⭐⭐⭐ (out of 5)
The Dare has been everywhere this summer. He produced “Guess” off Charli XCX’s BRAT, which has gone on to be the album’s highest charting song with a feature from Billie Eilish, and he opened several times for Charli’s tour. After this sudden rise from obscurity, The Dare is looking to take advantage of his current wealth of attention with his debut album: What’s Wrong With New York?
When I first saw The Dare (stage name for Harrison Patrick Smith) live on stage at the inaugural Palomosa Festival, my immediate thought was how much he looked like LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy: Signature black suit, black tie, and sunglasses. It makes sense, then, that What’s Wrong With New York? would be a revival of the indie-sleaze aesthetics of the early-2000s, of which LCD Soundsystem were pioneers. Smith even delivers his vocals in the same whiny, snotty way Murphy was known for, all the while using suspiciously similar dance-punk instrumentals. Through rich synths, retro drum-machine sounds, and distorted bass transport, the album transports its listeners to the 2005 New York City club scene. The lyrics are desperately debaucherous, as Smith pants about women and drugs. An ode to hedonism in all its forms, the album is limited by its unoriginality, yet still produces a cohesive and entertaining result.
There are some true high points on the tracks “Girls” and “Good Time.” “Girls,” Smith’s breakout hit, is a breathlessly raunchy dance track whose beauty lies in its simplicity, with list-form lyrics about the titular subjects recited over a single catchy synth riff. The result is the horniest, most straightforward song in recent memory, but also one that unfailingly gets stuck in your head. “Good Time” follows the same pattern: Hedonistic lyrics with a confident half-sung delivery, repetitive but catchy synth lines, and even an added chorus. The surrounding production is masterful, leading to a colossal and exhilarating sound.
Unfortunately, the rest of the songs fail to stand out to the same degree. On “Elevation,” Smith tries his hand at singing, and while his voice isn’t bad, the song is uninteresting and falls flat. It’s the longest song on the album, and it really drags on. The drums are just a repeated eighth-note pattern, the synths are similarly bland and monotonous, and it has perhaps the most predictable chorus of all time. The back half of the album feels somewhat rushed and formulaic, like Smith pumped out the songs to cash in on the success of “Girls.” Each track might have stood well on its own, but after eight of the same songs in a row, it starts to get old.
This isn’t to say the album is bad; it’s hugely enjoyable if you lean into the sleaziness Smith is so obviously trying to evoke. Smith manages this masterfully—the unabashed confidence of The Dare smacks you across the face on every song. The depravity of the lyrics and the griminess of the instrumentals are crafted with drug-fueled nights out well in mind. What’s Wrong With New York? isn’t meant to be anything groundbreaking, and it is best experienced when the listener turns their brain off and focuses on having a good time.
