Thursday, January 16th, 2025

Underscores – My Guy (Corporate Shuffle)

Nikki takes us to work…

Underscores - My Guy (Corporate Shuffle)
[Video]
[6.93]

Julian Axelrod: What made Wallsocket so thrilling was the way Underscores mastermind April Grey filtered vignettes about shady characters in a small town through warped versions of the pop songs playing over the PA of the local convenience store. Every hook was immediately engaging, but each one hit harder when you realized it was alluding to a guy from three songs earlier. Listening to “My Guy (Corporate Shuffle)” out of context is like watching a deleted scene months after the movie’s already left the theater. (Fittingly, the song appears on Wallsocket (Director’s Cut); you can tell a lot about an artist by how they label their deluxe albums.) On its own, the song is a sinister shuffle that churns like a pit in your stomach. But whenever it references another Underscores song like “Cops and Robbers,” it felt like grasping at the memory of a half-remembered banger from another lifetime. Then again, I’m not going to dock points for being overly ambitious. After all, Wallsocket is an album about hustling your way toward something bigger and better, even if you’ll never quite reach it.
[7]

Grace Robins-Somerville: My favorite of the Wallsocket bonus tracks. The opening verse gets stuck in my head all the time. 
[8]

Claire Davidson: The basics of the Underscores formula are sharp, even on deluxe tracks: April Harper Grey’s sarcastic sing-song lilt is wonderfully venomous, as are the insults that open the first verse. Still, the Underscores project is so ripe for subversion that I can’t help but be disappointed when things don’t go off the rails — between the act’s static-soaked sound and lyrical penchant for flirting with danger, “My Guy” promises more edge than its halfhearted earworm hook can deliver.
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Finely tuned garishness — you can see all the machinery working in real time to make this as obnoxious as possible, which should sap away the charm, but every additional layer of schtick (the vocal processing! the triple perspective! the glam rock of it all!) ends up pushing this into greatness. Genuinely an effective tourism ad for the Midwest!
[8]

Will Adams: Tips a bit too much toward the former half of the Obnoxious Banger equilibrium.
[5]

Leah Isobel: Great momentum, deeply annoying.
[4]

Katherine St. Asaph: You cannot do The Beat — “Rock and Roll Pt. 2,” “Personal Jesus,” “Disposable Teens,” etc. — in such a halfhearted, larkish way. I mean, you can, and it’ll retain some of its second/third/fourth-hand power, but ultimately it won’t work. Rachel Stevens sounded more menacing than this!
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Schaffel pop, welcome back! It’s been a while! Underscores understands how this sound should be ostentatious and obnoxious in equal measure, and she has delivers these bon mots with devastating flair. I particular enjoy the filtered ad-libs appended to the end of each line like it’s a Jeezy verse (“What’s wrong with you?”). But something this showy should not be this vague; if the mots don’t actually amount to much, you start wondering whether they’re all that bon. What does it mean to push someone over in bed? What’s this about a robbery? Are dermatologists local? Is there enough glitz for me not to believe the answers to these questions don’t matter?
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: It’s a Class of ’09 update to Marilyn Manson’s suburban demonology, where the targets are more at once more specific (Manson never snarled about PTA meetings) and more scattershot. (Who am I meant to be angry at and why?) Underscores does a good job of making the scratches and screeches sound like an extension of her character’s deranged voice, but the self-limiting sameness of the mechanical animal stomp makes the instrumental break seem less like a wild rupture than a practical accessory. Blustery overcompensation isn’t the worst possible look here, though — she’s still singing about the upper-middle class, presumably.
[6]

Iain Mew: At most I understand about half of what is going on in the narrative this song, but the humour and punch of the needling and taunting is enough to make it work anyway. That and the energy of its constant churning crunch, the way that all of the instrumentals get sliced as they arrived. It’s the kind of song that can pull off knocking out several words with digital effects and the response vocals singing “what is wrong with you??” and it doesn’t even stand out that far. “Don’t get too comfortable” indeed.  
[8]

Alex Clifton: Billie Eilish mixed with Halsey’s girl-group impression plus a bunch of detailed lore I have zero context for, and yet this scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t know I had. Not that this is intended necessarily as a fully commentary of the state of the world these days, but it feels pretty emblematic: dark and grody, poking fun at a suburban existence, yet also with a brightness that hooks me along. I don’t know what’s happening but I’m happily along for the ride.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Sounds a bit at times like a speedier cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Capital G” interpolating bits of the Mary Wells “My Guy” and if you don’t think that sounds sick as hell I don’t know what to tell you. I tapped out on figuring out what’s going on in the lyrics when I hit the word “ARG,” but in any case it’s a lot of stompy fun to listen to.
[8]

Melody Esme: Look, I’m not certain that my experience of watching the “Infinity Guitars” video back in the early 2010s and thinking, “Damn, I wish I was as cool and hot as Alexis Krauss” is universal among Zillennial trans women. I’m just saying, it would explain why we keep making music like this.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: CJ THE X VOICE: MOMMY
[10]

Reader average: [6] (1 vote)

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2 Responses to “Underscores – My Guy (Corporate Shuffle)”

  1. I pushed a button and elected him to office SPED UP 3x FAST UNBELIEVABLE NOT CLICKBAIT oh damn Ian heard it I’m not special :C

  2. Honestly Kate, I’m glad I’m not the only one

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