XXXTENTACION "?" Album Review

By: James Southworth
Rating: 1.5/5 Stars

The current state of the music industry has made it to where practically anybody can make it big. Now, in some ways, I like this idea. There are some absolutely underrated bands who are now gaining attention because of how music is working right now, and I love that. But, this also makes way for some of the worst garbage I've ever heard to somehow make its way onto the Billboard 100. I think the Billboard 100 has been pretty underwhelming for the past few years, but it got much worse in 2017 with the emergence of "Soundcloud Rappers". I hate even saying Soundcloud now because of its association with talentless hacks promoting their music in Twitter and pretty much everywhere else. One of the pioneers of this movement is XXXTENTACION. You may remember me mentioning him in a more commentary based post I wrote a while back. It discussed separating the artist from the art. I talked about him because X has been accused of and jailed for domestic abuse as well as other crimes. It's really hard for me to understand why anyone would support the guy when he's been proven guilty. But, nevertheless, people do, and I figured that his music must be something special. But it isn't. It REALLY isn't. There are only a couple redeemable tracks on "?", but overall this album is unbelievably awful.

I will say, there were some tracks on this album that I legitimately thought were pretty good. But like almost every track here, the tracks I liked were too short and not fleshed out nearly enough. Probably the best track here is "Numb". This is the only song here that has a somewhat coherent song structure. I respect that X seems to want to try different genres (even if he doesn't truly pay them proper respect, more on that later). He has at least a semblance of interest for genres varying from rock to folk to even metalcore. "Numb" is of the acoustic rock genre, and it's pretty good overall. I like how it keeps on building, and reaches a climax that has a well-earned payoff. X's voice is also quite good here; I like the sort of rock/R&B style it has to it. I also think "Alone, Part 3" is a decent cut. It's weakened by its absolutely cliched emo style lyricism, but X's voice as well as the solid guitar work save it from being an entire throwaway. "Moonlight" has a unique backing beat that you can nod along to, and X actually sounds like he's having legitimate fun here. I have to give appreciation to "Room 555" for really surprising me with its metal tinged styling. There's some truly intense screaming here, and I liked how angry Tentacion sounded. If only it was longer than just under 2 minutes.

That's four out of 18 tracks total that I like. There's are some big issues with this album. For one, 18 tracks is far too many. For two, this album is actually only 30 minutes long with all those 18 tracks. How is that possible, you may ask. Well, it's because (save for two tracks) every song on here is only about 2 and a half minutes on average. Some barely even clock in at 1 minute. That makes for an album that is full of what feels like song samples rather than actual songs. The multiple genre shifts also makes this album feel entirely too unorganized. You'll see what I mean as we go through this painful release. I was turned off from "?" almost immediately with "Introduction (instructions)". In this track, X is basically telling the listener how they should be listening to the album. He tells us we should go in with an open mind to "alternative" types of music, and he also claims that he's a genius. That's got to be one of the most pretentious things I've ever heard from any album ever. Calling what he does "alternative" is bull. I guess maybe his younger audience finds some of the styles he does alternative. But he shouldn't frame metal, rock, and folk as such. That implies that he doesn't respect those styles of music either, that they might be just alternatives to him. Calling himself a genius is just laughable. "SAD!" is a pretty manipulative track in terms of it's lyrical content. There's a line that says "Suicide if you ever try to let go". X seems to actually be threatening the girl that he's talking to that he'll commit suicide if she were to ever leave him. That is so wrong on so many levels to me.  This song musically is very annoying, with a hook that won't get out of my head for all the wrong reasons.

"Infinity (888)" has a decent jazz rap vibe that I actually enjoyed for the most part, but its once again brought down by lyrics that seem to be trying to be unnecessarily vulgar just so that X and featured artist Joey Bada$$ (dumb name, but I think his music aside from this song is actually really good and thoughtful) can prove they're "hard" or whatever. They have some undeniable chemistry together, but the lyrics here just made me cringe. "going down!" speaks on a typical rap subject: sex. It checks all the boxes of what a song like this is supposed to do with nothing truly interesting or original going on. There are also name drops of Lil Yachty and Mike Tyson that ultimately contribute nothing to the track. "the remedy for a broken heart" is trying so hard to be this deep tragic song about X escaping his depression. However, its constant repetition of the hook talking about smoking weed takes away any real tension. The song comes across as whiny more than anything else, and its acoustic guitar is drowned out by other loud production. The same can be said for "Pain=BESTFRIEND", perhaps the most heinous slaughtering of the emo genre that I've ever heard. It's hard to take seriously at all with lyrics that sound like they came out of a middle school diary of someone who thinks they're being deep. I use emo here as an insult, because this song is emo in all the wrong ways. The second half of this album is far worse than the first half, unfortunately. It only gets even more painful from here.

Easily my least favorite track on this album is "$$$". This track exhibits everything I loathe about trap: the usage of manipulated vocal effects, excessive autotune, obnoxious trap beats, and lyrics that are completely void of life. X's bragging about his riches on here just feels unearned to me. It feels very awkward in the context of an album that is claiming to be deep with all these songs about depression. But when most of the "deep" songs on here are already coming across as shallow, that only makes his songs where he's flexing feel all the worse. It makes me wonder whether he actually is all about those Tumblr-level deep songs, or if they're really just a front for him so he can have people feeling sorry for him. "love yourself" is only 48 seconds long and is entirely pointless. You'll most likely forget this song as soon as you listen to it. "SMASH!" is yet another track about meaningless sex, except in this one X talks about how he likes "lemonade". If you listen to the track in context of the song, you'll know what I mean. It's straight up distasteful, stupid, and immature. The production value is over the top and X is unnecessarily drowned in autotune. "i don't even speak spanish lol" is as cringe worthy as its title implies. This song doesn't at all fit on the album, as it's seemingly a parody of Latin pop. Nothing about it feels right, and the parody feels more malicious than anything, like there's actually no respect for the genre. "changes" is yet another forgettable track, but it's followed by the infuriating song "Hope". X dedicates this song to the victims of the Parkland shooting at the beginning, but it feels like a mere afterthought when afterwords X bragging about how the haters don't effect him because he has money. "Schizophrenia" disrespects the genre of metal, feeling very haphazardly put together. This track made me particularly angry, because, once again, X seems to do this genre just because he thinks it is "alternative", not because he wants to pay it respect. The album ends on a forgettable note with "before I close my eyes".

Over the years, I have gained respect for rap. There are actually quite a few rappers I like, from Lecrae to Kendrick Lamar to NF. I think there's so much room for innovation in the genre, and I initially liked X's ideas about incorporating metal and rock into the fold. But, it just doesn't work here. This whole album is devoid of any coherence. Most of the songs are too short to be even called actual songs. They feel like lazily strung together ideas. Still, X thinks they're great because he's deluded himself into thinking he's a modern rap genius. This release isn't smart. Even the best of the tracks have themes and styles that have been done better by other artists. I would rather listen to Linkin Park's far more emotionally powerful "Numb" any day over X's "Numb". I really have a hard time understanding those who like soundcloud rappers. As this proves, X is a rapper who is leeching off other genres rather than truly utilizing them to his advantage. Please, don't listen to this release. It has high potential to be my worst album of the year.

Favorite Songs: "Numb", "Room 555", "Moonlight"
Least Favorite Songs: "$$$", "i don't speak spanish lol", "Schizophrenia", "Introduction (instructions)", "SMASH!",  "Hope"