“UTOPIA” Review – after a five-year wait, Travis Scott’s alien soundscapes deliver.

JULY 28

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BEST OF THE WEEK

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JULY 28 | BEST OF THE WEEK |

The scale of UTOPIA’s soundscape is vast, and the fun you’ll have listening is immense.

For many listeners, UTOPIA needed to be a redemption album. After cementing his place as one of the most commercially successful rappers of this generation — collaborating with McDonalds, Playstation, Nike, and more — Scott’s public persona plummeted due to the 2021 Astroworld Festival crowd crush. One black and white apology video and BetterHelp discount code later, Scott secluded himself from the public and put a stop on what seemed to be his initial attempt at his fourth album’s rollout.

Now, two years later, UTOPIA is real. While Scott could have simply released a companion piece to 2018’s ASTROWORLD to regain good faith, he’s chosen to take a much bigger risk. UTOPIA has one of the most forward-thinking soundscapes in mainstream hip-hop since To Pimp a Butterfly? Because The Internet? Yeezus? It’s a blockbuster event that only needs to stand a short test of time before it’s hailed as Scott’s best work.

UTOPIA is the musical version of an IMAX showing. With enormous production value and the music industry’s own version of the Avengers, Scott’s fourth album is ripe with spectacle and exemplary sonics that feel like a polished version of the sound he blasted onto the scene with. Where his previous two albums — Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight and ASTROWORLD — can be characterized with their clean production and reverb-drenched vocals, UTOPIA brings Scott’s sound back to a grittier past. Much like his debut record, Rodeo, UTOPIA is driven aggressively by experimental production choices. Travis doesn’t bury the lede here either. Opener “HYAENA” begins quietly with a 70s prog rock vocal sample before launching into a repeating harpsichord melody over drums that can only be likened to hitting a metal sheet with a sledgehammer. The somewhat sanitized and easily accessible sound of his previous work is nowhere to be found. For the most part, this soundscape is consistent throughout the album’s hour-and-fifteen-minute runtime.

“MODERN JAM” and it’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo produced dance beat is unlike anything in Scott’s discography. The deep kicks march in your skull as Teezo Touchdown comes in during the back half of the song, howling like a 60s Britpop megastar. “MY EYES” brings Travis into Frank Ocean’s wheelhouse, featuring production from frequent Frank collaborator Vegyn. Scott’s lowkey verses in the first half are contemplative and excessively processed, but it’s the song’s second half that makes it stand out in the record’s dense track list. For a minute and five seconds, Scott melts into a consistent, fast paced flow over ethereal nocturnal synths. Scott’s tone of voice fits perfectly in the mix, as the analog synths wash over the staccato hi hats and crunchy snares. It’s not only a highlight on UTOPIA, but a highlight in Scott’s entire discography as well.

“FE!N” and “DELRESTO (ECHOES)” are back to back on the album’s track list, each transporting listeners to their unique own solar systems. “FE!N” — entirely produced by Scott and Jahaan Sweet — is the rapper’s own version of rage music, complete with a Playboi Carti feature and wobbly video game synths that enunciate the depth of the track’s intense kicks. Scott’s repeating hook is mixed to perfection, its high pitch cutting through the warbling bass and operatic synth chords. “DELRESTO (ECHOES)” features eerie vocal chants and eclectic samples that create a wide-open atmosphere for both Beyonce and Travis to paint over with their distinct vocals. While house-inspired percussion cuts through the filtered melody, Beyonce’s angelic range compliments Scott’s multitudes of vocal processing, and the Houston duo create incredibly abstract imagery with disconnected and vague lyricism. What are the echoes? It’s up to the listener.

With 19 tracks, there aren’t always winners. “TOPIA TWINS” and “K-POP” — while a fine trap banger and calculated streaming juggernaut, respectively — are glaringly out of place on what Scott seems to be treating as more of a high concept record. These songs are sonically discombobulated from the rest of the album, featuring typical production that is entirely overshadowed by the more experimental cuts the songs are sandwiched between, and both prove to be a dip in the album’s generally exceptional sequencing. Lyrically, the two tracks feel as different as night and day compared to the songs that come before them. While “DELRESTO (ECHOES)” features ambiguous lyricism regarding what seems to be internal strife within this conceptual utopia, “TOPIA TWINS” comes out of nowhere with a pornographic vengeance as newcomer Rob49 raps about he and Scott having an encounter with Siamese twins. These feel like throwaway bonus tracks, not a part of Scott’s utopian vision, a vision that is barely fleshed out on more serious tracks anyways. 

