Where The Sky And Stars Meet

This is my second playthrough of Charlie Puth’s Nine Track Mind. For context, my original rating for this album was a 1.75/10. Let’s see if this changes at all.

One Call Away

Oh. I remember this track. God, so fucking sweet, and not in a good way. He’s really thinking that he’s the one that could save her from her sadness. Whiny. Generic production that tries to sound bigger than it is. I feel like the girl in this song knows he’s one call away, she’s just not fucking interested. “Superman got nothing on me” is just too cheesy of a line to be uttered even sarcastically, let alone seriously. On the bright side, at least this isn’t the Tyga remix. 1/10

Dangerously

CHARLIE PUTH IS LESS CONVINCING AS DANGEROUS THAN ARIANA GRANDE. He sounds like he’s being castrated on this track. “I loved you dangerously / More than the air that I breathe” makes no fucking sense. Again, generic ballad production outside of some drum kicks. This is Grenade minus any sense of edge that Bruno Mars might’ve had on that track. 1.5/10

Marvin Gaye (feat. Meghan Trainor)

I’ll try to address this song as original as I can. “Karma sutra show and tell” is just not a good line. “Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on” is not a good euphemism. This is honestly one of the least sexy songs about sex to not be released as a comedy track, and I’m pretty sure The Lonely Island has released sexier tracks. Actually, they have with “Dick in a Box”, but that’s beside the point. If the Meghan Trainor segment of a song is the highlight of a song, the song is probably a trainwreck, and even then Wale on the remix did a better job of trying to seduce me as a straight man. I actually like Wale but he’s probably the most boring rapper at his level of popularity. Back on topic, repetition is not on this song’s side, because the “Marvin Gaye” line gets more annoying the more its uttered. The climax of this song is so uneventful I’d have more fun jerking off after being constantly rejected over and over again. Seriously, hatejerking is less unpleasant than this song. This song is as much as a tribute to Marvin Gaye as The Simpsons episode “I (Annoyed Grunt)-bot” is to cats and jazz musicians. 0.5/10

Losing My Mind

The opening chopped sample was promising, but then Puth came in. It’s slow, lyrically generic, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the first sign of originality in this album on the production side of things. I think I realize Puth’s schtick now: he’s a Piano Man that also has a drum pedal for some reason. If you gave me a prozac, it would probably have a similar effect as this song. This song reminds me of Owl City’s early work if he decided to go downtempo. 2.5/10

We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez)

The sole highlight of the album from my first listen, and it’s still not that good. The drum work in this song finally doesn’t feel forced, even if Puth sounds even more castrated than he did on Dangerously. Lyrically, it’s an improvement because it’s the first sign of any sense of genuine pain on this album, even if I don’t believe him. Selena Gomez was a good pick for a feature because she flows effortlessly on the production, and unlike Puth she doesn’t sound like she’s struggling. The duet on here doesn’t feel as contrived as it did on Marvin Gaye, and the high-pitched effect near the end sounds pleasant enough. Still, it’s pretty barebones. The outro’s alright too. 5.5/10

My Gospel

Oh. The intro doesn’t sound the same as the other tracks, maybe this track is fi-

I’d stroll into a bank and put a ski mask on

And walk out with a million bucks

Then I’d burn it in a pile out on your front lawn

Just to prove it didn’t mean that much

It’s a shame that Puth is as threatening as a gentle breeze in the wind. Like, it’s cold, it mildly irritates you, and you honestly tell yourself you could care less but couldn’t help but think that this wind could be pleasant, just not right now. The production is a bright side, though. I barely buy Puth as a hopeless romantic, I can’t buy him as insane, dangerous, or criminal, all three of this song tries to sell Puth as. Yeah, I’d rather just buy the beach house Mr. Ocean wants to sell me tomorrow. 3/10

Up All Night

Great, another ballad. Hurray.

Stop trying to add power to your voice, Charlie. You aren’t powerful. You get more annoying the more you try to stretch your voice out. Shit, I know you can hit higher notes because of We Don’t Talk Anymore, why does your voice sound this strained?

Again, lyrically generic.

He’s trying to add a gospel influence to the song, but it just feels forced. Take notes from Chance and Friends. 1.5/10

Left Right Left

It’s like Dear Future Husband except nowhere near as offensive. The step imagery is just boring. And the repetition throughout the album just keeps getting worse.

