Sean Sharp's Diary

Listen 1: I'm sorry Dave, but Biebs and Druski got you beat with the entertaining interludes this week. The music's whatever. Dave said this will explain the lifestyle. TBH I learned nothing I already knew except Glorilla wants to fuck Matthew McConaughey Listen 2: Found a bit more appreciation for some of the interesting production. A lot of this tho is a hot mess. Wish it was more compact and decisive like the first one. NO COMMENTS and DA WIZARD are pretty cool tho. I’m at a point where I could never listen to Sheck Wes again and be completely fine with life. 1 Week Later: A trap circus. That style that Playboi Carti has made so popular, is pretty prevalent on this album and I finally found the right words for it. A trap circus. It sounds loopy but hard. Like a killer clown. JACKBOYS on their John Wayne Gacy type shit.

Listen 1: My first Freddie Gibbs project. Only other time I've heard him was on that Injury Reserve track. I can see why The Alchemist's beats are considered so "rare". Can't really find anything like that in modern rap. Off first impressions, they may not just be for me but it might grow on me as well. 1 Week Later: Unfortunately this was just not for me. I get the appeal but Freddie on Alchemist's beats just reminds me of an older time of rap. I think that a lot of the classics that sound like this are a sign of the times and their projects together are just a refreshing wave for the people that love that sound. While I don't hate the style, I don't feel like this outdoes a lot of the older rap it mirrors.

A bumpy musical ride. Had a hard time finding anything that really stood out to me here. This is interesting to listen to because it's not something you hear when you turn on the radio or find even within it's genre but it serves just as that in my eyes. I feel like, okay cool I've heard this, now time to move on with life.

Back in 2019 I went and saw Childish Gambino at Lollapalooza in Chicago. The park was packing to the brim and all the way on the opposite side of the park was Tame Impala. In between some songs, you could briefly hear Kevin's hits as Gambino got ready for his next song. This summarizes my experience with Tame Impala. I have never been able to fully immerse myself in his style fully and this album is just further away from what I could fully enjoy. I hear his stuff around, and people seem to like it and sometimes I like a certain song or part but overall I find it almost disorienting to listen to. This album capitalizes on that. Lots of drawn out instrumentals, which is common for him, but I find a portion of them here rather annoying unfortunately. Hopefully this is just a stumble and not a sign of his future.

By far his weakest album. "Issa Album" had some lows, but this thing is pretty consistently subpar besides a few key moments and "GANG OVER EVERYTHING". Coincidentally, Metro Boomin features on this, and he does bring a lot to the table in terms of quality. A lot of the production on this tries to feel like "a lot" but doesn't deliver in the same way. Don't get me started on 21's lyrics on this. Practically every song, he is dropping some ridiculous line like asking a girl not to suck the tip of his dick because it tickles. He's known for some crazy bars, but some of his most head-scratching are scattered across this thing.

I'm not entirely sure why this couldn't have been included with the first half that came out last year. Considering how short each half of the album is, having these as separate discs is pretty confusing. This is an album where everything that isn't the music is bad, and then the music itself is sometimes not bad. Where to even start. The album cover? I mean, what the fuck, obviously he is going for some trendy TikTok background music for certain styles of videos, but then labels it as "d00mscrvll". Interesting choice. He is edited into this so poorly that it starts to make me question if the cover is intentionally bad, unlike the cover for part 1 of this, which was not nearly as off-putting. Then, of course, there are the drones and the parachuting tank, or whatever that is. Is this tongue-in-cheek, disconnected from society, or just random? I have no idea. It's not like the music to me is really meant for that style of war footage video, either. There is then the purpose of an album like this. It exists purely to be utilized as background music for short videos. I mean, it's a niche, and I think it's good that any type of content has music directed towards it, but it's not usually something that I give a standing ovation for. This is almost like being commissioned to make an EDM track for some new big pharma drug in a commercial. Just lifeless and usually done by someone who is just trying to get by, not someone with a shit ton of credentials like Diplo. An album like this has practically no direction in terms of lyrics. It's a bit hard for me to judge the lyrics to "UH AH AH" since it's not in English, but given the name, I don't think it gets too deep. "FLOW STATE" is really just a pander lyrically towards the namesake of the song, no real substance there. "Skittles", my favorite on here, is a bit better, but overall, it isn't anything new in terms of lyrics, but more run-of-the-mill for Juicy J and Project Pat. "I LUV U" features just a filtered backing vocal, which I would be surprised if anyone cared about the lyrical content there. It's not as if I didn't know that EDM lyrics usually aren't of high quality, but here they are just abysmal. The beats are mostly just copycats of each other. After all, for what he is going for, it's not like he would really want to switch it up all that much. "Skittles" production does stand out a bit with it being a bit slower and this glittery grit to it that works much better than the typical bell-ridden beat that comprises the album. "I LUV U" executes the copycat style beat on this the best, as it does become a bit hypnotizing. However, given that the songs are mostly under 2 minutes, it's hard to really connect to the track, or any of them for that matter. "UH AH AH" is probably going to be one of the worst songs I've listened to this year. I don't seek out all kinds of new music all the time, but I do like to think I have a decent range. I have never been able to appreciate something like that, though. The beat is literally beating me into a pulp; the woman's vocals are too K-pop for me (sorry, K-pop), and the vocalizing during the main dance part sounds like someone singing along to what it was supposed to sound like. The features are very hit or miss on this. On one side of things, Odetari, Kodak Black, Mc Gw, and Duis Nulla, do not work here whatsoever. No offense to them, but this production needs someone else. The positive note is that 1nonly, and DVRST's vocals work exceptionally well. 1nonly perfectly slots into this style of music, but I think any fan of his would prefer his more dialed-in production, as this feels like 1nonly rapping over a YouTube "1nonly Type Beat". Then there is Juicy J and Project Pat. I'm not sure how this could have worked out, but if this were just a 34-minute album of those three, I would like this a whole lot better. Throw in a few different switch-ups on the beats and call it a day. I would be a happy man. I think Diplo knows how much better this style of music shines with them, considering Project Pat appears across 7 of the 17 tracks on both discs, and Juicy J shows up on 3.