Cruel Summer - Review

To start off, Cruel Summer was a bit of a disappointment in my eyes.  I thought that even though it was a good album and it broke a lot of the stereotypes about what a compilation album should sound like, it could have been better.

G.O.O.D. Music, which is under the direction of the always awesome Kanye West, was the record label behind the album.

I had a friend tell me that Kanye kind of took a back seat in the production aspect of this album, which I think was a mistake.  He was the one that took My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and made it a Grammy-winning work of art.  I can kind of understand what he might have been wanting to do with giving his people a chance to prove themselves and compose their own music for the compilation, but I think that some more oversight would have made the album a lot better.

The songs that particularly stand out to me are Clique, The Morning, and Sin City.  Each of these three songs have something that for some reason separates them from the rest of the album.

Clique has an awesome beat behind it.  Big Sean opens the track very nicely, and I don't think that Jay Z has sounded this good in a song for a while now, including Watch The Throne.  Kanye's verse is also pretty damn sick in this song, where he's lacking a little in some of the other songs on the album.

The Morning is good because the hook sounds nothing like the rest of the song.  Just like Clique.  There's the hook, and then the song drops.  Cyhi The Prynce, my second favorite member of G.O.O.D. Music, is also in this song, which almost automatically gives it a huge thumbs up in my eyes.

Sin City is the best song on the album.  I know for a fact that I will have people fight me on this, but it's what I believe is true.  Malik Yusef's spoken word portion really give it that intensity that is lacking in some of the other songs that need it.

Another reason why I really didn't like this album as much as much as I thought I would is the fact that half of it was released before the album dropped.  Kanye kept pushing the release date back farther and farther, and as apologies, he would release another single to ease the pain of his followers.  This just made the actual release that much more lackluster.  When we finally went to go and download/buy the album, we already had most of the songs, and most of the ones that we had were some of the better ones.

And that's my overall take on Cruel Summer.  Tweet me suggestions about what to talk about next. @CBMARTIST