Astroworld is the third studio album from Travis Scott. The amount of hype around this album was ridiculous. This project was announced long before Birds In the Trap Sing McKnight dropped. Travis himself said in interviews that this was supposed to be his second album and the reason why it took so long was that he wanted to perfect it. In my revisit for Rodeo, I said that it pushed the boundaries of trap music and is one of the best albums in that lane of hip-hop. Since that release, however, Travis Scott's output has been hit or miss. I liked Birds more than most people, but it's pretty inconsistent and felt like a blur in comparison to Rodeo. Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, his collaborative project with Quavo, is a project that I found to be okay but also kind of underwhelming. In my opinion, that album was released about six months too late. His singles and features have also been hit or miss, with my favorites being "A-Team," "Green & Purple," and features like "Dark Knight Dummo," "Love Galore," and "Prayers Up." I kept my excitement for this project at a reasonable level and hoped for something at least better than Birds.
Travis has some of the best beat selection in hip-hop and the production on this album is beautiful. One of my problems with Birds was that Travis didn't rap enough. Even though I like his moody, autotune laced voice, I always loved when he rapped without it. Thankfully, there are a few tracks where he brings that style back and it sounds amazing. The features on this album did a phenomenal job too, especially Drake, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, and 21 Savage. For this album, Travis went for an amusement park theme and dedicated this album to the former Houston Six Flags park. In a way, this album does feel like a theme park ride and was thrilling every minute.
Okay, that last sentence was a bit of an exaggeration. Not EVERY minute of this album was thrilling. Like a rollercoaster, there is a portion of this album where the quality goes downhill a little bit. It's not a significant problem since I did enjoy this album, but it's a few tracks too long. There were at least three songs that sounded like filler, especially tracks like "Yosemite" and "Who? What!" I also thought that he didn't utilize some of his features properly. Kid Cudi's contribution to "Stop Trying to Be God" was his signature hum. Even though I absolutely love that song, I feel like Kid Cudi could be utilized a bit more. Sheck Wes, one of Travis' Cactus Jack signees and the artist behind the absolute banger that is "Mo Bamba," is limited to hook duty. Quavo and Takeoff were limited to 30 total seconds toward the end of "Who? What!"
I said this before on my review of Kanye's last projects but I absolutely hate this trend of not showing features on tracklists. I get the enjoyment of the mystery but sometimes it's annoying when you recognize a voice but can't recognize the artist's name. It took me a long time to figure out that Gunna was also featured on "Yosemite." The fact that Genius tracks down the featured artists is a big reason why I love that website. I also found it pretty baffling that "Butterfly Effect" made the album but "Watch" didn't.
Overall, I did enjoy this album. I thought that it was a solid mix of the Rodeo sound and the Birds sound. I will definitely be playing some tracks on this album for a long time. My current ranking of Trav's discography goes like this (best to worst):
Rodeo
Astroworld (tie)
Days Before Rodeo (tie)
Birds In the Trap Sing McKnight
Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho
Owl Pharaoh
Singles
Butterfly Effect [It's one of Travis' weaker songs but was better than a good portion of hit songs in 2017 so it's okay.]
Best Tracks
Stargazing
Sicko Mode - feat. Drake x Swae Lee [Drake rapping about the proper way to use Xanax was hilarious]
Stop Trying to Be God - feat. James Blake x Kid Cudi x Philip Bailey x Stevie Wonder [Top 5 Travis song don't @ me]
5% Tint
Houstonfornication
Worst Tracks
Yosemite - feat. Gunna x NAV [Someone tell NAV to speak up please]
Who? What! - feat. Quavo x Takeoff
Score: 7/10
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