Here are some tips for managing urges.
First, what are the urges I feel when listening to JVKE's preposterously-named this is what ____ feels like (Vol. 1-4)?
Easy for any sane person. For 99.9% of the population, all you have to do when presented with music that you dislike this intensely is just not listen to it. However, my own personal expectations for Record Club are that I am going to listen to every album that is chosen, and write a review every week, no matter what. I'm written reviews through the births of two children and the loss of a fourth. I've written reviews when alcoholism had its grip on me and when I gathered the strength to loosen that grip. I've written reviews on vacation, and I've written reviews when we were told we can't go anywhere. I've written reviews for albums that I've known my entire life and loved just as long. I've written reviews for music from the most despicable charlatans and the most craven fascists. I've written in sickness and in health. Nothing is going to stop me from doing something with an album. It's unavoidable at this point. And I'm certainly not going to avoid an album just because it's a piece of shit record made with AI-assisted lyrics and a public-domain trap beat and edible Elmer's glue.
TIP #2: Escape
But it's not like I'm stuck with this album forever. It's just one week. I'm currently writing this on Monday morning, having greatly accelerated my typical weekly pace, just so I can get this the fuck over with and get the album out of my system. There's only one way to get rid of a kidney stone; you gotta pee it out, no matter how much it hurts.
I understand that maybe I'm not giving JVKE the benefit of the doubt that I would give many other artists that pass through these hallowed blogging halls. Like maybe for other albums, I'd give it till Wednesday night to see if anything reveals itself as worthy of attention or affection. But other times, you can just fucking tell, man. I packed in 20 listens in like three days, and I'm putting Pam's new blood pressure machine to good use. I know right now it's either fight or flight. I'm flighting. Fuck this shit. Time for an escape.
TIP #3: Distract
Look, this dude sucks. I know it and you know it. But my therapist says that it's not healthy to live with that for too long. I need to try to, as the saying goes, "look on the bright side." Not that there is much positive to say about the music itself, but I can have my fun with it anyway. There's no need to be so fucking dire all the time, Joe! Fuck, man.
This is why I spent a lot of my week trying to build a case that JVKE is into bestiality.
There's not much in the way of evidence, I'll grant you that. Here's where the idea got in my head, though: on "this is what heartbreak feels like," JVKE claims that "[his] lover was a snake." I'm not a moron, I know that he's using slang for "a person who acts in a deceitful way, underhanded, or backstabbing way." But it's a lot easier for me to be purposefully obtuse and picture JVKE literally having sex with a snake. Like a reptile. I don't know how that would work, biologically speaking, but that's not something for me (a human who, unlike JVKE, is not into bestiality) to worry about.
I just know in my heart of hearts that this guy likes boning cobras and pythons and who knows what else reptilian. Maybe when he tells his lover to "save their breath," he's referring to his sex partner being a certain species of sea turtle that can hold its breath for up to two hours. Maybe when he says "She's got glitter for skin," he's referring to a female Plestiodon fasciatus, or five-lined western skink, which has shiny scales. Maybe we can literally fill in the blank however we want, and one could reasonably say that the official title for this album is this is what having my penis all up in a bearded dragon's guts feels like (Vol. 1-4).
Oh lordy, this was fun. This was a great distraction. I had more fun spending fifteen minutes matching lyrics to random reptile facts in the previous paragraph than I had in ten hours listening to JVKE's shitty album.
