Surprise: 6 songs that made the Alternative Airplay year-end list, plus one from the year before, made the Billboard year-end list this year. Does this mean rock is back?

Well, I will start by saying that, no, I do not think that rock is back. The songs I am going over today are the biggest rock and alternative songs of the year, and many of them are still not popular enough to be considered true hits. Especially when you go over to the Mainstream Rock side of the charts, these songs are struggling, only getting attention because of ever-declining terrestrial radio stations and Sirius XM. Take a look at “Adrenaline” by Zero 9:36, the third biggest song of the year on the Mainstream Rock chart. It has accumulated… 12.5 million streams on Spotify. In an age where rappers drop album bombs with all their songs approaching 100 million streams almost instantly, that’s nothing. Or let’s take a look at another example: this year Chevelle released their album Niratias, from which two songs, “Self Destructor” and “Mars Simula,” reached the top 20 of the year-end chart. Both songs currently feature less than 10 million plays on Spotify. But the bigger problem here is not the number of streams the songs that made the year-end lists are accumulating. The problem is which songs made the cut.

In the last entry, I went over “Mood” by 24kGoldn, which by measure is the biggest rock and alternative song of the year, with the highest ranking on the year-end charts. And the second-biggest alternative song of the year… “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, which made my dishonorable mentions. There will be more examples I will go over later on the list, due to alternative singles’s downturn in 2021. But before we get to that… we need to go over Machine Gun Kelly.

Machine Gun Kelly is a musician from Cleveland who started off as a rapper, scoring a hit with “Bad Things,” a song that was pretty bad because of its mis-used sample of “Out Of My Head” by Fastball. After two top 20 songs over four albums as a rapper, as well as a highly-publicized feud with Eminem, MGK decided to trade his bars for a guitar and switched to pop punk on his fifth album, 2020’s Welcome To My Downfall. And reception to his switch has been… mixed. He is arguably more popular now than he was as a rapper, and has now provided an avenue for rock to cross over to the mainstream. The problem is that he WON’T KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.

In late 2020, in an interview for Spotify’s Rock This podcast, MGK decided to slam established rock acts for failing to understand what it meant to be a rock star. Not for their music, mind you, but because they wore comfortable shoes. “I did Warped Tour and these [people] would wear comfortable shoes onstage every day. F**k your f**king New Balances comfy shoes because it makes you feel comfortable”: but a sampling of MGK’s rant for the good of rock & roll. As someone whose favorite band as a teenager was a band of geeks who had more time for Dungeons & Dragons and playing hackeysack than they did for controversial statements, not to mention someone who has several favorite bands consisting of preps who met in art school, this statement is absolute garbage. It is also garbage since, as a fact about myself, I happen to wear New Balance shoes. I buy them every time I buy shoes because I don’t know what else I would buy when I go to the shoe store. So screw you, MGK, I can wear whatever the heck I want.

And Machine Gun Kelly didn’t stop there. In September, MGK performed at Riot Fest in Chicago, where he decided to take on someone his own size: Corey Taylor. Oh, I don’t think this is going to go well. Allegedly after Taylor turned down a guest appearance on his album Tickets To My Downfall, MGK announced while on stage, ““Hey, you wanna know what I’m really happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a f**king weird mask on a f**king stage.” He then went on social media and called him “bitter,” while adding his take that his verse was “terrible.” Understandably, rock music fans were not thrilled. And neither am I. With his bands Slipknot and Stone Sour, Taylor made “Wait And Bleed,” “Left Behind,” “Duality,” “Psychosocial,” and “Gone Soverign/Absolute Zero.” Don’t give me this criticism when you have yet to make a track on the level of those singles, MGK. It all led up to MGK being booed at Louder Than Life one week later.

It would be one thing if MGK was dissing other rock stars, with his outlandish remarks not affecting his music. To avoid bringing up Oasis for the 5,000th time, Morrissey is a raving lunatic who just so happens to be one of the greatest vocalists of his generation. But when you’re releasing songs like this, there is no argument. MGK is over his head.

