The Daily Spin, January 30
Mac DeMarco | Five Easy Hot Dogs
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here.
If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!
Album: Five Easy Hot Dogs (2023)
Artist: Mac DeMarco
Link:
Maybe it’s just that I travel differently than Mac does, but this album didn’t really resonate for me. A series of songs that feel almost directionless, meant to capture the monotony and tediousness of being on the road for an extended period of time - that’s an experience I’ve never really felt - and I grew up on long Midwestern road trips.
The music itself is fine, nothing special. It feels tired after a while, much in the way the album itself does, worn down by miles and miles and long years of work - and though DeMarco is undeniably competent at weaving a beat together, even these songs somehow feel like they’re a little played out - a little overdone.
The entire album feels like a car with a couple hundred thousand too many miles, puttering along waiting for the moment it finally gives up the ghost, a warrior putting down their sword for the final time. It feels like the songs - and the album, as a whole - are merely waiting for the end to find them rather than actively drawing their journey to them as his other works evoke.
I’ve been tired before. I don’t blame Mac DeMarco for feeling this way - not in the slightest - but an album depicting burnout via a long road, when a road is such a joyful unknown to me? I can’t back it.
Rating: 5.5/10
Best Tracks: Crescent City
Worst Tracks: Vancouver 2, Chicago