6ix9ine - TattleTales REVIEW

 

    Daniel Hernandez, aka Tekashi69, aka 6ix9ine, used to be my favorite bad rapper. There was no exaggeration when I would say I hated him, and then bumped ‘BILLY’ or ‘GUMMO’ from his first mixtape, Day69: Graduation Day. If you heard him back in those days I am absolutely certain there is no way anyone couldn’t have straight up jammed after hearing “These n----- bleed different, we don’t bleed n----, we make n----- bleed, Blood! TR3YWAY!” That was one of the hardest beat drops of 2018 and if you haven’t heard it yet, Day69 really isn’t that bad of a mixtape.

His second project, DUMMY BOY, was not a big hit with critics, not even breaking over a 40 with Metacritic. I thought it was pretty good, the main issue being that Tekashi barely made an appearance on the album. One of my favorite things on the first mixtape was his in your face, just screaming delivery, and on DUMMY BOY, not only is it barely present, but when he is featured he’s doing a crooning Lil Uzi Vert impression. The best song on DUMMY BOY was it’s lead single ‘Fefe’ featuring Nicki Minaj. Nicki’s verse is far superior to anything 6ix9ine put out on the song. That album and this new one, TattleTales, have something in common: Nicki Minaj’s verse is the best thing on the whole project.

This new album seems to be a celebration of seemingly getting off all of the racketeering charges, leading to lines like, “Got me thinkin' 'bout the things that I did, Got me thinkin' like, "Why the fuck I did that?", Got me wishin' that I could take it all back”, and then later celebrating his crimes with lyrics like, “Now we catch him at the chicken spot, up a couple chops, Pop that n---- with a hundred shots, ra-ta-ta-ta-ta”. Tekashi can’t seem to make up his mind and that’s probably the best assessment of this album: It just can’t make up its mind.

‘LOCKED UP PT. 2’ is the weirdest way you can begin an album, especially a 6ix9ine album. You may be thinking, “Hm, ‘LOCKED UP PT. 1’ must be a song on one of his other albums” but no, ‘LOCKED UP’ is a song by Akon. From 2004. 16 years before this album was released. Given, Akon is featured on this new song by 6ix9ine, but it is far from good. The beat sounds like it’s from an late 2000s Tech N9ne song, with it’s boring piano and high hat melody. I’ve the song this, the autotune sounds oddly pleasant on Tekashi’s voice, but as soon as the chorus comes on and Akon begins his part, I can’t help but wonder why he’s even on this song. When was the last time anyone thought about Akon? If I’m being honest, have I ever thought about Akon? Probably not. Anyways, his autotune does not suit him the same as it suits 6ix9ine.

Truly the defining moment of 2020 was when 6ix9ine said, “If it’s fuck me, then it’s fuck you, yeah, it’s middle finger, fuck you” on the song ‘TUTU’. This just sounds like he was trying his hardest to make a TikTok song, and he succeeded. I guess. I’ll have to consult with my local TikTok expert, Maya Stewart. According to her, “[‘TUTU’ has ] a lot of uses for a sound but I’ve never heard it before, also none of the videos are really popular.. [sic] they’re all just like fan edits and stuff with the song in the background.” Thank you Maya for your wonderful contribution and now I know this song was an utter failure. The lyrics mean nothing, the beat is nothing, onto the next track.

‘GOOBA’ is the best song ever made. This was the first inkling of 6ix9ine heat that we received, recorded while he was still on house arrest and it brings all of the nonsense lyrics and generic beats of his previous albums to a point where it was almost nostalgic. How could you not like a song with the lyrics, “Are you dumb, stupid or dumb, huh? Play me like a dummy, like bitch are you dumb?” or even the classic, “You’re mad. I’m back. Big mad. He’s mad, she’s mad. Big sad haha. Don’t care, stay mad. Ahaha haha.” The song really doesn’t say anything much except have some laughably bad one-liners, the gist is that 6ix9ine is back, and he “Came home to a big bag,” as the last lines of the song say. 

‘WAIT’ has grown on me since I first heard it, but I still can’t say it’s a good song. The beat is, once again, boring and repetitive, something you could find on YouTube for free and put through a .mp3 converter. I liked one line in this song, “shout out my lawyer, Lance” this line just comes out of nowhere and absolutely kills. Don’t listen to this song, unless you want to hear 6ix9ine lose any of the personality he gained on his first two albums.

