#artist: devon hendryx

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Ballad of A Poor Man • ♥ • HBK • violent fighting to come again! • Behold! a Pale Horse • M.U.G.E.N • Porn for Percussion • Untitled • God Bless My Homegirls • Missing image file. • Untitled II • Neon Kitchen IV • Call Me Maybe • Pu$$y Number 3 • Bubblegum Crisis • LIARA • O Superman • Untitled III

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[soundsystem0]

JOECHILLWORLD

[ik1llmygods]

my tik toks flopping & i guess i’ll resort 2 tumblr posting abt ts 😭 when i’m not posting abt my favorite artists on here, i’m making music under the name blkvana. i like 2 dabble in a multitude of genres but for this specific song, it’s more of a dreampop // shoegaze feel. i made south side august of last year, released it on halloween of last year. it’s about sitting alone w/ negative thoughts in the dead of night. u should like give it a shot or sum u may like it B)

[kx-kwxx]

i got boooored and i wanted to make something new so this is a teaser to whatever im working on rn and threw dragonball over it

[iuc1dity]

intro!!! ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

✮⋆ ˚｡ — hello & welcome to my tumblr!!! u guys can call me kay which is a shortened ver of my irl name 👎

about me!! ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡

✮⋆ ˚｡ — my favorite artists are slowdive, mbv, the smashing pumpkins, tyler the creator, devon hendryx, carti, kendrick lamar, mazzy star, alex g, cocteau twins, and many,

MANY more….

✮⋆ ˚｡ — i love photography (i took the pic at the top of this intro fun fact) writing, history, and yapping and i hope to have a profession that has to do with law and psychology in the future

✮⋆ ˚｡ — i am interested in true crime and the psychological aspects behind it but it definitely won’t be the main subject my acc revolves around..

✮⋆ ˚｡ — dni if ur racist or homophobic. also i know tumblr is a particularly vulnerable place for ppl and many show sh, but it personally makes me uncomfortable so pls dni if u do that ty

✮⋆ ˚｡ — my timezone is est!!

✮⋆ ˚｡ — im an estj and i love to yap

✮⋆ ˚｡ — ill just use the tag #kyaps for literally all my posts help

[wheresthechaos]

devon hendryx is one of the best artists oat

❤️ was such a beautiful ep with the closing track, Satan, being a perfect embodiment for whats to come with tgpt (ghost pop tape (which was an absolute amazing mixtape for its time and one of my favorite albums ever))

dreamcast summer songs is also fantastic, as its debatably one of if not the first vaporwave album to be released, dating back to August of 2009. And the songs from this are absolutely incredible. Guilty Gear, Power Stone, and Phantasy Star are all 10/10 songs, and it gives off the vibe of an actual game ost.

And most importantly, the ghost pop tape is one of the best mixtapes (in my opinion) of all time. The production on this album is god-tier, especially for songs like the cover call me maybe and sakura. The dvd that comes with this project also made me love this project even more, as it gave me more of a clearer image as to what Hendryx pictured for this tape.

Altogether, I think it would not be foolish for me to say that this artist is pretty amazing, and should go down as one of the greats. It’s unfortunate that due to his tenuous popularity, he left the scene.

There has been this new artist that kinda looks similar to him though, I think his name is jredGafia??

[guraholic]

4 artist to some up my highschool year so far would be

Chief Keef

Slipknot

Cibo Matto

Devon Hendryx [dunno if I spelt that right lel]

[ephemeralityonline]

Ghost in the Shell (8/6/21; a review of the Devon Hendryx album "The Ghost~Pop Tape")

"I'll forever be Devon Hendryx the weird guy on YouTube with cool songs and 50 views. It's enough to question myself. I look up to a lot of people and artists like Yoko Kanno, Kate Bush, Franchise Hardy, Janet Jackson, mostly women because it's taboo for women to be the driving force behind something successful in man's world. It's something I relate to. Maybe I was supposed to be born a woman." This excerpt was taken from an open letter posted to his website roughly a year after this album was released and sets up the context for the state of mind during this project. Hendryx was openly and repeatedly stating that after this album was released he would kill himself. Luckily, he ended up staying alive and he seems to be in his best mental state to date as of writing this. However, this album acts as a depressing but stunningly beautiful capsule of that time in his life.

This album feels haunted in a sense. The melodies are drowned in reverb and extra noise leaking into the recordings, making it sound like the music is merely existing in that space. While Hendryx does get pretty explicit about his depression and shows some brutally honest songwriting at times (notably on the first track where he says, "March 2nd, I was cursed. I never felt my body hurt. Imma end up in a hearse, by March 21st."), this production makes even more playful songs in concept still have an uneasy melancholy to them. It's a feeling that you don't quite fit or belong both internally and externally.