“Love Race” – Machine Gun Kelly feat. Kellin Quinn

Pop
#102 peak

Alternative
#13 peak (July 10-17, 2021)
#48 year-end, 16 weeks on chart

Going back to my dishonorable mentions, I really wanted to put “My Ex’s Best Friend” here. It was the second-biggest song on the Alternative charts this year. It was one of four Alternative songs on the Billboard year-end list to make the top 25 songs. And it was a waste of my time. The trap and hip hop elements added to the track were about as fitting as an elephant wearing tap shoes. But there was one big reason I couldn’t put “My Ex’s Best Friend” on the main list and had to post “Love Race” instead. Machine Gun Kelly, the guy who is saving rock music from the awfulness of Corey Taylor and shoes, is so much worse on “Love Race” than he is on the former track.

Since crossing over to rock and alternative, MGK has gotten trashed pretty heavily for practically aping the sound of Blink-182 and claiming it as his own, rather than coming up with his own style. And, well… I don’t disagree. Similar instrumentation, similar lyrical themes, and most importantly, hiring Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker as his producer. His lead single from Tickets To My Downfall, last year’s “Bloody Valentine,” was practically a Blink-182 song, recorded in 2000 and shelved for 20 years with MGK’s vocals replacing Tom Delonge’s. And yet, looking back on it… it was his best single from the album. The song, while derivative, was well-produced with Barker providing a strong drumming performance. It was more cohesive than “My Ex’s Best Friend,” and far stronger lyrically than the song we have at hand today, “Love Race.”

The song begins with a problem I don’t want to admit, but as a music critic, I have to. I’ve been quite frank on previous posts about the fact that I cannot sing. In fact, I don’t sing, at least not in public. My singing is limited to humming to songs I know when I’m alone, and my vocals are absolute crap. I have no vocal range. I struggle to hit the high notes on “Champagne Supernova,” which are not terribly high. When I look at vocals, I am looking more at how the singer’s vocals fit the song, rather than how well they can sing. Well, when I heard “Love Race,” one point is obvious. MGK cannot sing. It is so obvious he is struggling to sing this song because whenever he sings a single line, he breathes deeply. Adding to that, his vocals are a harsh match for the bright pop-punk sound this song is going for. Writing this made me feel bad as a non-singer myself, so as a writer, let’s go over something that does make me angry: lyric writing.

I hate every line in this first verse. Let’s play rapid fire.

I found a silver ring and put it on my finger
I picked up my guitar and played it for the Reaper
God was a girl, the devil wore a T-shirt
Love is a game and they were kissing in the bleachers

Well, I don’t hate the first line. So let’s start from the second line. My big problem with this verse is that this is not the vision of someone who is a rock star. It is filled with cliches about what it would be like to be a rock star. MGK is mentioning a guitar because… it is the most obvious instrument associated with rock. It’s not creative, it’s basic. The part about playing it for the reaper sounds like a desperate attempt to make it a dark song by adding imagery. Compare this to the most famous reaper song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. That song’s reaper reference works because it provides an avenue for multiple interpretations. It’s been used as a reference for suicide, but the band has defended it as a song about eternal love. Both avenues work. But MGK only brought up the reaper to be dark and edgy.

Next up: “God was a girl.” Uuuugggghhhh. This is intended to be shocking, or controversial. It isn’t controversial. Heck, just three years ago, Ariana Grande released “God Is A Woman.” It’s been done. And finally, all the “love is a game and they were kissing in the bleachers” brings to mind is the stereotypical depiction of high school. You know, the version that’s depicted in the movies, where everyone has a girlfriend, everyone lives in a house in an idyllic neighborhood, and everything comes down to the school dance, which is NOT WHAT HAPPENS IN HIGH SCHOOL? Sigh.