I have no idea who SMILEZ is, I looked him up and still didn’t know who he was, but he still came through with a better performance than Tekashi on the song ‘CHARLIE’. The funniest thing about this song is the Ray Charles line, and that’s mostly the shock of it when I heard the song for the first time. SMILEZ has a good flow and a few good lines, and 6ix9ine is back to screaming his vocals, but it just doesn’t have the same power it used to. Maybe if the beat was a bit darker I would consider this a good song, but for now it’s a lighthearted SMILEZ song with a Tekashi 6ix9ine feature.

There is a similarity of this album and 6ix9ine’s previous outing, Nicki Minaj’s verse is the best thing. Of course she has some cringy lines like “Always on my page, never double tap like me,” or “My flow’s still sick, I ain’t talkin’ a pandemic,” very topical Nicki, thank you for reminding us. But still, these are nowhere near as bad as 6ix9ine’s own verse, where he says “Vroom vroom, G5, vroom vroom, we high,” The beat is the best on the album and the hook (performed by CanonF8) is pretty catchy. The song is called ‘TROLLZ’ but that really doesn’t matter.

‘NINI’ has Tekashi attempt Latin Dancehall. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert in the genre, but either he horribly failed, or this is a bad genre that no one should ever attempt. This is what 6ix9ine does to people, he completely turns them away from styles of music just because he mutilated it once, it’s the same reason people don’t like ‘BEBE’ or ‘MALA’ from DUMMY BOY, he tried out a new genre and messed it up. This track shouldn’t have made the album.

As much as I hate the chorus of ‘PUNANI’, I can’t pretend I don’t like the song. The chorus is horrible and boring and nothing, but the beat, the verses, the energy that 6ix9ine brings to the rest of this song is amazing. Going into it, the song is about him wanting to have sex with women, very simple, but halfway through he starts going off about how strong he is and how he stops kids from getting bullied, and then, of course, how stupid he is. It’s fun, and the only song I can really recommend from this album.

Tú 'tá dura, manina, nini, yaya Dame tequila, no quiero vaina' Baila, le subo la mini, yaya Tráeme bebida, no quiero agua Quiero manina, nini, yaya (Yaya, yaya) Dame tequila, no quiero vaina' (Yaya, yaya) Baila, le subo la mini, yaya Tráeme bebida, no quiero agua. Tekashi once again attempts Latin pop, making this his third Spanish-speaking track in his discography. Will I be translating the lyrics? No. This song does not sound good, and I can only imagine that it’s worse if you know what he’s saying.

Akon makes another wonderful appearance on this nearly perfect record, saying how he wants a girl (most likely ‘LEAH’, as the song’s title suggests) when he “pours patrón in his cup” and how she looks “better with her clothes off”. Akon once again does a lackluster job, but when 6ix9ine pops in with a whiny singing voice talking about ecstasy and sex, you only wish Akon will come back and save the song. The next verses are just alternations of the chorus, because we’re so glad that 6ix9ine decided to mix henny with the ecstasy, riveting songwriting. I wish I could say this was the worst track, but that’s coming up.

‘GATA’ brings back the Ray Charles the reference. Two Ray Charles references in one 31-minute album, shows how good 6ix9ine is at writing his music. Speaking of reusing old bars, 6ix9ine says the line, “Oh my god, she can’t pay her rent, on the ‘Gram she a fraud,” with the same exact flow as the line “Oh my god, she Instagram famous but she can’t keep a job,” sung by Kanye West on the song ‘MAMA’, from 6ix9ine’s previous album DUMMY BOY. I can’t pretend I don’t like the song though, because he does have the line, “Are you dumb? Are you really fuckin’ stupid? The J-Train is right over there,” of course referencing one of my many nicknames, J-Train. Lil AK is also on this song and he says something about throwing semen. Forgettable track.

Here’s the worst track: ‘GTL’. 6ix9ine seems to have either recorded this track while in prison, actually using vocals recorded over a collect call to his producer and rapping about how he was stabbed in the back by his fellow gang members of the Nine Trey Gangsters. The main problems with this song come with how it is recorded, his once again whiny singing voice, and his repetitive lyrics. The best parts of this track are that his voice does sound genuine with emotion, which is new for Tekashi, and the fact that it ends in the middle of the chorus because he ran out of time on the call.

