Diamond In The Rough: AJR
Trying to find the positives and the hidden talents of an otherwise hated artist. This episode: AJR.
Here we go.
Look, I’m gonna be honest, I was kind of disappointed by last year’s “list season”. For those who aren’t aware, at the end of every year, content creators and people who like to make lists for fun all come together and make a dedicated list of their favorite and least favorite media releases of the year. Whether that’d be movies, video games, or in my special interest’s case, music. And usually, I’m excited to see everyone’s perspective on what their favorite songs of the year are! What they emotionally responded to, how a song made their lives just a little bit better, which ones just hit their joy receptors and let their spirits soar. And while I did enjoy the best lists I saw this year, I mean no disrespect to any of my content creator friends when I say the worst lists this year exhausted me. I know 2020 had slim pickings in terms of its bad hits, but I felt like so many people missed the mark with a lot of the “bad” songs this year, and more and more the format we’d grown accustomed to for these worst lists has gotten worse than stale.
It made me wonder if the issue isn’t the creators themselves, or the inherent need to overanalyze music and make up a “valid” reason as to why you hate a song, or the Nostalgia Critic style that has plagued Youtube reviews for over a decade, but instead that the idea of “worst lists” in general is a formality. No one actually likes talking about the bad songs of any given year. And when we do, it’s always met with infighting, bitterness, and some wrongheaded statements and sentiments that get people in hot water because they weren’t careful in talking about what their criticisms really mean, especially when you consider the audience for that song. My friend Hayden has a gag on all of his worst lists where #2 is always himself because any song that gets through to someone and makes a significant impact on them is worth more than any criticisms he may have of it. That’s something I feel we always forget as critics. For someone out there, the song means a lot to them, and if you aren’t able to step back and understand what works about the song in spite of whatever objections you may have, what’s the point of appreciating art in the first place?
I dunno, I guess I’m so burnt out by negativity in media discourse that it feels good to see the positives in something or to be surprised by an artist you expected less from. It’s why despite my unending hatred for “Good Time” by Niko Moon, I vowed not to make a worst list for 2021. I just think we’ve surpassed the need for it. Maybe we should give more artists a chance.
So what does that have to do with AJR? Well, I kinda just explained it, didn’t I? I like being pleasantly surprised by artists I otherwise don’t trust. And if you read through my best list from last year, “Bang!” was among the highest on my list. Hell, I briefly considered putting it above a song by Taylor Swift of all people (She wouldn’t mind. She likes AJR apparently). I didn’t mention this in my list, in fact, I purposefully left it out, but saying “Bang!” is one of the best songs of the year is a defiantly unpopular opinion. It was one of the most common victims on worst lists that year, even in Hayden’s video that I linked earlier. Which, yeah, I get it. The production is weird, the hook can be annoying to someone who hears it over and over again, and it is a bit weird that a band with members in their mid-20s still doesn’t understand how to be a proper adult. Still, it’s not like nothing I said in my best list still doesn’t apply. I’m a young adult. I’m about to graduate from college, and if AJR’s quirky balance of adolescence and maturity appeals to me, I don’t really care how old they are. I still listen to 50-year old married man with kids Keith Urban sing about being young, dumb, and in love. Who am I to judge? Plus, watching AJR break down how the song was composed was honestly fascinating. They found such a strange rhythm and used a dorky little melody to make something silly, fun, and quietly anxious. It reminded me that these guys are, for the most part, just some kids messing around on their producing programs and finding a sound they like.
So, fuck it. I’m gonna give these guys the benefit of the doubt. I went through all three of their albums in preparation for their newest one, OK ORCHESTRA, and see what I can find. Even if I end up hating most of the experience, I want to see where their strengths lie and what are the hidden gems of their discography that help me tolerate my expectations of them as artists.
The results? Well, I was pleasantly surprised that after having an open mind, I found myself surprisingly enjoying- just kidding. It kinda sucked.
Look, the point of this series isn’t to say artists like these are good, actually. The whole point is that they’re bad, and AJR… yeah, they’re pretty bad.
