Stream Ty Segall’s New Album: Emotional Mugger on Youtube.
By Chad R
Since moving to Orlando, I have reestablished my awful habit of overindulging in candy: peanut M&Ms to be specific. Sure, I am not jack-knifing Keystone Lights with my 19 year old UCF student neighbors on a Wednesday night (which happens more often than you’d expect ), and no, I am not main-lining black tar bullion at a Lynx bus-stop; I can hold a day job, but you know the old proverb: one can always have too much of a good thing. Candy is truly the worst though. Peanut M&Ms are little candy coated speed-balls that can upon being eaten, are immediately converted by the body into mostly glucose and regret; “I’m eating peanuts…..they’e totally a vegetable” I muttered one night whilst binging a goliath 16 oz sack; denial… now that’s a hell of a drug.
Candy, as an addictive pastime, is no laughing matter, however, I was surprised how much Candy still works as poignant imagery for a rock album. This January, Mr. Dependable himself (seriously, this guy drops a great album every single year) Ty Segall dropped his most experimental album yet, Emotional Mugger.You’ll find more candy on this album than what I’ve got stashed in random corners of my apartment (trust me, that’s a lot).
Segall manages to meld candy into the titles of song (the single Candy Sam), into individual verses,”….I’m an emotional mugger… like a bag of Candy.. I’ll give you pleasure, if you’ll eat me up”, and make it the central element of the chorus, “Candy I want. Want your candy! Candy, I want your Candy!” Candy has been done to death as for sex, or sexy bits and pieces, (Bow Wow Wow’s 1980s classic”I want Candy!”, 50-Cent’s the Candy Shop, etc.) but Candy also works for overindulgence, like on The Kinks perceptive 1972 Everyone’s in Showbiz, “Maximum Consumption sure keeps running me down . Don’t you know that you gotta eat food Don’t you know that it’s good for you!”.
This is the Candy I think Segall is hammering home, and since he preemptively mailed copies of Emotional Mugger as VHS tapes (which sounds like the plot of The Ring), we can interpret that candy for the Millenials is our highly colorful, highly engaging, and oh so easily available piles of digital media. Like M&Ms we effortlessly tear through sacks full of the sweet stuff; carefully vetted Spotify playlists, ripped leaks, high quality, high fidelity, streaming right into your palm; we gulp it all down until we’re sick and have to take a rest before we start back up again tomorrow.
Emotional Mugger has plenty of the sticky nasty stuff to go around. California Hills is the must listen to single, Diversion pumps out frantic desert rock riffs through seven effects petals, like an early Queens of the Stone Age cut. This is easily Segall’s most experimental, fuzzy album to date, a true rock and roll delight to indulge on without the regret and rotting teeth.
Best Tracks:
California Hills, Diversion
Tones OF HOME 