ye its the fourth time i bring back this book and MAYBE i'll never write poetry again so i'm just gonna review sum music for a while ..
wanted to kick this off with my favorite album at the moment, at a time where i thought 2018 really was doomed with all the bland music being released into this grey nothingness we call the interweb; ryan beatty dropped his debut album, boy in jeans! saved the year!
many remember ryan as the skinny kid with blond hair who everyone thought would be the next justin bieber, everyone except ryan, who just played hermit and every once and again uploaded music and videos to his youtube channel and souncloud only to take them down again. by 2016 he had publicly come out, and spent the last two years creating the New Ryan Beatty, featuring on Brockhampton's saturation trilogy (most notably singing the chorus of 'BLEACH'), and writing writing writing.
finally he drops 'boy in jeans' on july 20th, the synthetic pop album of 2018 that sounds like a Petra Collins shot. he brings pop and colorful beats into the world of bedroom pop and clairos and cucos, but he also brings the dirty microphone sound into the world of frank ocean and kevin abstract's american boyfriend.
boy in jeans, in which ryan tries to navigate making music for the first time since his coming out in this very emotionless world while being such an emotional (teenage) character. he sounds like if roy blair and kevin abstract were on a song from Tyler's 'Flower Boy', like ryan just created this new era of angsty sad gay boys that made Frank Ocean seem 'old school'.
this is the soundtrack for every lgbt+ person who finds themselves living their teenage years (fantasies) in their 20s, after being out and free. it's ryan journey too, it's his coming of age. we're only here for the ride. his storytelling is so vivid we're almost keen to believe he's still going to high school dances with his girlfriend, still crushing on the not-so-straight guy, lying to his mom, fighting with his friends. ryan is seventeen and twenty-two all in one. these are the songs he wanted to write when people were comparing him to justin bieber.
he kicks off the album with Haircut which braces you off for an album you know will be full of self discovery ("i'm finally me"), a 2018 new-wave pop boy over sharing with a clear voice and clean beats, but when you get through the album you realize, was Haircut and introduction or just a conclusion to all of this? did Haircut set us up for a story or flashbacks?
like after we learn how to date, fall in love, make money, fuck, stop lying, start living, isn't this when we're finally ourselves? the music also sounds like an end-credit song, the beats soft and drown behind the drums, you feel like it's time to leave the movie theatre, "i smile alone. i finally feel the closure."
(he does yell "IT STARTS RIGHT NOW" so yes, )
but ye this is not real, this is a real memory, he notes on Bruise. he sticks to a sort of honesty throughout the album that you can't find elsewhere, it all feels like a late night sleepover where he holds nothing back, on a song where the chorus is "all my cash is in euros, all my coins are in yen, all my boys european" we find him singing, "i'm not suicidal i'm too afraid to die. i wanna feel something other than sadness sometimes."
he's so honest and raw he speaks like a teenage girl. on Cupid he speeds up his voice and sings a ballad of the high school crush on the straight boy, so simple it's like he stole my journal from seventh grade (or even twelfth). when he says, "date me! i'm just playing. didn't mean to say that. but i'm down if you're down." what adult would include this on their debut album? a guy who isn't afraid to reveal that wow, maybe love always feels like i am a teenage girl. by the end when he ditches the autotune and almost yells, "what do you want from me? i'll give it to you. you just gotta ask." like yes, teenage girls will go through hell and beyond for their crushes.
like in Bruise a song which plays perfectly in a coming of age indie movie when he's at his high school dance and he sees his crush on the dance floor, "and he dances, that's my man." beatty then talks about how he ditched his girlfriend to make out with him in the bathroom, but i can't help but deadass WONDER did it happen? by the bridge he says "ponyboy ride on in my dreams." so uh?? was the bathroom scene just part of his fucking dreams? either way.
by party's over he's grown up. somehow he's out late at parties and picking up boys, but it's still the same kid from Bruise with the high school crushes. party's over sets this very sexual setting where ryan finds this boy at a party and asks him to come over, "make a movie tonight", etc. but by the bridge the kid from Cupid comes back, saying that he'll lose his fucking mind if the boy doesn't come home with him. it's still so pure and innocent no matter the very overtly sex lines! "wishing on a four leaf clover you come over", a boy he just met at a party is now the boy of his dreams. he so emotional and yet he can't control it. this is his new world. he finally gets the chance to live out his teenage fantasies in his 20s. in this new life he's also loaded, in Money he sings about trying to navigate having new friends with all this new money he now has. he's still just a kid and he's still hungry for attention and validation, "call me good, call me bad, just call me back". he doesn't care if people just hang around him for his money, he's still not altogether, still has that camouflage depression he tried so hard to hide from his mom on Camo. "tell me tell me what did i do wrong." wow, teenage boy is literally begging to stay included.
by the end he's almost turned into drake on Rhinestone, casually suggesting for his lover to just fly around with him, "there's just more out there" in the hook, and during the verses he just sings about his jetlag and his new life. has he grown out of this desperation for attention and validation? is he finally 22? does he finally know how it feels to be him?
my fav off this is God in Jeans, ver reminiscent (lyrics wise) of halsey's Coming Down. the beat is just so soft and obviously simple and homemade, but all ryan cares about is that god is real and hes sleeping next to him, and the soft angel voices in the back.
okay this was long thanks for reading <3
