I'm gonna copy-paste some of my albumoftheyear.com reviews onto this site but only the few that I think are notable enough to be put on my blog.

VULTURES 1

In preparation for this review, I listened to WTT, KSG and V1 in succession and came to an obvious conclusion by the time I was done. Compared to how grand Watch The Throne was and how glossy Kids See Ghosts was, Vultures 1 just kinda feels like Cope both musically and lyrically. It is not a *bad* album by any means with phenomenal songs like Burn and Carnival, but even with an album like WTT that was shrouded in glamorous, fancy flex raps, it still had some passionate, vulnerable moments of lyricism like Murder To Excellence and New Day that reflect how they truly came from nothing. It wasn't just flexing, and even if it was – they deserved it! They were the hottest rappers on the planet at the time and were coming back into a new era of relevancy within their careers having dropped some of their hottest music yet at the time! 

With Kids See Ghosts, the album was anything but that explosion of grandeur, wealth and stardom but instead was a minimal yet passionate album with discussions on mental health and the perils of fame, with the real 'victory' not being through physical wealth but mental wealth. All of this, of course, put atop these dreamy sonic landscapes that made the album as well-acclaimed as it was – and that makes sense! Kanye and Cudi were some of the frontrunners of discussions of mental health on a larger stage with Kanye's infamous bipolar diagnosis and Cudi's battles with addiction and depression. Both of these men truly struggled and lost a lot prior to this album, so this album being an anthem for mental emancipation only felt natural given the two artists involved.

With Vultures 1, though, it seems to want to have that grand comeback appeal Throne had, but lacks the depth to make me feel like it was a moment to behold. I don't hate it – but why was this even made? It has some of Ye's worst writing and some pretty awful songs like Stars and Paid (the latter of which got annihilated from the OG version played at listening parties). It's the opposite of a victory lap as it comes off arguably the worst year in Ye's whole career. With every ear on every listener and every spotlight shining down on Ye's newest album after this fiasco, a lot of said listeners hoping that he comes back and makes something masterful akin to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or something vulnerable and receptive to growth akin to Ye or even Donda and instead... we get party music. Again, why? Sure, Ty Dolla $ign, who specializes in this kind of music, slides effortlessly on these glossy, almost TLOP-meets-Donda-2020-esque beats that Ye himself couldn't be bothered to even produce because he's hardly a producer anymore. But the flows Ye puts on, the bars, and his whole general headspace on this album feels like he wants to try and recreate an underwhelming Drake album or a Kanye take on an Opium label album. That is to say, Ye pretends all the critiques going against him aren't real as he raps about how he, a married man with kids, wants to have sex and flex on the woke mob or whatever. It doesn't come off as cool or funny like it used to be when he was doing this same shit earlier in his career, because of the expectations for Ye built by the idea that he "always bounces back effortlessly after every controversy". It's not about proving a message or saying anything, it's just Kanye making a failure lap trying to celebrate just how negatively everybody who isn't a sycophant views him nowadays and still having the audacity to insist he's still "the king" on the album's final track. The king of what Ye, a mental asylum? A 4chan forum? To quote Darlene Tibbs, you ain't no king!!!

Onto a more specific breakdown of the album, which should've been done earlier probably but I wanted to throw in my 2 cents on the concept of the album before getting into the nitty gritty. STARS is a very *interesting* opener, to say the least. Not that it's very good or provocative, but a gospel-inspired opener that hardly sounds anything like the rest of the album is a super strange choice. Ye has some awful bars and Ty's singing is a little obnoxious as times. The production is lackluster but I do think the sample would have made for a good gospel song that'd fit with some late 2020/early 2021 Donda leak. Then, we're brought into KEYS TO MY LIFE, a pretty underrated track with respects to Ye's new wife Bianca Censori. The production here is a lot more interesting with Ty ushering in an honestly pretty good beatswitch while delivering a pretty sweet section. Ye has a pretty good couple of verses even if it starts with a pretty silly bar (Emoji-nal? Is he stupid?) Following that is a consistently strong run of songs which blew my expectations. PAID is a pretty catchy Ty Dolla $ign banger if you ignore Ye's atrocious verse, TALKING/ONCE AGAIN is def the stronger of the two singles that dropped before the album's release with an uplifting switch, BACK TO ME has a pretty solid Gibbs verse and a phenomenal beat/Ty chorus even if Ye is meming on his long annoying "verse", HOODRAT is probably the funniest Ye song ever made for all the best and worst reasons, and DO IT is probably the best song on the album. Then it starts to drag you back into the fact that you are listening to a Kanye project in 2024 with PAPERWORK's obnoxious beat and terrible verses. After that, the album becomes an inconsistent mess with good songs like BURN and CARNIVAL being thrown in with sloppier, less finished songs like FUK SUMN (damn you for ruining this song jpeg) and VULTURES. Finally, after a beautiful Ty verse on the not-so-beautiful-but-actually-horrifyingly-underwhelming song BEG FORGIVENESS, GOOD (DON'T DIE) plays and gives the listener a breath of fresh air. The production is minimalist in the best way, not overbearing and not too stripped away. Both artists come together to deliver a short, hopeful verse on the crown jewel of this album. The penultimate track, PROBLEMATIC, is a... pretty okay song? The beat is fucking amazing but it never feels like either rapper takes it to another level. It's fine, really, even if the beat feels a *little* wasted on this pair. And finally, KING. This song is probably the most miserable song in his discography. After proving nothing, bragging about how, yes, he actually is that antisemitic, and reminding the listener that he does not welcome free thought if it challenges him, KING is the culmination of what happens when you surround yourself with sycophants. The beat comparatively generic to the highs of the album, Ye's lyrical and vocal performances here are abysmally bad, Ty Dolla adds hardly anything here, and all-around this is my pick for his worst song. The album's sequenced like a decent sandwich with some toppings you don't like and moldy bread festering with egomaniacal maggots.

To embellish on something I touched upon before concluding, I want to say that this is the first time, to me at least, that Ye is making an album with absolutely NO statement. Ever since "Kanye West" bowed out with Donda, he has reached a point in his career where he has nothing left to prove, or at least no strength to prove anything he *does* have to proof. It feels almost useless in that sense – not really adding anything to his discography nor taking anything away. It's Kanye's Drogas Light if that makes sense, just music put in any order he feels like ordering it for the sake of just putting music out. For Ty Dolla this type of music is normal (and hell, he was actually on Drogas Light twice), and this is actually a pretty great project if you focus on Ty. This type of music is his forte and this is where his bar is at as far as being a melodic singer/rapper goes. But for someone like Ye, there was a lot more that I was expecting from this given everything he has done.

It's not awful, it really isn't. There are some good instrumentals on the album and some decent features and Ty Dolla $ign shines through on a lot of songs, just the premise and execution of a lot of the album rubs me the wrong way and makes me not want to rank it higher than a 6/10, and it's unlikely that I'm gonna find myself returning to this project in full the way I have returned to and consistently loved a majority of his previous works.

Note: Good (Don't Die) got killed and the album is so much worse for it

3.9/10
Best Songs: Do It, Carnival, Burn
Worst Songs: Paid, everything JPEGMAFIA had production credits on