Review Summary: Meh.
EDM in an odd way reminds me of a coelacanth. No not because consuming it is extremely hard and will make you feel very sick after even though this can be true for both, but rather because it’s a living fossil, simply refusing to evolve. Both Skrillex and Diplo in recent times pretty much has fit this stereotype of EDM to a T. When they try to be “innovative” it comes off as pretty forced (remember when Skrillex did that track with the surviving members of The Doors?) and the end results produced just end up being mediocre. Because of this they usually stay pretty far inside their musical comfort zones since they know they have a huge audience of trashy festival goers to eat up whatever they put out no matter how monotonous it is. But hey, maybe they are thinking “don’t try to fix something if it ain't broke” and this good advice to many musicians out there, but there is almost always a need to have some sort of innovation in your music or else it will slowly rot into mediocrity or worse. It worried me when I heard that Skrillex and Diplo were making an album together, because as soon as I heard that I could pretty much imagine what that would sound like. The album was released and I hoped I would be proven wrong and hear something I was not expecting even if it was not peculiarly innovating for either artist. *SPOILERS* It sounds exactly like I imagined it.
After the pointless two minute intro track “Don’t Do Drugs Just Take Jack U” the song “Beats Knocking” sets up what you’re going to get with this album: Generic sounding hip-hop beats you could find on any twerktastic trap or hip-hop sound pack on Beatport for $25? Check. Little bit of Skrillex’s dubstep mixed in. Check. Cookie cutter rap that is instantly forgettable? Check. Just add a generic “Dirty floor shaker” electro house sound pack on a few songs and you pretty much got this whole album. So since you now know what this entire album sounds like even if you have not heard it so now I’ll just go over some particular entertainingly bad parts about it. 2 Chainz in the song “Febreze” produces one of the most groan worthy puns I’ve heard in a while with the line “I’m the ***, I should have febreze on it”. The title of the song “Jungle Bae” makes me slightly vomit in my mouth every time I think of it. The beat in song “Where Are U” actually sounds kind of different from the rest of the album but is ruined by the fact it has a sound in it that sounds like a cat getting beaten to death, oh also it features Justin Bieber trying desperately to have some sort of musical relevancy again. The song “Holla Out” gets the award for by far having the most headache inducing beat of this whole album thanks to Snails.
However, despite the fact this album is just a list of modern mainstream dance music tropes there are a few interesting parts in it that I will admit I did enjoy in a guilty pleasure sort of way. The song “To U” is the best song on the album, not because it sounds different or anything but it’s a song if I heard at a party and I was intoxicated enough I would likely embarrassingly get on the floor to it. The beat in the song is pretty danceable and I will admit pretty catchy and that to me makes a good dance song. Missy Elliott delivers the best rapping by far on album on the remix of “Take U There” at the end, although this makes every other rapper on the album seem even worse than they already are by comparison.
This album is full of songs for Skrillex and Diplo to scream “put your ***ing hands in the air” to during concerts and not much else. It sounds exactly like you think it sounds, nothing more and a little bit less during some parts, it is simply another coelacanth-like collection of EDM music. This album is thankfully short although none of the genres on here are really “album genres” but rather “single genres” so if you are going to try to listen it then its best to just try a few songs rather than downing it all at once, you’ll likely need less Tylenol at the end that way as an added bonus.
2/5
Note: sorry I am too lazy to add the umlaut to the U’s in this review, I simply do not care enough about the music on here to add that.
