What do you get when you pair a man named Colson Baker with drummer Travis Barker? A masterpiece. Baker (familiarly known as Machine Gun Kelly) started in 2011 with his rap debut Lace Up — an album about hardship. Coming from Cleveland, MGK is a man who had dreams of making it big in the rap game.
Lace Up was an album full of incredible features, from rap legend DMX (may he R.I.P.) to pop artist Cassie. Although known as a ‘hip hop’ album, Machine Gun Kelly’s first release had rock influences; you can hear them on the first track titled “Save Me”, featuring M Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold. MGK continued to fall under the rap radar until September 2020, when he released his greatest album to date, Tickets To My Downfall. It’s primarily a pop punk-meets-rock album — the first of his kind.
It’s like MGK had always wanted to do this kind of sound and he achieves it in the best possible way.
The first single from Tickets To My Downfall, “Bloody Valentine”, gives summer vibes with an early 2000s punk feel to it. Machine Gun Kelly had previously dropped the song “Why Are You Here” back in 2019 as a little taste of what the full album had in store. This is an album filled to the brim with great moments: from “My Ex’s Best Friend”, featuring rapper blackbear, to “Forget Me Too”, featuring Halsey. The gang is all here.
Machine Gun Kelly is the hero we need, but don’t deserve. He took a genre that many people love and made it his own. MGK… I guess you can say is pop punk’s Savior. You don’t believe me? Go listen to Tickets To My Downfall and get taken on the journey of a lifetime. Before working on the album, MGK met up with Travis Barker to officially collaborate; their first song together, “I Think I’m OKAY”, had both rock and rap vibes to it and I hoped to see more from him in this genre. This all led to Tickets To My Downfall, which is a perfect 10 out of 10 in my book.
Machine Gun Kelly has his next rap project coming out this fall titled Born With Horns and it’s sure to be a good one! Check out his last album below, along with the brand new music video for his “papercuts” single, directed by Cole Bennett. For more information on MGK or to pre-save Born With Horns now, head to the social media links below.
Purchase or stream ‘Tickets To My Downfall’ album:
Machine Gun Kelly – “papercuts” official video
Pre-order ‘Born With Horns’ album:
PRE-ORDER ► Physical Merch
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