Dominic Fike, 14 Minutes
Album Reivew by Alexander Cain in Music Review World, 5.5.24
There’s been a healthy amount of discussion around the exact purpose Dominic Fike serves for modern music, and moreso, where the root of his success comes from. He’s endured critical condescension and casual put downs since he started (he’s a poser, he’s an industry plant, his bad-boy act isn’t fooling us). But now, it seems that Fike’s future is more up in the air than ever, at least how I see it. Time is running out for Dominic Fike, and he’ll have to prove himself if he really wants us to keep listening to his music even after his career is over.
His new 14-minute long album, aptly titled 14 Minutes, changes a lot in this discussion, and buys Fike some time. But there is still a lot of bad air around all of this, and I have a hard time deciding how much of this goes beyond simple teenage phenomenon, which I am absolutely prone to. So it’s necessary we go back to the beginning of Fike’s career, and clear a few things up.
Don’t Forget About Me, Demos, was recorded while Fike was on house arrest in 2018 for assaulting a police officer, and released online while he was in jail for failing his drug test. Here are some of his rawest and most poignant lyrics about his addiction and environment, all of it produced in a nice vacuum, before the record execs got their paws on the kid.
Demos is not a landmark in music, but certainly a positive sign of its open-ended future. If you want to keep things simple, you can call the record a pop piece. But moreso, it’s an excellent demonstration of the genrelessness and inventiveness that defines Fike’s better work. And four months following his release from prison, the 22-year-old signed a $4 million contract with Columbia Records after a long bidding war between execs.
The pop machine is a dangerous thing, and it got a hold of Fike before he was able to mature and grow his style of music, without the influence of what record companies think the future is. And that’s what his first full studio album What Could Possibly Go Wrong sounds like: the music executive’s algorithm for the future. A predictable, natural next step for the genre of pop, that has no real direction, and not a lot of the raw songwriting that made Fike’s first release the perfect theme music for the new generation of charismatic dirtbags who want to get better, but can’t seem to figure it out yet.
His second studio album, Sunburn came out last year, and was certainly a step up from What Could Possibly Go Wrong musically, but not as much lyrically. In fact, many of the non-generic lyrics off these records can sometimes be off-putting, such as parts of “Cancel Me” or “Bodies.” The reason I hold Sunburn in higher regard is due to the more memorable high points, such as the pop confessional “How Much is Weed?” or the simpler folksy tune “Pasture Child.”
And despite my criticisms of these albums, I don’t think any of them necessarily degrade Fike or bring him down as an artist, given that he always seems to be on the cusp of something extraordinary, but stuck in the cycle of singles and Billboard toppers. Really, he just needs some time to work out what the hell he wants to do with his music.
This all leads me back to his new release, which came out today (as I write this, not as you read it). What I think may be a core factor in the rise of quality from Sunburn less than a year before is that most (maybe all) of these tracks are unreleased cuts from other projects that he wanted to share with fans, but didn’t make it to the studio albums. They aren’t as overly produced and saturated as many of the tracks on his other albums, and have real heart.
The album's opener, “Megaman,” begins with a crackly acoustic riff that sounds like bacon must smell after a night of excess. The feeling I describe is drawn from the lyrics, which are first sung aloud over a staggering drum beat and barely legible mumbles: “Whose in my / House in the morning?” It’s a soft opening to the album, but still memorable and of good quality.
The piano on the following track, “Hi Grace,” is similar to the song “Martha” by The Smashing Pumpkins, but is soon joined by a frantic hip-hop beat that makes the track quickly turn into a Red Hot Chili Peppers song with added substance.. The piano holds throughout the song, but is mostly secondary to the beat, which is a shame since the record could have used more keys in my opinion.
Introspective, boxed in guitars on tracks like “1.23.23” and “Bowie Box” propel them to some of the most memorable on the record, with the former drawing a portrait of addiction and relapse, and the latter only having one short verse which specifically stood out to me more than most of the lyrics on the record:
It’s as hard as it looks sometimesAfter allThat’s as far as it gets sometimes
Once again, theme music for people who want to get better.
And “Misses” might be the best track off the album, although it’s too early to say for sure. The combination of chiming synths, funky, thin guitar, and steady drum lines creates something which makes you tap your foot. When Fike finally begins singing, it comes all together, and for a little over a minute, you’re in heaven. Which is part of the issue with the album…
It’s so short. It all feels like a huge tease, something that is either what could've been, or what could be. Not knowing which has only made the future more uncertain. Call it my recency bias, but this is my favorite thing Fike has put out thus far, and I worry greatly that it may be a fluke, just something he’s throwing out there to clear out his harddrive before getting back to the shallower (but catchy) tunes.
