Unlike Macklemore's first studio album from 2005, The Language of My World, GEMINI, released on September 22nd, 2017, does not contain powerful political undertones. Instead, this album is characterized by an overlying feel of joy and happiness. Now, I'm not sure exactly why Macklemore thought that this was the path to take. He's always been very socially conscious, and it seems like society would reflect with those issues now, in our period of social turmoil, more than ever. He tackled issues like his white privilege, his vision for his child, and more on This Unruly Mess I've Made. I believe that it was a very bad decision for Macklemore to drop this social image that he's maintained.
That's not to say that this album doesn't have highlights. It's quite the opposite. "Glorious", featuring the frequent Eminem collaborator Skylar Grey, feels like "Can't Hold Us" version two, and that's great. He captures that feeling of triumph very well, but Skylar outshadows him with her powerful voice, especially at the end of the song. The production is actually quite nice; complex piano riffs and brass instruments lend themselves well to capturing that victorious aura.
On the flip side of rap music, "Willy Wonka" may be one of my favorite trap songs all year. Macklemore exudes charisma as he hops around this amazing beat. I really love everything about it; the vocal samples, the distortion that comes in at the middle of the song, and that amazing brass that swoops in by the hook. He changes flows like five times, and this reminds me of why I like him so much; even when he's rapping at lightning speeds, I can still totally understand him. And just like you'd expect from a great trap song, one of the people responsible for making trap so popular hops on: Offset, from Migos. I'm a big Migos fan and this is possibly one of Offset's best performances in the past few years. One of his ad-libs is literally just a whistle, which is straight up amazing. "Willy Wonka, I got flavor" is just so quotable and Offset and Macklemore mesh so well together.
A recurring problem that Macklemore has throughout this album is his reliance on features. I personally think that good features can greatly enhance an album, but there's such thing as too much. Macklemore has a feature on fifteen out of sixteen songs on this album, and that's kind of ridiculous. Not just that, but Macklemore tends to give every feature a very good portion of each song, leading to a severe lack of his own personality and influence.
"Corner Store", featuring Dave B and Travis Thompson, is the best example of this. Though the song is actually quite the bop by itself, Macklemore is only in it for one verse, for under a minute, and he doesn't even come in until almost two minutes. It doesn't feel like a Macklemore song at all. Songs like this almost make GEMINI feel more like a compilation album than anything.
"Ten Million" is the only track without features, and it's great, but it's not Macklemore's style at all. It feels just like a Travis Scott song; every single detail of the style. It almost feels like a straight up rip off. The autotuned yelps, the atmospheric production, the distorted bass, the highly edited voices in the instrumental, the chorus of "We turn out the lights then we come alive yeah / all these dollar signs ain't no nine to five yeah". I'm a huge Travis Scott fan and I'm able to recognize his style when I see it...
As is evidenced by the previous song, Macklemore definitely hops on more trends than ever before. For the most part, he abandons that unique storytelling approach that I grew to love on tracks like "Jimmy Iovine" and "WINGS".
"How to Play the Flute" utilizes that flute enhanced trap beat popularized by Future and 2 Chainz. The pre-chorus by King Draino is so fun, and the song is just meant to be an inoffensive song to jam out to, like most of the songs on this album. Following that trend was the first single, "Marmalade", featuring Lil Yachty. It sounds like an even worse "Brocolli"; it's that recently popular "happy trap", and Macklemore does NOT sound good autotuned.
The production on this album is surprisingly not that bad. I expected it to take a turn after I saw that Ryan Lewis was missing, but there is a lot of decent to great production on this album. "Levitate" utilizes a funky jazz beat to make it sound like a better "Downtown". "Miracle", a more spiritual track, makes use of some really peaceful strings sections.
Regardless of the highlights of this album, there are some straight up horrible tracks. "Intentions" is a boring, self-pitying piece of trash that may be one of the worst songs this year. "Ain't Gonna Die Tonight" is ruined by Eric Nally yelling in my ear, and "Church" is preachy and annoying.
"Good Old Days" is the final track that I will go over, and an album highlight for many. This will almost certainly be the first radio single; it's featuring the newly reformed Kesha, and is very radio friendly. It's... not a great track. Kesha sounds shaky, and the other female collaborators on the album, like Skylar Grey and Donna Missal outshine her by far. Macklemore doesn't bring in any interesting tricks, and this just sounds like a ploy for radio spins.
Overall, this album is a disappointment. "Willy Wonka" and "Glorious" surpassed my expectations, but everything else falls under. More importantly, I find it extremely disappointing and almost shameful that Macklemore would drop his social identity in a time that the country needs it the most. Of course, he's free to do what he wants with his music, and I can't fault him for that, but so many people look up to him as a role model that it just seems wrong. This album is not anywhere near as good as The Heist or The Language of My World, but I still have hope for Macklemore in the future; we'll see where he goes.
Final Verdict:
62/100
Favorite Tracks: Willy Wonka, Glorious, How the Play the Flute, Ten Million
Least Favorite Tracks: Intentions, Ain't Gonna Die Tonight, Church, Marmalade
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