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CRITIC REVIEWS

91
A.V. Club

What The Life Of Pablo was trying for with gospel, “Awaken, My Love!” has succeeded at with funk and soul. It is not an antique car with a new paint job, but the redesigned Challenger, a work of modern design that’s damn proud of its heritage, and it offers a beautiful ride.

90
Mixmag
Charming, incredibly soulful and emotionally charged, this record introduces us to a whole new, golden side of Donald Glover – and should elevate him to a new level of stardom.
90
Spill Magazine

Awaken, My Love! feels more like a narrative, or a glimpse into the man inside.

90
Exclaim!

Almost every song on Awaken is a soulful, vintage delight — with the exception of "California," an infuriating interruption to an otherwise cohesive project.

87
Northern Transmissions

“Awaken, My Love!” may not be the best album of the year, but it feels like the most important.

85
Earmilk

All in all, Awaken, My Love! is an exploration not only of sounds, some of which we haven't heard in decades, but also emotions that Gambino is displaying for us all.

85
The 405
Glover has delivered an inter-generational, retro-futuristic 11-track history lesson on the healing and inspiring qualities of funk.
85
The Line of Best Fit

A powerful, socially aware album, but one with, slack funk basslines, licks, squeals, and knods to the greats.

80
Clash
We’ve not had much to cheer for this year but it looks like Childish Gambino is offering a light at the end of the tunnel.
80
The Irish Times

Awaken, My Love! adds another destination to his creative map.

80
The Sydney Morning Herald

What's most surprising about his third full-length album as Childish Gambino is the steadiness of its vision, and its understated, sincere meditation on themes that have been well covered on some of the year's best albums.

80
The Observer
Throughout, Glover’s genre fluency is unimpeachable; the only minor drawback is the overmannered air of some of these period pieces, where there could be more straight-up abandon.
80
The Guardian

Glover has a keen ear for genre idiosyncrasies and Awaken, My Love is full of tiny rewarding details: the pinched surf guitar of California; the squalling organ blasts of the Parliament-Funkadelic-ish Riot.

80
XXL

Childish Gambino gets definite props for pushing the envelope and refusing to operate within any genre confinements on this refreshing 49-minute trip through the funkadelic 1970s. While these blurred lines make this album a little hard to follow, “Awaken, My Love!” proves his versatility as a rapper turning over a new leaf.

80
DIY

Colourful, brilliantly messy, and a fully committed hodge-podge of psych and spacecake croons, ‘Awaken, My Love!’ is unlikely to shed further light on exactly what Childish Gambino is at heart, but by now, Glover’s erratic approach is surely part of his central appeal.

80
HipHopDX

Without question, Awaken, My Love! serves as a greenhouse for vibes as the album transitions from one tenured music hybrid to the next, often without so much as a crescendoed buildup.

80
AllMusic
It's true that the album owes a deep debt to the sounds that inspired it, but there are times when the music, voices, and words come together to make something that sounds owned by Childish Gambino alone.
80
Paste

Glover should be lauded as an envoy of music’s past, here to deliver the gospel of the funk and soul greats to the kids, instead of more millennial hip-hop malarkey.

77
GIGsoup
For an accessible testimony to the pros, cons and ultimate rewards of love, reinvention and reverence, look no further than Gambino’s most playful record yet.
75
Consequence of Sound

“Awaken, My Love!” carries the same visceral strength of Atlanta, the same anxiety, fear, passion, love, and beauty in massive doses.

72
Pitchfork

“Awaken, My Love!” is his hardest left turn yet, ditching rap wholesale in favor of funk worship, and the result is his most enjoyable project to date. In paying homage to heroes, he even hits upon some of the genuine emotional connection that has often been missing from his music.

70
Rolling Stone

Only time will tell if Childish Gambino has remade himself into the post-millennial D'Angelo. But for now, "Awaken, My Love!" is an enthralling trip into the land of funk.

70
PopMatters

On the whole, Awaken, My Love! is a pronounced departure from Glover’s Childish Gambino persona—and a welcome one at that.

70
The Needle Drop

Childish Gambino carves his own niche in the recent wave of vintage soul revivalism with Awaken, My Love!

70
FLOOD Magazine
Like so many retro-leaning artists before him, Donald Glover riffles through classic sounds for a lens through which to view his modern anxieties.
65
Under the Radar

Simply put, for all of its creative pomposity, "Awaken, My Love!" isn't any better than Because the Internet, a solidly impressive record that brought Glover as close to bona fide in the rap community as possible.

60
Drowned in Sound
What we get is an interesting departure from his usual work, but not interesting enough to create the eternal music that he is talented enough to execute.
60
Spectrum Culture
It’s great that he’s ditched some of the more irritating aspects of the Gambino persona, but it’s a shame that he had to toss out the originality and wit with them.
60
Slant Magazine

A maddening ride with an authenticity problem, Awaken, My Love! finds Glover confusing his idols for muses.

58
Pretty Much Amazing
It’s simultaneously daunting, exhausting, terrifying, all at the same time. It’s all a lot to take in, with not a whole lot of the Gambino we are familiar with to help wash it down.
55
The Young Folks

I’m not really sure on the intent or message behind Awaken, My Love! and Gambino obviously wanted to enlighten us.

KIDWITHGUNs
80

🎤 🎤 🎤 🎤

Brain: Hey, it's best if you go to sleep you have a long day ahead of you.

Me: Remember when Gambino was the shit and did a Psychedelic Rock and Neo Soul fusion for the intro where he screams his brains out:

"CAAAN'T STAAAAND IIIT. BACKHAAANDED."

That's the type of shit that keeps a man awake at night, the type of shit that makes an atheist need some kneepads.

Toasterqueen12
100

Daily October Horror

6/31

Awaken my Love is what I imagine dying alone feels like. Cold, empty, delusional. Commonly known as the only "great" Childish Gambino album, Awaken My Love is super important. I remember going through Gambino's LPs waiting for the moment it started to get truly good and from the first minute of Awaken My Love, I knew "oh yeah, this is it."

Even without the obviously horror connections like Get Out, this is still a terrifying sounding album. Its ... read more

Plats
93

"Awaken, My Love!" is such a sexy-ass record! It's a departure from the usual hip-hop belongings of Donald Glover and goes into a full-out psychedelic soul sound. It is handled magnificently here, with the cover going perfectly with the gorgeous, spacious, dreamy production of this record. The lyrics go full-on personal here, with the introduction of his baby boy coming first on this record. It's heartfelt, it's beautiful, it's Donald coming out of his comfort zone and the result is ... read more

NR

Masterpiece

madman06
95

Bro, Childish Gambino really ripped off my pfp for his album art smh 😤

(Thank you for 100 followers btw, I love you all <3)

Before Awaken My Love, I don't think many people saw this coming. When Donald Glover made music under the Childish Gambino moniker, he was known for his strange rapping style. His rapping style during the era of his debut album Camp was abrasive and was reliant on one-liners and shock humor. Most people saw his music as a shitty version of Kanye West, and yeah a ... read more

LCQisSomeone
86

😫 spectacular

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Track List

1Me and Your Mama
6:19
97
2Have Some Love
3:44
82
3Boogieman
3:36
83
4Zombies
4:41
81
5Riot
2:05
84
6Redbone
5:26
97
7California
2:45
62
8Terrified
4:15
85
9Baby Boy
6:22
87
10The Night Me and Your Mama Met
3:34
80
11Stand Tall
6:10
88
Total Length: 49 minutes
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Added on: November 7, 2016