ROMCOM

So I’m currently very tired at midnight, on the cusp of being sick, and I decided that I’d give this album another go. Im late, I know. I’ve had some other things going on like moving so I couldn’t really get to this album like I wanted to, but here we are. ROMCOM is the culmination of five years in the making, and I’m not really sure what happened with those five years. I mean, the original incarnation of this project entitled Dead Friends was announced back then and came with some killer singles like Not Dead Yet, Moby Dick and Saintlike, but after a long while of production we’d finally get a taster of this record.

Pine Barrens, the lead single for this record, I wasn’t very fond of. I thought it felt soulless and generic, and I’d even go as far as to say it’s shrunk on me. The new verse adds absolutely nothing and I just felt even moreso like I was falling down the boredom rabbithole as I was listening. But to take some steps back, I can easily use “soulless and generic” as a descriptor, but I’d also probably use “cringey” too as many of these samples are from dead memes from like eight years ago or just feel hamfistedly packed into these songs. Speaking of samples, I feel like a lot of the sample work here, like I said, feels amateurish at best. It feels like a newcomer coming in and picking out some random internet bullshittery and cramming it into these basic YouTube rapper instrumentals.

Oh yeah, the instrumentals. The beatery on here ranges from serviceable to extremely plain and boring, with certain songs like Every Day sounding like Khalid or any other mainstream pop act. Jakey doesn’t help these tracks much either as a majority of his performances either sound annoying or extremely bland. A song like Tommy Hanks has some of the worst creative decisions on the record like the genius idea to pitch up his vocals. That won’t get annoying very very quickly at all! Let’s throw all these quirky samples and shit in your face to mask his painfully bad lyrics. It’s not fair to call all of his lyrics bad, but the vast vast majority of them are terrible. There’s no reason someone as chill and as down to earth as Jakey should be flexing how much money he makes. Cmon. It’s either weird stuff like that or intensely forgettable topics (or maybe they’re forgettable because of how they’re written) like romance and “she’s with that guy, I hope he treats her well”. His lyricism ranges from forgettable to awfully cringey and out of touch.

I’m pretty disappointed in all honesty. His older singles would leave you to expect some fun and ethereal and nostalgic pop/pop rap tunes about his personal life and his childhood and video games and such, or you’d expect his normal abundant charm and humor and quirk to be translated well into this new album. But it’s not. This is somehow many steps back from when he knew less what he was doing. You’d think after a stressful year in pandemic and moving and being away from his channel you’d think he’d have more to say, but he often seems like he’s grasping for something and turning up with nothing. And I’d be lying if I said there was nothing good here. The first track is okay, pretty serviceable though weaker than when I’d first heard the snippet. The second track is actually fairly catchy when he isn’t rapping. The closing track is actually not bad, though is several notches away from a pretty good song and lays in the fine category as it is. This could’ve been good, but I think he let the overproduction get to his head. He also sounds like he was in severe writers block for this entire album cause damn there’s hardly any memorable writing here. There’s room to improve, but as it stands 2022’s ROMCOM is a collection of eight generic sadboy tracks over what half the time sounds like YouTube type beats. I love NJ’s channel, but man he’s got a way’s to go before he starts making great music again.

And yes, this review is very disjointed and messy, but as is the album it’s under.