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Name .:. MGK - lost americana
Genre : Pop
Source : CDDA
Type .:. Album
Artist : MGK
Label : Interscope
Titel : lost americana
Tracks : 13
Playtime : 45:37
Size : 320,63MB
Encoder : FLAC 1.3.1
Quality : 986 kbps
[ Tracklist ]
01.outlaw overture 05:03
02.cliche 02:56
03.dont wait run fast 03:27
04.goddamn 03:07
05.vampire diaries 02:35
06.miss sunshine 03:23
07.sweet coraline 02:42
08.indigo 03:12
09.starman 03:37
10.tell me whatÆs up 03:52
11.canÆt stay here 03:27
12.treading water 03:42
13.orpheus 04:34
Total 45:37 Min
lost americana starts with mgk nodding to the keys
from the WhoÆs ôBaba OÆRiley,ö and doesnÆt let up
from there. The lyrics of Guns NÆ Roses, George
Thorogood, Semisonic, the Black Crowes, and many
more are invoked, sometimes obliquely but mostly
just by name. ôSemi-Charmed Lifeö is semi-covered,
and the melodies from Goo Goo Dolls and Kate Bush
songs are repurposed. He does to the StrokesÆ ôLast
Niteö what it did to Tom PettyÆs ôAmerican Girl,ö
and he calls it ôSweet Coralineö because that is a
title that allows him to make not one but two other
references. Its lead single, ôcliche,ö is
spiritually a zillennial take on the conceit of
Alanis MorissetteÆs ôIronic,ö but sonically, it is a
stab at grafting a hyperpop sheen onto John Cougar
Mellencamp.
This is no doubt a deeply cursed record, a Hold
Steady album that instead of referencing Youth of
Today aspires to educate todayÆs youth about the
existence of Alice DeejayÆs ôBetter Off Alone.ö But
while lost americana isnÆt good, per se, thereÆs
something about mgkÆs dedication to the bit, his
quality-agnostic enthusiasm for the idea of popular
rock music as a form, and the brutal honesty he
embeds within its nonsense that makes it genuinely
fascinating to listen to, and at times even
successful when you take it on its own terms. ItÆs
mgk trying to take on the great modern rock songbook
while also going into painstaking and sometimes
excruciating detail about how he fucked up his life
last year. Who else would even think to make that
swing?
mgk, real name Colson Baker, made this album after
what can be lightly described as a rough patch. In
November 2024, he and his partner, Megan Fox,
announced they were expecting their first child
together and then broke up two weeks later,
allegedly due to BakerÆs infidelity. Shortly after
that, he relapsed after more than a year of sobriety
and wound up in rehab, only to emerge to discover
that the Los Angeles wildfires had destroyed his
preferred studio.
So, as Baker tells it, he hunkered down with his
touring band in his living room and self-produced a
record that both aims for the big-tent pop-rock
canon and near-Maoist levels of self-criticism. He
announced the album with a trailer narrated by Bob
Dylan of all people, which, despite his well-
documented love of doing extremely random shit, was
so out of left field that one would be forgiven for
initially believing it was AI. It turned out to be
very real, and came as a result of Dylan posting an
old video of mgk freestyling on his Instagram, which
seemed to mystify even Baker himself before he
gathered the good sense to reach out to link and
build with the Bard himself.
Before this current album, mgk lodged a major hit
alongside Jelly Roll with ôLonely Road,ö essentially
a rewrite of John DenverÆs ôTake Me Home, Country
Roads,ö whose success perhaps explains BakerÆs
approach on lost americana. So many big songs these
days are just shameless rehashes of past hits that
itÆs barely worth making the point, but if your
record is going to wear its influences on its sleeve
tattoos, you might as well draw from a Pinterest
board full of bulletproof melodies. The Pavlovian
goodwill elicited by mgk borrowing the sound of
ôRunning Up That Hill,ö on ôindigoö is so powerful
that he nearly gets away with rapping, ôLiving
fantasy like J.K. Rowling/IÆm J.R.R. Tolkien these
spliffs.ö When he talk-sings, ôI been up for day-
ay-ay-ay-ays/ChoppinÆ up the yay-ay-ay-ay-ayö on the
pre-chorus of the ôSemi-Charmed Lifeö flip,
confusingly named ôstarman,ö itÆs almost impossible
not to be at least semi-charùuh, perversely amusedù
by his knuckleheaded ability to fall ass-backward
into successfully putting his own stamp on a classic
pop song about meth.
