Wanna know how a still-independent band with just a handful of singles and EPs manages to boast 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify? No, this isn’t the rhetoric of some tawdry marketing ploy—or flat-out scam—but the story of Good Kid. Their timeline would make traditionallist label execs’ heads melt, in which successes have come from aligning themselves with Fortnite streamers, and their music featuring in a MrBeast video that’s currently racked up close to 233 million views. Believe it or not, but a band whose frontman is a co-founder of Cohere, an AI platform for enterprise valued at over $2 billion, knows how to leverage the internet for success.
It’s also the sort of technique that leaves a breakthrough feeling rather imminent, where the combination of story and noise around them makes for the perfect coalescence of ‘difficult to ignore’. A lot of similarly online alternative acts find themselves in the same boat, albeit with this magnitude of a push behind them. Good Kid’s particularly alleyways feel borderline unprecedented, even within their circles, to where you’re almost forced to ignore how little about them has changed over time. In a blend of super-light emo-pop, math-pop and indie, the cues that defined their output right from the beginning have persisted. Hell, the artwork of each iteration more or less gives the game away, a view of their mascot Nomu Kid from a different angle as almost a direct illustration of variations on a theme.
There’s an element of brand overtaking band about that, but that’s just it—it’s one element. Everywhere else, Good Kid remain profoundly entertaining, gifted in tunefulness and the knack to mould that into a tight, spry form. They’ve definitely been served well by the drip-feeding release model; six tracks is the ideal package to get the most from what they do, where any more would widen the cracks to a level verging on untenable. The lack of variety is a point, regardless of how it’s framed not to be, when every track fizzes and sugar-rushes in the same general tempo that could feel overly maudlin with more of it. Good Kid don’t lean into the abject quirkiness of some of their contemporaries (and if they did, the goalposts for insufferability would likely be narrowed severely), but it can still emanate ‘indie-pop softbois making ‘relatable’ TikTok vlogs’ like the sun does heat.
That said, they’re far from the worst offenders. If anything, they’ll draw on a slightly older foundation of emo that’s far more palatable, mainly sticking to the 2000s and specifically Motion City Soundtrack. Not only does Nick Frosst have the voice of Justin Courtney Pierre (almost uncannily, at times), but the writing style too, in the specific flourishes brought by songs like Break and Dance Class. Homages are paid in full, in the neurotic self-examination and propensity to come across as too clever and snappy, all adding up to the same kind of charm you’d find on an album like My Dinosaur Life. The difference is how Good Kid come from a place that feels young and contemporary, sliding through experiences and scenarios that can feel relatable, rather than simply cladding themselves in the veneer. In that regard, the cover of Laufey’s From The Start maps perfectly, in every single way.
It’s the most ear-catching contribution to Good Kid 4, by virtue of an established hook and the ease at which it tessellates to this style. The noodly head-bobbing is retained courtesy of Good Kid’s slick math-pop angle, and bumping up the tempo to highlight its pop side is a welcome compromise to make. It’s the sort of propulsive little melody that really is the brand-standard of Good Kid, as they set a perfect record on this EP for meeting it. Bubbly is the strongest for how tightly it closes on full-fledged millennial pop-rock; meanwhile, Dance Class and Premier Inn work through flow and smoothness as a worthy substitute for a blunt smack. Apparently J-rock has been bandied around a primary descriptor for Good Kid, and you definitely get a strong hint of the more rustic, tactile side of it on this EP.
In other words, it’s about on the level of everything Good Kid have done up to now, as it should be. In terms of the runway they’ve got, a fourquel EP would never be what sees them take off, but if it extends their reach some more, that’s good too. They’re capitalising well on their virality rather than haemorrhaging it for all it’s worth, and the longevity they’ve have since at least shows some signs of it working. It’s a steady base they’ve got, with Good Kid 4 only adding on to that. Maybe the next step is to channel that into something bigger; maybe it’s to keep soldiering forward to amass more dedicated followers. Either way, chances are that Good Kid are sticking it out for the long haul.
For fans of: Motion City Soundtrack, Bears In Trees, Lovejoy
‘Good Kid 4’ by Good Kid is out now.
Words by Luke Nuttall
