this album changed my life
summer 2024. i was starting to listen to more music that was new to me. at the time i was very into underground styled things and i was very into sigilkore at the time. it wasn’t until i heard some old odd future songs and finally got back into alt hip-hop again. there was this band that i knew about ever since 2017, but i never actually listened to them, it was brockhampton.
first album i heard was saturation and soon after i listened to the whole trilogy. my favorite was saturation 2. i loved their music and i found it super interesting. i soon looked more into kevin abstract’s solo work and decided to listen to his sophomore project first, which is american boyfriend: a suburban love story; one of the best albums i’ve ever heard in my life.
the amount of love i have for this album is more than you expect. i adore this album. mainly because of the lgbtq+ topics it discusses and portrays. as a member of this community having someone from south texas, who’s a rapper and who’s also lgbtq sing and rap about all that stuff. i resonated with it. i loved it. i loved everything about it. it sounded so beautiful to me and i kept listening. i told all my friends about it, i told my ex boyfriend about it and i just couldn’t stop replaying it. i loved this album so much and i wish i could go back to the first time i ever played it.
the intro track is called empty, it’s the most popular song on the album, and it sounds like a disney show song and i love it. it shows the type of album this project will be. it’s very pop punk inspired visually and with its topics. sonically, it’s all over the place. the song “blink” is a song where kevin raps but in a very weird way. the flow is super weird and i love it. the same can be said about “suburbian born”. kevin abstract speaks about how he can’t have a relationship with someone due to the other partners parents racism. it sounds beautiful. “i do (end credits)” is another hip-hop influenced song, with kevin rapping in a high pitched voice and it sounds very brockhampton.
my favorite song is “papercut”. the beautiful guitar chords played throughout the whole song with kevin abstract rapping drumless. the song is personal. he discusses love, drugs, his sexuality and how he deals with situations. it’s perfect in my eyes. the lyric “the hardest part of my day is wishing i was fucking straight” is one of my favorites of all time. i’ve struggled with my sexuality and my orientation for years and i’ve struggled with coming to terms with it. seeing kevin abstract speak about this makes me feel a way. i don’t know how to explain it, but it makes me feel something. it makes me feel like i wasn’t able to say something i’ve always wanted to, and having someone else speak it makes me feel better and can help me express myself more. the song is beautiful and is one of my favorites of all time.
my second favorite is the title track. it’s my second favorite mainly for sonic reasons, rather than lyrical. the song sounds so beautiful. the luscious guitars, the amazing vocals from kevin abstract and bearface, and the guitar solo. it’s beautiful. it makes me wish bearface has more solo work and actually released more music. just an overall great song and a great piece of work by kevin. i adore this song and it’s probably my most replayed off the album.
kevin abstract’s “american boyfriend: a suburban love story” is one of the greatest albums i’ve ever heard and has helped me in so many ways. it makes me feel spoken and heard in ways that artists can’t replicate, even by kevin abstract himself. this style of music cannot be replicated at all, especially in this era. kevin abstract has released great music after this project, but not better than this and it’s hard to understand why. he most likely outgrew this sound and he wanted to develop more, which is understandable.
i will always love this album with my heart. it changed my life and i hope it changed other peoples too. 10/10.
i could’ve wrote this review a bit better, but it’s 1 am and i need to go to sleep.