Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon
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CRITIC REVIEWS
82
Luckily, for nervous fans, friends and collaborators alike, it’s an overcrowded, but ultimately excellent body of music.
80
It is so easy to reach in blindly and pull out a well-produced track with a decent guest appearance and Smoke at his lyrical best.
80
The album’s strengths are many, from its production to its featured guests’ verses to Smoke’s lyrics and skills. ‘Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon’ showcases a multi-faceted artist only just discovering his potential.
80
His posthumous album, Shoot For the Stars Aim For the Moon, is ... not only a celebration, but an elegy for what else he could have achieved.
80
Success does not always alleviate problems and very often magnifies them, but during his career, Pop Smoke made friends who gave him a solid send-off.
75
With stakes this high and a legacy to consider, the end result may or may not bear much of a resemblance to what Pop Smoke had in mind. Nonetheless, he sounds alive here, a motivated and vibrant hip-hop talent actively pushing towards that next level.
72
Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon is a collage of Pop’s versatility.
70
The rapper’s posthumous debut album shows us why he remains the voice of New York City.
67
Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon neither blights nor burnishes Pop Smoke’s legacy.
65
The 20-year-old rising star was the voice of Brooklyn drill when he died. On his debut album, executive-produced by 50 Cent, his voice shines through despite a raft of unnecessary features.
60
Despite some questionable guest spots and stylistic detours, Pop Smoke's commercial debut showcases much of what made him such a unique voice in modern hip hop.
40
The album has the feel of a B-sides collection culled together as a cash-in on the rapper’s death.
40
Though the first two volumes of Meet the Woo lacked the bombast of Smoke's iconic singles, they demonstrated candor in their representation of the drill heavyweight; SFTSAFTM, by contrast, tarnishes the rapper's visionary style with predatory glitz as everyone jumps for a piece of the pie.
Another example of someone with lot of potential having their life taken too soon.
I’m not going to sit here and act like I was OG pop smoke fan or anything or that I loved his music or even cared before he died. Nonetheless, he was talented and had a lot of potential to be a breath of fresh air in the currently bloated and overly bland rap scene with a little time.
This record is okay, it’s nothing amazing. It’s definitely above average. His flow is pretty effortless if ... read more
I’m not going to sit here and act like I was OG pop smoke fan or anything or that I loved his music or even cared before he died. Nonetheless, he was talented and had a lot of potential to be a breath of fresh air in the currently bloated and overly bland rap scene with a little time.
This record is okay, it’s nothing amazing. It’s definitely above average. His flow is pretty effortless if ... read more
Yeah I'm not feeling this at all.
The late New York rappers debut album is a mixed bag of monotony, poor song structure and all in all just a lack of anything interesting to write home about. Personally I thought Meet the Woo 2 was a bad mixtape and I wasnt really expecting to get much out of this other than the same shit we've gotten already and just another artists untimely demise being used for profit. Looking down at the tracklist is an eye roll in itself as it's 19 tracks, his biggest ... read more
The late New York rappers debut album is a mixed bag of monotony, poor song structure and all in all just a lack of anything interesting to write home about. Personally I thought Meet the Woo 2 was a bad mixtape and I wasnt really expecting to get much out of this other than the same shit we've gotten already and just another artists untimely demise being used for profit. Looking down at the tracklist is an eye roll in itself as it's 19 tracks, his biggest ... read more
50 did Pop dirty with this one. Pop Smoke's first posthumous record trades in the usually great drill production from his previous albums for more mainstream trap production causing Pop to lose many aspects that made him unique among mainstream rappers. Pop really had something different as opposed to an NBA Youngboy or Quavo. He had unique production as well as charisma. There are plenty of rappers that do have charisma but they often resort to very generic production but Pop always had some ... read more
I feel weird, it's not bad or anything I'm just feeling odd. This doesn't sound too much like the Pop Smoke I heard before. Instead of having a lot of those drill sounds he was good at making it more focused on this boring melodic sound that made Pop Smoke sound like a generic rapper which is not what he deserved. Even if I didn't like Meet the Woo I had some fun with it for a while this felt not as fun. Still Pop Smoke delivers some good fun songs with features ranging from decent to bad, its ... read more
edit: nvm roddy is still batting a thousand
tracks 2-10 is a very good album. past that its seriously irremediable. an absolute fucking slog and its so annoying. instead of focusing on the uk drill sound he damn near perfected, he spends the latter half of the album churning out all these slow jams that are trash. they are terrible, for reasons that are almost too obvious to mention. pop smoke is not a great singer. he has been able to make it work but only when he's using the smokiness in his ... read more
tracks 2-10 is a very good album. past that its seriously irremediable. an absolute fucking slog and its so annoying. instead of focusing on the uk drill sound he damn near perfected, he spends the latter half of the album churning out all these slow jams that are trash. they are terrible, for reasons that are almost too obvious to mention. pop smoke is not a great singer. he has been able to make it work but only when he's using the smokiness in his ... read more
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Track List
| 1 | Bad Bitch From Tokyo (Intro) 0:48 | 58 |
| 2 | Aim For The Moon 2:55 feat. Quavo | 76 |
| 3 | For the Night 3:10 | 77 |
| 4 | 44 BullDog 2:30 | 61 |
| 5 | Gangstas 2:40 | 74 |
| 6 | Yea Yea 3:05 | 57 |
| 7 | Creature 3:22 feat. Swae Lee | 58 |
| 8 | Snitching 4:19 | 62 |
| 9 | Make It Rain 3:22 feat. Rowdy Rebel | 74 |
| 10 | The Woo 3:21 feat. 50 Cent, Roddy Ricch | 81 |
| 11 | West Coast Shit 3:12 | 64 |
| 12 | Enjoy Yourself 3:17 feat. Karol G | 53 |
| 13 | Mood Swings 3:33 feat. Lil Tjay | 62 |
| 14 | Something Special 2:38 | 63 |
| 15 | What You Know Bout Love 2:40 | 68 |
| 16 | Diana 3:08 feat. King Combs | 39 |
| 17 | Got It On Me 2:44 | 85 |
| 18 | Tunnel Vision (Outro) 2:12 | 65 |
| 19 | Dior 3:36 Bonus Track | 88 |
Total Length: 56 minutes
Year End Lists
| #7 | / | The New York Times: Jon Caramanica |
| #10 | / | Complex |
| #10 | / | The Ringer |
| #14 | / | Highsnobiety |
| #42 | / | Far Out Magazine |
| / | Hypebeast |
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1y
Still need to listen to this, I watched/read the Fantano and Pitchfork reviews.
Circles has really set an incredibly high bar for modern posthumous albums (thanks Jon Brion), so curious to see how this (and Legends Never Die) turn out.
Circles has really set an incredibly high bar for modern posthumous albums (thanks Jon Brion), so curious to see how this (and Legends Never Die) turn out.
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Added on: May 3, 2020