Mar 19, 2025

Playboi Carti - MUSIC
(Yeez Yap is Back)
Well well well.... Jordan Carter finally dropped. I think it goes without saying that your opinions on this album are probably gonna reflect how you already feel about Carti beforehand. If you usually hate this type of music, this is going to the worst thing ever recorded for you. If you usually love this type of music, this might be a groundbreaking release for you. The gist of what I'm saying is that, its very unlikely that MUSIC is going to change whatever opinion you have about Carti (Unless you're @Michael Myers, in which case you need to accept that Carti is the best musician ever)

I've had a strange relationship with Carti's music. I think Self Titled is fine. Some classics on it no doubt, but its probably my least favorite of his projects. On the other hand, I think Die Lit is a great record, that takes the groundwork laid out in ST and improves it. The first 3 tracks alone are absolutely stellar. What I think truly makes Carti special though, is how he refused to stick to that sound. The leaks that came out post DL are definitely good, but I feel that continuing with that sound would've greatly limited him going forward. As such, its no surprise that I absolutely love Whole Lotta Red. For a mainstream rap album in 2020, its incredibly rough (s/o to F1LTHY), and the energy that Carti brings forth makes the experience incredible. I've been a WLR lover since day 1, and I continue to love that record to this day.

Now, we finally get to MUSIC. My first attempt at listening to this record went horrible. Let's just say that this album was not made to be listened to in a minuscule dorm room while your Chinese foreign exchange roommate is sleeping. I think that POP OUT is actually a great track. Its distorted, its loud, and its GREAT. I mentioned this in a post earlier, but I view this record in a similar way to an album like The Stooges' Funhouse (or Raw Power for that matter). At least in the current mainstream, you're never gonna hear a song like K POP or COCAINE NOSE from a non opium artist. Similar to Funhouse, the highlight of MUSIC for me is the ENERGY. The beats, Carti's multiple voices, (I swear he has to be possessed by the ghost of Desiigner or something), the overall feel. The inclusion of gun shots and SWAMP IZZO, give me heavy mixtape vibes. Like, this reminds me so much of Flockaveli at certain points.

With all this talk, you'd probably expect me to say that this album is an absolute 10, and Carti's masterpiece. That's... not the case. One of my weakest complains comes in the form of the features. I saw a post on the absolute madhouse that is r/playboicarti that summarizes my point very well I'd say.

Now, I'm not saying that having Travis Scott, Future, and The Weeknd on every album is necessarily a BAD thing. I honestly think that The Weeknd did a pretty good job. Travis and Future though? They do what you would expect Travis and Future to do. Skepta has by far my favorite feature on the entire project though. As someone who's been glazing Kendrick for the past few years, I was very mixed on his appearances. I liked him on MOJO JOJO and GOOD CREDIT, but I feel that his part on BACKDOOR was unnecessary. Uzi was eh. In contrast to Carti, I feel like Uzi's attempts to change his sound have been decent at best. I liked parts of PT but after EA2 I'd say he's washed.

Then there's my biggest issue with this record...it's really f---ing long. For the record, I LOVE long albums. Aphex Twin's 3 hour long SAWII is in my top 5, and I have Donda as one of my favorite Ye albums. I see a lot of similarities between MUSIC and Donda actually, like the strange rollout, features, aesthetics (lets just hope Carti doesn't start praising Hitler 12 years from now lmao) I think if this album was cut down to 24 songs (get it) like WLR, it could definitely challenge that record for Carti's best, at least for me. But 30 songs....Man. Someone mentioned this before, but the album really loses it steam by the 50 minute mark. Lots of these tracks are just unnecessary. Also, can he please stop using AI in order to not record his vocals? its f---ing lazy.

So yeah, Playboi Carti's MUSIC is an energetic experimental record that is heavily bogged down by having 6-8 too many songs. I'd love to see what songs other people in the club would cut. The Thug and Ty track would be one of the first for me. I might revisit this album more in the future while at the gym, since thats where I think this type of record excels at. I guess we just gotta wait for BABYBOI now lmao.
FAVORITES: POP OUT, MOJO JOJO, TOXIC, HBA
RATING: 7.5/10
@AOTWClub @Michael Myers

 

Mar 19, 2025

Also for the record, MUSIC is my AOTY currently since its the only new album I've heard this year aside from HUT. I guess I enjoy JPEGMAFIA's ILDMLFY (Director's Cut) much more, but its basically a glorified deluxe of an album from last year, so it doesn't count

 

Mar 19, 2025

both kinda music for gay vampires imo

 

Mar 19, 2025

Playboi Carti - MUSIC

This is kinda disorganized, just writing down thoughts as they come to me:

Something I've always felt Carti was great at was knowing exactly how long a song needs to be — like it's kinda incredible how some of the 90 second songs on here feel so fully realized and integral to the album for how short they are (and on the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm always dumbfounded that m3tamorphisis off WLR is over five minutes long cuz it never feels like it).

