All My Heroes Are Cornballs

Song to song, it’s genuinely exciting to see where JPEGMAFIA might go next, and you never quite know what to expect. JPEGMAFIA’s third album is his most accomplished record yet.

All My Heroes Are Cornballs is not only angry but also gracious, humble, worried, and self-conscious. In other words, it is human.

Ultimately, the album is challenging and uncompromising as it makeshifts a rallying cry for the disenfranchised Millennial Redditor; a manifesto for the misunderstood.

With All My Heroes Are Cornballs, JPEGMAFIA captures the feelings of existing in an era fuelled by mindless scrolling and compulsive tweeting, positioning himself as both a participant and vocal critic of the happenings of the current millennia.

All My Heroes Are Cornballs manages a mellow, even reserved instrumental tone without losing any of the scathing social commentary or frenetic energy that defined earlier work. If anything, the album is more intense, hiding biting and bilious (and often surreal) lyrical threats beneath a deceptively low-energy facade.

JPEGMAFIA ain’t really here for the put-ons and doesn’t expect his listeners to be either. But those expectations do not come without a kind of sound education, one that considers the context and multiplicity of characters he’s speaking to and through. In that way, Cornballs demands repeat plays, critical engagement and a goddamn sense of humour. [Nov 2019, p.57]

Despite his tongue-in-cheek song titles, and his jesting bluster about his rise to prominence, there's a real soul and emotion running beneath everything.

All My Heroes Are Cornballs serves as an electronic manifesto for his fans, guerilla warfare of the auditory kind. Umberto Eco would be proud.

For those not attuned to Peggy’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist, All My Heroes Are Cornballs won’t provide a lyrical turning point. But as a showcase for his skills as a producer, it should win over even the most dyed in the wool critics.

Lyrically ‘All My Heroes Are Cornballs’ feels very stream of consciousness full of political commentary, the concerns of living in American 2019, whilst being engaging, humorous, and informative.

Through AMHAC, JPEGMAFIA has attempted to produce something so questionable, unique and conflicted in its elements, that on first glance, it’s uninviting and dissonant. This goes for the use of his close friends giving faux unfavourable comments about the record in the PR campaign too. Yet that friction he creates and the doubt at the front of your mind makes you concentrate more, breathe in every element and realise its undeniable quality.