There’s a voice that haunts a specific era of TikTok for me. Immediately, I hear the “And here’s *two nail taps* the m*ther f*kcing *two more nail taps* tea..” shrieking in my head, but there’s one singer in particular that entirely deterred me from the platform. 

For a while, my hiatus remained, until the same two Ricky Montgomery songs disappeared from my For You Page. I was tired of watching TikToks using “Line Without a Hook” and “Mr Loverman,” both being songs from Montgomery’s slightly, self-titled debut album, Montgomery Ricky. 

Like the rest of the overused TikTok sounds, the two songs were recycled by the app’s algorithm, waiting for the opportunity to dilapidate the next trend. From time to time, one of the two Mongomery songs will reappear as a new background song for small, TikTok businesses. 

I do enjoy hearing something other than a business’s puny persuasion, but the song choice every time kills me. I loathe the TikToks I see using Montgomery’s music because, at one point, I enjoyed hearing “I’m Mr. Loverman / I miss my lover, man.” 

Now, the memories flood back from that horrible era of TikTok. I remember becoming disgusted with the sound of Montgomery’s whiny voice and exhausted from hearing him in every corner of social media. 

I was under the impression the songs were fairly new, but in fact, they both were released six years ago in 2016. Since he’s not been up to too much music making (which doesn’t bother me at all), as soon as I heard his haunting voice, I knew who had made their comeback. 

Recently in 2022, Montgomery released a snippet rather than a complete album. It’s 2016 Somewhere felt incomplete; reluctantly, I listened—and in my mind, I interpreted the album to be more of an EP. Seven songs: one is a 19-second intro, “Mom (Interlude)” is a 46-second voice recording, another is the acoustic version of “Mr Loverman,” and the other four were forgettable. 

Pop music has never been a genre I could follow. Exceptions, however, can be made if it’s a decent experimental, but nothing about Montgomery is adventurous. Choosing tracks that have already been produced is excessive and unchanging, and unfortunately, “Mr Loverman (Acoustic Version)” is an abhorrent downgrade from the original.

He writes music about girls and moving to California, though it has been eight years since he dropped out of school and moved to LA, after his kickstart on Vine. Like I say: starting a music career isn’t for every social media microcelebrity. In fact, I’m never pleased with what TikTokers, Instagram influencers, and ex-Viners have to release as music. Take Bo Burnham, for example. His unique singing style made him stand out to his audience, not the same message with a different vapid beat. 

Out of the four original songs, there wasn’t one that didn’t underwhelmed me. Montgomery is publicizing an album that was not only useless, in terms of showing improvement after six years, but also gave none of his fans what they wanted. As I scroll through Montgomery’s many hashtags on TikTok, fans wished the album lived up to his last album, Montgomery Ricky.

Seeing that the fans that once worshipped him on TikTok are losing interest, I’m hopeful that this will be one of the last times I ever hear his voice on my For You Page because after so long, there will be another song to annoy me like this.