Strongboi – Strongboi

i’ve never truly understood the reason why certain musicians like to un-capitalise absolutely everything. if i were to completely ignore correct grammar like im doing now youd start to get a little frustrated wouldnt you especially when you dont know where one sentence starts and another finishes(.) Well, maybe I’m just one massive traditionalist douchebag. But I have to say, there’s something quite satisfying about taking pride over each word in a sentence, don’t you? Ultimately, that’s what allows us to create something conversational and interestingly nuanced within our writing. Forgive me for having to prove my point so dramatically…

It wouldn’t take a fool to assume then that my eyes were a little bruised whilst scanning over Strongboi’s self-titled debut tracklist. I guess there’s a style to preserve here; that kind of pseudo-slacker, bedroom poppy musician cliché that we associate with that heavy smoking Canadian guy who has a gap between his two front teeth. Shit, I wish I could remember his name. All jokes aside, we know that Strongboi, just as much as Mac DeMarco, are both highly engaged musicians with an image which doesn’t quite match their ambition. In simple terms, their fabrication is easy to spot.

But – and I bet you’d given up on any chance of a ‘but’ – I genuinely can’t help but really enjoy listening to this record. Maybe it’s my 16-year-old self coming back to life, and whilst I know this self-titled debut isn’t going to stand out for me in years to come, if you whacked it on in a bar or at the dinner table, I’d have no complaints. Strongboi will end up sharing space on the playlist I keep full of all those samey-but-lovely Khruangbin tunes, and that’s not the worst thing.