Typically, we here at Hail Florida Hail try to write about things connected to the Gators. Admittedly, talking about the new “album” that Pat McAfee just released doesn’t have a ton to do with Florida. But given that he is being pushed as the new face of college football and that it is virtually impossible to watch college football without being subjected to McAfee, he is well within our crosshairs.
So the following review of McAfee’s album doesn’t really involve the Gators, but it will help us sleep at night.
Pat McAfee made an album about being Pat McAfee
Because we are masochists, or something like that, we gave McAfee's album The Diary Of A Polarizing Figure a listen. And the prevailing thought we had was :
Pat McAfee’s album sounds like he went to an AI generator and asked it to produce something that sounds like TEMU Jelly Roll.
And for the record, Jelly Roll is trash too.
The problem with this album isn’t the fact that there is no reason for it to exist. The problem is that McAfee dropped this album to insert himself into the sports conversation once again. MLB playoff races are heating up, NFL preseason is starting, and college football fall camps are in full swing.
But nope, like everything else McAfee does, the sole goal of this album was to put the spotlight on himself through antics and vapid gimmicks rather than adding anything of substance to the conversation.
Think about it: anytime McAfee goes viral, it’s not for any high-level take he makes. He’s either jumping off a high dive in a Speedo, going shirtless in an Irish bar, getting pushed off the set by Aaron Donald, spreading unfounded rumors about Ole Miss students, or suggesting that Florida should go after Jon Gruden.
He's not advancing the conversation, offering meaningful insight, or showing he can get your attention without being loud.
If McAfee were relegated to his YouTube show, he would blend in with the rest of the world's attention-seeking streamers and could be mostly forgotten if he isn’t your cup of tea. But ESPN has turned him into their second-biggest personality behind Stephen A. Smith, and it is at the expense of genuinely talented people at the network who can’t gain any oxygen because McAfee has sucked it all out.
And more and more, he's leaned into this gimmick that anyone who disagrees with him or doesn’t find him entertaining is a hater. This album is the culmination of taking a gimmick too far. This album feels like McAfee's “emperor has no clothes” moment.
The Diary Of A Polarizing Figure is technically an accurate description of McAfee, and he has a song on this album called “Rich As S***.”
Yes, Pat, you are rich, but are you respected?
Maybe he can address that next month when he drops another AI sounding slop album.
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