This is music for a specific audience, there is no doubting or questioning the fact that XXXTentacion is meleninalla music.
Of course being of the generation I begrudgingly belong to I decided to take a listen. There has been mostly negative media attention surrounding the bruting artist and I was reluctant to even listen, but I eventually jumped into the pool. At first my image of xx was not my taste and I guess I could party to this?
After I got the initial appeal of what he had to say to a creatively rich generation I swam deeper. Now streaming through music, as this generation loves to do, I happened to stumbleupon his latest album 17, it is ruminating in nature it is filled with depression, death, despair, and obviously revenge filled themes. The somber tone grounds the entire album but gets annoying in one sitting. nonetheless it happend to speak to me, here are my reasons.
The album 17 has a brutal and empty feel to it because that is what XXXtentacion is feeling, he presents you with everything he’s got, becoming completely open with the ones who choose to listen.
Being open has its appeal because so many people are searching for it, few no longer care for it, and some don’t understand it. The album is bouncing from topics that include love, lust, and long lasting life, as a result xx paints a picture that is hard to ignore.
But the music is to my liking and to be critical the melodies or melody gets repetitive when providing the listener with the disillusion you’re in XXXtentacion’s mind. Metaphorically you do get lost in the sadness and who doesn’t like to feel sad from time to time?
The album is about living through life with the mentality of xx. The rock ballad is pleasant because I catch myself humming to the acoustic guitar. The album is 22 minutes in length making it digestible at any given moment, because after all millennials are constantly demanding something.
We are all chasing something in the end, wanting someone or just in search of more, often times we have to take a pause and reflect as deeply as XXXTentacion has in 17.
He explains his art well and in a manner that is pleasing to a broader audience. The truly sad part about the album is the slow rendition of his mentality, all though a short compilation of songs the sound is repetitive, I fear xx was playing it safe on taking a new sounding approach. In the end I would tell xx to keep your head up and listeners split this album up because his sadness is a comfort that quickly gets stale. I guess we figured out why it is 22 minutes in length.
Don’t get me wrong the music is good but at the end of the day the constant theme of monotony is a drag, so please indulge with the wine bottle close or whatever gets your sadness hard.
