This is the debut EP from American actor and singer, Joshua Bassett. He is most famous for acting in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (The Movie: The Game: The Trilogy: The Imposter: The Marketable Plushie: The Vaccine: The EP: The…). It is here where our story begins: with a relationship with co-star Olivia Rodrigo gone sour. She releases a little ditty called Driver’s License that becomes a massive hit, and all tabloid eyes were on our homeboy, Joshua Bassett because *gasp* it might be about him! Which is allegedly how this EP fell into our laps. I was expecting one of those apology videos in EP form, but I knew to threw that aside and listen. To be fair, I’m not really invested in the drama, or High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, but I truly wanted to give this guy a shot. Unfortunately, I just don’t like this EP. If I could describe it as one word, I’d say: mediocre. This EP is overblown and overproduced, except for pianos, which sound nice. On top of that, the production’s mostly uninteresting too from an effects standpoint. Speaking of uninteresting, the composition’s only saving grace are those pretty piano intros, which the rest of the songs often rip away from me. The structure’s fairly decent for the most part, nothing too crazy, no tonal whiplash. That might be because the lyrics are so ambiguous. The vocals themselves from Bassett are fine if a bit low energy. The lyrics are anonymous at best and petty at worst. Let’s dive in.
PRODUCTION
The mixing on this EP is meh. Joshua Bassett is often on top of the mix, as he should be, but he has to compete against these super loud instruments on songs like Do It All Again and the end of Lie, Lie, Lie. What really sucks is that these songs reel me in with something that sounds fine from a mixing and somewhere in the song, the rest of the mixing is just awful. The second this album gets loud in any way; Jordan Bassett has to fight to be heard where he absolutely shouldn’t be. On top of that, the whole album is super overblown and compressed. Even when I turn down the volume to try and give this EP the benefit of the doubt, but I just can’t. Dynamics could make this project so much better, but NO, they had to keep it loud to fit in the pop stereotype! Also, can someone please tell me why pianos sound amazing, yet the acoustic guitar on Lie, Lie, Lie sounds like every peppy pop song on the planet: cold and lacking in body? Seriously, we’re using that 90s pop trope? And on top of that, why are all the interesting parts of this album taking a backseat to the same tropes we’ve heard a million times this decade?!
The effects are also meh. At least they try, I guess, if you can even say that given how vanilla this is. Ok, to be fair, it’s not entirely bland from an effects standpoint that makes this record more interesting. There’s a bit of reverb used pretty tastefully, especially with instruments. It gives this record a little bit more of a spacey atmosphere. There is also a few moments of this album that break free from mono sound that are outside of reverb. Telling Myself is an example of this kind of relative stereo sound, but like the Shawn Mendes EP before it, The Joshua Bassett EP dips it toes in the water with any artistic risks, except it makes Shawn Mendes’ producers sound like Phil Spector in comparison! There are these artificial harmonies on Telling Myself, which I feel could be I used to think the opposite, but this EP has proven its incompetence from a production standpoint.
COMPOSITION
Oh, boy. Where to begin with this EP’s composition? First, let’s start with the one instrument that gave me a glimmer of hope that this EP would be good: the piano. They are really pretty at the beginning of the EP with Sorry, and it lulls you into this false sense of “hey, this might be alright”, and then something just comes and rips that away! The bass is unfortunately an accomplice in this robbery. I’ve long praised many an album on their inclusion of some low end, but there are times where it goes too far. The bass is absolutely deafening and overpowering with these chorus breakdowns on tracks like Sorry, and it’s not even doing anything cool. It hurts my poor ears! Speaking of things with strings, ukulele! It’s actually pretty good on Only A Matter of Time. I kind of like the strings throughout the album and it gives this EP a little more of an epic presentation. The guitars are kind of bad on this though. It might be production’s fault, but these chords on Lie, Lie, Lie are just not doing it for me. The drums are so “just there” that I barely even notice them. Unless it’s the closer, Heaven Is You, with some fairly alright drums, there are these drum machines that have so many cliches that it hurts from too many pop acts to name.
