Album Review
Malcolm Todd - Do That Again
Malcolm Todd just released his third studio album Do That Again. While he has a brand new album to promote, he is currently having a peak moment with his two-year-old song ‘Earrings’. During his recent television appearances, this meant he wasn’t performing brand new songs but instead this older track. Yes, the music industry is at its most unpredictable it has ever been. If you had told us five years ago that artists would be promoting their third, brand new album by performing an album cut from their older debut record, we wouldn’t have believed you. Anyway, enough about the ever-evolving music industry, let’s talk about new Malcolm music. With his latest project he does what he does best: making pop music with soft-rock influences and, here and there, a touch of R&B. We were fully tuned in thanks to the lead single ‘Breathe’. On the song we hear the young singer at his most flirtatious and fun yet. Compared to his older material, it feels much sexier thanks to the heavier R&B-leaning production. Don’t be fooled though, this sound is largely a one-off on the album. The song that instantly grabs our attention is ‘Obsessica’. Honestly, the title alone had us curious. On the song Malcolm falls for that one person who seems to have all the odds stacked against them. “I’m a Virgo, you’re a Taurus. Chart says no, let’s just ignore it and go!” He knows exactly who his target audience is and is ready to have fun with it in his lyrics. There’s no pretending to be more mature than he actually is. Instead, he name-drops all the girls he has been obsessed with and even shouts out his bisexual love interest. “Is it ‘cause you’re bi and liking guys right now? I like that for me somehow. I wanna explore it, I’m a tourist.” We think we’re a little bit obsessed with this one. Around the middle of the album we find, fittingly, ‘Malcolm In The Middle’. Besides the obvious reference to his own name, the song was inspired by the sitcom of the same title. His father, Tim, was a television scriptwriter who worked on the show. Todd himself even made a cameo as a baseball player in the sixth episode of the fourth season. Sonically, he plays with swing and blues influences from the 1940s. As always, he knows exactly how to make it sound current and incredibly catchy. Thirty seconds into ‘Gun To My Head’ we switch up the tempo. Malcolm is finally admitting the truth to both himself and his ex-lover, using the song title as a metaphor for honesty and confession. It’s pretty plain and simple, but it works, especially when keeping his target audience in mind. The song is cute, straightforward and easy to love. While ‘Malcolm In The Middle’ sits exactly at the midpoint of the album, we can’t help but wonder why ‘Good Bye’ wasn’t chosen as the closing track. It would have been the perfect way to end the record. On the acoustic song we strip back everything we’ve heard so far. No big production, no heavily processed vocals, just Malcolm and his guitar. We hear his voice in its rawest and purest form. It’s refreshing to hear him sound so stripped back, truly laying his voice bare. The album is far from ambitious and we would even argue it takes a step back from his self-titled second album, which brought us ‘Chest Pain (I Love)’ and ‘Bleed’ with Omar Apollo. Yet it’s exactly the move that makes the most sense for Malcolm right now. It explores themes that will undoubtedly resonate with his fanbase. Considering he is only 22 years old, he is doing exactly what he should be doing: having fun with his music while creating songs that happen to connect commercially. It just goes to show there’s nothing wrong with sounding exactly your age and leaving yourself room to grow into the pop artist you’ll be one day.
