My First (And Last) Music Review

Throughout the history of music there have been many important albums. Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The Beatles’ White Album. Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

And now Titty Citty’s Moist, which is also definitely a music album.

A bit of backstory for those who might be thinking, “How and why?” I, on a whim, typed the word “titties” into Amazon’s search bar just to see what would come up. After wading through a few pages of admittedly funny results I discovered this CD. And I instantly fell in love. The band name, the album title, that cover art, it was all so beautifully stupid. Despite my instantaneous feeling of desire for it, I was a bit gun shy about purchasing it. Which is why I asked the community here a simple, but powerful question:

Should. I. Buy. This?

Much to my pleasure, you all (other than house4lyfe) agreed that I should own this. And so I bought it. And now I hold it in my hands. 

Which leads to this review. Many of you (like three people I think) expressed a desire to see me review this album. Well, here you go. This is it. Let’s light this candle.

WARNING: These songs contain lyrics which are not suitable for work or children or those of you who don’t enjoy F-bombs and/or words that describe genitalia. Listen to these songs at your own risk.

The Band

Before we talk about the CD and its songs, let’s talk about the people behind it. Yes, I actually researched the band for this review. I am a serious music reviewer and this is what serious music reviewers do. Plus, to truly and fully understand the music you must first dive into the history of the people behind it.

Okay, so let’s see. According to my research they are from Chicago. They describe themselves as a “garage/punk/power-pop/weirdo/whatever band”, which I assume is either a joke or a super serious description of their style. I can not be sure, I’m not that familiar with most music genres and sub-genres, despite being a super serious music reviewer. The band consists of Ari Freeman on keyboard and vocals, Collin A. Bullock on guitar and vocals, Dan Muller on guitar, Ryan Croft on bass, and Will Gingritch on drums. I could not for the life of me tell you anything more about any of them, not because I was too lazy to research them further, but because I respect their right to privacy and didn’t pry into their lives any further because of that.

They have apparently performed live before, though I couldn’t tell you where or when. They have three albums, Moist, which is the subject of this review which was released in 2016, Queen Kong which released in 2018 and An Oil Painting of Bono That Resembles Stevie Wonder which also released in 2018.

And uh, that’s all I could find. And that was all pretty much just the info I could find on their Facebook page. There isn’t that much info out there. I’m not sure if this is due to them being a fairly underground indie band or some kind of bizarre conspiracy, but either way this section is tapped out. So now let’s talk about the album.

The Cover

Before we dive on into the music itself, I want to take a moment to discuss the album’s cover, as it was what we drew me to the album in the first place. Where to start. Well what’s start with the elephant in the room. The blender. It draws the eye to it and fills one’s mind with many questions. Questions like: Is that a blender? What brand is it? I wonder how much it cost? Also, why?

The blender, while clearly the most interesting thing on the album cover, is not the only interesting thing however. We must also address the fact that they are clearly in one of their bathrooms. I’m not sure whose, and that I feel is truly brilliant. It immediately makes you wonder what you are in for. The bathroom is, perhaps, the most intimate room in a home. It is where one goes to be alone, to tend to their own needs. To bathe oneself. To brush one’s teeth. To relieve oneself of bodily wastes. It is a place of great solitude, and yet here they are, all in the room together. And even more intriguingly they are all almost nude. This creates the sense that this band is very comfortable with one another and gives you the impression that this is a band that truly are at peace with who they are. And in turn, that makes me feel connected to them immediately. 

Also the girl is kind of cute. She gives me Cristina Ricci vibes, which scares me, but in a good way.

And now, the heart and soul of this review:

The Music

Titty Citty, The Song, The Movie (Two Ts in Citty)

This first track of the album, unsurprisingly is a song that speaks to us about the band itself. It affirms to us that they are, in fact, Titty Citty and reminds us not to be deceived into the falsehood that they are not Titty Citty. For to believe such an audacious lie would be a grave insult to the band.

The songs starts very quiet and simple but builds over the course of the song to include more vocals and instruments. I enjoy songs that utilize this idea. I like how it starts with only one vocalist but soon the female vocalist joins in more and more over the course of the track. At the start it feels like its only one person, but by the end its very clearly a full band. A band called Titty Citty. In case you were wondering.

Rating: 3/5

A pretty good song, though I was left wondering who it was by.

Red Lobster

Easily my favorite track on the album. Sincerely. I don’t even want to talk about the song at all. It really, truly needs to be heard to be understood. So go ahead, give it a listen. then come back to hear what I have to say about it. Go on. Listen. Seriously hit play on that YouTube link right above this paragraph. Now. Do it. Do. It.

Okay? We good? Alright. (Ahem)

So first we must address that the female vocalist, whose name I don’t know because I could never really find out who was who in the band. I’m assuming she’s Ari Freeman since Ari and Collin are the two vocalists and unless I am mistaken she doesn’t really strike me as a Collin, has a pretty nice voice. It’s got a nice, sweet tone to it which works well with the song. There are some moments in this song that strike me as being quite impressive vocally.

