Former NFL punter and present podcasting star Pat McAfee is branching out into music with The Diary of a Polarizing Determine, an album so named regardless that it’s not very private and the one controversy appears to be to what extent AI was concerned.
How did this occur? Effectively, The Diary of a Polarizing Determine comes by way of the Large Loud songwriting manufacturing facility and nation tremendous producer ERNEST, hit-writer for Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and extra nation artists with manufacturing so sugary-sweet it may give your ear a cavity. Jelly is the connector right here, befriending McAfee after which telling him, “I gotta join you with Ern,” because the producer recalled in an interview with Whiskey Riff. After one of many hosts talked about that he didn’t consider McAfee as a musician, ERNEST responded:
“He’s not a musician, however he positively is a fan of music. He has been writing lyrics for years, like his cellphone is so filled with notes, stream of consciousness, poetry, stuff like that. And he began plugging his lyrics in and chanting it into [AI music generator] Suno and getting Suno demos of his songs. And we got here collectively and I used to be like, ‘Yo, we will go in and lower these things for actual.’”
First, it’s attention-grabbing how casually he says “Suno demo,” as if that’s a reasonably customary sort of demo as of late. Second, “Minimize these things for actual,” may imply a few various things (Large Loud didn’t reply to a request for songwriting credit by publication), however the issues with the album are separate from emotions about AI authorship. No matter the way it will get there, the lyrics are a mixture of cliches and remark part bait, and as for the vocals, The Diary of a Polarizing Determine retains stumbling into the musical uncanny valley.
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Lately there’s a musical vocabulary that appears like AI the identical method extreme em dashes and, “It’s not x; it’s y,” can really feel inhuman in writing. One such tic is a bass line with dementia, at all times wandering with none reference to the place it has been. However this isn’t the sort of factor that sustains while you lower it for actual, and isn’t an issue right here. The second tic is using lengthy and taxing vocal strains — particularly in an unremarkable a part of a verse, not a climactic showcase — that will just about by no means happen to any composer who requires oxygen to breathe. McAfee’s album is stuffed with moments like this, executing lengthy and demanding melodies, however in a strained timbre that implies any second now he’ll break off coughing after which hit the vape once more.
Casuals received’t even discover, however should you’re aware of the calls for of reside efficiency, then this shit sounds bizarre. On “Blue Collar Symphony” he makes use of camouflaged auto-tune and vocal comping to bridge lengthy phrases like Otis Redding — besides you might have by no means heard somebody with that tone pull off that breath management, as a result of that’s not how lungs work. No less than bare auto-tune has a sci-fi whimsy; disguised right here, McAfee feels like a robotic doing a human impression, and he’s simply shut sufficient — and simply far sufficient away from the actual factor — to be really unsettling.
After which there’s the lyrics, the “poetry,” constructed out of surface-level observations, single-entendres, and the primary rhyme on Rhymezone. The album title promised a diary. However there may be not a lot in the best way of confession — there may be barely proof of an inside life.
Right here’s the primary verse of the title monitor, “Polarizing Determine,” weaving drunkenly out and in of rhyme. Regardless of some swear phrases it’s as inoffensive as a press launch:
I’m so confused and conflictedAbout this life that I’m livinEverything that I doSome pumped and a few shittingYou see, there’s some who will rideAnd some who want I’d dieSo.. each new sitch, is it alright? Or on sight?
The slangy rap of the verse is in one other tune from the earnest refrain. Within the tenor of a soul-searching ballad, he sings, “Am I blessed/ or am I cursed/ Am I the perfect?/ Or the worst,” and if these are the one choices, he’s coming in a lot nearer to at least one half than the opposite.
Whichever entity wrote the refrain appears to be responding to the closing couplet: “Everydayyyy.. I ask these questionsAnd now I prayyy.. I get the message,” however there’s no payoff. In truth, there isn’t a single concrete noun in both passage. “Some,” “All the things,” “This life,” “The message,” with none locations or folks and never even a goddamn object. The tune doesn’t care about reflection, it cares that he says his prayers.
The Diary of a Polarizing Determine has no musical perspective and comes out as a multitude of genres. There’s Florida-Georgia Line-style rapping in additional than half the songs, the occasional soul refrain (“Outlaws”), temporary spurts of grownup up to date (“Large Rain Coming,”) and even neo-reggae as a result of hey, why not? (“No One Ever Is aware of”). The stomp-clap of “Click on Clack” recollects nation’s first AI slop hit, “Stroll My Stroll,” maybe even deliberately; maybe a few of the AI hits are already influencing the human-fronted acts.
McAfee additionally makes certain to work in some cultural grievances, interrupting the sector rock-inflected pep speak of “You’re Alive” to make clear, “No handouts, you gotta get it.” Odd recommendation from a podcaster who bought right here on the energy of a friendship with Jelly Roll and an AI demo.
The Diary of a Polarizing Determine couldn’t scandalize a Father or mother Trainer Group. There’s nothing on the document to take a place about — no argument, no confession, no picture sharp sufficient to go away a mark. Twenty years of notes, handed to individuals who write hits for a dwelling, and what got here again is competent and airless.
On the title monitor he asks whether or not he’s blessed or cursed, the perfect or the worst. In between would have been attention-grabbing, or a minimum of human.