It’s another common thread amongst UTOPIA as a whole. Storytelling is not explicit on this record, and sometimes it can come off like writing was an afterthought. In the Weeknd-assisted “CIRCUS MAXIMUS”, Travis remarks that he “might still eat McDonald’s/but don’t think I’m a Ronald”. Sure, I guess. There are times where these soundscapes that Travis builds — which are extremely impressive and constantly engaging — are soiled by a complete lack of serious lyrical effort. Even a sonic highlight like “MODERN JAM” is coupled with lyrics like “dick so hard, poking like the Eiffel” that not only make listeners roll their eyes, but also take space away from lyrics that could promote this utopian concept that Scott seems so dead set on. No one is asking for Travis to suddenly gain Kendrick Lamar’s pen, but — as he approaches a higher concept on this album than on his other records — a few more heads in the room might be worthwhile.

Regardless, Scott’s rapping doesn’t ever ruin a song entirely, and – when he finally gets going – his pen’s flaws are less apparent because of either infectious vocal melodies or his general energy on the track. “I KNOW ?” features Travis leaning into his R&B sensibilities, sliding over a melancholic beat with a candy sweet melodic hook, and his lowkey singing on “TELEKINESIS” compliments SZA’s seismic belting in one of the haziest cuts on the record.

Where Scott really excels is on the high energy, gritty tracks found in the first half of the album. Travis is entirely in his element on cuts like “SIRENS” and the back half of “THANK GOD”, which inject this “final boss battle” energy into the record. His rapping is hungry, like he has something to prove, but it’s also keenly self-aware. Scott is not afraid to be cocky, and there’s moments where it seems like the rapper is certain that he will deliver after this excruciating five-year wait. A little less than two minutes into “THANK GOD”, violins squeal under Travis’ version of a sermon, along with a growling bass and some of the dirtiest percussion I’ve heard all year. Each ingredient brings an urgency and grandeur to Scott’s words, and makes the song feel even larger than life. It’s these moments — moments where it feels as if rap’s pariah is standing on a hill, with legions of unrelenting and obsessive goons behind him ready to return and set fire to the game — that make UTOPIA an otherworldly experience. Scott does not have to be wildly technically proficient to be engaging. He barely has to be lucid. He only needs to bring the energy. The rage. The abstract imagery that allows his fans to interpret his music and place their own meaning into his sonic world. Everything else falls into place in our own brains.

That’s not to say that Scott’s lack of sometimes even coherent lyricism is a net positive. Very bluntly, it is a negative, and something obviously worth criticizing. With better writing, this project almost objectively becomes a magnum opus. But — even without the lyrical dynamism of his peers — it’s simply fun to hear music that is grand for the sake of being grand. UTOPIA’s scale and spectacle feel special. With every surprise feature, beat switch, and ridiculous quotable, Travis Scott extends his reign as one of the most interesting mainstream hip-hop artists working right now. Listening to huge synths, dirty drums, and the musings of a ringleader that is having too much fun to form a sensible thought is a pleasure, especially when it’s as risky as UTOPIA truly is. There is a diversity to sound inside Scott’s fourth record that hasn’t been seen since some of the genre’s most recent masterpieces, and yet most of the 19 tracks feel right at home next to each other. Cohesion of sound is a hard feat to pull off, and on each of Travis’ releases it feels effortless.  The king of cloudy psych-trap, once masked for years by reverb and copious autotune, has come to remind us that he is just as nasty and in-your-face as he once was when TI first discovered him out of Houston.

9/10

Favorite Songs: HYAENA, THANK GOD, MODERN JAM, MY EYES, SIRENS, MELTDOWN, FE!N, DELRESTO (ECHOES), I KNOW ?

Least Favorite Songs: TOPIA TWINS, K-POP