If you don't know who XXXTentacion is you are probably not that deep into hip hop culture, since this man is seen literally everywhere. He has had huge hits on soundcloud and youtube alike with songs like "Look At Me" and "I'm Sipping Tea In Y Hood". X is part of the new age rapper era where rappers blur the line of the genre with other rappers like; Lil Peep, Jaden Smith, Trippie Redd, etc.
Now I used to be a fan of X, but because of his versitile style's of music it's hard for me to enjoy most things that he makes. He dips in all genres ranging from boombap rap, trap rap to country and grunge. Naturally this leads to him being better at some genres over certain others.
He has released mixtapes before with his clique/posse "Members Only" which have been very hit and miss, so I did not go into "17" with high expectations, but not will low expectations either. I was somewhere along the middle.
Let's start with some statistics. "17" is an approximately 20 minute long album, not a single song is over 3 minutes long, the longest being at 2:43 minutes and the shortest at 1:26 (0:50 if you count the intro). There are in total 11 songs on this project, 10 if you count out the short intro of X talking about the album. There is one feature in this album, from singer/rapper Trippie Redd.
In the intro he overmines the album as something that will end up being a classic. He mentions that listening to this album is to literally dwelwe into his mind as a person and experience his thoughts first hand. This is frankly not true and this short intro made the entire album worse, since it raises the listeners expectations, making the listeners think that it's gonna be amazing. There are in total about ~3 songs that I like on this album, but there are just so many songs that feel like a drag to listen to, even though most songs are around 2 minutes long. The album has a lot of singing, more so than I expected and even though X is not a horrible singer I personally prefer his rapping.
There's not a single song I hate, but I just think that in general this album is a poor attempt at trying to make the listener depressed, but instead just makes them bored.
I will give the album credit where credit is due. The album defenetily has a feel to it and the first track of the album (after the intro) really does make you think, huh maybe this will be the best thing ever.
Should you listen to this album... why not it's only like 20 minutes long, so you're not wasting that much time listening to it. Are there better albums to listen to instead? Yes. Only listen to this if you are a X fan and feel like you just want to keep up with his discography.
"SCORE"
Total score: 5/10
Favorite Songs: Jocelyn Flores, Everybody Dies In Their Nightmares
Least Favorite Songs: Orlando, Ayala
