Written Before Listen
Jack Harlow is one of the biggest stars in hip hop right now. Matter of fact, there are only two rappers bigger than him for monthly listeners. Drake and Doja Cat. I’ve always respected Jack Harlow as he is honestly a white rapper that is lyrical enough but avoids the cliches of being a white rapper. He is also capable of making big hits, as he recently dropped “First Class”. With that being said, he did catch my attention with tracks like “What’s Poppin” and “Tyler Herro”, but I’ve seen a downward curve. On the other hand, he had an amazing feature on Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby”. With that being said, I’ve had my ups and downs with Jack Harlow, but I'm here with an open mind, without further ado, let’s get into it.
Production
Ok, we get some weird producer guests here. We have some normal names like Boi-1da, FNZ, and Pharrell Williams, but then we get tracks where Timbaland, Boi-1da, Jetsonmade, Foreign Teck, and like 9 other people on one track. There are two tracks with John Mayer as a producer credit…and there were barely any guitar solos on this album. There is a track where LEON THOMAS is a producer credit…ANDRE FROM VICTORIOUS HAS A PRODUCER CREDIT!! AGAIN!!! When writing this, I completely had a flashback to when I found out he had production credit on Certified Lover Boy, now he’s on Jack Harlow's album too. On a serious note, the production on this is the definition of mid. The guest producers deliver mid beats, the sampling is mid and even the beat switches are mid….the beats here are just mid.
Features
Out of the 4 features we have, they are all bad. Pharrell Williams comes and makes one of the worst beats he’s ever made and also has one super forgettable feature. Justin Timberlake appears on “Parent Trap” and delivers a forgettable feature and Lil Wayne delivers an annoying feature himself on “Poison”. It seems like you took the biggest people of 2008 and brought them to your album and got a Drake feature to modernize the mood a little. The Drake feature is boring like expected as well. All 4 features were missed.
Songwriting
I know the appeal of Jack Harlow is that he’s a lyricist with a laid-back bravado, but holy shit, he can't carry that sound for an entire album, he just can’t. He’s honestly borderline on where G-Eazy was in 2015, but without the cornball attitude. I guess with songs like the outro, he tries to get serious and introspective but it just ends up being too late at this point. You gave me no reason to care at all.
Influences
Ok, am I the only one who thinks Jack Harlow is trying so hard to be the next Lil Wayne? I don’t know about you, but his laid-back attitude, his comical one-liners, and his focus on lyrics remind me so much of Lil Wayne in 2008. Don’t get me wrong, Tha Carter III is a classic record but I feel like Jack Harlow is striving to be that, he was definitely one of those kids who idolized that man back then, Lil Wayne was on top of the world then so it makes sense, but Jack Harlow is making a pathetic approach to rehash that. I guess he isn’t the only person he takes influence from. I think there is a lot of Drake influence that shows up, especially on the song “Dua Lipa”, I think there is some slight Missy Elliott worship on here and a slight bit of JAY-Z, but Lil Wayne seemed to be imprinted in Jack Harlow's mind when making this album.
Favorite Tracks
No track caught me in a good way, the closest track I’ll say is “Nail Tech” but god damn, even that was underwhelming. I know Jack Harlow has it in him to make a quality record but for now, it’s not here. So yeah, this is bad.
Verdict
I’m honestly glad we’ve gotten so many great albums in 2022 because, with this album and MGKs album, it could’ve looked like a bad year, but with so many great albums, it distracts from the fact that albums like this have dropped this year as well.
Comments