Tickets to My Downfall

Tickets to My Downfall is the fifth studio album by American musician Machine Gun Kelly. A departure from his established rap sound, the album is a more guitar-driven pop punk album. It was released through Bad Boy Records and Interscope Records on September 25, 2020.
"Tickets to My Downfall" was preceded by the release of the singles: "Bloody Valentine", "Concert for Aliens" and "My Ex's Best Friend".
Background and recording.
Machine Gun Kelly, birth name Colson Baker, had released four studio albums through the 2010s. While his first four studio albums had been hip hop/rap styled, by the end of the decade, Baker started moving into a rock music direction. In 2019, Baker appeared in the film "The Dirt", a biographic film about the band Mötley Crüe where he played drummer Tommy Lee. The same year, Baker released his fourth studio album, "Hotel Diablo", which ended with the track "I Think I'm Okay", a more rock-leaning song collaboration with Yungblud and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. It was released as a single and became very popular, hitting number 8 on the year-end "Billboard" US Hot Rock Songs and ended up being certified platinum in the US.
Baker, wishing to explore the sound further, booked a day in recording studio to work with Barker, to record what would become the song "Bloody Valentine". The session was so powerful to Baker that he asked Barker to set aside two months for them to collaborate on an entire studio album, to which Barker obliged. For much of the rest of the year, Baker would refer to working on the album informally referred to as "the untitled pop punk project". Along with Baker on vocals and guitar, the entire album would feature Barker on drums and as a producer.
Prior to the recording of the album, Baker expressed a wish for the album to include features from Bert McCracken of the Used and Chris Fronzak from Attila. The album went on to feature collaborations with Halsey on the track "Forget Me Too", Blackbear on the track "My Ex's Best Friend", Trippie Redd on the track "All I Know", and Iann Dior on "Nothing Inside", as well as McCracken and Yungblud on "Body Bag", from the album's deluxe edition. Other collaborations in the studio included Goody Grace, Mod Sun, Young Thug, and another collaboration with Yungblud. "Body Bag", features heavy similarities to Fall Out Boy’s 2005 single "Dance, Dance", which require clearance from the band for use, which was given by Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump just a day prior to release. Baker also noted that the album originally concluded with a track titled "Times of My Life", but that he couldn't get authorization to publish the song from Tom Petty's estate, who felt the hook was too similar to a song of Petty's.
Themes and composition.
Contrary to the hip-hop style of Baker's first four studio albums, "Tickets to My Downfall" was designed by Baker to be a pop punk album. Baker created a more guitar-driven and live instrument sound in hopes of inspiring a younger generation to learn guitar. He wished to use the sound to branch out to a larger demographic as well, and succeeded, with Baker noting that his own father liked his music for the first time in his career. Tracks "Bloody Valentine" and "Concert for Aliens" were both described as "pop punk", while "My Ex's Best Friend" was described as having a more modern take on the genre, not quite "the same 'classic' pop punk vibe". The album's delay to September 2020 was something Baker felt worked out in the end, as he noted that the album has a summery, good-times vibe that he felt people could appreciate in enduring the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Baker used a metaphor related to the Goodyear Blimp to explain the meaning of the album title, stating:
Release and promotion.
The album was originally expected to release in early 2020 after Baker's repeated teasers in late 2019 and early 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic would delay album release plans. Baker used the time in lockdown to record a series of live-streamed performances, titled "LockdownSessions", including a rendition of Paramore's "Misery Business", something that caught the attention of music publications due to Hayley Williams's own denouncement of the song's lyrics earlier in the year. Baker also live-streamed a cover version of Rihanna’s "Love on the Brain" at the request of Marilyn Manson. Both songs became bonus tracks for a Target store special edition of the album.
The album's first formal single, "Bloody Valentine" was released on May 1, 2020. As of early August, the song had over 30 million YouTube views. At the time of the release, Baker announced that the album had been delayed to summer 2020. A second single, "Concert for Aliens", was debuted on the nationally televised broadcast of "Good Morning America", and later released on August 5, 2020. A music video was released a week later, which involved the band performing in front of a large crowd of aliens. A third single, "My Ex's Best Friend" featuring Blackbear, was released on August 7, 2020, and has peaked at number 28 on the US "Billboard" all-format Hot 100 chart.
On September 7, the album's tracklist and cover art were released. However, later in the day, it was found that the album artwork - a sketch of a man falling down - unbeknownst to Baker, was closely modeled after a photograph that they did not have the legal rights to use, causing Baker to apologize and announce that a new album cover would be created. He later noted he had signed thousands of copies of the album with the outdated album artwork.
The album was released on September 25, 2020, and a livestream of a live performance of the entire album was performed on October 1, 2020. In September 29, a deluxe edition of the album, dubbed the "Sold Out" edition, was released, featuring four new songs, the band's "Misery Business" cover, and an acoustic rendition of "Bloody Valentine". Concurrently, a music video for the track "Drunk Face" was also released.
"Downfalls High".
The release of a movie based on the album was first announced by Baker on November 22, 2020. The film, titled "Downfalls High" was premiered at 6pm PST on January 15, 2021 through Facebook.
The film stars Chase Hudson as Fenix, a quiet high schooler and Sydney Sweeney as the school's popular girl, Scarlett, as they navigate the beginnings of their romantic relationship. It begins following Fenix, as he is in a psychiatric hospital, before cutting to a news report that states that a student at Downfalls High School, whose music had recently gained success, had cut his ear off at graduation. It then flashes back to eight months prior, as Fenix can be seen getting bullied by a jock (Jaden Hossler). Scarlett soon leaves her popular friends to spend time with Fenix, his friend Jimmy (Jimmy Bennett) and Jimmy's girlfriend (Caroline Miner Smith), who had already dropped out of school. Scarlett soon buys Fenix a guitar and is revealed to be pregnant, before being involved in a car accidents that kills her, without Fenix ever knowing about her pregnancy. Through his grieving, Fenix forms the band Pink Switchblade using the guitar, with Jimmy and Jimmy's friend (Landon Barker). After the band's first performance, Scarlett's best friend Tiffany (Maggie Lindemann) romantically pursues Fenix, however he turns her away. Fenix soon discovers Scarlett's pregnancy and decides to chop his ear off at his graduation as an act of despair.
Directed by Baker and Derek Smith, it was filmed in four days during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film also includes appearances from Iann Dior, Omer Fedi, Trippie Redd and Blackbear.
When Smith originally pitched casting Hudson as the film's protagonist, Baker had reservations due to his lack of a background in acting. In an interview with Metro, Smith stated that the main reason for this casting choice was that he wanted to style Hudson's clothing, stating "My first stipulation to working on any project within the last three years was that I can style it. I can’t tell you how f**king much I hate style when I look at TV and I see people literally dressing horribly".
Much of the clothes worn by actors throughout the film were a part of Smith and Baker's then-unreleased clothing line "No Safety". Many were also the pair's own personal clothing.
The film was generally well received and gained over 16 million views in its first weekend. NME rated the film 4/5 stars, stating "In a world of content for content’s sake – films have often been used by artists try and extend the lifespan of an album – Downfalls High feels driven by purpose". Whereas, Exclaim! rated it 4/10 and described it as "a 50-minute cringefest that rings hollow."
Critical reception.
The album received positive reviews from critics, who praised Kelly's successful transition from hip-hop to pop-punk. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, "Tickets to My Downfall" received an average score of 72 based on 6 reviews indicating "generally favorable reviews". "Wall of Sound" praised the album, citing Barker's drumming, production and concluding that "What the album lacks in lyrical substance though, is made up for with the abundance of infectious pop melodies and catchy rock choruses." "Kerrang!" was similarly positive, praising the album for being "...a slick sideways hop from what you might be expecting from Machine Gun Kelly, it's done excellently. It celebrates everything great about pop-punk without feeling cookie-cutter or third division", and disagreed with "Wall of Sound"s assessment of the lyrics, praising them for its "open-diary honesty that fills the whole album, confessional and unflinching". In a much more critical review, "Sputnikmusic" claimed the album was a "completely egregious copy-paste of Blink 182’s glory day sound" and the "pop-punk equivalent to Greta Van Fleet's soulless imitations of Led Zeppelin".
Commercial performance.
"Tickets to My Downfall" debuted at number 1 on the US "Billboard" 200 all-format albums chart, moving 126,000 album equivalent units in its first week. This debut became the highest of his career to date, tripling the opening numbers for his prior album, "Hotel Diablo" in 2019, and made it the first rock album to top the chart in just over a year, since Tool's album "Fear Inoculum" in September 2019.
In Australia, the album debuted and peaked at number 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart for the chart dated 5 October 2020, held off from the number one position by Joji's "Nectar". The following week, the album fell two positions to number 5.
Track listing.
Note
Personnel.
Credits adapted from Tidal and the album's liner notes.
Musicians
Technical
Artwork