Review: Machine Gun Kelly – Tickets To My Downfall

Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets to My Downfall

I have to be honest with you. I’m not that familiar with Machine Gun Kelly’s music. Prior to this album, all I knew about the 30-year-old rapper a.k.a. Colson Baker, was that he once had a beef with Eminem, he played Tommy Lee in the Motley Crue biopic “The Dirt” and had a song called “I Think I’m Okay” he made with Yungblud and Travis Barker. When I heard Barker was working with Machine Gun Kelly on a pop-punk project, I raised my eyebrow like The Rock and assumed it was probably something I wouldn’t listen to. Then I heard “Bloody Valentine.”

“Bloody Valentine” has been stuck in my head, in my head, since the first moment I heard it in May. I’ve long been a fan of pop-punk, and this song was right up my alley, taking me back to a time when the genre was at its highest of highs in the early 2000s. “Bloody Valentine” left me wanting more, and suddenly MGK’s new album, Tickets To My Downfall, was one of my most anticipated albums for the fall. When it finally arrived on Sept. 25 after being delayed in the spring thanks to COVID, it completely exceeded my expectations and left me feeling like I was 12 again, when I would listen to Good Charlotte’s The Young and the Hopeless and Blink-182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket on repeat.

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Machine Gun Kelly Tops the Charts

Machine Gun Kelly

Machine Gun Kelly has the number one album in the country this week:

The set earned 126,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 1, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It was released on Sept. 25 via EST19XX/Bad Boy/Interscope, and marks the fifth top 10 effort overall for the artist. […]

Notably, Tickets to My Downfall marks the first rock album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in over a year. The last rock set to top the tally was Tool’s Fear Inoculum, which bowed at No. 1 on the Sept. 14, 2019-dated list and spent one week in charge.

Phoebe Bridgers Launches Record Label

Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers has announced the launch of her new record label, Saddest Factory, in partnership with Dead Oceans. The full press release can be found below, and an interview with Phoebe about the label is up at Billboard:

Saddest Factory will sign acts across genres, based on the most pure criteria, says Bridgers: The quality of their songs, an obvious requirement but one that isn’t always given the same weight as an artist’s social media following, co-signs and other indicators of hype. “If I like it and I listen to it for pleasure, then other people will like it and listen to it for pleasure,” she says. “I don’t think I have any ethos other than, ‘Am I jealous?'”

Bridgers has already signed her first act, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

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