everything means nothing / blackbear / August 21, 2020
- Joshua Yoo
- Aug 25, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 13, 2020
Social media plays an enormous role in the growth and success of artists, where one viral song, can garner an absurd amount of streams and publicity. In Matthew Musto’s case, he seems to try to capitalize on this, as “everything means nothing” comes across as a collection of painfully apparent attempts at landing the next internet hit, only to find itself drowning in passionless vocals, half-baked electronic influences, and amazingly simplistic writing.
While the straightforward themes of modern love and heartbreak covered on the album don’t necessarily warrant elaborate or sophisticated lyricism, Matthew still undermines the emotional potency of nearly all of his songs with his consistently redundant and superficial songwriting, from one-liners that become tiresome very quickly (“i feel bad”), to rather shallow remarks about women and his issues with their relationships (“half alive”). In general, there is an overarching perspective that the album is written from that comes across as vapid and one-dimensional in its recurring themes of drinking, drugs, party culture and questionable self-diagnoses (“sobbing in cabo”).
Matching the thematic depth of the album is the production, which does a decent job of bluffing flashiness, when it really just lacks substance. The overly-muddled electric guitars and robotic bass lines drown many of the tracks into a feeling of numbness, where even the stripped-back, emotional cuts simply feel emotionless (“i feel 2 much”). Tyler’s vocals also rarely stray from auto-tune style, pitched and squeaky clean, and lacking the ingenuousness to ever really appeal fully to the listeners’ feelings (“smile again”).
It’s not to say that this is out of the blue for [blackbear], but unfortunately it seems that “everything means nothing” has culminated to an exceeding level of tediousness.
Best Track(s): why are girls?
Lowlight(s): me & ur ghost, sobbing in cabo, i felt that, clown, i feel bad, i feel 2 much
SCORE: 2/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eziSBnHIMk
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