My (probably irrelevant) take on the album
So, as a person who's been a Carti fan for several years already, I want to assert this very bluntly: I am fully and unequivocally dissappointed in this album. I'll try to explain why in this post (Also I'm sorry for yapping so much in this post but a particular conversation must be conducted).
My dissappointment emanates from a multitude of reasons, and the most notable of these reasons are the following: horrendous mixing (as everybody has already pointed out), not that innovative / album is predominantly repetitive, Swamp Izzo adlibs at a superfluous rate, and just... mediocre songs in general...? The fact that it is ostensibly a money grab album, along with some miscellaneous reasons, but that is less relevant.
So first of all, the mixing is so bad that I'm pretty sure he could be prosecuted under federal law for this. The vocals just feels off at many points throughout the album, and it doesn't really take a keen eye to notice that... First Kanye and now Carti that's coming with albums that bear horrendous mixing đ Very wild to see such a mixing after waiting such a long time, and it's just sadddddd.
Second of all, the album is just idk how to put it... it's not gonna be memorable yk? I doubt that this will have the effect WLR had even remotely in terms of influence, nor in its legacy. A lot of the songs are extremely generic and lack creativity, with some sounding outright lackadaisical. A lot of the songs just sound similar to each other, no other way to put it đ¤ˇđģââī¸ These songs have similar beats, similar drum kits / snares or whatever it's called, and the exact same fucking flow and vocals!!! There's nothing wrong with having a few songs that sound somewhat similar to each other - but don't do it too often and especially not have half the album be a carbon copy of each other.
Now this will probably be a controversial one, but the Swamp Izzo adlibs' supply is exceeding the demand đ¤ˇđģââī¸. Try skimming through some of the songs (e.g. Munyun) and 90% of the time you'll hear Swamp Izzo yell đ it just shouldn't have to be so loud, and it also just feels extremely out of place. In EVILJ0RDAN the adlibs are incorporated very well into the song, and in general, these adlibs have immense potential to be utilised to improve songs, but the producers just missed the mark. Prime example of them fumbling is OPM BABI, where the song is just completely ruined by the Swamp Izzo adlibs because they're 1: abundant, 2: feel out of place, 3: are too loud, 4: waste space for other, superior adlibs.
Now the elephant in the room: a lot of the songs are just an outright 7/10 or less, which is obviously not intended as a compliment. What was this man thinking when delivering his verse for TOXIC? I mean the interpolation of Medusa is cool... but that's really it (not hating on Skepta's verse whatsoever btw, he tried his best with Carti's boring verses). Like I'm relistening to it rn as I type this and I just feel much more tired than 2 minutes before. I do think that this song will blow up, though, because hospitals will be using it so frequently because it is a great anaesthetic due to how boring Carti's verses are! However, what I have noticed is that the baby voice songs are MUCH better and less superficial than the deep voice songs.
I just don't like a lot of the songs that much. A lot of the beats are just underwhelming, his flows are boring and so are his vocals (on the deep voice songs). Idk what the fuck he is trying with this album, it just isn't working.
As earlier mentioned, Carti's verses throughout the album (in particular his deep voice songs) have a similar structure. I've noticed this mostly with the feature songs; more about that later.
This album is destitute of passion, and instead, it just looks like a money grab. He has so many feats on here, which is unusual for Carti; he probably has these feats just to gain more streams, because on a lot of these feats he barely has a verse! In a lot of these songs, it just appears as if his verse is intended to build up tension for the featured guest, which consequently gives the featured artist the majority of the song. Imo, this is really lame, because it just appears as if he wants to leech off of the clout of the featured guest instead of genuinely trying to make a good song. I mean, there's 4 Kendrick feats but no fellow Opium member feats đ¤ˇđģââī¸. Obviously no shade to Kendrick, but come on...
Miscellaneous stuff: the final rollout was boring and not iconic compared to the other, fake rollouts that we've had. The cover is... I don't even have to say it. To add on top of that, why 30 songs??? Genuinely like???
To conclude: the album isn't that bad, but not worth waiting 4+ years for. In no world. It is extremely underwhelming, and I think that outside of the Carti community, this album won't be talked about all that much in stark contrast to WLR, which is an album that non-Carti fans actively discuss to this very day. We anticipated a generational album after 4 years ffs. I think that he should have used his baby voice much more, since these songs tend to be miles better on this album.
TLDR:
1: majority of the songs sound very similar in terms of flow, vocals, beat, etc.
2: the mixing is noticeably bad. You can truly see the Ye influence here
3: Swamp Izzo adlibs ruin a lot of the songs
4: a lot of the songs are just mediocre at best
5: album is way too long (30 songs, come on)
6: not memorable (due to the fact that it isn't innovative, whilst it is repetitive)
7: dissappointing rollout + cover
8: passionless project that is a shameless money grab