One of the hottest albums of the year, LONG.LIVE.A$AP is a hot grab and sets new standards.
The album is a triumph of craft and curation, preserving Rocky's immaculate taste while smartly upgrading his sound.
His first proper LP is an aesthetic marvel, fully realized and unmistakably distinct. That’s all it tries to be, other than some mercifully brief (but mercilessly clunky) stabs at humor and gravitas.
For all its flaws, this is an aurally pleasing and addictive record. And if Rocky’s aesthetic is a collage, that’s no longer a problem.
Perhaps Sony is right: Long Live A$AP's flaws are clear, but still vastly outweighed by its positives.
One spin of LongLiveA$AP, and it’s clear why A$AP Rocky didn’t break a sweat when the album leaked. Debuts this good just don’t come along very often, and it all comes down to the precocious Harlem rookie’s vision.
At its core, Long.Live.A$AP succeeds because it lets Rocky be Rocky: a rapper with a unique voice and an ear for captivating beats whose lyrical shortcomings can be glossed over with healthy servings of charisma and panache.
On Long.Live.A$AP he's not just a Harlem boy, he's geared for the arenas and shabby-cum-arty London nightclubs; riding the cultural and artistic wave of Americanisation to the absolute maximum.
Long.Live manages to be much more thoughtful than its predecessor, while also evoking a sense of surprise with all of its extremely lyrical moments.
It builds on the promise of his mixtape, extends itself into new territory, and in the process reveals some of the shortcomings of Rocky’s craft.
Unsure whether he wanted to create a sunny, party album, gangstafest, or a record of cool pop vibes, Rocky seems to have tried to make them all, and with minor successes in all departments, he sacrifices something stronger.
Rocky expands his horizons even further, indulging in relative experimentation while also adhering to the gifts that have catapulted him to stardom in just over a year.
On this record, narcissism and materialism are offset by gloriously unsettled soundscapes, which reach a dreamy abstraction alongside Santigold on Hell and skitter into sweet oblivion on the otherwise crude PMW (All I Really Need).
A$AP Rocky comes through with Long.Live.A$AP with a surprisingly enjoyable commercial effort with loads of variation, catchy flows, and fantastic beats.
The album, or more like A$AP Rocky’s career, can be summed up in the soulful “Suddenly.” It might have happened overnight, faster than anyone expected, and Long.Live.A$AP is a statement that Rocky is here to stay.
Rocky’s debut is full of superb moments and offers a rich tasting menu of unique sounds.
Long.Live.A$AP is the purest hip-hop vision to come through the major label pipeline since Waka Flocka’s Flockaveli, and yet its overall catchiness and accessibility are among the most genuine to cross over into pop radio this decade.
It transpires that Long.Live.A$AP manages to build upon the promise shown on Live.Love.A$AP in many ways, yet frustratingly the lyrical problems persist, and then some.
Debut album Long Live A$AP is a fine piece of work and augers well for the patient approach.
Long. Live. A$AP is an intermittently dazzling collection of slinky, mutated R&B helmed by an unsteady, half-interested voice.
This album isn’t the one to bank on what A$AP Rocky’s initial hype was really all about, opting for a sleeker, slightly more vain take on the character.
Rocky’s mixtape demonstrated that he can work his wheelhouse, but the further Long. Live. A$AP takes him from that cloud, the more RCA’s $3 million dollar investment begins to look like a reckless impulse buy.
His vocabulary is limited, his concepts thin, his persona over-reliant on empty rags-to-riches-to-bitches clichés.
LongLiveA$AP is a hollow, characterless listen from a young artist who I can still tell you next to nothing about.
It’s hard to conceive of an artist as being a part of some progressive/futurist movement when they’re busy repeating many of the same ideas their precursors did first (often with more verve) and without the refinement, intelligence, or personality of their generational peers.
Masterpiece
I listened on a plane, bump my head so insane, people looked con-cerned
Fucked my system up, looking like my liver didn’t study for the midterm.
This album is a time capsule. No other Hip-Hop album I know of can give off the vibes of this record. I remember the cathartic feeling of the title track when I first heard it at the age of 16.
Rocky clearly intended to change up his style quite a bit on here. Compared to Live.Love.A$AP, the production is far different and goes for a pretty different vibe on many tracks, and Rocky sounds fucking awesome on this new production!
With those first 4 tracks, you know you already got a dope album on your hands. I can see LVL becoming one of my all time favorite Rocky songs, too. That beat is just in a league of its own. Pain is great as well. Rocky and that feature both sound dope as hell ... read more
While inconsistent at times, the highs created on this album are really hard to beat, and the overall lyricism of this album keeps everything thematically in check. Plus, any album with a Danny Brown feature has to be a good one.
The production on the album is crazy. This is his best album imo. LVL has one of the best rap beats oat.
Best songs: LVL, PMW, 1train
Worst songs: wild for the night
1 | Long Live A$AP 4:49 | 89 |
2 | Goldie 3:12 | 87 |
3 | PMW (All I Really Need) 3:54 feat. ScHoolboy Q | 84 |
4 | LVL 3:40 | 88 |
5 | Hell 3:51 feat. Santigold | 74 |
6 | Pain 3:53 feat. OverDoz. | 73 |
7 | F**kin' Problems 3:53 | 89 |
8 | Wild For the Night 3:32 feat. Skrillex, Birdy Nam Nam | 70 |
9 | 1Train 6:12 | 94 |
10 | Fashion Killa 3:56 | 84 |
11 | Phoenix 3:53 | 84 |
12 | Suddenly 4:30 | 82 |
#14 | / | Urban Outfitters |
#17 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#19 | / | Complex |
#25 | / | Pigeons & Planes |
#30 | / | The Quietus |
#39 | / | Pitchfork |
#47 | / | Stereogum |
#84 | / | eMusic |