A song that I feel captures the album near flawlessly is HBK which is a cover of Shawn "HBK" Michaels' theme. The lyrics aren't changed whatsoever from the cheesy WWE origins. The chorus is "I'm a sexy boy, not your boy toy." but it's sung with a surreal genuineness that makes it feel uncanny. At times he is yelling the lyrics at the top of his lungs, pushing through the cynical irony that one would expect from a modern cover of HBK's theme and becoming something that feels like an anthem. There is an inherent queerness that comes with the overtly heterosexual camp within the WWE that Devon finds greatly personal. The whole album is trying to find something real in an environment that isn't and the emotions/state of mind that comes with that.

At least when I am depressed and dissociated, I feel somewhat like a ghost. It's less that I am actively living my life and more that I am floating around watching it go by. While there are sparks of passion and energy once in a while, I spend so much time waiting for those moments that I feel like I'm trapped in my body, wasting time until I get to those moments. While I can't say that's what he was trying to refer to throughout the album, I feel like this album fits my own experiences perfectly.

There's always something happening in the background of songs. Whether it be other people talking, weather, TV, appliances, etc; there is consistently something happening in the downtime. I consistently have my headphones on to watch YouTube or listen to music even when there's nothing that I want to play. It helps emulate this feeling of watching your life happen in the background and the need to have something play in the background that is becoming increasingly more relevant as years go by.

This album has a heavy emphasis on melody which turns these depressing avant-garde vignettes into something more listenable. While that may sound like a knock, it compliments the album beautifully. There's a distinct contrast between Hendryx's impassioned vocals over legitimately catchy synth lines with the bizarre drowned-out production. This makes the album function as something that I almost would consider comforting without losing any artistic merit or depressing qualities. While I may think albums like Grouper's A I A: Alien Observer and James Ferraro's Last American Hero are very much masterpieces in their own right, I just can't listen to them sometimes. The same cold, depressive qualities that I admire in those albums can lead to them feeling inaccessible when I am already dealing with depression in my own life. In contrast, The Ghost~Pop Tape feels comforting due to both its more pop characteristics and the overwhelmingly human quality that it has when confronting those topics.

One theme that is repeatedly brought up through the album in conjunction with depression and death is sexuality. I mean sexuality in a dual sense; in the sense that Hendryx plays with gender/sexual fluidity and a sense of libido. There is a sense all throughout the album that Hendryx does not feel comfortable fitting in with a cishet society. While there are not a lot of concrete things early on (HBK, Porn for Percussion, & God Bless My Homegirls all having small hints) that aspect definitely felt noticeable and resonant to me. These small moments come to ahead on what might be my favorite track, LIARA. While the lyrics are still somewhat cryptic, the song seems to be about Hendryx longing for his best friend's love but they can't get together because they are both taken men. Even though it is a tale of heartbreak and is pretty crushing to hear, there is this sentimentality to it that makes it feel like Hendryx is grateful to even have the crush.

As mentioned before, libido is another aspect of this album. There are many points on the album where it sounds like porn is playing in the background, a lot of Hendryx's singing sounds borderline orgasmic, there are lyrics alluding to masturbation, and the tie-in movie of the same name prominently featured clips from porn videos. Despite being so pervasive in modern pop & internet culture, porn is rarely even mentioned in art. When it is mentioned, it's brought up for shock value as a way of showing how depraved the narrator is. Think The Weeknd's Kiss Land or The Cure's Pornography. Hendryx's approach is a lot more human than those examples. He is able to treat the subject as another aspect of his life without glamorizing or glorifying it.

I know I have tried but ultimately words cannot express how I feel about this album. It feels impossible to talk about this album in depth without revealing a little about yourself. As a young kind of lonely bisexual person, I was nearly guaranteed to write pretentiously about this album. I am not a perfectionist but for these reasons, I cannot write this review and I cannot release it. This album means too much to me.

Editor's note [3/29/2024]: Some years have passed since I first wrote this review. While I worked on it in chunks, the final draft was completed in late 2021/early 2022 (I can't remember the exact time frame). I was in an extraordinarily isolated headspace from moving to Greensboro without a car and this album felt like it was the only thing keeping me warm at the time. The years after completing this I have thought of this review a couple of times but never thought to actually release it until recently. I felt like it didn't age well and like I mentioned I just felt like I couldn't release a review for this album. However, for the most part it felt like an interesting time capsule to where I was at when I wrote this. Even though I've experienced a bit more downs than ups as of late, I feel much more grateful for the life I have and connected with the people around me. Some of the writing in the review feels a bit silly looking back on it but what matters to me nowadays is that it felt serious at the time.

