Dec 3, 2014

I’ve listened to this album about three full times today. A couple of weeks ago we had no clue this was coming, so 13 new tracks (sort of) from J. Cole is a nice surprise. I’m a decent Cole fan. I like most of The Warm Up, Friday Night Lights, Cole World and Born Sinner minus some boring sections of songs in each. Cole has the tendency to bore me to death and I find that I zone out uninterested and come back in a few songs later.

This album is no different. Some tracks like Wet Dreams, Tale of 2 Cities, Fire Squad, No Role Modelz have a clear purpose and concept and J. Cole’s raps are on point. Others like St. Tropez, Hello, Love Yourz are really boring and forgettable. I had to listen to them briefly while writing this to remember what they even sounded like.

The third verse of Fire Squad is the obvious stand out: a blunt call out to the way the music industry copies itself and how mainstream awards aren’t given out to the most deserving. The concept of Wet Dreamz is another nice track with Cole putting his spin on the first time he had sex. G.O.M.D. is one of the only Cole tracks where it doesn’t sound like he has a sleeping bag in the booth with him.

Anyone notice that Cole uses his drunken growly voice far too much on this album? Reminds me of how Game does it on one album track except Cole uses it for half the album.

Production on this album is passable in some cases, but boring overall. Not a single beat here comes close to “Light Please”, “Playground”, “God’s Gift”, “Mr. Nice Watch” and they are all pretty generic except for Wet Dreams, Tale of 2 Citiez and G.O.M.D.

Lots of good reviews about the hooks on this album but I don’t see it. In fact, there are 6/11 tracks where Cole repeats the same 1 line over and over again.

Wet Dreams: “And I ain’t never did this before no”
Tale of 2 Citiez: “Hands in the air now"
St. Tropez: “He’s on his way, he’s bout to get paid, he’s on his way to Hollywood”
G.O.M.D: “Get off my d-ck, woah”
No Role Modelz: “Don’t save her, she don’t wanna be saved”
Love Yourz: "No such thing, no such thing"

Lazy.

Which brings me to the most annoying thing about this album: the outro (Note to Self). A 14 minute track shouting out random people? Da f---? I listened to the first 3 minutes waiting for the beat to drop and then he teases us for nothing. He even says “if you don’t want to listen to the credits, get up and walk out of the movie theatre”. SEE YA LATER f---er. Is anyone gonna listen to this track ever again and pretend he is shouting you out or something?

Overall it’s what I expected - a few lyrical tracks I f--- with but also some boring production and forgettable raps. Time will tell, but this probably falls shorter than Cole World or Born Sinner and definitely lower than his mixtapes.

5/10

 

Dec 3, 2014

It hasn't even been out a full day to judge, let it settle.

 

Dec 3, 2014

Agreed on the G.O.M.D. bridge/hook combo, I'll excusee that one. Some are just plain lazy though. I still think production is the most generic of Cole's career when you look at Lights Please, In The Morning, Playground, Blow Up, Miss America.

And I can judge after one day because I don't have time to listen to a mediocre album 50 times over the next month. If I don't like it, there's 5 new albums coming out in the next 3 weeks I can listen to.

 

Dec 3, 2014

Yeah Note To Self is kind of pointless, but Last Call was almost the same thing besides the fact that part of it was actually a song.
All in all, I really enjoy this album. Without a doubt his best studio effort.

 

Dec 3, 2014

d---, disagree with so much

but lol @ this "Production on this album is passable in some cases, but boring overall."

smh

 

Dec 3, 2014

guess I'm also really the only one who found the outro amusing

 

Dec 3, 2014

It was funny dude yup

 

Dec 4, 2014

No 808's bruh, no b-----r man! But seriously, the production is on point on this. Coles raps are on point and I like @Hasman 's analogy of 50 Cent with the hooks. Not a bad thing at all. Big 50 stan lol

 

Dec 4, 2014

I'm interested in what kind of production you like if you think this album is boring @Ryan

 

Dec 4, 2014

Let's take St. Tropez for example:

All he did was sample the beginning of this song:


and add a basic drum loop to it. Then whined over top of it with 2 eight bar verses.


Boys, I just don't see the greatness.

 

Dec 4, 2014

After another listen this morning, I've increased my thoughts on "Hello".. The second verse is nice, switch ups are nice, the beat is great. That whiny cole voice though.

 

Dec 4, 2014

The album is growing on me. My favourites at the moment are Fire Squad,A Tale of 2 Cities,G.O.M.D (Favourite beat).