Cruel Summer might be the worst thing in Kanye West’s discography thus far, but it’s a success as mainstream rap cabal compilation albums go.
After the twin peaks of ‘Watch The Throne’ and ‘My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy’’s rap-pop grandeur, ‘Cruel Summer’ feels slight in comparison.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good album. I just expect masterpieces from Kanye West and his friends.
G.O.O.D. Music’s first outing successfully showcases the collective’s talents, but it’s ultimately an underachieving and uneven effort.
The artists featured all have something to offer on their own, but as they scramble a top one another a sense of any group dynamic is lost in the fray.
Kanye's career has been built on maniacal quality control, but Cruel Summer feels uncharacteristically disposable.
The compilation's high points mainly encircle West, and given the chance to be independence, his understudies go off track.
More often, the songs become too jammed-up with so many moving parts that it sounds like they’re actually immobile
Every track on this album has a flaw worth pointing out, but they all make an argument why they’re worth listening to as well.
With Cruel Summer, Kanye’s corralled an impressive roster of allies and contemporaries to make a sleek, state-of-the-art album that’s not half as good as one of those more modest old offerings.
REVISITING KANYE WEST’S DISCOGRAPHY #7
Cruel Summer has some great highlights, but it’s not really even a Kanye album and ends up being the least essential album in his discography. While it’s a solid label album with some great posse cuts, it just is kinda forgettable.
Fav Tracks: Clique, Mercy.1, New God Flow.1, The One, Creepers
Least Fav Tracks: Higher
1. Don’t Like.1
2. Cold.1
3. New God Flow.1
4. Clique
5. Higher
6. To The World
7. Mercy.1
8. Sin City
9. Creepers
10. The Morning
11. The One
12. Bliss
#15 | / | Gigwise |
#24 | / | Complex |
#24 | / | Rolling Stone |
#31 | / | NME |