Saccharine. At least his falsetto isn’t too annoying until the bridge of the song this time. 2.5/10

Then There’s You

zzz

Outside of WDTA and My Gospel, every song on this album feels exactly the same sonically. Also, “There’s beautiful and then there’s you” doesn’t work as a pick up line, and it doesn’t work here either. It’s just not creative and it’s kinda dumb. There’s dull, Charlie Puth, and then there’s you. 1.5/10

Also, I know this is petty, but the next track is the tenth track on an album called Nine Track Mind. You could’ve come up with a better name for the album. Shit, Eight Track Mind would’ve been better. But that’s not affecting my opinion of the album in any way, considering I don’t really care for the title of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool and that’s one of my favorite albums to come out this year.

Suffer

Before I review this, I just want to point out that there’s a Vince Staples remix to a Charlie Puth song. I haven’t listened to it yet, I just need to address this.

The falsetto on the hook is actually alright. Again, lyrically this song could’ve been sung by literally anybody else more convincingly than Puth, but this is honestly much better than I remember it being. I still don’t buy Puth as being pained but he’s certainly making a better case for himself here than nearly every other song on this album. Come to think of it, the hook is somewhat ironic for me, having had to listen to the rest of the album and this is only the second song that doesn’t really irritate me. 6/10

As You Are (feat. Shy Carter)

Who’s Shy Carter again? Oh yeah. I actually like that song too, let’s see how this song was.

Puth really needs to relax his voice on this album, because I’m noticing his best songs sonically are where he’s subdued and his worst are when he strains himself out in his normal fucking range. Alas, that can’t save this song from making me think about this song lyrically similar Marvin Gaye in that it’s just fucking insufferable. And alas, that can’t save the song from it’s hook. Stop trying to make yourself seem more powerful, Puth. This song would be a lot better with a lighter hook, whether that be in falsetto or in his normal range.

Also, Shy Carter can kinda fuck off here. 1.75/10

Some Type of Love

The last track.

The humming is alright. It’ll probably get annoying by the end though.

I want to like this song. I really do, because it sounds like a song I would love. Alas, it’s being held back by two things: lyrics, and the unnecessary emphasis on “love” in the hook. It’s okay otherwise, and with another singer I’d like it even more, but it’s a little bland lyrically and Puth just needs to relax. 3.5/10

Overall Analysis of Nine Track Mind

Blue-eyed soul. It can be done well (see: Sam Smith, even if he has similar issues to Puth in regards to lyrics, at least put out a good debut album), and it can be done wrong. This is the latter.

I understand that record labels can be pushy in regards to what kind of music an artist makes. Hell, I hate Puth’s label, Atlantic Records, for what they’ve done with Lupe Fiasco and Waka Flocka Flame, not to mention sublabels that have artists that I’ve noticed have spiraled down in quality as of late (Fall Out Boy with Fueled By Ramen, Wale with Maybach Music) and other artists that have straight up sold out on the label such as Kevin Gates and Coldplay. But I feel as if he still could’ve made a better album from this, at least lyrically, right? Kelly Clarkson had a bad record deal and she still had a solid debut, as did Kesha.

Actually, now that I scan through the songwriting credits on Nine Track Mind, I’m positive that he really couldn’t have done better. The four songs that I hated the least (Some Type of Love, We Don’t Talk Anymore, My Gospel, and Suffer) all had minimal outside influence. So did Marvin Gaye, but I can just blame that on being rushed out of the ass to make another hit single after See You Again blew the fuck up. I used to have contempt for Puth, now I just feel bad, especially since his earlier work far surpasses this album.

Let me start out this post with an introduction:

Hello. I’m David Simon. I’m 17 years old, and I’m black, or more specifically, biracial. Now that you know me and some of my background, I’m going to start my stream of consciousness.