The album closes off with the same uncertainty it creates throughout its short runtime. The beachy guitars and bright vocals of the final track “Coast2Coast” are cut off suddenly, without any sort of finality…like a record skipping, a CD ejecting, an aux disconnecting, a door getting slammed on a band practice…
So…What’s next?
His new 14-minute long album, aptly titled 14 Minutes, changes a lot in this discussion, and buys Fike some time. But there is still a lot of bad air around all of this, and I have a hard time deciding how much of this goes beyond simple teenage phenomenon, which I am absolutely prone to. So it’s necessary we go back to the beginning of Fike’s career, and clear a few things up.
Don’t Forget About Me, Demos, was recorded while Fike was on house arrest in 2018 for assaulting a police officer, and released online while he was in jail for failing his drug test. Here are some of his rawest and most poignant lyrics about his addiction and environment, all of it produced in a nice vacuum, before the record execs got their paws on the kid.
Demos is not a landmark in music, but certainly a positive sign of its open-ended future. If you want to keep things simple, you can call the record a pop piece. But moreso, it’s an excellent demonstration of the genrelessness and inventiveness that defines Fike’s better work. And four months following his release from prison, the 22-year-old signed a $4 million contract with Columbia Records after a long bidding war between execs.
The pop machine is a dangerous thing, and it got a hold of Fike before he was able to mature and grow his style of music, without the influence of what record companies think the future is. And that’s what his first full studio album What Could Possibly Go Wrong sounds like: the music executive’s algorithm for the future. A predictable, natural next step for the genre of pop, that has no real direction, and not a lot of the raw songwriting that made Fike’s first release the perfect theme music for the new generation of charismatic dirtbags who want to get better, but can’t seem to figure it out yet.
His second studio album, Sunburn came out last year, and was certainly a step up from What Could Possibly Go Wrong musically, but not as much lyrically. In fact, many of the non-generic lyrics off these records can sometimes be off-putting, such as parts of “Cancel Me” or “Bodies.” The reason I hold Sunburn in higher regard is due to the more memorable high points, such as the pop confessional “How Much is Weed?” or the simpler folksy tune “Pasture Child.”
And despite my criticisms of these albums, I don’t think any of them necessarily degrade Fike or bring him down as an artist, given that he always seems to be on the cusp of something extraordinary, but stuck in the cycle of singles and Billboard toppers. Really, he just needs some time to work out what the hell he wants to do with his music.
This all leads me back to his new release, which came out today (as I write this, not as you read it). What I think may be a core factor in the rise of quality from Sunburn less than a year before is that most (maybe all) of these tracks are unreleased cuts from other projects that he wanted to share with fans, but didn’t make it to the studio albums. They aren’t as overly produced and saturated as many of the tracks on his other albums, and have real heart.
The album's opener, “Megaman,” begins with a crackly acoustic riff that sounds like bacon must smell after a night of excess. The feeling I describe is drawn from the lyrics, which are first sung aloud over a staggering drum beat and barely legible mumbles: “Whose in my / House in the morning?” It’s a soft opening to the album, but still memorable and of good quality.
The piano on the following track, “Hi Grace,” is similar to the song “Martha” by The Smashing Pumpkins, but is soon joined by a frantic hip-hop beat that makes the track quickly turn into a Red Hot Chili Peppers song with added substance.. The piano holds throughout the song, but is mostly secondary to the beat, which is a shame since the record could have used more keys in my opinion.
Introspective, boxed in guitars on tracks like “1.23.23” and “Bowie Box” propel them to some of the most memorable on the record, with the former drawing a portrait of addiction and relapse, and the latter only having one short verse which specifically stood out to me more than most of the lyrics on the record:
It’s as hard as it looks sometimesAfter allThat’s as far as it gets sometimes
Once again, theme music for people who want to get better.
And “Misses” might be the best track off the album, although it’s too early to say for sure. The combination of chiming synths, funky, thin guitar, and steady drum lines creates something which makes you tap your foot. When Fike finally begins singing, it comes all together, and for a little over a minute, you’re in heaven. Which is part of the issue with the album…
It’s so short. It all feels like a huge tease, something that is either what could've been, or what could be. Not knowing which has only made the future more uncertain. Call it my recency bias, but this is my favorite thing Fike has put out thus far, and I worry greatly that it may be a fluke, just something he’s throwing out there to clear out his harddrive before getting back to the shallower (but catchy) tunes.
The album closes off with the same uncertainty it creates throughout its short runtime. The beachy guitars and bright vocals of the final track “Coast2Coast” are cut off suddenly, without any sort of finality…like a record skipping, a CD ejecting, an aux disconnecting, a door getting slammed on a band practice…
So…What’s next?