TIP #4: Endure
- Feeling this impulse—which at this point is normal and expected, since we've already dealt with our fair share of these broccoli-headed motherfuckers in this stupid ass music club—to punch this bitch in the face, which doesn't make me feel good, this urge to act on violence, that's not who I want to be, and yet the urge remains when I have to listen to yet another TikTok shitstain perform his quote-unquote "craft"
- Holding back instead and getting a stomach ulcer from being so upset at having to subject myself to my least favorite music for hours and hours during the week and then having to process those feelings into words without seemingly like I'm talking shit just to talk shit because it's fun, it's not and I don't like this music and if I can't punch this asshole in the face them I end up stuffing it way, way down and that causes some serious GI concerns
- The urge to repeat basically everything I already said in that Surfaces review from last year, since most of the ground was already covered there
Easy for any sane person. For 99.9% of the population, all you have to do when presented with music that you dislike this intensely is just not listen to it. However, my own personal expectations for Record Club are that I am going to listen to every album that is chosen, and write a review every week, no matter what. I'm written reviews through the births of two children and the loss of a fourth. I've written reviews when alcoholism had its grip on me and when I gathered the strength to loosen that grip. I've written reviews on vacation, and I've written reviews when we were told we can't go anywhere. I've written reviews for albums that I've known my entire life and loved just as long. I've written reviews for music from the most despicable charlatans and the most craven fascists. I've written in sickness and in health. Nothing is going to stop me from doing something with an album. It's unavoidable at this point. And I'm certainly not going to avoid an album just because it's a piece of shit record made with AI-assisted lyrics and a public-domain trap beat and edible Elmer's glue.
TIP #2: Escape
But it's not like I'm stuck with this album forever. It's just one week. I'm currently writing this on Monday morning, having greatly accelerated my typical weekly pace, just so I can get this the fuck over with and get the album out of my system. There's only one way to get rid of a kidney stone; you gotta pee it out, no matter how much it hurts.
I understand that maybe I'm not giving JVKE the benefit of the doubt that I would give many other artists that pass through these hallowed blogging halls. Like maybe for other albums, I'd give it till Wednesday night to see if anything reveals itself as worthy of attention or affection. But other times, you can just fucking tell, man. I packed in 20 listens in like three days, and I'm putting Pam's new blood pressure machine to good use. I know right now it's either fight or flight. I'm flighting. Fuck this shit. Time for an escape.
TIP #3: Distract
Look, this dude sucks. I know it and you know it. But my therapist says that it's not healthy to live with that for too long. I need to try to, as the saying goes, "look on the bright side." Not that there is much positive to say about the music itself, but I can have my fun with it anyway. There's no need to be so fucking dire all the time, Joe! Fuck, man.
This is why I spent a lot of my week trying to build a case that JVKE is into bestiality.
There's not much in the way of evidence, I'll grant you that. Here's where the idea got in my head, though: on "this is what heartbreak feels like," JVKE claims that "[his] lover was a snake." I'm not a moron, I know that he's using slang for "a person who acts in a deceitful way, underhanded, or backstabbing way." But it's a lot easier for me to be purposefully obtuse and picture JVKE literally having sex with a snake. Like a reptile. I don't know how that would work, biologically speaking, but that's not something for me (a human who, unlike JVKE, is not into bestiality) to worry about.
I just know in my heart of hearts that this guy likes boning cobras and pythons and who knows what else reptilian. Maybe when he tells his lover to "save their breath," he's referring to his sex partner being a certain species of sea turtle that can hold its breath for up to two hours. Maybe when he says "She's got glitter for skin," he's referring to a female Plestiodon fasciatus, or five-lined western skink, which has shiny scales. Maybe we can literally fill in the blank however we want, and one could reasonably say that the official title for this album is this is what having my penis all up in a bearded dragon's guts feels like (Vol. 1-4).
Oh lordy, this was fun. This was a great distraction. I had more fun spending fifteen minutes matching lyrics to random reptile facts in the previous paragraph than I had in ten hours listening to JVKE's shitty album.
TIP #4: Endure
There are occasionally scenarios in which you feel an unwanted urge, and there is literally nothing you can do but endure it, and patiently wait till it goes away. It's something you can't avoid, can't escape, and can't block with distractions. For most of my week, JVKE's album was something I just had to endure. And that's okay.
I endured the weird code-switching between Harlow-esque blaccent and Smithian crooning, sometimes in the same song. I endured postmortem zombification of hashtag rap (though "feeling super childish / no #donaldglover" makes me think that this couldn't be an accident). I endured just truly some of the most infantile wordplay I've ever heard ("Stars, talkin' like Mufasa / Know you got some scars," for an example of a truly egregious one). I endured the liberal quoting of two artists who are basically the Boomer version of this same type of white dude I would punch in the face if I ever had the opportunity as a result of their music being so fucking bad (Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley). I endured basic-ass bitch social media mentions ("I thought I had it in me not to check up on your profile / But then I scrolled down / That's when I saw that new boy all up in your comments" is so repulsively cringey that it made me grind my teeth at night). I endured feeling old by having the youngs repeat back my least favorite slang words in the most obnoxious way possible ("I've been vibin' with you heavy" being one of ten thousand examples).
