On February 12, Donald J. Trump, blubbering rocker who is recognized by less than half of the American population as “their president,” and his boy band of puppets — together known as the Sad Hombres — dropped a single titled “Emo Trump,” an angsty power ballad introducing the band to the public … and the public to Trump’s apparent artistic side.

This single is the first track of the band’s LP titled Sad!— a whopping 24 track debut album scheduled to release on April 20, instigating what Breitbart News has predicted to be a 2000s emo revival.

The gaspy lyrics brilliantly utilize simple, colloquial and often vapid language to lure in his political supporters and appeal to the working class, while subtly constructing a deeper philosophical narrative. Whining through the pain of introspection and delving into the deeper existential questions of universal fairness, metaphysical suffering, and the Taoist principle of Dynamic Balance — which the Hombres apply to vulnerability and power — the Sad Hombres deliver an intersectional plea for understanding of their victimization through subtle autotune and silent tears.

Sad! is thematically complex; its songs seem to bounce back and forth from “I hate myself” to “I hate you all,”  and listening feels like a coked-out rollercoaster ride, looping through mumbles and flying into scream-o choruses that are typically repeated 16 times. Sad! takes the listener on a radical odyssey of pain and despair, somehow seeming to serve as a prophetic microcosm of his upcoming term.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]”Incredible. Titillating. Messianic.” -Breitbart News [/su_pullquote]

The album as a whole is a rhapsody of sadness and angst — yet despite the prevalence of long melodic screams, lyrics about “fuckin’ up” and four note solos in E minor, the Sad Hombres straddle genre binaries—ranging everywhere from pop-punk to electro metal, with even some folk tunes, classic rock tracks and country ballad love songs.

Mr. Trump himself sat down with the B-Side for an interview on the upcoming album, though we did have to pinky swear that the publication was “real.”

“One thing, I don’t know why,” Trump mumbled, looking down at his trembling hands lighting a stoge, “it doesn’t even matter how hard you try.”

He took a drag and peered up at me through a newly-bleached toupee, which he reversed to cover his eyes, to see if I caught the obvious reference to the 2000 electro punk smash by American nu metal band Linkin Park, who he cited as “some of his idols.”

“This album, Sad!, is just a chance for the American people, who I love very much, to finally understand me,” the rocker said.

He then sang a lick from the album’s opening track, “White Engst:” “Like a snowflake from the sky/ I cry, I cry, IIIIII CRYYYYYY.”

One of the more intense tracks on the album, “White Engst” is a gothic scream-o number, a brutally honest and jarring plea for understanding, a metaphorical “J” handed to the audience seeming to say “Take this, and accept me for who I am.” 

[su_pullquote align=”right”]”Good shit.” -Kanye West [/su_pullquote]

Trump, who conducted the interview exclusively in his passive voice, verb-noun-subject-verb sentence structure and tagged every one of his responses with a mumbled “You wouldn’t even get it,” “It’s postmodern, anyways,” or the occasional “Build a wall…around my heart,” refused to answer as to whether the misspelling of the album’s second track was purposeful.

Other notable tracks include “Self Love,” which is a critical ode to domestic terrorism; “Celebrity Apprent-asshole,” which Trump dedicates to Arnold Schwarzenegger;  “My Fight,” an angry three-chords-and-the-truth rocker interspersed with random words in German; and “Not My Daughter,” a sappy love ballad which fittingly repurposes the petty #notmypresident hashtag and social movement.

The Sad Hombres take pride in their musical diversity and in their limitless creativity. That said, sometimes the pleasure aspect of the listening experience can take a blow.

If you think Yoko ruined The Beatles, or if you didn’t love the Donna years of the Grateful Dead, you miiiiiiight want to skip the last song on the A-side of Sad! which features Melania Trump on vocals in a pop-y song to the beat of a drum machine titled “They Go Low.”

Sad! also comes with a bonus pressing of cover songs, which Trump says reflects more of his classic rock and 90s grunge roots.

Standouts include Abbey Road classic “Golden Slumbers,” which is believed to be a tribute to his experience at the Moscow hotel; Green Day’s “Whatsername,” which is about the 12 women who came forward alleging sexual assault charges against Trump after the Access Hollywood tape was leaked  (Note: Green Day has since pursued legal action regarding the President’s apparent unlawful use of the punk group’s patented music, demanded its removal from Sad!, and have requested that Trump both resign and “Suck a cock.);” and “Saturday Night Live’s Alright for Fighting,” a whiny twist on an Elton John classic which stands out in its aggressive lyrics, in which he calls Kate McKinnon a “real bitch” and substitutes the original line “Get a little action in” with “Little Alex Baldwin.” And no, he was not aware that the actor’s name is, in fact, “Alec.”

