That’s what Apple is most adept at: making you feel like you are on the precipice of major social change when you interact with their products. Apple Music’s launch captivated music fans simply by reinforcing its own importance through advertising muscle. It should feel audacious to tread on sacred ground, but instead, it comes off as a move Will.i.am would make a song sure to end up on everyone’s wedding/bar mitzvah/high school graduation mix.īut again, this is not strictly an album. Sometimes, a song can be too well known to sample, and this qualifies. When the album isn’t shockingly pedantic, it’s straight embarrassing, like “I Feel Good,” which samples the James Brown song of the same name.
“Glory” and “Murda” actually get better with repeat listens simply for Wayne’s near-impeccable flow, but they still sound like Turtle from Entourage produced them. The worst you can say about a record is that it’s boring. You may be trying to bury “Cash Money Weezy,” but his ghost will haunt everything you do until you get Father Merrin up in your recording studio.īy the time he starts screeching about how he loves his “young bitch” on “Thinking Bout You,” I’m ready to hop into my car and drive into the ocean. “Remember me like they remember the Titans,” he warbles on that song. Wiz is topping the charts with a ballad that would make a Jesus statue weep and Wayne’s rapping about his struggles over a clinky piano. “My Heart Races On” is a limp-noodle ballad that only suffers more when you get to Wiz Khalifa’s cameo later in the album. The beats on tracks like “Post Bail Ballin'” are somnambulistic. The fact that it mostly isn’t is secondary to the marketing advantage it affords Tidal. Whether FWA is any good is almost beside the point. A B-sides concert and some music videos weren’t going to convince me to give Jay Z my credit card number, but this did. It’s a reminder that Tidal exists at all, an added value proposition that guarantees that a certain segment of the population that’s been holding out will at least sample the goods. Only music really matters, and on that front, FWA is a clear win for Hov’s beleaguered enterprise. It’s as though a new competitor for Tower Records opened every two months boasting better air conditioning. We can be convinced that it’s worth it to be enthralled by a musty old format like Internet radio all over again because this time, the DJs shout at you. We live in an age where we can be sold the exact same product over and over again with a fancy new interface. I had just spent a good portion of my day in the clutches of Apple Music, the latest entrant in an ever-expanding game of dodgeball where the only goal is to pelt consumers with “exciting” new features until they collapse on the ground begging for mercy. I found out FWA was a Tidal exclusive at the worst possible time. When streaming music services are involved, nothing is free. He’s trying to escape, but Weezy is not free in either sense. McCoy from Star Trek informing Captain Kirk of the death of a patient before Wayne launches into a eulogy for “Cash Money Weezy.” It’s an expression of independence and a reclamation of legacy. The second track, “He’s Dead,” kicks off with samples of Dr. Tunechi is a captive of interminable legal strife and this collection of 15 tracks is, in many ways, his message-in-a-bottle cry for help. The other interpretation is something altogether more melancholy: Weezy as prisoner of Cash Money Records’s unwillingness to release Tha Carter V. In that respect, “Free Weezy Album” could be scrawled on a cardboard sign with a donation hat nearby. You could take it to mean that this new record has been gifted to you by the multi-millionaire, digital equivalent of the guy on Hollywood Boulevard trying to guilt-trip you into taking his mixtape. FWA, the title of Lil Wayne’s new album, stands for “Free Weezy Album,” which can be taken one of two ways.