Ironically, I feel like AJR’s biggest strength is also their biggest weakness. Say what you will about them, they’re ambitious pop artists. They write and produce everything without outside help. Even if the instruments they use are digital, they’re still multi-talented in the variety of big-band, show-tune instruments they use. You can’t say they’re just another post-Imagine Dragons alternative act, because they found a lane that is all their own. Granted, that lane borrows a LOT from twenty-one pilots and Jon Bellion, but I think at some point those influences fade away and you can hear a song and definitively say, “Yeah, that’s AJR alright”. But the ultimate issue with their style is a complete lack of restraint. They experiment and mess around with their production a little too much, and as such you get songs whose theatricality is overblown and busy. Especially when the textures are clearly digital and they don’t have a physical band living out the full extent of their vision. So songs meant to sound grand and ambitious turn out really loud and obnoxious, especially whenever the brothers attempt at background singing results in very nasal yammering. The Click is the worst offender of this and remains their absolute worst album. The compositions themselves are fine, but when it’s all so overblown without giving itself a moment of pause or reflection, it just sounds like noise piling onto you under the guise of sounding “important”. Plus, the vocal chopped breakdowns that happen every now and then are EGREGIOUS. They wouldn’t be so bad if the sounds themselves weren’t so shrill and annoying. Chopping them into staccato rhythms and broken melodies only makes it worse.
Living Room does this too, but that album, in general, is very clearly a test run from their label to see if AJR could score more radio hits when they got confusingly lucky with “I’m Ready”, a song that revolves around a Spongebob sample and tries to make a boy band pop song mixed with elements of dubstep. That weird mix of styles is all over Living Room, where the album’s first full song will be a mid-2010s millenial pop anthem that wouldn’t be out of place on a OneRepublic album (a very bad one), then later by a HIDEOUS attempt at a club banger on “Thirsty”. Again, very clearly a test to see where AJR’s appeal lies before they can actually start pushing them seriously. Living Room is non-essential, and it also fucking sucks. Even if I think The Click is worse, at least that album had a vision in mind and wasn’t just a dartboard.
But I did say I was going to get into positives, didn’t I? I hated both of these albums, but it’s not like they’re completely irredeemable. I’ll start with Living Room. I actually really like the overture! I always did kind of admire that about AJR, that they tease the album right in the beginning to give you a sense of adventure when you walk in. And this one was short, sweet, and catchy! One thing I noted on Living Room that greatly differed from later albums is that the other two members show up on the vocals a lot more often. I always felt that the band was handicapped by relying on Jack for the vocals. Ryan and Adam were allowed to rotate every now and then on this album! Granted, the reason why is probably cuz the band was initially pegged as a boy band, but still, I do think while Jack has the more distinct voice, Ryan is a better singer, and Adam, in general, gets very little love for the rest of their careers, so it’s good to see a bit more variety in the band that just having Jack wail through the songs. I also found their love songs on this album surprisingly charming! Not that they were full-blown romantics or anything, but they had a sort of schoolgirl crush charm to them that makes the buoyancy of those love songs kind of likable! “Livin’ On Love” is cheesy, but it’s the kind of cheese that admittedly makes me smile. Yes, even with the voice-chopped breakdown in the chorus. “Woody Allen” is also a cute little song about falling for a girl who’s enthusiastic and wants to explore the world with them. Granted, I wish they could have used any other fucking director to depict their infatuation with than a well-known pedophile who married his fucking step-daughter, but I get the heart of the song at least. My favorite song on the album is probably “Growing Old On Bleecker Street”, which is a sweet little song where AJR promises to stick with their partner no matter how bad things get. It was a cute way to close the album and the swell of the production pushed it over the edge for me.
