Album Review: Travi$ Scott - Rodeo

Here are some notes/ideas I wrote down during my attempts at listening to Rodeo, the debut full-length release from producer and rapper Travis Scott, often stylized as “Travi$ Scott.”

“Auto Tuned Warbling.”

I think this note speaks for self. Like countless other modern rap albums, Scott and his long list of collaborators rely almost exclusively on Auto-Tuning their vocals to create a cascading, robotic warble rather than anything sounding remotely human. It’s hard to believe that the Auto Tune has been “a thing” for, like, over a decade now, and its influence is still showing up in this recent crop of young rappers that have a penchant for codeine, synthesizers and trap style drums.

“I would be a terrible drug addict.”

I recently started a new medication, and for the first, oh, I don’t know, two or three days, I felt really weird. Like, disconnected and distant, and I was well aware of just how weird I felt; an awareness I think that in retrospect, probably only made me feel worse. So basically what I’m saying  is that I’d make the world’s worst drug addict because I hate feeling this way. I take prescription medication so that I can get out of bed and be a functioning member of society. It’s not something I do for “fun” or recreation. However, in hip-hop right now, there’s a real issue with rappers drinking way to much of a concoction that goes by many names—double cup, lean, purple drank, et. al. It’s codeine mixed with Sprite with Jolly Ranchers dropped in it. Or maybe just drinking codeine straight. Either way, this is a thing that is very hot right now to do, and it’s effecting how the music sounds—everything sounds weird and fucked up, like the instrumentation itself is on codeine. And in listening to Rodeo, even on the opening track, I have to wonder if this would sound better to my ears if I was a drug addict. Then at least it would make sense—the feeling that this record, like so many, is trying to convey.

“’Piss On Your Grave’ is amazing”

There’s a fucking song called “Piss On Your Grave” on this record. How cool is that? It features an unhinged, unpredictable performance from Kanye West. It was rumored that this was originally a ‘Ye song that was going to appear on his forthcoming (?) record So Help Me God, AKA SWISH, and that it may or may not include Paul McCartney.  Well neither of things are true since it shows up on Rodeo. Production wise, it sounds like almost nothing on the record, and as it arrives at the halfway point on the record, it sounds so god damn refreshing. The only flaw with it is that ‘Ye is not taking his work on it seriously, defaulting instead to let Scott take a verse before the song ends sooner than I would have liked it to.

I think I’m missing something when it comes to Rodeo. Given Scott’s production work for Kanye West on Yeezus and the profile he’s made for himself over the last two years, I feel like this is a record I was supposed to like. But in my numerous attempts at trying to make it through Rodeo, it’s a highly unlikeable record—it’s turgid and uninspired, coming off like the less popular cousin to the A$AP Rocky album that came out earlier in the year—and hell, I didn’t even REALLY like that album that much either.

Why is modern rap music so fucking BORING? For all it’s labored over production and guest appearances, this thing is a total snooze. It goes nowhere and rarely demands any attention from the listener.

Rodeo also suffers from being unfortunately self-indulgent. I mean, no song that features 2 Chainz as a guest should be nearly 8 minutes long. But the song “3500” features not only 2 Chainz AKA Titty Boi which  may be the worst fucking rap name I have ever heard in my life, but also Future, who is probably one of my least favorite working rappers today.

The problem, in the end, is that not every producer needs to be a rapper. Scott is an excellent producer and a sub par, at best, rapper. And even as an excellent producer, an entire record of his beats becomes entirely too monotonous to enjoy. Save for the beautiful and bizarre “Piss On Your Grave,” Rodeo is an album that practically wears out its welcome before it even gets in the door.

Rodeo is out on Friday via GOOD Music.