AJR – The Click (Liberator)

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On their new album, The Click, NYC siblings AJR show us what they’ve been up to on those cold winter nights.  Stealing from classical, hip-hop, funk and virtually every producer you can name it’s an album of quirky but beautiful instrumentation and charming but bone dry lyrics that subvert modern qualms with the power of youthful energy and frantic, catchy vocals.  Add to that the boy’s bizarre and exuberant geek-ness and it’s like three Sheldon Coopers kidnapped Brian Wilson and broke into Kanye’s studio late one night and got nasty on his lap top.

Introducing the Met Brothers.  Adam (bass/vocals), Ryan (ukulele/piano/vocals) and Jack (ukulele/percussion/sample machine)– aka AJR – an indie-pop outfit heavily swayed by The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel and Imagine Dragons.  Their new offering will sit well with fans of Kanye West, The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar, being a well-crafted brew of laptop digi-samples, dramatic club bangers and catchy, if slightly cheesy commercial song-writing.

The Click is an extension of their previously released EP What Everyone’s Thinking plus an extra 8 tracks and includes their current Spotify blockbuster Weak.  “No Thank you is what I should have said/I should have stayed in bed.”  This is how this ironically self-deprecating track opens.  It’s an eternal list of minor weaknesses that all build up to a pathetic excuse for falling in love.  Built around the current production architecture of a verse plus a chiming chorus crescendo poured over layers of staccato synthetic chords this is all pretty run of the mill.  Catchy and dead commercial, though.  It’s be a winner on the streaming channels.  Clocking in at just over three minutes there’s not much time to drop a couple of samples, loop up the hook and get the hell out of Dodge.  But then thankfully, it’s short and sweet, as are most of the numbers on this album.  Weak also features a common thread, the ‘Click’ a sound that appears and reappears all over the shop.  It’s a bit a of a connect to a metronome, the old-fashioned tool musicians use to stay in time.  But it also could be references to clicking phones during long distance phone calls, drum machine beats or any other sounds from our modern lives.

I can’t quite put my finger on which classical piece they’ve blatantly ripped off for a remix but no living composers were harmed in the creation of The Good Part. None the less, it’s probably the most annoying earworm on this album.  It’ll only take 3 minutes and 47 seconds to be sucked in to this club anthem and driven completely crazy.  You can just imagine the kids bouncing up and down at a pulsating, light-filled club to this one.  This is a ‘producers’ track’.  Samples of 80’s style House build and drop.  It’s a left over from the heady days of Renaissance and Ministry of Sound.  Sadly, there’s no rapper doing a bit of incomprehensible ranting over the bridge.  All that aside, the song is really a look at growing up and taking on the future.  The lyrics refer to getting over adolescent woes and skipping to the ‘good part’ of one’s life when everything is sweet.  “These things take time.  Mum and Dad, they have a good life but what the hell am I gonna with mine?”

Sober Up, which features Weezer vocalist Rivers Cuomo, was a bit of a surprise.  It begins with a cello builds to a hook- laden crowd-sourced chorus and jumps back and forth with like a Chumbawumba number.  This would make a great one to sing at a late night Karaoke bar.  As with most Weezer songs, this one also has a slight whiny college boy rant about it.  On the other hand, Avalanche City might want their song back.  It feels pretty close to that template, as well.

“When did all my friends become so loud? / We act like Reality Shows, probably because ‘Reality’ blows!”  That’s the opening lines for Drama.  “Recently, he said that she said that he said some sh*t that you wouldn’t believe.”  This one is positively dripping with wit and irony.  It’s a real challenge to their own generation to wake up from your iPhone dream haze and ‘get a real life!”  Whatever that actually is!  I love the way it slaps a wet fish in the face of everyone who chooses to participate in petty online gossip and other twitterati pursuits.

I like Overture because it starts with a metronome blip-click.  Like the one Giorgio Moroder used.  Then it throws in some more 80’s House Music (keyboards and funky horns, this time), sexy girl-vocals and cheesy handclaps.  Over that comes some studio-created techno grime and more soaring chorus.  Ultimately this is a bit of a show off, referencing Kanye, Kendrick, Imagine Dragons, etc.  Add to that some sampling of other songs on the album, especially the aforementioned Weak.  The joke is about spending too much time in the studio, over cooking on the laptop.  The producer’s conundrum.  “Should I go for more clicks this year, or should I follow the click in my ear?”

Three-Thirty is another ironic view.  I think it’s about rapping and how easy it is – right!  But then it could be wider.  Perhaps it’s more about the whole industry.  The lyrics give clues but never really give away the plot.  “I can’t talk with my mouth full.  That’s a mouthful” raps Adam Mett, as if he’s aware of his failings.  ‘3.30’ is about the timing of the average pop song.  It intentionally casting aspersions of the fickleness of commercial music and the attention spans of radio listeners, Spotify and i-tunes customers

Of all the songs, the best one is done as a honky-tonk boogie.  No Grass Today has the AJR trademark big singalong chorus but tempered by boogie-woogie pianos.  More hand claps make user friendly for Disney and Nickelodeon audiences, although the blatant nods to smoking ganja will rule out any real airtime on those channels.  Shame, the Chipmunk vocal shenanigans and happy-clappy big finish would go down real well in the closing credits of Slimefest or one of their cheesy kid star awards shows.

So, in conclusion, you’d have to say this is a confusing but nifty wee beast.  On the one hand, it’s overflowing with the current trends in click-bait bubble-gum pop.  On the other hand, it’s witty, clever and subversive.  Too clever by half, you might say.  Best of all it’s an album that refusing to be boxed and will appeal to everyone, or no one depending on how much you already know about what you like and don’t like.   That’s got to be appealing.

Tim Gruar

The 13th Floor
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