After nearly five years, American rapper Playboi Carti released his long-awaited third studio album, “MUSIC”, also known as “I AM MUSIC”. The album is 30 songs long and its duration is 76 minutes.
“MUSIC” starts off very poorly. The album’s opener, “POP OUT”, is nearly unlistenable. Throughout the entire song’s 2:41 duration, a painfully loud and terrible screeching melody overshadows the rest of the instrumental. On top of this, in typical Carti fashion, the indistinguishable lyrics and immature ad-libs take up the remainder of the song.
“CRUSH”, a collab with American rapper Travis Scott, is a little better executed. Like the previous song, a repetitive pad melody runs in the background, taking away from an admittedly decent 808 and drum pattern. Additionally, choruses from Travis Scott and a choir help tie the song together.
“K POP”, the next song on the album, sounds nearly the same as the previous two. The production is a little higher quality, and the verse flows a little better, but three songs in, and this album is painfully boring and bland.
“EVIL J0RDAN” and “MOJO JOJO”, the next two songs, continue the album’s pattern of Carti using a deeper voice compared to much of his earlier work. This helps contribute to the dark and rageful sound the album’s production style used so far. However, it feels messy and kind of ordinary as it just doesn’t feel like a traditional Playboi Carti album.
“PHILLY” is the first feature verse of the project. Travis Scott makes his second appearance of the album and is responsible for the song’s chorus and first verse, which was extremely good, but in doing so, takes away from the album itself. I’m all for features, but “PHILLY” sounds like it came straight from Travis Scott’s 2023 album “Utopia”, leaving the listener wanting more of Playboi Carti.
“RATHER LIE”, featuring The Weeknd, is undoubtedly the best song on the album thus far. The melody and chorus are so smooth, and Carti, for once, flows on the instrumental like he did on previous projects like “Die Lit” or “Whole Lotta Red”.
“FINE SHIT” is somewhat interesting as Carti sings nearly the entire song in his higher pitched voice he used on his past albums. The rest of the song can only be described as average, but it was interesting to see Carti switch up to a style he seems to be trying to move on from.
“BACKD00R” is less dark and more like a trap beat. It’s a nice switch-up, and is further elevated by a Kendrick Lamar verse.
“TOXIC” carries elements of grime in its instrumental, and even a verse from the grime legend Skepta. While it is a fun idea and concept, the song itself isn’t exactly well executed and is somewhat forgettable
After a string of more forgettable and bland songs, “CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE” contains verses from Travis Scott and Future. The song still retains the dark, opium sound Carti has been going for throughout the album, whilst also containing trap elements from Travis Scott and Future’s distinct rapping style.
Unfortunately, the next three songs are all sadly boring. “I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI”, “WAKE UP F1LTHY” and “JUMPIN” are all repetitive, and it feels like you’ve heard them all at least twice before. Not even features from Travis Scott or Lil Uzi Vert could help.
Future gets another feature in “TRIM”, but after almost 20 songs, this sound has become so oversaturated. It’s disappointing to see almost no stylistic changes or improvements this far into the album.
This album would’ve been so much more enjoyable if it wasn’t so long. There are still 10 more songs on this album. “COCAINE NOSE”, unsurprisingly, is another song of just Carti yelling indecipherable lyrics over an opium beat.
“WE ALL NEED DA VIBES”, mainly sung by guest appearance Young Thug, is the first song on the album with no opium sound whatsoever. A respectable break from the screaming and demonic yelling from Carti.
The song then transitions into “OLYMPIAN”. It’s still distinctly opium, but there are definitely cloud-rap influences in the chords and melodies. It’s not exactly anything special or unique, but it’s enjoyable.
“OPM BABI” switches right back into the dark rage hip-hop sound, which is somewhat disappointing considering the past two songs seemed like they were aiming to try something new.
I can’t make this up anymore, the next five songs on the album are all the same dull and soulless song with the same production style. I feel disappointed but also somewhat betrayed that I waited five years for this headache of an album.
The album’s two remaining songs, “OVERLY” and “SOUTH ATLANTA BABY”, fizzle out without any significant contribution to the album. An anti-climactic ending, all I can really say is that I was glad to finally get through this stupidly long album.
Coming into the album, I was excited for the return of Carti. Unfortunately, it’s clear he has made little to no progress as a musician in the five years since “Whole Lotta Red” was released in 2020. What helped Carti amass such a large following was his unique, pioneering sound that helped pave the way for many young artists in a sub-genre he basically created. But instead of another album of Carti exploring new sounds and forging new paths within the rap industry, Carti has faded into the crowd of rappers copying the style he created.
Overall the album is unrefined, uncared for and just way too long. Carti threw 30 songs together without plan or caution, and as a result, they all sound the same. There’s nothing wrong with rage rap or opium rap, but after 30 minutes of hearing the same thing over and over, moving on to the next song, knowing it would sound the same as the last one, it was disappointing. There were so many pointless songs that should’ve been kept on a hard drive rather than being used to water down the very few quality tracks on the album.
There are a few bright spots on “MUSIC”, namely “RATHER LIE”, but it’s lost in a never-ending sea of Carti’s stupid ad libs, repetitive production, and low quality songwriting. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend listening to this album. To put it quite frankly, it’s a waste of time. My final rating of this album is a 4/10.
