dubstep, hardcore, rap, you name it. and the thing is that it literally IS all those genres at least a little bit so i get where people are coming from, but it isnt to a level that is too schizophrenic. they sorta all fit together really well and the elements get blended effectively. my aoty ^_^
MM.....FOOD. tasty ass album
dude this album is fucking peak. this is the first one i listened to so far this summer where ive been like holy WOW this is on another level. everything about it just tickles my brain in the best way possible. the production is so fantastic. all the albums ive listened to so far have had unique sounding production for sure, but this one in particular has such a CHARACTER to it. MF DOOM's production might have the most unique identity ive ever heard. i mean the dude throws out full excerpts of episodes from the old fantastic four cartoon show whenever he wants, and you sit there and listen to that shit because its lowkey interesting every time like you kinda get invested. on top of just that though, every song has its own new idea that its throwing out there. hoe cakes with its slapboxed percussion that stays throughout the song, one beer with its orchestral big band remixing, or kookies with its grooving bassline and acoustic sounding drumkit. and while most albums that do something like this will end up as sort of a "throw things at the wall and see what sticks" kind of deal, on MM FOOD, EVERYTHING sticks. the craziest, most out of nowhere samples get flipped on their heads and turned into masterpieces on just about every track on this album. one of my favorite examples is on the most popular (and one of my favorite) tracks on the album where DOOM flips a sample of david matthews' cover of space oddity. that iconic guitar riff was found in one of the least likely places possible, from some random cover made in 1977 of a much more famous song that itself does NOT contain the riff that DOOM sampled. like where the fuck did he find that??? that was always one of my favorite bits of trivia about this album but it also further proves my point. basically every song on here does some crazy off the wall shit but its all tied together with a motif of food, and that motif is used as a sort of extended metaphor through which DOOM sorta talks about stuff. which is just a really cool idea for an album i think, and all the voice samples are dudes talking about food. it helps the whole thing feel more complete instead of just a collection of really good tracks. probably one of the best albums of all time and it has that standing for good reason.
Modal Soul thoughts
i think i wanna make these posts less big and wordy. like the last two posts are actual just walls of text lol i think i wanna steer clear of that vibe im not messing with that i dont think
anyways MODAL SOUL. id heard feather quite a few times before i went and listened to the whole thing and im familiar with luv sic, but other than that i didnt really know much nujabes. i figured most of the album would consist of rap songs featuring different artists to provide the actual rapping, sorta like an alchemist type deal, but i was mistaken. while there are a few of those songs on the album, the majority of it (like AT LEAST over half) is just instrumental jazz tracks. now dont get me wrong i LOVE some of these tracks, like music is mine, worlds end rhapsody, and the title track itself are all really nice to listen to. but the problem is, when you give me songs like feather, eclipse, and thank you, all songs with some great jazz instrumentals AND great rap performances to boot, i kinda just cant help but realize how GOOD something like that sounds. and going from that to like an instrument only track can sometimes leave me wanting something a bit more i guess. maybe thats super big and greedy of me but thats how i feel about it sometimes. ESPECIALLY when we started getting to the back half of the album. why are we getting 6 instrumental tracks in a row ?? the whole album only has 14 tracks anyways! i wish there were more songs with lyrics, or that the songs with lyrics were at least more spread out throughout the tracklist. it just kinda becomes monotonous after a while with the album as it is. and i like a lot of these tracks too is the thing, i just found it to be a drag having them all come back to back with each other. maybe i just have tiktok brainrot though im not quite sure.
GOOD news is, theres a lot to love about this album still. really interesting production, both with and without lyrics, and the features are usually on point (minus the terry callier one i didn't really like that song too much). its somehow the second jazzy album i listened to in a row, but this one is much less in your face and intense than the mckinley dixon one was. this album has the vibes, its low and chill and quite beautiful as well sometimes. its totally worth a listen if you are a music fan since this is like. a music album idk how else to describe it it just is good if youre a music fan to some degree at least. ^_^
thoughts on Magic, Alive!
mckinley dixon is a really talented artist which is something i found out after listening to the album he put out in 2023, beloved paradise jazz. it was, as you might expect, a jazz album, which on its own doesnt make the album particularly interesting. jazz and rap have gone together since the inception of the genre, but theres something about the way jazz instruments were incorporated into BPJ that really made it something special, and potentially one of my fav albums to come out that year. it was in your face and intense at times, the instrumentals having a level of complexity that jazz instrumentals rarely have when repurposed for rap beats. these songs are not kick back n relax, play around your friends during a party kinda deal. theyre meant to really be listened to and digested, and there's a lot to find in the lyrics of these tracks as well. even if you dont want to do that necessarily though, which if im being honest i sometimes really dont want to, theyre still just good songs that go hard in a variety of contexts.
magic alive is honestly just more of the same. which is totally good, like dixon has a winning formula here. he shows his prowess as a songwriter here and honestly flexes his creativity a bit more as well, something apparent on songs like recitatif and were outside rejoice. consequently, these are some of my favorite ones here. recitatif has a beat switch about halfway through that breaks up the expectations that you have from listening to the album up until that point, and it turns it into a headbanging relentless song at a level of intensity not yet seen from what ive heard of nixon. were outside has a lot of group vocals on the chorus, which i really liked. that combined with the instrumental just gives this song great vibes, great for a song about being happy about where you are.
however, overall i dont think i enjoyed as many of these songs as i did on BPJ. again, its certainly a good album but it sometimes feels like its going for something bigger than what it actually gets. BPJ did a great job of conveying the themes on its different songs throughout the album, but magic alive doesnt really do that as much for me at least. that being said, this album isnt really made for me if that makes sense? like i dont feel like i can connect with it very well i dunno exactly what it is. this is present on BPJ for me as well but to a lesser extent on that one i think. still plenty of interesting production and creative, unique songwriting on here to make this worth a listen i think, especially because a lot of people will get more out of it than i did.
