Testing is loud, frenetic, spastic, and about as vibrant as rap can be. The songs are busy, crowded with radiant instrumentation and stacked vocals, and rarely take time to breathe. It’s a welcome addition to a genre that has become so occupied with spacey, bare-bones operations and overly simplistic results.
TESTING shows off how talented A$AP Rocky is lyrically as well as behind the scenes being the executive producer for the album. This album is great compliment to how public A$AP Rocky has been in the media recently and is just as interesting. This album has some real staying power with all the guest appearances and incredible talent put into it.
A$AP Rocky has always been a tastemaker with an eclectic palette, and with his third studio album, Testing, he isn't catering to the ears of current hip-hop fans. Rocky is making music outside of the confines of rap while simultaneously pushing boundaries within it.
Overall, Testing seems to have been too much of a creative reach by ASAP Rocky. It results into a lack luster project torn between rapping and experimenting.
Rocky similarly hopped between styles on his two previous albums ... but Testing is a spottier affair. Too many tracks minimise his strengths.
Testing’s title might suggest experimentation, but it delivers more on tentativeness, with a smattering of solid songs mixed into aesthetically interesting but unresolved experiments.
For every bad track on this frustrating album, another one offers a distinctive flair and ability unlike anyone else. But, at least as far as making albums goes, Rocky has yet to take his place in the pantheon of hip-hop royalty. Testing is what it says it is, though this far into his career, he should be doing better than merely a passing grade.
While in some ways Testing is more musical than anything we've heard from A$AP Rocky before, it's also more confused, with ideas and musical shifts colliding at times to the point of randomness.
After a three-year wait, Rocky seems to know he’s not as good lyrically as he once was, so he puts all of his efforts into the instrumentals. For better or for worse, the leader of the ASAP Mob shows he can still be great, but also shows he still has some work to do.
Testing contains some interesting ideas here and there, but they aren't performed or organized all that well a great deal of the time.
I can't be the only one who expected this to suck but was surprised at how solid of a project this was right?
Fair amount of straight up filler, but the highs are very high.
fav tracks: A$AP Forever (standout), Fuck Sleep, Praise The Lord, Gunz N Butter
[82.60] This is Rocky's Yeezus. I said it. I know it def doesn't hold that standard, Yeezus being a horny album with surprisingly a lot to unpack and then we have an album, called "TESTING" in which people expected normal sound from him. Like I said in my past review (this prob gon be my final scoring) this album made a comeback compared to when it first came out. I wouldn't say it stood the test of time in general but for sure if you have an attachment to this, in similar fashion to ... read more
There are times when the experimentation of this album isn’t that good, but at others it’s absolutely amazing. Alot of well written bangers on here, but the deep cuts here also hit very well too. The production is inspirational, the vocals are somewhat inconsistent but mainly great, and features that have stuck with me for years.
fav tracks: A$AP FOREVER, Fuck Sleep, Praise The Lord, Purity
worst tracks: Brotha Man, OG Beeper, Black Tux, White Collar
1 | Distorted Records 2:20 | 76 |
2 | A$AP Forever REMIX 5:15 | 81 |
3 | Tony Tone 3:28 | 74 |
4 | Fukk Sleep 3:12 feat. FKA twigs | 78 |
5 | Praise The Lord (Da Shine) 3:25 feat. Skepta | 90 |
6 | CALLDROPS 2:42 feat. Kodak Black | 56 |
7 | Buck Shots 2:47 | 73 |
8 | Gunz n Butter 3:33 feat. Juicy J | 75 |
9 | Brotha Man 3:36 feat. French Montana | 64 |
10 | OG Beeper 2:35 | 68 |
11 | Kids Turned Out Fine 3:03 | 69 |
12 | Hun43rd 4:02 | 74 |
13 | Changes 5:14 | 78 |
14 | Black Tux, White Collar 2:42 | 71 |
15 | Purity 4:22 feat. Frank Ocean | 83 |
#4 | / | Highsnobiety |
#24 | / | Consequence of Sound |
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