The song’s title is a bit deceptive as it is not about red Lobster directly. It’s mostly about incest. Or almost incest. But like cousin incest, which let’s be honest, is not the end of the world or anything. And if most of us were completely honest, we’d admit to having at least one cousin we thought about banging. Maybe you didn’t know you were related when you had those thoughts, maybe you did. You probably did. And it probably didn’t matter. If your cousin’s hot, your cousin’s hot. Nothing you can do about it, right?

Anyway, the song shows that the narrator wants to do the right thing and not fuck her cousin, which I feel is a decent enough message.

Rating: 4.25/5

A good song, but it made me wish I was the narrator’s cousin and that’s making me feel things that confuse me.

Every One Dies

Another solid track. The title is a bit deceptive again, but I feel like that’s a good thing. This song has a good beat to it and the vocals are decent enough. The female singer is the standout here, having the most interesting lyrics of the song and delivering them well. When she tells the doctor to suck her dick, you truly feel the contempt she has for the doctor.

I enjoy the fact that the song appears at first to be an emo-esque song about the inevitability of death and an affirmation of our own mortality. A reminder that life is temporary and your time on this ball of dirt and water that floats in a endless vacuum in an infinitely expanding universe mostly composed of a dark, mysterious material that scientists do not and may never truly understand does not really matter as your impact on it is likely to be negligible and will almost definitely be lost to the sands of time as the universe either implodes on itself or is torn asunder by some greater power that finally got tired of toying with our existence and decided to pull the switch.

But then the female singer reveals that she in fact will be spared this fate, as she is, apparently, immortal. Which, I guess, good for her right? 

Rating: 4/5

A good song that I may have thought a bit too hard about.

No, You’re Weird!

Would you be surprised if I say that this one reminds me of Destructoid the most? I don’t really know why, it just gives off that kind of vibe you know? A part of me imagines my son Wes as the vocalist in this one. They all just sound like things I could hear him say.

Anyway, as for the deeper meaning of the song, well I think this is the most obvious of all the songs. The meaning is only surface deep with this one. No metaphors, no nuances, just straight up literal interpretations. The song is from the perspective of someone who believes that the things they enjoy, in this case peeing, pooping, and farting are cool. However, they obviously suffer from insecurity brought on by societal pressure to conform, hence the defensive outcry of, “No, you’re weird.” The narrator feels the need to lash out and deflect their own insecurity at their perceived “weirdness”.

And, as I’m sure you will all agree, the narrator is correct in their beliefs. It is cool to fart. it is cool to pee. It is cool to poop. If you don’t do those things you are weird. And probably close to death. Your body is supposed to release excess gas and waste. If it doesn’t, you die. And dying is decidedly not cool no matter what those goth kids behind the gym tell you. Seriously, they are assholes and should not be trusted. The members of Titty Citty though? Trustworthy. Stalwart. Not dying from a toxic build up of bodily wastes. They are good people, as this song will attest to.

Rating: 3.5/5

Good, but could have used more cowbell.

Momma’s Picking Out Her Tombstone

This is a song about the narrator’s frustrations with their obese mother’s lack of concern for her own personal health concerns. Her mother has resigned herself to death rather than taking the effort to turn her unhealthy habits around. The narrator offers her some advice and begs her to just eat a fucking salad. But her momma is too consumed by apathy and depression to take the steps necessary to make the change she so desperately needs to make to keep living. 

This song is both beautiful and sad. It is by far the most detailed song of the album, with the strongest lyrics. And it features the best vocalist of the band prominently. And that is definitely a plus. Musically and lyrically this might be the strongest track that Tiity Citty’s Moist has to offer. Though personally I still prefer Red Lobster.

Rating: 4.25/5 

A good, strong song that really has a story to tell. But it’s not Red Lobster so I docked it .75 points.

And that does it for Titty Citty’s Moist. All in all, I enjoyed the album. It will sit proudly on my shelves as a purchase well made. I’m sure I’ll listen to it again some time outside of the obligation to review it. And I suspect I will have to check out Titty Citty’s other albums. i wonder what they will have in store for me.

Over all, I give the album a solid 4/5 as a whole. It’s more than worth the price of admission and offered me a solid sixteen-ish minutes of entertainment. And any distraction from this bleak, meaningless existence filled with dread, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness any source of joy, no matter how fleeting, is welcome.

If you would like to purchase Titty Citty’s Moist there are still four CDs available for purchase on Amazon at the time this was published. Or you can buy it off their bandcamp page. It is also available digitally from both platforms. It’s also available on iTunes. and probably on other platforms, but I’m not going to go track them all down. If there’s another platform besides those three you’d rather use, go check if they’re on their on your own. You have fingers.

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed it.

I will never review a music album again.

- Thank You For Reading, And Remember: Hot Dogs are Sandwiches. #TeamSandwich

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