I am very aware that covering this album is essentially pointless, especially considering that it's been months since it was officially released, and the duo have seemed to have slipped out of the public eye. A critically panned album with 'Memories... Do Not Open' probably didn't help that, but overall I was never a huge fan of the group to begin with, and therefore I have no issue with them slipping out of the public consciousness. In fact, I was actually going into this album with a fair bit of hope that some time outside of the spotlight could give the group an opportunity to refine their sound into something more interesting; I was not expecting this to happen, but I am fascinated by the potential of an album like this. I was looking forward to seeing The Chainsmokers pick themselves up after a crazy year in 2016, an album that was not received, and further refine their image, music and songwriting. So, did 'Sick Boy' deliver?
No. Not even the benefit of lowered expectations could save an album that feels limp and underweight instrumentally, and frail and really quite obnoxious and self obsessed at points from being thuddingly mediocre at best, and blindingly offensive at worst. And there is one fundamental issue that runs through the album in its entirety. The album demands that I sympathise with Chainsmokers frontman Andrew Taggart...and I don't. This is coming from the same guy who spent 2016 as on of the most successful artists with a net worth of $45.5 million, pretty much cultivated all in that one year alone, and yet over and over again on this album Taggart demands that I sympathise with him because I could not possibly know the pains of being the centre of attention in the music industry. Ugh.
This isn't just on one song either, it's a crucial thematic component that runs across the entire album. 'Everybody Hates Me' is easily the most direct example which shows the duo mindlessly wallowing in the drama of knowing that everyone hates them when they walk into a club, but 'Sick Boy' might be even worse in its attempts to establish some east coast - west coast conflict in its verses, only to backpedal away from any conflict outside of Taggart's personal struggles that, as I've already established, I have no interest in hearing with lines like 'how many likes is my life worth?'. Yes. This is the level of lyrical intellect we are getting here.
But the worst example by far is 'You Owe Me' in which Taggart spends the chorus downright insulting his audience by insisting that while they might be suffering with mental health issues, whatever they're suffering through could not possibly compare to the pressures that he has to endure within the music industry. In other words, looking down in your audience in the most obnoxious way possible, without anything in the way of self aware commentary that could make it tolerable. The kind of baffling display of incompetent songwriting that is no doubt this album at its worst.
But it's not like the production is elevating the mediocre songwriting that turns up on the majority of this album. From the utter waste of the otherwise talented Kelsea Ballerini on 'This Feeling', to Winona Oak doing her best Julia Michaels impression on 'Hope' with strikingly similar vocal production to her song 'I Miss You', to Emily Warren being unimpressive and generally uncharismatic on 'Side Effects', even if the tight bass groove on that song has a surprising amount of bite to it, and I do like that song.
But between songs that feel cold and hollow like 'This Feeling', no the kind of things you want to be associating with a song about the feeling of being in love with a drop that sounds very recycled, songs like 'Sirens' that sounds like a Skrillex reject, and 'Sick Boy' and 'You Owe Me' that sound melodramatic in their attempts to cultivate some smoky atmosphere that neither song effectively pulls off, mainly because the lyrics are self indulgent and pointless.
And that pretty much sums it up. Not an artistic advancement, but a decline into pointless melodrama that was not for me whatsoever.
2 / 5
Best Songs: 'Side Effects', 'This Feeling'
Worst Songs: 'You Owe Me', 'Sirens'
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