The reason “Love Race” is here and not “My Ex’s Best Friend” is because of the performance of Machine Gun Kelly himself, rather than the other musicians around here. While I didn’t like “My Ex’s Best Friend,” MGK really wasn’t that bad on the track. His guitar work stood out more on the verse where he sang, and his vocals fit the track better than they do on “Love Race.” The shame about “Love Race” is that honestly, the parts performed by other artists are pretty good. Not mind-blowing, mind you, but effective. “Love Race” is, in essence, the 2021 equivalent of Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now,” a song where Busta Rhymes’s wicked guest verse failed to hide the fact that it was Chris Brown rapping about his happy place, backed by a tuneless beat.

Kellin Quinn is the frontman of Sleeping With Sirens, a post-hardcore band from Orlando that I am largely unfamiliar with. I have to admit, his vocals here are not bad. He at least adds way more impact to the song than MGK does, clearly outshining him during the duet parts. His screams also add some desperately-needed force to the track. Additionally, Barker puts out another good drumming performance, though I think he may have been a little too proud of his drum work this time out, as his drums are too loud in the mix and easily cover up MGK’s guitar. But maybe that’s because his drums, not MGK’s guitar, is the engine this song runs on. Even in the “na-da-da-da” intro, MGK’s slurred vocals easily cover up the guitar. The guitar is a non-presence on the track.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Machine Gun Kelly on this song. But then I remember, there are others who do this style of music better. I’m not the biggest fan of Blink-182 (I only know their hits), but I don’t see why you’d put this over “What’s My Age Again?” or especially “Adam’s Song.” On those songs, the lyrical content is funnier and more engaging, and there are more instrumental elements that stand out than Barker’s drums. Additionally, even other, newer artists, while not great, have done this better. Take Jxdn, who had two songs on the lower end of the Alternative chart this year, “Angels & Demons,” and “La Di Die” with Nessa Barrett. Yes, Jxdn’s songs are filled with cliches too, about being a rock star and doing typical rock star things. But after listening to both songs multiple times, he does seem to be trying to write about his own perspective in relation to these cliches. His songs aren’t great, but they have potential. And finally if you think I’m being too hard on MGK, look at KennyHoopla, another pop punk artist from Cleveland who isn’t a very good singer and who uses Travis Barker as his drummer. Same limitations, but his songs like “How Will I Rest In Peace If I’m Buried By A Highway?” and “Hollywood Sucks” are fun, because there is a lot more energy and more involved guitar work. Compare “Hollywood sucks, can you please move your Prius” with “God was a girl” and “They were kissing in the bleachers” and it’s no contest.

Since his transition to pop punk, has MGK made a good song? Yes, he has. In 2021 he released “Papercuts,” his lead single to his upcoming album Born With Horns. That song has gotten quite a bit of criticism too, but that song works with me because it has better, more inventive guitar work, and most importantly, Machine Gun Kelly finally sounds like he is coming up with a style of his own and not using Travis Barker as a crutch. Let’s hope Machine Gun Kelly continues moving in this direction, because while his pop punk singles may be popular now, they sound so indebted to past trends of rock and roll that others did better, that it’s only a matter of time before they fade into the wind.

UP NEXT: The most boring entry on this list at #6.

SOURCES

Cingrana, Joe. “Machine Gun Kelly Blasts Rockstars Who Wear Comfortable Kicks: ‘I Hate Your F***ing Shoes.’” Audacy 17 December 2020. Web. 26 December 2021 https://www.audacy.com/music/alternative/machine-gun-kelly-blasts-rockers-who-wear-comfortable-shoes.

Schaffner, Lauryn. “Here’s A Summary Of The Corey Taylor vs. Machine Gun Kelly Feud.” Loudwire 28 September 2021. Web. 27 December 2021 https://loudwire.com/summary-corey-taylor-machine-gun-kelly-feud/.

IMAGE SOURCES

“Love Race” single cover from Wikimedia