Album Review: Playboi Carti - "MUSIC"

02:38 GMT - 02/04/2025

“I AM MUSIC” is the bold text that adorns the cover of Playboi Carti’s latest album in duplicate. The album’s name, however, is merely “MUSIC”, the cover being a Magrittian exercise in technically-correct misdirection; the album is MUSIC, & if it were “I AM MUSIC” the cover would have to be emblazoned with the rather awkward “I AM I AM MUSIC”, which would just confuse people. It’s a rather bold statement, though. The title (& the accompanying cover art) suggest that this album isn’t just MUSIC, it’s music, & not just any old music; it’s music in its purest form, the platonic ideal that all other music merely aspires to be. It’s a bold claim, a bit of braggadocio that’s good for marketing but also sets an extremely high bar to clear.

It’s been a long time coming, too! For around 4 years it’s been a work in progress, suffering setback after setback, endless delays & production changes, & my initial excitement as a fan of Die Lit & someone who found Whole Lotta Red decent enough (not that I really hold the latter opinion nowadays) has slowly faded to the point that upon release (SEVERAL HOURS LATER THAN ANNOUNCED, MIGHT I ADD), my reaction was simply “Oh, it’s actually out now.” Still, I decided to give it a listen & see if all that recording in French cave systems actually paid off.

The first song, POP OUT, is a decent enough tune from Carti, an overcranked rage track with almost mechanical-sounding percussion & a vocal delivery that could be described as “whisper-shouting”, but from there it’s downhill. As soon as I heard the choral backing vocals in the following song CRUSH (undoubtedly Ye’s influence showing through, though CRUSH is not the track on the album he co-produced), as well as that obnoxious blowing adlib (something Carti’s deployed before but generally in a more tastefully-mixed manner), I knew I was gonna be in for a bumpy ride…

Carti’s definitely gone for a more brash sound this time round; the mixing’s louder, the beats are bolder, there’s a sort of early 10s in-your-face epicness to it all (most egregiously in Metro Boomin’s sole contribution RADAR, which is pretty much an early 10s trap throwback, what with its blaring synth horns & rolling triplet fills; WALK falls into a similar trap to a lesser extent, but at least is a little more bold with the percussion) that I’ve never really been fond of. Doesn’t really help that it’s mixed & mastered with all the delicate touch of a Death Grips album without any of the intensity to back it up. Just feels like they thought “make it louder” is a guaranteed method to give a song energy, like.

Both EVIL J0RDAN & MOJO JOJO sound like ringtones, & not in a good way, either. EVIL J0RDAN had some potential with that opening, but the constant synth bleeps become grating after around 15 seconds or so. MOJO JOJO’s beat is by far the more obnoxious (it surpassing EVIL J0RDAN’s mere “ringtone-esqueness” & just straight up sounding like Carti’s phone is going off while he’s trying to record the song), & Kendrick’s on adlib duty, seemingly deciding to do a repeat of his performance on Range Brothers, a song not exactly known for its seriousness. I couldn’t get through this song without bursting into laughter, & while I’m not sure if that is the reaction Mr. Carter wanted his audience to have to this song it certainly makes it better than most of the material on this album.PHILLY is completely unremarkable except for the fact that Travis Scott telling somebody he’s about to fuck to “touch their toes” like they’re at a bloody pilates class is an amusing mental image. RATHER LIE makes me want to bash my head against a wall until I lose consciousness, but I’ve never really been fond of The Weeknd or his shtick.

BACKD00R is Kanye’s aforementioned single contribution to the album, & he’s undoubtedly the one responsible for that stem-separated R&B sample that Kanye probably found by typing “beverly knight mutual feeling acapella” into his YouTube search bar. Kendrick’s on this one too, in prime Pop Kendrick “singing a nice hook” mode, a side of Kendrick I never particularly enjoyed even when I was a much bigger fan of him than I am now. Only good thing I can say about this song is that apparently Kanye was displeased that Kendrick sung over the only beat of his that made the cut.

TOXIC’s alright, I guess… I’m always a sucker for a well-placed 808 cowbell, & the track’s one of the quieter ones on the album. It’s a big disappointment for me, though, as compared to his verse on Lean 4 Real (one of the highlights of Die Lit, in my opinion), Skepta’s presence on this song is lethargic, soporific & slapdash. Feels like he wrote it in an hour, extremely disappointing.

