If J. Cole wasn’t just half white.
Jack Harlow now going by J. Harlow delivers his most serious project to date, stepping away from trap beats and irreverent lyrics to follow the J. Cole route, especially when it comes to the instrumentals: sample-heavy, with drums that can’t really be called trap or boom bap. Lyrically, it’s more introspective and complex, still keeping a trace of Harlow’s signature humor, but now grounded in something more relatable, with tighter ... read more

Did anyone even notice this dropped?
The new tracks are either terrible remixes of songs that were already on the album or completely forgettable throwaways, featuring one of the worst lineups of features I’ve ever seen especially when compared to the original version of the album.
Also, I had hopes for the BB Tricz collab, but it ended up being a disappointment. They should’ve just made a new track instead of wasting it on a remix.

The ice is melting.
The debut “””album””” of Ice Spice, which doesn’t even hit the half-hour mark, ended up being one of the biggest flops of last year which isn’t surprising, considering Ice Spice’s career took off as a more aggressive alternative within the female rapper scene, more oriented toward drill, only to later become the stereotype of a female rapper who’s only famous for being attractive.
The album came out long after Ice ... read more

Did we all listen to the same album?
Okay yes, it's a good record, but it's definitely not a 10. Everyone keeps raving about the production, and while it is fantastic, it's not flawless, no album is. It's unfair to compare artists or downplay their merit, but honestly, calling SPELLLING the Kate Bush of this generation feels more like a compliment than a reach: she’s got that hypnotic voice, a swirl of psychedelic pop production, and a persistent sense of femininity ... read more

Muse is fucking fucked.
In recent years, Muse has relied more on their live shows than their new material those iconic albums and otherworldly performances were enough to keep them relevant. So this album ends up being the equivalent of that Mr. Burns meme dressed like a teenager. It's Muse-style rock, sure, but stripped of its magic, feeling incredibly basic. The lyrics are corny, the band sounds more outdated than ever, and they pulled a Lil Baby: slapping a massive, majestic album ... read more

Charismatic.
Alright, this is a guilty pleasure Jack Harlow has way too much charisma and some genuinely funny bars, not to mention he was basically the default celebrity crush during the pandemic. The beats aren’t anything special, but they don’t get in the way either. The lyrics are hilarious, though I totally get why someone wouldn’t be into this kind of humor, and Jack’s delivery here is definitely weaker compared to what he’d later develop.
Side note: I have ... read more

Who told X that calling himself a genius in the intro was even remotely accurate?
This album is just X throwing a bunch of tracks together across boom bap, trap, rock, punk, etc. and failing to actually master any of them. It's packed with features phoning it in, except for maybe Joey Bada$$ and PnB Rock, while the production ranges from mediocre to outright bad, sprinkled with a couple of era-specific bangers just barely holding it together. The intro tries to paint our favorite ... read more

Better than most of what they've put out.
The Chainsmokers are way too easy to hate, but they really don't give us much of a choice. They never evolved musically and stayed stuck in that pop-EDM limbo, drowning in vocal chops and collabs with anyone who had a verified Instagram account. This project is somewhat enjoyable at times, but at least half the songs sound exactly like what you'd imagine a Chainsmokers track in 2019 would sound like. The one with Illenium isn’t too ... read more

Technically a posthumous album.
I’ll be honest and straight to the point: I had an amazing time listening to this album. It’s one of those cases where it’s so bad you can’t stop laughing. The lyrics break every possible level of corny, and listening to “Rap Devil” feels like watching a man climb into his own coffin.

When the artist’s appearance doesn’t match the music.
I’ve always seen Must Die! as the weakest link between Kayzo and Space Laces. Sure, he’s had his moments, especially in sets and collabs, but when it comes to solo material, he spent way too long stuck in brostep hell to ever fully riddim himself.
This EP is straight-up annoying. High-pitched synths that sound like they were EQ’d by a dentist, anime samples clearly aimed at terminally online virgins, and drops ... read more

They really assembled the Avengers of fell-off rappers for this one.
This album is a textbook guide on how to make a project I’ll absolutely hate: annoying voice -check, boring melodic beats — check, features no one asked for — check, and the list could go on. The only relevant thing Lil Tjay has done in the past three years was throw a tantrum on Plaqueboymax’s stream because they asked him not to smoke weed in a house he was invited to — which somehow turned ... read more

I will never be smart enough to understand this album.
Lil Dicky, the comedic rapper by default, presents possibly his least interesting project to date mostly because there's no external crutch to prop up the bad jokes (like Penith having the Dave series behind it). The instrumentals feel like a drill going straight into my brain (you get it), and the lyrics are packed with jokes so elaborately layered and complex that they make solving the Riemann Hypothesis look like kindergarten math.

So no chicken nuggets this time, huh.
God. This album is basically </3 but without the gorgeous cover art or the actually ethereal beats. The production here is genuinely terrible you can literally find $5 type beats on YouTube that sound infinitely better than this mess. Destroy’s voice sounds off the entire time, it was in that awkward phase where he didn’t know which rapper to imitate, so he just went with all of them.
This album puts me to sleep, and it’s only like 20 ... read more

Having this be my first review during Pride Month feels downright diabolical.
XXXTentacion certified woman-beater and homophobe delivers his first posthumous project… or more accurately, his label does, just months after his death. From the very first seconds, you already know you're about to hear one of the corniest things ever put to audio, with that Google Translate-sounding voice rambling about pain and emotions, only to be followed by a chopped-up version of “Jocelyn ... read more

Metallica without long hair are angels who lost their wings.
I hate this era of Metallica. I know there's an alternate universe where they dropped The Black Album and then just stopped releasing music, becoming one of those legacy bands that reunites every five years for a tour until 72 Seasons came out in 2022 and we’d all remember Metallica as a near-perfect discography, untouched by the 1992–2022 black hole where they stopped sounding like themselves and started chasing ... read more

Still better than Kodak

That cover always made me uncomfortable cus I thought they were brothers.
One of the most hated projects in recent memory, and rightfully so. The Chainsmokers bring back pop-EDM with trap elements roughly six years after it went out of style. Even if this had dropped in 2017, it would’ve felt off.
There’s no cohesion, just a collection of singles desperately trying to be the summer hit of that god-awful 2023 (a year I hated with every fiber of my being). Even the Illenium track ... read more

If Blink-182 sang Cardi B lyrics.
Not much to say wasn’t as terrible as I expected. The production is wildly inconsistent, with a couple decent riffs here and there, and that’s about it. The delivery is awful, the lyrics exist purely for shock value, and the artists were completely forgotten after their five minutes of pandemic fame.

I’ll never understand if for this EP Future was too high or going through withdrawal.
Future has fell off, and his fans are having a hard time admitting it. This is just a collection of Future mumbling over some halfway-decent beats and others that feel like GarageBand leftovers, talking about absolutely nothing, sounding like a parody of himself and of Juice WRLD, somehow.
It drags like a 45-minute album even though it barely scrapes 20 minutes. Disappointing, especially considering ... read more

Only one flow (yeah, I was saving that joke for Only One Flo, but tbh I’m not listening to that album anytime soon).
Flo Rida exists in that awkward space where pop fans dismiss him for being rap and rap fans reject him for being pop.
He’s basically genre purgatory in cargo shorts.
Out of all of Flo Rida’s big hits, My House and GDFR were always my least favorite. My House has a solid hook, but it doesn’t match the beat at all like a badly synced mashup you’d ... read more