Horizons, Joe

Goddamn it.

Look, I really do think it's okay to be unrelenting in your criticism of an album that you dislike. Even though I do my fair share of equivocating, I don't think it's necessary. If you think an album sucks, then saying it sucks can be cathartic in its own fucked up way, and I encourage catharsis in the art of Reviewing Albums.

A common equivocation is that this artist is a HUMAN BEING and thus it would be MEAN if you shit on something that they obviously worked really hard on and are proud of. I believe in this too—that you should be kind in life, and avoid being mean when you can—and so you can see how complicated it gets when your ears are receiving a piece of art that you fucking despise, and yet you need to stop and contemplate how an evisceration of that art is going to affect the artist. Maybe not literally, since there is a close-to-zero-percent chance that the two young men who make up Surfaces are ever going to be aware of Record Club's existence, but maybe in a metaphysical sense—how are these viscous remarks going to ripple out into the universe, and what is the cost?

I mean, this is just another way of saying that separating the art from the artist is impossible. If you think that saying the music is shit but you're worried about the person who made that music, then you're not separating. And maybe you shouldn't! My own personal opinion has recently been that I separate the art from the artist only when I perceive the artist to be "good," and conversely find that the separation is impossible when I perceive the artist to be "bad" (with these descriptors in quotes to indicate that they are my own personal descriptors, and I don't believe that I should impose these descriptions on anyone else's opinions). E.g. I can no longer stomach Funeral because Win Butler is an abuser, so that's me not being able to separate art from artist. And e.g. I think that Dolly Parton is a swell person, and so I consciously choose to separate the art from the artist; in other words, my opinion of Parton as a person cannot have anything to do with how I enjoy (or don't enjoy) her music.

But Surfaces fits into neither of these categories very neatly, mainly because I don't know them. I don't know anything about them. I have no idea whether I would consider them "good" or "bad" based on my own personal guidelines regarding such measures, because I don't have enough evidence. Oh, sure, I can project. I do that all the time. Say what's up to Jack Harlow, the last young white dude with shitty music we reviewed. I don't know this dude, but I hate him, because I am projecting. If I hate music from a black man, or from a white woman, or from a black woman, or a trans woman, or whoever, then I'm going to equivocate, because there's a sense that I don't really know the experiences that went into creating this music. With a white man, I pull no punches, because I see myself. The act of lashing out is one of self-loathing. I don't know Surfaces, but I know who they are, and I hate them.

So am I separating the art from the artist, or what? I really don't think I can here. I know the artist on some level, and my feelings about the artist are going to inform what I think about their music. Please look to Cautious Clay if you need this point underlined at all. I hear in Horizons the very same artless, soulless, acutely generic, algorithm-born trash. But in Cautious Clay, I was, um, cautious with my dismissal. I was careful to note my assumptions that Cautious Clay was just some dude trying to make it in this crazy, fucked up world, and so what if his music isn't to my tastes, I still wished him the best, etc., etc. With Surfaces, my knee-jerk reaction is to drop a lot of f-bombs and to use hyperbolic language in calling this something akin to "the worst album I've ever heard in my life." Why? Why the difference?

Race has something to do with it, maybe. Focusing on race would lead to a discussion about privilege, and I wouldn't say that is wrong, but I also kind of went hard on that when we listened to Sophistafunk last year. And also, I think the issue here is broader than race. It's not just that these are two white people, and it's not just that these are two white males, and it's not just that these are two white cisgender heterosexual males, it's that I perceive these two musicians as human beings who were born on at least second base, if not third, and that they are young, and that they are college-educated, and that they do a lot of work to portray themselves as two young, cool, hip dudes who spend their days chillin' by the pool and talking to the ladies. I hate it. I mean, these assholes apparently had the time and the means to just up and move to fucking Malibu to record an album in a beachside house. Fuck these assholes. I offer no sympathy for this type of person when the art they make stinks like pigshit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling this way, either. I try to practice empathy for my fellow human beings, but that practice really only comes into play when I am referring to people who are in some way different from me on a surface level. When I take the time to equivocate during a review in which I mostly dislike an album from Marren Morris, that's me attempting empathy—how can Morris's very different experience than mine (gender, upbringing) then inform my understanding and appreciation of the album? But with Surfaces, there's no room for empathy. I know what it's like to be a privileged white asshole from some college who likes spending his summer days by the pool. There's nothing to empathize with, because there's no divide to cross.

Maybe all this is one big equivocation too. I don't know. I'll let you decide that. It's possible that this paragraphs-long treatise about empathy and privilege and art/artist separation and self-hatred is just one big defense mechanism, or avoidance tactic, or something. I do have a lot to do this week, with the homework piling up and the impossible task of being able to complete it all while my wife plays the part of superhero and takes care of the kids while in constant 24/7 pain, and so comes 1) the guilt that I'm also spending an hour of that time writing a stupid goddamn album review, and 2) the anger and frustration that I have to spend multiple hours listening to an album that I fucking despise. Like, maybe I can put the guilt and anger to bed if I just spend all my time talking about "the process" instead of the details of "the opinion." I'd be avoiding what the people REALLY came here for: WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ALBUM, JOE?!