I think that's why I want to release it now. I like to think back on what felt vulnerable to me at different times in my life and contrast that to what I feel vulnerable about now. I started writing poetry at the start of the year and I think this review planted the seeds for me to try something as open as that. For that reason, I am incredibly grateful for this review. While I wrote this primarily just for myself (so much so that I didn't release it), I feel like posting this is a sign of something even if I'm not sure what that something is <3

[smokedoutpositivesquad]

https://dvonhendryx.bandcamp.com/album/the-rockwood-escape-plan

I’ve decided I’m going to start reviewing bandcamp albums on here.

Devon Hendryx (aka “The Rockwood Escape Plan”) is the previous name of experimental rapper JPEGMAFIA. Under the name Devon Hendryx, JPEGMAFIA produced some of the most criminally overlooked cloud rap on the internet. This album, The Rockwood Escape Plan, is the height of his cloud rap period. 

(Side note: To clarify, both the album and the artist are called “The Rockwood Escape Plan”, but the artist alternatively went by Devon Hendryx at the same time, though he currently goes by JPEGMAFIA, which may be confusing.)

At the time of its release, JPEGMAFIA viewed this album as his magnum-opus-thus-far, and he allegedly went as far as to threaten to kill himself if this album didn’t become the breakthrough project to launch his career. Luckily, nothing ever came of this, but his musical output following this album is notably darker and more experimental as time grows on. Now that it appears he finally has released his breakthrough project, Veteran, I find myself returning to this album with these things in mind.

An important thing of note about this album that most people may not know is that it’s really more of a double album, or at the very least, a single album delivered in two distinct acts. The first 15 tracks, stopping after Pu$$y #1, comprise the album’s first act. This half of the album is older, more provocative, more immature, and more vulgar. JPEGMAFIA is much more braggadocious, outspoken, and vulgar. You can really feel the confidence of future success oozing in his lyrics and delivery.

At some point later, JPEGMAFIA updated the album and decided to add a different “project” of sorts to the end of the original album. This material was made at a later time compared to the first act of the album, and this shows in the slightly more experimental beats and recessed presence JPEGMAFIA shows. These songs, tracks 16 through 23 (Y2K to the end of the album), represent some of the most restrained material in JPEGMAFIA’s catalog. He comes off as more introspective, dissociated, and mature compared to the former half of the album.

The beauty of this album is its ability to show JPEGMAFIA, or Devon Hendryx rather, as an evolving person. No other album so perfectly captures a snapshot, or really more of a video, of an artist’s career. It’s like the album has a character arc of sorts. With all this context, listening to the album almost becomes satisfying; cathartic. It’s as if you’re viewing the rise and fall of an ego. Keeping in mind that he did eventually find fame, to watch his struggle, his failure, despite his talent is comforting.

I should’ve mentioned that earlier in this review, by the way. This album is thoroughly soaked in talent. From beginning to end, this album displays some of the most creative cloud rap production I’ve ever heard. As a producer, his style is best described as “trip hop meets Lil B x Kanye”. His production is catchy, ethereal, and laced in reverb. It grooves, vibes, and perfectly builds a path for his flows to follow. I believe, in modern terms, his production would be considered very wavy.

As a lyricist, his lyrics are offensive, braggadocious, but most importantly, playful. This has been the core of JPEGMAFIA’s lyrics throughout his career. He isn’t concerned with censoring himself, which can come off as immature to some listeners, but through his punk, loner attitude and willingness to attack literally anyone, he lets the listener know that his lyrics are the equivalent of shooting the shit. Even though he means what he says, he doesn’t expect you to take his words too seriously because he knows that he would never be offended by something you could say about him. In a way, listeners are told to check their offense at the door when listening to him and just consider the things he says with no input of heart. And beautifully, it works for him.

When viewing his career as a whole, the ensuing dark period with The Ghost Pop Tape, the last project released under the name Devon Hendryx, followed by his aggressive comeback period as JPEGMAFIA highlights The Rockwood Escape Plan as something unique. It’s a project that’s really only comparable to Daniel Johnston’s Hi How Are You. It’s the album equivalent of the unused material from Kanye’s transition between Graduation and 808s and Heartbreak. It was a point of change for JPEGMAFIA, a peak of sorts.

Give this album a listen. It’s a great album, and an even more interesting story.

[soundsystem0]

The Ghost~Pop Tape

[soundsystem0]

♥

[kx-kwxx]

this is a music video i did for college and i thought it was good enough to put online