‘AVA’ is the final track and I’m so happy it’s over. If you heard ‘FEFE’ from DUMMY BOY, you heard the better version of this song. It is unlikable and bland and boring and interesting and perfectly encapsulates the majority of this album.

While under normal circumstances, I would give this album a 3/10, but I have to do my civic duty and make my final assessment of this album the correct way. This album cannot be a 3/10, which is why I must, I have to, it is my obligation to give this, TattleTales by Tekashi 6ix9ine, a 6/9.

Weezer - Pinkerton REVIEW

 

            After Weezer’s self-titled debut in 1994 (Now known as The Blue Album), the band took a break from touring for the holidays. During this time Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer and frontman of the group, began writing Songs from the Black Hole, an unfinished rock opera. Giving up on the project, Cuomo applied to Harvard University to study Classical Composition, only to drop out a year before graduation. Feeling isolated from the world inspired him to write what I consider to be Weezer’s Magnum Opus, Pinkerton. 

An album featuring themes of loneliness, sexual frustration, relationships and the loss of identity that comes with being a rockstar, Pinkerton is able to create a much darker and abrasive sound than their debut just two years earlier. With only ten tracks and roughly 35 minutes long, this album does more than nearly every Weezer LP that came afterwards.

While writing the album, Rivers became obsessed with the opera Madame Butterfly, about an American soldier named Pinkerton (We see where the album title came from) who has moved to Japan to live with his new wife, Butterfly. Pinkerton leaves Japan for many years while Butterfly (Who’s real name is Cio-Cio-San) gives birth to his child and waits for his return. Pinkerton eventually comes back with a new American wife and Butterfly kills herself. Along with adapting the name Pinkerton for his album, Rivers also took many of the themes from the show.

I would consider this record to be an example of a musical cult classic. With this album receiving mixed to negative reviews by critics and backlash from fans of their first album, it’s surprising how many view this as one of, if not Weezer’s best album to date. Many factors played into why fans didn’t enjoy this album upon release, like the band’s choice to self-produce, making the album sound much rawer and abrasive than their previous album, to create a sense that it was performed live. With The Blue Album being basically an overnight success, fans assumed they would keep going in that album’s direction, only to speed the opposite way and remove the surf rock and optimism that defined it, even in Blue’s darker moments. Another reason this album was hit with criticism was for Rivers’ extremely personal lyrics, often depressing and sex-obsessed. 

What this album has brought in recent years, to the admiration of current-day fans, is the searingly honest lyricism and vocals that Rivers was able to give on the album, as well as the almost distorted guitar work from Brian Bell. It also can’t go without saying Matt Sharp’s bass sounds beautiful on some songs and haunting on others, and Patrick Wilson’s drums are top notch on every single song.

The cover art of the record is also pretty stellar, adapting the woodcut print Night Snow at Kambara by Utagawa Hiroshige from his series “53 Stations of the Tōkaidō”, adding to the overtly Japanese inspiration and references found on the album.

The very first track has its title fairly bold and anyone can figure out what it means, ‘Tired of Sex’. Starting off with nearly 10 seconds of feedback coming from a guitar, the album immediately sets it’s mood. This is gonna be heavy, this is gonna be brash, this is gonna be great. The song is about Rivers being tired of the rockstar lifestyle, mostly the sex that comes with it. During the verses he sings about losing his identity among his fans by being ‘Spread so thin’, while during the chorus he laments about having a new girl every night, wishing to one day ‘Make love come true’. Rivers wrote an essay at Harvard in a similar vein to this song, believing the only way he could get out of the lifestyle was to get married, which he did (Ten years after the release of the album but still). The vocals on this song are so strained and rough that you can’t help but feel bad for Rivers, who really did not enjoy his time while touring, and the breakdown at the end of the track where he is begging on his knees that someone free him from it all, mixed with the absolutely brutal guitar solo before it, makes this easily one of the best album openers in Weezer’s discography.

