Review Summary: Perfectly in line and completely out of style
I’ve rambled on incessantly regarding the state of the modern music market—its size, all the genres, the people involved, the benefits, the costs. There’s probably enough material in these concepts to fill a handful of books. If I were to simplify my ideas to a basic, central core, the prevailing sentiment would be that the barrier of entry has significantly lowered over time; anyone that wants to produce music now may utilize cheaper, easily-accessible tech, a studio setting no longer being a requirement. While it’s true that such an advancement is fairly positive on the whole, one must understand its full implications: anyone that wants to produce is most likely able to. For better or for worse, that kid you knew in high school with the baggy, self-cut jeans, single earring and OBEY snapback can create a SoundCloud account and post his Eminem covers. The imagery seems apt when attempting to describe Elcamino’s self-titled debut, which is akin to a bunch of friends lazily standing around a microphone and retrieving a beginner’s beat from a stock music library. Predictably, this leads to a release that is incalculably dull.
It's never enjoyable to be so negative, especially when concerning new artists—you’d rather welcome rather than chase people off—but the sheer lack of any emotion or inspiration in
Elcamino is startling. Hip-hop and rap each have a dense history full of potential designs to use as a foundation or develop further. Yet, anyone involved in Elcamino’s effort seems perfectly content falling in line and abiding by trends, making them undistinguishable from any dime-a-dozen Bandcamp rap release. The tropes roll their ugly heads around every corner, bombarding the listener straight-on in the stereotypically sample-heavy “Intro” that tries to set a mood by including news reporting clips underneath a contrastingly nonchalant scat-singing. I can only assume that Elcamino either knew this had been done to death (much better) in the past and attempted to mimic predecessors, or he genuinely believed it to be a stroke of genius. Quality proceeds to an absolute downhill slide promptly afterwards; “Mizz” features a repetitive, droning beat coupled with a vocal delivery that is even more so. Then, “One Way” comes along and is plagued by the exact same problems. Then “Food Lordz.” Then “Blood, Sweat & Tearz,” “Insane,” and the rest of the album. It all sounds the same. There is not a single thing that serves to captivate audience interest, not a single thing to critique in one instance that is different from the rest. Even replacing an ‘s’ with a ‘z’ is laughably contrived.
When beats are as stripped back to the extent they are here, more attention is placed upon the lyrics and rapping. Lupe Fiasco and Milo have found success in this particular field—Lupe’s command over language and general wordplay lead to attractive flows and rhymes, while Milo’s more philosophical-sounding approach place the listener under some kind of comfortable hypnosis. One way or the other, they have a certain edge to them, some kind of critical factor that quite nearly forces an individual to sit down and appreciate the music. On
Elcamino, one is offered nothing more than standard gangster braggadocio, all from the ‘gats,’ ‘pumps,’ killing them bitches and takin’ that cash, all conveyed with a charm equivalent to text-to-speech programs. Perhaps the formula is mixed up on occasion, where the bitch-killing occurs after the cash-taking, though that’s about as far as you’ll get with Elcamino’s verses. The included features are no better, but even then, they noticeably outshine any section languidly supplied by the main artist.
There’s just no way to sugarcoat it:
Elcamino is thoroughly monotonous. It goes step-by-step through the imaginary checklist, crossing off as many clichés as possible, never once displaying an aptitude to make a change. This sort of blatant complacency encapsulates the myriad of other would-be music creators that shamelessly portray an absence of ambition in any shape or form. Having technology so readily available does indeed bring talented people into the fold; however, it simultaneously leaves the door open for measureless amounts of copycats. To be clear, it is not a necessity to craft media that breaks boundaries or challenges the status quo—some people are only endeavoring to have fun, after all, and it’s a tall order nowadays to achieve 100% originality—but you should at the very least inject some energy into your output.
Elcamino doesn’t have energy. It’s hip-hop without the hip or the hop. If no engaging element is found anywhere in a given record, there is nothing to protect any possible faults; as it stands, faults are the only thing that Elcamino presents.
