Culturally a classic, musically not quite

I was definitely one of the culprits calling this album trash when it first released. I wasn’t as familiar with Carti’s music at the time, and with how naturally polarising the album is, it wasn’t a good match. I thought it was lucky to be a 4/10. Coming back to it over 2 years later, I can confidently say it’s definitely better than a 4/10 (although I can still completely understand why someone would believe the opposite). ... read more

Nothing more than yet another display of how excellent and next level of an artist she is. Obviously lacks the concept and cohesion that S.I.M.B.I. does, but the rapping and track by track quality is definitely still there.

Doesn’t leave you with a whole lot else to say, other than that the combination of talent, strength and ability she has to speak so many strong and personal topics with such honesty and maturity is something that very VERY few artists have. It makes every single ... read more

A great album that could’ve easily been greater.

Obviously great to have SZA back making music, she’s always gonna release only high quality material. Didn’t really go in with any expectations aside from the singles, and came out really liking it, but not as much as I could’ve. I feel like there’s some obvious things this album could’ve done better that would’ve made it considerably stronger.

First is obviously the length of the tracklist and run ... read more

Genuinely felt like it went for over 2 hours.

A Boogie is currently my 15th most listened to artist from when I started using Last.FM in 2018, so I’ve obviously really liked a lot of his previous work; but this was a very gruelling listen and is impossible to defend. Over 20 songs and almost 70 minutes were immediate red flags, but I was still hopeful I could get at least 3 or 4 tracks from it (spoiler: I didn’t).

Listening to boring track after boring track is worse and more ... read more

I mean, when doesn't Metro deliver?

The first ‘heroes’ album was great and still has a lot of replay value, and Metro Boomin projects in general always get me excited, and this was definitely no exception. The rollout for this one was beyond amazing, the cover and nod to Wish You Were Here is great, the feature list is obviously insane; it has everything going for it.

Did it deliver on the hype? Yeah. Metro didn’t lay a finger wrong the whole album and majority of the ... read more

A slow but rewarding listen.

A great and at times beautiful concept album from Stormzy. It’s vulnerable, it’s open, it’s expressive, it’s pleasant, it’s warm, and it’s peaceful. He does a lot right here and the end product is one to be proud of.

It does start relatively slow, but the back end and the growth shown and pacing of the album is where it truely shines. Stormzy has stated that this album is about a real person and broken relationship he went ... read more

A lot better than it gets credit for.

Have over 200 plays of the album since its release, but I hadn’t listened to it in full probably since its release year. And this is most definitely a very unpopular opinion, but I think as a whole this is a tad better than Carter 3 and is the second best Carter behind Carter 2. Carter 3 is obviously his most iconic work and deserves most of the praise it gets, but taking into consideration the massive array of moments, whether they’re deeply ... read more

Does get a bit messy towards the middle, and ends with a slew of songs that were longer than they needed to be, but he’s definitely released far worse than this
______________

1. Glory - 8 (thought the beat was doing a bit too much at first and was pretty overpowering, but it works and Wayne is flowing MUCH better than he did on some of the previous albums)

2. My Heart Races On - 6.9 (torn on whether the chorus is incredibly cheesy or comforting, but I actually like Wayne’s verses ... read more

Doesn't have the highs that KD2 had, and didn't capture that same hunger that Magic did. Very high chance it grows on me on future listens.
________________

1. Ghetto Reporter - 7.4 (pretty sure it’s impossible for Nas to not have the ability to make a good rap song. Although it’s nowhere near his greatest song and we’ve heard to do this time after time for literally decades at this point, but that’s the thing that makes it great; the fact that he is a 50 year old man ... read more

Would be classic potential if Drake wasn't so much of a mic hog.

Given how much chemistry Drake and 21 have had for years at this point dating back to Sneakin I knew a collab tape between the two could only be great. And while it certainly is for the better part, it just doesn’t feel like a true collab tape. Rather it pretty much feels like a Drake revenge tour with 21 tagging along in the backseat. And that’s probably the main problem here; the reason why their previous collabs ... read more

Wowzerz is a pretty good word to sum up the album.

