Machine Gun Kelly Continues Pop-Punk Resurgence With New Album, mainstream sellout

Image Courtesy of NME.com

By Angela Hickey

When his recent 2020 album, Tickets to My Downfall, credited to have played a huge role in the recent revival of the pop-punk genre, released during the height of quarantine received rave reviews Machine Gun Kelly (originally named Colson Baker) followed that wave of success with his newest pop-punk album, mainstream sellout (2022). 

Now, months later, the results of this album are evident in the massive increase in streams for smaller bands, such as the recently rising Meet Me @ The Altar, and even the recent resurrection of pop-punk princess, Avril Lavigne, whose seventh studio album, Love Sux (2022), came out back in February.

Kelly has gone from rapper to rockstar in a short amount of time, and this album, a team up with producer and Blink-182 drummer, Travis Barker (who also co-produced the album’s predecessor), is an open invitation for the listener to watch as Kelly reveals his personal struggles and inner battles for the whole world to see. Teaming up with prolific artists such as Bring me the Horizon, WILLOW, and Lil Wayne, Kelly shows that despite what anyone thinks, he made a rather successful pivot from rap to punk; and it’s paying off.

Contrasting the rather personal subject matter, there are definitely tracks that show how much fun he had with the album’s creation, most notably, his eighth track, “Emo Girl” featuring WILLOW. The fast-paced, campy track, released back in February, is a Warped Tour inspired anthem created as an ode to the “emo girl,” and it has been trending on TikTok ever since.

Kelly is no stranger to writing about his personal experiences, which is especially evident in his previous album’s track, “play this when i’m gone,” an emotional dedication to his daughter in case he unexpectedly passes away. He follows up that emotional wrecking ball of a song with the final track on his newest album, mainstream sellout, with “twin flame,” a compassionate love letter to Kelly’s fiancée and publicly proclaimed twin flame, Megan Fox. The song expresses his deep love for Fox whilst simultaneously announcing his feelings of inadequacy, finding himself to be not good enough for her. 
This album, while not straying too far from the blueprints laid out by many pop-punk legends that came before him, stands on its own as an MGK original, the lyrics stemming from his own personal thoughts and experiences to create a whole new experience. Kelly is making waves in the pop-punk genre and, if mainstream sellout is anything to go by, he doesn’t plan on losing steam anytime soon.