Quinn XCII's 'A Letter to My Younger Self' is Painfully Immature

I am far less harsh on Millenial Pop music like this than any other person I’ve found that writes/records music reviews on the internet. I am a massive, massive fan of Jon Bellion and there are multiple (!) AJR songs that I don’t dislike. Coming from that standpoint, there was a really huge chunk of this album that was genuinely impossible for me to listen to. I’ve been recommended to listen to Quinn XCII a number of times, and even liked the handful of songs of his I’ve heard in my friend’s cars. I almost reviewed the last record he put out in 2019 too, but found myself just having so little to say about it that I couldn’t even manage to put together a review whatsoever. I don’t remember hating it though, at all actually. It was incredibly indistinct and forgettable, but I don’t remember his last album deliberately making me somewhat upset. This one though, this has some of the most immature lyrics and musical ideas I’ve ever heard in a Pop record, and once again that is coming from the guy that’s willing to give AJR the benefit of the doubt. I’m still going to struggle to write a full length review on this thing because there isn’t really much to say on this either, but I figured it was about time I stopped avoiding it and tried to find something to say about this guy.

Quinn XCII is literally just Jon Bellion-lite. I don’t usually like to compare artists to other artists and pretend like that is an actual valid criticism, because it rarely is. In this case however, that comparison hits the nail right on the head. He makes the exact same style of music with considerably more bland production, vastly more unintelligent lyrics and shares that same aesthetic as Jon - except with a tiny fraction of the passion. I don’t want to pretend that I hate everything about him, as he does share a couple of admirable qualities with artists like Jon. He’s not a particularly impressive singer, but he’s a got a pretty decent voice. If there’s anything I can’t knock him for it’s that he’s got the exact kind of voice that he’s got to have to make music like this and be successful at it. Furthermore, he’s been fairly successful, so I guess that’s also worth pointing out. He’s a relatively talented dude, and he’s got the vocal chops and enough of an ear for production that he’s managed to put out a handful of songs I actually really enjoy. There are even a good portion of tracks that I found pretty alright on this thing, despite the general bitter aftertaste it left in my mouth. I guess I’ll tackle those tracks before I get into the ugly parts of the record.

Second Time Around has an extremely blunt and slightly innocent sounding premise to it, but I think that’s exactly why I find it to be such a charming track. It might just be the one song on the album that I actually enjoyed solely because of the lyrics, as I think the idea of basically begging God for another chance to relive life is a pretty honest and interesting lyrical concept. It’s pretty one the nose and hamfisted, but for it’s worth Quinn does an alright job of tying the idea together nicely and delivering some heartfelt performances that sell the song. Coffee is one that just has fantastic production. It’s very cheesy, but there is just no denying that it has a downright infectious instrumental and melody about it that just keeps me coming back to it. The chord progression and those soulful guitars in the chorus are nothing short of sublime. A Letter to my Younger Self is another one that I liked for a very unlikely reason, Logic. This is a pretty solid song all around, but it’s the Logic verse that left me wanting to hear it again. Logic has had one of the steepest fall-offs of any rapper in recent memory, especially in terms of quality, so hearing him drop a super sharp verse like this was pretty awesome. It was definitely him taking advantage of a feature by rapping about himself and not sticking to the subject matter of the song whatsoever, but at least it sounded good and it got me slightly hopeful that he’ll be good again. Other than this there are a handful of moments where I enjoyed the production and instrumentals, but this is where the good parts of this album end.

For the third time, I don’t hate AJR - and now you’re going to see why that’s important to this review. They have undeniably some of the most childish, immature and corny lyrics I’ve ever heard in my life. They are the definition of sugarcoated, care-bear Millenial Pop and they are the culmination of everything that would ever make music critics despise an artist. Unsurprisingly, critics despise them. Many think they are the most cancerous thing to happen to music in ages. However, I can tolerate their lyrics. Yeah, they’re extremely cringeworthy, but there’s a part of me that actually finds them charming and kinda cute in a weird way. Some of their songs off of Neotheater are a guilty pleasure of mine, even though I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I can get behind some of the most critically panned and universally hated childish lyrics in existence, but this Quinn XCII album gets twice as bad as AJR has ever gotten. The first song is a perfect example of this. In one horrible blackbear verse alone, we get the lines “I need sex to feel in power”, “I don’t wanna be your human xanax bar”, and my personal favorite “if you’re hurt, just vibe”. This guy literally said if you’re depressed, just get happy. I won’t sit here and break down every single lyric and explain why they’re all awful, but I will say that throughout the entire album Quinn continues this pattern of awful lyricism.

This just might be one of the most difficult albums to take seriously that I’ve ever heard in my life. So much of this is faux-loner, whiny and conceited garbage that just doesn’t make any contextual sense whatsoever. Songs like Stacy, and even one of my personal favorites Coffee, are just predictable and frustrating songs that play into every single garbage trope that comes with the world of e-dating and instant gratification relationships. It’s like the most immature Tik-Tok generation fluff trash I’ve heard in my life. I know I sound like the kind of boomer that comments how Greta Van Fleet is “bringing real music back” on YouTube, but seriously this stuff is pretty egregious. This guy is 28 years old, and I guarantee you the average age of his fans probably evens out to 14, tops. This is the kind of stuff that petty, hormone imbalanced, rich white teenagers listen to when their Mom is late paying off their phone bill. I’m 19 and I don’t know a single person who grew up in my predominantly white, upper middle class town that could actually relate to anything this moron is spewing out of his mouth. This is like music written by a 13 year old Jake Pauler who is trying to pretend like he’s an adult writing relatable Pop tunes. Everything on here, even the explicit songs, would fit perfectly - and unedited - into a Kidz Bop album. Even though there are “adult” themes, these are such sugary and infantile songs that any parent bumping Kidz Bop in the car would never notice. This is a 28 year old guy singing about girls telling their friends that she “likes” him. This is music written by a kindergartner, for kindergartners. This is the soundtrack to a playground wedding. This sucks.

I genuinely didn’t expect to dislike this at all. If anything I expected it would be really bland and hard to discuss aside from a couple of highlights, but the last thing I expected by this album was to be repulsed by it. This is too much even for me. I still listen to The All American Rejects, and this is too childish and dumb for my tastes. I can usually look past the stupidest, most immature and most trivial lyrical tropes people put into even the most egregious Pop music like this, but this is too much for me. There are three songs that I actually really love on this album, which is the only thing saving it from being tanked into an abysmal sub-1/10 score. However, I feel like the score I’m giving this thing is a little bit too generous. I really hope that Quinn eventually grows up a bit and utilizes his talent for some music that anybody could manage to take seriously. A Letter To My Younger Self contains some of the most unforgivably childish and grating lyricism I’ve ever heard in an album, and that’s coming from the guy that unironically enjoys a handful of AJR, Lil Pump and Bhad Bhabie songs. Quinn XCII managed to come across as dumber than the Cash Me Ousside girl on this album. There are three songs that are absolutely worth checking out as they’re genuinely pretty great, but aside from those this is the most immature, infantile and laughably dumb album I’ve ever heard when it comes to the lyrics. - 3.4/10 (Best Songs - Second Time Around, Coffee, A Letter to My Younger Self)