Album Review: Logic - Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
Logic's newest project "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" dropped this past Friday, and it has already ignited a spur of controversy among Logic's fan base. Many on the Logic301 subreddit lit up the album stating absolute disappointment in the quality of Logic's most recent project. The album has already received many mixed reviews from popular music critics on Youtube. It seems as though everyone is trying to figure out what direction Logic is heading in as an artist and what his fans should expect of the rapper that attracted a great deal of music fans through albums like "Under Pressure" and "The Incredible True Story," which are considered to be some of Logic's best work of all time.
Personally, I've been a fan of Logic for a while. I really started to listen to his music as a loyal fan when Bobby Tarantino II came out last year. I want to see Logic succeed more than anything. He's a talented artist and knows how to write great lyrics.
With that being said, I have to acknowledge that "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" has its ups and downs. The album starts off really well with the title track and "Homicide" featuring Eminem, truly showcasing Logic's ability to spread a message through his music. Then "Wannabe" and "clickbait" enter into the picture, and the album takes a dramatic change in tone and direction. The rest of the album doesn't have any kind of a concrete connection in the messaging or the tone. "Pardon My Ego" through "Still Ballin" sounds exactly like the type of hype-beast songs that Logic puts on his Bobby Tarantino mixtapes. Then he's suddenly discussing his annoyance with the excessive amount of clout behind drug use in hip-hop in "Cocaine." It's not that the songs are even that bad, but that the album as a whole doesn't seem to be strung together in a specific way. Going from listening to "BOBBY" to "Lost in Translation" at the end of the album feels as though you're switching between entire sub-genres of hip-hop, leaving many listeners confused and even agitated over the structure of the album.
It is important to note that Logic framed this album as being a mix between his past work in "Under Pressure" and "Bobby Tarantino," which I personally think is very accurate. While I do think that "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is a pretty accurate mix of Logic telling a message and him turning up, I can see where that intention can get lost in translation (pun intended) for those who are most loyal to the Rattpack. When reading the comments and review of the album on the Logic subreddit, it is very clear that many fans of Logic have become more familiar with the Maryland rapper pigeon-holing himself into displaying different styles for different albums and never mixing any of them together. "Bobby Tarantino" was framed by Rick and Morty just wanting to listen to music about partying. "Everybody" was framed by "Hallelujah" starting off the album with a message about bringing humanity together to foster peace and tranquility. Mixing the two styles together, in the case of "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," feels off-putting for those who are the most familiar with Logic's work.
Therefore, I don't think that the album is as bad as many are making it out to be. I will say that Logic seems repetitive in his lyrics during different songs, but his album shows a lot of signs of experimenting with different flows and working around the flow of featured rappers on the album. I don't think that this album means that Logic is going downhill nor do I think it's the foundation for a new-and-improved Bobby Hall. There are songs that are pretty good and songs that could have been left out of the album entirely. At the end of the day, however, I think the best thing to take-away from "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" is that artists are allowed to be imperfect, finding out what they excel at and what they should avoid doing all together.
Reviewed by: Carter Fife