MCII by Mikal Cronin

by Lana Fleischli

Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot. I’ve been thinking about my past self, and how much I’ve grown. I was also thinking about music that makes me nostalgic, or in some way changed me, and then I stumbled upon my nostalgic memories of Mikal Cronin’s, MCII. 

Until now, I haven’t listened to the album in order, but I have known all of the songs since I was in fourth grade. So, I woke up this Sunday morning, (as I like to write my articles the weekend before), and listened to the whole thing in order. I laid in my bed, and thought about how each song made me feel, or what memory it triggered. Most of them were about my mom, which seems fitting because this is being written on Mother’s Day.

I remember driving to school through Hollywood traffic as she was playing “Shout It Out” and we both sang it as loud as possible. I remember learning “Weight” on piano, and how my mom would freak out everytime I could get the opening melody right. Or how when Mikal Cronin played FYF (A.K.A Fuck Yeah Festival) around that time, my mom and I both freaked out when we got to watch from the side of the stage. 

Now I want to talk about the album itself. Mikal Cronin can play almost any instrument, so in each song each instrument is accentuated in a way that I don’t hear often. In “Am I Wrong,” the piano melody trails off from the lead guitar melody, which I found really interesting. Usually, the keys just add more of the guitar melody, but by the end of the song they both have pretty different things going on, yet they somehow compliment each other perfectly. 

Then there’s the drums, which again, I think he does a great job of differentiating them from the rest of the instruments. When I generally hear drums in music, it normally just tends to add intensity, or just a beat to follow, but in MCII Cronin makes the drums their own separate thing. The tempos are complex, and, while they follow the rhythm, they vary too. 

I think that his careful and thoughtful uses of the instruments in the album make it worth listening to. The songs are all pretty upbeat and fun, but once you really get into it, you hear all of the different melodies and tunes. It’s incredibly impressive how he was able to make a bunch of different motifs fit together. It shows a lot of his understanding of how music works.

As for me, my biggest reason to listen to it is to make me happy. It can put me in the moment, and simultaneously, it can give me the feeling of being younger than I am -- fourth grade me, in the car, singing at the top of my lungs. It gives me memories that light up my day. That’s pretty worth it for me.