[rayword45]

Day 1029: Pink Tape by Lil Uzi Vert

I wonder if anyone will be frustrated that after what feels like months of one-liner and non-sequitur joke reviews, I feel obligated to write at least a paragraph for this thing. I mean, it's so fucking long, and Uzi has been a cultural phenomenon for almost a decade now. Not to mention, those features... ah who am I kidding? Nobody gives a shit either way.

Anyways, I've never listened to this dude as an albums person. He has some singles that are truly iconic, but that's about it. His past mixtapes have been inconsistent, overlong and poorly sequenced, although perhaps judging the track ordering of a mixtape isn't fair. Despite the "tape" in this title though, this is classified as an album, so it's totally fair for me to judge all those things and more! And like past Uzi releases, this suffers from all the same flaws! Why is this thing 87 minutes? I realize 10 of those minutes are bonus tracks, but that seems a bit meaningless when the bonus tracks were released same day and same edition as the other 23 tracks, and even without them this is still a fucking movie length.

That being said, though, I wouldn't say I was ever bored while listening to this, and that's a plus. For better or for worse, the biggest flaws are when a track comes off as laughable, like the Chop Suey cover. Oh yeah, the samples and ripoffs of pop culture throughout the 2000s on this thing are INSANE. You got Gotye, you got Justice, you got emo 2000s music I'm not remembering the name of off top, this is a nostalgia platter for the ears with a Xanax-addicted dude spitting mid bars over it. And those aforementioned features, Bring Me The Horizon and BABYMETAL? If anything, the sheer creativity and unabashed lack of fear of being lame makes this a bit better to my ears.

But those 3 flaws I mentioned REALLY stick out still. This could've been cut down by like half and lost nothing. This is honestly an admirable work for me, but I can't recommend listening to the whole thing in one sitting, or even the whole thing in general. Tough decision on what I think of this, but at the very least, this was as fun as going to a white trash carnival, so whatever.

Best Track: the Chop Suey cover is both the best and worst track
Rating: 6.5/10