Album of the Year-A Review of Waterparks ‘Intellectual Property’
Presented by Iveth Sarabia
2023 was an amazing year for the music scene, with new albums being released throughout various genres ranging from country, pop, metal, to punk. With such a wide array of new music, it’s kind of hard to pick an “album of the year,” but yet, we all have one. We all have that one album that unintentionally shaped our year with its power and influence in our day to day lives by giving us something to sing in our heads, to listen to during car drives, to see performed live and scream along to, creating everlasting memories with it as our soundtrack. For me, the album that did exactly that, was Waterparks’ fifth studio album, Intellectual Property, which was released on April 14, 2023.
Intellectual Property and its now iconic cover welcomed in a new era for Waterparks. Awsten Knight, the lead singer of Waterparks, has something called synesthesia which allows him to see colors with sound. This gives Waterparks’ music videos, song names, album covers and concepts an extra twist, with an extension of visual emotional representation through color alongside the music. Let’s also not forget about Awsten’s hair, which he dyes to correlate with the energy of the albums as the band releases them. The bright red background (and Awsten’s bright red hair) may have been intended to represent anger, passion, and love, while the blue poison dart frog may represent sadness and coldness. These emotions are sewn throughout the lyrics and instrumentals of the 11 songs that make up the album.
The album had 5 singles released throughout the time span of 10 months leading up to its official release. The first single to release was FUNERAL GREY, it was released on May 13, 2022 and has since become a fan favorite. The song released alongside a music video showcasing the band members, mostly Awsten, surrounded by women wearing “funeral grey” colored sweaters and obscurely showing how entangled and entranced he became by her energy. So much so that he portrays himself as being wrapped in red strings and a singular grey one, being on a leash pulled by her, and being dragged through the streets by a car pulling him by the strings. The song itself is an upbeat and catchy tune that anyone could sing along to, with iconic lines such as, “She said I know your dying wish is to be baptized in my spit” and “I just want you to be my next mistake, that I’m going to make.” Making it the perfect song to sing along to when you have a crush on someone you’re down bad for or when you’re thinking about that one situationship. I remember it being the song that uplifted the crowd the most during their Houston, TX show at the Rise Rooftop, in turn creating a wave of crowd surfers. It was the most memorable song they performed during the show because of how much energy it incited in the crowd (on a Tuesday of all days too).
The next single to be released was SELF-SABOTAGE, it was released two months after FUNERAL GREY, on July 7, 2022. The song paints a picture of a toxic connection, seemingly created by Awsten’s self-aware, self sabotaging behaviors, where arguing is a norm. The lines, “When we talk, I’m never wrong, and if we don’t fight, it won’t last long,” and “’Cause it’s avoidable, I’ll destroy chances to be better than I was before you and me” reveal an unhealthy dynamic. The song itself is intoxicatingly catchy though, you’ll find yourself singing along to every single line and sing-screaming the chorus, especially the line “So I might drive my car and crash into your garage, ooh,” and the post chorus, “What the fuck is wrong with me? (Yeah, yeah).” It’s one of the songs off this album that I remember listening to during car drives the most, the really fun part of it to sing along to in the car is when he sings, “If you like when we talk, I’ll dislocate my jaw, ooh.”
The song to release after SELF-SABOTAGE seems like a direct continuation to it, that song being FUCK ABOUT IT featuring Black Bear. FUCK ABOUT IT is Waterparks’ first song to feature another artist, and it’s honestly a great musical combination. It starts off with acoustic guitar and Awsten’s vocals isolated, the drums kick in soon after, as well as a combination of synthetic sounds. Blackbear comes in a minute into the song and adds a hip-hop feel with his rap verse. This song adds more into the “toxic” aspect of the relationship, shown by the lyrics “I don’t wanna leave you hangin’ on but when we fight, it’s like a marathon,” and the most catchy line in the song “We can fuck about it later, if you want it’’s all we ever really do when something’s wrong ’cause you, you don’t seem to like it when we talk.” This song’s music video is quite literally an artistic exhibit. The artistry displayed in the music video has sexual tones to it, which is no surprise considering the song title. The color red is prominent throughout as well, showing the anger that comes from being in a relationship where it seems sex is the only real thing connecting the two partners. The song’s lyrics may seem a little douchey when listened to by the naked ear but when you dive more into the sound of it you can dissect the angry, maybe even annoyed tones, of someone who knows communication is replaced by sex in the connection.
The fourth single to be released was REAL SUPER DARK, the epitome of angst in music form. The song has a heavy toned instrumental, with slight distortion, and raspy vocals. The song reveals Awsten’s feelings towards being an artist with lines like , “I’m out of my cage and I’m on the stage, I’m dyin’ to give you a show, I’m alienated, way overrated, Here are a few of the notes, My fans are the best, they’d love me more dead” and “And everyone’s freakin’ me out,I wake up and I’m up and I’m down.” The lyrics and the instrumental combine to create the perfect representation of anxiety, especially from the perspective of a musical artist who feels what he does is for everyone else’s entertainment. Despite its meaning, it is a very good song to sing along to when you want to release some underlying anger.
