![]() Though the music on this album is simple, it’s still very impactful and they allow Watsky to thrive with his new vocal style. Both songs are great examples of how to use autotune affectively. One thing that might set fans off is the use of autotune throughout the album, particularly on the tracks ‘What Goes Up’ and ‘Fuck It Up.’ Though I understand why that may turn people off, I implore you to allow both of them to grow on you. Watsky’s singing actually adds to the emotion of these songs, as you feel the passion and hurt in his voice as he tells you this story. He understands his limits, and he never tries to go all Freddie Mercury on ya. ![]() And honestly, he’s pretty damn good at it. Musically: This album marks a huge change for Watsky as this is the first album where he started to flex his singing skills. Personally, it’s even brought me to tears at times. It might be a dark album, but it’s mature, and absolutely gripping the whole way through. Overall, this album is fantastic and downright bone chilling when it comes to its lyrical content. ‘Whitecaps’ is a moment where Watsky debates on if he’s a good person at all after this and if he needs to revaluate himself and his life. It’s a sobering track about how even though things ended badly, he still considers his ex a friend and he’ll always be there for her. This is followed by ‘Limo 4 Emos’, the closest Watsky has come to writing a ballad. ‘Feels Alright’ is by far the darkest moment on the album as we see a near manic Watsky reeling from the end of this relationship. We finally get to the end up of the album, which includes ‘Feels Alright’, ‘Limo 4 Emos’, and ‘Whitecaps’, and we get some closure, kinda. It’s quite the savage takedown of himself, and his admissions of guilt get more compelling as the album goes on. He even goes as far as to say the he picks “lovers who got monsters and we bond on mental health” until they remind him of his own flaws. Watsky also condemns himself here as well, showing that he is also responsible for why things fell apart. Watsky goes from blaming himself for everything wrong, to realizing that his loved one is bringing him harm due to her alcoholism and semi abusive behavior. We then see the second stages of the relationship toward the middle of the album, which includes, ‘Fuck It Up’, ‘Mean Ass Drunk’, and ‘No Complaints No Conversation’, and we see that things have gotten complicated. Someone who you really think could be “the one.” The beginning of the record, which includes ‘Welcome To The Family’, ‘All Like Whatever’, and ‘What Goes Up’, perfectly describes the joy, nerves, and the overflow of love you have when you first get into a relationship with someone you really like. ![]() In fact, the lyrics here are probably the most mature Watsky has ever written. The narrative is heartwarming, heartbreaking, and very mature. This leads to this album being, and I can’t stress this enough, the most emotionally gripping record he has ever made. Lyrically: This entire album was inspired by the breakup between Watsky and his ex-girlfriend. It’s not as colorful as X Infinity, but it once again shows Watsky constantly changing how he does things and it keeps him an interesting artist. I’ll go into in more when I dive into the lyrics, but the tone of this album is very dark and depressing, and the production does a good job at setting the mood. Though there were many hands on deck for the production of this album, nothing feels out of place and everything flows smoothly. Production: The production on this album was done eight people in total, including Watsky himself, Ryan Sparker, and Kush Mody. ![]() With that being said though, all of this doesn’t necessarily mean that this album would turn out to be any good. Many great bands have fallen into this trap like The Clash, The 1975, and Green Day just to name a few, so Watsky definitely made a wise and intelligent choice here and he should be commended for it. This is a very smart move because if Watsky continued to go bigger and bigger, he’d risk making a pretentious overly bloated disaster. While the last album had extravagant production and instrumentation, this album is very low key on both of those fronts. While the last album tackled many different issues, this album centers around one story. While the last album was a longer affair with eighteen songs, this album only has nine songs. The subject of today’s review, Complaint, is a much smaller album in both size and scope. It was by far the flashiest and most ambitious album he had made up to that point, but instead of going even bigger for his follow up, he scaled things back a ton. X Infinity was a huge project in both length and song construction. First things first, I wanna point out that Watsky made a very wise decision with this album.
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