Not only does CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE legitimately make me sleepy trying to listen to it, but Future actively sounds like he’s about to nod off himself while singing the chorus, & not even a decent Kendrick verse & a slightly amusing sample can really elevate GOOD CREDIT beyond “alright, I guess”. At the very least it’s far more tolerable than I SEEEEEE YOU BABY BOI, which is built around this obnoxious synth arpeggio & unusually greasy hi-hits, almost like a tamer, blander SOPHIE beat. Something you’d imagine a Drain Gang member jumping on, like.

In spite of some rather irritating production choices (that one repeated adlib & some excessively springy hi-hats), JUMPIN is somewhat redeemed by token non-binary rapper Lil Uzi Vert’s verse on it (which I found quite satisfying in its delivery). Likewise, Future’s verse on the following track TRIM is its only memorable part, & almost enough for me to forgive him for CHARGE DEM HOES A FEE. COCAINE NOSE has this sorta churning metalesque beat, & I find it just as eye-roll-inducing as the real deal.

OLYMPIAN sounds alright, I guess. The substitution of tambourines for hi-hats are a bold choice, & the synths aren’t too annoying. OPM BABI is one of the two tracks named after the guy producing it (the other being the too-boring-to-mention WAKE UP F1LTHY) & it starts with this annoying sample before somebody decides to spam the “SWAMP IZZO!” button a million fucking times, as if they personally were trying to make my fucking day worse.

HBA has the most annoying melody one could possibly create, it sounds like a small dog whining. I wish I could euthanise this song, it’d be the kindest thing anyone ever did to it. As for OVERLY, it sounds like some bad background music from some shit N64 game nobody except for nostalgia-ridden Zillennials gives a fuck about any more. Like the circus level in a bad collectathon specifically. Even the strings sound like exceptionally cheap MIDI samples. Awful. The last track, SOUTH ATLANTA BABY, is a bunch of empty hype from DJ Swamp Izzo followed by a track that’s supposed to be bombastic with all its sound effects & choral backing vocals but fails to differentiate itself from the rest of the album sufficiently enough to sound remotely grand in any way, shape or form.

This is the way the album ends
This is the way the album ends
This is the way the album ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.

(There’s 4 extra tracks after that in the deluxe SORRY 4 DA WAIT edition of the album, but I’ve already sat through an hour & a quarter of this fucking garbage & I’m not listening to 12 or so minutes of more of the same)

I’ve gone back & listened to Carti’s earlier stuff just to check that it’s not just me souring on him in general, & I still fuck with most of it! Probably not as much as I used to, mind you, but it’s not a slog to listen to his self-titled mixtape or Die Lit! It is a slog to listen to MUSIC! The beats are worse, Carti’s Phil Mintonesque vocal gymnastics are less tolerable, the features I’d normally like are clearly phoning it in, the whole thing in general just feels slapdash & half-finished. Seems Carti didn’t really do much with the album’s 4-5 year production cycle... other than bloating the runtime a bit.

A particularly irritating aspect of this album is the perpetual presence of DJ Swamp Izzo, who “hosts” this album as if it were a mixtape. Now, I don’t universally dislike it when DJs host mixtapes. To use another recent example of a big studio album enlisting a DJ to emulate a “mixtape” aesthetic, I thought DJ Drama’s presence on Tyler, The Creator’s Call Me If You Get Lost added quite a bit to that album! They felt like natural parts of the songs! Swamp Izzo’s contributions to MUSIC, however, feel out of place. They stick out like a sore thumb & feel tacked-on after the fact. They’re repetitive & they pop out of nowhere to punch you in the face. What does hearing “SWAMP IZZO!” yelled repeatedly add to the album? How is this effective at hyping people up? It certainly isn’t hyping me up!

This is particularly unfortunate, considering that Izzo is possibly the only thing distinguishing MUSIC from Whole Lotta Red, an album I’ve found myself disliking more & more over the years. It seems that Carti’s sound has finally crystalised; he’s found his niche, & by Jove, will nothing move him! This is what we’re gonna be hearing for the rest of his career now! Awful!

You may have noticed earlier that my thoughts on the individual songs thinned as this article dragged on, & to be quite honest I found it increasingly hard to give novel takes on each subsequent song in the tracklist. After a certain point they all start to become an indistinguishable grey blur, just individual rolled oats in this flavourless gruel I’m expected to not only eat, but to savour & enjoy. If one of these songs came on on the radio, I probably wouldn’t be able to put a name to it! They’re disposable, replaceable & generally unremarkable; & considering this is part of a downwards trend in quality begun by WLR I feel very confident in saying that a far more fitting declaration for the album cover would’ve been “I AM WASHED”.

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