JOECHILLWORLD thoughts
i have not been able to stop listening to JOECHILLWORLD. even when im not actively playing it through my earbuds, the songs keep playing in my head somehow. idk what it is about this album but its very unique and memorable, which makes sense since its jpegmafias earlier stuff. it really does feel like a low budget peggy record, with all the creativity on the production and all the ridiculous bars that his albums tend to have, but all a bit amateurish in comparison. its obvious he doesnt have any expensive recording or production equipment to do what hes doing, and yet hes doing it anyways. and by it, well, lets just say. some amazing songs that don’t sound like anything else and are still very unique to this day. like for example neon kitchen has one of the coolest ambient instrumental tracks regardless of the rap elements of it, and then it goes and still hits us with some fantastic bars. its so crazy to hear these styles of music combined with one another because, conventionally speaking, they shouldnt really “go together”. but regardless of whether they should or shouldnt, they DO, and it goes hard. ive heard people describe peggys production as alien before and that couldnt be more true on this album. the ambience is sometimes peaceful, but i get this sort of liminal vibe from it all, this weird sense of foreboding. this synergizes with peggys brash but somewhat introspective lyrics about how his life and mental health has been affected by different things pretty well. my favorite song on here is probably neon kitchen because of how well it embodies all the things ive praised about the album here, but i do love montebello high school prom with all my heart. the beat on that song is so damn good, reminds me a bit of that sort of vaperwavy worldcorp style of rap beats and i wish there were more songs like it. overall just really good and i cant get it out of my head no matter what i do.
music stuff UPDATE
havent come on here in a while so i figured i might as well get a little update going before i forget all the albums i listened to (i lowkey probably am forgetting at least one)
so here are the albums ive listened to so far this summer:
- Magic, Alive! by McKinley Dixon
- Modal Soul by Nujabes
- MM..FOOD by MF DOOM
- Revengeseekerz by Jane Remover (relisten)
- 1999 by Joey Bada$$ (still have to finish this one)
- WORRY. By Jeff Rosenstock (relisten)
- JOECHILLWORLD by Devon Hendryx
- Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder
and i have thoughts allllll of them so ill be sure to share about them soon i just need time to do it. but i just wanted to make sure i wasnt forgetting any because that would be bad.
i also watched bullet train pretty recently which was amazing!! really fun watch and i was watching it with some pals so that was even better. i hope to watch more movies with people in the future. bullet train is one of those movies where it doesnt have any sort of deep
commentary its trying to make, but makes up for that by being pure fun. plenty of funny jokes and dynamic scenes that show off how fun a movie can be when its made competently. great pacing and an interesting plot that keeps you guessing throughout. brad pitt plays the most chill dude of all time and like, you just wanna be him so bad he kinda just dgaf and its in stark contrast to everyone else on the train whos playing soccer with their life on the line. just adds even more humor to an already funny film. again you arent gonna like get a changed worldview after this or anything but it still remains memorable in other ways.
yay!
6/13/25 - music listening PLAN and albums ive heard so far
so this summer i have quite a long commute to and from work (around like 40 minutes or so). which is the perfect amount of time to listen to an album per day, which is something ive wanted to do for a while, so thats pretty awesome. ive been much more into albums as a way of listening to music lately, as my playlists just havent been doing it for me in recent times. so, my plan is to come on here every day and at the very least talk about the album that i listened to today. i think ill probably make a youtube video about it eventually as well because i saw someone do that one time and i really liked it. like literally basically the exact same concept. ill be a thief but im okay with that.
so far ive listened to mckinley dixon - magic, alive and nujabes - modal soul. ill update this later with my thoughts on both of these when i have time
6/10/25 some more metablog thoughts
so ive gone and named the blog internet explorer. i plan on doing a lot of internet related stuff on here. the internet is really fascinating to me and i am probably going to put a bunch of thoughts that i have about certain internet things on here when i have the time or when i feel like i want to. i will have to find a suitable background image that reflects this idea, but im struggling to find something that truly fits. im currently considering a sort of collage of a few silly internet things, but im not sure how that will look aesthetically. unfortunately im generally pretty bad with aesthetics. perhaps thats something that i can work on with this blog as well. who knows!
in addition to internet stuff, im probably gonna talk about music, movies, video games, and tv shows. all sort of tangentially related to internet stuff anyways so i dont think its too off theme, if there can even be said to be a theme. im doing those other forms of media as well because they take up a big part of my life and i use writing/discussion to help me process them when i consume them (i hate that fucking word). i think i spend a bit too much time playing a particular video game and i want to expand my horizons a bit, and hopefully the chance to talk about stuff on here will help spur me on to do that.
i think im gonna try and avoid talking about more personal things on here. i dont intend to use this as a diary/journal or anything. its more just my place to escape to where i can talk about the actual fun stuff. and a blog just seems like a great place for such an escape, especially considering the subject matter at hand. im sorta just claiming my infinitesimally (yes i looked the spelling up) small piece of the internet for my own to do whatever i want on. i am the lone monarch on plank's length island, both the sole leader and the sole citizen.
06/05/2025
no idea what im doing with this, probably like a journal/place to keep track of a bunch of stuff im doing/want to be doing. dont care if 1 million people read this or 0 people read this (NOT BAIT).
i originally had "diary" written instead of journal and i went and changed it and i was reminded of the opening of diary of a wimpy kid where he specifies that hes writing a journal and definitely not a diary jesus christ