The events that have happened in the past three days have caused me to look introspectively into what it means to be black in America, and what it means to be black myself. Am I black when my white “friends” throw my race under the bus with the same five jokes about black people eating certain foods (newsflash: I don’t care about watermelon, I don’t go to KFC, and I don’t drink Kool-Aid), committing crimes (I’m pretty sure I’m one of the few people in my 382-student grade that hasn’t smoked or drank anything illicit or illegal), not having a dad (my black father has raised me for every single day of my soon-to-be 18 year lifespan alongside my mother), being dumb (last I checked I was ranked 24th out of 382 juniors in terms of unweighted GPA), or counting as three-fifths (or in my case three-tenths as some of you have hilariously pointed out) of a person (which, if you say this: it’s not funny anymore, try different jokes)? Apparently to them, I’m not. But I’m damn sure they consider themselves black when they bitch at me for saying nigga when they’re saying it off-the-cuff every now and then. They’re only saying nigga just to get a rise out of me being black, and that’s incredibly racist.

This is the problem with white culture (see, I’m only saying “white culture” is because y’all bitch every now-and-then that black culture is the detriment to society; “white culture” is really separate branches cultures, such as Irish culture, Italian culture, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, etc. (actually, now that I think about it, all three of those cultures were treated as minorities at one point in history. Huh.)): it just loves to simultaneously look down upon minority cultures, appropriate certain aspects that seem appealing to them (which I’m going to talk about later), and then act innocent when the cultures criticize this appropriation. It has increasingly annoyed me over time ever since I was fourteen that people were absorbing aspects of black culture (which actually exists because it’s a minority amount of people; something as broad as “white culture” cannot exist simply because of its size and lack of unity) such as hip-hop (now, I love Gucci Mane and Young Thug, but this weird worship of them in suburban communities feels like a fetish at points and is borderline condescending; that isn’t to say suburbanites can’t fully appreciate these artists, they can and many do, it’s just that many of these people will turn around and shit on the genre and subculture for their own egotistic/social/financial game, a high-profile example being Lil’ Dicky, who I will fully address later on), hair styles (looking at you, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus), food (everybody loves Popeye’s and KFC but suburbanites just love turning liking this food into a negative beyond health), etc. only to turn around and abandon the rest of black society when they need assistance to fight off systematic oppression from crooked politicians and business leaders, horrid treatment from police officers, and systematic racism from job owners, to name just a few of the many aspects holding back black excellence. Let me begin the breakdown of what I mean by “turning around on black culture”:

When you say “What about black on black violence?” in regards to us criticizing the police, we know you aren’t offering any viable solution to the table, and that you’re just deflecting the conversation away from the problems within the PD. I should know about issues within the police system, since my white grandfather on my mother’s side, may he rest in peace, was refused proper payment for hospital fees and other monetary issues that stemmed from his MS triggering from an incident within his time as a police officer. I fully acknowledge that black on black violence is a big issue that needs to be tackled, but police brutality is something that can be fixed much easier and much quicker. There are many, many issues within police departments, such as the blue line of protection and racist tactics that do not work to prevent crime such as stop and frisk.

When you say “All Lives Matter”, we know that all lives matter, because that’s obvious and for you to think otherwise is for you to spit in our faces. It’s like saying “All Buildings Matter” without doing anything to help when there’s a whole street of houses on fire: like, yeah, they all matter, but there are one’s that specifically need help right now and you being a condescending twat waffle doesn’t do shit to help the current situation. Actually assist our communities if you truly believe that “All Lives Matter”, because as far as I’m seeing the ones that are saying “All Lives Matter” aren’t the ones doing anything to assist downtrodden communities.

When you say “Black culture is bad”... I can’t think of a snappy way to finish this sentence so I’m just going to start my defense. Crime rate per 1000 people per race adjusted to income level is relatively equal between white people and black people, and is actually substantially lower within the Hispanic community than white and black communities. Black entertainers have repeatedly given back to urban communities and other places in need of assistance. (Note: every word in the previous sentence contains a link to charitable contributions made by black entertainers, and there’s plenty more where that came from). Here are some instances of white people rioting over things more inane and pointless (for the most part) than police brutality. In addition to consuming our culture without hesitation (see: rock, jazz, hip-hop, soul, folk, etc.), people within white society have the gall to inaccurately accuse black culture of destroying America when white society is doing just as much harm.

