This album was released on March 8th this year. Since I’m trying to be consistent with the Nerdcore theme this week, I figured it’d only make sense to try out the music of the subgenre’s creator. Before trying out this album I’d only ever heard features from MC Frontalot, so I really had no expectations. I almost always enjoy his features, but I knew that there was a strong chance that this could be a terrible experience for me. This isn’t really important, but I just wanna mention that I searched for images of MC Frontalot because I wanted to know what he looks like, and this motherfucker looks exactly like Mr. Six, except younger. Y’all know who Mr. Six is, right? He’s the creepy ass Six Flags mascot who always used to dance in the commercials. That dude used to scare the shit outta me when I was little, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, I wasn’t really familiar with any of the producers who made the beats for this album, with one exception. Quelle Chris produced one track on here, and he’s actually got a featured verse on it. That was definitely a pleasant surprise, but I also noticed that there were a couple of features from artists who I do not care for at all. I’ll get into that later though.

Anyway, to my relief, this album didn’t end up being trash. I actually really liked it honestly. I usually just talk about the songs I like first, and then get into the ones I didn’t care for towards the end of each review; however, there were only three songs that I didn’t like on this album, so I’m just gonna talk about it in the proper order of the tracklist. It starts off with one of the better songs on the album, Internet Sucks, which successfully introduces the theme of the entire record.

The heavy vocal manipulation on the hook was a bit jarring to me at first, but it grew on me as the song progressed, so I like it now. The first actual verse from MC Frontalot is great, and I really like the simplistic instrumental from Matt Steckler & The Sturgenius a lot. Matt Steckler played the flute and the Sturgenius provided the percussion. That’s pretty much all there is to it. It sounds great though. The content about Frontalot becoming disillusioned with the internet is actually pretty cool too.

How exactly is one supposed to mute the fact that a tenth of our netizens
When offered the chance to shit on anything pull down pants without hesitance
Without any sense of justice, pathos, kindness or decency?
Now having to listen to assholes is half of what online means to me

Immediately after hearing this song I knew that I was gonna enjoy this album because MCF is a really good writer. I loved the second verse about people being trolls on social media and forums.

These days, it’s like all the worst people on earth formed a club
Just to light ugliness up and take one drag and proceed to stub
It out in my eye by way of my once-beloved internet
Could a solution lurk that hasn’t been discovered in it yet?

It’s an awesome intro. I think it’s dope af. The following track, Memes Are Stupid, features a rapper named Int80, who is one half of a duo called Dual Core. I’d heard a few verses from him in the past since he’s been featured on Mega Ran’s work before, and I always end up being pretty satisfied with his contributions. This track was no exception. The title of this song had me a little worried when I read it, but the direction in which MCF goes with the content turned out to be pretty dope. I also think the production from Gm7 & Baddd Spellah is fantastic. The vocals on the hook are kind of strange, but I like them. It’s pretty catchy. In the context of this song, I’m pretty sure the word “dumb” is just supposed to mean silly; I don’t think he’s saying memes are lame or worthless. I mentioned this earlier, but I think Int80’s verse was really fucking good.

Hey stranger, is your echo chamber commentary laughed off?
Look at the bigger picture of these contemporary snapshots.
Behold the inevitable sentence structure that we muster
These dank memes change themes, grouping others into clusters
I thought as someone famous you’d like innovative language
Sorry to deny your pull request for retroactive changes

The final verse from Frontalot was fantastic as well. I really love his delivery, and his flow is pretty unorthodox too. I think Memes Are Dumb is even better than the intro, but the following song is another step up as well. Never Read the Comments is easily one of the best tracks on the album. The production style on the album up to this point is really fucking cool. I love the percussion from The Sturgenius. This track in particular is co-produced by Brendan B. Brown. As much as I love the beat, it’s admittedly not the kind of instrumental that I’d listen to without vocals over it. It sounds great when MC Frontalot is spitting over it, but it’d probably be a little stale on its own. Anyway, the first verse about how comment sections under something you post will almost always contain people who shit on you is awesome.

You get despised and disparaged; is this normal? Let it go
A single toe dipped in the fester-hole subjects to undertow
As if to know your worth itself became debatable
As if anything could be wonderful enough to be unhateable

I love the opening verse. However, the second verse in which he flips the perspective is amazing to me. In this verse he raps from the point of view of an internet troll talking shit in a comment section.

Original poster’s mom should get AIDS and then kill herself
If that isn’t still enough impact on her bill of health,
Poisonous vulgar slurs protruding in and out
Because of whatever original poster posted about

I fucking love it, man. It’s so fucking awesome to me. Again, it’s one of my favorite tracks on the album. It’s followed by a song called Dating Profile, which is one of the weaker songs on the project for sure. I still like it though. I didn’t care for the production quite as much, but it was solid. It just sounds far more synthetic and Electronic influenced than the preceding instrumentals. The content is about joining a dating website after years of loneliness and the advent of mid-life desperation.

