No Matter What Time It Is, It’s Garage-Beers-O’Clock in the Mutiny After Midnight YouTube Comments Section
Mutiny After Midnight—the new full-length from Sturgill Simpson’s alter ego Johnny Blueskies, an instant contender for Album of the Year as well as Somehow Audibly Greasiest Album of the Year—dropped ahead of schedule over the weekend, when Simpson (who’d promised this one would be a streaming-service-spurning physical-only release) threw the whole thing up on YouTube. We are still processing the album itself and its beer-bong cocktail of life-in-the-fast-lane disco, fevered curly-guitar-cord boogie, true-testimonial soul, and possible-final-season-of-American-democracy anxiety.
Two things we can say for sure right away, though, are that 1) these songs will absolutely smoke live, and 2) as excited as we are about this album, no one is anywhere near as amped about it as the commenters on YouTube who digested it over the weekend in real time (and in many cases, from the sound of it, may have needed to call out of work on Monday to recuperate.)
The saying goes that everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day; on New Sturgill Simpson AKA Johnny Blueskies Day, if these commenters are to be believed, everyone is a cosmic cowboy ready to outrun the police by jumping a ’70s muscle car through a moving train. There’ll be plenty of proper discourse around this album and how it goes about achieving its artistic goals (beginning with the album’s snapback-worthy opening credo “Make America Fuk Again”). But streaming-service-spurning Sturgill has already succeeded in uniting a fractious nation through the unholy power of country-funk; note that the one commenter with the temerity to say Mutiny After Midnight “sucks” is promptly told “ok ice agent. Go back to your kid rock.” The dads are all right!
Below, a short list of the most rapturous thumbs-up reviews filed by YouTube commenters during the 48 hours since Mutiny After Midnight‘s surprise release. They should put these on the jacket of the album (which hits stores—on cassette, CD and vinyl only—March 13, meaning you’ve got less than two weeks to grow a mullet.)
“Im drinkin wild turkey and building improvised explosives in the woods”
“My neighbors loved this album so much they invited the cops to my place to listen to it”
“My neighbor threw a brick through my living room window and asked me to turn it up.”
“Dammit guess I’m drinkin garage beers now”
“This album makes me want to put down half a case of Old Milwaukee, a pack of Marlboro Reds and wrap my Trans Am around a tree at 85mph.”
“Listening to this at work, and now HR wants to see me. I’m guessing they want the link.”
“SOUND & FURY was my apocalypse record, Passage Du Desir was my wedding/honeymoon record; I guess this will be my WW3 record”
“My old lady got pregnant 10 seconds into this”
“Got me crying dancing taking my clothes off all at once”
“Who’s still here in 2092?”
