Less than three months after publishing one of the worst things of 2019, Logic releases his second album of the season, the sixth in studio. Production is mainly entrusted to his friend 6ix and is completed by Shroom, HAZE, Illmind, AG, Frank Dukes, J.LBS, Andre Hotbox, Cubeatz, Kajo, Tee-WATT, Keanu Beats, DJ Khalil and Logic himself. The guests are Eminem, Cordae, G-Eazy, Gucci Mane, Wiz Khalifa, Will Smith and My Dad (not my dad, his dad, I mean, Robert Bryson Hall Sr.).
The cover highlights the Adidas brand, whose logo is replaced by the word "anxiety", while Bobby continues to leaf through his cell phone with his fingers, making the sign that's all right. But it's not all right: there's some sort of dark-red demon coming out of his body, almost as if he had made a pact with the devil in exchange for his soul to succeed in the music industry, like he's still in a young but empty body content — similar to what happens to Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde's novel or Oliver Parker's film — but that now, after only five years, he doesn't want to rap anymore. His eyes empty, lifeless and soulless, alone, say more than he can and wants to do this entire 55-minute album.
There's nothing here, really nothing, absolute emptiness. The album doesn't start badly, from the first ten minutes you can't say that it will be the worst product released during the year in hip-hop: the record makes you understand that it will go bad, however, not so bad. Also, because the production of 6ix is still quite acceptable at the beginning: there are two singles in the first two tracks, on a mediocre trap rhythm, Logic spits fast and comes out a decent cut. Then comes "Homicide", which is supposed to be a banger and the main highlight of the whole project: trap rhythm with stressful drum, then there's Logic that imitates Eminem and spits ultra-fast, then Eminem, always ultra-fast, finally a guy who's actually imitating Eminem, as a joke, and was put into the song as an outro. Track number three has almost decent meager rhythm and bland, weak delivery from the rapper, so "clickbait" follows: with this song, the album sinks into a bottomless pit, nothing and no one can pull it further to the surface. On a trap beat with a frenetic snare drum among the worst you can hear, Logic spits out one of his worst lyrics in a mumble style.
Over the next several minutes, Logic is overtaken by all the guests he puts in, no matter how bad they play or perform, the guy always gets worse somehow: Will Smith was an outdated rapper in 1989, placing him on a track thirty years later and on his first guest appearance on a studio album, it turns out to be a colossal gamble, the guy plays completely unfit on this bad trap rhythm and it looks like he pulled out a freestyle after he just woke up. Also, there are some completely forgettable and horrible productions, with some annoying samples and unlivable drums. The track number fifteen is as bad as the previous ones, while "Lost in Translation" is probably the best cut of the edition, and is still a bad song due to a weak and lacking personality delivery.
By summary, let's start with the positive things. The record is a huge commercial success, it becomes Logic's second album at the top spot on the Billboard 200 and his third at the top of the hip-hop chart. It reaches second place in Canada, settles just off the top ten in Oceania and the UK, and ranks across all Europe, gaining more success in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, but braking in Western Europe, where google translate probably still works or there's a greater number of mainstream local artists or hip-hop is not yet a popular music genre (maybe a union of the three? I don't care). Putting the cold numbers aside, there's very little left to say. Among professional reviewers, few go so far as to give negative ratings to two Logic albums in the same year, after having crushed and ignored the sort of indie pop disk that is "Supermarket".
Nevertheless, the boy did it, he succeeded in something attempted by everyone before him and still practically never accomplished by anyone, at least in mainstream rap: release two albums in a year that both suck a lot. At the time of writing, August 2021, Eminem followed him with an interesting double in 2020, but with a little courage you might as well save at least one of "Music to Be Murdered By". For a Logic listener since the days of mixtape, this work is difficult to overcome, more than "Supermarket", which you can skip as a crossover, sideways and oblique work to the rest of his career.
Here, Logic disappoints, a lot: he writes embarrassing and meaningless lyrics, limp to the point of annoyance, and recites them terribly, with a flow that is alternately ultra-fast and pseudo-mumble, bland and weak, on trap beats that tell you nothing, you could hear them in any mixtape on soundcloud of every single "lil/yung something" you find. The song structure is simplistic, with unbearable parrot-hooks and a continuous selection of ridiculous bars. Maybe it's his best album of the year. Difficult choice. Dunno. Without a doubt it's one of the worst records of the decade, any genre. To make a trivial comparison, it's as if Logic had spit in the air and a tidal wave of mud had fallen on him: the guy doesn't really want to do this thing called rap anymore, which in the end was just a way out of his squalid life in absolute poverty, following the riches even through a [in hindsight, evidently]-trolling suicide prevention song and other wretched things.
Rating: 1/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment