The long-awaited third studio album from Playboi Carti, “Music,” was released on March 15 after five prolonged years of waiting and hype from both the artist and his fans.
With a runtime of one hour and 16 minutes and with 30 tracks, this album uses all of Carti’s vocal styles, including his more iconic “baby” voice, as well as his deeper voice, while rapping. About half of his solo tracks are less than two minutes long, with his longest being three minutes and 46 seconds long, but Carti’s album definitely delivers what the fans were looking for and waiting for all these years.
The album is lined with features from artists including Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, and Young Thug. Songs like “FINE SHIT,” “K POP,” and “PHILLY (with Travis Scott)” are standouts to me, as the instrumentals and beats are really good and the lyrics are really enjoyable to bop your head to. “FINE SHIT” brought the best beat that definitely sticks and showcases how the rest of the album experiments with different instrumentals throughout. “K POP” has a similar kind of beat to “EVIL J0RDAN,” yet it’s more upbeat and the vocals are unique. “PHILLY (with Travis Scott)” is the best Travis Scott feature on this album; it has almost a dream-like instrumentation, and the dynamic between the artists’ flow is really enjoyable to hear.
Although there are some low-rated songs in my opinion — nothing less than a 3 out of 5 — none of the songs are “bad,” just underwhelming. Despite this, they’ve still grown on me after listening to them over and over again. That’s why I don’t have a least favorite song on this album; all of the songs are pretty distinct from each other.
The production of the album also really lived up to my expectations and all of the hype surrounding it for his fans, since everyone had to wait a long time since his “Whole Lotta Red” album was released in 2020. “MUSIC” has been his biggest success to date and really says something about his fans and how the production of this album has evolved over the years. Snippets of songs had been teased and released by Carti on his Instagram before the release to bring more hype to his album, and it worked effectively to his fans.
This is surely his best work to date from my point of view, and as an on-and-off fan of his music, this project is definitely worth checking out and is worth all of the hype.
With the long wait and all of this to keep in mind, I’ll give “MUSIC” 4 out of 5 Big Oles!
