In 2012, Kanye re-designed his website to something similar to its appearance during the GOOD Fridays event in 2010. However, despite an early batch of free songs, this proved to not be the second coming of GOOD Fridays, and instead just a way for Kanye to show off things his friends did. Now, that's not to say the songs released on the website were bad: In fact, the three free songs released were pretty impressive, and the singles weren't too shabby either. This was to promote the compilation album for Kanye's music label, GOOD Music. Unfortunately, when the album dropped, it was generally considered a disappointment.
Cruel Summer starts off well enough. There's a soaring introductory song featuring R. Kelly, then the next few songs (excepting "The Morning") are the quality singles released earlier on the website. For the most part, these singles are unaltered, which mostly benefits them, as most of the verses on these songs are fantastic. Ghostface Killah's new verse in "New God Flow" is excellent, and the new song "The Morning" is also solid. This shows some promise, though most of these songs we've heard before. Halfway through, when we get to the new songs, nobody seems to care any more. What verses aren't outright lazy are underwhelming, and while John Legend's vocals show some passion, Teyeana Taylor's on "Bliss" are nowhere near her previous efforts. So, if this album is supposed to show off the talents of Kanye's signed artists, it's doing a poor job.
What's more disconcerting, however, is the startling number of non-GOOD Music guest spots. There are no appearances from Mr Hudson, and John Legend doesn't appear for more than half of the album. Instead, we've gotten Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, R. Kelly, Jay-Z, DJ Khaled, Travi$ Scott, Ma$e, Cocaine 80s, and especially 2 Chainz, all of whom are not signed to GOOD, having just as much prominence as the GOOD Music artists on the album. You can't really call it a GOOD Music album then, can you? But if it's not a GOOD Music album, and it's not a Kanye West album, what is it?
While Kanye didn't make all of the beats on Cruel Summer, that doesn't keep them from being at least very good. When one of the rappers is sleepwalking through a verse, the music manages to keep the songs from becoming dull. Unfortunately, many of the beats don't do much more. The hooks of most of the new songs are dull, and the beats are often rather typical. This has the unfortunate effect of making much of the album merely listenable, which is disappointing not only considering Kanye's previous albums, but especially considering the fact that just about every artist on the album is capable of better.
Now, despite the overall negative tone of this review, Cruel Summer is not a bad album. It frequently flirts with mediocrity, and its highest points were released prior to the album, but very rarely does it actually become below average, and those high points are some great songs. However, given the hype around this album, it's a huge disappointment. Perhaps if Kanye had more control of it, there would be a consistent artistic vision, but instead it's multiple people's artistic visions jammed together-and most of these people don't seem to care. Still, at least it gave us a few hits. Next, we'll catch up with the present and look at Yeezus.
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