Today, we aspire to be the #1 hit for “Paul Ryan’s penis” on Google. Or at least your editor did when he wrote this tagline.
[Video][Website]
[5.43]
Josh Langhoff: Paul Ryan has a point, and not just at the end of that whirring contraption he calls his penis. Listen to the little Janesville fucker, in the span of two breaths: “We need to restore this beautiful thing we affectionately call the American Idea.” And then, “People always ask: What’s in it for me? How will I benefit from this?” The American Idea is awash in narcissism. Americans do not think collectively. We are a profoundly conservative people, and these truths we hold self-evident: Growth is good. Dying is bad. Individual actions have consequences. Charity is a private affair: “We don’t reach for handouts, we reach for those who’re down,” we learn from Cato Institute senior fellow Garth Brooks. Paul Ryan has chased his dragon, a racist serial molester beholden to foreign creditors, and that dragon won’t do shit for him on his deathbed. Paul Ryan will be fine regardless. But the other tens of millions of people who chased the same dragon? Whose friends and kids are hooked on opiods? Whose health insurance bills will now skyrocket because the American Idea is so fucking restored?
[10]
Nortey Dowuona: Bulky, flat drums fill up the mix, pushing out the off-color, puffed-up guitars and draggy, empty bass while Russel Allen sounds out — um, singing, I guess? Also the guitar solo is bork.
[4]
Hannah Jocelyn: It’s well-intentioned and timely, and the facts in the video alone make for something much better than Theory of a Deadman’s similar attempt at a drug crisis song, but it’s mixed like a Power Rangers theme. It leads to fatally cringeworthy moments where a blistering guitar solo plays underneath pleas to reach out in moments of crisis. As with Logic’s “1-800-273-8255,” if it reaches its intended audience, then who cares what I think, but it’s also a thoroughly unpleasant listen on its own.
[4]
Alfred Soto: The greater the effort, the greasier the sincerity.
[5]
Iain Mew: It initially seemed like a smart move for them to keep building up to some big blow out but instead just increase the intensity of chug and double drums. If they’d managed to carry on ratcheting it up like that it could have been fun and fresh, but it it just plateaus and doesn’t get to fly. No matter how much angst they get into “they left you here to diiiieee” it has diminishing returns.
[5]
Will Adams: A song whose idea of dynamics is turning the knob from 10 to 11, “Chasing Dragons” takes a well-intentioned message about the opioid crisis and pulverizes it under the weight of drums and yelling. Like Logic, Adrenaline Mob broaden their scope to reach a wider audience, and I’m left wondering how many people are being helped.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: Oh, the pain, the pain, as my head is being repeatedly pummelled by a brick with “MESSAGE!!” written on it, which is a bit, you know, square. Or is that the relentless drums causing it? But it’s an exciting riff and you can ignore the broader meaning of the lyrics and just take them as a grab-bag of cliches and it comes out the better for it.
[6]