Editor’s Note: The following reflects the opinions of the author.
Cleveland native and hip-hop’s anointed punk-rock rapper Machine Gun Kelly released his highly anticipated debut album “Lace Up” this week and the final product is nothing short of a loaded gun to the listeners head.
MGK was able to achieve success by dropping the biggest piece of trash of 2012.
Lil B The Basedgod’s last release, “Based Jam” – the previous worst album of the year – is far more preferable to “Lace Up.”
The album opens up with “Save Me,” a song intended to inspire whoever hears it, ends up being backed by the most hollowly produced instrumentals on the album and does nothing to live up to the title of the song.
Staying on par with the album’s promised sh-t show, the rest of the album is either filled with late 1990’s Bad Boy Records era.
The problem with this album is not the fact that Bad Boy had their hands all over this project – only two out of 13 songs are featureless – leaving no creative input to MGK, it’s that MGK even graces his own album with his presence in the first place. Bad Boy should have nixed all of MGK’s beat choices, replacing them with actually listenable, modern instrumentals. This is a rare occasion where the record label does not overwhelm, commercialize, or force an artist to change their style for a project. Bad Boy needed more presence.
MGK raps with a ferocity that is seemingly unwarranted and unnecessary, and rarely switches up rhyme schemes, thus making the change in instrumentals the only variation throughout the project.
MGK raps with the same double time flow, which is obnoxious enough in the first place, but his pattern is made more unappealing due to said ferocity.
The only saving grace throughout the entire album is a minute and a half during the song “Wild Boy” that Waka Flocka Flame stops by for a guest verse, dropping one of the most hilarious lines of the year with, “Suck my Dragon Balls b-tch, Call me Goku.”
It’s recommend that an already troubled mind, or any mind of sorts, pass on listening to “Lace Up,” because this is not going to help you at all.
Rating: Zero out of four stars.
Story: WILL GREENE, A&E Reporter