Review Summary: Oh god this is an atrocity... oh wait that wasn't a surprise...
Rebirth is probably the biggest disaster of the ’10 decade, and it’s just started. There are so many words that apply to this record that are just synonyms of awful. The thing is,
Rebirth has so many different tracks that display something different from Lil Wayne’s rock angle, and the diversity is sort of appreciated, but it’s so many influences mangled and tortured to the point of rage against Wayne so it’s just wasted effort from whoever writes music for Wayne anyway.
Of all the tracks, “On Fire” and “Drop The World” resonate most with people who still alive listening to
Rebirth at this time, and even then, they sound over-the-top and ridiculous. “On Fire” switches out with cheesy synths, Prince-wannabe funk riffs, and of course, ridiculously high and syrupped-up auto-tune Wayne whimpering over the track as the his guitar wiggles and doodles, and truly makes for an awful concoction despite the attempts at an eighties aesthetic. “Drop The World” utilizes indie-fied laser synths and keyboard bloops, while Wayne sounds the most inspired he’s been in a while, but it’s nixed by his gremlin voice and Eminem’s most uncomfortable performance ever.
To be fair, it’s not ENTIRELY Wayne’s fault, although it’s mostly his blame. All of the guests on
Rebirth are universally awful, ranging from Shannell’s pathetic R&B/rock-ish moans, Kevin Rudolf’s laughable wailing, Eminem’s already mentioned uncomfortable speed flow, and Nicki Minaj’s terrible attempt at singing. Those guests attempt to water down the record even more so, and drown it in it’s own sorrow-y, sad place.
They would water it down and make it even worse if, of course, the main star wasn’t so terrible. Lil Wayne sounds stuck, stuck between sorrow-y, radio rock lyrics and punchline after punchline like before. This mixed lyrical stance, along with his lack of experience with rock, sort of makes his lines come off as incredibly immature and conflictingly weak. His auto-tune eludes the fact that the album is way too glossy for its good, and even if it’s true, it makes the music sound entirely unemotional, unlike what it seems like he’s going after. His gremlin voice, one which wouldn’t have worked on rock-ish beats as a rapper, is lathered in auto-tune and creates that liquid-y effect in his voice that drives the listener off the wall.
On top of those two things, however, it’s just a mountain hill of problems from there. Every track falters from the fact that the music feels ripped off from other places. It’s almost like you can go track by track and notice everything that’s wrong. For example, “Ground Zero” sounds like an attempt at hollowing alt. metal epic, but is too glossy to work. “Da Da Da” rips it sound from funk, musically it sounds like the sad bastard space age rock form of James Brown in the verses, while the bridge just contains Wayne cooing. “Paradice” is, once again, an eighties rip like “On Fire”, except points more towards one of those huge power ballads that sounded fake then, and sound even faker now. “Get A Life” maybe the worst track on the album, trying to sound like fun, simple music like early Weezer, but the only problem is, that he makes it sound like new Weezer mixed with, well, himself. It would but utterly redundant to go through every track, pointing out where it goes wrong, and calling it crap, as that is what is happening in every track.
Lil’ Wayne is one of the funnest personalities in rap, and that’s the only reason why
Rebirth isn’t completely shred worthy. As much as you hate auto-tune, as much as you hate copied music, as much as you hate the guests, even if you hate the whole album as a whole with a fiery passion, Wayne’s inflection and cocky-ness keeps you believing. He’s a funny guy, he’s stoned as well, and it’s fun to hear him most of the time. But this personality and charisma is almost shat on throughout the run-time of
Rebirth. At least it’s
short…
