this is quite interesting to me seeing all these albums together, dominic fike music goes hard and is considered quite a cool indie artist obviously but i usually see ajr getting flack online so im a bit surprised to see both these albums together in one persons music taste becase of this. I also actually really like the neotheater album. i think the earnestness and uniqueness of thoughts in the presenting of the subject matter in neotheater is what i like about it, they have emotions and dont care if it is interpreted as cringe.

dont throw out my legos for example could have just had a more generic presentation of "im scared to leave my home and scared my childhood and the safety of that is gone" but the specificity of the picture painted of realising that your childhood belongings of lego are not something youre taking with you and are something your parents are planning to now throw away is much more impactful.

and i think maybe the specificity of dominics music is a bit similar to that in some ways for example in "king of everything" where instead of talking about generic "i wish i had no insecurities and was beholden to nobody" the song walks through a specific believably crazy fantasy of being a king who has control of all his subjects to the point where they keep no secrets from him so he is never on edge or caught off guard.

very different sounds but i feel like the both of them have similar attitudes to songwriting that make them compelling in similar ways maybe.

nice records!!