‘Getchoo’ is about confessing your love to someone. Specifically Jonas (The main character of the perceived Songs from the Black Hole, and possibly connected to the character from ‘My Name is Jonas’ on their previous record) confessing his love to a girl. Pretty simple stuff musically on this track, it’s a bit faster paced than the last song but I simply don’t think it’s as good. It’s still a good song, don’t get me wrong, I’m just not going to come back to it on it’s own as often as some other tracks on here. In the lyrics, it seems that the character and this girl were friends for a long time, only for the character to develop feelings and confess them to her. This leads to some tension in their friendship and in the breakdown it’s revealed that the main character might has been in this situation before, “I can’t believe what you’ve done to me, What I did to them, You’ve done to me”. This could play into a common problem with those with relationship problems, the idea that anyone who shows you any affection is in love with you, meaning that anytime this character is even friends with someone, he develops romantic feelings. The end of the song has the repeated phrase ‘This is beginning to hurt” sung by Brian Bell and Matt Sharp, implying that the character may give up altogether with trying to find love.

‘No Other One’ starts with a scream. I love screaming in music, especially songs where you don’t expect it. While listening to a nice metal track there’s probably gonna be a scream of two, but listening to an alt-rock song about loneliness, you don’t expect it. The song features the narrator in a ‘toxic’ relationship with a drug-addicted girlfriend. He doesn’t want to leave this relationship because he is afraid that if he does break up with her, he will be alone again. That’s why he believes there is ‘No Other One’ for him. It is revealed in the second verse that she is also afraid of loneliness, and that’s the only reason she is still with him, so it can be inferred that the narrator also has some issues, most likely not with hard drugs, as the ones she does “Scare me real bad”. Rivers sings much softer on this song than the previous ones, explaining through why he chooses to stay in the relationship, while in the choruses he raises the pitch a little bit, and has an almost ballad-like cadence to say that they are the only ones right for each other.

The beginning of the next track, ‘Why Bother?’ reminds me of the groove from ‘Low Rider’ by War, which I’m sure many of us know for being the theme song of the George Lopez TV show. Nothing else in the song shares similarities, unless ‘Low Rider’ is secretly a song about the fear of rejection. Rivers sings/screams in this song about how he wants to find love, but in most situations he decides against it because he’d “rather keep whackin’”. In one verse he even contemplates having a lasting relationship, only to bring up the fact that she would probably break his heart whenever summer arrived. The title seems pretty obvious, why bother with finding love when in the end he’s just gonna be hurt, and he knows this because it’s apparently happened to him “twice before” and that “it won’t happen to me anymore”. Rivers has given up, he has tried and tried again at love and he has reached the end, showing even more context for the loneliness he felt while at Harvard.

Up next is probably the creepiest song Weezer has ever made, ‘Across the Sea’. A bit of background for it, During his summer at Harvard, Rivers received many letters of praise for The Blue Album, one in particular being from a young Japanese girl. It’s a pretty well-known piece of trivia that Rivers Cuomo has a fetish for Asian girls, and apparently just getting a letter from a Japanese girl turned him on. While in real life he’s not sure what the girl’s age is, he says in the song that she’s eighteen to make it a little less creepy. In the song he begins obsessing over this letter he received, wondering what kind of clothes the girl wears to school, how she decorates her room, and of course, how she masturbates while thinking of him. Rivers is mad at the girl and himself for being so far ‘Across the Sea’. After singing about this girl, he makes the song a bit more broad, talking about all of the letters he has received and how he can’t live and thrive off of just the fans, how he needs actual emotional connection with people. Throughout the song Rivers says how the only thing that connects himself to his fans is his music. As strange as it is to listen to the lyrics of this song, it’s pretty damn catchy and one of the best songs in Weezer’s entire discography.

‘The Good Life’ is the funniest song on Pinkerton. Starting off with Matt Sharp saying “Yeah, check me” in the suavest voice he can is pretty good, but when Rivers starts singing about looking in his mirror and not believing how much of a “funky dude” he is, it just sounds like he’s hyping himself up. Although getting into the chorus it becomes apparent that the song is about his leg surgery he had while at Harvard, forcing him to have to walk around with a cane, comparing himself to an old man. Rivers wants to go back to his old life, making songs, touring, having promiscuous sex, going against what he’s said in previous tracks about how he no longer wants to lead that life, but he can only blame himself for being in that situation. Back to the funny stuff, he compares himself to pigs and dogs, “so ‘scuse me if I drool”, going into how he just has to admit he does want the rock ‘n roll lifestyle again, and he should stop denying that it is his life now. I didn’t say that the song was very funny, just that it was the funniest on the record.

