Review Summary: My fondness is unreciprocated
Music can be like romance. They both are mostly subjective in a way that is mysterious, and unexplainable. Like any point of view, what would seem wonderful to some, may be dreadful to another; especially when it comes to music, and intimate reverence. With any admiration, there’s the good, and then there are goodbyes. Goodbye and Good Riddance is an album I really wanted to connect with, but unfortunately, I could not.
Goodbye and Good Riddance represents a soundtrack of premature heartbreak in a present day method of sound. It’s a collection of mostly mid/slow tempo hip-hop beats collaborated with distressed poetry. In a DisneyWorld romantic dream, some ideas stick well, and seem very courageous. But unlike your usual Hollywood adoration script, the flaws show in its repetition, and the played out reliance of a certain idea comes off as shallow rather than deep. It’s surface-level yearning. The honest vulnerability shown here sounds average at best. Goodbye and Good Riddance is an album I wanted to fall for, but I got rejected.
The album starts off with possibly the best three songs like a crush at first sight. After the intro, ‘All Girls Are the Same’ slowly creeps in with its gloomy piano riff, followed by its pessimistic words about girls and lack of love. ‘Lucid Dreams’ follows a standard “break-up song” diagram and then the hardest track on the record presents itself in the name of ‘Lean With Me’. This definitely sets boundaries for the rest of the album. Like real love, Goodbye and Good Riddance is either a big hit, or a big miss. The problem isn’t it’s genuineness, but it’s redundancy and presentation. The album is a metaphor for your stereotypical first relationship; wonderfully lively at first, but ends either abrupt and toxic, or slowly fades into disinterest. The first four or five tracks start off healthy. But after that, things become mostly forgettable, and the honeymoon phase suddenly fades away. ‘Candles’ features some decent verses that stick to you like reminiscing an ex girlfriend. Besides that, the rest of the setlist loses chemistry, and ends up too reliant on bonding the same formulas played on the opening half of the album.
Most of us can agree that the hip-hop genre is known for its unforgiving, upfront lyricisms collaborated with its mix of electronic and sometimes acoustic driven beats that support the main vocalist. With Juice Wrld, we are presented with the self-reflection he has become famous for. For modern rap standards it’s serviceable; aiming for straightforwardness rather than intellectual philosophy. And it’s certainly not a sound that’s revolutionary, or anything we haven’t heard before. There lies another issue: although there are glimpses of catchy notions and thoughtfulness throughout, other artists have tested this market before, with more memorable results. If you want an example, just listen to anything from The Weeknd’s discography. Like Juice Wrld, he is also a man known for having similar themes of sadness and misogyny in his music, despite their slight genre differences. But unlike Juice, The Weeknd presents himself with more depth, intelligence and creativity compared to this. The idea is reinforced as soon as you play the album, where the intro track features some livid lady screaming about Facebook or Snapchat.
Good people are hard to find. True love is rare; especially in the modern world. Juice’s debut is far from perfect. But like any real connection, it requires a unexplainable ingredient of delegacy and perception. Loving tenderness is like finding gold dust. But when she ends up leaving you in the dust, it’s a hurtful feeling; like every negative emotion felt at once, resulting in endless questions of what could have been. As much as I wanted to cherish Goodbye and Good Riddance, my likeness is unrequited.
