{"id":45914,"date":"2026-08-15T04:43:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45914"},"modified":"2026-08-15T04:43:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:43:34","slug":"pat-mcafees-album-is-too-boring-to-be-polarizing-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=45914","title":{"rendered":"Pat McAfee&#8217;s Album Is Too Boring to Be Polarizing: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Artwork-for-Pat-McAfee.jpeg?quality=80\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-id=\"1618075\" data-title=\"Pat McAfee\u2019s Album Is Too Boring to Be Polarizing: Review\" data-url=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2026\/08\/pat-mcafee-diary-polarizing-figure-review\/\" data-page=\"1\" data-pages=\"1\">\n<p>Former NFL punter and current podcasting star Pat McAfee is branching out into music with <em>The Diary of a Polarizing Figure,\u00a0<\/em>an album so named even though it is not very personal and the only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/articles\/pat-mcafee-argues-imaginary-person-194017000.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">controversy<\/a> seems to be to what extent AI was involved.<\/p>\n<p>How did this happen? Well, <em>The Diary of a Polarizing Figure <\/em>comes via the Big Loud songwriting factory and country super producer ERNEST, hit-writer for Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, and more country artists with production so sugary-sweet it could give your ear a cavity. Jelly is the connector here, befriending McAfee and then telling him, \u201cI gotta connect you with Ern,\u201d as the producer recalled in an interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D4GfZmBPo6Y&amp;t=1040s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Whiskey Riff<\/a>. After one of the hosts mentioned that he didn\u2019t think of McAfee as a musician, ERNEST responded:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">\u201cHe\u2019s not a musician, but he definitely is a fan of music. He has been writing lyrics for years, like his phone is so full of notes, stream of consciousness, poetry, stuff like that. And he started plugging his lyrics in and chanting it into [AI music generator] Suno and getting Suno demos of his songs. And we came together and I was like, \u2018Yo, we can go in and cut this stuff for real.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>First, it\u2019s interesting how casually he says \u201cSuno demo,\u201d as if that\u2019s a pretty standard kind of demo these days. Second, \u201cCut this stuff for real,\u201d could mean a couple of different things (Big Loud did not respond to a request for songwriting credits by publication), but the problems with the album are separate from feelings about AI authorship. Regardless of how it gets there, the lyrics are a mix of cliches and comment section bait, and as for the vocals, <em>The Diary of a Polarizing Figure <\/em>keeps stumbling into the musical uncanny valley.<\/p>\n<p>Related Video<\/p>\n<p>These days there is a musical vocabulary that <em>feels<\/em> like AI the same way excessive em dashes and, \u201cIt\u2019s not x; it\u2019s y,\u201d can feel inhuman in writing. One such tic is a bass line with dementia, always wandering without any reference to where it has been. But this is not the kind of thing that sustains when you cut it for real, and is not a problem here. The second tic is the use of long and taxing vocal lines \u2014 especially in an unremarkable part of a verse, not a climactic showcase \u2014 that would pretty much never occur to any composer who requires oxygen to breathe. McAfee\u2019s album is full of moments like this, executing long and demanding melodies, but in a strained timbre that suggests any moment now he\u2019ll break off coughing and then hit the vape again.<\/p>\n<p>Casuals won\u2019t even notice, but if you\u2019re familiar with the demands of live performance, then this shit sounds <em>weird<\/em>. On \u201cBlue Collar Symphony\u201d he uses camouflaged auto-tune and vocal comping to bridge long phrases like Otis Redding \u2014 except you have never heard someone with <em>that<\/em> tone pull off <em>that<\/em> breath control, because that\u2019s not how lungs work. At least naked auto-tune has a sci-fi whimsy; disguised here, McAfee sounds like a robot doing a human impression, and he\u2019s just close enough \u2014 and just far enough away from the real thing \u2014 to be actually unsettling.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Blue Collar Symphony | The Diary Of A Polarizing Figure\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_HxSqXDckUI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s the lyrics, the \u201cpoetry,\u201d built out of surface-level observations, single-entendres, and the first rhyme on Rhymezone. The album title promised a diary. But there is not much in the way of confession \u2014 there is barely evidence of an interior life.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the first verse of the title track, \u201cPolarizing Figure,\u201d weaving drunkenly in and out of rhyme. Despite some swear words it\u2019s as inoffensive as a press release:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>I\u2019m so confused and conflicted<\/em><br \/><em>About this life that I\u2019m livin<\/em><br \/><em>Everything that I do<\/em><br \/><em>Some pumped and some shitting<\/em><br \/><em>You see, there\u2019s some who will ride<\/em><br \/><em>And some who wish I would die<\/em><br \/><em>So.. every new sitch, is it alright? Or on sight?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Polarizing Figure | The Diary Of A Polarizing Figure\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BeEb1sPS-6Q?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The slangy rap of the verse is in another song from the earnest chorus. In the tenor of a soul-searching ballad, he sings, \u201cAm I blessed\/ or am I cursed\/ Am I the best?\/ Or the worst,\u201d and if those are the only options, he\u2019s coming in much closer to one half than the other.<\/p>\n<p>Whichever entity wrote the chorus seems to be responding to the closing couplet: \u201cEverydayyyy.. I ask these questions<br \/>And now I prayyy.. I get the message,\u201d but there\u2019s no payoff. In fact, there isn\u2019t a single concrete noun in either passage. \u201cSome,\u201d \u201cEverything,\u201d \u201cThis life,\u201d \u201cThe message,\u201d without any places or people and <em>not even a goddamn object<\/em>. The song doesn\u2019t care about reflection, it cares that he says his prayers.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Diary of a Polarizing Figure\u00a0<\/em>has no musical perspective and comes out as a mess of genres. There\u2019s Florida-Georgia Line-style rapping in more than half the songs, the occasional soul chorus (\u201cOutlaws\u201d), brief spurts of adult contemporary (\u201cBig Rain Coming,\u201d) and even neo-reggae because hey, why not? (\u201cNo One Ever Knows\u201d). The stomp-clap of \u201cClick Clack\u201d recalls country\u2019s first AI slop hit, \u201cWalk My Walk,\u201d perhaps even intentionally; perhaps some of the AI hits are already influencing the human-fronted acts.<\/p>\n<p>McAfee also makes sure to work in some cultural grievances, interrupting the arena rock-inflected pep talk of \u201cYou\u2019re Alive\u201d to clarify, \u201cNo handouts, you gotta get it.\u201d Odd advice from a podcaster who got here on the strength of a friendship with Jelly Roll and an AI demo.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Diary of a Polarizing Figure<\/em> couldn\u2019t scandalize a Parent Teacher Organization. There\u2019s nothing on the record to take a position about \u2014 no argument, no confession, no image sharp enough to leave a mark. Twenty years of notes, handed to people who write hits for a living, and what came back is competent and airless.<\/p>\n<p>On the title track he asks whether he\u2019s blessed or cursed, the best or the worst. In between would have been interesting, or at least human.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n\t\tn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=1;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n\t\tdocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '1753966171496536');\n\t\tfbq('set','agent','tmgoogletagmanager', '1753966171496536');\n\t\tfbq('track', \"PageView\");\n\t<\/script><script defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v7.0&#038;appId=434175690014\" nonce=\"6gwmbCtM\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former NFL punter and current podcasting star Pat McAfee is branching out into music with The Diary of a Polarizing Figure,\u00a0an album so named even though it is not very personal and the only controversy seems to be to what extent AI was involved. How did this happen? Well, The Diary of a Polarizing Figure&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/consequence.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Artwork-for-Pat-McAfee.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}