Their most mature and concise work to date.
BROCKHAMPTON’s particular brand of magic comes from the careful balance of individuality in their unity. The tighter they are, the greater the music will be, and GINGER is testimony to that.
The boyband’s fifth album is short on potential hits but sees them move past the intense, dogged emotion of predecessor ‘Iridescence’, proving they're built for distance.
GINGER is a return to form for the BROCKHAMPTON boys, albeit a decidedly downcast one.
Less rascally and rambunctious than their prior output, Ginger found the crew delving deeper into heavy emotional territory, tackling mental health, depression, betrayal, and struggles with love, faith, identity, and substance abuse.
Since GINGER contains more fresh ideas than almost every great rap album of 2019 combined, once again it’s hard to pin down why it feels like such a relief when it finally ends.
Even the prettiest BROCKHAMPTON songs can feel cramped, but many of these songs, though each endowed with their little moments, are disorganized or inefficient.
While Iridescence proved that the group could survive Vann’s abrupt departure, Ginger exposes their creative limitations.
Each of their albums experiment with genre, but GINGER is all over the place, never really sure what it wants to be.
The self-proclaimed hardest working boyband in showbiz break new ground, but they're missing some of that old magic.
Unfortunately the final product doesn’t quite live up to the billing, with GINGER feeling like a confused, disjointed record, from a group that’s full of great ideas without the follow-through to fully realize them.
The 13-member “boy band” zips between sounds, signifiers and moods, usually staying on the surface but sometimes showing real depth.
Pre-Album: BROCKHAMPTON has become stale and too worried about their image. I hope they prove me wrong.
Post-Album: I miss Ameer
I was completely wrong and am blown away by the quality of this album. The singles are by far the worst songs on the project. Stellar production throughout, great lyricism, and Ginger does an even better job at conveying that "indie rap" sound than iridescence had done awkwardly. The band has matured and progressed.
fav tracks: St. Percy (standout), Sugar, No Halo
Thank fucking Christ this is good.
As a sad, lonely and completely biased Stan of this group, I was worried sick for this album. BROCKHAMPTON is one of my absolute favorite rap groups, with irridesecence being one of my favorite albums of last year. So, when the singles were slightly underwhelming, I got worried SICK. Not that the singles were truly bad or anything, but when nothing connected the first time I heard the lead singles, especially when BROCKHAMPTONs single game was usually ... read more
More of a return to form with this record compared to Iridescence. Still have a missing piece that shows a bit. A couple of the songs on here are duds and some are the best songs they've dropped.
Favorite Songs: SUGAR, DEARLY DEPARTED, NO HALO, VICTOR ROBERTS, BOY BYE
Least Favorite Songs: GINGER, LOVE ME FOR LIFE
Ginger is the boyband's moodiest, poppiest, and most sonically consistent album to date, and is also my personal favorite in their discography. "NO HALO" opens things up with a laid-back, fun verse from Matt Champion that really helps to set the tone for the whole project. Even the most rap-oriented bangers here like "BOY BYE" and "ST. PERCY" still feel lowkey compared to many songs off of literally any of their other albums. The features on the album add to the ... read more
1 | NO HALO 4:19 | 86 |
2 | SUGAR 3:24 | 88 |
3 | BOY BYE 2:22 | 88 |
4 | HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU 1:29 | 78 |
5 | ST. PERCY 3:30 | 82 |
6 | IF YOU PRAY RIGHT 5:02 | 81 |
7 | DEARLY DEPARTED 4:40 | 90 |
8 | I BEEN BORN AGAIN 3:39 | 78 |
9 | GINGER 3:54 | 82 |
10 | BIG BOY 3:55 | 77 |
11 | LOVE ME FOR LIFE 3:35 | 77 |
12 | VICTOR ROBERTS 4:23 | 82 |
#21 | / | The Young Folks |
#32 | / | The Needle Drop |
#35 | / | Rolling Stone |
/ | Esquire (UK) | |
/ | MTV News |