Tickets to My Downfall is the fifth studio album by American rock musician Machine Gun Kelly. It was released on September 25, 2020, by Bad Boy Records and Interscope Records. The album marks the departure from his established rap sound and became a more guitar-driven pop-punk album. It was his first collaborative project with drummer and producer Travis Barker, and features guest appearances from Halsey, Trippie Redd, Blackbear, and Iann Dior, as well as Bert McCracken and Yungblud on the deluxe edition. Tickets to My Downfall was preceded by the release of the singles: "Bloody Valentine", "Concert for Aliens" and "My Ex's Best Friend". The album was a commercial success, debuting atop the US Billboard 200, his first to do so. It was well-received by critics, and went on to be his first album to be certified platinum by the RIAA. Background and recording Machine Gun Kelly, birth name Colson Baker, had released four studio albums through the 2010s. While his first four studio albums had been hip hop/rap styled, by the end of the decade, Baker started moving into a rock music direction. In 2019, Baker appeared in the film The Dirt, a biographic film about the band Mötley Crüe where he played drummer Tommy Lee. The same year, Baker released his fourth studio album, Hotel Diablo, which ended with the track "I Think I'm Okay", a more rock-leaning song collaboration with Yungblud and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. It was released as a single and became very popular, hitting number 8 on the year-end Billboard US Hot Rock Songs and ended up being certified platinum in the US. Baker, wishing to explore the sound further, booked a day in recording studio to work with Barker, to record what would become the song "Bloody Valentine". The session was so powerful to Baker that he asked Barker to set aside two months for them to collaborate on an entire studio album, to which Barker obliged. For much of the rest of the year, Baker would refer to working on the album informally referred to as "the untitled pop punk project". Along with Baker on vocals and guitar, the entire album would feature Barker on drums and as a producer. Prior to the recording of the album, Baker expressed a wish for the album to include features from Bert McCracken of the Used and Chris Fronzak from Attila. The album went on