MJayNumberOne – SUMMERtime POPsicles Deluxe (Album Review)

These days, releases with the intent of being a Western summer party hit are truly hard to come back. Music has been extremely individualised and distinct ever since we had the ability to section off what we ‘think’ we want to listen to, with current affairs also painting the general tone and scheme of what music sounds like. The days of the late 2000s to early 2010s club banger is somewhat dead, but there is a silver lining to this cloud- revivalist acts.

There aren’t too many revivalist acts of this time period, to my knowledge, but it is a trend that is growing. As the years go by, we want to bring back sounds that are closer in our consciousness compared to things ‘beyond our time’. Today’s act comprises of a release that delivers exactly that, with a couple of surprises.

Who is it? Well, it is MJayNumberOne, a producer and rapper from Hartford, Connecticut. He presents us with his newest release, titled ‘SUMMERtime POPsicles‘, an apt title for an album filled with summer pop, hip-hop, and R&B influences. This project is meant to celebrate youthful energy, summer vibes and motivational themes.

Critics besides us here at Music Review World have lauded the album for its ‘dynamic production’ and infectious energy. Bubbling with tracks that are described as entertaining, it’s also a celebration of upbeat energy. The album’s highlights are the tracks ‘Summatyme (Oh Yeah)’ with its carefree and fun vibe, ‘No Regrets’ showcasing his vocal delivery, and ‘While I’m Young/#Work’ being a standout motivational track with a focus on hard work and ambition.

MJayNumberOne himself describes this album as a testament to resilience and creativity, so let’s enter his spunky, exciting and fun-loving musical universe.

Unfortunately, upon the first few minutes of the album, it’s clear that this album suffers from some shortcomings when it comes to mastering, style and just general production. The sound selection is quite unpolished, with the vocals sounding honestly quite muffled and not in harmony with the rest of the track. A lot of refining honestly needs to be done in order for this album to pass through industry standards today. There is an interesting arc in trying to add minor and dissonant nuances to a song otherwise marketed for a good time and party, as it shows a level of musical variability within a compositional perspective, but overall, it just doesn’t gel. Vibes can be enough to salvage poor production, but I feel like someone of my generation would not be able to let it pass through. In the second track of the album, you can hear a very MIDI-esque sound selection when it comes to the strings. The bass salvages the track, and it presents a different style. A darker, edgier rap style. It’s interesting, but once again, needs to be rectified with mastering and the levels of the track.

I do not want to turn this review into a long seance of beratement, as that is not conducive to me, the artist, or even you, the listener. However, I find it concerning that only one song, Bad Girl, can stand the test of professional proficiency. And even at that, the muffled tone of the co-vocalist is quite apparent, with the mastering not done well enough to merge with the song. The co-singers within many of the other tracks have had their voice very poorly mastered, in a way that almost makes me wonder if they recorded their sung segments with an aged smartphone and somebody just mashed it in between the stems without thinking about the audio quality.

I know as a musician it’s very easy for one to think that all you need to do is mix the sum of your experiences, preferences, and ability into music, market it to people who you think would love it, pay certain other websites to give you a biased, positive review, and go off of that ephemeral high from thinking that your music vibes well with yourself and to some other people. It’s also easy to write this off as just a bad review from a pessimist. I make music too, but one thing no one has ever come to me with is a critique of the levels of the instruments of my songs or mastering. These grave flaws within this release are not pointed out for one to mock, I think it’s a serious matter and needs to be analysed and heeded with the utmost objectivity for MJayNumberOne to even break out into the mainstream, or the underground, in this day and age.

Another thing I’d have to say is if you intend to do a revivalist act of certain sounds with the intent of bringing back older musicians’ styles you need to add your own creative twist to it. You need to make it compelling and study the current market of music. That’s one key factor that I think is utterly missing within the ethos of this album- there is zero intent to make it original or niche enough to this time period. There’s elements of mid 2000s Kanye, there’s vocal quirks emulating will.i.am from 2005, but that’s just not enough.

Think of the song ‘Push 2 Start’ by Tyla for example. It takes the essence of wanting to make a party song from the 2000s (as evidenced by the influences in the music video) but morphs it with good mastering, good panning, excellent vocals, and musical quirks from today mixed with some chord structure similarities and motifs from early 2000s Afrobeats. In that sense, you can perfectly execute the style of music you’re doing without worrying about the poor effort detracting one from the message. Without keeping up with not only music but technology and mastering standards, you’re going to be left out in this time period. I write all of this, not to incite war or sorrow, but as a wake-up call to MJayNumberOne. I seriously hope you evaluate your musical releases without a negative emotional reaction and wonder why it’s being treated like a Turquoise Jeep Records release instead of a standalone piece.

Score/Mediocre: ‘SUMMERtime POPsicles’ unfortunately disappoints with its array of poor and aged sound selection, poor mastering, and methodically outdated style of music. It has potential if one took the time to master every single instrument and polish the vocals, but truthfully, it upsets me to see a body of work this unpolished.

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