Astroworld
Anyone who has followed Travis Scott’s meteoric rise to the top over the past five years will know that whenever this man drops an album, it’s no ordinary affair. ‘Astroworld’ comes following a two year wait since his previous effort ‘Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight’, an album which in my opinion didn’t quite reach the same heights that his debut full length, ‘Rodeo’. I must say it’s been a long two years. Although BITTSM wasn’t as cutting edge or groundbreaking as Rodeo, the work Scott and his team (which includes Kanye West and Mike Dean) put into honing the Houston rapper’s psychedelic sound was clear. All I could hope for from Astroworld is that they took what they learned from the BITTSM sessions, and channelled that studio mastery into another game-changing album, because Travis Scott is one of the few people in his league as a commercial rapper who can really execute such a project.
The album takes its name from the now closed-down Six Flags Astroworld theme park from his hometown, Houston. Back in 2017, Travis Scott explained the thought process behind the name, saying: "They tore down AstroWorld to build more apartment space. That's what it's going to sound like, like taking an amusement park away from kids. We want it back. We want the building back. That's why I'm doing it. It took the fun out of the city.” Scott set the album up to be another field trip into the rapper’s own plane of oblivion, adding: “if you locked into Rodeo, you’ll definitely lock into Astroworld.”
Astroworld is a sonic kaleidoscope, a collage of ideas that comes together in extravagant ways. The album features a healthy list of collaborators, from Frank Ocean (Carousel) to Stevie Wonder (Stop Trying to be God), and Scott’s decision to strike their names from the album tracklist is a masterstroke; it feels dynamic and unpredictable, like a rollercoaster. That being said, each song feels like it’s own rollercoaster ride in itself. Most songs feature reckless beat switch-ups, such as on the opening track (Stargazing) and the various switch-ups that appear on the Drake-backed ‘Sicko Mode’ barely give you a moment's respite. Travis’ vocal chops seemed to have improved as well, he’s now utilizing his falsetto in incredible ways. This is particularly evident on ‘Skeletons’, a collaborative triumph between Scott, Tame Impala and The Weeknd, as well as on ‘Stop Trying to be God’, which is the album’s most adventurous and outright stunning track.
A lot of the albums brilliance comes from it’s extensive collaborators, and much like his biggest influence and mentor, Kanye West, Travis has managed to accommodate this smorgasbord talent very successfully; giving each feature their own space while also ensuring that they are creating in the key of Travis Scott. As Travis put it on ‘Sicko Mode’, “Who put this shit together? I’m the glue”. He also has space to shine in his own right though, such as on the apocalyptic ‘No Bystanders’ (featuring Juice WRLD and Sheck Wes), where we find Scott spitting serious flows, with a rhyme scheme that would make even the most prominent of today’s rappers blush. ‘5% TINT’ is another song where Scott effectively holds his own, delivering his trademark vibe, courtesy of his auto-tune drenched voice over a thumping 808 and cinematic keys that paints him as a broody antagonist. ‘NC-17’, which features a stone-cold 21 Savage contribution, also has Travis Scott pushing his boundaries when it comes to delivery and cadence. ‘Yosemite’, on the other hand, seems rather bereft of any Travis Scott, though there are several layers of his voice in the background. While Gunna’s contribution to the song renders the song a success, the addition of Nav on the tail-end was such a terrible decision. I can only liken it to a typo, it’s as if the production team simply forgot to edit him out. His voice sounds like it’s been recorded with a calculator, and the mix is horrendous.
My most pressing issue with the album is that is starts much, much better than it ends. While the closing track, ‘Coffee Bean’, is a decent finale to the album, the tracks leading up to it seem lacklustre in comparison to the rest of the project. ‘Houstonfornication’ comes across as a bit too comfortable, whereas 'Butterfly Effect’ seems to only be on here because of its success as a single. Last year. When he released it. The previous song on the tracklist, ‘WHO? WHAT!’, which features Travis using the exact same flow and cadence, honestly just comes across as a better version of the Butterfly Effect. It’s as if they kept working on the master track for a few more months after they released Butterfly Effect, threw on a pair of the Migos, and called it another song. “WHO? WHAT!” gets the save courtesy of an ice-cold verse from Migos’ Takeoff, who is consistently proving that, while he doesn’t have the same star power of a Quavo, he is undoubtedly the finest MC of the trio. ‘Astrothunder’ is another song that I find to be somewhat underwhelming, even more so after I found out that Thundercat has his hands on this song. Although, once I found out that John Mayer had contributed as well, underwhelming seemed about right. ‘Can’t Say’ would also be somewhat mediocre if it weren’t for a killer feature from Houston’s Don Toliver. The song is one of the many moments on the album where Scott pays homage to his hometown, like on ‘RIP SCREW’, a song dedicated to the late DJ Screw, the pioneer of 'Chopped and Screwed', a big influence on Scott as an artist arguably Houston’s biggest contribution to hip hop to date.
Aside from a few songs that I’d probably skip, Astroworld is a solid project. While there are only a few mind-blowing moments on here, the majority of the album is meticulously created and phenomenally produced. Once again Travis Scott has opened a portal into his cosmic paradise, and the result is some of his best work to date.
8/10