What kind of hope about love have you impossibly still got lodged in your nerd mind?
Don’t you remember biology, all of the sad ones that the herd find
Difficult to cope with left the group and weren’t eloped with

I feel like you can kind of tell just by the way the lyrics above were transcribed, but MCF’s got a really weird flow pattern. The way he writes makes it so that the rhymes land in unpredictable places, and he often ends up crossing the bar line. It’s hard to explain. It’s dope though. Anyway, the song kind of goes in a weird direction; whatever app the protagonist of the song seems to be using ostensibly enhances all of his qualities to make him appear more attractive, and it does the same for every other user. I don’t think they end up meeting each other in real life, so it’s just a track about being a fake version of yourself and participating in a virtual relationship. It’s kind of strange. I may be wrong about certain aspects of it. For some reason the notes I took about the song didn’t save, so I had to try to remember what my original thoughts were. I think I got it all right though. It’s a good track. I just don’t like it as much as a lot of the others. It’s cool though. It’s followed by track 5, Extremely Online. This song has more percussion from The Sturgenius, and it’s awesome. The content of this song is pretty straightforward. It’s basically about internet addiction and the inability to be mindful of the real world. I think the sung hook is actually pretty good, and I enjoyed both of the verses quite a bit.

Some scaredy-cats are going to log off
But I’ll tell them, “Muster bravery, be not soft
Be not often—nor ever—in absentia
And if you get in trouble while you’re logged on, do not mention the
Rapper who told you to never touch the power switch”
I eschew all weaknesses such as cowardice

Again, he’s a really great writer. I think it’s a dope song, but I don’t love it quite as much as the first three songs on the album. I fuck with it though. The following track, DDoS, is my favorite song on the album. I admittedly had to do a quick google search to find out what exactly a DDoS attack is before I listened to the song. I think I’d heard of it in the past, but I didn’t actually know what it was. Anyway, the first verse from Quelle Chris is fucking awesome.

The system is down; everything’s stuck in the internet now
Call the pharmacist Morpheus, hope his prescription is loud
The metal mentalist each move predicted to your interest
Clouds hold our sentiments like nimbus on a journey to the wicked west

He’s another really great writer. I think the production on this track is really fantastic, and the hook is dope too. The second verse from MCF is stellar.

All sysops on deck; this is an awesome wreck
This is one of the best “too much internets” we’ve seen yet
Elect to force-quit deceptive packets talking
And I’m bottlenecked by horseshit, the truth can’t even login

I have zero gripes with this song at all. I think it’s fucking awesome. Again, it’s definitely one of the best songs on the album. It’s dope af. The following track was pretty frustrating for me. There are a lot of things I like about it, but some of the features really ruined the track for me. It’s called IWF, which stands for “Internetting While Female.” The concept of the song is really fucking cool to me. MC Frontalot raps from the perspective of a neck-bearded, fedora wearing, vaping incel, and his verse is awesome.

Think I’ve gone soft? My masculinity towers
I can sit and type shit like this for hours
Without a hint of introspection or fatigue
You can make a sandwich for me, otherwise breed
And incubate my seed; these are your two mainstays
Suck it up, you’re internetting while having vajayjays

Again, the features unfortunately ruined this track for me. I actually think the hook from Starr Busby sounds really good, but that second verse from Miss Eaves was flat out awful to me. I am really just not a fan of her at all because I thought she also had the worst verse on The Dewey Decibel System. LEX the Lexicon Artist had a better verse I guess, but she still comes off corny as hell; a few of her lines had me cringing, and I really can’t stomach her obnoxiously dorky demeanor. Thankfully E-Turn‘s verse was actually pretty goddamn dope. The damage was already done at this point though. She couldn’t save the song. As I said earlier, it’s a frustrating song because I think the subject matter is really dope. Having a bunch of female Nerdcore MCs respond to basement-dwelling involuntarily celibate character played by MCF was a really good idea. The execution was just off. I think it would’ve been great if the song was just MC Frontalot, Starr Busby, E-Turn, and maybe a verse from Sammus. She would’ve killed this shit. I can’t fuck with the song as it is now though. I wouldn’t call it wack since there are a lot of things I like about it, but I’m never listening to it again. It’s just okay to me. The following track, Bad Nerd, is definitely the worst song on the album to me. I actually think it’s a bad song. The production from Gm7 & Baddd Spellah is solid enough, and I liked the rapping from MCF. There’s really just one aspect of this song that completely ruins it. Bro. That sung hook is fucking disgusting. I don’t know who the fuck that Corn Mo dude is, but he’s unbearable. I was actually a little disappointed because I initially misread his name as Cory Mo. I guess a Cory Mo & MC Frontalot collab would be super random and strange though. It wouldn’t really make sense. I’m sure it’d be better than this shit though. That hook is fucking God awful. Again, I liked the rapping, but goddamn man. MCF’s performance is really the only aspect of the song that I enjoyed. So yeah, I think it’s wack overall. The rest of the album is honestly a little strange to me. It doesn’t really feel like there’s a proper ending. There’s not really a strong conclusion. Bad Nerd is the last original song on the project. It’s followed by a skit, which features Anita Sarkeesian of all people, which I didn’t pay too much attention to. The final three tracks are “Unplugged” versions of songs that have already been out for years though. I wasn’t even gonna write about them at first, but then I was just like uh… “Fuck it.” So I guess I will write about them. The first one is called Message No. 419. It originally appeared on a Various Artists’ compilation curated by an artist named Brad Sucks, who I’m not really familiar with at all. The compilation was called Outside the Inbox, and all of the songs were supposed to be written in response to spam/chain mail. I guess it fits the theme of this album pretty well. This track in particular was originally called Urgent Business Relationship. I think this updated version with live instrumentation from Bl4k L0tus, Gm7 & The Sturgenius is pretty dope. The first verse was great, and I think the content is pretty cool, although I’m not really clear on what exactly happened in the story. It’s a cool track though. It’s definitely not really a standout track for me on this album, but I enjoyed it. The following track is much better in my opinion. Believe it or not, it actually features a second guest verse from Quelle Chris. I think the original version of this song appeared on one of MC Frontalot’s older albums, but it had a different feature. The title of this song triggered me, but it actually turned out to be pretty great. It’s called I Hate Your Blog. MCF isn’t shitting on Hip Hop blogs like mine; he’s really just shitting on miscellaneous personal blogs in which people document their lives. Kinda like VSCO, but with words. I really never got the point of VSCO. Do people actually use that website to look at other people’s pictures? I feel like they just use it to post their own pictures and then assume other people will care enough to look at them. I probably don’t know enough about the website to be commenting on it though. Anyway, I actually agreed with the critique that MCF presented with this song. I always thought it was best to focus on one particular subject with a blog because if it’s just about you and your life nobody’s gonna give a shit. His verse was dope, and the production on this track is more enjoyable for me than that of the preceding song. Quelle Chris’ verse was awesome, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. His verse actually had me laughing out loud. He rapped from the perspective of someone who runs a shitty blog.

