Just under a year after dropping his fourth LP Dilettante, Portland-based power-pop songwriter Mo Troper is not only back with yet another album jam packed with impossibly sweet lo-fi jams, but also an overhauled recording process. Inspired by peer and fellow three-minute-mark-phobe Tony Molina, MTV (a.k.a “Mo Troper Five”) was recorded to tape rather than digitally, providing a more apt texture to the ramshackle, nearly blown-out direction Troper’s recordings are taking.
Where Dilettante recalled the recent output of another peer (and soon-to-be tour mate) Young Guv, MTV instead recalls a deeper-cut Ben Cook project The Bitters, with Troper’s vocals mostly mirroring the high-pitched range of Aerin Fogel. Elsewhere, the Elliott-Smith-by-way-of-Daniel-Johnston early single “Only Living Goy in New York” takes the new collection of songs in a funhouse-mirrored singer/songwriter-y direction inviting of the many left turns the record takes over the course of its remaining 10 songs.
With the LP out today, Troper took the time to walk us through MTV track by track, providing insight into the lyrical influences and technical details behind each song. Stream the full album below, and order it via Lame-O here.
1. “Between You & Me”
I really liked the idea of opening a record everyone can hear with what feels like an awkward, private confession. It’s so stupid. It was impossible for me to make this one sound good and the sibilance is insane. It was sort of single-handedly “saved” by mastering engineer Ryan Schwabe, who mastered Oneohtrix and who does a lot of Lame-O releases. Phenomenal engineer.
2. “I'm the King of Rock 'N Roll”
I wrote this one on tour in Chicago after listening to Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Go” probably 30 times in a row, which is a song I’d never really listened to before. It’s about vomiting in the green room and feeling really embarrassed, but then telling myself that I can still play guitar better than any of the people who might be judging me for vomiting in the green room. Which, admittedly, is a very weird thing to think.
3. “Tub Rules”
The title says it all.
4. “Waste Away”
The co-write on the album. The lyrics are comically venomous. The lyrics in the bridge are, “A baptism in a luxury hotel / It’s not living until it’s tooth and nail.” I like that a lot, even though I don’t know exactly what it means. It's not a reference to the record label, even though it sounds very religious. “Hotel” was a working title for this record. I really like hotels. I am simple.
5. “The Only Living Goy in New York”
Really just a song about being goosed out of my fucking mind and walking around New York, feeling angry about feeling alone.
6. “Power Pop Chat”
I was trying to learn a song by an old Portland band and couldn’t quite figure it out so I decided to just write this song instead.
7. “Royal Jelly”
One of the most embarrassing songs I’ve ever written. Worse than the shit I was writing as a teenager. Considered throwing it out at the last minute. “Royal Jelly” was runner-up for the album title, though.
8. “I Fall Into Her Arms”
I remember hearing “I Should Have Known Better" when I was probably four years old and feeling like I had just been smacked in the face when that big major III chord dropped. This song has all those A Hard Day’s Night motifs—the major III, the dominant 7th when it swings back around—and I am proud of it. Wrote it all in 10 minutes, recorded it all in a little over an hour.
9. “Across the USA”
This is the first song I wrote for the album. Really, really dramatic stuff. I remember sending a demo of this one to my friend Blue in the band Diners, and I think she mentioned how hard it was to write a song where you namecheck a bunch of cities. Blue’s not wrong! She never is.
The lyrics are pretty clear, but one thing I'll say is that losing your mind is a gradual process which is what makes it so disturbing, especially to people around you. Like at first you might just feel unusually irritable or forgetful. And then suddenly you can't sleep, and you're arguing with a teenager about whether or not Pet Sounds has any place in the power pop canon. And then before you know it you're hallucinating that a band you're on tour with is talking about you in the parking lot of a venue, so you lock yourself inside the car and recline the seat back as far as it will go and try to listen in on a conversation that isn't actually occurring.
10. “Play Dumb”
This song was actually recorded a very long time ago with my band. It’s the only song to have other people playing on it. I was listening to this recording and was surprised to discover that I still related to it, so I remixed it for MTV. It’s about twee disingenuousness.
11. “Coke Zero”
This song is a ripoff of Beethoven’s “Sonata Pathetique,” particularly its super famous second movement, which I was trying to learn on guitar at the time. I think you can steal that stuff without facing any consequences, but I guess we'll see. It's about a fear of being excluded.
12. “Final Lap”
A bunch of unfinished giblets stitched together and affected with the cassette machine.
13. “No More Happy Songs”
Really wanted to try and do an Emitt Rhodes or Nilsson thing with this one. The narrator is not me, but maybe a caricature of an older version of myself. Sort of like this extremely vindictive, humorless, Frank Grimes of DIY type. Someone who probably did a lot of internalizing as a child and is now externalizing as a child in the body of an adult. I'm really proud of the bass on here. Was really into putting a sponge or a beanie in the bridge to get that bone-dry, muted sound.
14. “You Taught Me How to Write a Song”
This song is a really vulnerable one. It's about the person whose song I was trying to learn while writing "Power Pop Chat." A really complicated relationship that I've been processing for over a decade. Carl Wilson impression is pretty good, I think. Also features a shoutout to my 2003 Toyota Landcruiser with the license plate JOY MTN—one of the most legendary vehicles in Portland DIY that I sadly decommissioned five or six years ago.
15. “Under My Skin”
I had this idea for a while to digitally release a fake Numero box set of songs from “forgotten” Merseybeat bands but pretty quickly realized that type of thing had been done to death. The project didn't go far, but I did bang this one out with it in mind. I can't remember the name of the fake band but it was funny. To me.
