Machine Gun Kelly desperately wants to be a controversial figure in the alternative music scene. His latest album, Mainstream Sellout, forgets about his fans and is directed entirely to the haters, making sure they know he wrote this whole album to prove he doesn’t care what they have to say.
Most of the album, which is produced by blink-182’s Travis Barker, has all the right ingredients for an early 2000’s inspired pop punk album but it just wasn’t prepared quite right. Through all the self-deprecating lyrics, heavy and aggressive instruments, and pop punk vocal styles, the album just felt like it was following a formula of what Kelly thinks pop punk sounds like.
Mainstream Sellout’s self-titled track actually addresses all these criticisms, with the chorus saying “leave the scene you’re ruining it” and making fun of the people that didn’t like his last album, saying he’s not playing guitar, that he’s a “poser,” and other criticisms. The song leads the listener to believe that Kelly’s previous album, Tickets to My Downfall, was so universally hated that he has to address it and make this whole album’s aesthetic about showing the overwhelming amount of haters that he doesn’t care about them. The problem with this approach is that he is challenging haters that mostly didn’t exist when Tickets to My Downfall came out. The album had generally positive reviews from both critics and community members, with alternative sites like Kerrang! welcoming him into the community and well known publications like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork congratulating him on a well made album. The criticism he has gotten since generally comes from the musician’s actions following the 2020 album’s release, like feuding with Slipknot at Riot Fest and making fun of “emo” makeup on his personal Tik Tok account.
The main single, “Emo Girl” featuring Willow Smith was met with questionable reviews. It feels ingenuine, and like Kelly is using the alternative scene as a cash grab at a new audience. The lyrics about “falling in love with an emo girl” are cause for question when looking at Kelly’s real life fiance, Megan Fox, who has been one of Hollywood’s “it girls” for years but not with an alternative aesthetic.
There isn’t much to say about the songs on the album that aren’t addressed to critics or emo girls – they all just feel like a lower quality version of his last album. The songs have the same message, the sound is the same, and features from artists like Bring Me the Horizon, blackbear, Lil Wayne, and more don’t do much to help.
The whole album can be summarized by a line from one single, “Ay!” featuring Lil Wayne, “the only comments I see are the bad ones.” It truly seems like Kelly focused too much on the criticism he had received over the years and not enough on the praise from his fans. While Kelly’s previous venture into pop punk felt like a love letter to the genre and a genuine attempt at a different artistic style, Mainstream Sellout is a whimper of a follow up that has lost any heart his music previously had.
Charlie Carey 