I like how most of the features make multiple appearances on here, it make sit feel like they're characters popping in and out of Carti World (kinda like a less extreme version of how Ghostface is basically a co-star on OB4CL) instead of just a random verse being emailed in to slap onto a song. With Kendrick especially I looooooove that you can tell they had actual studio sessions together, they legit have great chemistry and I rly like when featured artists see/f--- with the vision of the album like that and meet the album artist where they're at.

But for that reason, I have to agree with @Allis Mines that unfortunately some of the worst songs on the album are the Thug/Uzi collabs. The Thug verse is apparently from 2019 and Jumpin is obviously from Pink Tape era. Carti only has like two adlibs on Twin Trim, which I do like as a song, but it's an obvious contender for a cut. They feel pasted in and unnecessary and generally clash the most with the album's sound.

Also like @Allis Mines, Whole Lotta Red is my favorite album ever on a good day, and certainly in my top 10 every day. It's really difficult to follow that up and I'm not putting this above WLR, but to me he delivered a more-than worthy successor. Pop Out shattered my brain completely the first time I heard it (in a good way), then Pop Out outro into Crush to K Pop to new EVILJORDAN intro is one of my fave first time listens in recent memory.

There's so many flows and voices on here, so much crunchy-a---, mind-melting production, you're just constantly hearing new sounds. Like that part on the weekend joint where he keeps changing his voice like "I'm drinking that lean and I TALK LIKE THIS" is so fire lmao. The only voice I'm a lil ehhhh on is the one where he sounds too similar to future, but considering how many different ways he raps it feels more like homage than just biting.

Overall MUSIC suffers maybe a little bit from TLOP-syndrome where it's big and messy but it's also somehow cohesive at the same time and maybe that's kinda the point? (and more like if TLOP leaned a little more into Yeezus, to continue the Kanye analogy). For that reason, I do think it would have benefited from a few songs shaved off of there cuz there's a few duds as I previously mentioned, but still a remarkable hit rate for a 30 song album (even if that length is kinda disingenuous on paper cuz it's like 75 min total due to a bunch of short songs lol). He also should have put f--- on my DJ on there, don't know how that didn't make the cut but that Thug song did lol.

Also calling your album just "MUSIC" is in incredible bit and I love a good bit, 10/10 title it's so f---ing stupid/funny to do that.

Despite a few rough edges Carti continues to be an auteur in rap and pushes the genre forward with groundbreaking new sounds shout out @Wreckless . It's obviously not a sound that will jive with everyone, but it's just such fun, energetic music with so many varied flows and voices and production that makes you go "what the f---" one second and then "this is hard as f---" the next as it clicks with you all of a sudden.

Favs: Pop Out, Crush, Olympian, Crank, Like Weezy, EVILJORDAN, Cocaine Nose, like all of them lol still gotta spend more time with the back half of the album especially

Least favorites: Jumpin, We Need All Da Vibes

8.5/10

@AOTWClub @Michael Myers

 

Mar 20, 2025

He should have put 2024 on the album and just called it 2025 and not changed any of the lyrics, that would have also been a great bit.

Also extremely good point. Rage music took over almost instantly, it's so wild how fast hip-hop subgenres move now. It used to all be thug and future sons and now it's carti sons (tho they've still got influence from thug and future obvs cuz so much of rap is influenced by them in general).

 

Mar 20, 2025

What's the deal with the mixtapes @Justin Trudeau ? I was off the form for a couple months so I missed that, I'd love to hear people's i missed if they link em

 

Mar 20, 2025

not JT, but a few weeks back in january we started doing these mixtapes back at the start of the year. The only real rule was that each one was around 16 tracks long. JT’s OP has the page #’s for each tape. We’re starting the next round on monday with @Wreckless . This time around we’re limiting our options from the 70s-90s, so theres a bit more of a concept this time