Moving on to The Click… ugh, okay, this one’s going to be a lot harder to parse through. As I said, this is for sure AJR’s worst album to date, and a lot of my positives for it is more respect for what they were aiming for rather than what they actually gave us. I do respect their ambition and their overall vision for The Click. I’m usually a sucker for this kind of theatre. Putting your overwhelming emotions into over-the-top melodrama is literally the concept of my favorite pop album of all time, Astoria. It’s just the execution that never works for me, hence why the moments on this album that do work the best end up being some of the more restrained songs. The album’s biggest song is “Sober Up” with fellow alternative parasite Rivers Cuomo, and it’s arguably the album’s best song. It’s a cute little ditty about reconnecting with a childhood crush and wanting to go back to that simpler feeling of being unconditionally in love with someone cool. The hook is really catchy, the production is breezy and fun, and though my initial dislike of AJR made me push back against it when it became a sleeper hit, I’ve grown to appreciate it as a simple, fun pop song to cruise along to. Meanwhile, the one song I’ve always liked from the album and still kind of like today is “Weak”, which has a really strong chorus and one of their less annoying chopped-up breakdowns. What can I say? A good hook goes a long way, even if the song ends on one of the most pitiful key changes of all time.
That’s all the good I can say about this album, unfortunately. Too much of it wallows in immature wailing and terrible production that makes otherwise ambitious songs sound like the most annoying sound in the world. The album has this thesis of whether they should chase attention and fame or if they should stick to making what they love, and AJR comes to no conclusion. Honestly, the theme barely even comes up in the album. Most of it is just insecurity over growing up and having to face the responsibility of an adult, resorting to being in a fetal position and wishing things were “easier” like when they were kids. Part of me would get it if they reached any sort of conclusion about it or tied it into having to face an adult world where simply following “the click in your ear” isn’t enough, but they don’t. There’s no evolution, just senseless bitching that doesn’t lead to any revelation or coming to terms with how they can survive in an otherwise intimidating world. There are a lot of terrible songs on the album, with “Netflix Trip” being by far the worst. Close to the worst song they’ve ever made (That goes to one of their EP songs that never made it to Living Room, “AfterHours”. Horrid song). AJR compares their relationship to The Office because their idea of reality is twisted by a refusal to accept adulthood as anything other than a corporate, romanticized version of it that exists for the sake of consumption and easy answers. Obviously not saying that’s what The Office is, but using it as a reference for your real life is so secluded from reality and basic human interaction that AJR is so clearly drawn into the escapism of media and would rather live in that escapism than face the fucking truth. It’s why I find it so hard to sympathize with this album. It isn’t just immature, it outright rejects the idea of maturity. I almost have an ironic respect for the penultimate disease that is “Bud Like You” for at least leaning into its stupidity and going all out with its horrendous production and grating chorus.
I’ve gone this whole post so far without touching upon Neotheater, their 2019 album, and follow up to The Click, aiming for a similar sense of grandiose melodrama with much more of a focus on the concept of growing up and having to face adulthood, even if you don’t want to. I saw a lot of derision for this album when it came out, mostly because it got on a lot of critics’ radar (partly thanks to Spectrum Pulse’s scathing review of The Click) and cemented AJR as punching bags for Youtube critics. It’s not like it’s totally unwarranted. There are some BAD songs on Neotheater, and it’s not like the album is some sort of underrated gem or anything… but I don’t think it’s all that bad?
I think I largely respect this album more than I like it. As much as AJR seemed to dismiss critics like Spectrum Pulse in response to The Click, it also felt like there was genuine improvement across the board. The songs were produced a little better, it’s not as loud and obnoxious as their previous albums, and even the writing showed a step up as the band actually grows up a little and faces the consequences of being stuck as children forever. I wasn’t a fan of Neotheater when I first listened to it, but coming back to it for this piece, I found a lot more to like about it than before. More moments where I can hear them out over much more restrained, but still creative instrumentals as they reflect on how scared they are to live up to the expectations that society puts on them and deflecting the idea of burning out or losing that innocent creative spark that drives not just their lives, but their music too. There’s still some privilege in AJR’s idea of adulthood simply being responsibility, but at least on songs like “Don’t Throw Out My Legos” or “Next Up Forever” you get why they’re hesitant to venture into a world that’s much less predictable or kind to them. It’s not rejecting it outright this time, it’s just holding its hand out with bated breath. “Dear Winter” has always been a fascinating one to me because for once AJR thinks ahead to their future and, in some ways, accepts the future responsibility of having a child, raising that child, and even getting into conflict with them when their parenting inevitably fails. I’ll admit that part of why I’m hesitant to have kids of my own is because I am worried that not getting things right will have irreparable repercussions on someone I care so much about. It’s a real fear, and AJR’s focus on that, even if half the song they’re also unsure of when they’ll even get to meet Winter’s mother, it still speaks a lot to me that they’re ready to take that chance and live through those mistakes. Because things will be okay in that future, and Winter’s going to turn out just fine.
