Review Summary: A.G. Cook's crowning achievement perseveres through the controversy, creating the best bubblegum I've ever heard.
I don't know what it is about bubblegum that gets so under some (most) critics' skins. There's little to no actual acceptance of it in the "serious" music scene. Even the increasingly popular so-called "poptimists" tend to be more interested in trends and favorable political positions of the artists than the actual quality of the music. Consider the critical opinion shift Carly Rae Jepsen received transferring from her bubblegum debut in 2012,
Kiss, which drew off of the more popular and less critically acclaimed dance-pop of the early 2010s, to 2015's
emotion, a heavily 80s-inspired piece. Now that she started making music with an in-vogue aesthetic, critics and aspiring poptimists alike paid far more attention to her, despite her huge drop in popularity after the enormous "Call Me Maybe" fell out of culture. (You might argue that this has to do with the quality of the music, not the aesthetic. However, she has received both more positive attention and more negative attention with
emotion, when
Kiss was an easy "objectivity" boost, as one website refers to conformism.)
This probably comes across as awfully off-topic, but it's enormously relevant to A.G. Cook. A.G. Cook normally makes bubblegum (with a new jack swing flavor). It's enormously catchy, perfectly polished, and charmingly (or disturbingly, depending who you ask) extreme. Basically, it's bubblegum for people who get bored of generic pop and want something a little more intense. That's all there is to it. However, the musical scene can't really handle this. In various attempts to be the forward-thinking, music publications dissected the innards of it, writing overwrought thinkpieces, ignoring the real purpose of the music in favor of assumptions that there had to be something that kept this from being the same as the bubblegum and new jack swing that they had previously largely ignored. How else could they justify the praise?
Most listeners discovered it with this context of it being some highly advanced inaccessible (Jia Tolentino of Pitchfork considered
PC Music Volume 1 to be pop hidden under a "pixelated thicket") post-modern art project. While artists like SOPHIE probably have at least some of that going on, A.G. Cook, PC Music as a whole, and SOPHIE, while linked, are not the same, and the perception of the three as identical skewed the reception enormously. "Rockists" rightfully called BS on the art project theory, proclaiming it (wrongly) to be bad because it was "just" bubblegum. Poptimists effectively either argued "it's OK, it's not bubblegum, it's an art project" or "it's an art project, you're too old-fashioned to get it." This controversy inflated the spotlight on the music, creating an even larger argument, and continuing the upward spike of popularity, especially among those of us who didn't really care about the argument. All this controversy has become largely impossible to ignore, since any praise or persecution of PC Music has to stand against those arguments, respectively. And that's why I insist that both "sides" are wrong - it's just music. No matter the intent, no style of music is more intellectual than another, no style of music is inherently more valid than another, and it doesn't matter anyway since this really is just bubblegum with a twist.
But it is some seriously excellent bubblegum - think the stuff from Willy Wonka that tastes like a full meal or/and inflates you. Just in case it wasn't clear to you, even though it is bubblegum of the finest degree, it isn't like most bubblegum you've heard before. It's probably better. It's mostly frantically paced, grabbing you from the get-go, faking relaxation. You might think you can leave early, but you can't until you hear the dramatic finale. It's incredibly catchy. I dare you to listen to this without getting
something stuck in your head. Go ahead. Let me know if you manage it, I'd be legitimately interested in how you managed it. Possibly most importantly, it's beautiful. Nothing in here sounds dull or grating, just sparkly. Cook is clearly a superb producer, experienced enough to understand the subtleties other electronic producers are famous for but melodically inclined enough to create and curate music that isn't really subtle at all. This mix wouldn't be nearly as good as it is without the interludes that add context and interest. I can't think of any other DJs who would choose to put dialogue in-between the first song, an untitled Dux Content (A.G. Cook + Danny L. Harle, another brilliant pop producer) bubbled 1-minute intro, and "Aquarius," both of which share a similar enough aesthetic that he could have just mixed between the two. He continues this pattern of unusual choices between songs, helping to blur the line between an album and a mix. It's nothing but orthodox.
Particularly interesting is how sleek Cook's mixing is. There are people whose entire careers are devoted to mastering music, and this sounds like it went under that kind of treatment. If he simply did this on his own, as would be expected from his background, that's incredible. Comparing it with any of the many nightcore edits that his music is frequently compared with,
Personal Computer Music has a huge edge in production quality. Beyond just the sharpness, it's varied enough to create far more interest than something you'd find on an anime-emblazoned youtube account. Consider the fact that both the dark, faded "Moose" (sample lyrics: "I make 'em so mad the way I'm flowing, I never look back the way I'm going, swag, swag…other rappers are transparent, I see through 'em"), "Where Does That Leave Me," a nu-jack-swing single that time forgot, and even an edit of "Better Off Alone," which acts as a great example of a transformation from cliché to majestic, all appear on this 31-minute mix.
Personal Computer Music is just the right combination of twisted and catchy. If it ends up being influential enough, it could have a huge impact on the future of pop. While I admit that possibility is relatively unlikely, I'd still love to see a
Velvet Underground & Nico-esque effect on the radio. In any case, it's had a huge effect on the music scene, forcing critics to re-consider their position on what makes music innovative and current by combining some of the most critically panned styles (eurotrance, nu jack swing) with some of the most current (cloud rap, vaguely menacing synthwork) under a perfect bubble. Speaking on his pathway to success with Danny L. Harle, Cook said: "…music became much more of a craft – we weren't attached to any specific genre but we became very aware of music production as a potentially virtuosic activity." That potential has been reached.
