When Culture II was announced I was really excited. Culture I was an amazing album. I enjoyed every song off the album. Not every song had the same level of greatness, but I didn't find any of them to fall flat.
Now the immediate problem I encountered on Culture II was it's track list. Twenty-four fucking songs! With a total playtime of: 106 minutes or 1.766 hours repeating. Which is ironic because the entire album felt like I had a single song on repeat.
And I'm being honest here. I did NOT finish the album. I made it to track 21 and I was practically falling asleep. I took notes while listening to the album just to get my first impression down. The majority of my notes all said the same thing; repetitive, sounds like the last track, and nothing sticks out.
The entire album isn't a complete wasteland, but only four of the twenty-four songs stuck out to me. And those 4 songs are broke up into two categories:
Bumpin'/Fire:
Narcos (10/10) - I LOVED this song. The beat was fire and the lyrics flowed smoothly together. Transitions from hook to verse we're dope. Each word felt like it stood out and wasn't being washed down with boring beats and uninteresting lyrics. My favorite verse was verse 3 by Takeoff. Takeoff kills his verse and is the shining light at the end of the song.
Stir Fry (8/10) - This song was upbeat and had me bangin' my head. The lyrical flow had me singing along even though I didn't know a single lyric. While not as good as Narcos I'll still listen to this song outside of the album.
Too Much Jewelry (7/10) - "I just cashed out on my neck, that's a house" My favorite line off the album. While listening to this song I was sure this was the best one yet. It sounded so damn good and the lyrics we're humorous, but in that bangin' gangster way. The downfall of this song comes at the 2:47 mark. It turns into this jarring, annoying, robotic pile up crap. It completely destroys what the song was building up to. It single-handedly ruined the song for me. Which is a shame.
Unique:
- MotorSport (7/10) - I'm not a fan of Nicki Minaj or Cardi B. Their music doesn't typically appeal to me. But they bring some much needed uniqueness to the album. The song sounds fundamentally different from the rest. It felt like a breath of fresh as the previous 16 songs we're almost identical. When it came on I was re-energized. I'm pretty sure I was close to falling asleep at this point. It's not an amazing song, but contrasted against the rest of the album it was good.
The album was a major let down for me. It even included features such as: Post Malone, 2 chainz, and Travis Scott but they couldn't save this album.
And to make it worse they also had bad features: 21 Savage and Big Sean.
Let me just make it clear: BIG SEAN IS COMPLETE GARBAGE. Any song he's on is an instant 0/10.
Culture II gets a solid 4/10
Here are my written notes if you'd like to see individual comments I made while going through the album.