But the worst thing I endured was this instance on JVKE's part that "it's okay to feel." I'm not making this up or reading between the lines, it was literally a note that he put in vinyl copies of this album. I had to endure this puerile fucking child having the gall to tell me that it was okay to feel emotions. Fuck out of here with that shit. It's insulting to me to be told this. Is this a response to something that's going on with his own generation? Are Gen Z kids "afraid to feel emotions"? Maybe. If that's the case, then we can just say "this music isn't for me" and fucking be done with it.
I'm here to tell you, though, that sometimes it's better not to feel. Yes, sure, we need to be honest with ourselves and name and honor any emotions that we feel. But you also have to responsibly deal with your emotions. It's called maturity, being able to process your emotions in healthy ways (as opposed to, say, whining about it on your stupid broccoli haircut TikTok account). I had plenty of unhealthy and dangerous emotions coursing through me as I listened to this album. Terrible urges. And yet, it would not be right for me to feel homicidal urges toward some random TikTok motherfucker and just blow it off like "hur dur hur I hate this asshole to a toxic degree lol i am special." I need to address those emotions, not just feel them. And if they aren't appropriate feelings, i.e. if they are urging me to commit murder that some might even consider justified, then maybe I need to be a mature adult and deal with them by avoiding, or escaping, or distracting, or enduring.
To JVKE: grow the fuck up, bro. Otherwise, enjoy sucking those snake eggs.
I endured the weird code-switching between Harlow-esque blaccent and Smithian crooning, sometimes in the same song. I endured postmortem zombification of hashtag rap (though "feeling super childish / no #donaldglover" makes me think that this couldn't be an accident). I endured just truly some of the most infantile wordplay I've ever heard ("Stars, talkin' like Mufasa / Know you got some scars," for an example of a truly egregious one). I endured the liberal quoting of two artists who are basically the Boomer version of this same type of white dude I would punch in the face if I ever had the opportunity as a result of their music being so fucking bad (Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley). I endured basic-ass bitch social media mentions ("I thought I had it in me not to check up on your profile / But then I scrolled down / That's when I saw that new boy all up in your comments" is so repulsively cringey that it made me grind my teeth at night). I endured feeling old by having the youngs repeat back my least favorite slang words in the most obnoxious way possible ("I've been vibin' with you heavy" being one of ten thousand examples).
But the worst thing I endured was this instance on JVKE's part that "it's okay to feel." I'm not making this up or reading between the lines, it was literally a note that he put in vinyl copies of this album. I had to endure this puerile fucking child having the gall to tell me that it was okay to feel emotions. Fuck out of here with that shit. It's insulting to me to be told this. Is this a response to something that's going on with his own generation? Are Gen Z kids "afraid to feel emotions"? Maybe. If that's the case, then we can just say "this music isn't for me" and fucking be done with it.
I'm here to tell you, though, that sometimes it's better not to feel. Yes, sure, we need to be honest with ourselves and name and honor any emotions that we feel. But you also have to responsibly deal with your emotions. It's called maturity, being able to process your emotions in healthy ways (as opposed to, say, whining about it on your stupid broccoli haircut TikTok account). I had plenty of unhealthy and dangerous emotions coursing through me as I listened to this album. Terrible urges. And yet, it would not be right for me to feel homicidal urges toward some random TikTok motherfucker and just blow it off like "hur dur hur I hate this asshole to a toxic degree lol i am special." I need to address those emotions, not just feel them. And if they aren't appropriate feelings, i.e. if they are urging me to commit murder that some might even consider justified, then maybe I need to be a mature adult and deal with them by avoiding, or escaping, or distracting, or enduring.
To JVKE: grow the fuck up, bro. Otherwise, enjoy sucking those snake eggs.
GRADE: 0.5 pukes out of 5
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