FALLING IN REVERSE return with 2024's Popular Monster, the postmodern trailblazer's first full-length in seven years. The album arrives armed with no less than three RIAA-certified gold singles ("ZOMBIFIED," "Voices in My Head," "Watch the World Burn"), the double-platinum title track, a reimagined nü-metal classic, and six brand new anthems of furious metal, melody, and hip-hop.
Popular Monster is a defiant statement and triumphant victory for singer, songwriter, bandleader, and provocateur Ronnie Radke, who invented Falling In Reverse inside a prison cell.
Radke fills the fifth full-length from Falling In Reverse with invincible and irresistible songs that resonate across generations and genres. Co-produced with longtime collaborator Tyler Smyth (I Prevail, Lights), Popular Monster is full of confessional angst, bravado, and clever wordplay.
The cinematic and evocative album opener, "Prequel," sets the stage dramatically. "All My Life" resurrects the style of pop-hooks that first turned Radke onto punk music. Songs like "Bad Guy" and "NO FEAR" are forward-thinking yet timeless, pushing boundaries musically and challenging opposing forces lyrically with the passion and precision with which Ronnie built his reputation.
"Ronald" features rapper and Strange Music cofounder Tech N9ne alongside Alex Terrible, the provocative frontman for Russian deathcore merchants Slaughter To Prevail. Both seemingly disparate artists share similarities with different facets of Radke's attitude, persona, and creative ambition.
Ronnie grew up in Las Vegas, the son of an outlaw biker turned evangelical and an estranged mother he barely knew. Albums by rappers like Eminem and Dr. Dre broadened his world; songs from Blink-182 and Bad Religion blew his mind. Determined to express himself with music, Radke formed a series of pop-punk bands as a teenager, culminating in the creation of Escape The Fate.
The hard-partying young metalcore group's meteoric rise coincided with the singer's hellraising habits, which ran the gamut from bare-knuckle brawls to cocaine, heroin, and pills. Escape The Fate threw Ronnie out of the band after one too many narcotics-related arrests. By the time he was sentenced to two years in a Nevada prison for probation violations, the band he started had moved on without him. Some fans, critics, and industry types figured his story would end there.
They were very wrong. Ronnie emerged from his sentence with a batch of bangers written in his cell - singing choruses, verses, and riffs to himself and slapping his knees for percussion. The gold-certified debut album from Falling In Reverse, The Drug In Me Is You, arrived in 2011, less than two years after Ronnie's release from prison. Determined to share his life story with the world, Radke spent the next decade-plus dropping anthem after anthem, redefining and revitalizing the modern metalcore scene (and the hard rock radio format) with a mix of melody and attitude. Both Kerrang! and Revolver Magazine quickly counted Ronnie among "the greatest living rockstars."
Thanks to his formative fascinations with metal, punk, and hip-hop, Ronnie almost single-handedly reopened the floodgates for rap rock. The ambitious Fashionably Late (2013) earned the cover of every relevant rock publication (and the confused ire of hipster critics) and cracked the Top 20 on the Billboard 200. Both Fashionably Late and its follow-up, Just Like You (2015), debuted in the Top 5 on the US Rock chart. Soaked in shimmering soundscapes, the grungy and atmospheric Coming Home (2017) demonstrated yet another adventurous side of Radke's self-expression.
Ronnie Radke's resurrection continued with reinvention and renewal at every turn. "Losing My Mind" and "Losing My Life" surprised the so-called "scene" all over again in 2018 when he became the first of his peers to swerve from the album format to standalone singles, delivering a succession of forward-thinking, electrifying, and unstoppable songs paired with cinematic videos.
"Drugs" explored the American substance abuse epidemic and channeled Ronnie's own heartbreak, connecting all over again with the innumerable people directly or indirectly affected by similar struggles. (Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor delivered a searing guest vocal.) And then came "Popular Monster," a punishingly heavy but melodic diatribe on mental illness, doubt, and survival, once again merging the strongest and most authentic of aggressive metal, rock, and rap.
The massive "Popular Monster" became Ronnie's first No. 1 song on the radio and his first platinum single less than two years after its release. It was also the first No. 1 song on Billboard's inaugural Hot Hard Rock Songs chart, which considers airplay, streaming, and downloads.
"Popular Monster" eventually went double-platinum in the United States and 3x platinum in Australia. (Both "Popular Monster" and "The Drug in Me is You" are now silver in the UK.)
The hauntingly beautiful "The Drug In Me Is Reimagined" (2020) and the epic and the operatic "I'm Not A Vampire (Revamped)" (2021) followed "Popular Monster." In 2022, "ZOMBIFIED" and the gargantuan "Voices In My Head" went to No. 1 back-to-back. "Voices In My Head" was also the No. 1 Song of 2022 at SiriusXM's Octane. Both songs continued to resonate worldwide in 2023.
On January 31, 2023, Falling In Reverse dropped the furious and eclectic "Watch The World Burn" the day before the second leg of the band's co-headlining tour with Papa Roach kicked-off. Yet again, Ronnie's creative risks were rewarded, as the unconventional, caustic, and super heavy "Watch the World Burn" dominated radio and improbably became his first Billboard Hot 100 song.
As with the top-notch producers and directors Ronnie has hired to help execute his vision, he's regularly surrounded himself with incredible live players, resulting in unforgettable performances with various lineups over the years. Radke owns the stage, whether taking the Warped Tour mantle held by My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, and Fall Out Boy in the tour's final years, performing in prominent spots on every major rock festival, or on massive headlining treks.
M. Shadows likened Ronnie's charisma to Axl Rose and "even Kurt Cobain," praising the singer's talent and aura of rock n' roll danger, as Avenged Sevenfold resisted social media pressure to avoid touring together. "How about the boys in Falling In Reverse?" Disturbed frontman David Draiman asked the crowd during a February 2024 tour stop together. "Don't they kick some ass?"
Popular Monster, the album, marks another chapter in the ongoing story of an artist who continually beats the odds, surmounting obstacles (and adversaries) both within and without.
In 2024, the world must confess that Ronnie Radke's cultural contribution is no fluke. Falling In Reverse can't be canceled and won't ever be silenced. Ronnie Radke is here to stay.
"Radke stands as one of this generation's most revered rock frontmen," wrote the esteemed Forbes Magazine in a 2020 profile. "And maybe even one of the scene's last true rockstars."
