Brockhampton

 

Hi and welcome back to the awkward middle school music class where you needed to pick a band you were into and make a presentation for the whole class to enjoy! And of course everyone was going through their emo phase back then (or at least I was) so all of the presented bands were… oh so good

(Mine was Bullet for My Valentine… thank god those days are over)

I’m going to start this post by laying out their short history so if you don’t care about that and just want my quick opinion of them, skip to why I like ‘em or tl;dr.

Shortly about Brockhampton

Brockhampton is a musical collective that holds 13 active members in it, consisting of musicians, producers, graphic designers and a web designer. Most prominent members of the group are vocalists Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion, Merlyn Wood, and Dom McLennon, Joba and Bearface. The band got its beginning 2010 in a kanye west fan site forum called “Kanyetothe” when Kevin Abstract started a thread asking if anyone would be interested in starting a band. From there the AliveSinceForever was formed and in 2014 they added new members from the Kanyetothe forum and rebranded themselves as Brockhampton.  

Kevin Abstracts post under the alias "harry styles"

Saturation trilogy

June 9, 2017 marks Brockhamptons true beginning when they released their debut album Saturation to critical acclaim with singles “Face”, "Heat", "Gold" and "Star". Immediately after the release Kevin tweeted that they are already working on the next album and on August 25, 2017 Saturation II was released with singles "Gummy", "Swamp", "Junky"(<-- one of my favs) and "Sweet". Soon after that Saturation III was released on December 15, 2017 with singles “Boogie”(<-- Listen to this one!) and “Rental”.This is when I found the group from the internet's busiest melon on YouTube, Anthony Fantano (and I went to a 3 months long only brockhampton songs spree :^^D)

Saturation trilogy album arts. From left to right: Saturation, Saturation II and Saturation III

  

Saturation trilogy brought them a lot of new attention, practically everyone was praising the albums and with the quick fame and attention came a lot of pressure and problems... 

Never released albums

After the Saturation trilogy Brockhampton announced their fourth album Team Effort to be released in 2018 but soon after this they delayed the album indefinitely and announced that their fourth album would be Puppy and it was going to be released mid-2018. They even streamed some of the upcoming singles from Puppy like “Ready for war” and “Lets Get Married” (Both sounded amazing). During the production of Puppy Brockhampton signed a record deal with RCA Records worth more than $15 million. Soon after the deal Puppy was delayed due to allegations against founding member Ameer Vann (the face on Saturation album covers). On may 27, 2018 Brockhampton posted the following statement on their Twitter and canceled their tour dates to regroup themselves.

On June 20, Brockhampton appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to reveal their new upcoming album The Best Years of Our Lives and to perform the albums  new single “Tonya” (I would link the video here but it has been deleted from Jimmy Fallon’s youtube channel). This was their first performance after kicking out Ameer from the group so the performance was really emotionally packed. On August 26, 2018 the group announced yet again new fourth album, this time titled Iridescence.

Iridescence

Brockhampton’s fourth studio album Iridescence was released September 21, 2018 (last friday, that is why I wanted to write this post), they also stated that Iridescence is a part of new trilogy called The Best Years of Our Lives. The new album addresses a lot different members feelings towards the Ameer incident and how they deal with the new found fame and their mental health. It’s a lot more aggressive and way more different sonically than the Saturation trilogy was and I gotta tip my imaginary hat for them for not taking the easy way out  after the Ameer situation and just released something that sounded like Saturation. Instead they vent and pour all of their feelings from the heart and deep down they are angry and hurt and this album mirrors that. At first I didn’t know what I thought about this album because it was so different but after multiple listens later I can say I like this album a lot. My favorite tracks from this album are “Weight”, District”, “San Marcos”, “Tonya” and the spoopy closing track “Fabric”. They definitely landed on their two legs from the Ameer incident and show us with this new album that they are not going anywhere. 

Iridescence's album art

Why I like ‘em

I find their whole origin story to be really inspiring and how motivated and creatively talented they are (there is an awesome documentary about how they made Saturation trilogy while living together and just spitting ideas after ideas, don’t know if you can find it anywhere since it was only part of saturation trilogy box set). I also like that everything is made by them, the graphics, music videos, beats, everything! But the most important reason why I like them is that they don’t rap about being rich, having clout or how many bitches they have. They rap about their problems, mental health issues, social issues, sexuality and being different. They also have great sense of humor so their songs are a joy to listen to.

I would highly recommend Saturation trilogy to anyone who likes hip hop, rap or just wants to try something new and if you really liked them maybe give Iridescence a listen.

TL;DR

Brockhampton is a group of friends that got together through a forum and made their dreams a reality and I find that really inspiring.

Oh and they call themselves a boy band because that’s what they are.
“Best boy band since One Direction” - Kevin Abstract on Boogie