It's fucking trash, and I'll tell you why. It's the vocals. That's the big thing. This dude is singing like every other pop-chart-chasing white asshole who has ever attempted to sound "soulful." I can't even explain it in words, but you know exactly what I'm talking about it. Random example that is sung while I'm typing these words: the line is "I've been thinking 'bout you, and the things that you do," and in this douchebag's mouth, it becomes "I been tinkin 'bout chyew, and the tings tat chyew dyew."

If you want a comparison, then go back and listen to Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography, which Record Club listened to a couple years ago, and for which I had the same exact problem. If only an Ashlee-Simpson-esque fate would befall upon Surfaces. No way any of these assholes talk this way, it's just the way they effect their voices because... I dunno, that's what pop stars do for some fucking reason? I know that I'm not going to be the only dude to invoke the name of this artist this week, but: Surfaces' vocals are pretty clearly inspired by Adam Levine's vocals in Maroon 5 (post-2010ish, if you want to be extremely generous to Maroon 5).

The other problem is that there is nothing to note in terms of things that I "like." This is subjective, and I acknowledge that, because if I were being objective instead, then I'd say something like "But it is catchy." And sure! Why not! Horizons is occasionally catchy in the most objective way. When I'm being subjective, though, I'm saying that "catchy" should be the baseline, and to reach that baseline is simply not enough. It's not enough because AI have the ability to make "catchy" music now. Literal goddamn computers. Surfaces is doing something that an algorithm can do, without having to worry about whether it's in Malibu while it's making it. To be not catchy is actually more interesting at this point. Catchiness is boring if that's all you're doing. Catchiness is grating if the only other thing you're doing is singing like Adam Levine's fuckhead nephew.

None of this feels very good, by the way. I hope you know that. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm having a goddamn blast over here, getting my rocks off by saying that I am listening to an album that sounds like a war crime. I'm not. I'm miserable. I don't like doing this. I hate listening to the truly bad music, and I hate writing about it. And I also hate how this is going to make me seem, like in a metatextual way—why is he unable to find joy, why does he feel the need to write so many grouchy opinions on a public blog, why can't he use this week's album-listening exercise as it was intended, as a precursor to what promises to be a really fun weekend honoring a really good friend, and if he hates the album why can't he just write a few words about it and let it be, and so on and so on ad infinitum.

Lamson—who more or less chose this album, even though I also found it funny to attach other friends' names to the list anyway—sent me a text on Sunday, joking that he was inviting "two of his friends" to the bachelor party this weekend, and he included a picture of these "two friends," that picture being a picture of the two guys from Surfaces. It was a good joke. I laughed. I also think that this can possibly be the one saving grace from this week, and from my experiences with Horizons throughout the last six days or so. I hate the album, and I will never listen to it again unironically for the rest of my life. But I can also find some small semblance of appreciation in the fact that there wasn't a total absence of joy in my week due to Surfaces. I just told you that I had at least one laugh. There's a very significant chance that Lamson is going to blast this shit this weekend when he comes into town and we start the festivities, and I'm going to laugh then too. And I'm going to bust Stephan's balls about it, whether his review is positive or negative (the former by interrogating him as to whether he was just being nice, the latter by never letting him forget that his name is forever attached to Surfaces now). I'm going to be happy, not because of the music, but because of the small bond that was forged over its rotting corpse.

That probably goes for all Record Club albums, whether everyone liked it or disliked it or a little of both. At the end of the week, there is documented proof that there were multiple people who shared the same experience that week. There's a kinship in that phenomenon, and, in my (admittedly biased) opinion, that makes this whole fucking ordeal worth it, even during those weeks when the music is shit. That's probably why there will most likely never be a Record Club album that earns a true 0/5 pukes from me, since I cannot discount the fact that I can find a morsel of hope in the process itself, no matter what the music looks like. I cannot in full faith say that Horizons is 0 pukes, because I will honestly never forget Horizons, and the circumstances under which I subjected myself to it. And that's pretty cool, the more I think about it.

But that's just me talking about the process again. As far as the album itself goes: utterly terrible, don't listen to it, it sucks ass, etc.

GRADE: 0.5 pukes out of 5

Late Thursday night edit: The true bummer here is that I tortured myself unnecessarily this week. The bachelor party has been cancelled. Surfaces! You lied to me! This is not chill party music anymore! This now sit-at-home-and-be-miserable music! This is I-still-have-$400-worth-of-BBQ-food-I-couldn't-get-a-refund-on music! This is Lamson-had-flight-insurance-thank-goodness music! This is god-hates-me-and-never-wants-me-to-go-to-another-bachelor-party-again music! Goddamn it!! No!!!!!