Future - The WIZRD Album Review

Story posted January 21, 2019 in CommRadio, Arts & Entertainment by Owen Paiva

Future seems to have used the wrong incantation on his seventh studio album The WIZRD. The album is a jumbled fusion between his last two projects as the extended title of the album is Future Hndrxx presents: The Wizrd, using both of his personas on the record.

Familiar themes such as drugs and money are present and, really, this album feels stale. Future found success on his recent collaboration with Juice WRLD, but on his own feels like he is in a creative funk.

The production on this album is a mixed bag. Some tracks include interesting, lighter instrumentals. The synth strings and brass found on a few tracks creates a somber atmosphere, adding to the emotion. Don’t let this distract you from the fact that every single drum beat sounds like a variation of the previous.

There is not a lot of uniqueness in this aspect, and it really hurts the ability to distinguish between each track on the album. Some of the work with the synth and background instrumentals are fantastic and create an interesting emotion behind the track, yet these are few and far between. One track will finish and the next will start, and it is hard to tell that it is a new track at all.

When Future decides to open up about his emotions on “Never Stop”, it is such a promising start to the album. The first few tracks entertain but after five or six songs, the album takes a nosedive.

The few features by Young Thug, Gunna, and Travis Scott don’t really do too much for the album. The last track, “Tricks on Me,” is great but having to slog through boring “banger” after boring “banger”, it is not worth the wait.

The lyrics, for the most part, are uninspired and hard to understand unless particular attention is paid to them. This is half due to the mumble rap style, half due to the production and editing of Future’s voice sounding really distorted throughout, a poor stylistic choice.

“Flexing” about money and being able to get any girl you want gets stale real fast, and the inability to connect themes throughout the album is disappointing. Is it necessary to have that amount of sexist rhetoric in the album? Some is expected in the genre, but bucking trends could prove to be beneficial.

There are some entertaining lyrics and clever wordplay on the album but mostly it is weighed down by the filler and basic lyrics found more commonly throughout, making that rare bit of creativity more welcome.

Having twenty tracks on an album is a dangerous prospect. Thirteen is the average number, but the ten to fifteen track range is ideal on any project unless there is a necessary process. Not on The WIZRD. Filler is never a good thing on album, as it hurts the quality of the album as well as the artist’s body of work.

Future could have cut five to seven tracks on this album and it would not have lost anything. The quality may have improved just as the saying goes, “quality over quantity.” This is Future’s sixth album/mixtape over the last two years. He should spend more time developing a quality concept for the next album. 

Future needs to learn from some of his contemporaries in the “mumble rap/SoundCloud rap” scene. Younger artist like Denzel Curry, Juice WRLD and Post Malone have all shown maturation on their latest projects and could soon overtake Future.

If Future continues to retread this sound and style, he risks his reputation. As one of the founders of the genre, he needs to look at something really inventive on the next album if the future of Future is to be ideal.

Rating: 5/10

 

 

Owen Paiva is a sophomore majoring in film/video. To contact him, email owenpaiva@sbcglobal.net.

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Owen Paiva

Senior / Film/Video

Owen Paiva is a senior majoring in film-video. He currently serves as a social media director at CommRadio. In the past, he interned at both WPSU as a sports production intern and at Shadowbox Studios as a production intern.  f you want to contact him, email him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).