Album Review: BLACKPINK - The Album

BLACKPINK makes utterly disposable pop music which serves no purpose whatsoever other than to feed the industry.

Good. Now all the K-pop stans have clicked away hopefully I’m left with the smart ones. Either the K-pop fans who enjoy the music even for how disposable it ultimately is (I include myself in this category), or those who are just curious to know whether or not this new album from BLACKPINK is worth checking out. And, in answer to that question, while ‘The Album’ is slightly better than I expected, I still had problems divorcing it from the pop machine in which it was constructed. The scary thing is that if it didn’t start with two of the most detestable pop songs of recent memory, it might have actually ended up being pretty good.

And we might as well start with those songs. ‘How You Like That’ is an utterly embarrassing attempt at an ‘empowerment’ anthem that accomplishes nothing other than showcasing the band's uncanny ability to talk down to their audience. Then there’s ‘Ice Cream’, with its droning bassline and overwritten ice cream as sex metaphor that hardly makes a lick (pun intended) of sense the more you think about it, that might go down as one of the most annoying pop songs of the year. Also, the charisma vacuum that is Selena Gomez is the song, and she predictably contributes nothing of value.

But as I mentioned before, apart from those two obvious duds, there is at least something to this album that I do admire somewhat. The huge throbbing bass anchoring the really strong hook on ‘Lovesick Girls’ (it’s a shame that the production sounds as washed out as it does on that hook, though; I blame David Guetta), the staccato blasts of strings on the closing song ‘You Never Know’, and ‘Bet You Wanna’ where Cardi B shows up and, apart from referencing her Bruno Mars collab from last year that I’m fairly certain everyone forgot existed until now, doesn’t really drop a bad line on her verse. On the other end of the spectrum, the buzzy squawks of synth of ‘How You Like That’ and ‘Pretty Savage’ are headache-inducing, as is the oddly rickety drop on the otherwise pretty likable ‘Love To Hate Me’.

As for the songwriting, it’s pretty much what you’d expect. A whole lot of bragging on the vapid ‘How Do You Like That’ and ‘Pretty Savage’, some slightly more sensitive writing that turns up on the lovestruck ‘Crazy Over You’ and ‘Bet You Wanna’, but nothing really revolutionary and interesting. Then there’s ‘Lovesick Girls’ where Jennie and Lisa share an opening verse that frames them both as hopeless romantics, only for them both to betray that idea on the very next verse and take on the ‘strong woman who don’t need no man’ role that feels so played out at this point. The only song that truly feels like it’s punching above its weight in terms of songwriting is the closing track ‘You Never Know’, easily the most self-aware song here as the group goes

some way to acknowledge how far they’ve come as a group, as well as giving the fans the reassurance that the best is yet to come.

But overall, this is a completely inessential listen. There’s only so angry I will get at a pop album that’s not even thirty minutes and goes down pretty easy, but it ends up mediocre. There are good songs here, but you have to get through some really terrible ones to get to them. This is only for the fans.

2.5 / 5

Best Songs: ‘Lovesick Girls’, ‘You Never Know’

Worst Songs: ‘How You Like That’, ‘Ice Cream’

Album Review: Lil Tecca - Virgo World

I'll say it: I liked 'Ransom' when it came out. Sure, it was a dumb song that defined the term 'watered-down', but it had a unique bubbly energy to it that I found pretty infectious. Unfortunately, Lil Tecca's career since then has been built on trying to recreate the magic of his previous hit, a formula that didn't prove sustainable. I bring this up because it sums my opinion up on his debut album 'Virgo World' pretty well. Sure, Tecca might occasionally stumble upon a catchy flow (I can only imagine by accident) that might have you vibing along with the clunky but lush hip hop beats for a few moments, but that's all these songs are: moments, fragments, insubstantial slop. Virgo World is a nineteen track album, and I don't think anyone will remember a single song from it in a month or two, fans or otherwise.

The biggest contributing factor to this is the production. I can certainly excuse the 'cheapness' of the overall sound of an album like this to an extent given that this mainstream hip-hop that isn't trying to be profound, but the tropical flare in a lot of the synth tones on this project remind me of pop music circa 2016 in the worst possible way. That's before you realize the bass lines are often way too thick and clunky, swamping out everything in these mixes. The total clusterfuck that is 'True To The Game' is the best example of this. This might be somewhat tolerable if Lil Tecca was an interesting, expressive, or dynamic presence behind the microphone, which of course he's not. He spends most of these tracks pounding certain phrases into oblivion on his hooks before letting the production run for a couple of extra bars before the song ends. It's such a repetitive and formulaic approach to constructing songs that it only goes to emphasize how Tecca has been engulfed by the major label machine. You put on top of this how Tecca is such a limited rapper, and you have an album that runs dangerously close to the line of intolerability. If I'm going to praise anything in terms of the production, the guitar that adds a bit of unique flavor to 'Last Call' was a nice touch, as was the rougher groove on 'Royal Rumble'. The ghostly pianos behind 'No Answers' also give that song a dreamy atmospheric swell that I thought was pretty decent.

The most tolerable moments on this album are probably where Tecca steps back and gives some time to his guests. On 'When You Down' Polo G delivers a killer verse about how the death of his uncle impacted him on his come up. It might not match with the Tecca's incoherent blabberings about how everyone wants to be around him now he's famous, an idea which he will later repeat on 'No Answers', but I'll take what I can get. In fact, when Tecca isn't being the least interesting thing about his own songs he's downright embarrassing himself, like when he describes his girl as setting his vibe like an 'angelic Darth Vader' on 'Take 10'. Then there's 'Dolly' where Tecca somehow gets outclassed by Lil Uzi Vert (mainly because he's at least on the beat) despite him rapping the most basic flow through a layer of ugly, gurgly autotune.

Then you have the songs that are just mindless. 'Tic Toc' is an extended flex on his expensive watch with no substance beyond that whatsoever, 'Royal Rumble' tries to celebrate his come up by using a wrestling metaphor (if anyone even still cares about WWE) with him already referencing his previous hit just confirming that he has nothing new to say. 'Insecurities' might be a little better with him discussing how his girl might be insecure and how he loves her regardless, but it's one of many songs on this album that sound borderline unfinished with Tecca only dropping the one verse and the song only just stretching above two minutes. For an album trying to coast by on catchy hooks and flows alone, you'd think the songs would at least sound a little more developed to allow the melodies to thrive a little more. Then you realize that nowhere close to that level of thought went into the writing or production of this project, and I wonder why I'm even bothering.

And on that note, I think I've given this disposable nonsense a fair few more brain cells than it deserves. If you're looking for hip-hop with charm, unique personality, substance, or just something that doesn't sound like it was made by a machine, I'm sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere.

1.5 / 5

Best Songs: 'When You Down', 'No Answers'

Worst Songs: 'True To The Game', 'Dolly', 'Tic Toc'