LTAMSSM: boy (2024)
i told my students they could send me an album, and i would listen to it, write some thoughts on it, and send them an album to listen in return. this one was picked out for me by randy. hi randy.
2hollis, boy (2024-06-07)
musicbrainz | wikipedia | youtube | spotify
background and context
i have never heard of 2hollis before this exchange, but wikipedia lists his genres as:
- Alternative
- electropop
- hyperpop
- cloud rap
- electroclash
- rage
- EDM
all taxonomies are fraught, genre most of all. i think none of these have any real meaning besides "a computer is involved," which tells us nothing, though this recommendation did spring out of a conversation about soundcloud rappers. (though: i don't think i would call most of what happens on "boy" rap1)
the pitchfork review of this album gets at something that i think is important to highlight whenever you're talking about someone who released three or four self-released studio albums by the time he was 20 and has another one coming out next friday on a major label:
Hollis didn’t come out of nowhere. His mom, Kathryn Frazier, is the founder of the PR firm Biz 3, whose roster includes the Weeknd, J. Cole, and Daft Punk. She also co-owns a record label with Skrillex, while his dad, John Herndon, was the drummer for Tortoise and releases solo music as A Grape Dope. While Hollis has likely benefited from a life spent around musicians, his work feels most influenced by internet addiction and multimedia fluency. It might be tempting to peg him as just another kid with bleach-blond hair uploading iterative computer music to SoundCloud—an offshoot of whatever it was we decided hyperpop meant. But Hollis’ latest full-length album, boy, establishes him as a remarkably distinctive, eagerly experimental savant whose sound never stalls or stagnates.
i don't think having creative parents diminishes the work inherently, but the language of "prodigy" and "savant" is a particular pet peeve of mine as someone who teaches students who are (mostly) 18-25, (mostly) don't have a background in making art2, and are now as young adults trying to make a creative endeavor their career. talent is first and foremost developed over time with commitment and practice. the end.
general thoughts
okay, anyway. the things that stand out to me in this album is the kind of contrasts and range at play—the opening track kind of moves into this ambient electronica space, big and wide and open with this soft vocals. at exactly the halfway mark, we change out ambience for a much harsher drone and heavily modified screaming, the percussion joins in, and then oscillates back and forth a few times from there. 2hollis is pulling from a bunch of different musical spaces, and i think something he does well is kind of blending between them and making them feel cohesive in smooth switchups.
overall i really like this as a singular album, a lot of nice moments and interludes and looking ahead / back to other tracks. i even kind of like the instrumental track ("3") that's a love letter to skrillex.
something i found a little grating, though, is that just about all of these songs are about relationships, crushes, breakups, and so on. it gets a little boy band-y at times—complete with all the little breathy "huh!"s throughout the album. i appreciate the production and even the vocals here, but hopefully the lyrics are less one-note on the album dropping next week...? the single doesn't really tell me that will be true, though.
i'll probably poke at some of the other albums/EPs in his discography, but i think my takeaway from this album is that i'd be more interested in 2hollis as a producer than anything else. there's a really rich density in all of these songs that is far more interesting to me than 2hollis as a vocalist or lyricist.
favorite track
i always have a bit of extra fondness for the non-single tracks on an album. the less-appreciated songs are part of why i like listening to albums! say it again gets a bit anamanaguchi-y with some of the synths, so it was also a standout for me. ("lie" gets in that territory as well, but i think is the weaker of the two singles)
matthew picks an album in return
a million directions to go here. i dug a bit through a bunch of super upbeat-but-abrasive stuff trying to find something to pair with this: dan deacon, iglooghost, former hero, health, alice glass, blanck mass, jane remover's dariacore albums, even iamamiwhoami. i think they could all hang out on a playlist together.
i am, instead, sending you something a little less immediately adjacent. a lot of the songs on that 2hollis album are all about teen angst and romance in my mind. it is, as 2hollis' spotify bio states, about the boylife. so i'm sending a different album by a 20-year-old sex-addled midwestern boy pulling from eclectic sounds to make something relatively new at the time:
violent femmes, violent femmes (1983-04-13)
musicbrainz | wikipedia | youtube | spotify