Alex Warren - You’ll Be Alright, Kid

Ordinary. And that’s exactly the problem.

Capitalizing on his mega-hit single “Ordinary”, Alex Warren has released his debut album You’ll Be Alright, Kid via Atlantic Records. It consists of his 2024 EP You’ll Be Alright, Kid (Chapter 1), as well as 10 new tracks, totalling to a 21-track LP. So, what is Warren’s first full step as an artist like?

The main issue with this album becomes immediately clear within the first few songs - everything about the project is extremely formulaic and calculated, aimed at cheap tugs at people’s heartstrings and surface-level catchy moments with potential for virality, but not much actual substance, resulting in a lot of songs that sound almost exactly the same. It feels like every melody on this album was carefully crafted in a TikTok science lab, being a product of thought more than feeling. As such, the fact that the two disks end up coming out to being just over an hour long makes this a very difficult listen - the record probably would’ve been better off with just the ten new songs.

Unfortunately, on the few occasions when Warren and his collaborators do attempt to switch things up, the results turn out awfully, particularly when it comes to the instrumentals. The beat on “You Can’t Stop This” features some incredibly cheap-sounding, fairground-like trumpets; meanwhile, the instrumental on “Getaway Car” goes for more bite, with crunchy electric guitars and a faster pace, but it’s ruined by Warren’s weird cadence on the pre-chorus and the overblown backing vocals on the chorus, as well as the excessive compression and polish on the production.

That problem stays present throughout the production on the entire album - it's so overdone and sickly sweet that it kills any attempts to sound genuine. Alex Warren’s overwrought, exaggerated vocal deliveries also lack personality, and remove almost any emotional impact. The lyrics are extremely basic and forgettable, and mostly tread the same tracks topically. And veering off that path produces tracks like “Burning Down”, whose lyrics refer to years-old TikTok content house drama - something which is neither relatable nor interesting to the average listener.

Overall, almost nothing on You’ll Be Alright, Kid is unlistenable or abrasive; but almost nothing on it is memorable in a positive way, either. The ROSÉ-assisted “On My Mind” is the closest this record has to a standout, and that is mostly just due to the presence of a much better singer than Warren on it - which is the reason that “Bloodline”, featuring the ever-present country crooner Jelly Roll, doesn’t have the same effect. It’s an album made for radio stations and car commercials, and not much beyond that. At this point in his career, Alex Warren, similar to his contemporary Benson Boone, feels less like a real music artist, and more like a vessel for label executives to mass-produce music to appease the widest possible public.

3.0/10