''Hotel Diablo'' is the fourth
studio album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
by American musician
Machine Gun Kelly
George Kelly Barnes (July 18, 1895 – July 18, 1954), better known by his pseudonym "Machine Gun Kelly", was an American gangster from Memphis, Tennessee, active during the Prohibition era. His nickname came from his favorite weapon, a Thomps ...
. It was released on July 5, 2019, via
Bad Boy Records
Bad Boy Records (or Bad Boy Entertainment) is an American record label founded in 1993 by rapper Sean "Puffy" Combs. It operates as an imprint of Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. It has been home to many artists, including ...
and
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mus ...
. The album was supported by four singles: "Hollywood Whore", "
El Diablo", "
I Think I'm Okay" with
Yungblud
Dominic Richard Harrison (born 5 August 1997), known professionally as Yungblud (pronounced "Youngblood"), is an English singer, musician, songwriter and actor. In 2018, he released his first EP, ''Yungblud'', followed shortly after by the albu ...
and
Travis Barker
Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Transpla ...
, and "Glass House" featuring
Naomi Wild, with
promotional single
A promotional recording, or promo, or plug copy, is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as ...
"
Floor 13". The record is a
rap rock
Rap rock is a fusion genre that fuses vocal and instrumental elements of hip hop with various forms of rock. Rap rock's most popular subgenres include rap metal and rapcore, which include heavy metal and hardcore punk-oriented influences, re ...
album
and followed less than 10 months after September 2018's ''
Binge
Binge or Binges may refer to:
Behavior
Binge, a behavior engaged in excessively over a short period of time, such as:
* Binge drinking
* Binge eating
* Binge-watching
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Binge'' (EP), a 2018 EP by Machine Gun Kell ...
'' EP. The album's production also included
Foster the People
Foster the People is an American indie pop band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 2009. Its members are singer Mark Foster, guitarist Sean Cimino, and keyboardist Isom Innis.
Foster founded the band in 2009 after spending several years in ...
frontman
Mark Foster.
It debuted at number five on the US
''Billboard'' 200. The album received generally positive reviews. Lyrically, the songs deal with problems with drugs, childhood family struggles, among other themes.
Background and promotion
Shortly after releasing the bonus tracks to ''
Bloom'' (2017), Kelly announced he was going to start recording "album 4". In late 2018, Kelly announced he had a title for the upcoming album. After the release of his second
EP, he responded to a fan, stating that "no songs from the EP will be on album 4". He also stated that he had erased all material on the album that was already there, and would start again from scratch. One of the deleted songs, was a collaboration between MGK and
Lana Del Rey
Elizabeth Woolridge Grant (born June 21, 1985), known professionally as Lana Del Rey, is an American singer-songwriter. Her music is noted for its cinematic quality and exploration of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia, with frequent ...
, which never came to fruition. On April 2, 2019, MGK posted a 16-second video snippet of a song along with the album title on social media. The video shows a girl in the bathtub with the album title looming above her. Kelly revealed that he would be going on tour soon for the Hotel Diablo World Tour to promote the upcoming album. On May 10, 2019, a 58-second video was posted, with Kelly rapping in preparation of the album. The song was rumored to be titled "Breaking News 2", a sequel to "Breaking News" from his 2013 mixtape ''
Black Flag''. By the first week of June 2019, three singles from the album had been released.
On June 11, 2019, Kelly announced the release date and shared a video of himself getting a head tattoo with the album name inked, with the caption reading "album comes JULY 5th". On June 27, Kelly revealed the album cover art.
Artwork and title
Kelly explained his personal thoughts in an interview with Beats 1 because of its nostalgic and dark feel, saying:
In an interview with ALT923Radio, Kelly revealed that the original name of the album was ''Delirium''. He explained why this didn't come to fruition:
Singles
The first single was "Hollywood Whore", released on May 17, 2019. The music video, directed by Jordan Wozy, was released May 29, 2019. The song's lyrical content describes the music industry and how it can manipulate artists.
The second single, "
El Diablo", was released on May 31, 2019. The music video, directed by Snuffy.NYC & Jimmy Regular, was released on July 25, 2019. The song is a mention of all the people who thought MGK's career was "falling down" due to the feud between MGK and Eminem. He also expresses his thoughts on the people who MGK thinks they "took credit and became famous".
The third single, "
I Think I'm Okay", was released on June 7, 2019. Kelly released the song with
Travis Barker
Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Transpla ...
and
Yungblud
Dominic Richard Harrison (born 5 August 1997), known professionally as Yungblud (pronounced "Youngblood"), is an English singer, musician, songwriter and actor. In 2018, he released his first EP, ''Yungblud'', followed shortly after by the albu ...
. The music video, directed by Andrew Sandler, was released June 14, 2019.
The fourth single, "Glass House" was released on July 5, 2019. It features vocals from
Naomi Wild. Its lyrical themes reveal mental struggles and drug problems, and being "all alone in a glass house".
Promotional singles
The song "
Floor 13" was released on July 5, 2019. The song contains a
cameo appearance
A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...
from Kelly's daughter Casie at the end of the track.
Critical reception
Markos Papadatos of the Canadian internet news service ''Digital Journal'' praised the lyrics and overall album sound and mood. He wrote "Overall, Machine Gun Kelly has released a solid new album, ''Hotel Diablo''. It showcases his maturity and growth as a singer-songwriter and musician." Papadatos concluded with "Most impressive about Machine Gun Kelly is that the same energy that he exudes on this album, he displays on stage in a live setting, which is incredible." He gave the album an A rating.
Jeremy Markus of ''
The Cornell Daily Sun
''The Cornell Daily Sun'' is an independent daily newspaper published in Ithaca, New York by students at Cornell University and hired employees.
''The Sun'' features coverage of the university and its environs as well as stories from the Associa ...
'' gave the album a positive review, while also stating the album is a powerful successor to 2018's ''
Binge
Binge or Binges may refer to:
Behavior
Binge, a behavior engaged in excessively over a short period of time, such as:
* Binge drinking
* Binge eating
* Binge-watching
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Binge'' (EP), a 2018 EP by Machine Gun Kell ...
''. He wrote, "Besides the improvement in writing, the album is simply much more enjoyable to listen to. Gone are the odd hooks and off-beat rapping from last year's project; they are replaced with intricate flows and a cohesive sound that spans across the entire production."
A negative review came from Dhruva Balram of ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'', who said that "Despite the potency of its material, the project's lyricism feels apathetic. While his contemporaries, from
Juice WLRD to
Post Malone
Austin Richard Post (born July 4, 1995), known professionally as Post Malone, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Known for his variegated vocals, Malone has gained acclaim for blending genres and subgenres of hip ...
, are pushing the envelope, crafting new sounds and forging new paths, MGK sticks to a tried-and-tested formula which, ultimately, feels bland. At times, the album feels stagnated, as if it's stuck in a 2012 timewarp." He concluded that it was "a formulaic album that's been re-worked with the same puzzle pieces: clever wordplay, catchy beats and enough meat on its body to keep it alive. But it doesn't have enough of those facets to be in any way distinguished."
Commercial performance
''Hotel Diablo'' debuted at number five on the
''Billboard'' 200, with 39,000 equivalent album units, 16,000 of that sum in album sales. It was his fourth top 10 album.
It dropped to number 20 in its second week, selling 20,585 album equivalent units. In its third week on the chart, it dropped to number 38, selling 13,141 units.
Track listing
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2019 albums
Machine Gun Kelly (musician) albums
Albums produced by Ronny J
Rap rock albums by American artists