Genre: Sadboy＜Translucent Clear Vinyl＞

Both chart-topping artists who have flirted with emo interpretations of rap, mgk and Trippie Redd team up and fight their demons as valiantly as they can on the joint EP genre : sadboy. The ten-track project focuses on themes of depression, heartbreak, drug addiction, and the ironic state of being miserable while rich and famous. mgks forays into pop-punk and emo come through in trappy cries for help like "hiding in the hills" and the acoustic-guitar led "lost boys." Uncredited features from Zzz. (on the aching choruses of "time travel") and JID (with a confusingly arbitrary verse on "who do i call" that feels disconnected from the rest of the song) fold into the back and forth between mgk and Trippie, who handle the rest of the vocal and rap duties on the EP. While thankfully short at just around 27 minutes, genre : sadboy is a challenge to get through without wincing. Both rappers somehow manage to turn in performances that are simultaneously over-the-top and phoned-in, with hyperbolic lyrics about broken relationships, addictive tendencies, crying in limos, and lost happiness. None of it feels authentic, though, as every concept is generalized and distanced from any specifics. When combined with hokey instrumentals ("struggles" starts off as a vapid attempt at sorrowful pop, and gets progressively worse until ending with whistled melody lines), half-baked songwriting, and an utter lack of any of the emotional substance its shooting for so desperately, genre : sadboy wallows painfully somewhere between unfinished and unlistenable. ~ Fred Thomas