The structure of this EP not all bad though. I kind of like the alternating between these snarky, cool pop songs and the sadder, more heartfelt ballads, it keeps things interesting, at least somewhat. It alternates between moods consistently and I guess that’s kind of interesting. There’s no real unifying thread from track to track, even though one would be really cool, but it is what it is. But outside of the closer, Heaven is You, a song that is mostly swung with a straight bridge, which is a little confusing, but more intriguing the more I think about it, the lack of experimentation from this EP shows a lot of itself in song structure. Even with the feel confusion on that song, it’s just another pop song, structure wise, like pretty much every song on this EP. I’ve heard this same pop structure countless times and I wish that Bassett could switch things up to make this EP not sound like every Top 40 radio station from 2015 onwards. This EP is clearly not focussed on standing out, but instead sounding like all the pop stars that the teenagers love. Now, I don’t mind this at all, everybody has markets to pander to in this music industry, but I really wish that Joshua Bassett did something more with this project to stand out a little more so I don’t get so bored.
LYRICS
Lyrics are…there, I guess. They’re six radio-friendly pop songs and I guess they show a bit of emotion and humanity, but not enough to give this record a pass. But let’s start with Joshua Bassett himself. Joshua Bassett’s voice is fine. Nothing out of key, nothing too awful, just ok. I find his voice a little wispy and I feel it could use more oomph to add more passion, but that’s just me. It kind of sounds fine as it is. I find his intonation of certain words a little strange, like “sorry”, but maybe that’s just his voice and he can’t really control that. Fine. What I really don’t like is that he tends to go unnatural to try and fit the song such as the staccato flow on Telling Myself. He’s trying WAY TOO HARD to fit this song into a Let’s Get Physical style and as such, it seems wonky. Some beginner songwriters have to realize that if they’re singing the song, they are the melody and they have to account for that and make something catchy, but also believable that a human would sing this. But overall, it’s not a bad vocal performance, just not an amazing one.
The lyrics themselves are the reason why I am slowly growing to despise this EP and it’s teeny-bopper BS. Lie, Lie, Lie is one of the pettiest songs I’ve ever heard in my life, and that’s probably where the drama kept on kindling. It’s like The Weeknd’s Repeat After Me, but if After Hours had no character development. It’s kind of worth an eye-roll or two, but the real kicker is that this song was written years before this EP dropped and before the whole Olivia Rodrigo thing. Which brings me to this EP’s main problem: it’s too damn ambiguous. I used to want to slam this EP because it just seems like a sounding board for all this dude’s problems, and I realized, EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS IN MUSICAL FORM! The difference is, with the best artists, at least in my opinion, you could tell it comes from a deeply personal place. With this EP, it just seems too surface level. I wish that Joshua Bassett let us into his psyche more. I do like how Only A Matter of Time tries to do this, and it’s actually sort of heartfelt, but I just feel like Joshua built a wall between the listener and himself on this EP for really no reason. If you got something out of this EP, all the power to you, but I just want more. But instead, I get this bland mix of tired, cliched pop songs that don’t stand out, and that is the worst sin of all.
CONCLUSION
What else is there to say? This EP is just plain. Production is so damn loud and over compressed that it finally made me understand why some hate compression entirely, such as remastering in old albums. I used to scoff at the whole “It’s taking the dynamics out of the music, man” while pointing at the improvement of recording technology since the 60s, but I can’t do that anymore! And the effects are not unique in any way. It’s ever so slightly outside of mono sound, but it’s done in such a way that countless pop songs did before. With this is mind, composition is either frustratingly bland or just plain frustrating. From reeling me in with nice pianos only to crush me with disappointingly loud bass to trying not to stand out so hard that it actively suppresses anything that could be interesting in either production or composition. It’s mind boggling to me how little this EP wants to experiment! God forbid Joshua Bassett gets creative! That spirit bleeds into the vocals, which are just fine, if lacking in passion. It makes me have a weird, newfound appreciation for Charlie Puth (listen to Attention to hear what I mean). Speaking of lacking in passion, the lyrics themselves are too surface level that they end up falling flat of an actual connection. I wish that this were about some kind of drama that I don’t care about, because maybe Joshua Bassett could make me care, but it’s too safe and broad. It’s simply not worth my time to pour over something that gives me very little in return and that’s exactly what this EP did. This EP sorely needs detail of all kinds, and without it, you get a colourless pile of meh. Joshua Bassett has a lot of work to do for next time. Who knows? Maybe we will get something full of heart and passion. But until then…
I’m giving this one a Strong 3/10.
FAVOURITE TRACKS: Only A Matter of Time, Heaven Is You
LEAST FAVOURITE TRACK: Lie, Lie, Lie
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