Other covers available on Sad!’s bonus disc, which is only available to the first 10,000 purchasers, are the Sad Hombres’ takes on Soundgarden’s “Fell On Black Days,” the double-entendre title referring to the Obama administration; “Wish You Were Here,” which, rumor has is about his penis; and Temple of the Dog’s power ballad, “Call Me a Dog,” in which the emo President seems to reinvent the introspective analysis of a troubled relationship into what the Hombres call a “Michelle Obama confessional.”

[su_pullquote align=”right”]”The rock and roll lifestyle is pretty temptatious.” -Donald Trump[/su_pullquote]

One of the most emotional tracks on the record is titled “Ritalin,” which is about the drug Trump is addicted to. The B-Side gently asked Trump about his drug problem, and about how he sees himself acclimating to a notoriously dangerous rock and roll lifestyle.

“You know, the rock and roll lifestyle is pretty temptatious,” Trump said about drugs, or as he calls them, “contraband.”

“You look at Kurt Cobain — a horrible man who used heroin. He, if you didn’t know, di-ed. It’s just sad,” Trump commented while motioning with this finger the path of an invisible tear falling. “2Pac, a black man, literally smoked crack cocaine. Di-ed. Sad.”

Ummmm…..?

“You see so many rock n’ rollers get literally destroyed by the bad bad drugs, smuggled across the border by Mexicans! You see them in the streets of Chicago, you see them with the blacks, you can’t go down that road. Which is why I stick to cocaine!”

That said, Trump’s drug use has not yet infringed upon his performance, nor has it scared off any of his loyal fans.

We at the B-Side managed to get ahold of Tomi Lahren, a blonde bombshell famous for her special brand of Ironic Enlightenment and her fetishization of the cult of the 1800s. She is specifically known for lashing out against second (and first) wave feminism, believing that women should have no rights yet should still be able to gain Instagram followers by “looking cute and showing yer tits.”

“I….love….rock and roll,” Lahren seemed to recite, appearing confused.

When asked about her favorite rock classics she listed the Smash Mouth hit “All Star,” and “Accidentally In Love,” — the only shitty song by the Counting Crows — and actually, as the interview went on, the complete soundtracks to both Shrek 1 and Shrek 2, robotically listing the songs as  if she was reading them off of her phone under the table. Her favorite rock stars? Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. Absolute shocker.

When Rolling Stone compared the band to Canadian rock supergroup Nickelback, Trump retorted in Johnny Utah-esque intensity and exaggerated sense of self-importance: “Wrong! Nickelback is a very very great band. But we are, believe it or not, much better.”

Besides drug use, the Sad Hombres have fallen into a cliché template of rock and roll behavior and misfortune. The group is currently on drummer number four.

The rapid replacement of drummers, however, is not due to typical reasons like substance abuse, overdose, or general inability to show up; the Sad Hombres have been struck with some rather well, sad, luck. The first drummer is currently under investigation for colluding with Russia, the second (and his then-boyfriend Milo Yiannopoulos) are in recovery from experimental “conversion lobotomies,” and the third mysteriously went missing almost immediately after the ever-crooked media leaked a scandalous shot of him eating at a local diner with Bruce Springsteen in January. The fourth drummer, according to the President, is “tremendous,” though he is expected to be deported within the year.

Nonetheless, the President, who now exclusively wears Hot Topic and paints teardrops on his face in black eyeliner, is confident about the upcoming album’s potential.

“It’s a platinum record, it’s going to be a real hit,” he cried. “We’re going to make billions, and billions we will make, and the good American people are going to be very very proud of me.”

Perhaps the most exciting thing to come out of the surprising emergence of the Sad Hombres and the drop of their debut album, Sad!, is that there will always be a band willing to open for presidential appearances.

[su_pullquote align=”left”]”We are going to make billions.” -Donald Trump[/su_pullquote]

Because, you know, after the complications regarding the “celebrity-free” inauguration this past January, it is essential that the Trump administration secure a superstar artist to incite celebration of a new era and galvanize a new kind of unproductive, masturbatory angst within the American population.

So yes, it is predicted that the Sad Hombres will play at every future State of the Union address and United Nations speech, as well as every future press conference and presidential appearance on a national stage. And if all goes well, they’ll play at Trump’s impeachment ceremony and the 2020 inauguration of Bernie Sanders — which, by the way, would be the ultimate masochistic “Fuck You” to both himself and the ideology that he has propagated … an epic act of self-loathing uncannily fitting for the genre that he has embraced as his own.

Literally. So. Emo.

But you probably don’t even fucking get it.

Writer’s note: Real Trump supporters read this, didn’t laugh, and thought it was to be taken seriously. Sad!

 

Written by Natalie Silver

Design by Camilia Kacimi