Another very good song coming up next, ‘El Scorcho’. No idea what the name means, but I just assume it goes with the word salad, have fun and let loose approach to the song. While the song is still about relationships, this one has a much more positive ending, with Rivers seemingly getting into a good one with a half-Japanese girl (obviously). The vocals on this song fluctuate, some parts of the song are whispered, while others are screamed at the top of his lungs. I say the song has word salad lyrics because things are just thrown out “I’m jello, baby”, “Watching Grunge leg drop New Jack through a press table”, “I’ll bring home the turkey if you bring home the bacon”. The lyrics also reference that the girl of Rivers’ fancy is listening to music by Cio-Cio San, going right back to Madame Butterfly and the title of the album. The guitar work during the verses is also very twangy, as if it were a bluegrass song. This song is a lot of fun to sing along to, but I’m not sure if it fits with the rest of the albums more serious themes. Not that I don’t love the song, it’s just a weird pick to throw on.

“Pink Triangle” may not have aged very well with modern audiences. Rivers has found himself and a slump and wants to find love. He has seemingly found a girl to fall in love with, but is stopped in his tracks by a certain marking on her sleeve. A certain triangle shaped symbol. A certain Pink Triangle. A certain Pink Triangle that denoted the homosexuals during the holocaust. Rivers has fallen in love with a lesbian, not great on his part. Of course, the pink triangle has been reclaimed by the LGBT community but we cannot shy away from the fact that it originally emerged in concentration camps. Rivers wonders if this girl is actually a lesbian or just a supporter of the cause, but eventually his nerves crack him and he doesn’t even bother asking her, just assumes that yep, she’s into girls and will never be into him. While, in real life, the girl really was just a supporter, the dude didn’t even bother inquiring about the symbol in a non-romantic and non-sleazy way, just went away sad about it. In the song, Rivers pleads with the girl, “Everyone’s a little queer, oh, can’t she be a little straight?” Dang. That’s a hard one to get by man, I wouldn’t go slinging that phrase around my local Old Navy if I’m being completely honest, but I suppose 1996 was a long time ago.

The next track starts off so nice, so calm, until a quick guitar pops in and destroys that serene. “Falling For You” follows Rivers as he finds a girl (again) that he thinks is a suitable mate. He starts out freaking out over how he found the perfect one, except for the fact that she says ‘like’ too much. He then goes on to offer away his rockstar membership in favor of growing old with her by his side. Back in the present, nothing seems to go wrong for this relationship and everything ends happy. Quite a strange ending for this song considered the rest of the album, but a nice bookend to an otherwise sprawling and treacherous landscape of failed relationships and general depression. Except we’re forgetting something aren’t we. We’re forgetting the closing track.

“Butterfly” is the only completely acoustic song on the album, about Rivers as a young boy catching a butterfly, only for it to die the next day and feeling remorse for it. Very simple, right? Let’s not forget the namesake of the album, Madame Butterfly. If you recall, Butterfly was the name of the Japanese woman who kills herself because her husband goes away and finds another woman. So instead of it being a simple song about a butterfly dying, it’s about Butterfly dying. The song is told from Pinkerton’s perspective as he comes home to find Butterfly dead, but could also be from the perspective of Rivers himself. While maybe not actually ‘dying’, the woman Rivers has fallen in love with has ‘withered away’, after being looked at as a ‘pet’, or a ‘fantasy’. I believe the song could have some connections with sexual assault, as during the chorus Rivers sings, “I’m sorry for what I did, I did what my body told me to,” then going onto the second verse when he can still smell her blood on him. The song also has the line “If I’m a dog, then you’re a bitch,” connecting to various times in other songs he calls himself a dog, finally retorting against this insult by throwing out a fun play on words insult. The final words of the track, and the album, are “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” Pretty sad for an alt-rock record.

Pinkerton has exceeded everything Weezer made previously and everything they created afterwards. While it’s influences can be found in later albums, none of them come close to the beautiful hodgepodge that defined the album in the first place. I can see why many critics and audiences panned this album upon release, but there is no doubt in my mind that this album will stand the test of time and always be considered one of Weezer’s best, that’s why I’m giving this one a 10/10.