SHADEOFMAN

This is just Drake if he made country music. Morgan Wallen proved to all of us that he's no longer an artist, he’s a corporation. One Thing at a Time has a few genuinely catchy songs, but the album is so absurdly long that almost all of its ideas become repetitive by the halfway point. The constant cycle of breakup lyrics, drinking anthems, and near-identical melodies makes the project feel less like a carefully made album and more like content engineered to dominate streaming ... read more

This album is longer than Toy Story 1, 2, 3, and 4. Let that sink in. After like the 15th song I genuinely forgot what I was even listening to because everything blends together into the same sad drinking anthem with slightly different lyrics.

Views frustrates me because there’s genuinely a great 12-track album hidden inside it, but Drake refuses to trim anything down. The highs are really high: “9,” “U With Me?,” “Feel No Ways,” “Weston Road Flows,” “Redemption,” “Keep The Family Close,” “Too Good,” “Views,” and “Fire & Desire” all capture this cold, nostalgic, lonely Toronto atmosphere that the album should’ve ... read more

In 2009, Ohio rapper Kid Cudi released his debut album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day. This is the kind of album I’d put very high because of how influential and emotionally distinct it is. Highlight tracks are “Soundtrack 2 My Life,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” “Day ’n’ Nite,” “Cudi Zone,” and “Solo Dolo,” since they really capture the lonely, spacey, emotionally restless feeling that makes the album so memorable. ... read more