6/10
Favorite Track: "Who Shot Cupid?" Least Favorite Track: "Rider"
In the mid-late 2010s the worlds of emo music and rap collided when a number of young musicians who were inspired by the likes of bands from My Chemical Romance to Fall Out Boy and rappers like Jay-Z to 2Pac morphed away from their Soundcloud accounts with niche followings and into the mainstream. Few rappers have been closer to the forefront of this movement than Chicago’s Juice WRLD. His 2018 single “Lucid Dreams” would go on to peak at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, only a few years after he started his career. This would lead to a signing from Interscope Records and millions of fans looking forward to his debut major label release. Some time later, on May 23, 2018, Goodbye and Good Riddance was released by Grade A Productions and Interscope Records. The album would go on to receive rave reviews both commercially and critically but it left fans wondering one thing ; what comes next? The questions were everywhere. There was obvious doubt that Juice WRLD could expand this style of rap into anything more than one projects worth of music. That brings us to his 2019 release and second studio album Death Race for Love. As someone who grew up listening to Emo music I have to say that Juice caught my attention pretty quickly. I was rooting for this guy. His blend of these two genres clicked better for me than most of his contemporaries because of his obvious lyrical skill and focus on lyricism. Let's not forget this man’s hour long freestyle on TimWestWoodTV, but i’m sad to say that Death Race for Love is bloated (and that’s really this albums downfall). This thing is 22 tracks and seventy two minutes. This style just isn’t varied enough to warrant an album that long yet. I truly was hoping, the length of the record wouldn’t be an issue, but it is. I don’t care what artist does it, if your album has twenty-two tracks on it not every single one is going to hit for everyone. It’s simply unrealistic, and that's why this album is such a mixbag. His girlfriend has come out and confirmed that this whole album was freestyled and I don’t really have a reason to not believe that. That fact gives the length a little bit of an aspect of impressiveness, but no one asked him to go out and freestyle a full length project. I’d rather have an artist I love take an extra year on an album that I'm anticipating rather then having them make one that is freestyled in four days if the end product in the first option comes out sounding more finished. Despite the length, Juice hits the hooks on this record pretty consistently which is something I’ve become accustomed to hearing from him. In addition to this, the instrumentals on this album are definitely more out there than anything he has played with before. There’s a number of deep cuts on this thing with whaling electric guitars and some live drums like on “big” or even some pretty well performed acoustic songs like “Who Shot Cupid?”. It’s pretty clear that Juice had a large range of influences in mind through the recording of this project, and he wears them on his sleeve in a pretty tasteful way. The intro to the album comes in with a slew of gorgeous and luscious keys. The song is much like the rest of what Juice offers up on this project but the hook is pretty creative when he talks about how he “problem solves with styrofoam” obviously referencing his addiction to lean. It is only one of the hundreds of references on this thing to his abuse of substances as a coping mechanism. There are so many that it borders on repetitive, but the subject matter wasn’t as vital to me on this LP as catchiness was, so I definitely listened with a passive ear for these references. A couple songs later we get an interlude landing in slot #4 of the album. It doesn’t make any sense, especially considering that a twenty-two song album better have a damn interlude but when it’s placed in the very beginning leg of the project it doesn’t do much good. That isn’t what an interlude is for. If it were meant to offer a sort of transition into a new section of the album, I didn’t see it, as there isn’t really a stylistic shift of any kind at this point in the album. Track #5 ; “Fast” is decently enjoyable. It’s very hooky but the hook gets pretty annoying. None the less I like the performance on Juice’s verse a lot and the progression of the track works very well. “Big” is a huge dud for me and it simply seems like the definition of filler. The bars are barely comprehensible when they obviously were not meant to be performed that way. The gritty hi-hats and lo-fi quality of the song also seem really out of place. There’s a few other songs just like this on the album that are equally dysfunctional. The single for this album “Robbery” really grew on me. It’s a super easy track to vibe to and get into. The subtle keys in the background add this sort of cuteness to the themes of unrequited love that Juice describes which builds a pretty interesting contrast in the track. It sort of feels like a lot of what Kanye did on Ye (even though I doubt that was an influence). Right after that we get track #9 “Flaws and Sins” and it is another highlight for me. The streaky guitars in the mix almost imitate the sirens that are plastered underneath the beat. It’s sort of a basic lyrical topic but I think he executes it and puts his own spin on it decently well. The track is one of those ballads about loving the good things and bad things about someone's personality or in this case their “Flaws and Sins”. I like the line when he says “Your scars are really gorgeous. Ain’t that a weird way to give compliments?” “Syphilis” is a huge change of pace and we see Juice on his X and Ski shit. It really shows off his versatility despite weather or not that was his intention. I think it also has more energy that any other track on the record. The whole track sort of reminds me of his screamo rap style verse on Ski’s “Nuketown”, which is ironic because some of the adventurous ways he changes up his flow in this song sort of reminds me of the way that Ski Mask The Slump God does the same. “Who Shot Cupid?” is probably my favorite hook on the album. The acoustic mixed with the trap bass goes so hard when it explodes into the refrain. “You know me well well well you know me well”. Next we get “Ring Ring” with Clever which sort of ends what is my favorite leg of the album. It is yet another genre experiment for Juice with its heavy, distorted guitars. I love the message of the track and how it sort of talks about learning to be okay with being alone. It is a pretty nice change of pace for the subject matter on this album. Clever’s feature provides some solid energy despite a few very very cringey lines. For example “I don’t feel like coming to the phone today, unless the postmates coming on the way”. I could go on and on about the rest of the twenty two songs on this album and my oppinions on each and every one but I think you get the point. This album is a mixbag and an extreme one at that. What is so incredibly frustrating is that there is a 9/10 album within these tracks. It is just surrounded by a 3/10 album and it’s sad to say, but unfortunately 9-3=6. (6/10).