Sometimes, Baker tries to do too much at once
without offering a sense of purpose. ôdont wait run
fastö sounds like a lost collab between Def Leppard
and Motion City Soundtrack, and the only other thing
you need to know about it is itÆs the official song
of ESPNÆs College GameDay. ômiss sunshineö is like
Red Hot Chili PeppersÆ ôRoad TrippinÆö run through a
Sugar Ray preset, and attempts to evoke a vision of
an idyllic, consequence-free youth that, charitably,
could be read as mgk attempting to set up the
recordÆs darker second half, but mostly feels vapid
and out of place. Elsewhere, he has the inverse
problem: ôvampire diaries,ö which is mercifully one
of the few times Travis Barker pop-punks up on the
album, is written from the perspective of a vampire.
(ThereÆs no metaphor thereùheÆs just imagining what
it would be like to be a vampire.) As a musician,
mgk doesnÆt necessarily do one genre particularly
well, but he does so many of them, each with equal
enthusiasm. The gamut of styles on lost americana
suggests that if mgk werenÆt famous, heÆd be the
musical director/frontman of a particularly kickass
and notably versatile cover band.
One of the remarkable things about lost americana is
its consistent, knowing nods to cocaine use, which
can be read as a nod to BakerÆs very publicly no-
good late-2024. ôI miss my drugs, theyÆve been my
friends since 21,ö he sings on ôOutlaw Overture,ö
before the beat switches and he continues, ôAll of
the pages are blank till my life goes to shit/I know
I do that on purpose just to write again.ö The
recordÆs two best tracks, ôgoddamnö and ôtell me
whats up,ö continue this confessional mode. The
former sounds more like Lil Peep than it doesnÆt,
and mgk nails the assignment, speeding up his
metronomic flow to match the urgency of the lines,
ôIÆve been drowning in something, IÆm a downer on
substances/IÆm a functioning junkie turning my life
around.ö ItÆs a melding of lyric and delivery that
suggests Baker might be turning a corner as a
songwriter, able to embrace the idea that substance
and form are complementary concepts.
ôtell me whats upö is one of the few tracks on the
record that feels sui generis and, as a result,
leaves room for Baker to be unflinchingly personal,
rapping plainly about being robbed as a kid,
conspiracy theories, his musical ADHD, and the
isolation of addiction. ItÆs a theme that continues
on ôtreading water,ö in which Baker accepts
responsibility for his breakup with Fox and sings
about how his addiction has affected his family
(ôWhile I pack up suitcases, I just ruined their
holidayö) before rapping the next verse from his
perspective while he was in rehab, ôfixated on the
gossip that I know is happening while IÆm just being
left out of the conversation,ö wishing he could tell
the public ôfor me, yÆall can feel pure hatred, but
just keep our baby out the situation.ö That this is
all happening amid a musical backdrop that sounds
distractingly like the ôIrisö by the Goo Goo Dolls
is, frankly, bizarre, but it approaches something
akin to a music world insiderÆs take on outsider
art. LetÆs just say it doesnÆt not work, and if
nothing else, itÆs worth crediting Baker for
spilling his guts when he knows itÆs more grist for
the content mill heÆs writing in opposition to.
mgk is certainly trying hard on lost americana, but
effort only gets you so far. ItÆs kind of silly to
ding an artist for having ôbad tasteö at a time when
a group like Frost Children is openly reclaiming
festival EDM, but unlike mgk, they have a coherent
vision of what theyÆre trying to accomplish. Without
a razor-sharp point of view, mgk far too often fails
to synthesize his very real pain into something
truly artful, instead falling back on the crude
tools of rote songwriting and borrowed melodies,
which he occasionally manages to build out into
something arresting thanks to his instinct for what
resonates with his audience.
With lost americana, heÆs not competing for a New
Yorker write-up as much as he is to be the go-to
artist for kids looking for a contemporary musician
with a harder edge than, like, Benson Boone. That
everyone now has access to unlimited music from
every style and era, and kids on TikTok are just as
likely to obsess over a rediscovered Outer Limits
song as they are to perform the marketing-approved
choreo for whichever new pop singerÆs new single,
does not contradict or diminish mgkÆs wager, but
instead presents a crucial opportunity: Through his
curation of influence, heÆs able to make an argument
about what quintessentially American rock music is
at a time when information overload has eroded our
ability to place things in any coherent order. And
if his self-crafted lineage happens to include some
British songs, well, jacking for beats is as
American as it gets.
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