I hate Instagram, Snap, and Reddit too
My blog’s got a super loud embedded tune
Stupefied by Disturbed on repeat
I know each word, and that’s me
Come and see; I know you’ll love it
Stop being a normie, and join the troll republic

Man, that sounds fucking awful. I hate blogs that play music as soon as you load the page, and the fact that it was that shitty Disturbed song makes it 10x funnier. I also hate news websites that automatically play videos as soon as you load a page. HotNewHipHop started doing that about a year or two ago if I’m not mistaken. Honestly, that’s such a shitty website. I really don’t know why I still use it. Anyway, I think the song is dope af. Unfortunately I didn’t really care for the final song on the album, Pr0n S0ng. It just doesn’t really appeal to me at all. It’s all about MCF’s porn addiction. I have to admit that it was kind of interesting to hear about all the strange, fucked up categories of porn he watches.

Got the Japanese schoolgirl tentacle love
Got the furries in a flurry, they been yiffing it up
Got a Craig’s List poster trading poo for pee
Got a deep dark dungeon full of hot bi Swedes

I saw one person complaining about MC Frontalot’s use of the transphobic slur, “tr██ny,” which I kind of understand, but his use of the word makes sense given the context. The reality is that there is a category of porn that is defined by its inclusion of transexual participants, and unfortunately the official term for the categorization is indeed “tr██ny.” It’s a fucked up situation, but when it comes to pornography you can’t really expect tastefulness. MC Frontalot actually included a disclaimer about his use of two slurs on the bandcamp page for the song.

MC Frontalot would like to explain that the popular slurs "midget" and "tranny" are included in this lyric only to mirror the language of porn categorization, never to suggest that these are proper ways to refer to human beings.

It makes sense to me, but I obviously understand that those who are transexual or who have dwarfism may not be okay with it. Personally, that’s not a particular aspect of the song that bothered me, but I’m not gonna be listening to it in the future again anyway. Again, it was a little interesting to hear about all the fucked up porn that there is on the internet, but it’s not something that I’d want to hear more than once. It’s just okay to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

---

I think this album is really fucking good. I’m really glad I checked it out, and I’m contrite for not hearing it until recently. It’s definitely a flawed project, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. There are two main issues that I had with the record. First of all, some of these features are straight up garbage. Miss Eaves? No thank you. LEX the Lexicon Artist? No thank you. Corn Mo? No thank you. Actually, I shouldn’t even say “thank you” for offering Corn Mo because his contribution to this project is easily the worst moment on the whole record. Anyway, aside from the features, my other big gripe is just the way the album ends. As I mentioned in the body of this review, it really doesn’t feel like there’s a strong conclusion. The record kinda just fizzles out. It seems like Bad Nerd is supposed to be the final song, but it’s followed by a random skit which wouldn’t make for a strong ending at all, and then there are three updated versions of old tracks tacked onto the very end of the project. It feels a little thrown together honestly. It’s a shame because the first track is such a great intro. Again, I enjoyed the album a lot overall. I just wish it was a bit more cohesive in it’s sequencing. It has such a strong start, and the momentum doesn’t follow through to the end. It’s disappointing honestly. I do still like the album a lot though. I’m gonna have to go back and check out some of MC Frontalot’s earlier work because this is very good. Check it out.

Favorite Song: DDoS
Least Favorite Song: Bad Nerd

79