As a somewhat chubby Swedish white kid whose imagery revolves
around seemingly random consumer goods like bucket hats, plastic g-shock
watches, Gatorade, Nintendo 64, and the ever-present Arizona iced tea, it was
easy to dismiss Yung Lean as a joke or a meme when he came out with his
mind-altering and imagery laden music videos like “Hurt” in 2013. However, the
young rapper is now taken as a serious artist even outside his fanbase (to a
degree), selling out shows in America and Europe and actually having the budget
to produce music videos that don’t look like they were directed and edited by a
heavily medicated monkey. Even pop superstar Justin Beiber is a fan. Strangely
enough, there isn’t really a punchline with Yung Lean as absurd as his music
and persona tends to be, and that fact renders his whole act as a giant
anti-joke heavily seasoned with post-irony. Lean also fits into an unfortunate
trend in hip-hop today where production supersedes the artist. For rappers like
Chief Keef, Waka Flocka, and Yung Lean; lyricism, flow, and delivery are not
the paramount considerations. “Is the beat bangin’?” If it is, then the record
has done its job. Without the production chops of Lean’s “sadboy” cronies Yung
Gud and Yung Sherman, the entire appeal of his music would helplessly unravel,
leaving a skeleton made up of empty Arizona cans and old Nintendo cartridges
with a bucket hat on top.
Personally, Yung Lean is an artist that I greatly enjoy,
despite my criticisms. I realize his flaws, but I feel happy listening to the
majority of his music even though it’s mainly a showing off of production
skills with rapping on top. After hating him at first, I’ve grown to love and
appreciate what he does and the fresh sounds his friends create for him, and I
can set aside the silliness of his persona and enjoy. After a string of the
strongest tracks he’s released up to this point including the grandiose “Kyoto”
and this album’s first single “Yoshi City”, I became very excited to hear what
his new release would present, hoping for a more self-assured and fully realized
Yung Lean. Unfortunately, the end result of all this anticipation is a little
mixed.
As was mentioned before, if Yung Lean’s production falls flat
then it would be very likely that the entirety of his appeal would unravel. And
while some of the production on here is up to par with his older material, much
of it fails to impress. From track to track we’re offered the same dark and spacey
atmosphere, the same amount of reverb slathered on everything, and the same
generic and uninteresting synth tones. This is especially disappointing
considering how much variety there was in the production on his last album, Unknown Death 2002. And while the synths
on his previous album weren’t groundbreaking, at least they had a personality
to them. Besides the underwhelming synth choices, another misstep would be the
inclusion of the intro, intermission, and outro. All three tracks are about as
interesting as a dusty paperweight and feature cheap, twittering electronics
that sound like they were culled from Nachtmystium’s 2006 album Instinct: Decay
(I never thought I would mention Yung Lean and Nachtmystium in the same
review.) The intermission “Dog Walk” is particularly useless and is the
definite low-point of an album that, while decent, doesn’t live up to the hype.
This isn’t to say that there are no shining moments on Unknown Memory. “Yoshi City” in
particular is a new classic for Lean with its infectious chorus and multi-layered
instrumental produced by Yung Gud. Yung Gud kills it once again on “Ghost Town”
which features Travi$ Scott, the album’s only feature. While it would have been
much appreciated if Gravity Boys members like Bladee made appearances, the
Scott feature is a satisfactory inclusion. As the album closes, though, one
might be left wanting more from this project such as added dynamics in the production,
less reliance autotune (or more considering the awful singing on “Blinded”),
and maybe another feature or two to spice things up. Yung Lean may not be able
to reach success on his own and needs the aid provided by his producers to make
a worthwhile product, and with that in mind I hope that more attention goes
into making sharp, tightly composed instrumentals to enhance the product rather
than throwing together reverb-soaked slop that does only the bare minimum like
a few of the instrumentals on here. How the sadboys will look back on Unknown Memory is up in the air, but at
least we have a new Yung Lean album to sip our Arizona to.
SCORE: 6.8/10
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