The fifth single to release was BRAINWASHED, a cheery, innocent (well not so innocent), song to clap along to and a breath of fresh air when compared to the others. It’s a little sappy but it’s an accurate vocalization of what it feels like to be in a honeymoon crush phase. I remember singing it during a karaoke night. Awsten sings kind of fast during certain parts so it was a little hard to keep up, but I still recommend singing it during karaoke, you’ll have so much fun. Lyrics like “It’s like my brain isn’t mine, you moved into my mind dropped your bags, drew the blinds,” and “I’m havin’ the same thoughts, can’t stop, thinkin’ you’ve got me brainwashed,” are flawless in showing how infatuated Awsten really was. This song is the perfect one to sing along to when you’re heavily crushing on someone.
This album as a whole is very experimental with sound, just like every other one of their albums. Awsten himself has indirectly stated through lyrics that he likes to try new sounds when it comes to music, so it’s not really a surprise that it sounds different from their previous album, Greatest Hits which was released on May 21, 2021. The album ranges from pop-punk songs like FUCK ABOUT IT, BRAINWASHED, FUNERAL GREY, and 2 BEST FREINDS to more heavy songs like RITUAL, REAL SUPER DARK, and ST*RF*CKER, all the way to more hyperpop/electonica songs like A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH and END OF THE WATER (FEEL). There’s even a slow, heart tugging, song, CLOSER. It’s got everything you could ask for from an album to get you through your day, the heavy and electronic songs will pump you up and fill you with dopamine as you sing along.
Waterparks had two North American tours to welcome in and celebrate the new album, the “A Night Out On Earth Tour” and the “Intellectual Property Tour.” The intellectual Property Tour was the one I personally got to experience, both physically and virtually through tweets and Instagram posts from other fans. They performed songs from across their discography and debuted multiple songs from the album. There was a lot of iconic aspects of the Intellectual Property tour, like Awsten’s star make up which caused a trend among the fans to replicate it or recreate it with their own twist to the shows. Then there was the stage design which happens to be the art gallery used in the FUCK ABOUT IT music video. The visuals for each individual song displayed through the frame screens, a truly beautiful touch to the stage. Let’s not forget that Waterparks isn’t a very serious band as they are self proclaimed “God’s favorite boy band” so some antics were expected. During a handful of shows during the Intellectual Property Tour, the band played in wedding dresses, all dolled up and at their Halloween show they dressed up as the Pope and nuns, ironically performing their newest single in these costumes, “Sneaking Out Of Heaven.”
Sneaking Out Of Heaven is yet to be confirmed as another song to Intellectual Property, the band started teasing it months ago on their instagram page and finally released it after dropping a cryptic picture of multiple USBs. The USBs included snippets of the song and were mailed out to various fans and friends of the band. It obviously caused a lot of traction and excitement within the fandom. The music video and the teasers that were dropped seem to be opening the door to a new album, especially with the “There are two sides to every story” teaser and the theory that the two sides are ST*RFUCKER which is represented by the color red and stars and SOULSUCKER which is represented by the color green and crosses. The song was an immediate hit with fans, with references to songs from Intellectual Property, like BRAINWASHED, and fast pop like sounds, it’s no surprise that we’ve all been streaming it nonstop since its release on October 12, 2023.
This album was there for me throughout a lot of rough emotional patches this year. It’s kind of beautiful in a way when you realize the musical process is the way musicians come to terms with and personify their own emotional rough patches. They don’t create to make us feel better, they create to express themselves and somehow that helps us express ourselves too. My overall favorite song and the one I attached to the most off of Intellectual Property is END OF THE WATER (FEEL). It’s hyper pop like energy immediately drew me in. The fact that I was crushing on someone I couldn’t have when I first heard it didn’t really help. This song will have you scream singing “If you feel it, then I feel it too, if you believe me, I could be your truth!” My initial thought when hearing this song was “Wow, what a simp…same!” It’s a song of him exposing his honest feelings for someone and just wanting to know it’s reciprocated, and maybe that’s why I connected to it so much.
All of this is exactly why Intellectual Property is my album of the year, it goes beyond the music itself. Waterparks as whole are a big muse to me, the way they express their artistry has always called to me. I’m really looking forward to what they’ve created for their coming Spring 2024 “Sneaking Out Of Heaven Tour.” Until then, I will be streaming Sneaking Out Of Heaven and the rest of Intellectual Property nonstop, and I suggest you do too. Or I mean at least give it a listen, you won’t regret it, I promise.
EightBallMag 