Review Summary: complete trash
Posthumous albums are a touchy subject in the music world. Tampering with a dead artist's unreleased demos in order to make a quick buck is generally not something one would consider ethical. In rare cases, it can add to an artist's legacy, with Mac Miller's Circles being the golden standard for posthumous hip hop albums this decade. In most cases, however, a posthumous album can be a sloppily thrown together and pathetic cash grab. xxxtentacion's already flimsy legacy was completely destroyed by two shameful attempts at selling out - skins and the even more insulting bad vibes forever. But as bad as those two records were, there is a new contender for most pathetic posthumous album of all time - Pop Smoke's Faith.
This new pop smoke album is fucking embarrassing and a complete shitstain on the music industry as a whole. This is easily the worst album of 2021, which is saying something considering Maroon 5 and Justin Beiber both dropped this year. If you thought bad vibes forever was a pathetic cash grab this is somehow a million times more insulting. So far Pop Smoke’s former manager Steven Victor and Victor Victor Records (yes the name is Victor Victor Records, it’s as stupid as it sounds) have dropped three different deluxe versions of Faith within a month long span to try and squeeze as many dollars possible from Pop Smoke’s unfortunate death. All together, Faith is 30 hazily thrown together tracks of unfinished snippets, poorly edited demos, half-hearted features, and complete gobbeldy gook garbage. It’s almost self-parody how corporate and greedy this project is. Faith is proof that the music industry truly has no soul.
For an 86 minute leviathan of a record, you'd figure there would be a lot of new content to analyze and digest from Pop Smoke. You would be horribly mistaken, as Pop Smoke is barely on his own album. Only 5 of the initial 20 tracks from this dumpster fire are solo Pop Smoke songs, and one of these is a poorly produced 30 second acapella interlude that was likely uploaded on accident. If you want to add in the 10 bonus tracks, then the number becomes 7 of 30 solo tracks. One of the deluxe songs is Dior which is a 2 year old song that has been absolutely milked to death. On Faith, Pop’s gruff, grimy vocals take a backseat to the absolute boat load of featured artists, most of whom seem to be picked out of a hat at random. Kanye West’s rambling, screeching, unfocused “verse” on Tell the Vision might be the worst vocal performance by any musician in the last five years, and I say this as someone who gives Kanye way more appreciation and respect than he deserves. Pusha T's verse on Tell the Vision is also corny as fuck, as Pusha tries to hype up his own album and just goes on an incredibly self indulgent, off-the-beat monologue. Pusha's verse made me re-consider my appreciation of his music. A lot of people, myself included, were riding Pusha's dick for the better part of 2018 and 2019 for winning his feud with Drake and dropping Daytona but let's be honest in the last year or so Pusha has done fuck all and this feature was so insultingly mid it killed any goodwill he's had in the rap game. I no longer hold Pusha T in the same regard for mailing in this doo doo verse. I cannot believe that 3 years after Kanye and Pusha worked together on Daytona that they would reunite just to drop a contender for worst song of the year but welcome to 2021 where happiness and quality hip hop are long forgotten memories from a distant past.
Most the other songs on this record are completely forgettable and not worth mentioning. The production is ass, gone is the iconic Brooklyn drill sound, replaced by cookie cutter “Future / Drake type beat” beats. It's head-scratching to think that the Neptunes were behind some of the sounds here because the beats are aggressively generic and derivative in the worst ways possible. The only instrumental that stood out (and not in a good way) was Top Shotta, which sounds like a rejected demo from the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack. I could not see Pop Smoke approving this if he was alive its incredibly corny and quite frankly its fucking garbage. I would write about how the composition is soulless and void of any memorable moments, but there is no composition, this project is incredibly sloppy and more unorganized than a 3rd grader’s backpack. The tracks don't flow together at all, even the "Mr. Jones interlude" doesn't connect with the "Mr. Jones" song at all, which makes no sense. This is truly some of the most half-assed production I've ever seen in a major hip hop release.
There is one track that is so bad it deserves its own paragraph. Demeanor is not only the worst song on this LP but it is a strong contender for worst song of the year. This song is such a dumpster fire that it makes Top Shotta and Tell the Vision bearable by comparison. Dua Lipa does not belong anywhere near a Pop Smoke record. She phones in one of her weakest vocal performances ever, sounding like a bootleg M.I.A. in a song clearly meant to try and be the next “Levitating”. The corny guitar riff and funk style sound is completely out of place and doesn’t fit Pop Smoke’s lyrical themes of dropping Percocet and shoplifitng. Also this is going to piss off a lot of people but Dua Lipa is a clown, she's a complete sellout and a coattail rider but that's a topic for another time.
There is an evident formula present where a minute long pop smoke snippet is sliced with a half-baked feature from a major artist to try and force a smash hit single. The problem is that A) the beats are mid, don't fit Pop Smoke's style at all, and quite honestly are stale as fuck, B) none of these features are memorable besides Kanye and Dua Lipa and those are only memorable for being dumpster fires, and C) there is not enough material here to warrant an 86 minute, 30 track goliath of an album. Top Shotta, Tell the Vision, and Demeanor are all contenders for worst song of the year. There's barely enough material for a 20 minute EP. All of Pop Smoke's verses are low quality and repetitive, the energy and charisma that made Pop Smoke famous in the first place is just completely absent here as well. Let’s be honest, this project only serves as self-masturbatory networking session by Steven Victor and his posse to try and make a cheap buck as well as to get some clout and rub shoulders with industry titans like Pharrell Williams or Kanye West. All this while dragging Pop Smoke's name and legacy through the mud. This project is truly the antithesis to Mac Miller's Circles - a sold out, profit-driven cash grab that completely butchers the final act of Pop Smoke's career. Fuck you Steven Victor and a double fuck you to every cunt involved in the making of this garbage.
