I don’t really know how my life got to this point.

I’m currently sat on a tube train with my laptop open, wearing a pair of overlarge headphones on my stupid, bespectacled, balding head (yes I’m that twat) at 8pm on a Monday evening after work listening to an album released by a cat who is famous on the internet.

I should be ashamed of myself. I’m married. I’m four weeks shy of 36 years old. I’m sat here listening to an album ostensibly produced and released by a famous internet cat, but not really because, you know, Lil Bub is a cat and therefore can’t actually produce or release music, aimed at teenagers who regard YouTube as a respected new source, who think that a fashion haul video is a perfectly acceptable form of entertainment and whose happiness depends on how many likes their Instagram selfie got that day.

The worst thing about the whole thing is that I’m as responsible for my current situation as anyone else. I’ve reviewed gimmicky cat albums before. I even actively encouraged the PR for Lil Bub to send me the album (which carries the subtitle ‘a soundtrack for the universe’) early. I got genuinely excited about it. “Yes, an album made by a living breathing meme, that’s exactly the sort of thing that would temporarily complete my painfully facile existence!” and I’m now making the conscious choice to sit here right now and listen to it while an older gentleman next to me jostles for elbow room, making me write like I’m eating an airplane dinner, and the fashionable young lady in the overcoat opposite me thinks to herself “who is this asshole with the laptop trying to write on the tube?”

I thought it would be a nice thing to do. Maybe I could get my own cat Otis involved, just like I did for when Run the Jewels released Meow the Jewels, but afterwards that felt sort of weirdly exploitative and I’m not sure he really enjoyed reviewing it as much as I thought he would. Which makes me think of the real cat behind the online meme. Lil Bub, the cat with osteoporosis and a variety of genetic disorders. Is she enjoying the spotlight? Is she enjoying the attention? Is she aware of the human concerns we’re projecting on to her? Is she happy? Does it even matter how she’s being expolited as long as her welfare is being looked after and her basic care is being adhered to? Who the hell is making money from all this? Long-time collaborator and friend Andrew WK?

I’ve just moved house and although the changes have been minor and his wellbeing was of primary importance, my cat has gone through a great deal of distress. He has to stay under house-arrest for a couple of weeks, because if he leaves the new pad too soon then he might get lost and not know how to get home. Why is this a concern? Because we love him and we would be heartbroken if he got lost and we never saw him again. Does the cat feel the way about us? No. I don’t think so. All evidence points to him not giving a crap about anything beyond killing, eating and aggressively bullying us to scratch him under the chin from time to time. He gets upset at the smallest change in lifestyle, so goodness knows what Lil Bub feels about being interviewed by Good Morning America. An endless torture one would imagine.

As for the actual music on Lil Bub’s debut? Well it straddles the thin line between hyper-twee chip-tune and Susuma Yokota style ambient minimalism, so it’s nothing particularly offensive or memorable, but you know… he didn’t write it. Because he’s a fucking cat. 1/5

Here are some links to donate money to ASPCA and RSPCA because I now feel bad for ragging on a cat with special needs.

Check out all the latest music releases in our new album reviews section, including Dralms’ Shook.