The two songs on Neotheater that struck me the most, and this has been true since I first listened to the album, are without question “Turning Out Pt. ii” and “Karma”. “Turning Out Pt. ii” sees the aftermath of what happens when the relationship from the first song (which is one of my most HATED AJR songs for how immature and clingy it is) completely falls apart. She did grow up before him. And she realized that he’s clearly not ready to take the next step and she has no choice but to find someone who will grow up for her. Ryan takes over the song and reflects on how his immaturity cost him someone that he valued and loved so much. The epiphany of realizing “I can’t be like this forever” is the push he needs to get his shit together and stop depending on others to grow up for him. He has to put in the work himself. I remember being kind of floored the first time I heard it. AJR had never had that kind of self-awareness in their music before. And to face that so bluntly as an issue THEY have to deal with, not piling it on someone else like they did in the first part of “Turning Out”, that’s a revelation that probably started my growing interest in where AJR’s career went from there. But over time I found the album’s true gem came from “Karma”, a song about a meeting with a therapist where AJR admit that they’ve been doing okay and nothing’s really going wrong, and yet they keep expecting things to fall apart any minute now, shedding the deeper insecurity and depression lying underneath their supposed “good days”. They’ve dealt with their mental health for so long that the mere thought of things going well for a change is terrifying for them. By the end of the song, they’re in a full-on panic. The questions become frantic and superstitious, and they beg the therapist not to end their time together because they’re terrified that one day, all of their fears will come to life and they won’t feel equipped to handle it, not realizing how much of their insecurity has conditioned them into rejecting adulthood not out of a refusal to grow up, but for the crippling fear of failure and the consequences that might rain upon them. I like “Karma” so much because it feels like AJR taking their adolescent appeal and adding genuine layers to it. Mixing the anxiety and uncertainty of growing up with this desperation to cling to easy answers, but still accepting that it’s a part of growing up. You can either embrace it and be the best person you can be, or you can let your fear and insecurity rule over you and prevent you from being that person because you’re too scared to face the reality set before you. And honestly? AJR may not take the mature route. They may stay terrified of that great unknown and rely on their therapist to solve their problems. They may not accept that the karma they fear is bullshit for weeks, months, maybe years. And that’s okay. It’s a process, and dealing with that kind of responsibility isn’t an on/off switch. That’s the point of therapy. Working through your problems until you can reach the point where you can admit you had a good week without being paralyzed by the fear of something going wrong. And even then, it’s not like those insecurities go away or cure your depression. It just means you can control it. I dunno, I guess I find something comforting in sharing that fear and uncertainty in facing adulthood, even if I definitely have my shit together more than AJR does. Nothing wrong with tapping into that inner child within you that wants things to be simpler and easier to explain, is there?
I guess that’s why I tolerated Neotheatre substantially more than The Click. There are still some real stinkers on that album, like “Birthday Party”, “Break My Face”, “100 Bad Days” and I HATE that “The Entertainment’s Here” is sandwiched between the two best songs, fucking up their message by just giving in to media consumption to avoid their problems. Plus, I felt “Finale (Can’t Wait To See What You Do Next)” didn’t really end the album on a satisfying note, instead ending up back to where it started, but I found myself more empathetic to the album’s insecurity and hesitance to take the next step as the brothers find themselves at least willing to make a move instead of retreat to their safe spaces. Not quite on the bandwagon yet, but I at least don’t hate them anymore or see them as one of the worst acts in music.
So that leads us to their newest album, OK ORCHESTRA. The one that finally struck gold thanks to the unprecedented success of “Bang!”. “Way Less Sad” might end up being a big hit too, even though I’m not really a fan of the song. But with “Bang!” and the promotional single “My Play” being released, I was hopeful that this would at the very least be their best album. Even if at best it's decent with marginal improvement but still has bad songs that remind us, “Oh right, it’s AJR”, I just wanted to see genuine growth from the brothers to tell me this discography analysis was worth it.
Surprisingly? It was!
I’m not gonna say OK ORCHESTRA is a misunderstood masterpiece or anything, but it’s still a genuine improvement across the board! For once, it feels like AJR actually pulled themselves back a bit and didn’t fill the album up with too much excess or overblown bullshit, yet they still kept the sound and style that has been AJR’s trademark since The Click, just with better production and actual stakes in their songwriting! It’s enough so that you can kind of tell “Bang!” wasn’t supposed to be on this album. It almost sounds out of place in comparison to some of the more refined, less abrasive songs on the album that share similar sentiments, but dig a little deeper. Even some of the more immature songs that still wallow in their sadness like the singles “Bummerland” and “Way Less Sad”, still have a much stronger grasp on melody and rhythm that they end up being genuinely catchy in a way that isn’t utterly infuriating. I’d say the worst song on the album is probably “Humpty Dumpty”, but that’s more for its underwhelming production and lackluster hook. Its lyrics about trying to smile through the pain and then let loose when no one’s looking are actually kind of tragic. Besides, it wouldn’t make the bottom three of Living Room, The Click, or even Neotheater, so that is inarguably an improvement.
The part that impressed me the most, however, is how AJR were able to take their previous musings on growing up, facing adulthood, and dealing with their anxiety and actually add some more human depth to it. Not that previous albums didn’t have at least a hint of reality to them, but they were always stuck in this utopia of not having problems and running away from the scary parts they don’t want to deal with. That fear is still in OK ORCHESTRA, but they’re at least willing to face reality this time. They step their foot in progress, but they don’t entirely get there. Frankly, it’d be asking too much to expect something fully adult out of this album. The whole point of growing up is that it’s hard, and you learn hard lessons that will help you in the long run, but still hurt in the moment. I’m still learning about myself and my place in this world. I’m not the upstanding citizen I tried to be in high school. Which is probably why these themes of being stuck in the middle resonated me so much more.
The first time I noticed this was on “My Play”, one of AJR’s best written songs to date where the shadow of their parents’ divorce looms over them in their relationships. Constantly being self-conscious about how they present and how they make themselves look in front of their first dates, like when they put on a play for their parents as a kid. But like that play, they don’t know how if the smiles they’re seeing are genuine or fake. As a kid, they didn’t have the capacity to worry about it. Now though? They’re too aware of it because they know with what happened to their parents. Their love was forced and they only kept it together to make their child happy. All AJR wants is for their partners to appreciate their “play”, because their trust in love was fucked up ever since they were young. It still kind of shocks me how layered the song’s trauma and insecurity is by AJR standards. It’s not as simple as “Love is dead and I don’t trust anyone”. AJR wants to trust their future dates and partners. But when your only experience with love is one that fell apart like their parents, and they’re desperate to prove it wrong for themselves, you feel it.
“The Trick” does something really similar, and maybe even better. I already really love the direction they took this song. It’s dreamlike and nostalgic in a way that sells you on the romantic and sensitive personality of the song while still being melancholic enough to peep the insecurity underneath it all. This one being built on the lies and exaggerations that AJR have used to impress others because they worry their “real selves” aren’t good enough to be around. It starts out when they’re kids and trying to gas themselves up to their classmates, but it transitions to when they’re older and start using these lies on dates. As if that need to impress others still lingers within them. It’s actually kind of sad to see AJR come to the realization that they can’t keep this up forever, and sooner or later people will find out the truth, putting them in even muddier waters than if they were just honest about who they are. You don’t really blame anyone in the song for where things have gone. After all, sometimes “being yourself” isn’t going to always work for the people you meet. Sometimes you have to hide something about yourself, or they’re going to look at you differently or not see you as the person they thought they knew about you. I doubt AJR had LGBTQ+ identity in mind when writing this, but it’s not that much different than lying about your identity or your sexuality because the truth would alienate people you wish you could trust. The outro especially is pretty gutting, because you do see the cracks in the relationship form as soon as it slips that AJR haven’t been telling the whole truth, and the consequences of building this artificial version of yourself because of your own insecurity reaches its tipping point.
