From it’s inception, rock ’n’ roll has been a music of contradiction. Jocular and dangerous; merry and menacing; deep and dumb. This paradoxical nature is what Griffin Winton set out to explore when making his new album Best All Around Boy. The result is a lively, raucous 8 song cycle that balances sophomoric, class-clown hi-jinks with cut-to-the-quick observations on modern masculinity.

Recorded over just a few days in the dead of winter 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee, the album has a cohesive feel of a band in a room. No frills, no tricks, just rock. The sleek, minimal production might incline listeners to take the insistent, driving music at face value, but the dual nature of rock ’n’ roll is present on every track.

The woozy chugs of “Another Cracker at the Crossroads” conceal an ironic lambast of white musicians appropriating black cultural forms, the belligerent desert rock of “MAGA MILF” hides a take-down of hard-hearted partisan politics, and the ramshackle garage rock of “Balls Deep” obscures sincere pontifications on what it means to live a good life.

But nowhere is the juxtaposition of numbskull and nimble more evident than on “Grow Ur Own Boyfriend.” A light groove reminiscent of post punk sets the scene for one half of an argument between a couple. What begins as puerile, shallow insults grows with the intensity of the music and turns into something with the gravitas of realization.

The final line—now accompanied by full volume drums and fuzzy guitars—contains the kill shot: “if I borrow his computer to do something for work he won’t have to delete his internet history/I won’t love him more than he loves me.” Both sides of the dichotomy of the album are represented here, crass references to dude culture and stark representations of the real hurt it can cause.

Beneath all the bravado and bluster on the surface, the work Winton is attempting on Best All Around Boy is to explore the fragile nature of masculinity and articulate larger questions about what to reach for in life, and what to leave behind. With the influence of manosphere content creators, and an influx of wolf-in-nice-guy-clothing singer-songwriters, Griffin Winton endeavors to stoop down to masculinity’s level and offer a playful, healthy alternative.