Speaking of absorbing our culture in music, let’s talk cultural appropriation in general: do not criticize our culture if you’re going to make a profit from it. See: Lil’ Dicky. Nearly everything I need to say is in this article, so I’m not going to dig too deep, but don’t act like being black is going to benefit you in the rap game moreso than being white when it’s clear that white rappers tend to have stronger sales (see: Eminem, Iggy Azalea, Macklemore, Mac Miller, Logic (he’s biracial but can easily pass as white), G-Eazy, The Lonely Island, etc.) than their black counterparts. I mean, shit, at least two of the rappers I just mentioned had acknowledged that their race aids them in sales. Hell, throughout the history of modern music, white musicians have thrived in heavily criticized, predominantly black art forms.

Now, I want to talk about the police. I wish the best for the families of the cops shot in Dallas, and I pray that the deceased rest in peace. That being said, I want to point out a hard fact: being a police officer is not the most dangerous job in the United States, in fact it’s not even in the top ten, despite what some news media and dumb Twitter accounts will tell you. Police supposedly “Protect and Serve” the communities they work for, but I feel that that’s been turned into an “Us vs. Them” mentality where nobody speaks out against crimes committed by their peers. I expect the police to be held to a higher standard than regular citizens, but time and time again I’m proven wrong. That’s not to say that there aren’t good cops, but you are not a good cop if you do not publicly outcry against these killings and other offenses done by your fellow officer. It’s one thing for a community not to frown upon malicious behavior within their community by a random person, but you all are held to a higher standard than us.

Also, let’s talk about all of the people that want to say “All Lives Matter”, but only when cops are shot at, never when a black man is choked to death by the police (Eric Garner), or when a black woman dies in police custody (Sandra Bland), or when a black child is gunned down by the police for having a toy gun (Tamir Rice), or when a black man is shot for doing what an officer says (Philando Castile). Why do y’all complain about cops getting shot when they knowingly take on a dangerous job (yes, I understand it’s a dangerous job, it’s just overstated how dangerous it really is) but suddenly I won’t hear a peep from your Twitter account/Facebook/whatfuckingever social media account when black communities are hurt by the rampant corruption within police force? Why do you feel the need to talk down to the black community as if we’re responsible for the actions of an individual yet you never criticize the police when they are accountable for the actions and handling of a corrupt officer? Those weren’t rhetorical questions, I want answers. And another thing, you never say “All Lives Matter” when it’s a white person being gunned down either (see: Dylan Noble). Why do y’all deify the police so much where anybody that criticizes them is an awful person from your perspective? Again, not rhetorical. America has a problem when it comes to deifying people who shouldn’t be worshiped for doing their job, whether that be cops (my grandfather was a cop, remember that), military (a few of my aunts and uncles are veterans from the Gulf War and my grandfather served in World War II, remember that), or otherwise. Never put anybody on a pedestal.

Just to make my stance 100% clear on the police: fuck the police, but not the police officers that speak out against this bullshit. Fuck the system, and I say this as a law-abiding citizen.

Back on culture: why must white society feel the need to take what you want and attempt burn down the rest? It’s happened with rock, with hip-hop, with slang, with hair, etc. Please, we have no problem with white people entering the culture as long as y’all treat it with respect. Eminem is a notable example of somebody who has entered the culture and treated it with respect. He has never bitched about hip-hop being bad for the youth or about black culture or whatever, he’s just there to create art. Do I think he is overrated? Yes. Do I think he should be respected? Also yes. Do I think many people in his fanbase only praise him so highly because he’s white, and that his subject matter is no different from many rappers outside of a few songs, whether it be horrorcore or your standard mainstream rapper? Yes. Do I think he is one of the most technically gifted rappers to exist? Also yes. I’m getting sidetracked, so let me rebound: don’t try to take aspects of our culture to make you seem trendy when you also paint the entire black community with one large paintbrush about how we’re all criminals, how we’re all savages, so on and so forth.

I have never been somebody who’s good at ending thoughts so I’m not sure how to finish this, but I just want to be treated as an equal, not as somebody different. I am black, and that’s all right. You are whatever you are, and that’s all right. Don’t throw me or my culture under the bus, and don’t hero worship. I don’t want to be afraid of the police when I go into Boston or other urban communities, but that’s where I am right now.

TL;DR: If you skipped all the way to the bottom, fuck you. But here’s a TL;DR anyway: I don’t mind white people consuming black culture, in fact I embrace diversity of all kinds. Just don’t screw black communities over and don’t patronize us. Here’s a song to end out on to describe how I feel: