20 A&E

“I know that the rhythm and flow that / I’m putting on this track are gonna make you so sad.” Well, Johnson, you were right. Probably not in the way you were hoping, though. The biggest problem with the song “Distance” is that it just sounds — well, sad. After a bland instrumental intro, Gilinsky sing-raps about some fight with a vague significant other. He sounds bored, and the vocals fall horribly flat until the chorus. Gilinsky sings during this part, the song’s only redeeming quality. He still sounds awkward, but the chorus has a nice melody.

In the next verse, Gilinsky has a similar rap to the first verse, but then throws in some words like “uh” and “girl.” It sounds like he just listened to the Top 40 and tried his best. After the second chorus, Johnson raps, sounding painfully messy and inexperienced. The chorus repeats, and thankfully, the song ends. To give them the benefit of the doubt, this is their first single, and they used a pro-ducer who doesn’t have any talent. That being said, they should have worked much harder on the lyrics. They’re recycled garbage from every love song on the radio. Most of them just sound like they found a word to rhyme, and created some line to fit with the song. “Can we be con-sistent? (girl)/Are you even listenin’? (yeah).” Honestly, I wouldn’t waste your time listening to this track — it’s not like they spent that much time making it.

distAncE

released:jan. 28

rating:

Ah, the first step to a real pop song. Still not close to a pleasant sounding synthesizer in the beginning, and then Johnson starts rapping. Compared to his last two singles, I was pleasantly surprised. The rap sounds like it has more structure and same lyrical substance. He raps about how it’s a shame people need material things to be happy. It’s suspicious how they suddenly changed their ideals completely after the last single.

The thing that completely ruins it is this awful, ri-diculous accent Johnson puts on. I understand the song is supposed to sound Caribbean, but there’s no reason that a boy from Nebraska should fake a Caribbean ac-cent. It sounds absurd and embarrassing. He removes it about halfway through the rap, ironically right when the line “we never change for anybody” starts. Gilinsky sings about not having a care and relaxing by the beach while in the Caribbean with our favorite anonymous girl. The song is fine, not very close to the radio, but getting there. Over-all, this song did improve in quality. The lyrics are start-ing to make more sense, and both their performances on this song sound cleaner and better rehearsed.

released:april 9

This song is a complete 180 in meaning from their last single “Paradise.” “Doing It Right” is all about mak-ing money. It’s obvious it was created as a response to all the hate they’re getting, lots of it stemming from the fact that their fan base is mainly comprised of teenage girls. Johnson starts on the track, telling listeners, “Your mama’s talking to you sayin’ clean up the basement/while the money’s talking to me, that’s personification.” Both Johnson and Gilinsky talk about how they don’t care about “haters” because they are doing what they want to do and making money at the same time.

They, once again, sound pretty much the same as “Par-adise” here, just a little bit better. The thing that brings this song down is the fact that it sounds like someone made the beat in GarageBand. Fake snare and hi-hat hits litter the song. The bridge is the best example of this: it’s introduced by an embarrassingly electric drum sound, and when Gilinsky is almost done singing, the drums come back sounding so incredibly fake they ruin the whole part. While both of them are obviously improving, their producer isn’t.

Jack & Jack’s fifth single “Wild Life” is better than their first four songs put together. Johnson starts after a pretty good intro involving animal sounds. Lyrically, it’s a typical club song. He raps about dancing and having fun. It still isn’t as polished as most songs on the radio, but hey, it’s getting there. He raps fast, but it doesn’t matter because the lyrics don’t mean much, aside from the occa-sional joke. The pre-chorus is Gilinsky singing about con-tinuing to party, and the song builds in the background to the chorus. “Wild Life” has a good drop. Typically, we’ll hear something very bass-heavy or dub step on the ra-dio, a pretty cheap and overused way to make a pop song sound fun. “Wild Life” doesn’t have that. The drop sounds stripped and clean, with few sounds. Johnson does a sim-ilar rap in the second verse, and then it goes to the bridge. Gilinsky’s voice works well during this part. The only awkward sounding portion is the bridge and second pre-chorus. While Gilinsky is singing about the exact same thing (partying), Johnson adds unnecessary words to the background. They’re just kind of annoying and childish. Another problem with this song is it doesn’t really fit their vocal style. Commercial club music doesn’t work well with them; they sound a little too nice. Other than that, the song was a good change of pace. They aren’t push-ing any artistic boundaries here, but they don’t need to. Their aim was to make a fun song, and they did just that. It sounds well produced (probably because they switched producers), and they both sound pretty professional.

Lucky for us, “Tides” sounds nothing like Jack & Jack’s other beach-themed song “Paradise.” They also decided to not go for the Caribbean accent. Johnson starts off the song with a rap, his strongest lyrically and the best flow of all the songs they’ve released. He’s relaxed and calm, and he’s not trying to throw fast-paced lyrics we can’t keep up with like in “Wild Life.” Sonically, this is one of their best instrumentals. It has a simple beat, a breezy guitar riff, and great sounding horns from Westside graduates Ezra and Adeev Potash. It’s a fun listen, and he throws in some ocean puns while he’s at it. “When the tide hits you straight in the face/Life is getting harder treading water, got nowhere to go.” Gilinsky comes in with the hook, har-monizing with himself on a layered track.

The chorus is nice too, and once again, it has a very catchy chorus. This one has better sounding instrumen-tals that fit best with their voices so far. However, one of the major downfalls is halfway into the second verse. Gilinsky “whoas” over Johnson’s rapping, and Gilinsky sounds distracting from one of Johnson’s best sounding raps. The whole song plays out similarly, and even though their lyrics get a little repetitive, this is one of their bet-ter sounding songs. It still doesn’t sound like professional sounding pop song. Even though both Johnson and Gilin-sky have stepped it up, both of them sound inexperienced.

Their best song to date, “Groove” is a song where Jack & Jack finally found the style they should be going for. A funky guitar riff and beat starts the song off, and John-son raps, sounding confident and collected. The song isn’t trying to be anything that Jack & Jack aren’t, like on “Wild Life.” Johnson’s flow has drastically improved from “Cold Hearted” to “Tides,” and it shows on this song. The chorus and pre-chorus sound fitting. Gilinsky’s voice is perfect for this kind of groovy singing, and he ultimately makes the song.

There are some downfalls, however. The chorus gets too busy at times, and the line “The feeling that I’m feeling inside of here” falls flat and sounds out of place. Sonically, though, the chorus and most of the song is good and just really fun to listen to. The guitar riff that starts the song off repeats for the whole track, and electronic drum beats and synthesizers push the song along. The second verse isn’t the best; there’s unnecessary cussing that doesn’t fit the theme, and Johnson changes his tone sometimes, which doesn’t end up sounding clean at all. The rest of the song plays out similarly to their others, once again having the Johnson’s unnecessary add-ins in the background of the second verse. Even though there are some problems, this is the kind of light-hearted fun song that their style fits best with, and their best song they have put out so far.

pArAdisE

rating:

released:july 1

dOinG it riGHt

rating:

wild lifE

released:aug. 7

rating:

released:sept. 2

tidEs

rating:

released:nov. 22

GrOOvE

rating:

JACKJACK

andAfter Westside graduates Jack Gilinsky and

Jack Johnson became popular on Vine for their humor and defined jaw lines, they took their talents to the studio trying to get trac-tion on the radio. Key word: trying. They have worked with several producers and writers to create songs, which are released every Tues-day. So far, they have released 11. After every

one is released, there is buzz all over fan ac-counts dedicated to them, saying how amazing each song is. I decided that it was time to give them some honest reviews, picking a select few to showcase. The rating scale is out of 10, 0 being just plain awful, and 10 being an av-erage pop song that is played on the radio. If you end up loving the music, you can see them live Dec. 20 at the Ralston Arena. Tickets for general admission are $25. Unfortunately for some, VIP tickets are already sold out.

HONEST MUSIC REVIEWSEstElla F Ox

Ed I T OR - I N - C H I E F