No,  it’s not worth a listen. Machine Gun Kelly is one of the biggest jokes in the music industry currently. He managed to develop a fanbase and even release a couple of rap albums before he decided to make a diss track directed towards Eminem (“Rap Devil”) which happens to be his only half-way decent song. It then led to Eminem responding with his own diss track at Kelly with “Killshot”. 

One joke surrounding Kelly is that he jumped genres after Eminem’s diss because his rap career was over after that. Kelly decided to do some pop punk with his first album in this new foray, Tickets To My Downfall. It was during this new era of Kelly that he would get into beef with yet another musician, Corey Taylor of Slipknot. “I hate all new rock for the most part. I [hate] the artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock and I think he knows who he is”, Taylor said during the interview, clearly directed at Kelly.

Later, Kelly would diss Taylor, saying that he would not want to be a 50 year old wearing a weird mask. Kelly got laughed out of one genre and now he had become a target in another genre,as fans of Slipknot would go after Kelly. Despite all this backlash, Kelly stayed in this new genre of his and even developed connections with legends of it. 

Such as Travis Barker, drummer of blink-182, who did most of the drumming on his 2022 album, Mainstream Sellout, which happens to be this week’s album discussion. We have returning senior as well as MGK’s biggest supporter and a well known K-Pop stan, Sebastian Chavez. Also, BabyTron’s biggest fan, senior Cayden Zachrich. Let’s dive into this septic tank that is Mainstream Sellout. 

Mainstream Sellout is original in the sense that it takes the worst aspects of the genre (Pop punk) it labels itself as and then manages to incorporate those aspects in every single song. Whether it’s the scratchy vocals from Kelly that make you want to tear out your eardrums in an extremely painful manner or the obnoxiousness of the lyrics.

I always like to talk about the opening track of an album, so I won’t treat Mainstream Sellout any differently. The album opens with “born with horns” which is Kelly’s attempt to tell everyone that he is such a b****rd. “In this film I know / There’s no happy endings … Alienate me, I’m not the one you want / Like I’m the Devil’s spawn.” Oh my gosh, Kelly is such a bad boy. Obviously, this works as Chavez let me in on, “I actually have a cardboard cutout of him in my room.”

“”Emo girl” was supposed to be the hit or like is the most known song I guess. It was just obnoxious to me,” Zachrich expressed during our discussion. “Emo Girl” was the first song I ever heard from Kelly, the song helped me look back at all my problems in my life all stem from my lack of an emo girl. Thank you Machine Gun Kelly.

“You tell me you’re depressed / Baby-girl, that makes two of us,” some really deep stuff Kelly tells us. He managed to make a worse song than blink-182’s “She’s Out Of Her Mind”. The thing with “Emo Girl” is that it is unbearably forgettable and unoriginal. The instrumental, lyrics, and vocals are all just unbearably generic. This is what haters of pop punk think what the entire genre sounds like.

The problem with his foray in pop punk is that he is making music out of something that is incredibly dated. He is using the same blueprint used for pop punk back in the early 2000s, that in itself is not bad, but the problem with it is that he is not doing anything original with it. Due to the genericness of the songs there is nothing that stands out or makes you remember any of them.

Despite all of this Chavez stands by his bae MGK, “he’s a rock star. He can do whatever he wants. I’m still gonna support it.”

The only song I really found myself remembering was “Drug Dealer” which also had Lil Wayne’s first feature on the album. In my mind I like to think that Kelly’s girlfriend really is a drug dealer and he is ratting on her with this song.  Chavez voiced his thoughts on the song, “100% drug dealer especially because I used to be one.”

That’s the one thing about Kelly, he has a dedicated fanbase surprisingly. There was only one positive thing me and Zachrich could say about the album. The features are really the only listenable parts in this entire album, when Bring Me the Horizon came in on “Maybe” at first I thought it was Kelly trying screaming, which honestly may not be all that bad of a idea but once I saw the artist featured it rose a lot of questions for me.

Zachrich voiced his thoughts on the album as a whole by saying, “If I were to use one word to sum up this album, it would be atrocious. I would give it a zero out of 10 it is bad.” On the other end of the spectrum, Chavez said, “I think the album as a whole is probably one of the greatest albums I’ve ever heard. It’s like a certified 9.5 And I stand by that.”

I would have to say myself, that Mainstream Sellout is one of the worst albums and thankfully due to the music being forgettable I barely remember how it sounds. I just know it is one of the painful experiences I have had listening to music. In the end I would have to give this album a solid, music is defined as being  “vocal or instrumental sounds combined”/10.

As always I’m looking for new music to try out, even if it’s bad I’ll still listen to it so just recommend it to me. This album was a real stinker and if you disagree with me that’s fine, let me know how you can enjoy it.

Here’s a good album that combines rock and rap.