Kanye West Presents: GOOD Music - Cruel Summer

This isn't just a side project, this is a Kanye side-project.

For anything involving Kanye West, there's an uphill battle against what have proven to be reasonably lofty expectations. We expect perfection, classics, or something closely bordering on those levels of excellence from him. So when there’s a project involving him that, like this one, doesn’t quite hit those marks, it becomes a bit of a disappointment.

Cruel Summer is a mistitled fireworks show from Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music label/roster/empire, one that comes off as mixtape-minded follow-up to his flossy Jay-Z team-up Watch the Throne.

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. 

This album wasn’t going to be a home run, but still is an enjoyable voyage for those of us with personal interest in G.O.O.D Music.

G.O.O.D. Music’s first outing successfully showcases the collective’s talents, but it’s ultimately an underachieving and uneven effort.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good album. I just expect masterpieces from Kanye West and his friends.

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

Cruel Summer is Kanye Night Live, where he’s the host and the musical guest, and everyone else has to be Darrell Hammond and never even gets so much as Obie Trice’s “Got Some Teeth.”

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.