“World’s Smallest Violin” was also a big stand-out to me. Whether or not you like the marching band-like stomp of the song is up to you, but it does bring to the forefront something that came up on the album that gave me a different perspective on it. Namely, the idea of therapy and learning to work through your emotions in or own time or with someone willing to listen. “World’s Smallest Violin” is outright about AJR realizing they have first-world problems but still needing someone to vent to because their heads are so full of anxiety that keeps bubbling within them. “Humpty Dumpty” has a similar concept, albeit more toxic in the way it keeps its emotions buried inside and letting them all loose when no one is looking. But again, these are insecurities that are more grounded in reality than before. Something like “Netflix Trip” from The Click isn’t good because it attributes its problems to something that is inherently fabricated for drama, and rather than understand that real-life relationships are more complicated than that, they embrace consumerism in a way that removes them any sense of reality. Letting a TV show tell them how to feel rather than figuring it out themselves. Or how in Neotheater they openly embrace consumerism to escape their problems and act like it’s quirky and totally fine on “The Entertainment’s Here”. I definitely understand the need for escapism, God knows I do it all the time, but there’s only so much you can let it dictate your life before it becomes a dependency blinding you from the things you need to work on. And I’m glad that AJR at least took a step in this direction, even if they still have a ways to go.
The album ends strong on “Christmas In June”, which nails the thesis of The Click’s conflict between following passions or what makes them happy better than the entire album. As things get serious with this girl, they struggle to make plans and celebrate holidays with their partner, constantly putting things off for the sake of their career. It’s not out of malice though, AJR really does love their partner, but they also have dreams that they’re on the verge of pursuing, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that one is taking priority over the other. So much so they straight-up want to reschedule Christmas into June, just for the one chance to actually spend time with them. It takes a pretty dark turn at the end of the song where AJR has a revelation that if they keep doing this, eventually they’ll miss the birth of their firstborn son, and asks her if she could just hold off on delivering until he has the time to watch him come out. Which is… kind of awful. I think the song knows this too, which is why it ends on a sad fade. I wouldn’t be surprised if the girl leaves him after this comment. It speaks to the constant internal conflict in AJR’s head in bettering their own mental health or constantly deflecting and chasing after something that isn’t there. And ending the album like that, without any bombastic finale song feels like the wake-up call AJR need to start being adults for once. They’re getting there, but they need the reality check to actually pull through. Obviously, that’s mostly subtext and you could easily just assume AJR sees this as charming and relatable, but I dunno… the production cues and details of the story tell me otherwise.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the reaction to this album that I’ve seen. It’s considered their best album at this point, but it’s not like that translates to everyone liking the album or still deflecting away from it because it’s AJR. Not gonna lie, I get really frustrated when people so clearly don’t want to admit they didn’t hate something a bad artist made and only give weak kudos while still claiming “Oh, I don’t really care about it, it’s still bad”. I get it, if you don’t like the artist to begin with you have no reason to enjoy anything they make from then onwards. You also don’t HAVE to listen to anything they release from then on and have an opinion on it, but that’s a different story. Really, the only reason I even bothered to listen to this is that, well, I saw some potential within them. For as many times as Neotheater fumbled its message and got stuck in its self-indulgent bullshit, when I listen to “Turning Out Pt. ii” and “Karma” and see AJR slowly grasping the idea of growing up and facing your problems as a human being, it reminds me that artists like them will always have a vision, regardless of where they come from or who’s backing them. And it’s nice to see that vision turn out a little better than the last time.