Recommended to me by a vampire, I was pretty surprised by the mixtape. I was expecting anything except nostalgia to being twelve years old and very in love with the colour yellow. The Steve Lacey influences are strong.

Art House was easily the best track compared to the ones before it, but the mixtape stayed somewhat iffy afterwards. I think my biggest issue with Sweet Boy is that all the songs have a relatively similar sound in their production. When I think of a mix tape, especially a debut one, I think of an artist really showing their own unique style even if it doesn't always come out sounding palatable. It's like a bachelor's party before you get married off to your record label. Sweet Boy plays it (commercially) safe instead. It's not bad sounding, but nothing in it really stands out when put up against other arthoe-sounding works. It's very obvious what he's inspired by -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing -- but he doesn't take the parts of his influences he wants to repurpose and make something new. He just uses the "best" (viral-sounding) parts without any personal twists.

He has a few well-made songs (Art House, Accutane, Pillow), but it sits alongside very shallow tiktok-like songs (Rockstar Boyfriend, Hot in NY) and it leaves me feeling very mixed about him. Not every song needs to be necessarily amazing and well thought out to  make a mixtape good and I understand that commercial success is important for artists, but Sweet Boy has so little to give that it doesn't really have much service beyond ear candy. Something nice to listen to in the background. It's just simply music, not a creation, and very structured at that. There's a very apparent section off for the catchy hook, vaguely over-confident and "fun casual" themed lyrics, and repeatable "bouncy" chorus. its not anything crazy experimental or unique, but it doesn't sound bad because he knows the formula for that sort of "indie soft rnb" tiktok pop music ear candy very well. All the "experimental" stuff like the scratchy electric guitar in Mr. Incorrect or the less soft sounds in Rockstar Boyfriend is token arthoe pop stuff even still, very Rex Orange sounding. 

Honestly, its a little bit of whiplash to hear the artists and style of music I was obsessed with in middle school make such a comeback. I remember being in eighth grade and replaying Heaven by Clairo on the band bus to football games. Now she as an artist is mainstream rather than just her songs like Hot Cheeto and Pretty Girl. I hear Crumb in restaurants and Cuco at Walmart. It's bizarre to see this gain traction as we roll into 2026. Malcolm Todd has a good ear for what worked back then and what didn't, I just really want to hear something beyond that. He has the talent and ear for it, but for now I'm staying very iffy on him.

On a more serious note, there's something very laughably ironic that music heavily associated with alt and queer children is now mainstream in an ever increasingly conservative US. The 2018-2021 era of music saw so many indie artists reach charts and the forefront of the "alt" scene featured an insanely high amount minorities in both indie and label; Tyler, Kali, Cuco, Steve Lacey, Chloe Moriondo, mxmtoon, Mitski, cavetown covers, Conan Gray, Rio Romeo, Johny Goth, tea, Boy Pablo, Lost Retros  etc were well known if you were chronically online and an awkward teen on the sjw or just in general queer side of the internet. Now its the music of straight men who've weaponised the "unthreatening" and "attractive" parts of queerness and people of colour again for sexualness to appeal to women seeking out safe partners. I could probably write whole essay on the life cycle of trends from coloured->queer->white women->white men, but that's such an overtalked topic. I think it's been covered enough