It’s Juiceboxxx’s catchiest song yet, though the album gives it some competition.
“Have I wasted all my life in the basement?” Juiceboxxx wonders on the lifer’s lament “In The Basement,” a typically revved-up number featuring some unmistakable synths from The Rentals’ Matt Sharp. Recorded with Wavves/ Jay Reatard bassist Stephen Pope, it’s a brisk power-pop record about loving what you do but hating the toll it takes. His new It’s Easy To Feel Like a Nobody When You’re Living in The City goes one step further, ditching hip-hop almost entirely but keeping the guitars. He’s traded it for a two-piece backing band, which conjured the guitar-drenched rap early Beastie Boys on his 2017 effort Freaked Out American Loser. These days Juiceboxxx no longer tours the country on a Greyhound with an iPod as his DJ, though. That down-with-the-ship attitude has defined everything he’s recorded since-if public humiliation on that scale doesn’t shake your dedication, then maybe nothing can.
He bombs with gusto, committing fully to his affable party-starter routine even as he wrestles with a sadistic sound mix and the sinking realization that an act that slays in a basement full of sweaty fans doesn’t translate to an empty stage of a news broadcast. After offering the anchors a complimentary can of Thunder Zone, the energy drink he was hocking at the time, he doesn’t just bomb. Six years later, that fail footage is no less painful to watch, although in a certain light Juiceboxxx’s performance is also strangely inspiring.