After liking IANAHB1 a fair bit more than a lot of people, and with Love Me being the only thing I had to go off I thought maybe I might experience the same thing the second time around. Well, I can safely say that’s not the case.

Pretty much every single thing about this album is poorly executed. Wayne sounds more annoying than ever and holy shit his bars and lyrical content here is bottom of the barrel stuff in his terms, the beats ... read more

Maybe the album really is dead.

I don’t know how many more 18-20+ song trap albums I can honestly take. There is absolutely zero things this album does that they haven’t already done countless times. I understand they came out and said it’s a throwback to 2014-16, but how does that differ from what they were doing in 2017-22? Easy answer, it doesn’t.

Yes Offset isn’t there, but honestly that doesn’t change much at all; it’s the exact same formula ... read more

I mean it's not great, but it's also no Rebirth.

Surprised this gets as much hate as it does. I mean it’s definitely no where near his best, but it still has its moments. It starts off strong with ‘Hold Up’ being as fun as it is, and ‘With You’ being a safe but well pulled off track with a nice vibe, ‘I’m Single’ is definitely too long and has some iffy bars but has a charm to it, and ‘Right Above It’ is unbelievably fun and will ... read more

More of this please Denzel.

Great way of handling the release of a deluxe version. Instead of going to typical route of just adding a handful of songs that didn't make the cut of the original, Denzel gave new life to an already amazing album in a way that's both unique and refreshing. Only thing bringing it down is not every song on the original getting a remix. There's probably a logical reason why they aren't there, but songs like 'The Last' and 'Zatoichi' would've been amazing as soul ... read more

How this ever saw the light of day is beyond me.

I genuinely wish I could forget what I just listened to. I went in thinking it couldn’t be THAT bad can it? But it was quickly made certain that yes, it can indeed be THAT bad. Genuinely some of the most annoying and ear wrenching vocals I’ve ever heard, along with some of the worst attempts of choruses I’ve ever heard, topped with a complete lack of structure, flow, and overall care. I don’t know how someone can ... read more

Not quite on the level of Carter ll or some of the mixtapes in the years prior.

Given just how highly regarded and ‘classic’ this album is, I came in with pretty big expectations. It started off great. I read that ‘I’m Me’ was supposed to be the intro before it got leaked, and although I do think it’s better than the one here, they’re pretty similar. Followed into Mr. Carter which I think is comfortably the best song; Jay handing the crown over to ... read more

Good beats, not good rapping, as usual.

It genuinely frustrates me how boring and average Pi’erre is as a rapper. Like he’s one of the only artists I can listen to for an hour straight and not retain a single thing he says. I fully understand that’s not the aim of his music, but I just can’t help but think that this album would be significantly stronger if literally any other mainstream rapper was rapping instead.

And that’s what annoys me most about ... read more

His best work since Major Key in 2016, but that’s not saying much.

I don’t know what it is about Khaled’s albums and how he uses artists, but regardless of who is on the songs, somehow he keeps making music that sounds like it has a 2 week lifespan. Every single time he gets the biggest artists in the world on tracks together, yet no one listens to it past the first couple of listens. It’s like the artists have an industry wide pact to give their most boring throwaways ... read more

Perfect blend of lyricism, substance, and overall listenability.

JID’s artistic growth over the 4 years since his last project is immense and extremely noticeable. To be honest in the past JID hasn’t been an artist I’ve gravitated towards due to a mixture of me not really enjoying ‘fast rap’ and me not really vibing with a lot of what Dreamville has put out the last few years.

But with that said, this album bursts through those barriers and has put JID into a ... read more

Great, but expected greater.

Glad I finally listened to what many say is his best work, and can definitely see the improvements from Carter l, but since it is so highly regarded unfortunately I was hoping for a little bit more. It’s of course very consistent with Wayne actually doing a great job of filling out its 87 minute run-time, which is something a LOT of artists struggle to do. Another aspect he did very well here that other artists struggle with is versatility. It’s hard ... read more